Este é o Saga do Conquistador de Timothy Zahn.
O primeiro livro, Orgulho do Conquistador tem uma batalha como você descreve, onde depois de derrotar os navios humanos, o Zhirrzh comece a eliminar sistematicamente as cápsulas de escape.
Comandante Pheylan Cavanagh, do Kinshasa percebe, enquanto observa os Zhirrzh fritarem sistematicamente as cápsulas de fuga, que provavelmente estão usando os faróis de resgate para atingi-los e o destrói para impedir que ele transmita.
And with a jolt of horror Pheylan understood. The aliens were firing on the honeycomb pods. Systematically and painstakingly destroying the survivors of the battle.
He swore viciously under his breath. The pods were no threat to the aliens--they weren't armed, armored, or even equipped with drives. To destroy them like this was to turn a military victory into a cold-blooded slaughter.
And there was nothing that he could do about it except sit here and watch it happen. The pod was little more than a minuscule cone with a power supply, a dioxide/oxygen converter, a backup oxygen tank, an emergency radio beacon, a short-range comm laser, two weeks' worth of rations, a waste-reclaimant system--
He was clawing the equipment access panel open almost before the thought had completely formed in his mind. The aliens out there weren't just blasting every chunk of rubble in sight; they were specifically and deliberately hunting down the pods. And suddenly it was blindingly obvious how they were doing that.
The emergency beacon was a deliberately simple gadget, as unbreakable and foolproof as anything in the Peacekeepers' inventory. But foolproof didn't necessarily mean sabotage proof. A minute later, every wire and circuit line to it cut and the blade of his multitool jabbed into its internal power backup, it had finally been silenced.
Mais tarde, descobrimos que, do ponto de vista de Zhirrzh, as transmissões de rádio são chamadas de "armas mortíferas mais antigas" e foram os anciãos dos primeiros navios que pediram o ataque aos navios humanos. Eles perceberam as tentativas humanas de se comunicar (por transmissão de rádio) como um ataque, e as contínuas transmissões de rádio dos faróis nas cápsulas de escape foram a razão para destruí-los.
Silenciar seu farol é suficiente para impedir que o Comandante Cavanagh seja destruído, mas não o suficiente para escondê-lo deles, e ele é capturado e levado a bordo de um navio Zhirrzh.
Now if he could just make it outside the cone of whatever focused sensor beams the aliens were using...
Concentrating on the first ship, he never even saw the second ship's approach. Not until the blue light abruptly flared around him.
O comandante Cavanagh é mantido prisioneiro até o final do romance, quando uma equipe de busca e salvamento organizada em particular o encontra e o recupera. (Lord Stewart Cavanagh, pai do comandante Cavanagh, é um ex-parlamentar - "Parlimin" - com contatos militares que ele usa para organizar a força de resgate.)
Os Zhirrzh têm um órgão especial (o fsss) que é extraído na morte e do qual o animus do Zhirrzh (o "ancião") que partiu é capaz de se manifestar e se comunicar com os vivos. É possível dividir esse órgão em dois, para que o idoso possa se manifestar em qualquer um dos locais da 2. Ao colocar grupos de dezenas a algumas centenas deles em locais, eles podem criar um sistema de comunicação mais rápido que a luz, onde as mensagens são roteadas entre os mais velhos. É também como os sistemas de alerta precoce são construídos, como o encontrado pelas forças terrestres humanas.
"I see." Holloway picked up a small plastic sample box from the scattered electronic equipment and stacks of paper cluttering the desk and handed it to her. "Take a look. Tell me what you think."
Melinda took the box and looked through the lid. Inside, nestled in the palm of a camouflaged glove, was a thin, dark-brown disk, slightly curled at the edges. "It looks like a slice of sausage," she said. "Where did it come from?"
Holloway gestured to the camouflaged men. "Sergeant Janovetz?"
"We found it just north of the settlement," a raw-boned man near the middle of the group said. "In a little cubbyhole built into a sort of white pyramid thing the Conquerors have got set up on Overview Ridge."
Melinda frowned at Holloway. It had been barely two days since the Conquerors had invaded. "They're moving equipment in already?"
"They moved these in, anyway," Holloway said. "There appear to be four of them: one each north, south, east, and west of the settlement."
Os anciãos são ocasionalmente visíveis aos humanos, mantendo-os sob vigilância, e os humanos os vêem como "fantasmas". A primeira vez que isso acontece é quando Melinda Cavanagh está examinando o disco descrito acima:
Turning away, she lifted her gloved hand to the seal on the breather mask—
And froze. There, no more than ten meters away, something was floating slowly through the air across the storage area. Something pale white in color, insubstantial in form, moving between the piles of boxes and equipment.
A ghost.
Against her cheek Melinda felt her hands begin to tremble, every ghost story Aric and Pheylan had inflicted on her as a child surging back in a bubbling flood of panic. She took an involuntary step backward, coming up short as the small of her back rammed into the cold storage box. The ghostly figure paused, seemed to turn its head toward her—
And with a flash of horror she saw that the face turned toward her was that of a Conqueror.
It vanished at that moment, disappearing instantly into nothingness. But it didn't matter. Melinda's scream was already on its way.