by Timothy Zahn
Bokamba, his full attention occupied by the dead engine, didn't spot the optic precursor. But Quinn did, and with a rush of adrenaline that brought his imaginary combat stance even tighter, he threw full power to the drive. He was already driving up toward the edge of this particular Zhirrzh hexagon; if he could get to that edge and roll the Corvine over the top -
He almost made it. But with one dead engine the Corvine was just a hair too slow... and suddenly beneath him came the flicker of the laser, and the secondary and much brighter flash as the Vejovis missile in its path detonated.
The fading heat on Quinn's back was abruptly joined by an unpleasant prickling on both shins, accompanied by a flood of oregano and garlic. The shrapnel from the missile had raked across the Corvine's aft underside, delivering another blow to the aft sensors and penetrating into the backup power cells. But at least there was no more engine damage. He kept the Corvine curving over the hexagon, balancing forward and side thrusters, flying on reflex as he split his attention between watching for more Zhirrzh laser ports and monitoring Bokamba's repair work.
Maestro?
We're all right, Clipper, Quinn assured him.
Break off your attack, Clipper ordered. Go help Shrike free the Cascadia from the Wolf Pack.
Quinn grimaced. A necessary task, and Bokamba could certainly use a breather while he got the Corvine put back together. But it was embarrassing to have taken a hit so early in the battle. Acknowledged.
Hitting the steering thrusters again, he sent the Corvine spiraling away from the Zhirrzh ship. Ahead and to port, a cluster of missiles from the Galileo was sweeping across his vector, and he sent a quick ID pulse toward them to prevent them from locking on to him. In the distance he could see the Cascadia still trapped in its section of the Wolf Pack frame, with Shrike's Corvine and a pair of Axeheads flying around the bow and both flanks blasting away at the snarled tether lines.
Bokamba paused in his repair work long enough to pull up a sensor map of the Cascadia. The stern tethers were still securely fastened; shifting his vector slightly, Quinn headed for that part of the ship.
And then another image flicked into view, a picture coming from Dreamer's Mindlink feed. Four small craft had emerged from hatches in the aft hexagons of the Zhirrzh warship her Sigma Five group was harassing. Ignoring the Copperheads, the four craft were dropping rapidly toward the planet's surface.
Laser bombers, Bokamba identified them. They carry heavy lasers for short-range atmospheric assaults. The Zhirrzh used them in the surface attacks on Dorcas, Massif, and Pasdoufat.
Which meant the aliens hadn't come there just to reconnoiter or to clear out orbital defenses. They were serious about taking Phormbi, or at least about doing serious damage to it. Clipper?
I see them, Maestro, Clipper replied. Dreamer's already signaled Trafalgar for new orders. You already have yours.
But they may need help, Bokamba protested.
Quinn frowned. There'd been a strange surge of emotion in those words. And in Bokamba's sense, for that matter. Both disturbingly out of character for a Copperhead at full Level X Mindlink.
You have your orders, Clipper repeated firmly. The Cascadia's a sitting duck where she is, and the battle's drifting that direction.
Acknowledged, Quinn said. At his lowest melded-consciousness level, he heard Schweighofer give the order for Sigma Five to attack the Zhirrzh laser bombers. The scene and Dreamer's combat stance shifted as she and three of her fighters broke off and dropped planetward in pursuit, 55 mm cannon blazing away furiously. One of the laser bombers seemed to shatter under that blistering hail, exploding into a cloud of secondary shrapnel that momentarily rocked the others flying beside it. The attack focus shifted to the second Zhirrzh -
And then, behind them, the warship they'd just left rolled leisurely over and sent a stuttering barrage of laser blasts directly into the fighters.
They're hit! someone's thought came, rolling through Quinn's mind like a deep wave racing across the ocean toward shore. They'd been hit, all right, and with a cold feeling in his chest Quinn fought to sort through the dizzying chaos of images and thoughts that Sigma Five had suddenly become. He singled out Hawk and his tail, Adept, in their Catbird, their combat stances abandoned as they struggled to remain on their feet amid the smells and tastes of two lost engines, severe electronics damage, and hull-integrity failure. Cooker and Faker were a little better off, with near-total engine failure but at least retaining hull integrity and a small degree of firepower capability. There was no sign at all of Cossack and Glitter, nor were there any readings from their fighter. Already dead.
And it looked very much as if Dreamer and Con Lady were soon going to be joining them.
Quinn focused on the two women, his mind flicking unwillingly to that brief conversation he'd had with them in the dayroom back on the Trafalgar. Then they'd casually walked past the other Copperheads' doubts and Samurai's outright and bitter hostility to welcome him back into the ranks of the Copperheads.
Now they sat trapped in the blackened husk of a shattered Corvine, their combat stances transformed into the faintly twitching sprawls of unconsciousness, the sense around them a chilling emptiness completely devoid of either smell or taste. The entire Corvine was dead, only the Mindlink and their self-powered combat suits keeping them alive.
And that not for much longer. Only until the Zhirrzh ship found the range and opened fire again. Or until gravity and air friction turned the Corvine's nose downward and sent it spinning to a fiery crash on the planetary surface.
We have to do something, Maestro. We have to do something.
Quinn jerked in his seat, a sudden shock running through him. Again Bokamba's words and sense had come to him riding a surge of emotion. But this time it was more than just a distraught attitude. There was a new intensity behind it, an impatient and all-consuming drive to take action to rescue Dreamer and Con Lady from the death looming over them.
An intensity that utterly defied the emotion-suppressing grip of the Mindlink.
Quinn didn't ask why Bokamba felt that way. With the Mindlink bringing the cores of their beings together, he didn't have to. Dreamer and Con Lady were women; and in the cultural matrix that formed the underpinning of Bokamba's soul, women were to be honored and respected and protected. No matter whether they were helpless children or trained warriors.
No matter what.
Quinn could ignore Bokamba's unspoken plea, of course. He was the Corvine's pilot, in ultimate command, and there was nothing Bokamba could do to alter or override that. They had their orders, and it was his duty to obey them.
But then, long ago, it had also been his duty to listen to the senior Peacekeeper officers who had assured him that there were absolutely no problems with the Copperhead screening procedures. He'd defied direct orders then by going to Lord Cavanagh and the NorCoord Parliament, and had ultimately paid the price for his perceived betrayal. But it had been something he'd felt he had to do.
Just as fulfilling his own sense of responsibility toward the dying women out there was clearly something Bokamba had to do.
And Quinn came to a decision. Rig for attack, he ordered Bokamba, swinging the Corvine in another gut-wrenching turn away from the Wolf Pack and the Cascadia and toward the Zhirrzh ship still spitting laser blasts toward the helpless Copperheads. It was most likely a useless gesture, he knew, all the more so given that he wasn't sure he agreed with Bokamba's point of view or even understood it.
But perhaps that didn't matter. What mattered was that Bokamba was a friend.
And friendship was something he most certainly understood.
The Zhirrzh ship's lasers flashed, sending a withering blaze of fire squarely into the group of fighters chasing after the remaining three laser bombers. "Did they get them?" Daschka called over his shoulder.
"They got 'em, but good," Cho Ming said grimly. "Three fighters seriously damaged, one vaporized outright."
Daschka shook his head. "Someone wasn't p
aying enough attention, I guess. Damn."
"Can't we do something?" Aric asked anxiously, gazing out at the damaged fighters. One of them in particular: speeding along on its last vector, clearly out of control, it was skimming perilously close to Phormbi's atmosphere.
"Like what?" Daschka asked. "Go charging out there and pull them out?"
Aric hissed helplessly between his teeth. No, of course there wasn't anything they could do. Not without revealing their presence to the Conqueror warships and getting themselves blown to bits along with everyone else.
"Besides, we don't have to," Daschka continued, pointing out the canopy. "Looks like there's someone already rushing to their defense."
Aric looked. Angling away from the huge transport frame, almost invisible amid the flashes of laser fire and the brighter explosions of Peacekeeper missiles, was the flare of a single fighter heading toward the damaged ships. "I wonder what he thinks he's doing," he said.
"Maybe trying to distract the Zhirrzh ship," Daschka suggested doubtfully. "I presume he doesn't think he can pluck all three of those wrecks out from under their snouts."
"Well, whatever he's thinking, he's apparently thinking it on his own," Cho Ming put in. "Here, take a listen."
From the speaker on Daschka's console came a sudden cacophony of voices, snatches of conversation picked up as the Peacekeepers' comm lasers swept past the Happenstance's hiding place. From the midst of the clamor came a single voice as Cho Ming did a select-and-enhance: " - mmediately. Repeat: Maestro, return to - "
The voice cut off as the comm laser swept past. "Maestro," Daschka repeated, throwing Aric a frown. "Isn't that your friend Adam Quinn's tag name?"
"Yes," Aric murmured, staring out the canopy and abruptly feeling physically ill. Quinn was here; and if Quinn, then probably Clipper and the rest of the Omicron Four force, too. The men who'd risked their lives and careers to help him rescue his brother from the Conquerors.
And suddenly it was no longer a matter of sitting by and reluctantly watching aliens he respected being slaughtered by the enemy. Now he was watching the slaughter of friends.
"Take it easy, Cavanagh," Daschka said quietly. "Don't get sick on me now. Quinn's good - you know that. He'll make it through."
"I know," Aric said mechanically. Not believing it for a moment.
Another shock wave rippled through the command/monitor room as yet another Human-Conqueror missile slipped in past the Zhirrzh defenses to vent its explosive fury against the outer hull. Another shock wave to rattle the optronics, shatter fluid-main connectors, and throw the warriors and technics around like children's clothwork dolls.
And Supreme Commander Prm-jevev, gripping his couch supports to keep from being shaken off, was no longer smiling. Grimly or otherwise.
"Tell Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit I don't care what else gets through," he snapped to the Elder hovering nervously in front of him. "He and the Imperative are to concentrate on clearing the way for those heavy air-assault craft."
"I obey," the Elder said, and vanished.
Prm-jevev turned his attention back to the monitors, a bitter taste beneath his tongue. Three of the Human-Conqueror warships had already been disabled in the handful of hunbeats since their part of the battle had begun, one of them burned virtually beyond recognition. The small fighter warcraft were being systematically destroyed as they continued to dart in and out of the fight, distracting his warriors, or worse, occasionally managing to knock out one of the Zhirrzh fleet's lasers. His initial reluctance to attack the poorly armed Yycroman civilian spacecraft had long since vanished, and the fleet was busily burning them out of the sky as well. To all outward appearances the Zhirrzh were winning.
But they weren't. Behind their virtually invulnerable hulls the mighty warships were slowly being pounded and shaken and battered into useless hulks. Already the secondary effects of the missile attacks had knocked out more lasers than the fighter warcraft had, and with every lost laser the odds of a given missile getting through rose that much more. It was a race to see which side would disable the other first... and deep within him Prm-jevev suspected the Zhirrzh were going to lose it.
But he couldn't pull back. Not yet. Not while there was still a chance of driving away the defenders and knocking out this center of Human-Conqueror power. And, if extraordinary good luck was with them, perhaps even eliminating the threat of the Human-Conquerors' terrifying CIRCE weapon.
And certainly not while five hundred cyclics of former Supreme Warrior Commanders were watching over his shoulder from the eighteen worlds.
An Elder popped into view. "Message from the Imperative," he said. "Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit reports strong harassment from the Yycroman spacecraft, and that his systems are continuing to fail under Human-Conqueror bombardment. He states he cannot guarantee survival of the assault craft."
Prm-jevev cursed under his breath. Those Yycromae were incredible, the way they threw themselves to their deaths for such little gain. What in the eighteen worlds were they protecting down there, anyway? "Understood," he growled. "Message to the Exonerator: have them move immediately to the Imperatives support. Those heavy air-assault craft have got to get through."
"I obey," the Elder said, and vanished.
"Helm!" Prm-jevev called across the room. "Shift course: twenty angles right, twelve angles beneath. Communicator: order our three air-assault craft to prepare for launch on my command."
"I obey."
Prm-jevev swore again, thoughtfully, as he studied the displays. Somewhere out there, there had to be a hole in the Human-Conqueror and Yycroman defense forces. Not big, certainly, but maybe big enough to slip the assault craft through before they could respond....
And then, suddenly, he heard a muffled gasp from behind him.
He spun around on his couch to find himself looking at an Elder. An Elder who was himself staring to the side in rigid and obvious horror. Prm-jevev opened his mouth to demand an explanation -
"Supreme Commander Prm-jevev!" one of the warriors shouted.
Prm-jevev spun back again. It was one of the warriors at the display console, and he was jabbing his tongue at one of the displays that showed the curve of the planetary horizon ahead of them.
And in the center of that display...
The Supreme Commander cursed again. And this time he meant it.
Another laser pulse flashed past, the beam slashing down toward the Corvine. Quinn twitched away - too late - and there was another burst of vaporized metal from the aft starboard flank. He felt the sudden heat on his thigh; a moment later the smell of freshly cut grass joined in the potpourri of aromas swirling through his head. That one took out the stardrive, Bokamba confirmed. No way for me to fix it.
Which meant that in the increasingly likely event that they were the only two Peacekeepers to survive this battle, there would be no way for them to escape from the system. Understood, Quinn said, trying hard to hide his growing frustration from his tail man. The area around Dreamer and Con Lady was starting to ripple visibly, the sign that their Corvine was getting into dangerously thick air. Even if he and Bokamba could get there without being vaporized, it was going to be problematic whether they could get a tether hooked on to the crippled fighter in time to haul it to safety.
Another laser flashed toward him. Quinn twitched again; but this time the beam didn't make it all the way, instead throwing a brilliant splash of vaporized metal from one of the Yycroman ships still buzzing around. Apparently the Zhirrzh had decided to concentrate on the closer Yycromae instead of on him.
He frowned. Preoccupied with the endangered Copperheads out there and the slow disintegration of his own Corvine beneath him, he hadn't been paying much attention to the Yycroman ships except when one of them happened to enter his immediate strike zone. But with little to do now but fly evasive maneuvers...
He pulled up a vector map first, switching the usual audio/visual cues into an overlay that could be distracting in the heat of combat but that at the moment
wouldn't bother him. A high-speed replay of the past five minutes came next, drawing on both the Corvine's and the Trafalgar's recorders. Some of the Yycromae, he could see, were attacking the Zhirrzh ships directly, using shredder-bursts, cannon, missiles, and something that looked like white paint. A few others were hanging back performing long-range spotting duty for the attackers; fewer still were skimming right over the enemy ships' hulls, carrying out the dangerous task of close-in spotting.
But the vast majority of them were being vaporized by the Zhirrzh. And for the first time since the battle had begun, Quinn saw why.
They were running interference for the Peacekeeper forces. Moving in groups between the waves of fighters and the Zhirrzh warships, trying to block or confuse whatever sensors the enemy was using, helping the Corvines and Axeheads to get across the kill zone into combat range. Flying directly in front of missile clusters, diving suicidally straight into the Zhirrzh lasers and taking the blasts that would otherwise detonate the missiles too far from their targets.
And even sacrificing their lives to run a moving screen between Zhirrzh firepower and a lone Corvine on a quixotic rescue mission.
Quinn keyed for verbal comm. "Yycroman defense forces," he said, the sound of his physical voice a startling intrusion into the mental images and effortless communication of the Mindlink. "This is Corvine Three Omicron Four."
The answer came immediately. "This is Savazzci mey Yyamsepk," the Yycroman words came, already translated, along the Mindlink. "What are your orders?"
"I want you to quit protecting me and do your job," Quinn told him, focusing on the Zhirrzh laser bombers still heading toward atmosphere. Adept had gotten their Catbird moving again, and she and Hawk were attempting to pursue, but with only a single working engine their effort was clearly futile. Cooker and Faker were trying, too, but most of their sporadic bursts of 55 mm cannon shells were going wide. "Those laser bombers are getting away."
