Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Legacy

And with that the fascinated horror seemed to dissolve from beneath the Supreme Commander's tongue. "Understood," he said, smiling grimly. The thing out there was merely a weapon of war, and he knew how to deal with weapons of war. "All warships: attack and defend at will."

A handful of Elders vanished, scattering to the other warships to relay his order. The Elders who'd come from Oaccanv remained where they were, still waiting for his reply. "To the Overclan Prime: I'll do my best," he said. "To the Speaker for Dhaa'rr—"

He looked at the displays, and at the fire trails that marked the Human-Conqueror fighter warcraft streaking toward his warships. Cvv-panav had been right about its being a trap, and no doubt would now be working to parlay that serendipitous guess to his own political advantage. That was how the Speaker worked; and Prm-jevev saw no need to help him. "To the Speaker for Dhaa'rr: no reply."

"All systems checks complete," Bokamba said briskly from the seat behind Quinn. "Straight green."

"Acknowledged," Quinn said, hunching his shoulders forward and resettling himself one last time against the contoured seat. He'd just felt the lurch a few seconds ago as the Wolf Pack meshed in. Any minute now they should be getting the order to launch.

Assuming there was still something here to fight. With a half-hour lead on them, the Zhirrzh fleet might well have already finished this particular slaughter and moved on.

And then an image flicked into view in front of his eyes, fed through his Mindlink and superimposed on the scorched and heat-stressed composite of the launch tube outside the Corvine's canopy. An image obviously being fed from the Trafalgar's external cameras.

There was indeed still something there to fight.

"I make it five Zhirrzh ships," Bokamba said. "No, make that ten; five more are coming in from outsystem. Drives are firing toward us—must be decelerating."

"Someone's putting up a pretty good fight against them," Quinn said, pulling up a vector map and an ID overlay. The small ships buzzing around the Zhirrzh warships—and being methodically blasted to dust—read out as Yycroman freighters, passenger shuttles, asteroid miners, and zero-gee construction drudgeships. Brave, foolish, or just plain desperate, the Yycromae were taking on the Conqueror juggernaut.

Not surprisingly, they were losing.

"This is it, Copperheads," Schweighofer's voice came tautly in Quinn's ear. "Go to Level X and launch at will. Warrior's luck to you all."

Schweighofer's last words were nearly swallowed up in the rumble of drives that suddenly reverberated from the rest of the launch tubes around him. Bracing himself, Quinn keyed the drive, joining in the mad rush. The Corvine leaped forward like a hungry predator, the acceleration shoving him back into the seat cushions as the fighter skimmed on superconducting magnetic bearings down the launch tube toward space. "Maestro?" he heard Bokamba call over the roar. "We were ordered to X."

Level X: the full Mindlink integration between the Copperheads and their fighters. The moment Quinn had been dreading ever since making the deal with the hearing board that had gotten Clipper and the others out from under their court-martial.

"Maestro?" Bokamba called again.

"Go ahead," Quinn called back. "I'll be right with you—"

And then the Corvine cleared the tube rim and they were in space, driving hard away from the Trafalgar. The rest of the Corvines and Catbirds were burning space beside him, an advancing battle line of the most awesome warriors and fighting machines the Commonwealth had ever produced.

And it was time for those warriors to go to work. All of them. Taking a deep breath, Quinn shifted his Mindlink to Level X.

And abruptly, all around him, the universe changed.

His vision changed, expanding from its usual boundaries to a full 360-degree wraparound, with only experience, kinesthetic awareness, and a hazy orange circle to indicate which way was forward. The dark and muted colors of the scene in front of him became a rainbow of vibrant color, with all spacecraft within his immediate strike zone turning a bright red, while those farther away shaded into yellow and green and finally blue for the most distant.

His hearing changed, the other Copperheads and command orders no longer voices in his ear but words and images in his mind. The vector overlay he'd called up earlier likewise became audible, pitches and tones in the background meshing with the visual color cues to give him complete information on where every ship out there was, and exactly what each ship's vector was relative to him.

And he himself changed. He was no longer Adam Quinn, Copperhead, piloting a Corvine Tactical Superiority attack fighter. He was that Corvine attack fighter.

His skin was the Corvine's hull, with the controlled heat of the drive's fury at his back and the faint brushing of friction with the tenuous medium of Phormbi's magnetosphere on his face and chest. His sense of smell was the Corvine's systems monitors, the steady almond aroma indicating all systems were primed and ready. His sense of taste was the damage monitors, the tang of cinnamon signaling that the Corvine was as yet uninjured. His stance—for even in this strange disembodied mental image he could still envision himself as having a physical stance—was the manifestation of the fighter's medical monitors as they in turn watched over his physiological status. He seemed to himself to be standing firm and alert and strong, his body twisted slightly into a taut martial-arts stance, his hands held ready for combat—a composite indicator that showed his oxygen, blood sugar, and adrenaline levels to be at optimal levels.

But perhaps the most traumatic change of all—the most exhilarating and at the same time the most terrifying aspect of the Mindlink—was the fact that in this world within his own mind he was no longer alone.

Bokamba was there, close by his illusory side, his thoughts and emotions and sensations swirling around and within Quinn's own. Quinn could sense his alertness and ordered thoughts as he settled into the role of tail man; could feel his quiet exultation in what was probably his last chance to fly a combat mission as a Copperhead; could also feel the tinge of private uncertainty as to whether he would be able to handle the job. There was uneasiness of another sort, as well: an uneasy concern about Quinn's own state of mind, triggered by Quinn's delay in going to Level X when Schweighofer had given the order, and underlined by his knowledge of why Quinn had left the Copperheads in the first place. Clipper and the other Copperheads of the Omicron Four unit were there, too, a level below the experiential peak where he and Bokamba stood; spread out a level beneath that were the Copperheads of Samurai's Kappa Two and Dreamer's Sigma Five. And a level below that were Schweighofer and the other non-Copperhead signals from the Trafalgar —

Human Peacekeepers, we welcome you. Displayed as images and sensations in his mind, it took Quinn a fraction of a second to realize the words coming in along the Trafalgar's comm feed had been spoken in Yycroman. Your assistance is most desperately needed.

Our target is number three, Clipper's voice came in Quinn's mind. One of the Zhirrzh ships, edging from green to yellow now as the Copperheads approached it, flashed briefly red as Clipper marked it for them. For another instant it was superimposed by an overview of Clipper's proposed attack plan: a split-wedge thrust, with Quinn and Shrike veering to starboard into an over/under scissor, Paladin and Harlequin doing the mirror to port, while Clipper did a straight-in run. Go for laser ports, Clipper continued. Try to knock them out so the line ships' missiles can get through. Tails, watch for any signs of hull damage or weakness they can exploit.