Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Legacy

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 paying 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—"