Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Legacy

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."

In the distance off to starboard the Zhirrzh ship seemed suddenly to have become fully aware of Quinn's presence, and the space around them began to shimmer with the ionization afterglow of laser shots. Most skimmed harmlessly past as Quinn kept the fighter dipping and swerving in a semirandom evasion pattern. One caught one of Savazzci's screening ships, turning it into a blazing fireball.

"We are doing our job," the stiff-sounding retort came. "We aren't swift enough to catch them. We protect you in the hope that you can do so."

Quinn grimaced, dropping an extrapolation overlay on top of the vector map. The Corvine's dead dorsal engine plus the hefty lead the laser bombers had on them...

We can do it, Bokamba told him. A drop-J curve through the atmosphere will get us to an intercept point.

Quinn studied the curve that had appeared on his extrapolation overlay. It was a tricky maneuver, all right, a modified version of the approach he'd used when he and Aric Cavanagh had dived down from near orbit to snatch Pheylan from his Zhirrzh captors.

But in that situation he'd been flying an undamaged fighter through skies unpunctuated by heavy enemy fire. Here pulling such a stunt would be begging for gradient instabilities or turbulent control loss. There was probably no better than a fifty percent chance that they would make it to the rendezvous point ahead of the Zhirrzh.

What was certain was that committing themselves to the attempt would mean abandoning any chance of rescuing Dreamer and Con Lady.

Bokamba knew that, too, and for a moment his sense was tangled in an agony of indecision and guilt. But only for a moment. We have no choice, the tail said, his mental tone heavy but determined. Let's do it.

Right, Quinn acknowledged as an updated version of the drop-J curve appeared on the overlay. Bracing himself for another ninety-degree turn, he prepared to flip the Corvine over—

And then, without warning, a double blaze of blue-white fire flashed into sight over the planet's horizon directly ahead.

Incoming spacecraft! Bokamba snapped out the warning. New vectors appeared on Quinn's overlay: the two spacecraft were coming up incredibly fast over the curve of the planet, skimming the top of the atmosphere, the extrapolation indicating an ETA to the main battle of barely five minutes. Quinn keyed in full magnification—

And felt his breath catch in his throat. To the unaided eye the approaching spacecraft were little more than dark blotches against the ragged-edged corona of their drive trails, but as the Corvine's optics edited out the glare, he could see the splashes of lights across their dark surfaces and the strangely curved edges glowing with an eerie luminescence. Images from the military history texts; images that supposedly no longer existed.

Yycroman Vindicator-class warships.

Quinn found his voice again. "Savazzci, this is Three Omicron Four."

"They have come," the Yycroma's reply came through the Mindlink into Quinn's mind. Not with any trace of joy or relief, but with the grim satisfaction of a Yycroman male who has seen the time for vengeance finally at hand. "Now shall we see."

The lights on one of the Vindicators dimmed, and the slender blue beams of particle-beam weapons lanced out toward the three Zhirrzh laser bombers diving ever deeper into the atmosphere. But too far ahead: the beams sliced through the air ahead of them for a clean miss—

And then, abruptly, the blue lines were sheathed with an explosive and expanding swirl of furious white turbulence. The beams, flash-ionizing the tenuous upper atmosphere, had created an instant hurricane.

The Zhirrzh laser bombers were caught flat-footed. Their mad race planetward floundered as the shock wave of superheated air slammed across their bows. Before they could recover, the second Vindicator fired, this shot sizzling past their starboard flank.

Charging toward the main battle like a pair of enraged bears, the warships were already out of range for a third shot. But it didn't matter. They'd slowed the laser bombers' descent just enough... and Quinn, whose years with Lord Cavanagh had taught him how to appreciate a dramatic entrance, also knew a cue when he saw one.

He had the Corvine in a vertical dive even before the second Yycroman shot had been fired; was scorching the fighter's hull with friction before the laser bombers finished their bouncing. By the time they'd settled down and were again throwing power to their drives, he'd started into his main curve.

Before they could do anything else, he was right on top of them.

" 'We have no idea,' " the Elder quoted, stumbling over the words in his haste to get them out. " 'But the description doesn't sound like that of any Human-Conqueror warship we've yet seen.' "

"I could have told you that," Supreme Commander Prm-jevev snarled under his breath as he gazed at the patches of blue-white flame charging toward him. Yycroman, without a doubt. And armed with weapons the like of which he also had never seen.

And apparently left deliberately out of the battle until this exact beat. Why?

The answer was obvious. The Human-Conquerors and their Yycroman allies weren't fooled by the impervious Zhirrzh hulls—not a bit. They knew perfectly well how much internal shock damage their missiles were causing... and everything they'd done up until this point had clearly been for the sole purpose of softening their defenses so that these two ships could get in close.

Close enough to use their blue-beamed weapon. An unidentified, hitherto unseen weapon.

CIRCE?

There was a faint flash of distant light on one of the telescope displays. The heavy air-assault craft, their crews dazed or stunned, being destroyed by the single Human-Conqueror fighter warcraft that had followed them down. More good warriors being prematurely raised to Eldership.

Another Elder appeared. " 'Supreme Commander, this is Speaker Cvv-panav,' " he said. " 'These are nothing more than part of the Yycroman war fleet the Mrachanis warned us about. Hold your territory, and they'll break over you.' "

Prm-jevev flicked his tongue in vicious contempt. Here he was in the boiling cauldron of combat, facing Eldership for himself and every one of his warriors and technics, and all Speaker Cvv-panav could do was waste his time with pretentious political banalities. "It may not be that easy, Speaker," he bit out. "Not if that weapon is what I think it might be."

" 'Don't be ridiculous,' " the Speaker's scoffing reply came back a few beats later. " 'Hold your courage, Supreme Commander—this is no time to fall apart on us.' "

Prm-jevev flicked his tongue savagely. It was also no time to face a weapon like CIRCE. Not here, with a fleet that had already been battered halfway to uselessness. Certainly not on the Human-Conquerors' terms and timing.