"Any damage?" Daschka asked.

"Hard to tell," Cho Ming said. "And getting harder. There's a lot of debris between us and them."

The remnants of the Yycroman ships, and of the Yycromae who had flown them. "Have you seen any escape pods or suits?" Aric asked.

"I haven't noticed anything," Cho Ming said. "Doesn't mean they're not out there. Okay, I'm starting to get something from that last salvo of Deathknells... looks like we've got a few pieces of Zhirrzh hull floating around. They're small, but they're there."

"Which may not mean anything," Daschka grunted. "The ships that took out the Jutland had a few pieces cracked off of them too without—"

"He's pulling back," Aric interrupted excitedly, pointing at one of the Conqueror ships. "Look—he's pulling back."

"He's pulling around, anyway," Daschka agreed cautiously. "Whether he's actually pulling out, we'll have to—"

He broke off as the ship, with a flicker from its aft surfaces, abruptly meshed out.

"One down," Cho Ming announced, a note of grim satisfaction in his voice.

Aric looked out at the five remaining Conqueror ships, their lasers still methodically blasting the Yycroman freighters into fiery dust. In the distance behind them he could see the faint drive trails of the other five enemy ships as they hurried to join the battle. "It's not going to work," he murmured. "They just don't have the firepower."

"No, they don't," Daschka said quietly. "Strange, isn't it? I've spent really my entire career working to make sure the Yycromae never became a military threat to the Commonwealth. Almost wish now we hadn't done such a good job."

Aric grimaced. The Klyveress ci Yyatoor and her people had worked so hard in this crash-defense program of theirs. Aric had seen that effort up close; had met and actually started to get to know a few of them. It had been an eye-opening experience, severely eroding the unflattering stereotype of Yycromae that he'd grown up believing.

And all of it for nothing. Very soon now Klyveress and all the rest would probably be dead.

"Here it comes," Cho Ming snapped. "The big ship's starting its mesh-in. Five seconds."

Aric peered out of the canopy, hands clenched helplessly around his restraints, hoping but no longer really believing it was a Yycroman warship come to help. The seconds counted down—

And then suddenly there it was, appearing above and behind the Conqueror battle force.

And from beside him he heard Daschka's stunned curse.

"All right, Omicron Four," the voice of Fighter Commander Schweighofer came in Quinn's ear. "Cut in behind Kappa Two: Pattern Charlie."

"Acknowledged," Clipper's voice replied. There was a soft click as he keyed back to the group's private frequency—"Paladin, take point; Maestro, you're on high cover," he ordered. "Let's go."

Quinn drew the Corvine back up slightly, letting the rest of the squadron shoot past beneath him as they moved into backup behind Samurai's group, the flare of their kickthrusters bright against the dark bulk of the planet beneath them.

From the seat behind Quinn came an obviously disgusted grunt. "Too slow," Bokamba muttered. "Much too slow."

"Probably the wind sheer," Quinn said. He twitched his lip three times—left, right, left—and the Corvine's vector map appeared superimposed across his vision. Smack in the middle was a narrow stream of high-speed wind slicing through the upper atmosphere directly across the Copperheads' approach path. "Schweighofer's got us cutting straight through the jet stream."

"That's only because he couldn't find a hurricane or thunderstorm to run you through," Bokamba retorted. "Or were you expecting the Zhirrzh to be thoughtful enough to provide good weather for our attack?"

"I'm not complaining or excusing," Quinn said mildly. "Just explaining."

Bokamba grunted again. "I know."

Quinn twitched his lip again and the display vanished. "Considering we've been running these tests for three days straight, I think they're handling it pretty well," he said. "Especially Samurai and Dreamer."

"Yes," Bokamba murmured. "Dreamer and Con Lady make a good team. Remarkably good Copperheads."

"For women, you mean?"

There was the faint squeak of leatherene from behind him, and Quinn could imagine Bokamba shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "I make no apologies for my cultural views of women in combat," the older man said gruffly. "Though were the full truth known, I imagine it would be you of NorCoord who would be in the true minority on this subject."

Quinn thought back to all the people over the years with whom he'd had discussions about the philosophy of warfare. "You could be right," he conceded. "I think the NorCoord nations have always seen this as a matter of individual rights and responsibilities."

"You've also always had a tendency to elevate personal rights over what is best for society as a whole," Bokamba pointed out.

There was a brief moment of turbulence as Quinn guided the Corvine through the jet stream. "Can't argue that one, either," he agreed. "Though we wouldn't be the first culture to overshoot that direction."

"True," Bokamba said. "I think what disturbs me the most is the cynicism with which NorCoord's leaders exploit such cultural differences for their own ends."

Quinn grimaced. Here it came again: Bokamba's obsession with what he considered to be NorCoord's manipulative domination of the rest of the Commonwealth. The two of them had been around this same track dozens of times back when Bokamba had been his wing commander. "You have any particular examples in mind?"

"They're flying in front of you right now," Bokamba said. "Dreamer and Con Lady, along with Hawk and his female tail, Adept. You know as well as I do that female Copperheads are extremely rare—rare enough to be highly visible. Yet we have three of them aboard an expeditionary force that will soon be heading into enemy territory. Haven't you wondered why?"

A thick cloud bank loomed ahead, swallowing up the rest of the attack force. Quinn squinted, enhancing the Corvine's sensor-penetration settings, and dived in after them. "I assumed we just needed them to make up a full complement."

"What, they couldn't trade two Corvines from Earth-defense duty?" Bokamba scoffed. "You know better than that. The women were specifically and deliberately assigned to the Trafalgar. They had to be."

"Clipper, I've got a make on Target Three," the voice of Paladin's tail, Dazzler, came in Quinn's ear. "Tally three buildings and twelve aircraft defenders."

An echo feed of Paladin's view came over Quinn's Mindlink, superimposed on the skyscape outside the Corvine's canopy. "Tally that," Clipper acknowledged. "Let's go in, Copperheads."

The group swerved toward the target zone. Keying for extended long-range scan, Quinn gave the area around him a quick search. No enemy bogies were visible as yet, but he didn't doubt Schweighofer had something devious waiting for them. Fighter commanders didn't achieve that lofty position without learning how to spin the low inside curve. "So what's your theory as to why they were assigned here?" he asked Bokamba.

"Understand, this is just my personal feeling," the other cautioned. "I have no proof of any sort. But I believe that Peacekeeper Command has decided to make them into martyrs. That they've decided having women sacrifice their lives in battle over a Zhirrzh world will create outrage and guilt among the nations and states of the Commonwealth, thus stiffening their resolve to resist the invasion."

An oddly queasy sensation settled in Quinn's stomach. "That seems rather cold-blooded," he said carefully.

"It's extremely cold-blooded," Bokamba said. "But war is a cold-blooded business. You've been involved with politics recently, working for Lord Stewart Cavanagh. Do you deny the NorCoord Parliament might do something like that?"