“I’ve got a lock on Romano’s beacon,” McBride reported. “They’re close, sir.” The unmistakable whine of a laser cutter filled the air, and he said, “I don’t think they’ve got long.”
“Down that way,” Flynn ordered, hoping he was picking the right direction, the sounds of battle louder at the end of the corridor, a flash of light from an explosion briefly illuminating the darkness. He sprinted into position, heedless of the risks, taking a quick glance at his watch as the seconds ticked away.
Sliding around the corridor, he saw a trio of guards firing rounds into a sealed security hatch, two others operating a laser cutter, playing the beam carefully along the seam, the metal white-hot as molten rivulets dripped onto the ground. They looked up, seeing the two newcomers, a moment too late to make any difference as McBride and Flynn fired into their ranks, bullets smashing through armor, the cutter’s beam sweeping over their heads, focused on the ceiling as its operators lay dying at its control panel.
“Romano!” Flynn said. “Open up!”
The hatch cracked open, and Romano stepped out, rifle in hand, gesturing at his companion, saying, “Juan Kuznetzov. Zemlyan Intelligence. What’s going on?”
“Transport’s on its way down right now,” Flynn said. “There’s a full-scale assault taking place on the far side of the dome that we should think about getting involved in, and Lincoln’s fighter wing is attacking the Guilder forces in orbit. You too ready to move?”
“In just one minute,” Kuznetzov said, aiming his rifle at the control panel and firing a series of shots into the mechanism, a stink of ozone filling the air. “Don’t think we want anyone doubling back on us and locking the doors, do we? We’ll still be able to open them individually when we want to.” He paused, then asked, “We going to reinforce the Marines, or should we make our way down to the detention area? I know they were planning on using them as human shields, and unless we can get there quickly...”
“I’m with you,” Flynn said. “Lead on.”
Kuznetzov moved to the head of the group, walking down the corridor with greater care than before, stepping over the bodies of their dying besiegers. McBride looked at the bodies, shaking his head, then glanced at Flynn, his face pale. The agent looked back at them, down at the dead Guilders, and snorted at their concern.
“Those bastards tortured their slaves for fun,” he said, spitting at the floor. “Don’t shed a tear for them. They aren’t worth it.”
“Some mother birthed them,” McBride replied. “And if you continue to act like that, we’re not going to get on.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Flynn said, glaring at the Zemlyan agent. “And I’m under orders to take at least a few prisoners, so don’t be so damned quick on the trigger. I want some of them alive. And those are orders from your own government, not just mine.”
“Fine,” Kuznetzov said. “Whatever you say.” He turned down the corridor, taking the lead, McBride following with his rifle cautiously raised to cover their advance.
“What’s his problem?” Flynn asked Romano.
The young officer shook his head, and he said, “He’s been on his own down here a long time. Maybe it’s beginning to get to him. He’s good at his job. Maybe too good.” Looking after the Zemlyan agent, he added, “Watch your back, sir. Because I don’t think he will.”
Chapter 22
Forrest looked at the tactical table, then returned to her command chair, sitting at the heart of the bridge while Singh and Fox monitored the battle, seeing to the positioning of the formation. She’d never commanded any formation larger than a squadron or a single ship, and while she’d gone through the usual Staff College training over the course of her career, she’d just about reached a point where she believed herself unlikely to command a fleet in battle. It had taken five hundred years and change for her to have that chance, but it was finally here.
“Signal from our forces on the surface,” Kirkland reported. “They have penetrated the dome, defeating the outer defenses, and are on their way to rescue the prisoners. The transport is on its way down, beacon activated, with an estimated landing in fourteen minutes plus. All systems appear good at the moment.”
“They’ll almost certainly change course to intercept,” Forrest said. “Not all of them, but some of them. Have Lieutenant Mendez concentrate on defending our forces at present.” She looked at the trajectory plots dancing on the screen, and said, “They’ll be expecting us to split our formation. I have no intention of so doing.”
“Query from Leonov, ma’am,” Kirkland said, as her orders were relayed across the rudimentary Tac-Net. “Major...”
“Inform the commander of that ship, and for that matter the commanders of every element in the formation, that this fleet is under my command, and my orders will be obeyed. They can’t reach that transport before it gets to the surface, and unless those ships are a hell of a lot more powerful than they look, there’s damn all they can do until they make it back for orbit.”
“Attitude change from the enemy formation, Captain,” Moran said. “Three of the ships are staying on us, the rest heading after the transport. I think you’re right about the capabilities, ma’am. There doesn’t seem to be much chance that they can do anything for a while.”
“They’re too powerful for us to defeat if they stay together, but we might be able to hurt them in detail,” Forrest said.
“Ma’am,” Kirkland replied, “I understood that the battle plan was for a hit and run operation to rescue the prisoners, and that there was no intention of capturing this planet. Do we have the strength for any sort of garrison?”
“Enkidu is pretty damned important, Commander, and if we can weaken their defenses sufficiently, then there’s every chance that we might be able to set them up for a sucker punch,” Forrest said. “And Commander, that’s the last time I explain my orders during a battle.”
“The first wave of our fighters will be making contact in thirty seconds,” Singh said. Tapping a control, he continued, “Chief, this is the Bridge. I want all landing crews ready for the fastest turnaround of their lives. If we’re going to make this work, at least some of our fighters are going to have to go in twice.”
“Five minutes, sir,” Wong replied. “Five minutes, and I can have three of them rearmed and refueled, assuming they haven’t suffered any damage.”
Forrest looked up at the screen, and smiled, looking at the enemy formation. The four that had raced after the enemy transport were turning back on their course, coming in towards Lincoln and her escorts again. The enemy commander might be smarter than she’d given him credit. He’d used the transport as a decoy, assuming that she’d divide her forces to match his.
She’d underestimated her enemy. A dangerous mistake, and one that she wouldn’t make again. As she watched, Mendez carefully set up for her attack run on the nearest enemy ship, sensibly choosing to concentrate her fire rather than disperse it. With even the slight advantage that the enemy had conceded them, they had the chance to reduce the firepower of the enemy formation by a third, maybe more. Anything to give them the slightest edge as the battle progressed had to be a good thing. The only thing, if they were to win.
Twenty years ago, she’d have been commanding those fighters herself. She looked down at the faded wings on her uniform, more of a relic, an honor of past days than anything she ever expected to make use of again, though she still made sure to log the four hours of flight a month required to keep her active. Almost every former fighter pilot she knew had done the same, not for the flight pay, but because it was such a fundamental part of who they were, their identity. She’d been where her pilots now were, riding fire into battle, once even from this very ship at the dawn of her career, decades ago.
Centuries ago.
She still struggled to remember that, but for the moment, it almost seemed unnecessary. The enemy was ahead, and despite everything, the
y seemed to actually, unimaginably, have a slight technological edge. In raw numbers, firepower, Lincoln and her escorts would struggle. Mendez and the squadron had to get their shots home. That was all that mattered now.
The screen flashed as ten missiles from the first wave of fighters toward the enemy, running into the distance at high speed. She nodded in satisfaction as they held their course, no sign of enemy countermeasures to distract or divert them, the Guild monitor maintaining its trajectory as though assuming that it could shrug off their prey.
Then new contacts appeared, dozens of them, and her eyes widened as she realized what the enemy were doing. They were abandoning ship, conceding that part of the battle, and she suddenly had a flash of desperate insight, one that sent her hand slamming down on the communications control.
“Evasive! All fighters, evasive, now!”
Kirkland looked across from her station, her face a mask of concern, but Forrest ignored her as she watched the nine fighters of the leading formation spiral away, desperately attempting to escape. She prayed that she was wrong, trying to mentally calculate the blast radius, before her worst suspicions were explosively confirmed, the enemy ship torn apart by internal charges, a sphere of molten debris racing through the sky.
Lincoln and her escorts were safe enough, well clear of the immolated ship. The fighters were a different story, some of them slower than others, some of the pilots reacting an instant too late, and her heart fell as she saw two of them caught by the outer fringes of the blast, one of them destroyed instantly by a chunk of fast-moving wreckage, another crippled, tumbling end over end through space, destined to float through the local system forever unless they could do something to rescue them.
Singh quickly raced over to the engineering station, ordering the recovery shuttle into the air, leaving Forrest to contemplate the battle. The sacrifice of the Guild monitor had been exceptionally well-planned, but by some miracle, it hadn’t had anything like the effect that the enemy commander had hoped for. Ten missiles were wasted, but both of the fighters they’d lost had already fired, already unleashed their deadly payload, so they still had eight in the game.
Unfortunately, those fighters were scattered all across the map, racing through space in a desperate attempt to regain some sort of formation, and the two remaining monitors were speeding towards Lincoln, sensing an opportunity with the loss of their escort. The other four edged tentatively away, ready to allow their comrades the glory of the initial attacks, knowing that there would be plentiful opportunities to show their mettle on the second run, an orbit away, twenty minutes into the future.
“Our escorts have the range, Captain,” Singh said. “Opening fire in five seconds.”
“Sam, I want us to turn our port side to the enemy as soon as our turrets can bear. They don’t have any pulsars, or any heavy armament, so let’s give our gunners a chance to fire offensively for a change.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the eager helmsman replied, his hands dancing across the controls as he hastened to implement the desired course change, Lincoln twisting and turning under his guidance as she danced into firing range. On either side, the two Zemlyan destroyers fired, living up to their name as their heavy proton cannons, larger versions of the turret-mounted guns that bristled across Lincoln’s flanks, hurled bolts of deadly energy into the enemy hulls, ripping, tearing and gouging as they found their marks. The Guild ships were quick to retaliate, and while the two escorts had picked different ships to engage, both of their adversaries were raining fire on Leonov, choosing the nearest craft to destroy.
Forrest looked across at the telemetry feeds, a sad, growing wave of amber and red washing over the display while she watched, but Mendez somehow managed to get the remnants of her squadron into the fray in time, eight more missiles soaring into space all around them, hurling towards the nearest enemy vessel. This time the Guild had prepared no deception, no trick, and the missile slammed into the monitor’s hull, fountains of atmosphere briefly flaring into space, tossing the ship from side to side as it struggled to cope with the random, unpredictable course changes they were being forced into.
The gunners on Leonov, nursing their damaged systems, were quick to respond, targeting damaged areas to exploit the wounds caused by Lincoln’s fighters, hurling energy into breached sections of the hull, rewarded with flickering flames that vanished like ghosts as the atmosphere that sustained them dispersed into the void, carrying wreckage and bodies with them. Belatedly, Komarov switched its fire, and between the two of them, the monitor finally exploded, her shattered superstructure unable to deal with the ever-escalating damage, a second cloud of debris forming in high orbit over Enkidu.
Now Lincoln’s own gunners could enter the fray, supporting Komarov as it turned back to their original target, but without any fighter support, it was a far more even battle. Neither side was able to exploit any weakness in the other, the Guild ship flashing past them, catching Lincoln’s flank with a few lucky shots, sending sirens blaring through the decks as the damage control team raced to begin repairs.
Then, all was silence on the bridge, the battle over for the moment as the sole survivor of the first enemy formation raced out of range, burning its engines at maximum thrust to rejoin their comrades. Forrest took a deep breath, then looked at Singh, his face dour, depressed.
“Even odds, then,” she said. “Two down, but we’ve still got five out there, and four of them are completely untouched, undamaged. What’s the status of our fighters?”
“Recovery shuttle reports that it expects to make contact with Ensign Bailey within five minutes. He hasn’t sustained any injuries, but his fighter is wrecked beyond realistic repair. Chief Wong’s looked at the telemetry and agrees. Some damage to other elements of the squadron. They’re all heading home right now, and we should have them back on board before the enemy formation can move into position.”
“Signal from Leonov, Captain,” Kirkland added, her face twisted into a frown. “They report that they have sustained too much damage to play any further part in the battle, power distribution network severely affected by hull breaches, and they request permission to withdraw from the battlespace.”
“I’d have to agree,” Fox said, her eyes ranging over the incoming telemetry feed. “I’m surprised they were able to put together that last salvo, and I have a feeling they had to burn out a lot of systems to do it.” Turning to Forrest, she said, “Given the current condition of the Zemlyan fleet, it seems reasonable to allow them a chance to go home for repairs.”
Nodding, Forrest tapped a control, and said, “Lincoln to Leonov. You’ve done your job, and done it damned well. We’ll take it from here. Safe journey home, and save us a seat at the bar. We hope to be along ourselves in short order. Forrest out.” Turning to Singh, she asked, “Anything from Komarov?”
“Light damage only.” He looked up at the tactical display, and added, “I don’t know how he’s done it, but Tanaka is coming in on an attack vector. No missiles, but he’s on a close enough course to that second formation to do them some real damage. The rest of his formation will be able to join with our second wave in about eighteen minutes, but it’s really going to be close.”
Looking around the bridge, Forrest said, “Our objective hasn’t changed, people. We knew we weren’t going to wipe them out today. That’s not what we came here to do. Our job is to rescue five hundred people from the surface, and we’ve just taken a major step forward in accomplishing that. I like our new odds better than I liked the old ones.” Turning to Kirkland, she said, “Keep in contact with our people on the surface. I want to know as soon as they are ready to lift. The enemy formation will probably throw more ships at it again, try to bring them down, and I have no intention of allowing that transport to suffer so much as a scratch!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kirkland replied, turning back to her post.
Singh walked over to her, leaving Fox alone at the tactica
l desk, and said, “So far, so good, Captain, but we’ve got a long way to go yet.”
Nodding, she replied, “We’ll make it, Commander.” She paused, then said, “Make sure we have an updated escape course for Zemlya for the second orbit, though. Just in case we end up having to use it. I’d feel better having it in reserve.”
“Aye,” he said, looking up at the screen, as a blue flash briefly lit the night. “There goes Leonov. Let’s hope we’re joining them within the next half hour.”
“Let’s hope we have some new friends with us when we do,” Forrest replied.
Chapter 23
Romano raced down the corridor, gunfire echoing all around once again, increasing in intensity the closer they got to the action. He looked ahead at Kuznetzov, the agent’s demeanor hardening at they grew nearer their goal, his eyes colder than they had been since they had first met. Something had changed about the agent, and not for the better.
Behind him, Flynn and McBride chased, both keeping pace as they made their way to the detention block. A figure walked abruptly down a passage, almost dazed, and Kuznetzov raised his weapon to fire, Romano able to knock it away only an instant later.
“That’s one of the prisoners, damn it!” he yelled, moving forward. “Diego, is that you?”
The man looked up, struggling to focus, and replied, “Huh? I remember you. The man from the cell, the one who claimed he had traveled in time.” He took a deep breath, and said, “I got away. Faster than the others. Faster. I heard noises.”
Shall Not Perish (Lincoln's War Book 1) Page 18
