Only the Brave

by Richard Tongue

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  ONLY THE BRAVE

  Lincoln’s War: Book III

  Richard Tongue

  Lincoln’s War 3: Only The Brave

  Copyright © 2018 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved

  First Kindle Edition: July 2018

  Cover By Keith Draws

  With thanks to Ellen Clarke

  All characters and events portrayed within this ebook are fictitious; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

   Lieutenant Frank Romano sprinted down the corridor, the sound of gunfire ringing in his ears as his friend and comrade, Raul Tanaka, made his last stand at the junction behind him, holding off the Guilder forces for as long as he could in order to give Romano a chance to complete at least a part of his mission. He glanced to the right, a junction that led to a shuttle terminal, a potential escape route, but one that they were going to be denied.

   He was going to die here. One a remote, lonely outpost that had only a single amenity to justify its existence. A hyperspace transmitter, powerful enough to punch through to the Allied forces at Zemlya, powerful enough to punch a message through the strange dimensions of interstellar travel and pass the warning that he and Tanaka were willing to give their lives to send.

   A loud scream echoed from the walls, and all was silent. In all likelihood, his friend had just died. He’d be next, and he had to make sure that his final seconds were spent wisely, spent well. Finally, his aching legs dragged him to his goal, just as the blast doors ahead began to close as the security teams belatedly realized what he was planning. He ducked and rolled into the communications room, surprising a trio of technicians working the controls, and raised his pistol to cover them before any could make a move.

   “Keep nice and still, and this will all be over quickly and painlessly,” he promised, knowing his words did not apply to his own future. “Everyone stand up, nice and slowly, and move over to the wall. Don’t touch any of the equipment, and don’t make a sound.” The two older technicians glanced at the youngest, rank insignia decorating his shoulders, and the man gave a reluctant nod, the three of them following Romano’s orders. He knew precisely how the young officer felt, how he would have felt in the same circumstances. None of that could change a thing.

   He sat at the controls, keeping his pistol covering the technicians, working the systems with one hand as he struggled to find the right frequency, to force open a hole in the very fabric of the universe. Nimble fingers danced across the buttons, throwing switches and turning dials, and overhead, the lights began to flicker as he threw all the power the station’s reactor could provide into the battle.

   That was his weakness. Sooner or later, probably sooner, they’d find a way to shunt power away from the hyperspace communicator. That didn’t matter. He didn’t need long. Assuming he could find a way to send his signal. Finally, he heard a low hum, a carrier wave that could only come from Lincoln herself, the only facility in Zemlya that could possibly hear him. He reached for a microphone, glancing across at his prisoners just in time to spot one of them preparing to jump him, and fired a single shot into the wall to send them diving to the deck.

   “Romano to Lincoln. Romano to Lincoln. Enemy force inbound, multiple warships, invasion force, sufficient strength to destroy entire Allied Fleet. You have forty-eight, four-eight, hours before the first enemy forces arrive. Make no attempt to retrieve Tanaka or myself. By the time you get this, we’ll be dead. I...”

   The lights faded out, and the panel died, just as he was completing his message. He took a deep breath, then rose to his feet. It didn’t matter now. There was no way he could check that his signal had found its target, no way to pass on any of other intelligence he and Tanaka had stumbled across during their covert operation. All he could do now was accept his fate with as much grace as possible. He heard a low whine from the blast door, laser cutters beginning their work, and in a matter of moments, the security forces would have him at whatever passed for their mercy.

   He looked at the young officer, a smile rising to his face, and walked over to the cowering figure, turning the pistol to pass it to him butt first, then standing to attention before him.

   “Your prisoner, sir,” he said, raising his hands.

  Chapter 1

   A dead world orbiting a dying star.

   For the last week, Lieutenant Commander Jack Flynn, on loan from his normal position commanding Lincoln’s fighter wing, had been waiting in close orbit around a dull brown dwarf, nestled in behind a brown-and-white ball of rock, ready to make his move. He’d picked two other pilots for the mission, and borrowed the services of CSS Komarov, the Zemlyan destroyer that had provided them close escort at Enkidu, as a rudimentary base ship.

   They’d had to bolt them onto the side of the ship, attached to docking airlocks that Lincoln’s overworked engineers had struggled to convert in the time. No launch tubes, no magnetic catapults to throw them into space, and returning to the ship was going to be a nightmare. Ideally, they’d have operated from the carrier, but Lincoln was still in the middle of her repairs, struggling to get the pieces back together after the time warp. Komarov was available, and he’d fought alongside her crew. Which meant that he knew he could rely on them, and avoid any unpleasant surprises during the battle.

   “How long are we going to wait, Commander?” Ensign Estrada, until recently a shuttle pilot with a penchant for combat simulator games, asked.

   “You got plans back on Zemlya, Ensign?” Flynn replied, cracking a smile. “We wait as long as it takes. Besides, if you were back on Lincoln, Commander Brooks would probably have you crawling through the reclamation ducts right now. We drew the long straw, kid.”

   “It’s not as if we can do anything back there anyway,” Armstrong said, glancing at Flynn. She’d been one of only a handful of trained fighter pilots who had come through with him, and had seen more action since then than any other officer in the old fleet.

   “Now hear this,” the voice of Major Volkov, Komarov’s commander, barked over the speakers. “Shift change in ten minutes. Shift change in ten minutes. Department heads report to my office for daily briefing in twenty. That is all.”

   “Another day, another new-dollar,” Flynn said. “Or kopek, or whatever the hell we’re using.”

   “How do we get paid, anyway?” Estrada asked.

   “You mean you aren’t doing this for the love of it, Ensign?” Flynn replied. “I’m hurt.”

   Armstrong rose to her feet, stretching her legs, and walked over to the drinks dispenser, stabbing for a cup of something that at least closely approximated coffee, before asking, “Anyone want anything?”

   Before either of the others could reply, a wailing klaxon echoed around, and Major Volkov’s voice bellowed, “Action Stations! Action Stations! Enemy target has entered system.”

   Armstrong’s coffee tumbled to the deck, the brown stain spreading
across the carpet as she raced to her airlock, Flynn and Estrada bare seconds behind her. Flynn slid smoothly into his cockpit, quickly donning his helmet and running his hands across the controls to begin the emergency pre-launch sequence, before stabbing the communications control.

   “Flynn to Volkov. What’s the story, Major?”

   “Two enemy targets inbound, escort and transport, just as we expected. They’re on a regular approach vector, coming in behind the sun, heading for the man-tended mining station. Our probe went dark as soon as it spotted them, so we should have surprise on our side. Are you ready for launch?”

   With a quick glance at the squadron status board, Flynn replied, “All systems go. Let’s get this party on the move.” Tapping a control, he added, “Poulson, are you ready?”

   The fourth member of his formation replied, “Just had time to zip up and get into the cockpit, boss. Even had a chance to wash my hands.”

   “Too much information!” Armstrong yelled.

   “No such thing,” Flynn said. “All pilots, immediate launch. Diamond formation, I’ll take the lead, and we proceed just as we planned. Focus all your attention on the warship. Komarov will handle the freighter.” Reaching over his head, he pulled two heavy levers, and with a loud report, his ship disengaged from the hull, floating free in space for an instant before his engines kicked in to hurl him into the fight.

   On either side of him, the rest of the formation was moving into position, engines raging as they soared over the dead world they’d used as a hiding place. He looked down at the landscape below, shaking his head. For six days, Komarov had rested in orbit, and they’d never taken the opportunity to go down to the surface, to look at the landscape for themselves. And now, presumably, they never would. Just another point in the universe that history had briefly touched.

   There had been a lot of history they’d missed. Five centuries worth, time for humanity to unify under a single government, spreading out across the stars further and faster than they could ever have dreamed, hundreds of systems and thousands of planets marching to the beat of a single drum, for a time, at least. It couldn’t last forever, and now Earth was a cinder, tumbling through space, little different than the world beneath them. The nation they had served was gone with Nineveh and Tyre, the war they had begun to fight snatched away in an instant.

   And they’d found themselves immediately entangled in another, fighting for their lives, and perhaps more than that. He didn’t like to imagine what would have happened if Lincoln and her crew hadn’t immediately found another cause, something else to fight for. It had been bad enough as it was.

   The Guild had already proven a worthy foe, the descendants of a cluster of interstellar megacorporations, a few of which he’d actually recognized when the list was read out, now forming a trading empire across the stars that sought to reunite humanity, not in freedom and liberty, but in slavery. Some worlds, Zemlya among them, were resisting, but without help, they were doomed to defeat. Lincoln’s arrival had been the nearest thing to divine intervention as far as they were concerned. A blessing that had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at Enkidu, and might yet do it again.

   “Commander,” Estrada said, “I just got pinged. I think they’re onto us.”

   “Course change detected,” Armstrong added. “The transport is trying to make a run for it, while the escort moves in towards us. Should we alter our trajectory, try and head them off at the pass?”

   “That’s a negative, Ensign,” Flynn said. “Major Volkov knows his job. We’ve got to do ours. Continue interception as ordered.” He glanced down at his sensors, adjusting his course by a fraction of a degree, trimming his flight path to provide an optimum approach pattern. The ship he was facing was smaller than the ones they had encountered at Enkidu, only designed to fight off ill-equipped pirates and raiders. Not a fully-armed attack group.

   “Switching to full active sensors,” Poulson said. “Not much point hiding at this stage. Everything looks as advertised, Commander. I’m getting some good readings on critical systems.” He paused, then added, “The ship is powering up its point-defense masers.”

   “Stick to missiles on this pass,” Flynn ordered. “Don’t get close enough to be drawn in. Remember that we just have to disable the bastard. We aren’t staying in this system any longer than we can help, so focus on engines first, weapons second. They can swear at us in close orbit all they want if we can keep out of their way.”

   He looked up at his mid-range sensors. Komarov was on the move, heading into its position in the battlespace, just as planned. A series of amber lights winked on as the ships closed to combat range, and a hunter’s smile curled across his face, eager anticipation of the battle that was to come. He flicked on his targeting computer, the discordant tones echoing through the cockpit as his ship began to seek its assigned goal, slowly rising towards a crescendo as the sensors guided the computers to their mark, the vulnerable engines at the rear.

   “Watch it, Estrada, you’re swinging too wide,” he warned. “Keep in formation.” Throwing a control, he added, “All our maser cannons are now locked to defensive fire, but if one of you drops out, we’ll lose cohesion. Keep it together.”

   It was all going too well, too perfectly. He looked over the lines of the enemy escort again, trying to hunt down anomalies, irregularities, any sign of something unexpected. Finally, he found what he had been looking for. The shuttle bay was different, wider. The Guild didn’t use fighters, would have found it impossible to retrofit their ships in the time, but missiles might be another matter, and they’d been throwing them around enough at Enkidu for them to have picked up a few stray warheads. Enough to at least get the basic idea.

   “Poulson, take over the formation,” he barked, reaching for the throttle. “Maintain approach pattern as instructed.” Before the pilot could reply, he surged his engines to maximum acceleration, the thrust pushing him back into his couch as he raced away from the rest of the fighters, diving towards his target. An instant later, the enemy ship began to turn, twisting away, and he knew then that his guess had been right. A swarm of missiles were hiding in that shuttle bay, perhaps not enough to do anything other than spoil their attack, but he couldn’t take the chance on that. He trimmed his course again, ranging closer and closer to the enemy, cutting the minimum distance enough to send red proximity alerts flashing across his heads-up display, dismissed with the touch of a button.

   Forty seconds to firing range. He unlocked the controls on his maser cannons, setting them to auto-defense, and brought up his targeting computer, locking onto the docking bay. He’d have one chance to make the attack work, and he’d have to place it precisely where it was needed. Glancing at his sensors, he spotted Komarov, chasing the transport, the enemy ship getting further and further ahead of them as it made its escape.

   Ten seconds. He settled down in his couch, his hand poised over the manual overrides, knowing that if he actually employed them, it would be a matter of sheer desperation. Only a fool would attempt to out-guess the computer, except in the worst possible emergency. The pilot’s job was to make the decisions, out-think his enemy. Even the smartest systems couldn’t do that. Not yet, anyway.

   The fighter bucked back as the missiles raced away, his maser cannons spitting into space as his theory was confirmed, the sensor display lighting up with new trajectory tracks as the enemy ship unleashed its payload, hoping to get at least some use out of them before it was too late. On instinct, Flynn reached for his missile controls, shortening the range just a little, setting them to explode short of their target. A brief flicker of flame filled the sky, followed by a dozen more, and he stabbed his thrusters to throw him away from the debris field he had just created, erupting through space.

   Fratricide. He’d detonated his missiles right in the heart of the enemy swarm, triggering every warhead at once. His fighter was agile, swift. He could get out of the way. The enemy escort couldn�
��t, and took the full force of the shrapnel blast on its starboard armor. Fountains of atmosphere raced from a dozen hull breaches, sending the ship tossing back and forth as her helmsman struggled to bring her back on course, a battle that he could not win, as the rest of the formation dived into position, ready to finish her off.

   Six more missiles, all perfectly placed. That the ship survived at all was a testament to her designers, but one more pass would finish her. Not that Flynn had any intention of doing that. He pulled his fighter around, closing in for another pass, and this time brought up the upgraded hacking package, using the work of generations of Zemlyan software engineers to slice nimbly into the enemy mainframe, taking advantage of the crippled ship and harried crew to find what he was looking for. Over on the far side of the battlespace, the enemy freighter completed a hyperspace transition. She’d got away, able to tell the tale of what had happened here.

   And that had been part of the plan, all along. The more fear they could engender, the more ships the Guild would devote to convoy duty. They were a mercantile empire at heart, and Captain Forrest had reasoned that they’d protect their trading routes at all cost. Soon they’d find out if they were right. He looked across at the datastream coming in, and smiled. The second half of the plan had worked as well.

   “Flynn to Volkov,” he said. “We’re done here. Squadron returning to base. As soon as we dock, you can shape course for Zemlya. We’ve got a package to deliver. Priority.”

  Chapter 2

   “By the time you get this, we’ll be dead. I…,” Romano’s voice said, echoing across Lincoln’s bridge. Captain Forrest looked down at Lieutenant Roberts, manning the communications station, watching as she worked the controls, grim determination on her face.

   “Is that all, Lieutenant?” she asked.