Raising a hand, he said, “Words, I know. Just words. But we can give them meaning if we live by them. And we have no choice, if our people are to live in freedom and security, instead of tyranny and fear. When this new Lincoln takes to the stars, eighteen months from now, the first of a planned fleet of twelve, all named for great peacemakers of the past, it will, we hope, herald a new era. A brighter era.”
“For if it does not, it will be our final era, and there will be nobody left to write our histories. Thank you all.”
The crowd rose again, thunderous applause filling the hangar, and Benedetti walked over to him, shaking her head, saying, “You realize the nightmare you’re going to run into trying to make it work, right?”
“You’re the one who volunteered to be my wing commander.”
“That’s different,” she said. “I just have to fly fighters for a living. You’ll have to babysit dozens of governments, resolve disputes between worlds we haven’t seen yet...”
“All true,” he replied, gesturing up at the flag. “Still, it’s going to be fun.”
“We have different definitions of that word.”
“Trust me,” he said with a smile. “It’ll work. It has to.”
Thank you for reading the concluding book in the ‘Lincoln’s War’ series, ‘Only the Brave’. For information on future releases, please join the author's Science-Fiction Mailing List at http://eepurl.com/A9MdX for updates. If you enjoyed this book, please review it on the site where you purchased it. The writer's blog is available at http://tinyurl.com/pjl96dj for details of forthcoming books in universes old and new.
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