“What do you mean?”
“We got the word last night. They’re using this station as the staging area for the final attack on Zemlya. The whole damn Assault Fleet’s here, right now. Either your people are going to be launching their attack right into an ambush, or by the time they get here, we’ll have captured their home base.” With a toothy smile, he added, “Why do you think I don’t care about you? One way or another, you’re going to be dead in a matter of hours, and nobody will give a damn about the details.”
Romano ripped the medical kit from the wall, peering through the contents to find the strongest sedative, and said, “With the right combination, some of this stuff could kill.”
“Intentional. You never know when we might need to end someone.”
“You really don’t care, do you?”
“If it’s a choice between the well-being of my family and someone I don’t know, the blood of my blood will win every single damned time, and don’t dare tell me that you’re any different.”
Nodding, Romano pulled out a hypodermic, and keeping the guard covered the whole time, nimbly injected him in the arm. After a moment, the guard jerked in brief spasm, then relaxed on the floor, his eyes rolling back. He quickly checked the man’s vital signs, then pushed him up into the shaft, climbing after him, placing him carefully into the recovery position before making his way back to Xiang.
“I take it you dealt with our uninvited friend?” the technician asked.
“He’s not going to cause us any more trouble. Put it that way.”
“I hope not.” Gesturing at the terminal, he added, “There is a plot to kill Zani, but it appears to merely be the work of a trio of disgruntled underlings. Their records are all through the system, some rather impressive rantings.” Turning to Romano, he said, “This hardly seems worth going to all of this trouble. I’ve taken care of it, though.”
“How?”
“All of the journals, including some interesting admissions, have been copied to every terminal on the station. I suspect the guards will have a lot of questions to ask.” He paused, then said, “I have a link to the hyperspace communicator.”
Frowning, Romano replied, “That was a lot easier than it should have been.”
“Poor design in the control interface. At some point the station was modified, and a path was left in the network that runs through some of the security systems.” He shrugged, and added, “It could just as easily be intentional, of course. Someone attempting to engage in illegal activity. I will rig a long-term...”
“No,” Romano replied. “We need to send a message, now.”
“If we do that, they’ll know precisely where we are.”
“The enemy fleet is here, in this system. We’ve got to get a message to Zemlya, to Lincoln, right away. If we can bring our people here, then we might be able to stop them launching their attack before they have a chance to deploy their forces. As well as rescue the prisoners.”
“That’s insanity,” Xiang said. “I can encode the message to transmit in a couple of hours. Long enough for us...”
“We don’t have a couple of hours. We might not even have minutes. That fleet is ready to sail, and if it does, the war is over.” Heading down towards the datapad, he said, “If you won’t do it, I will.”
“You don’t know how.”
“I’m a fast learner.”
Shaking his head, Xiang replied, “When we flee for our lives, I’m taking point. Just remember that. And get ready to move. As soon as I send this message, things will start to happen.”
Chapter 17
“General, we’re receiving a signal,” an aide said, bursting into the room. “For the immediate attention of the commander of the USS Lincoln.”
“I think I’ll have to do,” Flynn replied, turning to face the young officer.
“There’s a voice file, sir, as well as some attached documentation.” The aide passed Flynn a datarod, loitering at the threshold. “It hasn’t yet been viewed, sir.”
“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Markova said with a smile. “You can watch. We might need you to help clean up the signal, anyway.” Tapping a command sequence on the panel before her, she continued, “You have full access, Commander. Let’s see what’s going on?”
“This is Lieutenant Romano,” a voice said, crackled and distorted over the wall speakers, booming across the room. “The enemy fleet is at SGSS 22-202. They’re using the gas extraction facility orbiting the brown dwarf as a staging area. I repeat, the whole fleet is here, preparing to launch an attack on Zemlya. Recommend immediate offensive action. This system is better suited to an engagement of that type than the Zemlyan home system. I am temporarily at liberty and will attempt to continue operations in support. I’ve attached everything we’ve been able to steal from the station’s sensors. Good luck. Romano out.”
“God damn,” Benedetti said, shaking his head. “That kid can fall into a cesspool and come out clutching a diamond.” Looking around the table, she asked, “When do we leave?”
“Just a minute,” Lotsawa protested. “All we have is the word of one officer. Again. The last time we followed his intelligence, it cost us the only ship we had capable of going toe-to-toe with the fleet we’ve found. Just what do you think will happen if we take our remaining forces up against the enemy? I’m willing to die for my people, but I am not willing to throw my life away for nothing. Our ships are needed elsewhere, not tossed away in a fool’s fight.”
“Your ships are needed in the defense of freedom,” Flynn pressed. “Piecemeal, we lose. Unless this fleet fights as one, we don’t stand a chance of victory. Unless you’d prefer to come to some sort of arrangement with the Guilders, barter away our liberty for the same of convenience.”
“You have very little to lose, Commander,” Lotsawa replied. “And I’m not talking about my life, or that of my crew. They knew what they were getting into when they joined the military, and given the state of galactic affairs, most of them were well aware that they would battle the Guilders for the bulk of their careers.” Looking at the other officers, he continued, “There are a hundred and fifty million people I am responsible for, and I cannot take any action that will put their lives in jeopardy. Perhaps it is time to concede that we have lost, and that we should conserve our energies to fight another day.”
“Easy for you to say,” Volkov said. “Your world is not under attack.”
“I will remind you all that the President has issued a directive that Zemlyan ships are to remain in the defense of our home system,” Markova replied.
“To hell with that. I stand with Flynn.”
“Me too,” Benedetti said.
Shaking his head, Kozlov replied, “That gives you one destroyer and one fighter/bomber. A most impressive fighting force. Time to face reality.”
Taking a deep breath, Lotsawa said, “Commander, if I thought we had a realistic chance, I’d be fighting right alongside you. I just don’t see it. There’s nothing here worth dying for.”
“You’re writing off everyone on Zemlya.”
“I could listen to an argument for the defense of this planet.”
As the argument raged around him, Flynn called up the tactical data, looking at the rudimentary information they had been provided. The system was a nightmare, waves of gravitational distortion that had crushed every world within reach, leaving nothing but battered debris. Simply jumping into the system would be difficult, taxing the skills of a pilot to the limit. Get too close to the star, and there would be a grave risk of a hyperspatial distortion.
Like the one which brought Lincoln into this time in the first place.
A distortion that they had successfully weaponized, once before.
“Son of a god-damned bitch!” he said, slamming his fist on the table.
“Am I to take it that you have conjured some unexpected tactical insig
ht that might change the nature of our discussion, Commander?” Lotsawa asked.
“I think I’ve got it, ladies and gentlemen. A way to use the ships we have to take the entire Guilder force out of the picture, at least for long enough that we’ll never have to worry about them ever again.” He reached for the desk controls, bringing up an image of the star. “Anyone want to take a guess what might happen if a hyperspatial field interacts with a black hole?”
Volkov whistled, and said, “I’m almost afraid to. I don’t think there’s anyone in known space with the knowledge to make anything more than a guess, but it wouldn’t be anything good. Total destruction of every ship making the jump.”
“This is insanity,” Garcia said. “Any ship that made the attempt would be destroyed, and we don’t have anything capable of creating that big a hyperspatial field in any case.” Shaking his head, he said, “I’m sorry, Commander, I truly am, but you’re grasping at straws, and my people...”
“Let him finish,” Lotsawa interrupted, his eyes locked on Flynn. “I said I would listen to a viable battle plan. This is the closest we’ve come so far. I presume you have considered this alternative, Commander?”
Nodding, Flynn replied, “Up there in orbit, the Zemlyans are working on a new carrier. That’s not a secret to any of you. It’s been in the works for years, long before Lincoln arrived, but what you don’t know...”
“Is that you’ve been helping them finish it, and that it is to be christened the John Paul Jones, in honor of the Revolutionary War-era hero who served with both the American and Russian navies,” Lotsawa said. “An appropriate name. I think you can assume that our intelligence agencies have been keeping us all informed.”
“The ship is still in the early stages of construction, Commander,” Markova said.
“And like any starship, the first element completed is the hyperspace core, the heart of the ship. Which completed the first testing cycle last week, under the supervision of Commander Brooks and myself. It worked perfectly.”
“While coupled to the main reactor of the spacedock. All we have is a framework and a hyperdrive. Nothing more than that.”
“Granted. It would need to be piloted, but that could be completed by any ship in the fleet. After all, it has a standard docking and power adapter. A standard that, I note, even the Guild follows. They were the ones who introduced it, after all, and I presume nobody saw any reason to make a change.” With a smile, he said, “And that further applies to the space station orbiting that star, which has a massive reactor, larger even than that of the spacedock. It has engines that are normally used to guide it into a higher orbit, but would be equally capable of reducing speed, dropping it down towards the star.”
“I can already tell that this is going to be the most suicidal, insane plan I’ve ever heard,” Garcia said.
“I’m enjoying it just as much as you are, Carlos,” Benedetti said. “I think I see what you are driving at, Jack. We’re going to use the station itself against them, right?”
“That’s the idea. By now, I think we can assume that the Guild Fleet will be expecting us to launch an attack. They must have intercepted the hyperspace signal, and they must have reasoned that we are likely to respond in one way or another. Possibly they may even delay their plans a little, aiming to fight us on their own terms. Which means that when we jump into the system, they will be expecting us to follow a specific course of action. A hit and run raid, trying to attack their auxiliaries. We can’t hope to do serious damage to their main battle fleet, but we might be able to damage their support ships.”
Nodding, Volkov said, “So we feint. We make it look as though that’s exactly what we’re planning to do. Divide the fleet into two, and have one of our destroyers, running with a skeleton crew, guiding the hyperspace drive in towards the station. All we have to do is dock, link up the power network, and throw the switch, while the rest of the fleet covers our backs before getting ready to run like hell.”
“Let’s be reasonable,” Kozlov replied. “You realize that in order to pull this off, everything needs to go perfectly according to plan. We’re assuming that the Guilders will react as we expect, rather than simply leaving the system at the first sign of trouble. We’re assuming that the station’s power network functions as we expect, and that we can find some way of stopping its personnel from blocking our attack.”
“We’ve got good hackers,” Volkov protested. “We don’t need long. Sixty seconds to charge the hyperdrive for a maximum-expansion jump. Everything can be set up and locked into the computers with plenty of time to spare. I’m convinced that we can make this work.”
“Besides,” Flynn added, “we have no other option that gives us even a chance of victory. Our alternatives boil down to surrender, or a doomed battle in orbit here, around Zemlya. Speaking for myself, I’d rather go out fighting, giving those bastards a bloody nose in the process.”
“There are better places to make a last stand,” Garcia pressed. “And the ability of the Guild to put together a strike fleet of this size twice is marginal at best. Perhaps not possible at all.”
“Then you are quite happy to sacrifice Zemlya to save your own skin?” Volkov replied. “Has it occurred to any of you that we could be wrong about the potential target of this fleet? That staging area could be used to hit any one of a dozen planets, including Columbia. And Lemuria. You’re no safer than we are. Does it make any difference if it is your people with their heads on the block?”
“I will commit Yamantaka to this operation,” Lotsawa said, drawing all eyes in the room towards him. “As I repeatedly stated, I only wished to hear a reasonable battle plan, and I believe that I have now done so. I am far from sanguine about the odds, but I am willing to make the attempt, on the condition that Zemlya commits its full force to the battle.” Glaring at Garcia, he added, “I do not believe that there is any point imposing any such conditions on the Lemurians.”
“General,” Kozlov said, “I’m sure that we can come up with a better battle plan. Given a little time, I know that...”
“There’s no time left, Major,” Flynn protested. “We’ve got to make a decision, and we have to do it now. General, I am aware of the President’s orders, but under the circumstances...”
“Komarov, Titov, Leonov and Tereshkova will break orbit in one hour. I will assume personal command of the fleet, taking Leonov as my flagship. Major Volkov, your ship will have the honor of guiding the hyperspace core into position with the station. I suggest you strip down to the minimum necessary crew.” Raising a finger, she added, “I do not, however, consider this a suicide mission, and I want it clear that you are to take any action possible to see that you and your crew make it home in one piece. Is that understood?”
“I’m not in a hurry to die, ma’am. Message understood.”
“This is suicide,” Garcia said.
“Nevertheless, Santos-Dumont will be going along for the ride,” Benedetti said. “Carlos, if you won’t command your ship, I will. Even if I have to launch a mutiny to do it. The crew want to go head-to-head with the enemy.”
Garcia glared at her, and replied, “Ten years, Lieutenant, and I don’t seem to know you at all.”
“I guess you weren’t paying attention.” Turning to Markova, she said, “We have a fleet, General, and we have a mission.”
Nodding, Markova replied, “We depart in one hour, ten minutes. Go get to your ships. And tell your crews to prepare for the biggest fight of their lives.”
Chapter 18
The sensor decks were always among the quietest on the ship, especially under combat conditions. So much of the equipment was on the outside of Lincoln, or adjacent to her hull, that there was little a damage control team could do under fire. They had triple, quadruple redundancy, which simply had to be enough. And it meant that there was somewhere for a ship commander to walk, when she needed to be alone for a while.
Her predecessor had passed on this tip, had shown her his secret places during their handover, and confessed that he’d been given the same tour upon his assumption of command, years before. Doubtless something similar had happened even when Lincoln was first commissioned, all the long centuries ago, the dockyard supervisor proudly showing his handiwork to the officer destined to take it into battle.
Forrest ran her hand along the wall, feeling the cracks where the repairs had been completed too quickly, too hastily, no time for anything other than the most basic job of reconstruction. Dangling cables dropped from the ceiling ahead of her, one of the auxiliary conduits destroyed in one battle or another, penciled scrawl on the wall to give whichever technician finally destined to get around to the work some sort of guidance about what to do.
She pulled out her datapad, scrolling through the list of pending work orders. Any inspection team would have relieved her of command in an instant for even considering taking a ship into battle in these conditions, but Lincoln was far tougher than she looked, had proved that in the fighting against the Guild, time and again. She’d been built to fight, and until being displaced in time, had never really had the chance to show what she could truly do. There had been the occasional skirmish between the major powers, a few short proxy wars, even conflicts between some of the megacorporations, but nothing that could really be described as a battle.
Until now. A ship that had been destined for the scrapheap, as had her captain, thrown through time and space to become the last hope for the freedom of a hundred worlds, scattered across the stars, most of whom would have no idea that the most critical battle for decades was about to take place. In generations to come, historians would write about what happened here today. She had to make sure the story had a happy ending.
Only the Brave (Lincoln's War Book 3) Page 12