Shall Not Perish (Lincoln's War Book 1) Read online

   Taking a deep breath, Forrest looked at the display, then said, “Battle Stations.”

  Chapter 2

   Lieutenant Jack Flynn lay on his bunk, listlessly flicking through the pages of the manual he was meant to be studying, barely concentrating on the weapons schematics within. Giving up at last, he dropped the book to the side, letting it dangle over the side of the bed, threatening to drop on the floor. The door slid open, and his roommate, Tony Hawkins, stepped inside, shaking his head at the disheveled figure on display.

   “Damn it, Jack, it’s been two weeks now. Get over it. You aren’t the first flyboy to get a Dear John in the middle of a tour.”

   “This isn’t some fly-by-night deal, buddy. We were getting married when I got back. I’ve known her since grade school. So some insurance salesman...”

   Sitting down next to him, Hawkins said, “Look, think of it this way. You got lucky.” Raising his hands, he said, “Say you’d got hitched before you left. Now you’d be spending your off-duty time down at the JAG office trying to sort out the paperwork. This way you get off easy.” Gesturing at the manual, he said, “You know the Boss is going to test you on that crap, right?”

   “Let him,” he replied. “I don’t give a damn. Not any more.”

   “You’ve got to snap out of this.” Shaking his head, his friend said, “Why don’t you put in for some leave. We’re not scheduled to leave for three days. Forty-eight hours in the fleshpots of Custer City is exactly what you need.”

   Raising an eyebrow, Flynn said, “You aren’t kidding anyone. Custer City is a one-shuttle town. Half a dozen bars, each of which is worse than the last, and a restaurant where the cockroaches outnumber the customers.” With a smile, he added, “I’ve got a whole damned month coming when we ship back to Earth.” Reaching for the manual, he tossed it to his friend, and said, “You might want to take a look at this yourself. Promotion board in seven weeks, and you’re close to the top of the list. Assuming you can keep out of trouble this time.”

   “Who needs to be a full Lieutenant anyway?” Hawkins asked with a smile.

   “No ambition,” Flynn said. “Tell you what. Let’s shake some of the dust out and hit the simulators. I’ve got to crack that winning streak of yours sooner or later.”

   “Double or nothing?”

   “Are you kidding me? I already owe you a week’s pay as it is.” Sliding from the bunk, he snatched his flight jacket from the wall, and shambled out of the room. He glanced at the operations board on the wall before he left, checking the flight roster for the next day.

   “Busy times for the Lucky Thirteenth,” Hawkins quipped. “I guess Commander Moreau wants that promotion bad. Word is Fletcher’s moving up to the Admiral’s Staff, so Lexington’s going to need a new Wing Commander.”

   “And why would they hijack a Squadron Leader from Saratoga?” Flynn replied, walking down the corridor towards the hangar deck. “You can bet that the fix is in over there. They’ve got four squadron leaders to choose from, and Commodore Orlov likes familiar faces.”

   “Yeah, but if Morry did move up, you’d be in line for the job.”

   Shaking his head, Flynn raised his wrist, and said, “I’ve only worn two rings for eighteen months. Two years plus before they even think about me for Lieutenant Commander. I’m not even sure I’ll still be here then.”

   “Hey,” Hawkins said, grabbing his friend’s arm, bringing the two of them to a halt. “What the hell does that mean?”

   Glancing at the open doors to the hangar deck behind them, Flynn said, “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

   “Hell no. You’re not thinking of bailing on me, are you?”

   With a sigh, he said, “I’ve thought about it, yeah. I’m not a ring-knocker. Give it a few years, I might get a squadron, but that’s about as far as I’m ever going to get. We’re at peace, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m just not sure it’s worth hanging around forever when the only reward is more paperwork.”

   “Always a quitter,” the sour voice of Lieutenant Susan Mendez, one of his squadron mates, said, walking past him into the hangar. “You want to leave, go ahead. I’d rather fly with a pilot who has some goddamned guts, anyway.”

   “Wait a minute,” Hawkins said, stepping forward. “What gives you the right...”

   “Leave it,” Flynn said. “Leave it be. It doesn’t matter. We can work it out in the simulator.” Before he could take another step, an angry wail cried from all the speakers, and he turned with a start, shock spreading across his face. “The squadron alarm? What the hell?”

   “All fighters,” the voice of Saratoga’s captain, Commodore Mitchell, barked, “launch. Immediate launch. Tactical updates once you are in the air. All pilots to their ships.”

   Without another word, Flynn sprinted onto the hangar deck, racing for his fighter, sitting in its launch tube, technicians already swarming all around, making preparations for launch. Mendez had reacted as rapidly as he had, was already scrambling into her cockpit, but Hawkins had loitered longer at the door before moving, and as his canopy began to drop, he’d barely reached the deck.

   “Flynn to Moreau,” he said, snapping controls, hastily running through his pre-flight sequence. “What’s going on, sir?”

   “Don’t know, damn it,” the gruff voice of his squadron commander replied. “Just get up. We’ll find out what’s going on when we get there. Don’t wait for the others.”

   “Aye, sir,” Flynn said. He looked down at his controls, astonished to see the launch clearance light wink on in record time, and settled back for the kick of the magnetic catapult. The force pushed him back in his couch more than usual, a hammer blow to his gut, and his vision briefly blurred before he regained control of his fighter, swinging around to fall into a rough formation with the other fighters able to launch in a hurry.

   “Flynn to formation,” he said. “Who’s in charge?” When nobody replied, he said, “May 9, 2116. Anyone got that beat?”

   “That’s a negative,” a resentful Mendez replied.

   “Hey!” the tardy Hawkins said. “I’ve got targets! PacFed cruisers, heading our away. And fighters, launching now! They’re right on top of us!”

   Throwing a control, Flynn said, “I don’t...” Before he could continue, his screen flickered, an unexpected software update running through his system, and the screen shifted to show the enemy vessels, far too close to the fleet for comfort. “Flynn to Saratoga Actual. Where do you want us?”

   “Wait one, Flynn,” a voice replied, the frequency distorted and crackled, making it impossible for him to tell who was speaking. “We’ve got to work this out.”

   “We don’t have the time, Actual,” he said, looking at his sensor display. “Form on me, people. Double arrowhead formation, Hawkins as the second tip. We’re heading for the incoming fighters. Go full burn. We’ve got to disrupt that formation and give the rest of the fighter group time to get into the air.”

   “Shouldn’t we wait for orders?” one of the other pilots, a nervous rookie from the Nineteenth named Horton replied. “If the Admiral...”

   “Threat warnings, multiple, Ensign!” Mendez said. “Moving into formation.”

   Flynn’s hand danced across his controls, setting up a course plot, conflicting orders streaming in through the tactical network. All was chaos, every carrier struggling to clear the station, trying to get its ships into the air. They’d cut the patrol flights way down, trying to give the pilots a breather before the extended stress of the planned exercises. A weakness that the enemy were working hard to exploit. He looked at the readout one last time, nodded, then tapped a control to send it to the other ships in the formation.

   Nine fighters. All that had so far managed to leave Saratoga. Lexington seemed to be getting a squadron up, but there was little evidence that Yorktown or Essex had yet reacted to the alert. The enemy had timed their attack to perfection, and Third
Fleet was going to pay the price for its sluggish response to the threat.

   “Course computed and laid in,” Flynn said, stabbing a control to override a spurious instruction from Essex, one that would have locked them into a worthless patrol pattern. “Full thrust. Now.”

   He felt the force of acceleration pressing him back on his seat once again, his fighter flying onto his chosen trajectory plot, heading towards the enemy fighters ahead. Over on the right, Lexington’s force was matching his play, moving into formation to engage the enemy, maybe thirty seconds behind him. He’d have first contact.

   Tapping a control, he brought up the squadron status board, the fighter’s systems automatically working out who was with him, the other pilots who had managed to come along for the ride. Two more had managed to join him, eleven in all, the late arrivals struggling at the rear of the formation. All four squadrons were represented, friendly rivals working together for the survival of their baseship. With fifty enemy fighters ahead, all of them closing for contact.

   The enemy battle plan was simple enough. The Pacific Federation had taken a different approach to capital ship combat than the United States, preferring to trust to heavy armored cruisers rather than lighter carriers, able to go toe to toe with anything in the enemy fleet, only using fighters for screening and reconnaissance. That was their goal. Sweep the sky clear of the American squadrons before they could organize, then use their heavier armament to reduce the carriers and the station to so much scrap metal. Another Pearl Harbor. And if anything, potentially more devastating to their chances of winning the war.

   War.

   Four years of SFROTC. Eighteen months of flight training at Houston, then out at Triton. And six years of squadron duty, stationed all over known space. He’d known what he was getting into when he first put on the uniform, knew that at some point he might be called upon to put his life on the line in battle, and yet, somehow, nothing he had heard, nothing he had felt had prepared him for this moment. All the cares and problems that had weighed him down this morning seemed to melt away, vanish into a forgotten past. None of them mattered any more.

   Eleven lives, including his own. That’s what mattered. And given the odds they were facing, almost five to one, with the heavy batteries of the enemy cruisers waiting in the background, it seemed all but certain that they would be dead in moments. He’d envied the few pilots who’d been able to claim the title of ‘Ace’, five kills to their name, but the mathematics of their achievement rang home as never before. To win that title, five people had to die. And if the odds of every engagement, every one-on-one fighter duel were even, that gave him a one-in-twenty-five chance of pulling it off.

   To put it another way, if they were going to win today, everyone in his flight would have to earn that prized title. He looked at the status monitor again. A few of the names were familiar, members of his squadron who had served on Saratoga for a while, but too many of them were new, recently assigned, just out of flight school, someone deciding to take advantage of the training opportunities the exercises would provide. They’d have to grow up in a hurry.

   So would he.

   “Formation Leader to Formation,” he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “Some of you are pretty new to the ship, but this is the first time any of us have seen real action, so we’re all on even ground there. All of us have trained for this, have prepared for this, and we’re all ready for this.” Looking at the sensor plot, watching the enemy fighters swarm in their intricate evasive pattern ahead of them, he continued, “We make this fast and dirty. Hit them hard on the first pass, then break and run for home. We can’t kill them all in one run, but we can give them a bloody enough nose to slow them long enough for the rest of our birds to get into the air.” Taking a deep breath, he added, “Sixty seconds to contact. Make it count. Out.”

   Behind him, his fighters moved into position, ready to hit the enemy with maximum force. He could easily tell the rookies from the veterans, half of his formation making smooth, easy moves, the remainder more tentative, less certain, second-guessing themselves before the battle could truly start.

   Lexington’s squadron was still moving into position, taking their time to prepare for the attack, and he felt a brief stab of resentment that their squadron leader was using the sacrifice of his people to buy time. Even if he’d known the score going in, it still hurt.

   Ten seconds to contact.

   He reached up, turned a pair of keys, and freed his rail-guns to fire at will, retaining control of the missiles for himself. His ship would fire by itself if it sensed an opportunity to exploit, its reflexes infinitely faster than his own. A low whine came from the targeting computer, the systems locking on to the nearest enemy, preparing to fire. Shaking his head, he worked the override, flicking through firing options before finding the target he was looking for, the wing leader at the heart of the formation, double red strips along his wingtips to distinguish him from the rest of the interceptors. Arrogance that would be his downfall, if he could press his attack home.

   They entered attack range, and a barrage of mass driver fire rained through space towards them. His hands danced across his controls, sending his fighter careening to the side in a desperate attempt to throw off the enemy, his cannons spitting death in response. Behind him, one of his fighters blossomed in flame, one of the rookies, killed before he could even take his first shot.

   The dull tone of his targeting computer grew in intensity as it locked onto his picked target, finally bleeping in cybernetic triumph as it found its mark. He fired all three missiles at once, his fighter rocking back as they raced towards their target. There was no time to wait and see if he’d been successful. The rest of the fighters needed him. Another explosion ripped through space, an enemy fighter dying, but the next was one of his, the squadron status board rapidly emptying out.

   His rail-guns spat again, and he dragged his fighter around, close to Hawkins, his friend getting his missiles away. Behind him, Mendez dived towards her target, an enemy squadron leader in her sights, a perfect shot. Neither of them could have seen the pair of missiles racing towards them, sleek, stealthy shapes, each of which was capable of ripping a fighter to pieces. Flynn had a shot. But only one. He could save one fighter, one pilot, but not both.

   He’d spent years honing his instincts, countless battle drills in the simulators and in open space. He had only the smallest fraction of a second to make his decision, but it was enough. A quick tap of his lateral thruster was sufficient to place him where he had to be. And the missile targeted at Mendez erupted in flame, a heartbeat before Hawkins died. Before his friend died.

   Hawkins had fired his missiles. He’d made his greatest contribution to the battle. Mendez hadn’t. It was that simple. And that painful. At least he was avenged, four PacFed fighters exploding, a savage hole ripped into the heart of the enemy formation, forcing them to scatter out of their planned attack path.

   And then, suddenly, they were through. The enemy fighters had scattered in a dozen directions, were struggling to rally in time to meet the force from Lexington, and his formation had completed its attack run and were back in open space. Up ahead, the enemy cruisers continued on, and to his distress, the carriers were still struggling to maneuver. He might have bought them a few moments, but no more. He looked at the status board, and sighed. Eleven names had been on it before the battle started. Only five now remained.

   “Mendez to Leader,” a voice crackled in his headset. “Thanks.”

   “Just doing my job,” he replied. “All ships, return to formation, and make a heading thirty degrees port. We’re going to come around, try to get back into the fight.”

   “Leader,” Mendez warned, “We’re all out of missiles, and our fuel...”

   “We’ve still out our proton cannons, Lieutenant, and we’ve still got enough power for one more pass. So we get clear of the cruisers, and we see where we can do the most good.
And hope to God that we’ve got a place to land when all of this is over.”

  Chapter 3

   “Come on, you bastards, get a move on!” Fire Controlman John McBride said, sliding into the control chair of the turret. He looked to the right, a practiced scowl on his face as the other two members of his turret team rushed into position, Spaceman Caldwell monitoring the power feed, Spaceman Butler on the short-range sensors. “God damn it, four hundred people on this ship, and I get stuck with the two most useless bolos in the Fleet.”

   “Sorry, sir,” Caldwell replied. “I was...”

   Stabbing his finger at the targeting display, he said, “Tell it to those PacFed slimeballs, because I don’t give a damn. I made it here, and the senior enlisted quarters are further away than yours. So next time, work up a goddamned sweat!” Taking a deep breath, he settled back into his chair, his eyes straining into the distance, the ship’s trajectory plot snapping into life on the display.

   “Why aren’t the carriers moving?” Butler protested. “They’re just sitting there!”

   “Admiral’s got to finish his breakfast, rook,” McBride replied, inwardly agreeing with the young spaceman yet not willing to show it. His two subordinates weren’t that bad, but they weren’t that good, either. Lincoln had been so short-handed with recent transfers that they couldn’t muster enough trained technicians to man each point-defense turret. Caldwell and Butler were both slated for the specialist course when they completed their tour. Until then, it was a case of on-the-job training.

   Which wouldn’t have been a problem if everything had gone as planned. Lincoln was an old ship. She’d done her duty. Fought in two wars, decades ago. Now she was a transport, meant to operate behind the lines, in relative safety. Captain Forrest apparently had other plans. She was taking the ship right into the heart of the enemy formation, trying to shield the precious carriers with Old Abe. A dangerous gamble at best, even for a ship at full combat efficiency.