Hawk Flight (Flight of the Hawk Book 3)

by Robert Little

  The captain asked, “What is their condition?” Alexi answered, “Sir, they are well maintained, have the most recent upgrades and maintain a high operational tempo.”

  The captain turned and spent five minutes reading through the list. He said, “Lt., you are permanently assigned to Engineering. You will assume Lt. Ing’s watch schedule. I’m temporarily transferring Lt. Silva to Weapons, which are in worse condition than your department. Lt. Commander Sinclair remains in charge, and he will continue with his 0800-1600 watch. You will stand double watches. I want you to reorder this list. Give me two, one that you can work on while we are underway; the other list will be performed only when we are in port or standing down. You are to keep Commander Sinclair fully informed, and you are not to initiate any work that will reduce our ability to fulfill our mission, unless and until you receive his approval. Questions?”

  Lt. Tretiakov thought about standing sixteen-hour watches, “No sir. I do have a request. Chief Pons gave me the name of a new transfer, an E-2, who is currently in the mess hall. He has experience we can utilize, and I request that he be transferred to Engineering.” The captain grunted and brought up a watch schedule on his console. He asked, “ E-2 Pons? Coincidence? Done. I’ll have him report to you at 1600.”

  The captain smiled faintly, “Lieutenant, welcome to the Federal Navy. I believe you have some work to do, so please don’t let me detain you any longer.”

  Five minutes later Lt. Tretiakov grabbed the chief, “We have to make some changes to the list, but we’ve got the go ahead. The captain wants two lists, one we can work on while on patrol. For the foreseeable future I’ll be standing double watches, Lt. Silva will be up in Weapons, and Lt. Ing…well, the captain didn’t say.”

  Chief Pons smiled, “Transfer, possibly without the assistance of either a shuttle or suit. My younger brother?” Alexi said, “Sixteen hundred. Do you two get along?” Chief Pons smiled, “He gets along with me; I insist.”

  Two hours later the chief received an automatic warning from the bridge. A freighter had sent out a distress call.

  Lt. Tretiakov was in the mess hall and ran to his newly assigned station. They had started on a small project, one that didn’t interfere with the production of the immense amounts of power that they were soon going to have to produce.

  This ship had been one of the first to have separate holding tanks within the armored engine room. They could hold a maximum of two hours of fuel, and experience had shown that this emergency backup had more than once saved lives. The chief had already begun the process of ensuring that the tanks were full.

  Lt. Tretiakov was still not up to speed on all the necessary steps that a sustained period of maximum power generation required. The console listed each step and he walked through the process, working with the chief and the two enlisted, who had arrived within moments of Alexi.

  Much to his dismay, a number of the steps were grayed out, something that

  Only Lt. Cdr. Sinclair could have authorized. The systems were a mess. Chief Pons noted his focus and said, “Sir, our normal complement is one head of Engineering, and one officer plus five enlisted, times three watches. We have a total of five enlisted, and we’re down to one officer, not counting Commander Sinclair, who previously did not stand watches.”

  Alexi nodded, “Thank you chief. Do you believe in karma?” The chief shook his head, “No sir, I believe in sleep.” Alexi smiled at the ten years older enlisted man, “In that case, your karma is very, very bad.” The chief smiled, “Same color as yours?” Alexi smiled, “I don’t believe in karma either.”

  Over the next six hours the chief walked his brand new lieutenant junior grade through the complex procedures necessary to keep the fusion system continuously generating power in the area of sixty percent of the rated maximum.

  In a new ship, or at least a current model, normal operations required roughly thirty percent. A high speed run without weapons only utilized sixty to seventy percent. In this ship, in its’ current state, a demand for sixty percent power was stressing it’s fusion plant and capacitor systems to their limits. They had powered up the weapons capacitors, and could fire all their energy weapons once, or, under more likely conditions, power half the mounts with two shots. After that, they would either have to reduce power to the engines, or hope their missiles hit their targets. Additionally, there was the question of whether the missile room could find the target and fire the missiles. According to scuttlebutt, the missile room might not be able to find the missiles.

  Commander Sinclair was in the backup command center, but he was monitoring the engine rooms, and judging by the number of comm calls he was making, he was reasonably anxious.

  The chief was a godsend to Alexi. The man had served in the Navy for twelve years and not only knew the systems, he knew where to take shortcuts, what problems he could ignore, and which ones he absolutely had to pay attention to. He had three of his people finishing up the tasks they’d started, and the remaining two were monitoring the systems, freeing the chief to bring his wet-behind-the-ears officer up to speed as rapidly as possible.

  Within a couple of hours Lt. Tretiakov felt he understood the systems enough to begin asking detailed questions about the multiple jury-rigged procedures. At one point he asked, “If I understand you correctly, we really only have three critical issues, and once we clear them up, the majority of our red flags will go away, and we can then concentrate on the several dozen minor problems?”

  The chief smiled, “You make it sound really easy, but yes sir, that is the case. One of those critical issues can be cleared up without external help, the other two will require some downtime. However, many of those minor issues, as you put it, can quickly turn into major problems, meaning we can’t just forget them while we concentrate on something else.”

  Alexi smiled, “We can do this. We’re getting your E-2, and Commander Sinclair told me that the ship should be getting another complement of ten more enlisted next week. He doesn’t think we’ll be up to a full complement in less than six months, but every few weeks we will be getting more people.”

  The chief wiped his dirty hands on a rag, “Sir, with respect; you are entirely too cheerful.” Alexi reached out his hand and the two men shook, “Chief, if that’s the case, within six months my level of cheerfulness will be just about right.”

  Chief Pons shook his head, “Sir, you’re assuming we survive?”

  Chapter 6

  Power Production Technician Third Class Elliot Kana,

  Federal Destroyer Défiance

  PowPro 4 Elliot Kana stepped aboard the destroyer Défiance, saluted the flag and the OoD, and handed over a chip with his records. After a moment he was told to report directly to the officer in charge of Engineering. He sighed - this was not a good sign.

  Carrying his duffle bag, he made his way aft and down, and entered the small space where the immense power generated by the fusion plants was controlled. A Lt. JG was sitting at the console, leaning forward to read something on his screen. Judging by the flashing red border around the message, it was urgent.

  He slammed a hand on a contact and an alarm howled. A much older enlisted man, a chief, appeared and the JG yelled, “What the hell is going on? We’ve got a new Class 3 alarm.” The chief calmly replied, “Sir, we’re currently working with thirteen Class 3’s. The one you’re looking at is the result of number two. We’ve pulled the breakers to Weapons to isolate the control circuitry. As soon as we make the repairs, we’ll bring power back up, and that alarm will go away, along with number two.”

  The JG turned back to the console and a moment later said, “Oh. Thanks chief.”

  The JG’s back was to the enlisted man, who rolled his eyes and calmly took in Kana. He asked, “You the new snipe?” Kana dropped his duffle and reached out his hand. The two men shook and the chief silently bobbed his head in the direction of the JG, who was still focused on the screen. Kana smiled faintly and shook his head.

  The chief introduced him
self, having to speak up due to the operation of a heavy pump, “Chief Dahl. Where have you served?” Kana answered, “PowPro 3 Kana. Mostly shuttles, 2nd gen destroyers, six months on a 3rd gen.”

  The chief nodded, “How do you feel about hugs?” Kana was surprised into a smile, “That good?” The chief jerked his head again at the JG, who had yet to even notice the men.

  The chief said, “I’ll have someone take you to berthing and get settled in. Change into work clothes and be back here in fifteen. I’ll let the GiC know you’ve arrived.”

  Kana flicked a glance at the officer. GiC was an acronym for Genius in Charge. Things must be really bad for a chief petty officer to use the term within earshot of an officer, even one seemingly as oblivious as the current example.

  Within moments Kana was following a young female Power Technician petty officer through the ancient hatches toward his berthing area. She entered the space, pointed at an empty upper bunk and said, “Chief said to tell you that you can settle in later.” With that she promptly disappeared. No hug.

  Kana changed into faded and stained coveralls. They were supposed to be fireproof, including protection of the head, face and hands, but they were so worn that that dubious capability was probably AWOL.

  He trotted back to the power room and almost ran over the relatively small JG, who was just leaving the space. Kana backed up a step, and since he was uncovered didn’t salute. The JG stepped past without a word and walked quickly away.

  Kana entered the space and found the chief in conversation with three enlisted. He waved him over and introduced everyone. He promptly resumed his instructions, “We’ve got sailing orders, and are to get underway within six hours, possibly less. If you’ve just begun a task, close it back up. We’ve got three jobs that we have to complete prior to powering up the engines, and since we won’t be powering up anything unless we finish those jobs, I’m giving you three hours to complete them. We’ll spend the balance running tests and cleaning up. Kana here says he knows 2nd gen destroyer systems, and we are about to find out just how big a liar he is.”

  Judging by their lack of response the others were apparently accustomed to the chief’s sense of humor; that or they were accustomed to his threats. Either way, the ship had to be ready to make power in three hours. One by one they were given particular instructions and the chief turned and told Kana, “Follow me.”

  They entered the starboard bottle room. The chief pointed to a pair of cabinets along the far bulkhead, “Do you know what they are and what was wrong?” Kana glanced at the mass of coiled Zerohm cabling dangling over the side of one, “Load balancing, and it wasn’t.” The chief smiled, “You already know more than the 2nd class who was working on it. How long to close it up?” Kana shrugged, “Fifteen minutes to locate the problem, which is going to be one chip that you probably don’t have in stock; thirty minutes to code up a work-around on a blank chip; ten minutes to close up and another thirty to run tests.”

  The chief said, “I am so fucking happy you reported early. It’s yours. I’ve put you on the watch schedule, Commander Dyakov knows you’ve reported aboard, but is currently not on the ship. Keep me informed.”

  Kana reduced the problem to one chip, the one that routinely failed, carried it to a test station where he downloaded its’ contents. He spent twenty minutes going through the lines of code, ensuring that nothing had been corrupted, added a few lines that he’d learned tended to prevent the chip from freezing, copied it into a blank chip and ran a quick test on the board. Blank chips were not hardwired, and could potentially get corrupted if they were hit with an overvoltage or EMP, but they were also the only recourse. Factory chips contained their own digital diagrams as well as the circuitry, or they had up until twenty years ago. He’d never served on anything newer.

  Satisfied, he plugged it back into the load balancing console, reattached the heavy cabling, ran another test to ensure that everything was connected and receiving a signal, and closed the cabinet. By design it had taken significantly less time than he’d promised. He preferred that to having the chief on his back.

  He went back to the console and ran a system test. Load Balancing dropped off the list, but the other two the chief had mentioned were still live problems. He went into the port capacitor room and told the chief, who was buried in another cabinet, “Chief, Load Balancing is back up. Where do you want me?”

  The chief pulled his head out of the cabinet and asked, “You tested?” Kana nodded, “This and the interface to weapons are the only two Gripes we have left.”

  The chief said, “I’ve replaced the defective chips; you finish this, run a preliminary circuit test and by the time you’ve got it back together I’ll have Weapons back online.”

  At three hours and change they were running tests, but the system looked good. The JG entered the spaces and asked for an update. Chief Dahl told him, “Sir, we’re running final tests, preparatory to powering up. Barring unforeseen problems, we ought to be making power within forty minutes, and we should be able to disconnect from station power in sixty.”

  The JG said, “I’d like us to be hot in thirty.” The chief didn’t tell the very young officer that he was an idiot, but his face did. He said, “Sir, once we commence the Pre Power tests, we are forced to allow them to run to completion. As you know, if the captain declares an emergency, we can be hot within fifteen minutes, but otherwise, my estimates are that we will be self generating in sixty.”

  The still unnamed JG looked at the chief, who was nearly as big as Kana, “Chief, the captain wants to get underway in sixty minutes; that means we have to be powered up in thirty.”

  Kana knew that there were various ways to circumvent the tests, so he paid carefully casual interest to the chief’s reply. He looked at his feet, and then told the officer, “Sir, as soon as the captain declares the emergency, we’ll shut down the tests and begin powering up. We should be able to make your deadline.”

  Everyone knew that the brand new officer was not going to tell the captain anything remotely like that, and in that moment Kana knew that the JG knew close to nothing about destroyer power rooms. The young officer fidgeted and without saying another word fled the space.

  The chief glanced at Kana and sighed, “Comments?” Kana said, “One day he might just learn that there are at least three ways to fool the system into thinking it’s passed those tests.” The chief grinned at Kana, “He’s already got his transfer papers – he’s going to the Los Angeles; or, he was until a few hours ago. Meanwhile, I’d like you to monitor systems while I push my children to clean up the messes, plural.”

  That task was normally one only handled by the officer of the watch, rarely by a chief. Kana asked, “Besides you, who do we have in engineering?” Chief Dahl said, “A lieutenant is in charge – she’s due for a promotion to bring her up to grade for the position; plus a lieutenant and two JG’s. You’ve almost met one. The other JG is due to show up for our departure and the first watch. The lieutenant has been working with Weapons to help get them squared away, but she ought to be available for her watch. I’ll have the dogwatch. I’d like you to work with me – we’ll get most of the work done on our watch. I’ll comm you when it’s time to begin powering up.”

  Kana sat at the console and began reading through the various reports. This ship was not only old, it had been mothballed, a term even older than the ship. It sat untended in orbit for over thirty years, but the basic structure followed a brute strength approach to warship construction. Its’ systems were overbuilt, generally very simple, included a large amount of redundancy and were designed with the expectation that they would be severely abused.

  On the other hand, some of the original manufacturers no longer existed, and many of the remaining companies no longer made parts. Kana’s repair was an example; it worked, but that particular subsystem was now no longer as robust.

  Chapter 7

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Shin Ho Lee, Federal Destroyer Fisk

  Shin Ho
sat in the officer’s mess, tiredly drinking coffee. He’d just come off a double shift. The Fisk was actively patrolling the inner regions of the Nasser system, where a number of attacks had taken place against civilian shipping, plus one even more worrisome recent attack against a Navy freighter. Worse, the system had produced a record number of courts martial, the result of a resurgent nationalistic fervor as well as a powerful economy that was growing despite a number of Federal economic restrictions, enforced by a large Army garrison on the planet and three separate naval bases in the system. Apparently, not a little of that money was covertly finding its way into naval personnel pockets.

  Sixty-three years after the cessation of a massive civil war, Nasser regained partial independence. That freedom came with a number of strings, including but not limited to those garrisons and naval bases. To this day Nasser was still prohibited from reestablishing any form of system defenses, ship construction or ownership. Over the succeeding years, the system had managed to largely circumvent the prohibitions, and today it manufactured a wide variety of the components used in the production by other systems of space going craft.

  Naval intelligence, such as it was, believed that Nasser was doing more than manufacturing components, but to date had not found any proof. In the meantime, multiple Nasserian system corporations had their fingers in extra-solar businesses, including shipping. They didn’t own the actual ships, but they exercised indirect yet effective control over the businesses that did.