Hawk Flight (Flight of the Hawk Book 3)

by Robert Little

  Over the next two days, Kana worked double shifts, spending far more time than he would have liked maneuvering through narrow crawl spaces to replace old cabling with refurbished versions that would hopefully increase the ship’s energy efficiency. As usual, he found himself amazed that despite veritable light years of vacuum, dirt could find it’s way into these nooks and corners, as well as under his fingernails.

  The four Hawks, which between them could potentially defeat a second gen destroyer, skulked along behind the freighter, which was nearly constantly changing it’s course and heading, presumably in an effort to discover if it was being tailed.

  The huge ship was very easy to follow, and at the very slow levels of acceleration it was able to manage, the Hawks were almost impossible to detect.

  At forty-six hours, the Mempbis began decelerating, matching orbit with a large, unnamed lump of detritus. The lead Hawk commed the Défiance and passed over its relatively low-tech sensor readings. The Défiance was able to clean them up, and identified four shuttles at the same location. The shuttles contained precious little iron and according to the ship’s own readings, the same could be said of that two-kilometer lump of detritus.

  The Tillotson and the Fisk were in regions of space that allowed them to jump, and the Défiance messaged both of them, arranging for all three to simultaneously jump into position to block escape.

  Kana was ordered back to the power room and took over the console. Both the jump and weapons capacitors were charged, the heat sink cooled as low as possible, and, on schedule, the ship jumped to within ninety thousand kilometers of the bulk carrier.

  Within five minutes all three destroyers were in position, and accelerating toward the freighter. The four Hawks were also accelerating toward the ship, but they were unable to jump, and would not be able to arrive in time to participate in the possible battle that was shaping up.

  Kana listened avidly to the comms that passed between the bridge and his department. He felt the low-frequency vibration as heavy missiles were moved into position, and watched his monitors as the ship strained to arrive in time to pin what now appeared to be the bulk carrier, seven shuttles, and one unidentified larger ship, tentatively estimated as being significantly larger than the Fisk and minuscule next to the Mempbis. Initial readings placed it closer in size to a light cruiser than a gen2 destroyer, and the Federal Navy not only didn’t have anything that matched the estimated mass and emissions of the ship, it had no record of any ship ever built that did.

  As they raced toward the large rock, the unidentified ship began to come to life. A military grade radar came up, and the ship began to generate a gravity field, signaling that it was getting underway. Within five more minutes, five of the shuttles were also stirring. The remaining two shuttles and the massive bulk carrier remained inert.

  The Fisk began broadcasting in the clear, ordering all eight active craft to immediately shut down their drives.

  Kana didn’t hear this, but he did feel the shudder as all four tubes ejected their loads while the four starboard energy weapons discharged, all focusing on the unknown warship.

  During the next interminable minutes the Fisk launched repeated flights of light missiles. Kana watched the power settings as the Fisk’s lasers began firing at incoming missiles. Both fusion plants were running at their current maximum. One of the energy weapons malfunctioned, and the captain quickly rolled ship to unmask one of the ‘port’ batteries.

  The energy weapons were now lasing separate missiles. Targeting was handled from the bridge, but the system was designed to go to automatic target selection once a missile achieved a certain number of ‘points’, determined by a combination of proximity and relative closing velocity. If a missile rose to a predetermined threat level, the ship’s systems would feed power from multiple weapons capacitor’s to a single laser, the one most likely to be able to destroy the missile, allowing it to fire multiple shots within a few seconds.

  An automatic collision warning blared, and his load balancing cabinet overloaded. He leaped up and ran the few steps to the cabinet, and in just three seconds manually set the controls to feed maximum power to the energy weapons system.

  Moments later the ship staggered and dust filled the space. Kana found himself on the deck. He got to his feet and tottered back to his console. Alarms howled, and he saw that the hull had been breached in two locations, confusing him briefly. He scanned his board, noting that both compartments had lost atmosphere. If they had been occupied, the occupants were probably no longer living. He saw that the energy mounts were no longer firing, verified that they were still receiving power, and concluded that all incoming missiles had been destroyed.

  He couldn’t explain the hull breaches – a missile hit would in all probability destroy the ship. The warhead represented a tiny fraction of the enormous energy that a missile built up as it accelerated for long minutes. A direct hit would in some cases evaporate a portion of the ship, which would immediately cause the remaining portions to disintegrate. The energy transfer from the wave front produced by a chemical warhead of a light missile was effective out to as much as several kilometers.

  He ran back to the load cabinet, which had just came back online, and was now shunting enormous amounts of power to the engines as the ship decelerated. After verifying that it was once again functioning, he returned to the console.

  The captain made a general comm, “We have been hit by fragments of one of the last enemy missiles to be hit. We are still under power, our weapons systems are still online, and our ability to continue to fight remains undiminished. We have sustained minor damage to two compartments, but at present we do not know the extent of injuries or loss of life. The cruiser that targeted us has jumped, four of the seven shuttles have been destroyed, and the remaining three will either surrender or be destroyed within the next few minutes. The Mempbis was not targeted, and we will be launching our shuttle, along with shuttles from the Tillotson and the Défiance, to board her.”

  He continued, “We believe that the Mempbis was transporting illegal weapons, which is why we have refrained from targeting it. We will remain at battle stations until we are certain we have eliminated all potential enemy craft. Emergency Response crews are working to reseal the hull breaches, and as soon as I know anything more, I’ll let you know.”

  Chief Dahl commed Kana and asked about the load balancing cabinet. Kana told him what he’d done, and after verifying that the system had quickly recovered, the chief cut the comm – he was a busy man.

  Two hours later, the captain allowed some of the crew to stand down from their battle stations and get something to eat. Kana remained at his console. He had a headache and a bruise on his forehead, but he assumed that the Fisk’s medics had a full plate. The two PowPro technicians who manned battle stations in Engineering were also part of one of the four Emergency Response teams, leaving Kana alone to contemplate just how close to destruction the Fisk had come. The incoming enemy missile must have been grazed by one of the last energy bursts, and for pieces of the missile to hit the ship, it must have happened at almost point blank range. The damage to the ship would have been caused by pieces of shrapnel massing no more than a few grams, but a few grams of mass that had been accelerated to a very large relativistic velocity held a huge amount of energy.

  The two examples of fourth gen Navy destroyers possessed a new defensive system that incorporated a form of gravity drive in miniature. This system was still in the prototype stage, but offered the hoped-for ability to destroy missiles using what amounted to tiny burps of gravity. According to the scientists working on the problem, this system might also be used to protect a ship from laser weapons, whose focused light could be bent by gravity. Meanwhile, the Navy at large was making do with very old technology.

  Six hours later, the Fisk shuttle returned to the ship, and within seeming minutes the entire crew knew that the Mempbis was carrying over one hundred current generation federal missiles. At first, it was assumed
that these weapons were part of the take from the pirated federal cargo ship; however, serial numbers confirmed that in fact they were even newer, and had only recently been safely delivered to the primary Navy Base in the Nasser system.

  The holes in the Fisk had been caused by a federal missile that had been sold or stolen out the back door of one of the most heavily guarded Navy bases in the Federation.

  The Fisk was the only Federal destroyer to suffer any damage, which included seven injured personnel. Five of the seven shuttles had been destroyed trying to escape, the Mempbis had been captured without damage, but the large combat vessel, now determined to be a heavy destroyer, had escaped without suffering serious damage. It’s defensive weapons were several generations more advanced than those employed by the three destroyers attacking it, but they had been operated by what was thought to be an untrained or poorly trained crew. The ship had six missile launchers and sixteen energy mounts and advanced radar, and had managed to get underway and jump within a very short period of time. This was clearly not another ancient ship, rescued from the breakers – it was new and it wasn’t Federal. Unfortunately, in all likelihood, it now possessed advanced federal missiles.

  Chapter 23

  Lieutenant J. G. Shin Ho Lee, Federal Destroyer Fisk

  Shin Ho was temporarily assigned to the Mempbis, tasked with piloting it to the vicinity of Nasser. He had been told that he would be ordered to one of the three federal bases, but at the present time, it was not known which one. He made an educated guess that the discovery of those stolen missiles had caused the Navy to take a closer look at its’ own security practices, thus the uncertainty over his precise destination.

  He had a crew of ten, not including six armed Marines who were tasked with guarding the former crew. As a guess, more heavily armed Marines were assisting investigators with the task of finding out how those missing missiles came to be missing, as well as ensuring that no additional weapons disappeared out the back air lock.

  They had separated the huge, largely Nasserian crew into ten compartments which had been outfitted with surveillance equipment allowing the very small Marine contingent to monitor the captives during the several days voyage.

  This assignment to an independent command was thrilling, and Shin Ho knew that it presaged good things for his future. All things being equal, a full lieutenant would have received the duty, but the Navy was seriously short of qualified officers and noncoms. The present crisis meant he was getting an opportunity.

  He personally walked the power room with his tiny crew, verified that the ship ought to be able to safely make the short journey, and happily took the first watch as the ancient ship lethargically moved inward toward distant Nasser.

  Another JG from the Défiance shared the con with him, meaning he wasn’t going to get much rest. From his own, happy viewpoint, it meant he was going to get some rest.

  Twelve hours out, Shin Ho received a message from the Fisk, asking him to ascertain if the Mempbis could safely jump. He already knew it was capable, and after a seemingly interminable light-speed delay, he was ordered to proceed directly to Elyse.

  His first thought was joy; but right on the heels of that emotion followed the dismal realization that conditions in Nasser were worse than the recently ascertained ‘bad’.

  The Mempbis was technically far enough away from any gravity fields that he could have immediately jumped; unfortunately, the ship was old and poorly maintained, so he took the precaution of ordering a course change to take them even further from Nasser. There was no deadline for reaching the distant system, and what he had observed of the ship’s maintenance seemed to indicate that the crew had operated on the belief that it might replace hardware when it broke; or, it might not.

  Twelve hours later the Mempbis jumped out of the system, spent an hour to recharge it’s capacitor banks and double-check astrogation and then jumped into the vicinity of Elyse.

  Shin Ho was on the bridge when the universe shivered and his screens came to life, revealing his presence on the outskirts of the Elyse system. Within one hour the Mempbis was challenged, a big improvement from earlier eras when the norm was not to even be noticed.

  Shin Ho spoke to a distant 2ndGen destroyer, identified his ship and relayed his orders. After a very long wait, only partially explained by the several million kilometer separation, he was allowed to proceed inward, but once again his orders were changed: he was now ordered to head to a naval facility located on one of the moons of the largest of the system’s gas giants.

  It took three interminable days but the ship finally edged up next to a space dock, one designed for a carrier, and too small by a large percentage for the immense cargo ship.

  As soon as they’d secured the ship to the dock and switched over to station power, he shut down the single power plant and saluted a Marine lieutenant, who had come aboard with a full squad of armed Marines.

  He passed over his amended orders and stood patiently while the lieutenant carefully read through to the end.

  She looked up and smiled, “Forty-seven? Isn’t that a large crew?” Shin Ho shrugged, “For a bulk carrier yes, it is about double the normal; however, Nasser enjoys a large shadow economy and nearly every freighter and even shuttle in the system has been creatively modified to hide contraband.”

  She glanced at her pad and muttered, “One hundred and seven latest generation light missiles? Where did they come from?” Shin Ho replied, “Federal Navy Station Geiger, one of three naval bases orbiting Nasser.”

  She stared at him for a moment before saying, “Well, it could have been worse – I’m not certain how, but logic tells me so.”

  Shin Ho nodded and stood by as the former crew shuffled off the ship and into a very long passageway. They were going to have a long walk to get to the far distant navy brig.

  Six hours later a shuttle docked inside the ship and Shin Ho’s truncated crew began moving the missile pallets into position next to the craft, but not before Shin Ho not only carefully read the orders, but verified them via a comm call to the office of the base commander.

  A highly irritated Lieutenant Commander spoke to him, asking him why he was taking up his valuable time with a superfluous inquiry. Shin Ho answered, “Sir, these missiles were unlawfully removed from a secure navy base in the Nasser system. My orders are to ensure they are returned to navy control.”

  After a long silence, he barked, “Lieutenant…Lee is it? This isn’t Nasser, and the transfer orders you received were issued lawfully, something that apparently doesn’t occur naturally on Nasser. Now, unless you have something else to waste my time with, get on with it.”

  Shin Ho replied, “Yes sir. First, however, I require your authentication.”

  The Lt. Cdr. was clearly angry, but Shin Ho was acting within the legal limits of his orders and both men knew it. The irate officer punched in a series of codes, providing Shin Ho with verification. He respectfully thanked the officer, closed the connection and waved to his crew, who promptly began moving the heavy pallets into the shuttle.

  Fifteen minutes later the former crew and several million dollars worth of federal missiles were gone.

  Shin Ho and his crew were still not relieved of duty, and had to wait another six hours before a civilian crew arrived to take possession of the ancient ship.

  Once again, he carefully read the orders, verified them and only then did he and his tired crew transfer control of the ship to the highly-paid civilians.

  They had to walk to the far end of the station, which looked from space like five long branches, arranged in a hexagonal fashion. At present, a carrier was docked inside, and Shin Ho longingly thought about duty aboard a ship that wasn’t older than he was. He brightened, thinking about his Lubyan classmate Alexi, who had, several times, told him that the best possible assignment for them was an elderly 2ndGen destroyer. He’d told Shin Ho that those ships were in constant demand, were capable of independent assignments, and since they were so old and decrepit, they
offered their officers and technical people the opportunity to shine.

  Now, as Shin Ho and his crewmates trudged toward the distant shuttle dock, he wondered if his friend still felt that way – Shin Ho was growing thoroughly weary of his ancient ship.

  Chapter 24

  Ten days later, he and his truncated crew were back aboard the Fisk. After close to two weeks absence, the distinctive scents and odors it’s scrubbers imparted to the air were an unwelcome welcome home.

  Turns out, he was also out of uniform. A promotion to lieutenant had gone through while he was cooling his heels on a civilian combination passenger/freighter. The promotion carried with it a small increase in his monthly pay, a ten meter transfer down the passageway to a cabin that was designed for two lieutenants and up until his arrival had been vacant for perhaps thirty years; and, the ability to legally stand watch on his own, something he’d been doing for months.