Commander Midori smiled and said, “I know him from when we both served on the St. Loo, about five promotions ago. If he’s signed off on this idea, as crazy as it sounds, then let’s try it – Lord knows we’ve got nothing else in the works. But, you say there are four? We’ve estimated they have over a hundred fighters.” Elian said, “Yes sir, but those fighters have to park somewhere, and we think we could sneak into missile range and seriously annoy that particular piece of real estate.”
Commander Midori almost smiled, and nodded his head to us in dismissal. We saluted smartly to his back and turned around to leave. The commander was already walking quickly away, his mind on the next catastrophe.
Our fleet was in serious straits. We were having trouble keeping away from the enemy and hadn’t been able to get far enough out of range to jump out unless we wanted to leave all our fighters behind. Every fighter crew knew, however, that that was one of the contingencies on the table.
We returned to the flight’s maintenance chief and told him we’d gotten verbal approval. Chief Kana looked carefully at us and said, “You know, if we get into this thing and I later find out you didn’t have that ‘verbal authorization’, then my head will be on the block for this, as well as your own, sirs.” I grinned at the grizzled master chief and said, “We have it, although it wouldn’t be our head, but another portion of our anatomy. How soon can you get a crew lined up on this?”
We discussed the details of getting the ancient craft out of the hold and relocated to our own flight deck, which now had far more flight bays than fighters.
The master chief seemed to have picked up our enthusiasm for the project because within thirty minutes he had a crew in the hanger, moving cargo around in order to get the Hawks out. He’d taken the liberty of assigning two entire maintenance crews to the project – they had precious little to do since so many of their fighters hadn’t returned. The second crew was busily engaged in moving all the specified equipment up to the flight deck.
Within three hours the Hawk was sitting in a nearly empty flight bay. It was far larger than our own tiny fighters. Its lines were flowing rather than angular – it was designed for atmospheric insertion and used a modified lifting body shape. It was completely black and had two small bubble turrets, one set on top of the upper body, the other on the belly. They had slender laser barrels that lay protected under hatches when not in use.
Already, we could see technicians swarming over it. The main rear hatch was open and as we watched, a disassembled ‘corset’, was dumped out onto the flight deck, where it joined three others.
Looking at the ship, I realized that it was designed from the outset to be able to survive direct laser hits while completing its mission. Our fighters were designed to avoid lasers, and usually could not survive even one shot. The difference was akin to that of a boxer and a slugger. The Hawk was definitely the latter, although it might have some moves as well. The Dash 6 was, comparing the two, like a bantamweight fighter up against a heavy weight, a potentially fast heavy weight.
The master chief was standing at the nose of the ship, pointing at an open electronics hatch and talking to one of his techs. The tech nodded and began pulling rectangular electronic modules out of the bay, consulting her pad as she worked. It was almost a given that this would be her first experience with this particular craft, thus the need to consult her pad.
The chief walked up us and saluted smartly, surprising us a little, “Sirs, we’re disassembling the infantryman harnesses and emptying the crew bay, and we’re ready to begin the systems’ upgrades. We should have the first task finished in another thirty minutes, the second, sometime during the next shift.”
He pointed to a large pile of equipment, most of which consisted of four squat fusion bottles, and their attendant capacitors, similar to the ones that fighters used to power their gravity drives and weapons system. “We’ve got room for four bottles instead of the three you specified, so I’ve taken the liberty of modifying your proposal. I figure too much power is just about the right amount. You’ll get enough additional juice to be able to make jumps, and you’ll have about seven hundred percent more G shield power, with the ability to generate multiple simultaneous shields. If this thing works, you’ll have a very interesting ship. I’d like to ask, sir, do you have anyone in mind for the extra two crewmen you’ll need?”
I grinned in understanding and asked, “Are you volunteering, Master Chief?” Chief Kana said, “Sir, if we get this thing operational, you’ll need someone who can watch your six, and wipe that trace of dampness I see behind your ears, if you’ll pardon my saying so.” I grinned again and said, “And that would be you, I take it. You’re on. Do you have anyone in mind for the fourth crewman?”
The chief nodded his head, with a trace of a grin and said, “Yes sir. That Etech4 working in the nose bay is just about crazy enough to volunteer for this. In fact, I’ve taken the liberty of telling her so.”
We both grinned and Elian asked, “What’s her experience?” The chief grunted and said, “She’s been working for me for over six months, and can work blindfolded on fighter flight systems, target acquisition systems and G shields. She’s a lot better than her 4 rating, in fact she’s something of a freak of nature, but she hasn’t been in her present rank long enough to promote her again, especially with the ongoing downgrades fleet is experiencing. Oh, she also makes a mean cup of coffee. I think you’ll like her, sirs.”
Elian looked over at her. She was on a ladder and bent over, her head inside the bay. From behind, she had a very shapely behind, and Elian grinned happily. “Good coffee eh? This fine, outstanding example of a fighter pilot here takes his with sugar, so he wouldn’t know a good cup of coffee if it was thrown in his face. Which in fact, has happened once or twice on liberty. Well, it wasn’t coffee, it was a fist, but either way he can’t duck worth a Damn.”
Chief Kana smiled widely at me, the first time he’d done so, and said, somewhat carefully, “Well, a pilot who can duck those enemy fighters ought to be able to duck a fist if he was of a mind to.” He’d ended his statement almost as a question. I said, “If I spent all my time ducking fists, I’d never have any fun.” The chief grinned happily and said, “I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”
I looked at the ship and asked, “I’d like to get my hands dirty. Do you have anyone up in the cockpit?” The chief looked skeptically at me and asked, “Do you know your way around the innards of an electronics bay?” I said, “Yeah, I’ve been working on nav and power systems since I was a kid – my family owns a maintenance service that works on shuttles.”
Chief Kana looked up in surprise and asked, “What shuttles did you work on?” I rattled off a list of all the ships I was familiar with, which included nearly every type of civilian cargo shuttle currently in service, plus a small number of ships that were designed to carry personnel. The chief looked almost impressed, and pointed at the ladder. “The hurrier we go, the faster we can kill us some rat bastard enemy. Your tech has the list of changes to make to the nav system.”
He’d stopped saying ‘sir’ somewhere during the conversation, which seemed to be a compliment, as well as something of a relief. Whenever possible I operated right at the edge of military formality, and if I could get away with it, over the edge into definite informality.
I walked over to the Hawk. The technician pulled her head out of the bay when she heard me approaching and started to ask for something, then stopped when she saw me. She shook her head and said, “I’m sorry sir, I thought you were a technician. Would you please hand me that scanner, there by your foot?” Well, at least she didn’t say ‘under your foot’.
I bent down, picked up the device and handed it up to her, “I understand you have a list of the modules that need to be changed in the nav system. Would you please give it to me?” She looked at me and asked, with just a trace of hesitancy, “Sir, you’re going to work on it?”
Her tone of voice nearly made me laugh. I smiled and
said “Yeah, I know, we pilots just take your perfectly fine ships out and bring them back all bent. My name is Lt. JG Robert Padilla and I’m going to pilot this heap if we can get it to fly.”
She started to scramble out of the bay, but I waved her off. “No, don’t get up. Uh, I understand that you’ve been ‘volunteered’ for the crew.” She said, “Yes sir, I figure if the master chief wants to go, it ought to prove interesting.”
I nodded happily and held out my pad toward her. She moved her fingers over the face of her pad and transferred the data to mine. I waved to her and backed down the ladder. I walked over to the ramp and up into the hold. I had to turn sideways to get past a sweating technician who seemed to think that hurling invectives at the offending equipment would speed things up.
Inside the forward compartment, I sat down in the pilot’s seat and looked at the list. It seemed to include nearly every single module in the navigation system. Maybe it wasn’t so up to date after all.
I pulled out a well-worn pocket tool that I used to unlatch a hatch. I swung it open, locked it in place and began unfastening and removing the modules I’d found on her list. Once I had them out, I set them aside and went back outside to find the replacements.
The fleet used a very few basic electronic modules that could be programmed to perform myriads of functions. This approach was somewhat less efficient than designing equipment for a specific job, but it made it easy for fleet technicians to swap out modules and replace them as needed. The central node, which was itself a small collection of modules, would program each set of satellite modules to perform their specific function or functions. It had a hard memory that could not be deleted or corrupted short of physical destruction. The modules I had just pulled out were less capable than the ones that we would need, thus the swap.
Each module was held in place by a unique plastic material that would form a physical bond between the outer surface of the module and the rack it was plugged into. As long as a small electrical charge was applied to the material, the module was physically part of the ship.
I worked on the nav system for two hours before I was able to close and lock the hatch. I powered up the test circuits and began a self-diagnosis that included transferring the updated software into the new modules. From experience, I knew that I would probably have to do this several times before the system would show all green on the main board. We were utilizing what was essentially fighter-based software in an entirely different craft so I expected problems. It stopped within two minutes, about par for the course.
I consulted the screen and began making entries. I pinpointed the fault and typed in some commands using my pad, which had a number of proprietary family programming tools not supplied by Fleet. I checked my work and reset the system, then reran the self-diagnosis.
It took over an hour to get the system all the way through it’s self-programming and diagnosis. Due to the nature of the upgrade, it was virtually a new system install.
I stood up and stretched my cramped muscles, then walked out of the ship in search of the technician’s coffee. I poured a cup from a pot located on a nearby service console and watched with interest as the last of the harnesses were removed from the ship. By ‘removed’ is meant thrown with an unnecessary amount of force down the ramp, where it joined a growing pile of equipment that in many cases was over three times as old as the technician handling it. Apparently, it had taken much longer to remove than estimated, thus the forceful ejection down the ramp. The ship had been built like a bank vault, which was necessary due to the extremes of temperature, acceleration and enemy fire it had to operate in. The designers planned for the ship to survive despite getting hit by intense energy fire, and they had done their job very, very well.
I quickly finished my coffee – it was good – and consulted my list. I had already replaced all the modules in the other systems, but had to run the reprogramming and diagnostics one system at a time. I returned eagerly to the flight compartment and began working on the next system
I felt completely at home in this environment, having grown up working on electronics, which never, ever behaved illogically, unlike humans.
At first, this idea of transforming the ancient Hawk had been just that, an idea. But now, sitting inside the cockpit, I was beginning to feel some excitement at the possibility of getting back into the fight.
I finally called it a day after upgrading the separate defensive and offensive systems, either of which could do the other job, or even both, if necessary. The designers had displayed a fine sense of paranoia.
All the easy work was finished. The hard work involved installing and securing the fusion bottles, and then connecting the power leads from them to the ship’s systems, which were now ready to accept the additional power. Each bottle weighed nearly a ton, and there were going to be four of them. The crew space was large enough to accept them, but these craft were designed to take very large G forces, which under some circumstances would occur without the ships anti gravity system dampening them, and those fusion bottles had to be securely mounted or they’d come loose. If that happened, it would only happen once. Plans called for the bottles and their related cabling to be easily removed in case of need. War is hard on equipment.
I spotted Elian talking to the master chief and the technician, who I noticed had her cap off. She had long hair, and now that her cap was off, I could see that she was quite pretty. We were all a little grubby from the long hours, but Elian was smiling and animated. He seemed to be directing most of his attention at the tech, who was gracefully putting her jet black hair back up in a tight bun. I idly wondered how she would look under different circumstances, and immediately regretted it. I would have to work with her inside a very small crew compartment for many hours at a time – days at a time if the craft was used as a scout. I didn’t need the distraction, although she was in fact distractingly pretty.
Chapter 5
Like most humans in the 27th century, our female etech was a mixture of many races, but looked vaguely oriental. Her eyes had a small epicanthic fold and her skin was darker than mine, I was a highly unusual light skinned blond in a civilization where most people’s skin varied between dark and golden. Over the centuries blue eyes had become increasingly rare as the races mixed time and again. Mine were blue-green, or green-blue, depending on when you looked at them, and I was a racial throwback as well as a distinct minority.
In another break from tradition, I stood one hundred ninety five centimeters tall, which was significantly taller than average for fighter pilots, who tended to be both shorter and far more aggressive than the norm, two traits that helped them to survive combat in space but get knocked around in somewhat less deadly social situations; i.e., bars.
While I was long and lean, Elian was shorter and thicker. He had dark brown hair, brown eyes and golden skin. His dark eyes rarely missed anything, and his mind was razor sharp. Elian differed significantly from me in another category: he was a world-class flirt while I was shy, or simply ‘retarded’ according to Elian. Besides being extremely close, we each admired the other, although I usually failed to understand what he saw in me.
I stood apart from the three and worked some kinks out of my back. After stretching my muscles I walked over to them and nodded at Elian. I asked, “Have you eaten yet?” Elian shook his head and the technician, whose name was Kwan, according to her nametag, stopped talking and looked over at him. I said, “I’ve gotten the systems up, and I thought I’d take a break for some food. Are you hungry?” My look included both of them and they nodded their heads.
Kwan looked at the time display above the workbench and said, “It’s after hours for your wardroom, but we could get some chow from the enlisted canteen.” She looked at us and we nodded agreement. The chief shook his head and said, “I’ve got work to do here, could you bring me something? Oh, did you say you’ve got all three systems up?” I nodded my head and the chief said, “Great, I’ll check them out while you three get something
to eat.”
Rather than being offended at having my work double-checked, I heartily approved. Accidents in space were usually not accidents; they were the results of bad decisions made by the manufacturer, the maintenance personnel, the crew or a combination of two or more.
Kwan waved to the chief and they walked away.
Chapter 6
Chief Kana looked at Robert’s back, wondering how the JG could have possibly reprogrammed three separate systems in such a short time. In fact, if he’d gone by the book it wasn’t actually possible. Not going by the book could possibly lead to the premature death of his own self, which self he tended to regard with some fondness. He decided it was time to see what kind of pilot he’d acquired.
Meanwhile, Kwan, Elian and I walked to the canteen and went through the line. We sat down at a table and quickly ate our food. Kwan grabbed a couple of sandwiches and an apple for the chief, and as soon as we finished we returned to the flight deck.
We found the chief in the crew compartment. He looked up at us from the deck where he had been kneeling. He nodded his thanks when Kwan handed him the food and said, “I’ve run the systems through their paces and you’re right – all three check out. By the book it takes at least four hours to get one system back up after changing out a module, and you did three complete systems in less than six hours. I’d love to know what corners you cut, since I couldn’t have done it in the same time; however, we can chit chat later, after we run out of targets.”
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 3