Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk)

by Little, Robert

  Another hand was raised. A lieutenant stood up and asked, “Sir what are the conditions under which we may or may not attack a mother ship?” The commander turned to me and after a very brief blank look on my part, followed by a silent ‘oh shit’ I stood up. I said, “Our first priority is to get as much information as possible on the number and location of the bugs that have infested our local region of space. Secondly, we need to determine, if possible, why they are here. Third, we have permission to attack a mother ship if we believe the attack can be carried out successfully with a minimum loss of Hawks. In my opinion, and barring the introduction by the enemy of new hardware or tactics, we should be able to either destroy or render unusable a mother ship with no loss of life – to us. We severely damaged one with four Hawks, and we will have twelve this time around. Initially, we will operate in six pairs of two, scouting for their present locations or, God forbid, location. We will rendezvous back at our carrier after four days. At that time, we will decide how to proceed. I will tell you now: I want the symbol for a bug mother ship on my Hawk.”

  There was a general roar of approval from my audience. I’d asked a question of my boss, and with his reply fresh in my mind I added, “Due to the makeup of our squadron, and the limited amount of firepower each one possesses, that symbol will go up on all twelve Hawks.” More cheers.

  The questions continued for another half hour. Most of them related to particular features or abilities of the missiles. It was clear that our crews were interested in doing more than just skulking around – they wanted some pay back.

  Four days later we took all twelve Hawks out for some gunnery practice with our lasers. As was so typical, our mission had been postponed, for undisclosed but really very obvious reasons – we were about two years short of being ready.

  Elian and the chief put together a trophy that would go to the best crew. It was a scale model of a bug ship, with a large machine screw sticking out of it. I told my crew, with a grin, albeit a very serious grin, that I expected that trophy to have our name on it. Elian said, “Well, boys and girls, I suggest that you pray real hard – Cdr. Harrelson and crew are not going to give it to us, and the other crews are no slouches either.”

  We flew out to the asteroid belt in a group, the first time we had done so. I intended to test the jump drives on our craft, knowing we would be a little ragged. These craft were far smaller than any the navy had ever placed jump drives on, and we were told that the smaller the craft, the less accurate the jumps were going to be, at least until we were able to zero the systems in.

  Our destination was the navy firing range, where we were going to shoot up some rocks. The navy had gone out the day before and placed a large number of beacons among the floating detritus left over from the formation of the solar system.

  We set up a high speed firing run and one by one the Hawks raced past the somewhat stationary rocks. The navy had an observer, a destroyer in this case, and it turned on a beacon as the Hawk raced past. The destroyer recorded its success or failure, as well as the elapsed time.

  Hawks had several guidance systems with which to aim their lasers. Each Hawk made a total of three runs, and had to utilize both the primary and secondary targeting systems, although the crew had the choice of when and where.

  We stood off a hundred kilometers and watched as the Hawks flashed past under heavy acceleration. The Lubya yards had been able to squeeze a little more acceleration out of our ships, which could now do almost seventeen G’s, making them the fastest ships in our fleet, with the exception of the non-combatant couriers. We were warned, however, not to run that hard for longer than thirty minutes at a time, unless of course it was an emergency. As it was, the Hawk was passing through its control systems over four hundred percent of the energy they were originally designed for. Once again, this was an incredibly tough bird.

  Our gunnery was about what I had expected after three weeks of constant work on the simulators, but no time at all with the real thing. It was passable, but not, well, passable enough. After the tenth run I moved our Hawk out to the starting point and when our turn came I fire walled the throttles. We listened as the capacitors sang up out of our hearing. Carolyn was the primary gunner this time, with Elian in control of the backup system. I preferred for everyone to know the basic function of the three other stations and had communicated that to the other ships, although I hadn’t made it a requirement.

  I was pleased with the way our craft accelerated. We had gained nearly a half G after the Lubya shipyards got their hands on it. As we neared the point where we could expect to see a beacon light up Carolyn and Elian both tensed. Our system located a beacon and Carolyn shot. While her capacitor loaded back up Elian shot at the second beacon. Carolyn got off her second shot which must have nailed the third beacon because it disappeared. Elian got a direct hit on his second shot, obliterating the fourth target.

  There was time for one more beacon and they both shot at virtually the same time, vaporizing the rock. We knew we had hit the last three shots, but didn’t know about the first two. There were five targets on each run. As we accelerated down range we had progressively less time to acquire and destroy each new target.

  It took a half hour to return to the starting point. Our Hawk had hit all five rocks, as did ten others. One craft suffered a failure of the primary targeting system and the other laser was unable to acquire the target in time. The failure was traced to a faulty module that was replaced within ten minutes. Before I could speak, Chief Kwan said, grimly, “That took too long. If this had been an enemy that could shoot back, that Hawk would have in all probability become a drifting hulk.” I looked at the chief and he nodded his head, “Yes sir, I’ll speak to them.”

  The next two runs were made with the craft starting their runs further away from the targets, giving the Hawk less time to find and destroy the beacons as they flashed past. In the real world, we had had a great deal of time to find and target the enemy ships, but this was a very good way to stress both the ship and the crew.

  The second run found all twelve ships hitting all five targets, but the third and last run gave us so little time for acquisition that only three craft made the run successfully. We were one of the three. Cdr. Jawarski radioed to me, “Let’s move off about thirty thousand kilometers and shoot again.” I asked the destroyer if we had any beacons left and was told that there were sufficient numbers left over. I gave approval, feeling a little ridiculous. I was one of the more junior officers in our group, yet I was commanding this flight.

  We micro jumped as a group, the first time we had tried such a short jump, and it was a mess. Although we were inside the orbit of a gas giant, we were on the far side of the solar system from it and thus able to jump.

  I made a note to see if we could find a way to improve that. Carolyn seemed to be able to read my mind, or else she merely looked at the scrambled mess we made of the movement. Either way, she jumped right on to the problem.

  At my suggestion, all twelve Hawks made the run as a group, using only one laser each. After we had accelerated for five minutes the destroyer began turning beacons on and off at random. Carolyn found a way to run both control systems simultaneously. The first system to acquire the target got control of the laser. Carolyn’s software controlled the propulsion and navigation systems of all twelve craft, allowing me to put my feet up on the console and watch the fireworks. Every second or so a laser would send a spear of coherent light across the void. It was exciting – all twelve Hawks were running with just thirty kilometers separation, and the beams of light were clearly visible. It occurred to me that as a group we possessed the firepower of a heavy cruiser or possibly even a battle cruiser, which currently was the largest armed ship in the federal navy.

  We finished our run and the Hawks curved back around, decelerating to stop near the destroyer. After a short wait, the destroyer announced that two crews had once again aced the run, ours and Cdr. Jaworski’s. We had much more time with the Hawk, but he had Cd
r. Harrelson, so it was declared a tie. At least we hadn’t lost.

  I had asked Carolyn to look at the problem of the terrible jump accuracy we had, um, achieved. As usual, she dived into her little bag of tricks and modified some software she already was using. She ran her software, adding some bits and pieces from, I don’t know where, perhaps a recipe or something. It took her all of fifteen minutes to come up with a solution, which I decided to try immediately.

  Carolyn took control of all twelve Hawks and accelerated them outwards, away from the inner planets and their attendant gravity wells. It took us a half hour to clear the asteroid belt before she jumped all twelve craft as a group. We popped out into space ten million kilometers further out, and I was pleased to note that we had lost very little cohesion. I asked her to explain to me what she had done and she smiled prettily, as if I had told her she looked cute in a dark blue fireproof uniform, which of course she did.

  She said that the control systems that had been added to the Hawks were not designed for a craft that small and had been modified a little too quickly. She said that her software analyzed each individual controller and adjusted it to match the others. I nodded my head in approval and told the other Hawks that we were going to jump back in to the destroyer.

  She made some additional changes to her software, checked it carefully and then on her command, all twelve Hawks jumped, reappearing within one thousand kilometers of the destroyer in a very neat and orderly group. This was an extremely precise jump. I instructed her to pass the software off to the other craft and instructed each Hawk in turn to take over the group as we headed back in-system. Every pilot/navigator team had the opportunity to use her software to control, maneuver and navigate the entire group.

  Carolyn had monitored not only our craft but all the others as well and she had a prepared list of problems and less than optimal systems for each Hawk, including recommended fixes, some of which she was able to do from her own console. She was a freak of nature, a cute and feminine genius with good legs and a brilliant but rare smile. I asked her to pass her list to each crew, and instructed them to fix as many of the problems as possible before we finished docking.

  Most of these problems consisted of minor adjustments to sensors and controllers. In nearly all cases, the fix was easy, but I asked her to monitor the fixes after they were made. Paranoia wasn’t paranoid enough for me.

  By the time all twelve craft were docked on the Essex, ninety percent of the items on her list had been repaired. The remaining ten percent would have to be handled by an actual maintenance person. Once again, the Hawk impressed.

  I convened another general meeting thirty minutes after we docked, giving the crews only enough time to freshen up. This meeting was a much more ebullient affair. The other crews now had a better appreciation for the lethality of the Hawk. I hoped that they wouldn’t have to discover exactly how tough it was.

  I analyzed our runs past the beacons, and talked about the one equipment failure with a little heat. I told the crews that they had to learn their craft intimately, because they would be all alone in indian country, outnumbered and out gunned. They were in a craft that had been built before their fathers had been born, and if they wanted to return home alive, they had to learn every system, know where every logic and power cube was located, and how to debug and/or replace it.

  Most of the pilots and navigators had fought the bugs in their Dash 6’s and listened to me attentively. The fact that I had killed three bug fighters before losing my own fighter lent me some credence, as did our later exploits with the Hawk, where we had run up an impressive number of kills.

  Quite a few of the officers in my command were senior to me, but all of them were listening attentively. For my part, I was happy to have with me pilots who had survived the bug engagements in such a deficient craft.

  I arranged for some more simulator time, with the aim of helping the other crews learn how their craft worked. The chief positively smiled when I asked him to help Carolyn program a few new exercises. She later told me that he was fiendish, and had even gone to the trouble of developing two for Elian and I. We didn’t know everything about the Hawk, and he was there to help us.

  The next week passed quickly. We didn’t get another opportunity to go on liberty, but it was just as well – I didn’t think I could take another night of being in the company of Carolyn in her off duty mode. I’d been living like a monk for far too long, according to our local expert – Elian. I was able to work with her without any problems, and that was just the way I wanted it. On a carrier, working with her or any other woman was an easy proposition, but on a Hawk, you were never able to get off by yourself.

  Thinking about this one afternoon, I realized that while on a mission, I never thought of her as a woman, she was simply Carolyn, a superb teammate.

  Finally, we received our orders and the Essex and a single escort began to move out from orbit. Apparently, we had lost a destroyer to planetary defense. I knew of no precedent for a carrier to go into a battle zone with one single escort, although the Hawk was probably the reason – it was going to assume some of the escort’s duties.

  We accelerated steadily until we were relatively free of the system’s gravity well.

  We planned to jump a total of five times, more than was absolutely necessary. We didn’t know for a certainty how many bug groups were invading our general region of space, and we needed to know where they were without giving away our own systems’ locations. Therefore, we would jump and then linger around for a couple of hours before jumping again.

  We finally entered the region of space our fleet had once occupied so heedlessly just a couple of months ago. The Hawks translated in to normal space approximately two billion kilometers distant from our previous location, not wanting to advertise our return.

  We dispersed outward at low acceleration, our sensors seeking for a gravitic signature of another craft. After six hours without the slightest sign of anything, Hawk03 jumped back to the carrier. The Essex and her escort jumped in minutes later.

  I had assigned a very large search area to each of six pairs of Hawks, leaving the carrier and destroyer sitting quietly, radiating nothing. Its Dash 6’s flew huge loops around the carrier, looking for any sign of the enemy. The six pairs of Hawks left for their longer-ranged searches.

  My Hawk, along with Hawk06 maintained a steady four G’s accel for twenty-four hours before we began a gradual turn. We kept within one hundred kilometers of each other, close enough to maintain a tight beam comm laser as well as being able to be within mutual support. At this acceleration our signatures were very, very low.

  My search pattern found nothing and at the end of three days we were back aboard the carrier. Ominously, three Hawks returned with sightings.

  I called a meeting as soon as all the returning crews had a chance to clean up. Hawk 02 had found the bug mother ship that we had savaged. It was motionless, with dozens of large craft clustered around it. Apparently they were repairing its damage, something that the enormous size of the mother ship made possible. Considering what we already knew, these craft had sailed a very long ways for a very long time at sub light speeds. There would be no space docks waiting for them if they had a problem, which they now did.

  Within the same region of space, we found two additional mother ships, each one with several dozen destroyer sized ships and the usual complement of fighters.

  Combined, these mother ships had at least three hundred fighters and approximately fifty destroyers. One of the other two flotillas had four very large ships, roughly the size of our own battle cruisers. These four were the first craft this size we had seen, and they represented a very bad surprise.

  This discovery was bad enough, but Hawk 07 was watching a new flotilla as it approached the first group we had fought and damaged. The new flotilla was both the same approximate size and makeup as the one that had given us so much grief, and if they maintained their course they would rendezvous with the other three. We w
ere facing over five hundred fighters, seventy-five destroyers and seven battle cruisers, plus four mother ships. These ships represented more firepower than the entire earth Fleet possessed, by perhaps a factor of twenty.

  We plotted their positions and I saw that we had a tiny window of opportunity to attack the fourth group before it reached the other three. I decided immediately that I wanted to take that opportunity while it presented itself. I badly wanted to kill a mother ship.

  Once all four flotillas came together, we would find ourselves faced with approximately one hundred to two hundred fighters on station at any given time. If I were in charge over there, I would have groups of fighters well out from the main screens. We would have to penetrate to within less than a million kilometers to shoot off our Mark 65’s with any hope of success, and as soon as we did, the bugs would have, if they were smart, the ability to smother us as we tried to leave the area. They had enough fighters to absorb all our on-board missiles and lasers, and still be able to kill us. I ordered everyone to get some rest, but asked the pilots of the Hawks to stay behind.

  We sat around a large conference table with a holo projection of the typical bug formation in the air above our heads. I opened the discussion up and within thirty minutes we reached a consensus that one potentially good solution was to ingress twelve Hawks in a fairly tight group, launch all twenty four 65’s directly in the mother ship’s path allowing them to sneak in as closely as possible. After the launch, we would attempt to egress the area.