Elian painted the ten missiles and gave one each to the Hawks, whose crews must have had their fingers on the trigger, because brilliant spears of coherent light began lighting up almost immediately. We were still too far out to have much chance of destroying those missiles, but there was no way they weren’t going to try.
I asked Carolyn to transfer our anti-missile defense to the gravity deflectors, and reassign the lasers to the cruiser, when we reached seventy thousand kilometers, which was coming up pretty rapidly. Both groups of missiles began fuzzing up our screens. I didn’t know how effective this technology would be, and this was the best way to learn.
A huge explosion lit up the region between the cruiser and us, marking the demise of the first inbound missile, hit at a distance of ninety five thousand kilometers. About the time our second group of missiles passed the incoming missiles, a second batch of ten missiles separated from the cruiser. It was beginning to get interesting.
Elian said, “Rob, we’ve got missile separation from those fighters behind us. I estimate two missiles each from the twelve fighters, for a total of twenty-four. Estimate their flight time at eight plus minutes.” I said to Elian, “Send twelve ER -15’s at the cruiser, and twelve each at the three groups of fighters. I’m getting tired of being the center of attention from people who have such a bad sense of humor.”
My mike was live to all the other crews, and I heard some laughter, which, under the circumstances this was a very good sign. The weapons bay opened and four missiles from each Hawk separated and sprinted off. Our missiles were much faster than theirs, but theirs had huge payloads. I didn’t want to be within one hundred kilometers of one when it went off. I’d done that already.
We now had nineteen missiles coming from the cruiser and twenty-four from the fighters. This was a very big increase in bug missile power, and one I didn’t like. I looked at the display, watching the distance between us and the cruiser diminish rapidly. It was firing the same number of lasers at the second group that it had fired at the first group, with about the same efficiency. One after another, ER 15’s began detonating. Their accuracy was a little better this time around, and they hit fifteen. Nine exploded against the side of the cruiser. Once again we watched in no little awe as the ship emerged from a dense cloud. This time, we could see evidence of atmosphere and its acceleration dropped to six G’s. We’d finally hurt it.
I looked at the display again, trying to estimate how much time we had before the mother ship would fly into the Mark 65’s. Perhaps ten minutes, if they weren’t discovered. We had been spotted pretty far out, and had turned around immediately, so they might not think we had launched. I didn’t plan on that however.
Suddenly, our gravity deflectors began burping little bumps of gravity wells directly in front of the incoming missiles. We saw three huge explosions almost immediately, leaving six in the first group. Our lasers were now targeting the cruiser itself, which was sixty five thousand kilometers away from us, and starting to slide off to our port side as we accelerated at maximum.
The tenth and last missile detonated at fifty thousand kilometers and Carolyn began working on the second flight, while keeping a wary eye on the ones coming up from behind. They had just matched our own acceleration and were now beginning to make up the lost ground, but we were over a hundred thousand kilometers in front of them, so it was going to take awhile.
The second group of inbound cruiser missiles began to disappear in brilliant flashes. This time around, I told Elian to have our missiles turn their fuzz works on and off every few seconds. A third flight of ten missiles separated, so we hadn’t done all that much damage. I decided to launch all the remaining missiles at the cruiser, reserving one on each Hawk for an emergency. I was getting heartily tired of that cruiser.
We had a total of forty-eight ER -15’s remaining and we sent thirty-six at the cruiser, which was still lazing like crazy. Its acceleration was down, and going down even further, so we had damaged its engines but not its ability to fight. This one ship was proving to be far tougher than any single ship in our inventory, possible tougher than our own immense mothballed battle ships.
Our third group of missiles fared better than the first two, and nine out of the twelve got through. For the third time explosions blossomed along the side of the cruiser. More atmosphere erupted, and its acceleration ceased. It continued to fire lasers, but now there were fewer. We had hurt it badly, but I wanted to kill it.
The first group of missiles that we sent towards the fighters managed about as well as had the ones we’d sent against the cruiser. Nine got through and blotted out all four of one flight, and two of the others. That success eased my tension slightly.
The group of thirty-six missiles arrowed in at the drifting cruiser, whose lasers were still firing. Elian instructed the missiles to turn on and off their countermeasures. The cruiser hit only six missiles, and was hit in turn by thirty. Explosions lit up and continued to light up as the missiles struck it. Before the last ones reached it, the cruiser erupted in an enormous explosion that dwarfed anything we had ever seen.
We now had what we hoped was a clear run away from the bugs. We were looking very hard, but saw nothing between us and escape.
Finally, the Mark 65’s drives came up. We had done pretty well this time. They had barely eighty thousand kilometers to cross, and there were twenty-four of them.
We watched our screens, which where hashed up for a moment as the countermeasures came up. We had programmed them to intermittently turn their countermeasures on and off. A spectacular display of lasers came up, but this time the missiles were very close, and the bug ship had just two minutes to hit them.
In the depths of space, a series of explosions erupted, each one closer to the mammoth ship. Seven missiles were intercepted and destroyed. Moments later seventeen massive explosions went off almost simultaneously, all of them in one relatively small area of the immense ship. I didn’t expect it to die, this time, but that was an enormous blow to the ship. We saw evidence of atmosphere and secondary explosions which for a time completely blotted out our view of the ship.
It reappeared out of the smoke and debris, moving just as ponderously as before, but even as we watched, its acceleration slowed to nothing. I ached to hit it again, but save for the sole remaining ER 15 left in each Hawk, we were empty.
The enemy missiles fired by the fighters continued to close the gap but their drives died well before we were in any danger. Another piece of information was added to the growing pile.
We remained at max accel for another five minutes and then I ordered Carolyn to cut our drive to three G’s and change directions. I wanted to be unpredictable for this so far very logical enemy and we flew right toward the main mass of bugs for an hour before changing our heading again, heading back toward our carrier.
It took us the better part of two days to reach ‘home’. All the while I examined the data we had gathered, pondered their tactics, revisited our own methods and worried constantly about mistakes I might have made that would lead our enemy’s horde of fighters into range of our fragile carrier, our beautiful planets.
When I piloted a fighter, I had myself and Elian to worry about; when I first flew the Hawk, there were two more souls added to my responsibility, and then forty-four additional people. On top of that, I worried about the carrier, and about Lubya, which did not have enough fighters and destroyers to even pretend to defend itself. I felt as if the weight of the world were on my shoulders.
I got little sleep on that return trip, despite the fact that there was no immediate threat. I became quieter and a lot more distant than Elian was accustomed to. I could have ordered up much more acceleration and cut our travel time but I was terrified of making a mistake, and made constant changes in our heading, even reversing our course once, in an effort to spot anyone tailing us. By the time we were hailed by the Essex, our Hawk had become a very quiet craft.
Once we boarded the carrier and were hooked up to ship�
��s power, the hatches lowered and the crews practically ran down the ramps to get out. We were greeted by a huge contingent of technicians and crewmen who swarmed our craft even while we were exiting. Our commander met us and received into his hand a copy of my pad recordings, plus a very brief verbal report. We were allowed to get cleaned up and eat a good meal before meeting up with our brass.
I showered; put on clean khaki’s and walked to the officer’s mess. For some reason, I wanted to be alone. Perhaps being crowded into a small compartment with three other people for nearly a week had something to do with it, but it wasn’t the only reason. I was struggling with the enormous burden of leadership, and worse, responsibility.
I sat alone at a table and picked at my food, but my mind was on those huge ships. I felt as if we were flies, buzzing around trying to sting a bull. I ached for a destroyer sized ship, a huge Hawk, crammed with missiles, with weapons so powerful they could tear one of those cruisers apart with one shot, and their mother ships with just a handful.
I had slept intermittently on the return trip, but it had been ruined by dreams of my home world becoming a cratered wasteland, of all my family members, friends and crew mates getting turned into an expanding cloud of gas. I left my meal mostly uneaten and walked out with a cup of coffee in my hand. At least coffee tasted good, after being so long without it.
A half hour before we were to meet with the Essex’ staff to report on our mission, I received a short text message on my pad from the chief. He requested a few minutes of my time and suggested we meet in our Hawk. I walked up four levels to the flight deck. I didn’t see him outside the Hawk, which was connected to numerous umbilical cables and hoses, with carts of electronics scattered around it. Ours was the only Hawk without technicians working frenziedly on it, and the ramp was down. A little clue.
I walked up inside and found the chief in his couch, which he had reclined to a comfortable angle. He started to stand but I tiredly waved him back and he grinned in wry acknowledgment. I sat down in mine and looked around in interest. The flight deck, which was what we laughingly called the tiny cabin, was empty of anyone else, but there was ample evidence that technicians had been present just a few minutes earlier.
The chief looked at me with hooded eyes for a few moments, causing me to wonder what was wrong with my uniform. He sat up and asked, “Sir, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the success of our mission?” I hadn’t thought of the results of our mission in that way, so it took me a moment before I answered. “I suppose it was a three. We were tasked with attacking the bug flotilla before it could reach the support of the others, and we managed to do that, but we failed to destroy it, we were unable to even penetrate very close to it, and we had a terrible time fighting our way clear.”
The chief nodded his head and said, “So, you believe that we failed. That, in fact, you failed, is that correct?” I flushed with anger for a moment, but got my temper under control and forced myself to think about his question. I'd grown up learning to control my own emotions in such an emotionally distorted family. “Yes, the mission failed to achieve the main objective, so, I failed.”
The chief merely stared at me with the best poker face I had ever encountered, and asked, “So, in sum, in your opinion the fleet transferred to your responsibility twelve ancient assault craft, ordered you to use these tiny craft in ways they were never designed for, tasked you with taking on an immense enemy fleet with over one hundred fighters, any one of which could kill your tiny Hawk, a dozen or so destroyer sized ships that could eat all twelve Hawks in a fair fight, two cruisers that make those destroyers look like a child’s toy, and of course, lest we not forget, the twenty eight mega ton mother ship. Despite these impossible odds, you put together an attack plan which was both audacious and careful; you succeeded in penetrating close enough to the mother ship to launch twenty four of the biggest missile our fleet carries in its inventory. Then, you succeeded in evading the attack of three separate flights of fighters, one destroyer and one cruiser. You destroyed the destroyer in less than three minutes, killed most of the fighters before they could even get into laser range, and destroyed that cruiser, which has got to be the toughest target I or any other member of this fleet has ever seen. Oh, and you managed to achieve all that while preventing this enemy from even putting a scratch on the paint of your elderly assault craft. You also managed to hit that mother ship with seventeen Mark 65’s, causing it to become hors de combat. Is that an honest assessment of what you, along with forty-seven other volunteers achieved, sir?”
I stared at the chief while a torrent of white-hot anger, confusion, and resentment overwhelmed me. I almost gave in, almost let my emotions run away with me, but I grew up in a home overrun with emotionally overwrought people whose tirades I had always hated, so once again I took my emotions under a semblance of control. I carefully looked at his statement, trying to find something wrong with it. After ten seconds, I realized that his analysis was substantially correct. With that realization, I took a deep breath, let it out and sat back to really think about the mission. All the while, the chief looked calmly at me with the tiniest trace of a smile lurking around the edges of his lips.
Suddenly, I jumped up and screamed, “Son of a Bitch! We kicked ass!” The chief smiled at me and said, “Yes, sir, we did indeed kick some alien bug ass, or whatever passes for an ass on those bastards.”
I looked at him once again, but this time with a growing sense of shame, “Chief, have I been as stupendous an ass as I’m starting to think I’ve been?” He laughed and stood up. He clapped a hand on my back, almost making me fall over and said, “Sir, may I call you sir? You have indeed been an ass. However, may I say sir, that in thirty years of service I haven’t had as much fun with all these wonderful toys the federal navy gives us as I have in the last two months, serving with you. If you ever need a kick in the butt to bring you back down to earth, I promise you sir, that my boot and I will be there. Meanwhile, let’s get cracking. We’ve got a whole shit pot full of navy brass waiting for us.”
I laughed at his colorful description of the large array of navy officers who were indeed going to be kept waiting unless we hurried. I could feel the enormous weight of responsibility fall off my shoulders and the relief almost made me cry.
We jumped down into the narrow passageway between the four fusion bottles and hurried down the ramp. At the foot however, the chief stopped, carefully unwrapped two cigars and lit one while I waited impatiently. He handed the other to me and calmly lit it for me. Only when it was properly glowing did he turn and resume our progress.
We walked sedately, puffing away on our cigars, which were a serious breach of possibly thousands of navy regulations and could get us thrown into the gallows. I suddenly didn’t care. I had kicked some alien butt. I had never smoked anything in my life, and hated the cigar, but at least I was alive to hate it.
The chief and I walked into a large pilots briefing room just in time to hear a junior officer call out “Ten Hut!” We had discarded all evidence of the cigars moments earlier. Everyone seated jumped to his or her feet and we all saluted as the admiral and a number of aides entered, walking rapidly.
We were told to sit back down and as soon as he was seated, the admiral said, “OK, we’ve got a lot to cover so let’s get with it.” He pointed to one of his aides who stood and began reading from a hard copy held in his hand. He gave a short precis of our mission, noting a couple of things I hadn’t mentioned, causing me to realize that I wasn’t the only officer in the room who had made a report. I suddenly wondered what that other report or reports said.
When he finished, the admiral looked up and asked, “Does anyone have anything else they would like to add?” Commander Harrelson stood and was recognized. He said, “Sir, individually, the Hawk is a pretty tough bird, but it is a gnat compared to the bug ships. Lieutenant Padilla and his crew developed a new tactic, pretty much on the fly, that allowed us to operate as one single unit. Because of this, the comb
ined Hawk, uh, cluster I suppose we could call it, was able to simultaneously take on three flights of fighters and one cruiser. We destroyed six of the twelve fighters, although it was actually better even than that, because we only targeted eight of them. We also killed the cruiser; that one ship took more damage than any single federal battle ship could have sustained, and it continued to fight, right up until the last volley of missiles exploded it. I recommend sir, that we carefully analyze this new battle tactic with an eye to seeing how it could be utilized by regular fleet units in the coming engagements.”
The admiral nodded his head and looked around the room. There were no additional comments. He turned to one of his aides and nodded. Commander Khrushchev stood and said, “We estimate a minimum of five bug families have encroached into our territory. We have dozens of scouts looking for any additional flotillas, so that estimate may change. I used the term ‘family’ due to information just recently received which indicates that what we have is a migration into new territory for this species. We do not understand the reason or logic behind what represents an enormous undertaking. Speculation revolves around two theories. One, that it exhausted its home world resources and is spreading outward rather than adopting a culture which allows it to live in harmony with its world; or two, that it is in fact fleeing from an aggressor species that has attacked it. The size and makeup of their fleets, especially the mother ships, and the fact that they do not possess faster than light technology indicates an exodus rather than an exploration. Either theory represents potentially grave consequences for humanity. We have received no communication from these beings, nor is there any indication that they have made any attempt to understand or communicate with us. This single fact is perhaps the most ominous. It saw us and it attacked. We cannot operate on any basis other than that this incursion represents a threat to our very existence. Accordingly, fleet has been authorized to bring mothballed units back up to readiness. Additionally, there are a number of crash programs whose purpose is the design and construction of a new series of fighter and a destroyer-sized ship which will be capable of defending our own systems against incursion.”
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 18