Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk)

by Little, Robert

I couldn’t have done it better, although Elian probably could have, the wretch. The Lt. Cdr. perked up at our mention of killing bugs, but not so much. He stared at the lieutenant as if he had been speaking a foreign language. He asked, “Aren’t you the squadron of those old Hawks?” The lieutenant had just told him so, but simply said, “Yes sir. To date, to the best of my knowledge, we are the only humans to have attacked a bug flotilla. We were ordered here so that we might impart our experiences to others. Do you have any information on when or where those debriefings might take place?”

  Our lieutenant was dangerously close to being flip, but the dear commander chose instead to just be confused by us. Anything else would have exhausted him, I'm certain. He said, “No, I do not. As you might know, there is a war on and we are particularly busy. You men and women will just have to wait to be contacted by a competent authority.” It was all I could do to restrain myself from hitting the old fart. My lieutenant was made of better stuff than I, and merely said, “Yes, sir. Will that be all?”

  Lt. Cdr. Whatever waved his hand vaguely and departed. Elian said, in a surprisingly good imitation of the just departed officer, “Welcome brave heroes and heroines to Jupiter Base. There is a war on, and as you are the only people in the known universe to have personal knowledge of our opponents, and how to defeat same, we are going to hide you’all away until the war is over. Thank you, and have a nice day.”

  We laughed and then I looked over at the chief. I said, “Chief, why don’t you see if you can find out why we’re here?” He grinned and asked, innocently, “Sir, I assume that you wish me to obey any and all laws and regulations in conducting that search, is that correct?” I grinned and said, “Hell no, I want you to behave normally. Find out anything you can in any way that you can. Take Carolyn along, she gives you class. Oh, and remember where we’re parked, this is a big dump.” Everyone laughed and the two got up and walked purposefully out of the hall.

  We wandered around the passageways in the immediate area of the briefing room, not wanting to leave in case we actually were needed by someone. Thirty minutes later the chief and Carolyn returned. He said, “They didn’t know we were coming.” He paused to let that sink in before continuing. “I have taken the liberty of informing Signals that we are here, and given them a precis of just who we are, what we have done and why we are here. They are sending two lieutenants right over. Perhaps. Considering the lateness of the hour, perhaps is being highly optimistic.”

  There was some laughter, but we could already see that our stay here was going to be difficult. Fleet just may have gotten a little top heavy with brass over the last two decades. We would have to see. Meanwhile, despite the runaround, nobody was trying to kill us and we weren't cooped up in a tiny attack craft, so our mood was ebullient.

  Two hours later two breathless lieutenants showed up, looking a little lost. I had a momentary vision of spending the rest of my life here, just trying to find something to eat.

  They introduced themselves and asked us who the hell we were. I looked over at Carolyn, thinking that she would be the one least likely to hit someone. She stood and said, slowly and carefully. “We are the remnants of the Essex, you know, the carrier that was destroyed by the bugs? We formed an attack squadron, Squadron 513, composed of twelve heavily armed and modified Hawk attack craft. We have sortied against the bug flotillas, in the process killing thirty fighters, eight destroyers, one cruiser and one twenty eight mega ton bug mother ship. We were sent here, we were told, to be debriefed by fleet, so as to aid future efforts at killing the remaining bugs before they kill us. That is all we know at this time. If you do not know who we are, might you please put us in contact with someone who does?”

  The lieutenants looked horrified, as if we had just made an enormous breach of etiquette. One said, “Oh, that won’t be necessary.” I stood and said, “Sir, I am Lieutenant JG Padilla, acting leader of Attack Squadron 513. Please provide us with someone who will be able and willing to talk to us.”

  The two lieutenants were clueless but not stupid. They decided to become affronted at my temerity, and frankly I couldn’t blame them. “Lieutenant JG Padilla, you will await further instructions. That is all.” I said, “Sir, we have not had a proper meal in four days. We are going to get something to eat. After eating, we will return to our billets, clean up, put on fresh clothes, and then we will await the arrival of someone who knows just why we are here. You can contact us at our billets, whose location you should have a record of.”

  I stood, saluted as smartly as I could and started walking. Everyone else did the same, forestalling the lieutenant’s incipient angry rebuttal. We left the briefing room and retraced the many steps to our billets, having decided that what we really wanted first was a shower and a change of clothes.

  One hour later we met in the passageway outside our temporary billets and followed the redoubtable chief to a mess hall. It was for enlisted, but it was open and in any event most of our officers preferred to eat with their enlisted crews. There were some stares, but nobody said anything directly. By now, I was almost eager for a confrontation, but Elian glared nicely at me and told me, “Bobby, we are in hostile country, be quiet and watch where you put your foot.” He made a motion of putting my hand in my mouth. I got the point. Elian was good for me.

  We ate a leisurely meal and were in the process of draining our second or third coffee cup when an enlisted staff weenie rushed into the mess hall, looking around frantically. I waved casually to him and he walked over, asking before he even reached us, “Are you Attack Squadron, uh, 315?” I smiled kindly upon him and said, “No, I’m sorry we are not Attack Squadron 315. However, if, sometime in the future, you should discover that you have need to locate Attack Squadron 513, that self same squadron is at present right here in front of you.”

  The enlisted man must have just recently arrived at fleet base – I base that assumption on the fact that he had trouble walking in the light gravity, and was otherwise terribly and completely lost. He looked down at his pad, stared at it and then looked back up. “Sir, my mistake. I am looking for Attack Squadron 513.”

  I waited for the other shoe to drop, then sighed and said, “Guilty as charged.” Elian glared, nicely, but, nonetheless, he glared at me. I smiled innocently and said, “We are Attack Squadron 513. Do you have any orders for us? Any instructions? Anything at all?”

  He gulped, looked around the room, shying away from Chief Kana, and then looked back at me. “Yes sir, I do have some, uh, instructions for you.” I waited for a long moment, then said, with an angelic smile, “May I know precisely what those instructions are please?” Carolyn giggled quietly, making the poor man almost quiver.

  He looked down at his pad and said, “Sir, may I pass them over to you?” I nodded in my best imitation of a prince. He passed the information over to me and I thanked him.

  He fled. I looked at what he passed over to me. It seemed that we were in the right place, but a day early. I told the assembled group, “We are expected to arrive tomorrow afternoon, local, at which time we are supposed to be, quote, ‘rushed to Intelligence for an immediate debriefing’ unquote. My best guess is that as it is now past 1700 local, everyone of any importance in this rock has gone home, or wherever. You’re free to wander, but keep your coms on so that we can alert you should that be necessary.”

  I waved my hand and everyone grinned, some of them being me, Elian, and Carolyn. Apparently, the chief had already hooked up with someone, as he departed fairly quickly, with the briefest of waves. Thinking about him, it would have been surprising if he hadn't.

  Elian, Carolyn and I decided to take a tour of the sights. We found the base commissary, a huge, cavernous location full of civilian clothes, food, and pretty much anything anyone would want who had an income that permitted such a thing. We found the prices to be quite high, but we did like wandering around, looking at things, fingering clothes and associated articles. They seemed to be, if anything, more expensive than we'd found on L
ubya, surprisingly, although the selection was far better.

  We ended up in electronics, looking at some pads that were physically identical to those issued to us, but which had much greater power and capacity, one of which could project a video image up to two meters square. I looked at it very carefully, and it appeared to have all the right connections in all the right places. It also looked rugged, but considering the price, it ought to be indestructible.

  I bought one, thinking I would try it, maybe put some entertainment on it for those long periods between encounters with bugs and a certain Lieutenant Tretiakov. I had a great deal of accrued pay, so the purchase didn’t actually bankrupt me.

  Fleet provides pads to all its officers, but fleet buys from the lowest bidder, and I was accustomed to better equipment, having worked for a family enterprise that couldn’t afford to buy test gear more than the one time.

  Elian and Carolyn went into an ice cream shop inside the commissary and I sat down to play with my new toy. As I was transferring information from the old one into the new, my pad beeped, and kept on beeping. Apparently, so did everyone else’s, as Carolyn and Elian came running out with ice cream cones in hand. We looked at our messages, which said that we were to report to the nearest MP as rapidly as possible. My, what a change in receptivity. First, we were strangers in a strange land, now we were wanted by the law.

  We walked toward the commissary entrance where we discovered two MP’s on the way in. I waved to them and identified myself. They were highly irritated, possibly having been interrupted at something vastly more important, and weren’t interested in hearing anything from us. They ordered, “Come with us.” No ‘sirs’, no ‘please’ either.

  We walked a few paces to a powered people carrier. We were ordered to sit down on benches in the rear, and as soon as we were settled in, the vehicle sped off, with its merry little blue light flashing a warning to pedestrians, letting them know that the MP’s were coming. I was beginning to have fun, although my belief was plummeting that humanity might survive this latest crisis.

  We arrived rather breathlessly at a large open area, rapidly filling up with other similar vehicles, all containing one or more Hawk personnel. I counted and saw that we still lacked ten or so. Carolyn was already on it, and within less than a minute she had identified the missing and had communicated to them, telling them exactly where to go. Why didn’t they do that with us in the first place? It was a mystery, but of greater interest was the question of just how screwed up this place really was. So far, it looked bad. Really, really bad.

  Within fifteen minutes, all my errant personnel were present and accounted for. Now that we had been rushed to this facility, which turned out to be the MP headquarters, we were told nothing. I said to the head MP, “We have been cooped up in tiny Hawk attack craft for over four days. We have eaten, but it would be nice to have something to read, something to do while we wait. And speaking of waiting, what are we waiting for?”

  The MP gave me his best MP Look, did not reply and generally behaved as if I had spoken French, so I gave it up as a lost cause. I’d heard that they gave prospective MP’s a test, and if they failed it, they became MP’s.

  Finally, two hours later, a harried lieutenant showed up, looking around for someone in charge. He approached the chief and began asking him questions. The chief held up his hand, nicely as can be, and silently pointed at me. The lieutenant reoriented himself on me and walked over. He asked, mispronouncing my name, “Lieutenant Pidala? Can you tell me why you have not reported in as ordered? According to my report, right here, you have been on base for over five hours, and instead of reporting in as you were properly ordered to do, you have been traipsing around like tourists in New York. This reflects badly on your record as an officer.”

  I looked deliberately at his nametag, and said, quietly, “Lieutenant Koontz, we do not have any orders, other than to proceed at the best possible speed to fleet base, Jupiter. We have done so. When we arrived, we were instructed to wait in a briefing room. We waited for two hours before a Lieutenant Commander entered the briefing room and informed us that he did not know who we were, nor why we were here. He departed. We then took it upon ourselves to contact Signals, the department most likely to know why we were ordered to come here. Signals did not know, but an hour later, it sent over two uninformed lieutenants, who knew less than the commander. We did some checking on our own, and discovered that fleet expected us to arrive tomorrow at 1700. I gave my people orders to stay in touch for further orders and that brings us up to this present moment.”

  The lieutenant was a bit taken aback by my, um overly enthusiastic delivery, which can under some situations be confused with belligerence. He thought about my statement for a moment, before saying, “Nevertheless, Lieutenant JG Pidala, you did not communicate with this office upon arrival.”

  I stood for a moment, recovered my temper and said, “Sir, we did not have any orders to contact any person or organization. None. We will be delighted to show you the orders that we do have. Now, however, that you have gathered us, where do you want us?”

  The lieutenant was now angry with both my attitude and my overly authoritative assumption of control over the conversation. I seemed to have a knack for that. He said, “Lieutenant, I do not like your tone of voice one bit. You are very close to insubordination. You and your men, and women, are ordered to return to your billets, and to remain there until you are contacted. Do you understand your orders?”

  I said, “Yes sir, except for one or two details.” “Details?” he was now turning nicely red in the face. I said, “Yes sir. For instance, what about food? Do you know when we will be contacted? In fact, may I have a copy of those orders, so that I may better understand them?” He glared at me, and said, “My orders for you and your personnel are verbal. I shall write them out for you, as you seem unable to follow clear instructions. He poked at his pad, his anger causing him to make mistakes which further angered him. Finished finally, he passed his orders over to me.

  I said, almost but not quite sweetly, “Thank you sir. Now, if that is all, will you please ask these MP’s to convey us to our billets?”

  We laughed most of the way. The MP’s didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. Carolyn said, quietly enough not to be overheard by our escorts, “Convey? You used the word ‘convey’ to that senior officer? May I get a photo of you?” I looked blankly at her and asked, “Photo?” She said, “Yes, I want a photo of you in your uniform, as I am certain that tomorrow you will be in the brig.” Elian burst into laughter and I followed.

  On the way over I noticed that the orders clearly stated that we were to be escorted straight to Intelligence. It gave a location and a comm number. Before we arrived at our billets, I commed Intelligence, and after the usual ‘who?’, repeated several times, I got someone who know who we were. She asked, “Are you here already? Splendid! When can you get to my office? I said, “Sir, I have some MP’s here, with transportation. I’ll pass the comm to them and you can tell them where to drop us off.”

  She said “Excellent Lieutenant Padilla, you are off to a brilliant start.” I handed the comm over to my bored and somewhat surly MP. He listened for a moment and then actually came to attention, something not easy to do whilst seated. I almost laughed.

  We skidded to a stop and turned around. With blue lights flashing we headed back the way we came. Our MP’s used their comms furiously, making certain that all our crew made it to the correct address. Turns out, Intelligence was located less than one hundred meters from the MP’s own offices. We were all grinning when they let us off. This time, with just a bit less truculence.

  It occurred to me that we had been deliberately misled. The chief looked at me as we entered our newest set of offices, “Sir, your request to be provided with written orders turned out to be one of your best decisions in days. He was trying to submarine you. Good job.”

  We entered the office, identified ourselves and were immediately rushed to a large briefin
g room, something we were becoming uncommonly accustomed to.

  Within moments an admiral showed up. He introduced himself while he was walking up to us. It appears we were in the company of one Admiral Lee this time around. I saluted for our group, and he grinned and shook my hand.

  He said, “Lieutenant Padilla, we’re delighted that you and your crews were able to get here so quickly. We understood that you would be here tomorrow.” I said, “Well, yes sir, but as it happened, the Hawk attack craft that we brought in have been heavily modified and are almost as fast as a courier.” He beamed and said, “Excellent, I’ll want you to give me a tour of them. As a Lieutenant JG I served on one for over a year. A terrific craft. Meanwhile, do you have something for me?” I understood that to be a request for data and looked at Carolyn. She grinned and passed over a huge load of data to the admiral’s pad.

  He was almost excited to see us and as soon as the transfer finished, he said, “First, let’s bring in some people so that we can begin the debriefing.” I thought about asking if we could do it the next day – we were tired – but this was the first person who actually wanted to see us, so I relented, and said that of course we would. It didn’t hurt that he was an admiral.

  The admiral commed his office and presently a lieutenant – a familiar lieutenant - rushed into the briefing room. He almost skidded to a stop when he saw us, and I could see his face resume its reddish shade. I smiled at him like a choirboy at Sunday Mass, which smile only made him angrier. The next few moments promised to be interesting.