Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk)

by Little, Robert

  The admiral turned and said, “Lieutenant um, Koontz, this is Lieutenant Padilla. He and his Attack Squadron 513 have just returned from the battle zone. They have succeeded in destroying over thirty million tons of enemy ships, and have developed tactics and strategies that we badly need for our response to this incursion of unknown aliens. I want you to bring in your best team and begin their debriefing tomorrow. You will work them over, er, debrief them for two hours only tonight, as they have been in a very cramped cabin for over four days straight and might be a bit cranky.” He turned to me and said, “Lieutenant, you and your crews are to report back here tomorrow at, mmm, what time would you say?”

  He had a definite twinkle in his eye. I said, almost but not quite grinning, “Well sir,

  1200 would suit this motley crew of misanthropic miscreants. However, I, being an officer and a gentleman, insist that we be ready, in front of our billet at the crack of dawn, ten hundred hours, sir.”

  He positively beamed at me and said, “Lieutenant, you have a nice future ahead of you, should you somehow manage to stay out of trouble. I translate ‘staying out of trouble’ as you and your miscreants arriving here, in this exact space prior to 0900, with clear eyes and no hangovers. Understood?” This time I grinned and said, “Absolutely, sir.”

  Admiral Lee turned back to Lieutenant Koontz and asked, “Lieutenant, did you have something important to tell me?” He looked calmly on as the lieutenant turned a lovely shade of puce. The fine lieutenant said, “No sir, I do not.” The admiral looked at him for a long moment and then said, “I thought as much, lieutenant. You are dismissed.” The lieutenant saluted smartly, turned and left, followed closely behind by the admiral.

  As soon as we could, we burst into uncontrolled laughter, causing the MP’s to shift around uncomfortably.

  Presently, our fine lieutenant returned, solo, with a sheaf of hard copy, which he placed, somewhat over enthusiastically on the podium. He spent some amount of time looking his paper work over before beginning to ask a series of questions. The questions seemed to be taken directly out of sa handbook entitled ‘How To Interrogate 101’

  We answered a series of extremely basic questions, such as name, rank, serial number, date of service, place of enlistment, location of last deployment, and so on. He took up the entire two hours and managed to discover that we were a Hawk squadron. It appeared that he had absolutely no idea what a Hawk actually was, or what we had been doing in it. After precisely two hours of this, he shuffled his sheaf of papers and departed.

  The chief looked at me and I stood up and said, “We have - um correction, I have - made an enemy here. I apologize to you, but nonetheless, please understand that we will have to be very careful from this point on. Think of this as just another insect related sortie.” To general laughter we walked out to the passageway where we found our still truculent MP’s waiting for us. Thank God.

  We were dropped off at our billets and I said loudly enough to be heard by everyone, “We seem to have found us a human Admiral, so let’s not blow it. Please be present, in all senses of the term, here, right here, in this very same spot, at 0800, dressed in your finest set of khakis. Oh, one more thing. No getting drunk and puking on the admiral tomorrow. Puke, if you have to, on our fine and understanding Master Chief, who has the patience of Job and most definitely does not know any martial arts.”

  Everyone laughed and made their way to their respective quarters. A real bunk was awaiting us.

  At 0800, we were gathered in a surprisingly sober gaggle of khaki, but after fifteen minutes and no transportation, I looked at the chief, “Chief, methinks someone is trying to throw a monkey wrench into our finely honed reputation. Can you rustle us up some transportation?”

  He grinned and spent something like one minute on the com. At 0845 two large flat bed electric cargo haulers pulled up with a flourish. We all jumped on and swayed hither and yon as the haulers sped us at a sedate ten kph to our appointed interview. We pulled up at 0858, with two minutes to spare. We jumped off, waved to the two enlisteds driving the things, and walked leisurely into the office. There, we ran into Lieutenant Koontz. It was my guess that he was on the way to the admiral to tell him that we were missing in action.

  I smiled at the obviously guilty lieutenant and vowed vengeance. I glanced at Elian and saw that this very devious man was thinking along the same lines. May God save that poor man once Elian got on his case.

  We assembled in the briefing room and had just settled in when the admiral arrived, somewhat breathlessly once again. He was brought up short when he saw us and said, “Lieutenant, I was informed that you and your crew were AWOL. Obviously, I was misinformed.”

  I thought about it and said, “Yes sir. As it happens, our transportation failed to show up, but we managed to arrive on time on our own. The Master Chief is a master at requisition.”

  Admiral Lee laughed and said, “So I’ve heard, lieutenant. No transportation? Well, then, let’s get on with the debriefing. What did you cover last night?” I decided, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Sir, we answered a lot of detailed questions concerning our names, ranks, date of same, duty station and the like. The lieutenant kept precise notes on our answers.”

  The admiral looked at me for a moment, his foot tapping. He said, “Crew, please feel free to make use of the break room, right through that door. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” I said, “Yes sir.” And he left, getting up a head of steam with each step. Perhaps Elian was going to be deprived of any revenge.

  We crowded into the break room and poured fresh coffee into actual service mugs and snagged lots of donuts. We were back in our seats and comfortably sipping coffee when the admiral returned, bringing with him an aide, female, young, attractive, one each, waving us back to our seats as he blew past the front of the space.

  He hustled straight into the break room and returned with his own coffee and donut. I was beginning to get a crush on our admiral.

  He pulled a chair up, turned it around and straddled it. He said, “Let’s start from the start, shall we. But first, Lieutenants Padilla and Turner, stand at attention.” Startled, we stood up and came to attention. The admiral snapped at us, “Lieutenants, when you were at the Academy, were you trained in the arts of war?” I had no clue where this was going, but said, “Yes, sir.” He then asked, “And, Lieutenants Padilla and Turner, were you not properly instructed as to the military dress code as well?”

  I groaned to myself, thinking we had a real martinet on our hands. I said, “Yes sir.” The admiral asked, “In that case, Lieutenant Padilla, and Lieutenant Turner, why are you out of uniform?” I had no idea what he was talking – practically bellowing - about, and I said, “Sir, we are in the only uniform we were able to bring with us, sir.”

  The admiral cracked a tiny smile and asked, “Lieutenants Turner and Padilla, since you admit that those uniforms are your very own, why are you standing in my office, dressed as a lieutenant JG?” I was now completely confused, but I did not even think about looking either at Elian or confused. I answered, “Sir, we are Lieutenants JG, sir.”

  The admiral finally broke out in a huge smile and said, “Well, Lieutenant Padilla, Lieutenant Turner, you are sadly misinformed. I know this, as I am an admiral, and I happen to have here a copy of your orders, which orders state quite clearly, that you are both of you, lieutenants. Are you telling me that I am wrong?” I said, beginning to smell a rat, “No sir, I would never tell you such a thing, um, to your face.”

  The admiral broke into a huge smile and said, “Lieutenant, I could break you with one hand while I finished this donut with the other. You are out of uniform and I suggest that you hustle your laggardly behind over to my shiny new orderly, Lieutenant Graziano.” I walked over to the lovely lieutenant who quickly removed my JG bar and replaced it with those of a lieutenant. She repeated the process for a flushed Elian.

  We returned to our seats, suitably cowed by our new, temporary boss. He said, his exp
ression serious, “Some day, when there is more time, I'll tell you where those bars came from.”

  He beamed at us and said, “Now, let’s begin the inquisition! Let’s start with a narrative account, told by one of you who will not bore the socks of our Lieutenant Graziano over there. Someone? Anyone?” He looked out at us and I turned to Elian and said, “Lieutenant Turner, as the single officer present with a clear mind and bright eyes, please proceed.” He snorted, but stood up and sat back down at a wave from the admiral.

  Elian went through the entire event, leaving out a thing here or there, and getting nicely corrected. It took almost three hours, and they were clearly not boring. The fleet had not been in a hot war in over two decades, so the vast majority of Fleet personnel had never experienced getting shot at, much less shot. We had been, and in fact, we represented the only survivors of well over twelve hundred men and women, all killed by the bugs.

  We broke for a terrific noon meal and returned for the next portion. At this point, the admiral had a list of questions, which questions were pertinent, insightful and penetrating. We answered, usually in group fashion, so that virtually everyone present had an opportunity to speak.

  At one break, the admiral looked over at Master Chief Kana and asked, “Chief, would you like to be out of uniform too? I could arrange it you know.” The chief flushed with embarrassment and said, “Well, sir, if you were to go out on the limb like that, I’d for certain end up in the brig, and it would reflect badly on you. Therefore, for your sake, may I remain in uniform?”

  The admiral looked at him and said, “Chief, I think that you are wrong. Very wrong, but you have the right. If I haven’t said so earlier, I’d like to say it now: I am deeply honored to serve in an organization that includes Master Chief Kana.”

  He paused for a moment, then began where he took off.

  We spent three days in that briefing room. I had no idea, had you asked me before our arrival, that we could talk for three full days. In fact, it took almost as long to recount as it did to occur.

  We then went on to another set of questions. These had to do with weapons and weapon delivery systems. The admiral was by now aware of our dire need for more powerful missiles and much better defensive systems. He was also aware of how little time we had.

  We repeated, repeatedly, our belief that our only hope was to attack. If we waited for them to come to us, we were doomed, we said, repeatedly. The admiral was not easy to convince, but after the second day, he came around. He wasn’t stupid, nor stubborn, he simply had to have incontrovertible proof before he would proceed. In this case, his decisions would result in billions being spent on systems that either worked as advertised, or peopled died. Lots and lots of people. Actually, lots of people were going to die if we were successful; many, many more if we weren’t.

  It was remarkable that the admiral who ran this base, and who in fact was the second or third highest ranking uniformed officer in the Fleet, would actually spend four full days closeted up with us. I commented on this fact and Elian said, “Robert, we have just entered into a shooting war, and the only shooters he has are we few. I’m guessing that a very great responsibility has been laid on his shoulders and he is talking to the only people who can give him the precise information necessary to formulate plans.”

  When I was asked by the admiral, I said, “Sir, what I would like to see is a destroyer-sized ship, armored as heavily as the Hawk, as stealthy as the Hawk, and able to launch one hundred Dash 65-sized missiles, which missiles however, must be far more powerful, smarter and stealthy. I’ve been doing some research, sir, and I’ve found reports of a class of ships that were built around forty years ago. According to reports, the class was authorized and a number built, but the plans for more of them were scrapped within one or two years. I do not know where those ships are, or if they still actually exist, but I believe that we could perhaps modify one as we have the Hawk, and use it as a test bed, a development mule. We have no time to waste, in my un-asked-for opinion, and this seems to me an excellent way to make good use of what time we have.”

  The admiral had straightened up in his chair as I spoke. I had clearly interested him. He asked, “Are you referring to the Dresden class?” I said, almost surprised that he knew of it, “Yes sir.” He turned to his aide, but she was already researching a database. She was just as good a mind reader as Carolyn, who in fact, was doing the same thing.

  The aide must have had better access codes than Carolyn, because she found the ship. She said, reading, “Sir, the Dresden class consisted of twenty-four craft, twenty thousand tons, ten G’s, four missile launchers fore and four launchers aft. She was armored, and had ten thirty cm lasers, used primarily for missile defense. Production on the series was halted, um, after a series of engine failures. I think, however, sir, that their cost was what killed them. We were not at war, and that single project consumed almost ten percent of the fleet budget at the height of production.”

  Admiral Lee looked at her and said, with a smile, “And, Lieutenant Graziano?” She was looking very hard, but four seconds later she smiled and said, “Sir, ten remain, mothballed, at fleet...here sir, they’re right here. Also, four more are apparently mothballed at another yard. Umm, Lookout has them sir. Shall I comm and begin an investigation as to their condition?”

  The admiral looked at her and said, “Lieutenant, if you were any smarter, I would be out of a job. Yes, please, let’s find out. Now, if you please. Better would be five minutes ago.”

  His lieutenant got up and walked out of the room, deep in conversation with someone who was probably jumping to his or her feet. The admiral had a reputation, we had learned, for doing things quickly and nearly always correctly. That included sacking officers who failed to perform. On that note, we hadn’t seen the fine Lieutenant Koontz since that first day. I didn’t ask for his whereabouts, being happy that those whereabouts did not include my present location.

  In fact, the admiral was something of a mystery to us. I would have assumed that he would have aides and orderly coming out his ears, and I would have been wrong. According to Chief Kana, who had Sources, the Admiral had been appointed to this crucial position two months ago, as a direct result of a combination of the appearance of the bugs, and the dreadful state of affairs of Fleet. His predecessor was spending his days in court, attempting to put a good face on seven years of incompetence in which any possibly competent admiral or perhaps even lieutenant JG, who might represent a threat to his own continued tenure was shunted aside into dead-end jobs from which there was only one way to move up. Most men and women took that step and became civilians.

  Our admiral had been stuffed into a command that usually caused the individual to resign or, if he or she stuck it out, to be in a position of powerlessness to prevent the continued decline of Fleet.

  Unfortunately for the former admiral, this one had friends and he stuck it out, searched methodically for any scrap of evidence of malfeasance, and kept his head down. He had gotten mostly nowhere, but the destruction of the Horsham placed the fleet squarely in the headlights of the federal government, which was dismayed to discover that its beloved fleet was barely even a shadow of its former self.

  Admiral Lee was brought in to testify and within seeming minutes of his departure from the witness stand, he found himself appointed to the head of Fleet Base Jupiter, traditionally, the single most influential uniformed position in the Fleet.

  His first appearance at this base was followed by dozens of dismissals, retirements and in a few cases, hand cuffs. He fired the entire office staff and locked them out. Good thing, too, because the records he did find that hadn’t been wiped were appalling.

  Admiral Lee brought in a handful of trusted men and women, who were going through their various departments like buzz saws. Despite the intense pressure on his time, he was spending most of an entire week with us, personally conducting the process of getting to know the enemy.

  At one point, Elian, who had an unerring feel f
or character, asked the admiral, “Sir, we were wondering, is your presence here an indication of the importance of the information we are developing, or of a, um, lack of qualified personnel to obtain that information?”

  The admiral looked at Elian carefully, and then a grin broke out on his face and he said, “Both, lieutenant. Tell me, do you have a backup position to this job? I’m asking because you take a great many chances, and one day – not today – but one day, you may just open your mouth and find your ass had been stuffed in it.” Elian grinned and ostentatiously kept his mouth closed. Admiral Lee laughed and said, “An unusual response, lieutenant, but one I approve of.”

  It was now 1900 and we had been at it for nine hours, not counting a great lunch. We ate well here. Admiral Lee dismissed us and told us to return at 0700. I saluted and he returned the salute, then waved at us with a smile and was gone.

  Admiral Lee was the third highest ranking officer in Fleet, and the highest one to actually have anything to do with ships, guns and personnel. He intended to turn this base into a finely honed and well-oiled machine, if I may mix metaphors, in just weeks. As a direct result of his ardor, there were any number of new vacancies, but the base seemed to run all the better for them.