Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk)

by Little, Robert

  After our evening meal, I asked my crew, “Care to take a stroll?” Carolyn giggled and said, “Robert, you aren’t going to look at a certain mothballed ship are you?” I smiled and said, “Carolyn, if you were any smarter, I would be out of a job.” Despite the fact that I was using a line of the admiral’s, she blushed, something I found incredibly charming, and she said, “Robert, I do not believe that anyone can take your place.”

  I realized that she was not joking, she was speaking from her heart. This touched me, not that I was going to show it. I said, “That’s fine, but don’t expect a promotion just because I’m so irreplaceable.” Everyone laughed and I smiled my princely smile at them.

  We had access to transportation now, courtesy of the admiral, and we used it to take a run up to the surface, from whence we traveled in a small shuttle several hundred kilometers to the location of the mothball fleet. The ships were parked, more or less, on the surface, and had minimal protection from, well, the elements, such as they were, which were practically none at all.

  As we came in for a landing, we saw evidence of activity about one kilometer distant from the landing pad. As a guess, that was the location of our potential bug killer. We found a neat and orderly parking area with a number of surface vehicles and took one in the direction of the activity. We drove down canyons, made by innumerable elderly space craft that were presumably still space-worthy.

  We turned a corner, made by the stern of what had once been a shiny new destroyer and discovered a great many space-suited figures scrambling around a deep black hull that seemed to soak up light. I didn’t recognize the craft, in fact it was impossible to tell what it was, but I did recognize that ablative coating. We had found our Dresden.

  We stood and looked at the activity. People were entering and leaving an open hatch, and we could see a tanker pumping reactor water into it. That was a healthy sign.

  We approached a ground vehicle with a familiar blue light on it as well as an MP. He seemed wary and we noticed that there were numerous MP’s casually arrayed around the area, all of them armed. I identified myself and asked to be admitted. He said, “Only authorized personnel are permitted in this area, sir.”

  I took a chance and asked, ‘By any chance, do you have a list of said authorized personnel?” He grudgingly consulted his pad and after a moment, asked for my identity once again, as well as the identity of my companions.

  He said, “Sir, you and your party are authorized to proceed.” He didn’t seem happy about it, but it is hard to tell over a space suit comm system. He may have just been hungry.

  Elian looked at me and said, “You know, I’m beginning to think that one day I might like Admiral Lee.” Carolyn asked, “Why do you say that?” Elian said, “He knew we would come here. In fact, I’d be willing to bet he would have been severely disappointed if we hadn’t.” Chief Kana said, with respect absolutely dripping off his tongue, “Sirs, the ship isn’t going to come to us.”

  I laughed and we walked to the hatch and entered. Chief Kana said, “I’m going down to engineering. I’ll let you know what I find.” I nodded, and he went aft while we went up toward the bow. It was a lot larger than the Hawk, but it possessed that same sense of incredible toughness. The hatches between decks were the strangest I’d ever encountered, and I paused a moment to examine one. It took me a moment before I realized that it was designed to hold a seal even if the bulkhead warped.

  We passed through a hatch into the command deck. It was a largish area with six stations and at present, lots of cables and portable lighting. A technician passed by us with a familiar hand tool and hurriedly bent down and unlatched a panel. He swung it open, revealing a block of electronic modules. As a guess, one of them was misbehaving, because he pulled one out and inserted another in its place. He shut the hatch and keyed in an entry on a panel. It came to life, eliciting an ‘aha!’ from the technician. We watched as the system ran through the process of reprogramming the new module. That took a few minutes, then panels all over the deck came alive.

  I itched to get my hands dirty, and after a moment’s reflection I asked the technician, “Can you please update us?” I didn’t identify myself, assuming that he would assume that if I was there, I was authorized to ask silly questions. I was right.

  “Sir, we’re starting to make headway at getting its basic functions up and running. Now that I’ve isolated and replaced that one da..., module, we should be able to turn the central processors on and begin booting up. I estimate that, barring any unforeseen problems, which if they don’t occur will astonish me, we should then be able to turn on its own diagnostic functions, which in turn will eventually lead to a live ship. Uh, give or take a few,, well, ten hours sir.”

  I thanked her and asked, “Are there any specific problem areas that you know of?” She said, “Yes sir, propulsion can’t get the processor that controls the reactant pumps to power up. They’re working on it of course, but so far, no joy.”

  I thanked her and we headed back aft. The chief had a good nose for trouble.

  We found him talking at a space-suited figure who kept shaking his or her head. I interrupted the chief and asked, “Chief, I’m told that the pumping system is dead and starting to smell. What have you been able to learn?” The chief turned to me and said, “Sir, not a thing. This officer refuses to allow us access to propulsion. Says we don’t have authorization.”

  I said, “Sir, if you will be so kind as to contact Admiral Lee, he will tell you that we are in fact, authorized access. If you do not have his comm code, I will contact him for you. What is your name please?” The officer stopped shaking his or her head and looked at me. He – it was a he – said, “Sir, if in fact you are an officer, I have not been informed of a visit by anyone, much less four of you. Unless I get authorization from my superiors, you are not permitted to be on or anywhere near this ship or even this reservation. Now, please leave immediately, or I will have the MP’s provide that service.”

  I said, “Once you have identified yourself to me, I will provide that authorization.” I waited and the space-suited figure said, grudgingly, “I am Captain Hodges, and I am in charge of this entire reservation. I do not take kindly to bluffs by junior officers, by the way. Now, get off my ship. You have one minute.”

  I held up my hand while I commed base. It was now getting past 2000, which was pretty late to be bothering an admiral, any admiral. However, I had a feeling about this.

  Base communications answered and I said, “I am Lieutenant Robert Padilla. I wish to speak to Admiral Lee.” There was a pause as, presumably, communications made a call. In a moment, I heard Admiral Lee say, “Lieutenant, I win the bet.”

  I refrained from laughing out loud, and instead said, “Sir, I and my crew are in the engineering section of, well, a Dresden. Captain Hodges has refused to allow us into engineering and is threatening to call the MP’s.” Admiral Lee said, “Just a moment, lieutenant.” There was a fairly short pause, then the space-suited figure of Captain Hodges stiffened. I looked closely at him and realized that he was listening to someone.

  Less than a minute later, two MP’s appeared through a hatch. One of them used the common channel to ask, “Which one of you is Captain Hodges?” Captain Hodges answered, “I am. Are you here to remove these four?” The MP said, “No sir, I have no instructions concerning anyone save for you, sir. We have been instructed to escort you back to base, where you will receive further instructions. Come with me, please, sir.” The captain let out a squeak that I interpreted as ‘oh shit’.

  We watched a shocked captain leave through the hatch. A moment later, the admiral came back on line, “Lieutenant, just as soon as you get that ship up and running, I authorize you to move her over to landing pad twelve. Don’t let me down, Robert.” The line went dead. I stood for a moment, in a little shock myself.

  I turned to my companions, who hadn’t heard my conversation, and said, “Elian, once again you are right. The admiral not only answered my comm, but his
first words were, and I quote, ‘I win the bet’. He has just given us the responsibility for getting this ship flight worthy, and to move it to flight pad twelve. His last words were, and again I quote, ‘don’t let me down’.”

  The chief laughed and said, “Want to bet Captain Hodges is getting transferred?” There were no takers. I said, “Chief, what do you need in order to get propulsion up and running?” He said, “Give me one hour and I’ll let you know. My guess is that propulsion is not the problem. It’s most probably a relay station somewhere between the command deck and the pumps. I can run it from this end, and I’d like Carolyn up on the command deck, if that is all right with you sir.” It wasn’t exactly a question, because he knew I would accept his decision. After all, I’d asked. I nodded, and said, “Done.” Nods don’t work all that well in a space suit.

  Elian and I headed back up to the command deck, right behind Carolyn. We found the same technician and I said, “Technician, ETech4 Kwan is going to handle the propulsion system problem from here with Master Chief Kana handling it from downstairs. If you have anything to tell them, please do so now. As soon as you have turned that problem over to her, I want you to brief me on any other problems that have cropped up. Oh, by the way, who are you?”

  There was a momentary silence from the space suited figure, then she said, “I am senior chief Colbert, where is Captain Hodges?” I said, with only a small grin, “As a guess, Captain Hodges is on the way to a new duty station. My name is Lieutenant Padilla, and I have been assigned the task of resuscitating this hunk of junk and moving it over to pad twelve, preferably yesterday.” There was another pause, and then she said, “Oh, aren’t you the Hawk crew that just flew in from Lubya?”

  I said, “Yes, senior chief. Now, I apologize for being a little abrupt, but I would hate to keep Admiral Lee waiting. Is there any chance that he might be able to look at this ship tomorrow morning when he wakes up?” I heard what sounded like a smothered laugh, and she said, “Sir, do you have any experience with, um, anything?”

  Carolyn beat me to it, “Chief, the lieutenant grew up in a service yard. If he doesn’t know how to service it, Master Chief Kana does. Where are we?”

  Chief Colbert sighed in what sounded like a combination of relief and happiness, and said, “Ok! Etech, the station that controls the propulsion pumps is number two, over there by that hatch. Lieutenant, we are having a problem with guidance, with approach radar and with our positioning system. The ship doesn’t know where it is, and until we can get that system up, we won’t be able to do much of anything else. If you can help with that, we’ll get a twofer, as we’ll get guidance up as well. I’ll take over approach radar, and if the other, um, sir, can help get the environmental diagnostics started, we should be fine.”

  I walked over to stand at the central station and looked at the panel. It was frozen near the beginning of its reboot. I tapped in a few commands, waited a moment for answers, and laughed. I said to Elian, “Will you please shut down, uh, system three? The control for that ought to be about there.” I pointed at the two stations to the right of center.

  Elian took all of fifteen seconds to find the right control and a moment later the power to the positioning system was cut off. He waited for a few seconds then brought up power to it again. I watched as it began to identify each of its separate subsystems. It stalled again in the same place, but now I knew where to look. I put the system into a safe mode and asked it to find Zero Zero Zero, a specific location on the base from which all craft got their initial positioning information. It took a few moments for it to come back with the message, ‘posnotloc’.

  I commed Chief Colbert and asked her to give me the actual numbers. She passed them to my pad and I manually input them into the system, then let it resume its diagnostics. It zipped past the former stopping point and made it through about thirty percent of the process before halting again. One by one, I fixed the errors and within two hours the system flashed green.

  Meanwhile, Carolyn and the chief had to physically go to every single junction box in an effort to locate the blockage, which was presumably an actual problem rather than scrambled electronics.

  With my system now up, most of the other systems began to go green. We still had a recalcitrant problem with approach radar, but that and the lack of any propulsion were our only remaining issues.

  At 0400 Chief Kana radioed and asked us all to come down to the berthing deck. We hustled down and found the chief sitting on the deck next to an open hatch. He said, “Look inside.” We peered in and discovered the remains of what had been someone’s lunch, and four empty sockets. The chief said, “That particular arrangement of missing modules not only knocked that system out, it prevented its own diagnostics from finding the problem. It was either deliberate, or a miracle. I’m not sure which.”

  Senior Chief Colbert noted the module types and disappeared down the passageway. She returned ten minutes later and eagerly popped four modules in and keyed the latch. She uncovered a small lid and pressed her thumb to the contact switch. She watched as a series of tell tales lit up and when all were green she dropped the hatch down and closed it, somewhat more energetically than was absolutely necessary.

  We all trooped back up to the command deck and Carolyn went over to the proper station where she input some queries. It took fifteen minutes for the system to run its own diagnosis, but it finally cleared the last remaining red indicator from the board. In the meantime, the senior chief had cleared up the Approach Radar problem.

  I made a general comm call, warning everyone in the immediate vicinity to move away from the ship. Elian gestured me to seat myself in the command seat while he assumed the navigator’s position. Chief Kana went back down to engineering and Carolyn sat down in the nearest vacant station. We were by now very tired, but it was 0530 and we badly wanted to get the ship up and running before the admiral got up and running.

  We powered up the reactor pumps and waited as the system went through the preliminary stages of bringing up the first of five separate mag bottles. Ground power demand peaked for a few moments as the mag bottles came to life. Within fifteen minutes we had three of them on-line, which was more than enough for what we wanted to do. However, I was stubborn, and told everyone they would just have to wait until we were five for five.

  Another fifteen minutes passed and finally, all five systems were on-line. With the reluctant assistance of two MP’s Chief Kana unlatched the ground power cable and dragged it away from the ship. Ten minutes later he commed us from engineering, saying everything was ‘in the green’. We ran a check of all hatches and powered up Environmental.

  We couldn’t hear anything, but within a few minutes I saw a piece of paper flutter. We were getting aired up, after many, many years of vacuum.

  Another fifteen minutes passed before we were able to open our helmets. The atmosphere was breathable but extremely cold. I didn’t want to wait any longer. I initiated the engine sequence and moments later we felt a gentle shudder as she came alive.

  I pointed to Carolyn and she radioed base for permission to lift off. There was an annoying wait as they probably tried to figure just who the hell we were. I’d had to query the ship to find its registry.

  I got the go-ahead and slowly brought up engine power. The ship creaked, then it moved under our feet as it righted itself. I remembered to turn on the exterior lights and Carolyn made a visual inspection of the area surrounding the Dresden. She gave me an ‘all clear’ and I raised the ship straight up. It was easily the largest single ship I had ever piloted, but I wasn’t going to admit that to anyone, afraid that I’d get told to stop what I was doing.

  At the proper altitude for maneuvering over and around the base, I aligned the ship with the location of Pad Twelve and added in some forward power. It accelerated a little harder than I anticipated, but I kept my surprise to myself. It took no more than a few seconds to reach the prescribed maximum allowed velocity inside the enormous base perimeter.

  I
t took us a little less than thirty minutes to reach the central base and four minutes later we gently touched down. All systems were still green, almost surprising me. I shut down power to propulsion and watched as the immense deck lowered us down into the base. We descended two hundred meters before the pad gently came to a stop. Huge red lights lit up all around the pad and I watched as six immense tugs moved up to the ship. I lost sight of them but within moments I felt the ship shudder and we began to move. It seemed to take forever, but I was always an impatient guy. It took fifteen minutes to move about three hundred meters into a hanger. More red lights flashed, announcing the closing of the hanger doors. This place seemed to put a lot of stock in keeping one informed of safety hazards. Obviously, the result of too many admirals.

  We were finally able to open an outside hatch thirty minutes later. The hanger was very large, and it took a long time to air up.

  We stepped outside and I noted that it was 0817. We missed our goal by probably three hours. Before we were halfway across the hanger a distant hatch opened and out stepped Admiral Lee. He walked quickly to meet us and beamed. He said, “Lieutenant, did you know that Captain Hodges told me it would take at least a week to get this ship up? One week!” I said, “Sir, if it hadn’t been for a misplaced lunch, we could have made it in time to eat breakfast.”