Hawk Genesis: War (Flight of the Hawk)

by Robert Little

  A link with James opened, “Sir, the missile ships have reversed course.” John thanked him and looked at the range to the fighters. It had steadily dropped down, and within ten or fifteen minutes they would be within mutual range.

  The enemy fighters suddenly changed course and went to a high level of acceleration. Their path would angle them around his position and into the protection of their platforms, while remaining outside his missile envelope. Perhaps they’d discovered the main attack, but more probably, their attempt to sucker John into attacking in the wrong direction had failed.

  The rebel missiles began taking on his first wave of approximately three hundred missiles, and over the course of the next few minutes, most of them were destroyed, but twenty got through, damaging or destroying seven missile ships and a number of missile boats.

  The second flight of seven hundred federal missiles fared poorly against the tremendous number of platform missiles, and only seventeen got through, but they destroyed outright three more missile ships and five boats. Only twenty-two missiles ships were able to pass back into the safety of the platforms. John’s thorn had become a sword.

  Over the course of the next two hours, John’s fighters shadowed the two retreating rebel forces as they retreated behind those brilliantly effective platforms. The admiral instructed John not to attack unless he had a decided numerical advantage, something that would be difficult to determine unless he wanted to send scouting parties to sweep the immediate vicinity.

  Someone on the admiral’s staff reported that their forces were about to force a major penetration of the rebel defenses. John was ordered to make a series of probes in an effort to determine if it might be feasible to finish off that one damaged platform, and then send in a fighter force.

  He had anticipated that request, and had already sent eighty fighters forward to James’ position. They launched one hundred sixty heavy missiles, all targeted on the one platform. James told John, “Sir, we can see a great deal of activity in the rear area and on the platforms in our AOR. Two possibilities: they’re preparing for an attack and resupplying, or they’re pulling people off the platforms.

  John said, “I’m going with your second possibility. Let’s talk about what that might mean to us.” James promptly said, “It means that a very large rebel force is going to appear, probably closer to our side of the planet than the admiral’s.” John said, “Yeah, possibly on top of us. Move back toward the carriers. I’m going to reposition – we need some room.”

  John informed Admiral Grigorivich of his suspicions, but his superior was preoccupied with opening up his breach in the rebel defenses. John wondered if the admiral had gone as far as plotting out the next move, the one where the rebels decided that this system was indefensible and tried to escape.

  John’s forces were reasonably capable of defending themselves, but not against two thousand enemy fighters and hundreds of missile ships and boats, plus several dozen destroyers. That said, he didn’t think that the rebels would want to get involved in a bitter fight that might delay them long enough to allow the main federal force to pin them down.

  Over the next twelve hours John cycled his pilots through the carriers, giving them six hours of downtime, and kept the others in close to the carriers, which he was still slowly moving away from the platforms.

  At a spot roughly equidistant from the main federal forces and John’s much smaller force, a large number of enemy ships appeared, all under high acceleration, and escorted by well over a thousand fighters, and counting. The rebels were abandoning the system.

  John looked at his plot, and calculated that he might have a shot at catching the enemy forces before they were far enough away from the planet to jump out, but it would mean leaving his carriers behind, and terribly exposed. He kept the admiral informed, which officer was still in communication with John via an aide.

  The rebels escaped with nearly all of their remaining missile ships and carriers. They used their easily replaceable missile boats as a leave-behind screen to keep the federals away long enough to once again give the fleeing ships sufficient time to get out of range. It turned out that the missile platforms were able to maneuver enough to put up a sufficiently large volume of missile fire into the system, such that it would have been prohibitively expensive in terms of lost ships and personnel to directly pursue the enemy. John thought to himself that the admiral had failed in his more important task of destroying the mobile rebel force – as long as they could continue to threaten federal planets, the war was going to go on and on. Still, this admiral at least deserved the stars he wore, and he hopefully learned to better plan for the next assault.

  Chapter 15

  Two weeks later, John’s temporary assignment as group commander of eight shiny new carriers was made permanent, and he was bumped up to full captain. James was also promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and even better, they were given some leave. Actually, their ships were being given time off, the leave was a side effect.

  They returned to the shipyards and after the usual paperwork, caught a ride with a destroyer that was heading in the direction of their home planet. Three transfers later, they stepped off a shuttle into a warm and humid Saturday afternoon in Chavez, the third largest city of Maya, which planet had exactly three cities.

  Chavez was named after an obscure Mexican national from nineteenth or twentieth century Earth. John still remembered his youthful surprise upon learning that Mr. Chavez hadn’t even lived in Mexico, but had had something to do with fighting for social justice or something connected with grapes – it had been a long time ago.

  Their mother waved to them as they walked into the terminal, and after some tearful hugs she apologized on behalf of their father and brother, who hadn’t been able to “get away”, as she gracefully put it.

  John had his own tiny home, located in the inner part of the city, and for the previous three years James had kept his personal belongings at John’s. As he had put it, the money he saved on renting or buying a place to store his civilian belongings could be better spent in ‘social discourse’, as he put it, on those all-to-rare instances of leave.

  Milla, their mother, took them to her own home, where a few old friends of the family had gathered to greet them. On hand were pair of professors, three former students, and an aunt and her new husband of two years, meaning he was technically an uncle, he just wasn’t called one.

  His college acquaintances shook his hand, except for two of the students - probably now former students – who offered him delicate hugs. The latter two were also quite attractive, in a distinctly female sort of way, a fact noted with evident surprise by James, who didn’t get more than a polite nod of the head. John made a mental note to comment to his brother on the evident lack of engineering talent in the gathering.

  His aunt - his mother’s older sister - was a formidable woman, nearly as tall as John, and possibly twice as wide. She was also a hugger, a fact that John belatedly remembered just before getting crushed. He awkwardly patted her broad back and waited for release.

  After similarly rewarding James, she beamed with mingled pride and pleasure at her nephews, now bona fide heroes of the interminable war.

  Her mother, a military wife for over thirty years, interrupted what would have assuredly been an awkward “hero” moment, or at least a continuation of one, by waving everyone into her salon, a grand name for a sitting room in a modest home. She had a nice although battered tea service, one of the few possessions she had unfailingly taken with her from duty station to duty station. It was a somewhat unusual habit for the coffee drinking, Latin society she came from.

  After her guests had settled, she bustled around serving tea or coffee. She also had a tray of galletas, traditional cookies that tended to look better than they tasted.

  With a cup of strong coffee perched on his lap, John awaited his mother’s interrogation. She was a very strong woman; she and her husband observed strictly separate areas of responsibility, but within her dom
ain, she rarely if ever bent to another’s will, and in those rare cases, it would have been due to simple courtesy, like giving up a pawn for a rook, but with a gracious and warm smile, in anticipation of the inevitable phrase ‘check mate’ shortly to fall on her hapless victim’s ears.

  She began by asking if her two sons were well, if they had had been ill or needed to see a doctor. John was the middle of her sons, and at the outset of the war she had informed him in no uncertain terms that he was responsible for James. John understood her meaning and intent – she loved all her children, but due to circumstances beyond her control – her husband’s ironbound lunacy – she was forced to transfer her maternal instincts and responsibilities onto John’s shoulders.

  Once satisfied that John had not failed his promise to her, she carefully inquired as to the manner in which they had spent the previous fifteen plus months.

  James indicated that John should answer, reminding him that his brother had grown up the youngest of three boys, the son of two powerful parents.

  John talked briefly, glossing over their participation in the hugely important battle at Elyse, and doing the same with the just announced victory at Nasser.

  Their mother had been a military wife since before John was born, so she was well aware that both her sons had risen up the ranks since their last visit, and most certainly appreciated the reasons for the promotions, but she simply congratulated them, and left it at that. She was nobody’s fool, and she may not have wanted to hear the details of how they’d ascended, knowing it would have involved the deaths of other women’s sons and daughters.

  After a somewhat grueling ten minutes, she relented and went around the room refilling drinks and replacing those dreadful cookies.

  One of the former students, a young woman that John knew only a little, and had long wished otherwise, asked John, “If I recall correctly, you have advanced at least two ranks since your last visit. What is…I don’t quite know what to ask. Um, what do you do?” John said, “I used to command the fighters on an older Zipper class carrier. I now command the fighters on a new class of carriers, and James is the CAG on one of them.” His aunt asked, “Zipper class?” John smiled faintly, “It’s military humor – at the outset of the war neither side had carriers, so they modified freighters, which are extremely slow and thin skinned. In other words, they can be opened up like a zipper.” His aunt said, “Oh.”

  Jessica, the name of that former student, looked quizzically and asked, “ And, CAG?” John smiled, “It means, Commander, Air Group. It’s an ancient title, dating back to wet navies on Earth, and means that I command the six hundred plus fighters on eight carriers.” She asked, “Wouldn’t that be the ship captain? You are a captain aren’t you?” John shook his head, “No, we fighter pilots refer to the ship captain as the ‘boat driver’, although not usually in his hearing.”

  She suddenly smiled, transforming her from what John had thought of as a very graceful and expressive woman into a strikingly attractive woman with a mobile and expressive face. It was as if the sun had just appeared behind obscuring clouds. John found that he was sitting with his mouth partially open, but no words were coming out.

  James’s eyes glinted with humor and he intervened, “Miss Perez? Are you still a student, or have you completed your studies? She turned her face toward James, but she was still looking at John, “No, and yes, in that order. I completed my Masters thesis last fall and I’m now contemplating returning for a doctorate, but I’ve not yet made my decision.”

  By the time she finished speaking, she had turned her focused attention to James, who seemed to react almost as strongly as had John, whose mouth was finally closed. James asked, “And, that Masters, did it happen to require digging into dusty tomes of ancient, terribly boring history?”

  Jessica grinned – a rare expression in a woman – and answered, “Yes, Mr. Chamberlin, my degree is in modern history, where one may infrequently get a little dust on one’s hands, but never, never any grease under the well-groomed fingernails of that very same, delicate hand.”

  James looked intently at her, and his face broke out into a big smile, “Miss Jessica Perez, may I just say, history is better off for having you in its ranks.” She grinned again, “Mr. Chamberlin, Maya is better off for having the Chamberlin’s, both of you, unless of course, you are inferring that I’m old and dusty, in which case the ratio of ‘better off’ drops to fifty percent. While you are home I hope to be able to learn a little about your experiences in the insurrection.” She was directing her words at James, but once again her eyes turned to look directly into John’s eyes.

  John was extremely intelligent, save for one particular set of circumstances, the one that found him looking into the eyes of a by now utterly compelling woman, who was looking right back. He realized, probably long after everyone else in the room, that she had just issued a very public declaration of intent.

  He’d been home less than thirty minutes.

  John broke the almost physical connection between him and the golden-eyed Jessica, and glanced at his mother, who smiled faintly. Once again, he was behind the curve. Still.

  His gaze returned to the woman who wasn’t his mother. She grinned again, and asked, “Yes, no?” He started, “Um, yes. Absolutely.” She smiled at him, but it was somehow different than just a moment earlier. He tried to think…it was the sort of expression shared by a couple! She calmly said, “Good, I was beginning to think I would have to bribe you with a home cooked meal.”

  James, still smiling, asked, “And, Miss Perez, would the prospect of a home cooked meal be considered a…significant bribe?” Her eyes glinted with humor, “Mr. Chamberlin, I can see why you gravitated to such a risky profession.” Everyone laughed.

  John’s mother said, “Well, this is proving to be a most interesting evening. Jessica, would you assist me in setting the table? Ladies and gentlemen, would you please pass into the dining room and seat yourselves? John, please take the far end of the table, and if you would be so kind as to seat Jessica to your right? Thank you.” It was a politely worded command, and as he stood he realized that she had referred to the seat she’d assigned him as “the far end”, not the head of the table. Only her husband, his father, sat at the head of the table.

  John stood, feeling stunned. He had thought he would be going home for a visit, not…whatever this was.

  As he followed their guests down the short hallway into the dining room, his mind replayed that moment when he first met Miss – Jessica.

  It had been five years earlier. He was entering his third year as an assistant professor, looking forward to becoming a full professor, and later, tenured. He remembered the moment she entered the auditorium and walked down the stairs. She’d worn a bright dress, something summery, with delicate sandals covering her feet. Her gleaming dark brown hair curled down her back in a shimmering wave, and managed to catch his eyes for a moment, before they returned to her impossibly long legs, most of which were on display.

  By the time she was half way down, his eyes had found and locked on hers. She didn’t smile, didn’t look away, and seemed to float down the steps. She finally looked down, tucked an errant wave of hair back out of the way, and turned at the fourth row, where she gracefully settled into a seat, almost exactly one-third of the way in from the aisle. She calmly plugged her chip into the desktop, and looked expectantly as an image came to life in front of her.

  He turned his back and resumed putting up on the smart wall a list of texts and source materials that would be required reading for the coming semester. When he turned back, she was inputting what was probably her student information.

  The room was filling up, and was reasonably noisy, as entering students found a place to sit and took emotional and physical possession of the space that they would own until they either flunked out or passed his course. His eyes kept returning to the young woman in the yellow sundress. She was still, her back straight, her eyes downcast, concentrating on her desktop. As he wa
tched, a wave of hair fell over one eye again, and her right hand unconsciously pushed it back over her ear. To John, she was like a sunrise in a room of dim moons – everyone and everything near her lit up with reflected radiance.

  For the next hour, John spoke to his students, telling them informally what he expected from them, what they could expect from him, and hearing back from them.

  He was possibly the only professor in his department who asked his students to stand and introduce themselves. He knew many disliked it, and not just the students, but he felt that he gained an insight into each one, even if only slightly. His memory was good enough that he was able to remember nearly all their names.

  This day, he started at the top and worked down. The Woman in the Yellow Sundress was one of the last to stand. She was tall and slender, although the sundress utterly failed to hide the fact that she hadn’t been skinny for a number of years.

  She looked at him and said, “Jessica Perez, third year, history major.” John looked at his own desk, which told him much the same thing her throaty voice had just finished doing, and he asked, “Miss Perez, is there any part of the past few thousands of years that particularly attract you?”