Hawk Genesis: War (Flight of the Hawk)

by Robert Little

  Milla served everyone tea and coffee, and Jessica opened a handful of hurriedly obtained presents.

  The planet Maya looked forward to a reasonably prosperous future, but that future was still a number of decades away. In the meantime, the few million citizens worked very hard, and shared the limited wealth they jointly created through a modified form of socialism that ensured that everyone had the bare necessities. The few wealthy families were really only potentially wealthy – the tax structure allowed them to plow their earnings back into their enterprises but didn’t encourage or even allow much in the way of ostentation. In fact, the society had developed a culture of almost Calvinistic austerity that frowned upon displays of personal wealth.

  Maya’s government and tax structure followed the general pattern humanity had developed for newly terraformed and settled planets: once the economic output of the society caught up to and began to surpass the huge investments involved in preparing and building a new home for humans, Maya would begin paying back the trillions of dollars that had been spent. Over time, the planet’s taxes would fall and a greater portion of the output of the society would be available for things such as wedding presents.

  Today however, John and Jessica’s gifts tended to be highly practical. Milla was going to help her son and daughter-in-law acquire a larger home; James volunteered to help with that, although his income was even lower than John’s – Maya considered military service to be just that, service. The general, their father, earned a much better income, due to the fact that he was a general and an army ‘regular’, but even then it was enough to have a home and raise a family, but not much more.

  Castidad’s uncle gave them a nicely wrapped IOU, wherein he promised to provide some unspecified furniture, Milla gave them a very nice set of dishes, causing Jessica to tear up – it was from Earth. John kept his mouth shut, knowing that it was his mother’s one good set of china, but since Jessica had helped John’s mother set out that same service for his and James homecoming, John was reasonably certain that she knew.

  Castidad’s sisters, along with Jessica’s two younger sisters went in together and gave John and Jessica a set of new silverware – made out of ceramic rather than actual silver, one of the limited but growing number of items Maya was now able to manufacture locally.

  Everyone knew of the time constraints John and James were under, so by noon, and after a round of tearful hugs, everyone was gone, save for James and Castidad, who had the same time constraints.

  James gave John and his bride long hugs, then Milla, and finally Castidad, and then they were walking in a late spring downpour up to the corner for the jitney ride to their home.

  Chapter 18

  Five days later John and James sat around a large table with the other seven flight commanders in John’s carrier group. A senior captain was in charge of the eight large ships and their escorts, but John was the commander of the over six hundred fighters. This was a significant responsibility in a fleet that could rarely field more than two thousand fighters for a major assault. His rank was far below that of a full admiral, yet he could tell his superior, respectfully of course, and within strictly limited circumstances, where and how to move the eight carriers and the varying number of support craft, destroyers and missile ships, should they actually gain any. From John’s standpoint, his shoulders carried all the weight of responsibility, without any of the perks that came with flag rank. He didn’t mind not having gold braid, but with high rank came the opportunity to shape the war effort, and take care of his men and women.

  The rebel fleet had once again managed to escape destruction and was now feverishly fortifying yet another rebel system. Fortunately, federal scouts hadn’t seen many of the immense platforms the rebels had used so effectively in their stubborn defense of Nasser.

  The lumbering federals had begun their attack, once again trying to pin down and destroy the smaller rebel fleet.

  James’ group was once again ordered to separate from the main fleet and make a feint towards this planet’s rudimentary orbital systems. He was told that if the opportunity presented itself to attack fixed or mobile units he should take it, but under no circumstances was he to incur large losses.

  The federal home worlds had grown increasingly critical of the drawn-out war, and there was a growing sentiment for some sort of treaty.

  The federation had been formed just over a century earlier, and the course of its development into an effective and useful political and legal organization had been tortuous.

  Oddly, if not for the current dynamic Federation President, the war might not have even happened. Her election had caused various cracks in the federation to grow into fissures of discontent.

  She had run on a platform of a central government that, she believed, ought to have a stronger role in many areas that a number of people considered to fall within the domain of the individual planets. Her campaign included one strong federal military instead of the hodgepodge of planetary militias that had largely been the norm; the elimination of all inter-planet travel restrictions, save for those based on health issues; the legal supremacy of the federal constitution in areas of civil rights, education standards, and some few others. None, however, were as controversial as the federal government’s growing intrusion into the area of planetary development.

  Before a planet could be identified as a good candidate for terraforming, it had to meet certain, increasingly stringent criteria. A planet would not even be considered unless it was a very close match to earth; however, every planet so designated or even considered already had life forms in abundance; in fact, no planet yet scouted lacked life. Obviously many planets were not yet ‘ripe’ for consideration – these were referred to as “Venus Grade”, and others were too far along – “Mars Grade”.

  Since terraforming inevitably led to the wholesale replacement of an entire world of life forms, this had led to intense debates over the moral right of humanity to remake another world. These debates led to the creation of a very complex set of restrictions that, boiled down to a simple level, only permitted the destruction and replacement of the millions of life forms on a planet according to a precise definition of the ‘level of maturity’ of that planet’s development. The more primitive the planetary ecology, the easier it was for earth-based life forms to take over, and of course, the reverse was true.

  In recent years, there had been a small number of planets that had been scouted and deemed nearly perfect for colonization, where the federal government had stepped in and blocked the lengthy permit process on the grounds that the planet’s life forms were too far along in their development, and might eventually produce an advanced life form. These decisions were controversial in the extreme. In point of fact, there were many who believed that all planets would eventually produce intelligent life. These people asked, ‘what was the purpose of life if not to bring into existence an intelligent species that would wonder at its own existence’?

  The various current and former colonies held widely conflicting views on what role the federal government should take in the political lives of the thirty-eight settled planets, and specifically, what rights the federal government had in permitting or blocking the development of a new home.

  Over the previous several decades a number of them had grown to resent the increasing power and influence of the older, more industrialized worlds that were now reaping the great monetary rewards that their sometimes century old investments in new worlds had created for them.

  The election of President Helena Chong, a fervent federalist, had brought these resentments to a boil, and now, three years later, she was up for reelection. Prior to the battle of Elyse her popular support had eroded to the point that it was no longer certain that she would be reelected to a second term. If she lost, it was a virtual certainty that her replacement would sue for peace.

  With that victory behind her, her chances for reelection now looked anywhere from good to very good. As a result, she had issued a “Procl
amation of Maturation” that forcefully put forward the federal supremacy in all cases of terraforming, including the introduction of any earth-based life forms into any ecology, anywhere. It’s announcement had been a bombshell, and meant that the middle-tier planets, those that were well along the path to economic independence if not solvency now faced a much tougher and more expensive process in the creation of their own colonies.

  Even within the twenty-two federal systems, feelings ran high, both for and against this proclamation; however, in the six months since her announcement, most legal scholars and constitutional authorities had declared that although the constitution did not grant the president this specific power, it fell within the realm of the powers that the constitution did grant the executive branch.

  At the moment, none of this was on John’s mind, as he sat with his eight flight leads, and tried to figure out how to implement the orders he’d been given without causing any loss of life. He knew that one of the results of warfare was death, knew that no matter how well he planned, some would die. He hated with a burning passion that fact, hated that people he cared for, and even people he fought against, were going to die as a result of his decisions. On the other hand, he also burned with an even stronger passion to have the ball, to be able to develop and carry out the orders now handed down to him, because he fervently believed he could do a better job than anyone else, and that fewer would die.

  John Chamberlin was a humble man, but after three years of frequently criminal ineptitude on the part of his superiors, his normal reticence to butt heads with those in authority had evaporated.

  As a result of the successes he generated at both Elyse and Nasser, his current orders gave him quite a bit of latitude. Basically, he was asked to create a great deal of smoke while the main federal forces provided the fire, both literally and figuratively. If he could destroy either mobile forces or fixed installations without suffering large losses, he was given permission to make the attempt.

  As they discussed his orders, the small flotilla was easing into a position approximately one hundred and twenty degrees around the planet from the main federal forces. There were two Phase One carrier groups – the official name given to the original and very crudely modified freighters - tasked with plugging the holes in the enormous sphere of space that surrounded the planet, but John’s forces were to create as much of a diversion as possible. As a result, he had over two hundred fighters noisily screening their approach to the rebel defenses.

  This system did have some platforms, but not nearly enough to do much more than create a few places federal forces wanted to avoid, and a few islands of relative safety where unarmed rebel freighters could head to after sneaking into the system.

  John’s force was large enough that the few rebel ships in the area fled planetward rather than risk capture or worse.

  John kept a third of his fighters in a compact group, another third spread out in a cloud, and he had an additional two hundred on five-minute alert; the balance could be launched in fifteen minutes.

  A platform launched a dozen missiles at his carriers, which were safely tucked in behind his fighters. Within just a few moments it was determined that the missiles were well out of range.

  John was beginning to see a pattern: the rebel mobile forces had been fighting for over three years, and man for man, were at least as good as the federals, but the planetary defenses were mostly untried and untested. His CAG for the element closest to the incoming missiles messaged John, telling him that he would keep an eye on the missiles, but wasn’t concerned.

  John didn’t particularly like passing close to missile platforms that were operational, but they were also immobile, and thus, not his ultimate target. He also didn’t want to get in too close to the planet and get trapped between the large gravity well, complete with armed ships and potentially armed orbital forces, and a numerically superior mobile force, so he had flights of fighters in a large cloud surrounding his ships.

  Up until Elyse, the rebels had been highly professional, sneaky and frequently lucky. The last two major battles had shown them to be capable of stupidity and susceptible to bad luck, but John didn’t want to help change their fortunes, unless it was for the worse.

  He decided to push past the one platform that was near his forces, and from inside its orbit launch a few hundred heavy missiles, with most of them targeted on the platform itself, and the remainder on a clutch of freighters and small craft that might be war ships that were hiding inside its missile envelope.

  He spoke to Captain Ahmidiyeh, who was the actual captain of his carrier, as well as group commander, laid out his plans and asked him to increase the acceleration of the carriers. As soon as he saw their gravity wells increase, he ordered the additional two hundred fighters to launch, and ordered the final two hundred and forty fighters to prepare to launch on five minutes notice.

  His ships moved up to three gravities, hopefully alarming the rebel forces that were gradually coalescing into something resembling a defensive alignment. As his forces moved past the platform, still well out of range, the second group of two hundred fighters accelerated in a curving arc that would bring them around and inside the platform. He held off launching the final elements of his fighter force – he wanted to wait and see how the rebels reacted first. Most of his fighters were presently armed with four small missiles, but it wouldn’t take long to switch to the larger version.

  As soon as the platform realized that a large fighter force was targeting it, it began launching missiles, despite the fact that his fighters were still well out of range. John didn’t mind the waste of resources, considering that particular outcome vastly preferable to the waste of men and women.

  As they curved up toward the platform his fighters accelerated to maximum in an effort to give their missiles a little better range. The platform continued to launch small numbers of missiles, causing John to message James, “Tell me if those missiles are coming from just a few locations – that platform may still be under construction.”

  Five minutes later James said, “Captain, the launches are all from one quadrant of the platform. “ John asked, “Can you detect any emissions from any other sections of the platform?” James said, “No sir, nothing. We’re about ten minutes from launching.” John said, “Target that quadrant, using their radar transmissions as your focus, start curving away now, and RTB to reload and relaunch.”

  His orders were transmitted simultaneously to the other two CAG’s who were participating in the attack. John sent out a general warning to all his fighters, warning them to be alert to any radar return or gravity bump, no matter how small.

  The fighters swept into range and five minutes later four hundred heavy missiles appeared on screen. The platform continued to launch missiles, but it was now apparent that it was only partially operational. His fighters were now heading away from the platform, having completed a two hundred seventy degree turn. James had timed his launch nearly perfectly, and the answering missiles were going to go ballistic before reaching the fleeing fighters. John congratulated all three CAG’s, and focused on the enemy defenses that lay between him and the distant planet. James knew that their captain’s praise was meant for his ears.

  Admiral Grigorivich called, asking for an update. John replied, “Sir, we’ve just launched four hundred heavy missiles at a platform, designated as Number 17 on your charts. It appears that it was only partially operational and we lost no fighters in the attack. Our missiles should be on target within ten minutes; meanwhile, the fighters are now returning to rearm. I’ve got two hundred fighters sweeping our path and we are continuing to move towards the planet. The rebels are consolidating between us and the orbital defenses, and within the hour I expect to see some form of an attack.”

  Admiral Grigorivich grunted, “Sounds good. They appear to be entirely defensive over here; as soon as I see some sign that they are realigning to defend against your attack, I’ll launch mine. Let me know immediately if anything changes.”


  The missiles devastated the platform and damaged or destroyed all the shipping huddling near it.

  Within two hours John had all six hundred plus fighters on station, with one third following the carriers, another two hundred in a compact formation just in front of the carriers and the final two hundred now moving forward as a screening element.

  He saw continued movement and consolidation of rebel forces, including a surprisingly large number of fighters, causing him to look for carriers. He counted over five hundred of the tiny craft, and had to assume that there were others who were not underway. On the other hand, he was seeing relatively fewer missile boats and very few missile ships. Oddly, he saw nothing that could be identified as a carrier. Where were those fighters coming from?

  He called Admiral Grigorivich and they discussed the rebel movements. The admiral told him, “I’ve got a large number of carriers here, but I don’t see all that many fighters.” John said, “Sir, I think they’ve repositioned to face my intrusion - they’re going to bounce me, and soon. I’m going to start tightening my formations, and put out more scouts. This might mean you’ve got an opening sir.” The admiral asked, “How many fighters do you see?” John told him, “Something over five hundred, and if they were smart, they’d be hiding some, and probably have some outside of me.” The admiral said, “I’ll push up my attack. Are your fighters configured with heavy or light missiles?” John smiled, “My forward line are light, the middle element heavy. I think I’ll bring up the heavy elements, and launch.”