Hawk Genesis: War (Flight of the Hawk)

by Robert Little

  John asked, “Sir, are you asking my opinion of how to go about it, or about the ships and equipment we would require?” Admiral Grigorivich said, flatly, “Both, in that order.”

  John answered, slowly, “Sir, after I was assigned an independent command I tasked my people with determining how to go about making a ground assault. They ran extensive simulations and several live tests with up to three hundred fighters – it served the purpose of training our crews, and we wanted to develop tactics, just in case. I have done fairly extensive reading and could not find any previous exercises of that nature. They were tasked with destroying ground-based energy and missile defenses, preparatory to dropping troops to the surface. Our fighters were sitting ducks the moment they entered atmosphere. In addition to their gravity drive, they generated IR signatures and were limited to four hundred knots or less. We found that they were unable or didn’t have enough time to pinpoint ground-based energy weapons, which can gain targeting information from multiple sources, both active and passive. It would be a simple matter to provide false infrared hot spots and radar repeaters.”

  The admiral nodded thoughtfully, and then asked, “What are your conclusions, captain?” John suddenly understood the point of the discussion, “Sir, first, our tests indicate that at present we do not have either the tactics or the equipment necessary to make a successful ground assault; second, as you probably know, my father-in-law has a contract to design a ground attack craft. My…Lieutenant Commander Chamberlin and I spent an afternoon at the Padilla production facility on Maya. They developed a design for an assault vehicle that could transport ten fully loaded troops to the surface of a contested planet. He believes that there exists an ablative coating that would be able to shrug off fairly large energy hits and the craft would have a heavy laser to provide missile defense. It would be able to ingress the atmosphere without using its gravity drive, but due to the coating, be roughly as costly to build as a destroyer.”

  Admiral Grigorivich asked, now very somber, “Is that the reason you offered such generous terms to those two systems?” John nodded, “In part, yes sir. Our tests only verified what we already believed, a ground attack utilizing our fighters to suppress ground defenses could prove to be extremely costly and possibly ineffective. I would love to see the navy pursue the development of an attack ship, sir. We would require at least forty or more. If Mr. Padilla is correct that the coating is as effective as advertised, and as expensive, the navy would face the choice of a politically unpopular and very big budget increase, or the extension of the war and large numbers of politically unpopular deaths. Oh, um, the navy will own the design, not the contractor.”

  The admiral looked carefully at John, before saying, “I already knew that captain, but I appreciate what you are saying. I haven’t seen the specs for any of the three proposals, but whichever one wins the competition will have to face a very difficult time getting funded, much less built.”

  John thought for just a moment before deciding not to reply. The admiral had just given him a certain amount of information: if he encountered that scenario he would have to solve the problem.

  He was dismissed thirty minutes later, not knowing what the admiral thought about the information he’d given him. He decided that if he ever took up the game of poker, he would never, never sit at a table with the admiral.

  Orleans, according to the intelligence given him, did not have a large orbital infrastructure, and there were no known mobile forces stationed there. John had heard that tune before, and conducted his planning session on the basis that the system would have learned from the last six months, and prepared. In fact, the previous attacks were designed to create panic in the remaining rebel systems, cause them to devote more of their resources to system defense, and starve their mobile forces. If the theory was proved out, the admiral would benefit, John would not.

  John’s force departed Elyse two weeks later. He had sixteen carriers, eight cruisers and four fast freighters, although they really weren’t very fast. New-build destroyers were still extremely scarce, and due to the offensive makeup of his force, he had exactly none. He did have one thousand heavy and nearly three hundred light fighters. He had more firepower than possessed by the entire federal fleet at the outset of the war, and for at least a year after. Unfortunately, the very high rate of fire couldn’t be sustained past the first launch.

  John’s force jumped into a portion of the immense emptiness several light months outside Orleans, and for three days his fighters practiced the art of war. Most of his pilots were experienced, but the transition to the heavy fighter gave John numerous possibilities, which translated into something of a tactical headache, thus the intense workups.

  They could have done their workups in the Elyse system, but John was reasonably certain that rebel observers would have eagerly reported anything they saw.

  John now had a very large number of fighters, but he was adamantly opposed to splitting up his forces. Since he would enter the system with a large amount of relative velocity, he wasn’t concerned with getting hit from behind, but he did worry about getting hit from his flanks. As a result, they decided to place a cloud of fighters out ahead and to the side of their main force.

  They jumped into Orleans and accelerated for six hours at the maximum rate his slowest ship could sustain. Once again, his forces sailed into the orbits of the outer gas giants, although they were not anywhere near the planets themselves.

  They were coming in on a ballistic course roughly halfway between the system equator and north pole. It was effectively impossible to cover all approaches to a system, although a government scientist had once estimated that a system that had achieved self-sufficiency could, given enough time, create a monitoring system that would do the trick. Unfortunately, it would require approximately one hundred percent of the system resources for approximately twenty years, by which time the oldest sensor platforms would be outmoded and/or ready for the scrap heap.

  John kept nearly all his fighters on board the carriers. A widely spaced, thin screen of light fighters preceded his carriers.

  As the task force penetrated the outer system, probes began to send back passive sensor readings. They were a long way from the inner planets, so as the expensive devices lost power they were replaced.

  They gradually built up information on the system. As they passed the orbit of the most distant of the outer gas giants, someone commented on the lack of system traffic. A search of their database revealed that at any given time there ought to be several dozen ships in transit, not counting military vessels, of which there were…none.

  One of his CAG’s, Lieutenant Commander Kristina Orloff, radioed, “Sir, the virtually complete lack of gravity drives tells us a great deal. Either the system has been completely abandoned, or they are waiting for us. I vote for total abandonment, meaning we can just go home.” John answered, “Unfortunately, we are now committed – if we reverse course, we’ll give away our position, prematurely spring their trap and fail to reduce their mobile forces or take the system. Unless they’ve positioned the rebel main fleet here, we should be able to reduce whatever forces they do have. If we find otherwise, we empty our racks and run. Using your external tanks of reaction fuel, move your screening element out to two hundred thousand kilometers. You are authorized to launch on contact, but if so, I want you heading back immediately.” She acknowledged receipt of his orders and he went back to watching his monitors.

  They continued on a ballistic course that would take them within five million kilometers of the planet. They spotted a handful of small gravity drives, but nothing military. His fighters were using their reaction thrusters instead of their drives. This kept them close to the carriers and shortened their time on station, but had the benefit of keeping their presence in the system a secret. Six million kilometers out of Orleans their passive sensors began to pick up evidence of a large concentration of ships outside of the single moon. It appeared that they still hadn’t been detected yet, but
that would probably happen fairly soon.

  John’s fighters were armed with light missiles, meaning he only had a very small long-range offensive punch.

  At three million kilometers, rebel gravity drives began to appear. They’d finally been detected. John talked privately with James, who was once again on station with his crews, “If they’d maintained patrols, they’d have detected us long ago. As it is, I don’t think they can possibly force us into a slugging match.” James asked, “How big a force do they have?” John glanced at his display, “So far, we can see sixty-seven gravity drives, most of them either carriers or missile ships.” He added, “I’ve got my team running simulations. I don’t think what we see makes sense, unless they’ve got a second force outside of Orleans’ orbit. I don’t want to take on thirty or forty missile ships long range, or that many carriers close in, so I’ve got to figure out where they’ve placed their second force, and go somewhere else.”

  Ten minutes later his computers finished their analysis. The position of the rebel force they knew about made no sense unless there was a second force that was positioned such that an attacker, once it discovered the fleet was camped out in Orleans orbit, would run right over the second. The computers gave the highest probability to a position somewhere along the direct line between Orleans and the system limits. John badly wanted to do some damage, but he didn’t dare enter the missile envelope of what may be the main rebel fleet. He took a few minutes to think about his options. If he had designed the trap he was possibly now in, he would have split his carriers and missile boats fairly evenly, and he would have placed what he was thinking of as the ‘outside’ force no more than five to ten million kilometers from the planet. His force was still ballistic, meaning the rebels didn’t know the exact makeup of his fleet, although the fact that the enemy was there suggested they expected him.

  John decided to behave as if he wanted to avoid getting into range of either force. He had enough of the new, long-range missiles for a short engagement, and he wanted that engagement to be with the outside force, the anvil. There existed the possibility that if he engaged the inner force he would be delayed or diverted long enough for the second group to take him on.

  John decided on a course that was close to being the most direct route out of the system. His hope was that it would take him far enough out of range of the blocking force to cause it to go to acceleration to bring him into range, at which point he would know what he was dealing with and could stay outside rebel missile range and pound them while he sailed past. He knew that he could always attempt to jump from inside the system, but it did bad things to gravity drives and would inevitably lead to long and premature yard times, a far worse fate for a ship whose drives failed.

  His ships brought up their drives and began a turn toward the outer system, finally giving the rebels good reads on the number and type of his ships. The rebels promptly went to maximum acceleration. They had no hope of closing to within missile range of John’s force, but their actions did tend to herd him along toward the presumed trap.

  John brought his light fighters in to give his pilots a rest and to load them with two heavy missiles, giving him almost six hundred heavy missiles in addition to what the cruisers were able to launch.

  The eight cruisers would be able to launch one hundred forty missiles every ninety seconds, giving his force a first launch capability of seven hundred missiles. He doubted that he would get even one hit, but as long as he was careful the rebels wouldn’t get into range, and would be forced to use a large number of light missiles for their defense.

  Over the next ten hours John rotated his fighters, giving them rests and a hot meal.

  By now his force was well past Orleans and accelerating up out of the system. James commed him and said, “Sir, for three days we’ve been in a heavily defended rebel system and have yet to fire one missile.” John said, “That probably won’t hold for much longer, but thanks for the thought. I hope the admiral can show up before the rebels depart. This might develop into a big victory if the admiral can get here fast enough.”

  Three hours later, five million kilometers to their port and five million ahead of them, seventy-two gravity drives came to life. At the time, James was standing next to John, and said, after checking to ensure they weren’t being overheard, “Elder brother, you cut it pretty close.” John quietly ordered a course change that would keep them out of range. He had toyed with the idea of making one massive heavy missile launch, but that would have left him with very little missile defense. As he looked at the plot he heaved a sigh of relief. He had indeed cut it very close, but unless the rebel ships had gained an extra gravity or two of acceleration they weren’t going to be able to hurt him. Unfortunately, the reverse was also true.

  John took yet another chance and kept his fighters in close to the carriers. As his force clawed to starboard, the rebels tried to cut them off. The inside fleet was completely out of position, but was still accelerating hard.

  At the extreme limit of the new gravity drive heavy missiles, John’s fighters launched all five hundred sixty on their rails and his cruisers began their own short-lived attack. His cruisers had only enough for four or five launches, so it would prove to be exciting for the rebels, but nor much more.

  Next time.

  The rebels didn’t bother to respond with heavy missiles, using instead light missiles in defense. Not one missile penetrated their defenses.

  John’s force continued to accelerate toward the outer limit, and after another two hours he began bringing in the majority of his fighters. He’d failed in his mission, but he hadn’t lost anyone.

  He jumped out moments after the rebels, who were presumably trying to get back into position ahead of him. It’s what he would have done.

  Chapter 30

  The main rebel force was long gone when Admiral Grigorivich arrived. He had ordered John’s force to remain nearby and enter the system with the main federal fleet.

  The system defenses consisted of nearly one thousand fighters – the rebel fleet had probably stripped the system of everything else.

  In a change from previous behavior, all the fighters descended down to the planet. The admiral sent his own fighters after them. They slowed to three hundred kilometers per hour and entered the upper atmosphere. Mobile, ground-based heavy lasers began picking them off. Within less than two minutes thirteen fighters were hit and either destroyed or disabled. The admiral promptly ordered the remaining fighters back out into space. John’s simulations had turned out to be unfortunately accurate.

  The admiral sent a message to the planetary government, which refused to surrender, despite his threat to destroy all their orbital facilities. They were betting that he wouldn’t do that, and while they correctly guessed that he didn’t want to, they failed to understand his deep and abiding fury over the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. He gave them six hours to evacuate

  The admiral didn’t ask John’s opinion – he had several admirals and dozens of captains, all of who had higher-ranking theories about how to reduce the planet-based defenses.

  The admiral spent two days mapping the surface, trying to determine where the defenses were located. He launched an attack with three hundred fighters. They were supposed to suppress the ground defenses ahead of the descent of several freighters, loaded with troops. Instead, scores of missiles soared up to meet the fighters. While they concentrated on the missiles, dozens of energy sites sent spears of coherent light up through the dense atmosphere, and fighters began exploding or tumbling out of control.

  Some fighters were able to launch missiles at the weapons sites, but most of those missiles were destroyed before they got below ten thousand meters, and fighters continued to get hit. The admiral gave it up after losing sixty-four crews.

  Orleans hadn’t bothered with orbital missile launchers or platforms. Instead, the government had spent a fortune building ground-based missile launchers and energy weapons. In atmosphere and with dense def
enses, the federal fighters were sitting ducks. Their gravity drive made them easy to target, and they were in turn unable to target the well-hidden ground sites.

  Admiral Grigorivich ordered the destruction of every man made structure in orbit. Unfortunately, he couldn’t bombard the planet from orbit, forcing him to choose between an obscenely costly ground attack, or permanently stationing a large force of fighters to keep the rebel fighters on the ground.

  He sent for John. It took him three hours to shuttle over and present himself before the admiral, who said, “Captain, I’m leaving you in charge of this system. You are to ensure that the rebel fighters don’t escape into space. If you can figure out a way to destroy them and their ground-based defenses, you have my permission to try. I trust you not to suffer heavy casualties. If you do, you had better be the first.”

  Two days later the main federal fleet boosted out of orbit.

  John’s fighters held a small but significant edge in acceleration over the rebel fighters, as well as an overpowering superiority in missiles. He seeded the planet with hundreds of small satellites and stationed his fleet outside of lunar orbit. From there, he would be able to run down any craft that attempted to escape.

  Over the next few days John attempted to learn as much about Orleans as possible. It didn’t take long to discover that the planet was able to feed its population without having to import anything, and it had a small but thriving manufacturing base, giving John little or no leverage. In any event, the elected première of Orleans wasn’t replying to his requests for a face-to-face meeting. John had to find a way to achieve a victory without causing the estimated three to seven thousand combined deaths an assault would cost.