Throughout this, Captain Yerenkov stood looking with disfavor on Commodore Harrelson. When the commodore finished, Captain Yerenkov said, “Commodore, I have no doubt that the chief has a fine record - as an enlisted man. However, his manifestly sterling career in no way makes him an expert on the modification of fleet vessels and/or missiles. Or, am I mistaken?”
Commodore Harrelson must have forgotten his own instructions to me, because he continued to speak. “Sir, the proposal placed before us is not a technical paper, it is a proposal to utilize an existing fleet asset in a new way. It lays out what would be required in order to utilize the FFC in a manner that could quite possibly provide us with the means to destroy bug mother ships. It is up to Fleet to decide if the modifications requested are possible and worthwhile. I have called these men here in an effort to determine if it is a proposal that we should approve for further study. At this time, and in the absence of any definitive technical objection, I believe it to be a worthy proposal and am going to recommend that we ask for three FFC’s with the purpose of stealthing them, along with the appropriately modified missile containers. In fact, I believe that this concept may enable us to modify larger fleet combatants, or even develop a new class of warship which would have the ability to carry hundreds of missile containers, giving them the ability to launch relatively huge numbers of missiles, for relatively little cost.”
Captain Yerenkov seemed to be of the N.I.H. school of thought: if he could either originate the idea or at least take credit for it, it was a Good Idea; else, it smelled suspiciously like something that would further someone else’ career. In this case, he openly sneered, “So, commander, with virtually no information, no hard data, you are going to ask fleet for resources which are scarce at the best of times, and extremely so now, is that it?”
Commodore Harrelson was made of stern material. He leaned forward almost aggressively and answered, “Sir, the issue before us right this minute, is how to destroy bug mother ships. We know that if we hit one with enough capital missiles it can be destroyed. At this time, however, we have no way of getting the required number of missiles into range of it. The Hawks can sneak in and hit it, but they can’t carry enough firepower to kill it; our battle cruisers carry enough fire power but cannot get within ten million kilometers of it without being immediately attacked by a hundred fighters, destroyers and cruisers. Therefore, we need to find or develop a way of getting the missiles in close, and this proposal offers at least the chance of doing that, at an extremely small cost, compared to the loss of life that a bug attack on a human world would entail. So, yes sir, I am going endorse it and forward it to the admiral.”
I had begun to think Commodore Harrelson had lost his mind, right up until that last sentence. In that moment my opinion of him soared; He was possibly staking his entire career on an untested proposal. It should not have been that way, he should have received the unhesitating support of his superiors, yet here we were, standing on a career precipice as well as a threat against the entire human civilization. With that last sentence he had not merely addressed the stark situation facing us, he had also put the captain in a very delicate situation. Captain Yerenkov was tasked with developing an offensive against this new foe; for him to come down hard on the first proposal to come out of his own people would look bad. Unless it was a stinker of an idea Commodore Harrelson had done what he could.
For a moment, I felt disoriented, as if the universe was spinning. I looked at the small group of people standing so uncomfortably around me, and felt the enormous weight of responsibility slip away. In its place I felt a calm sureness that there was no pressure, no worry, only the knowledge that as long as I did the very best I could, I would be able to live with myself. I also realized that from this moment forward, senior officers were going to have to earn my respect, not the other way around. I would continue to salute the rank, no matter how big a gasbag resided under the braid, but my loyalty was to men like the master chief, to Commodore Harrelson, and to the Fleet, or at least the Fleet that ought to be, and that once was.
I looked at Chief Kana, standing so solidly, seemingly unmoved by the brassy threat before him. He faced this petty man with the same calm assurance that he faced death at the hands of his enemies. The chief caught me looking at him and for a moment we were alone. He smiled slightly, with his eyes, his inner soul, and for the first time, I felt his genuine approval.
Captain Yerenkov looked around our little group and picked me out. He said, “Lieutenant, are you the man responsible for originating this proposal?” I answered, “Sir, I wish I could claim responsibility for the original idea, or even for the work that went into preparing the proposal, but I cannot; it represents the work of quite a few people who know far more than I.”
Captain Yerenkov couldn’t leave it alone. He asked, “Well, lieutenant, do you think this cargo ship proposal is worth the expenditure it would entail?” With a calmness that almost surprised me I answered, “Sir, I don’t know. Nobody can know unless and until we try it. That said, I believe that if we do not pursue this idea, it could end up costing us the lives of millions of people.”
Captain Yerenkov looked around at the small group of enlisted and officers and snorted with disdain. He turned away and walked toward the crew hatch. No salutes were exchanged, an extremely caustic and highly unusual circumstance.
As soon as he was gone, the atmosphere changed dramatically. Commodore Harrelson seemed to shake himself and turned to the group of engineers who had come at his behest. He said, “Have all of you read the proposal put forward by Lieutenants Padilla and Turner?” There was a chorus of ‘yes sir’ and he smiled briefly. He asked, “Does anyone know of any reason why this project cannot work?” He looked each one of us in the eye. He was very serious, but not threatening. Still, everyone understood that this was the Rubicon.
An engineer raised his hand and said, “Sir, there are two crucial issues, as I see it. First, we have to be able to take an inherently noisy craft and turn it into a black hole so that the Hawks can escort it in without such a boisterous reception. Second, we have to figure out how to eject one hundred missiles into space without either turning them into space debris or exploding them, um, prematurely shall we say. If we accomplish one and not the other, we’ve failed. I have split the two tasks up between myself and Lieutenants Cordoba, Lee and Hassan. We’ve only had a few hours to play with it, but I think that we have come up with a means of modifying the existing containers right here on the Essex. I don’t say it will be easy, but we believe that it can be done. With your permission sir, I would like to begin work on a mule. I want to pursue the objective in two steps. The first will be to enable the FFC to push containers out of the hold rapidly utilizing automated equipment. That task I’ve assigned to lieutenants Lee and Hassan. It would greatly speed things up if we could get your two senior chiefs assigned to us for the interim – they have the practical experience we lack. Also, sir, I would like access to Lieutenant Padilla and his crew. They have demonstrated repeatedly that they can think on their feet and accomplish their task, no matter what. Additionally, as the, um, end-users, they know what they want to be able to do with the weapons systems we provide them. Second, we need to develop a method to keep the containers aligned properly once they’re out of the hold. We don’t yet have a solution, but we are working on two separate approaches that may work.”
“I think we’ve found a simple fix for getting the missiles out of the container. The container masses about five percent that of the four missiles, so we’re looking at simply ejecting the container away from the missiles prior to their ignition. There will then be the simple problem of ensuring that none of the missiles collide, either with each other or with the discarded containers when we fire them off. That is going to be tricky but we think doable, via an ancient technology: a reaction thruster that would boost the missiles far enough away from each other so that their gravity drives won’t blow themselves up. We’d only need an initial separation o
f twenty meters, which is what the Hawk provides. We’ll need access to some serious computer time for our modeling, and once we finalize the design of the container, we’ll need to dismantle as many as one hundred and modify them. For that we’ll need lots of help. Oh, that number represents the capacity of one FFC. At this time, we don’t have three hundred Mark 65’s aboard the Essex, so unless we receive additional stores, we won’t have to worry about two additional ships to tear apart.”
Commodore Harrelson looked over at me and I nodded my head. He said, “You’ve got Padilla and company. Anything else?”
For the first time Lieutenant Lee spoke up. She was very petite and must have stood on her toes to make the height requirement for the Academy. Nonetheless, here she was, and from what I had heard, she had been promoted ahead of the curve and was extremely bright. She said, “Yes sir, and thank you sir, for allowing us this opportunity. I believe that there are two avenues we can pursue to stealth the FFC. The good thing about the craft is that it has a military grade propulsion system that will allow it to get in and get out quickly. That is also its Achilles heel – it’s noisy. We have a prototype for a third generation silencer that has a new active component that we are excited about. Also, we have discovered an economical way to give its hull an ablative coating that is about half as efficient as that found on the Hawks, but at approximately one percent of the cost, and we can do it here. It – the ablative material - will have some of the noise deadening features of the Hawk, but without some extensive computer time, we can’t know how much until we actually build it. For that, I’ll need two service craft and at least three maintenance crews.”
The commodore said, “Done. Anything else?” It appeared there was nothing else. He asked, “Can you give me an estimate of how long it will take to get a modified FFC into our hands?” There was a lot of looking down at the deck, and shuffling of feet. Finally, Lt. Lee said, “Using the median times for each of the tasks, we come up with approximately four weeks.”
The commodore nodded his head and turned to an as yet un-introduced officer. He gestured to her and said, “This is Major Hawthorne. She works in Intelligence. Major, how much time do we have before the bugs find us?”
That question got my attention. The major said, “Thank you sir. The bugs have made a major effort to locate our fleet. We believe that they do not know of our jump ability, and we are taking pains to keep that technology from them. Our scouts report that the bugs are sending out destroyers escorted by large numbers of fighters, typically the older types, which may have greater endurance than the newer ones, or maybe not. They are sweeping the space around their combined fleets and it has become nearly impossible for us to get a fighter anywhere near it. Additionally, the Essex is finding it increasingly difficult to evade them while at the same time remaining in the general region. So far we have been successful, both at keeping them at a very high readiness state, and unaware of our location. That said, it is our belief that eventually one of their patrols is going to find us. They are being extremely intelligent in the way they sweep. They use the destroyers as tenders for the fighters and I believe that they are hot-swapping pilots, or crews. Whatever they’re doing, those fighters are only docked to the destroyers long enough to refuel. Very, very ingenious, and very scary, this tactic. Their search patterns are both logical and unpredictable, and if a patrol can find us, it is not certain that we could break off contact. If we cannot break off contact, we are going to have a very bad time of it. Are there any questions?”
I raised my hand and she nodded to me. I asked, “Sir, do we have any intelligence on their efforts to repair battle damage?” She nodded head, “Yes, we do, although it is now four days out of date. They have sited all four mother ships in close proximity to each other, and seem to have assembled out of internal stowage what amounts to a full space dock. The more I learn about their mother ships the more respect I have for them. They were apparently designed from the outset to function for centuries of use without any support, thus they are most probably going to be able to repair the damage we’ve caused. I believe that they will complete basic repairs before we can put your stealthed FFC into use. I define ‘basic repairs’ to mean they are able to accelerate and defend themselves.”
I asked, “Sir, what you say suggests to me that an immediate attack on those four mother ships by our Hawks might buy us enough time to field an FFC.” She shook her head and said, “Lieutenant, I am not privy to that sort of information. However, what you say is logical.”
Elian asked, looking at the commodore, “Sir, what if we could sneak an un-stealthed FFC to within approximately one hundred million kilometers? We could shoot off the missiles on the Hawks, reload them from the freighter and continue to shoot them. They can be programmed to accelerate towards the bug fleet, and then dead head in. We could even set it up so that all of the missiles arrived on target at about the same time. The closer they could get without detection, the higher the percentage of hits we’d get.”
Commodore Harrelson asked, “How much time would it take to put together that mission?” He was looking at me. I said, “The Hawks could be underway within twenty four hours. I can’t speak for the FFC. We would all love another shot at the bugs. I believe also that we could improve on Elian’s proposal.” Elian grinned at me and I smiled back, adding, “That is to say, Lieutenant Turner’s brilliant and innovative proposal.” Everyone laughed.
Commodore Harrelson said, “Lieutenants, I will endorse your mission, just as soon as it hits my pad. Operate under the assumption that the admiral will approve. Meanwhile, alert your crews and begin preparations. Understand: this mission will just about empty our coffers of the Mark 65, so please ensure that you don’t waste them. We’re getting more when our reinforcements arrive, but they are incredibly expensive and there are never going to be enough. With that, let’s get to work.”
We saluted and left for our quarters. On the way I gave the Hawk crews a warning of an imminent mission, and asked for status reports from each crew.
It took us ten minutes to reach our Mission Briefing room. By that time I had updates from ten crews and Elian was working on planning the strike. Carolyn and the Chief were in discussion with the crew of an FFC.
Elian and I were concerned that one of the bug patrols would spot us close enough to the Essex to be able to find it. Therefore, he laid out a course that took us out in the opposite direction of the bug fleet for two hours before beginning a course change that would bring us in at about two hundred and seventy degrees from our own fleet.
I called for a full crew briefing for sixteen hundred, working on the assumption that we would get the go ahead. The chief and Carolyn spent two hours ensuring that every Hawk was updated with all of the new programs that she seemed to be able to churn out on a whim, as well as the routine repairs and maintenance.
She had continued to develop her control software to the point that it was voice operated and if the lead Hawk was damaged or destroyed it would automatically transfer overall control to another craft. She had played with the control software for the two prime targeting systems and we tested it successfully in simulators. Her system was designed to turn control of the weapon over to the system that had the best fix, giving us a slightly better hit percentage. We were going to field test the system if we found the right circumstances. We didn’t want to bet the entire farm on it, and we weren’t loading the other Hawks with it until we were certain it worked as advertised.
The briefing room was full fifteen minutes before time, but I let them alone. The Hawk crews were fiercely proud of their new assignment and were already developing a camaraderie that was at least as strong as any I had ever seen in the fighter community.
These crews came, for the most part, out of the fighter community, but the atmosphere in the briefing room was distinctly different. Fighter pilots tend to be very aggressive, and the Hawk crews exhibited that characteristic in spades, but they also demonstrated a high degree of intelligence and
thoughtfulness. It was like a samurai who was an expert chess player. Their jokes were usually irremediably filthy, but they were also intelligent. They liked a dirty joke, but if it made you think, all the better.
It was interesting to watch Carolyn and the other female crewmembers in this environment. Five of the Hawk pilots were women, as were almost half of the crews. As a result, the jokes went in both directions, and the women seemed able to give as well as they got. It was a lot of fun to watch.
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 23
