Four hours after the destroyer left base, we were retrofitting the remaining seventy-four fighters. I heard that the destroyer actually jumped from the vicinity of the moon, violating an unknown number of regulations. It took the carrier’s maintenance crews twelve hours to bring all of them up to snuff.
By now it had been a very long day, but Commander Jarvis was adamant that they get as well prepared as possible. He told anyone who asked that losing a little sleep was better than losing one’s life. He got no argument from me, or from anyone else, for that matter.
We had them put together an attack against the carrier. It took two hours to organize it and get the fighters in position. They came in fairly hot and were visible to the carriers’ systems at over five million kilometers distance.
I told Commander Jarvis, “Those fighters would be completely screwed if this were an actual attack against the bugs.” He had already come to that conclusion, and called the attack off halfway through. He looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I suggested, “Have four fighters run out to, say ten million klicks and run parallel to us, starting at one gravity and working up one gravity at a time, until we can see it on our systems. Bring it in closer and repeat the test. Also, you ought to test every single fighter. It’s possible that some fighters are still emitting something, and just one dirty fighter will kill you, all of you.”
He nodded his head and within seconds had organized the first test. While that was underway, and also at our suggestion, he put another four fighters into a formation, spaced twenty kilometers apart from each other, which is about the diameter of the fighter’s gravity well. The bridge crew worked like crazy, but within another four hours we knew just how stealthy the fighter actually was, and we knew that if we positioned them twenty-eight kilometers apart, they could run at two gravity’s higher acceleration than if they ran alone, and not be spotted by the bugs, or by us for that matter.
I was amazed at how much I had learned fighting the bugs. Every time the Commander looked over at us, one or more of us would usually have an answer for him. I really liked his style. He was very quick, didn’t suffer fools, of which he apparently had several on his crews, and demanded perfection. He was particularly upset with the performance of four crews, who were particularly inept.
At one point he looked at me and asked, “Lieutenant, what would you do with these four crews?” I already knew the answer to that question, because I had been thinking about it. I said, “Sir, as it is, those four crews are more likely to get your other crews killed than the bugs. I’d work with them, do everything I could to help them get up to speed, but I would not send them out unless they improved, improved dramatically in fact.”
He nodded his head in satisfaction, as if I had passed a test. Ten seconds later he commed those four crews and told them to dock on the carrier.
As soon as they docked he had them assemble in a pilot’s briefing room. Without wasting a single word he told them that their performance was subpar, and it had to change. Change immediately. He then told them, “You’ve got forty eight hours to bring your performance up to snuff. Lieutenants Padilla and Turner are at your disposal, for the next few minutes. I suggest you use them, that is, both the minutes and these officers.”
He turned and left the room. The eight men and women looked a combination of angry and confused. I handled the anger first, “Your performance today would get not only you killed, it would get your other fighter crews extremely dead as well. That would lead to the death of your ships. I’m guessing that you wouldn’t want that, however, it is only a guess.” I was pretty sarcastic, and I was a JG, so this was a little like putting salt on a wound.
I looked at the crew closest to me and asked, “Do you know what you did wrong?” They were definitely angry by now, especially as nearly all of them outranked me. I didn’t care. The pilot said, a little stiffly, “No, I don’t know; either that I did something wrong, or if I did, what it was.”
I pointed to Carolyn and she brought up a record of their attack run against the carrier. As the fighters approached they gradually became visible to the carrier. She pointed out four indicators, representing the fighters whose crews were standing with us. She simply said, “Watch.” As the fighters closed, those four were unable to hold station precisely twenty-eight kilometers distance from each other. Their movements back and forth to the side caused the gravity signature to change fairly dramatically, making them stand out even more than if they’d come in solo. They looked on in silence until the attack was concluded.
Elian asked them, “Any questions?” Another pilot, still put out by being called on the carpet said, “Well, nobody said it had to be precisely twenty-eight kilometers.” Chief Kana had had enough. He said, very sarcastically, “You were told by Commander Jarvis to maintain a twenty-eight kilometer separation. You did not. In war, the difference between killing and getting killed is very small. You four are in the ‘getting killed’ category right now, and unless you understand, absolutely understand the purpose you’re here for, you’ll get left behind when the Netherlands departs.”
I waited for a response, and watched their faces carefully. I could see that two of the crews were still angry, still making excuses. I pointed to the two crews and said, “You are free to leave. I’ll report to your commander.” They started, not sure what to do. I repeated it, this time, very coldly. They left, angry now at me, rather than themselves.
I sat on a desk, calmly looking at the two remaining crews. Both of the pilots were female, and one of the navigators as well. She asked, “What about the other two crews?” I shrugged, saying “I don’t know what Commander Jarvis will do, but I do know what he won’t do: he won’t put those two crews back into a cockpit while he is in command. The question before you is this: what do you four want to do?”
One pilot asked, strongly surprised and a little angry, “What, just like that they get the boot?” I got angry, finally. “Yes. Just. Like. That. Those crews were inept, but worse, they didn’t care to change. I can work with inept, but I cannot and will not work with a bad attitude, because bad attitudes get you killed.” By the time I finished I was practically yelling.
I paused and then continued in a calmer tone of voice, “Elian and I were in the first group of thirty-six fighters to get sent out. We did everything by the book, we got into proper position and shot and hit four different fighters, and caused absolutely no damage. All around us, our friends were getting killed. We closed to ten kilometers and shot our capacitor out, but we finally managed to get a kill.”
“We returned to base and instead of getting chewed out for overheating the capacitor, we were asked how we did it. We got our second bug with a missile, and our third while we were under attack from three bug fighters. We got that one, and a fourth fighter got us. We were lucky to eject safely. We drifted without our beacon and were again lucky that the bugs didn’t finish us off, as they did numerous others, and we were finally very lucky again when another fighter picked us up.”
“One other crew got a second kill, but they were killed before they could celebrate. We were the only crew to kill three bug fighters. In the Hawk, we have destroyed more tonnage, more ships and more fighters than any other single ship or crew. Ever. We have faced the enemy, and you have not. Either listen, listen very carefully or go home. I don’t care which.”
The same navigator said, “I apologize. I was angry at being picked out. But now that I’ve listened to your story, I understand. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my fighter.”
I said, “Good, but you misunderstand the purpose of this meeting. You have lost your fighter, and it is up to you, now, to get it back. Or not.”
That really silenced them, but it also rid them of their anger, which is what I wanted. In fact, I had no idea what Commander Jarvis planned, but they didn’t know that.
They asked us to show them their mistakes, and I pointed to Carolyn. She began running the attack run, slowing or stopping it repeatedly while explaining
what we were seeing. While she did that I left the room and commed the commander. I told him that I had released two crews because they weren’t going to either listen or learn. I then told him what I said to the second pair and he chuckled, “Lieutenant, you were completely off base saying that to those four crews. However, you were exactly right. The first two crews are gone. I’ll wait for your report on the other two.” With that he hung up.
I returned to the briefing room and listened intently as Carolyn showed them their mistakes. They took notes. While Carolyn worked with them, I thought about what the commander told me. I realized that I had changed quite a bit from just two or three months ago. Now, I thought nothing of speaking my mind, to anyone. A near death experience can change a person, and I’d gone through countless experiences where one wrong action would cause me to be dead.
It took the better part of two hours to finish with the two crews, who had now been suited up for eighteen hours. I didn’t care in the least.
Finally, I told them, “Return to your fighters. I want the two of you to head out about ten million kilometers and make a run at us. Your choice as to how you do it, and from where. Do it right. Any questions?” There were none. Good thing, because I was in a bad mood. I hadn’t expected that I would have to explain to a fighter pilot that he had to do things right or else the consequences would be very permanent.
Three hours later, the two crews radioed that they were in position and ready to initiate their run. I nodded my head and told the bridge crew that two fighters were making an attack run, but nothing else.
We watched the scanners for any sign of them. I estimated that it would be as much as two hours before we could expect to find them popping up. I was wrong.
They ran out past ten million klicks before reversing their acceleration. Instead of telling us as they were going out, they had waited until they were coming back in to tell us, and then they shut off their drives. Inside of one hour they suddenly popped up on our screens, just one hundred thousand klicks away. It was easily the best performance of any of the crews.
Carolyn grinned at me and said, “You know, they cheated.” I grinned back at her and said, “Cheating is a requirement in this game.” Elian chuckled and added, “And, we happen to be very good at cheating.”
We didn’t get an opportunity to see those two crews again until later the next day, our last with the Netherlands. This time, we were running scenarios with elements of the system defense force, which had a mere one hundred fighters available to it. Someone, somewhere, had decided that the system people ought to get as much help as possible.
We ran repeated attack runs against the carrier, using the system fighters, mostly in Dash 6’s, for defense. The first few simulated exercises went very badly, but by the fifth, the Neithers, as they were sometimes called, were getting much better, and much sneakier. I began to have hope.
Commander Jarvis was in and out all that day. Upon the conclusion of the fifth run I told him, “Commander Jarvis, your crews are starting to get into shape. This run was positively sneaky. It didn’t work out as expected, but that was mostly due to the fact that the defenses were, in fact, expecting them. Otherwise, I believe it would have worked well against the bugs. In fact, I hope that they keep that particular attack plan and run it in simulators. I think there are a few wrinkles Elian could add that would improve it a little. Otherwise, it went well, including, especially, the performance of your two naughty crews. They have really come on strong, and I expect that you won’t be having any difficulty with them in the future. That is, if they have a future.”
The commander looked at me somberly, then said, “Lieutenant, I know that you have to return to base to make final preparations for your flight to earth. I am deeply grateful to you, to all four of you, for your help. You have, in the space of just three days, significantly helped turn our crews from a rag tag mismatched bunch of pick-me-up crews into a good working team. I am going to pass my thanks along to base, and I hope that we see you very soon, back out here. From what we’ve heard, I expect that there will be plenty of bugs to go around.”
He shook my hand, then the others, and left, already late for something.
We departed moon base on the following day. I hadn’t had another opportunity to spend time with Nastya, but we exchanged lots of messages. With each exchange, our relationship deepened, and I came to the conclusion that she was The One. Elian told me, when I got that off my chest, “You are still an idjit, and always will be. The fact that the woman was just perfect for you was obvious to everyone else, from the first moment we laid eyes on her. She is wonderful, and if you waste another second talking to me, and not talking to her, you will be an idjit supremus.”
I grinned at him and said, “I thought, when it comes to idiocy, that ‘idjit’ was the highest one could ascend to.” Elian laughed at me and said, “Nah! Who told you that? You are an idjit, but believe me, there are worse things than being an idjit. For example, you could be dead.”
We powered up and departed the fleet base single file. As we accelerated I looked around at the cockpit. Maintenance had gone over the ship with a fine-toothed comb, and changed or repaired anything that looked like it might possibly one day go bad.
By the time we reached the Oort cloud all twelve ships had closed into our customary formation, a double diamond. We jumped, or better put, Carolyn jumped.
We didn’t need to skulk around, and so we didn’t. When we arrived back in normal space, we checked our position and calculated the next jump. Lubya is a very long way from Earth and we had to refuel at a system about two thirds of the way in.
We made our final jump and appeared in system well outside of Neptune. We had been warned to be careful in earth space, and it was good advice. I was pleased that within two minutes of our entry we were hailed by a nervous sentry. We digitally Id'd ourselves and were given permission to head in-system to Jupiter, where a huge fleet base was maintained on one of its moons, and had at one time sprawled onto another.
It was not actually earth we were going to, although we might get there for a visit. Fleet liked the position of Jupiter’s base. It was impossible to jump anywhere near that planet because of its huge gravity well, so surprises would be difficult, and it was situated far enough out of the system that it didn’t take an inordinate amount of time to accelerate out far enough to reach a region of space free of both dust and gravity.
We landed on a large pad that could hold all twelve of us. Moments after we settled the pad began dropping down nearly two hundred meters into the interior of the moon. We were tractored off the pad into a huge underground hanger, one of six that radiated out from the pad, which silently raised back up to the surface.
The base no longer had a tube that could mate up to our hatch, so we waited inside while the hanger doors slowly closed. Everything was immense; the pad itself was armored, as were all the bulkheads and even the interior hanger doors.
As soon as the hanger aired up, we opened the personnel hatch and stepped down onto a moon that had about thirty percent the gravity of earth. It was a little strange, but I knew that we would accustom ourselves to it fairly soon.
When all twelve crews were gathered, we were escorted to an area where personnel were housed. We checked in and were assigned billets. We were told by an anonymous enlisted rating that we had one hour to settle in, after which we were to assemble again at a location somewhere else, presumably far away from our barracks. This was indeed a huge base.
At the appointed time we gathered in a briefing room. We took seats and waited, and waited. Ninety minutes passed without any sign of the officer or enlisted who was presumably to welcome us to Jupiter base and give us an orientation. Finally, an aide showed up to report that ‘someone’ would be with us shortly.
Eventually, a lieutenant commander did indeed show up, hastily checking what were obviously last-second notes on who or what his visitors were. Elian looked over at me with one of his patented bemused grins – this of
ficer was really overkill for an orientation.
As we waited patiently for him to speak to us, said officer looked impatiently at his pad and behaved as if he was being put out by having to walk all that distance, just to talk to a bunch of lowly pilots. Finally, he opened his mouth and spent a few of his important moments giving us a canned greeting to Jupiter Base. Clearly, he'd given it before, and clearly, he had not a clue as to who he was speaking to. The blather came to an end, and he looked at us expectantly.
I looked over at our resident senior lieutenant who shrugged his shoulders and stood up after the ‘local’ had ground to a halt. Apparently giving us his Very Important Name and rank had fatigued him.
Our lieutenant said, “Sir, we are Attack Squadron 513. We are the remnants of the Essex, the ship that first made contact with the bugs. We were ordered here to be debriefed on the tactics we have developed to destroy bug fighters, destroyers, cruisers and mother ships, all of which we have, in fact, destroyed. Can you tell us what our itinerary will be?”
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 31
