There were a few in attendance who did not participate. They worked for the admiral, they were his staff, and they took notes, lots of notes.
The almost unanimous consensus was that the fighters we now operated were obsolete. They envisioned a small variant of the Hawk. A decrease in size would mean less range than the Hawk, but with the advances in technology that had occurred over the course of the last sixty years, it would be a two-person ship that would be capable of operating either independently or locked into a grid of other ships, as we had successfully done with the Hawk. They envisioned a squadron with three small Hawks and one larger hawk, armed with as many as forty or fifty missiles. Both versions should be capable of twenty G’s acceleration, and should be near black holes insofar as radiation and noise were concerned. The consensus was that our present level of technology would be able to design and build these two new craft without the need for any breakthroughs.
I asked for volunteers to work with Carolyn and her three programmers to develop a simulator that would be able to pit our current generation of fighters against the proposed Hawk light, as we laughingly called it. In no time flat we had ourselves a volunteer task force for the project.
That evening I met my wife in what we smilingly called ‘our’ hotel. It was the first time we had been together and alone since shortly after our wedding, and it was a wonderful twelve hours. We both marveled at our relationship. We had known each other for not only a short amount of time, we had spent only a small amount of that time actually in each other’s company. Yet, our relationship was intense and free of any bumps or surprises – so far.
Nastya and I talked about our respective careers. She seemed to think that I had ‘admiral’ painted all over me, but it wasn’t something I felt comfortable talking about, the exception being when we talked about what changes we wanted to see in our service. Then, we both had a great many things to talk about.
We returned to work the next day and it was all I could do to let go of her. Upon my return I found loads of private correspondence from Admiral Lee, for whom I continued to work. He told me that we would receive a large shipment of Mark 65’s and approximately ten new 67’s. He suggested that I test them on a suitable subject, which almost made me laugh.
That afternoon I was ordered to report to our flagship, and Elian and I put on a clean set of khakis for the occasion. We shuttled over with Carolyn and the chief, who I had put in charge of logistics. He had been poring over the mountain of data generated by our mission and was developing a set of recommendations for interim and inexpensive improvements to the current fighters as well as the Dresdens. When we talked about those improvements – on the shuttle to the flagship, he said that his suggestions were ones that would not require a first class shipyard, which Lubya did not have.
The meeting began with the admiral thanking everyone for pulling off an excellent mission. In particular, he praised us for the way in which, at the last minute, we made significant changes that not only utilized the few good missiles we had, but even made use of the ‘defective’ ones.
He then asked for a date for the next, and possibly last, mission of the war. I had privately passed on Admiral Lee’s message to Admiral Chin, on the off chance that he had not been informed.
The meeting began with a brief recital of the mission, including estimates of how many destroyers and cruisers remained. We had no way of correctly estimating the number of fighters that were left.
After lunch, we began planning for the next mission. A member of Admiral Chin’s staff gave us a date for the arrival of a large shipment of missiles, approximately four days hence. It would be enough to fully arm all seven Dresden’s, plus the Hawks. This would give us almost eight hundred capital missiles. Elian suggested that the Hawks be armed with a pair of the missiles. Their task would be to attack the destroyers and cruisers while the Dresdens concentrated on the mother ship.
Over the course of several hours we evolved a plan that would have three separate groupings, each with two Dresdens and twelve Hawks, and approximately seventy fighters each. A fourth group would have the seventh Dresden and the remaining twelve Hawks. It was planned that the three groups would englobe the remnants of the three flotillas, making it nearly impossible for the bugs to concentrate their forces against one element. The fourth group would come in behind those three, and would attack at what would hopefully be a weak spot.
We still had no accurate figure of the number of fighters we would encounter, but an analysis of our previous missions left us with a figure of as little as two hundred, as many as four hundred.
We talked also about utilizing the tactic of launching the fighters at great range again and pulling the crews off. It was abandoned in favor of jumping into a region of space approximately thirty million kilometers distant from the mother ship. It was felt this was distant enough for safety. As soon as the fighters were launched, the carriers would jump back out to a predetermined location, there to await word. With only one bug mother ship left, the need for secrecy had been eliminated. That fifth flotilla was so distant that there was no reasonable means of detecting our operations.
This would mean the fighters would be operating right at the ragged edge of their endurance, so the carriers would jump back and accelerate towards the flotilla to give the fighters sufficient reserve. The bugs would be able to see us coming, but they would not have enough time to attack us before we could get the carriers back out.
One possibility that we considered was that the bugs could send one or two hundred fighters as well as some of their larger ships to meet our attack head on, but it was given a low probability. They had only one mother ship left. We believed they would not leave its vicinity.
A reply from our initial messages of victory to earth came back, congratulating everyone for their work. Earth government was considerably relieved now that there was only one bug mother ship left out of the four. This message caused me to ask the group for any information on the fifth mother ship. Our scouts had shadowed it and reported back that there had been no indication of any kind that this group was changing course or helping the others in any way. Elian asked if we had an estimate of type and quantity of other ships in the group. We were surprised to learn that this fifth group held more destroyers and considerably more large ships, including cruisers and a few possible battle cruiser sized ships. It had a fairly large number of fighters as well. When asked for an assessment of their abilities, the admiral said that other people were working on it, but at this time he had nothing to report. He then said, “Let’s concentrate on the devil we know about.”
While we were in session, word reached us that two more carriers would be arriving within three days. These were fleet auxiliary carriers, of the same type as the Essex. They held forty fighters, but they brought along another batch of capital missiles in their holds. This sparked a new round of debate. Most of the Hawks could deadhead on these carriers, which could rearm them with additional missiles. We adjourned that evening without completing plans. A report from a returning Hawk scout was expected on the following day, so we were ordered to return at 1300.
That evening I spent with the lovely Mrs. Padilla. When I first heard that name, I immediately thought of my mother. At that particular moment, we were in bed together and Nastya giggled almost uncontrollably when I explained to her what had just happened.
When she recovered, we talked about our respective families. Hers sounded wonderful, and her father impressed me greatly. She said, at one point, “I do have a brother who is at this very moment a black sheep.” She was grinning so his sin could not have been all that great, so I asked. She said, “He decided that he wanted to be a doctor.”
I gasped theatrically, but she added, “However, he says that he’ll compromise – he’ll be a doctor in the Fleet.” I cracked up and asked, “Do you have any immediate members of your family who are not serving in Fleet?” She giggled again and said, “Well, my youngest sister hasn’t graduated from the Academy
yet, does that count?”
We spent another joyous evening together. Both of us were up at 0530 and we caught a shuttle back up to our respective carriers. Truth to be told, we’d been up at 0330. Nastya had told me, at some point during the evening, “You can sleep next year.” I snorted, having used the same expression on an earlier occasion.
That afternoon, our task force developed plans that included the extra two carriers. With their additional fighters, we now had approximately 250, plus 32 Hawks and seven Dresdens. We were beginning to develop some serious firepower. It was decided to leave one carrier in the system while the other four left for the Void. We hoped it would be our last trip of this nature.
It took us three days to load missiles into the Dresdens, and go through all the fighters and Hawks, fixing the usual minor bugs and looking for anything that would lead to a stranded crew in the middle of a bug fleet.
We launched eight days after our return from the destruction of two of the three mother ships. We had four carriers and seven Dresdens, all loaded up with both versions of the Dash 15 series of missile, the modified Mark 65, and a small amount of its replacement, the Mark 67. I requested that we load all of the 67 in one Dresden. They were pre-production missiles, and Fleet wanted to know how they performed. I intended, if at all possible, to shoot them prior to any other action. That way, we could watch for a reaction, if any.
We jumped four times and arrived at our final jumping off place, well away from our previous ingress into the void. We sent four Hawks ahead and waited for two hours. One jumped back and gave us the go ahead.
We arrived in the Void, approximately fifty million kilometers from the last reported position of the bug flotilla. All our Hawks scrambled off the carriers first, and while the Auxiliary carriers worked feverishly to move their fighters out of their cramped storage spaces, two carriers belched all their fighters, which immediately spread out in flights of four, looking for bugs. This time we were looking for them, not out of fear, but so that we could attack and kill them.
We still had two Hawks skulking in the vicinity of the bug flotilla and at a preordained time, one of them broadcast the location and heading of the fleet. We were situated dead ahead of the bugs, and the carriers immediately accelerated towards the enemy.
As soon as the Auxiliary carriers were able to launch their fighters, they followed the other two, and jumped out.
We shook up our fighters into squadrons of sixteen, with two squadrons accompanying each Dresden. The Hawks separated into two formations of sixteen each.
Our craft accelerated for thirty minutes at thirteen G’s. At the end of that time we shut down our drives and drifted toward the bugs with a considerable amount of closing velocity. Because of our high G acceleration, they knew we were coming, but we were not trying for secrecy, we were conserving fuel on the short-ranged fighters.
We gradually spread out, intending to envelope the bugs and come in at large enough angles as to prevent them from swamping any one single Dresden.
At three hours, we began to pick up traces of the mother ship. Our scouts reported that they had not seen any unusual activity, so perhaps our jump into this region of space had not attracted their attention. This was a far different situation from the very first contact with the bugs. Then, they had apparently seen us from as much as one hundred million kilometers distance. Now, our ships emitted far less radiation in the extremely high bands the bugs were so sensitive to.
Gradually, our sensor readings on the mother ship sharpened up, and we began to see some of their destroyers, which were now spread out in a globular formation. I looked at the plot and said to Elian, “This looks familiar.” He snorted and said, “Yes, it does. It is an almost exact copy of the very first formation we saw. Remember?” I nodded with a smile and looked carefully for any possible traps. Finding none, I still felt compelled to tell everyone to be on the lookout for skulkers. I need not have bothered, but, you know, I worry.
At ten million kilometers, I authorized the Dresden my crew and I were in, the Stone, to launch the 67’s. These missiles were the same size as the 65 they might be replacing, but they had greater endurance and a larger warhead. We watched as ten of them slowly accelerated away from us. Production versions were supposed to have the ability to relay real time data, giving us the opportunity to redirect them at need. These preproduction models did not include that feature.
The missiles shut down their drives after accelerating for ten minutes. They were now traveling several thousand kilometers per hour faster than we were.
The bugs finally showed signs of a reaction to our approach. One scout reported that fighters were launching in large numbers, and some of the destroyers moved out ahead of their flotilla. It was for this maneuver that we launched the ten 67’s. I wanted to see how they would perform against those smaller ships. I hoped that one missile would be more than enough to destroy even a cruiser. In another hour we would find out.
Time dragged on as the two fleets closed. At five million kilometers the first of the 67’s kicked in its second drive system and began accelerating at a relatively modest figure toward one of the destroyers. Its defensive systems began tracking and firing at the 67. As soon as that happened, the missile kicked in its primary drive, boosting its acceleration briefly, and causing the defensive systems aboard the targets to lose track.
It continued to cycle its two drive systems on and off, creating a far more difficult targeting situation for the destroyer, which never solved that problem. The missile exploded right on top of it. The ship disappeared in an intense boil of light.
By now, other missiles were kicking in their drives and space became speckled with brilliant lines of light as other destroyers fought to kill the missiles. A few detonated before hitting their target, but seven made it through everything the bugs could throw at them and took out their target. This was very encouraging.
By now the Dresdens and their accompanying fighters were coming into range. Three different formations began firing the 15h, the slower of the two. Within two minutes, there were nearly one hundred missiles accelerating toward the somewhat depleted ranks of bug destroyers, which were over five million kilometers ahead of their mother ship and three million from us.
All of the destroyers began firing at the second wave of incoming missiles, with better success than they had obtained with the 67. They destroyed twenty-seven short of target, but that left seventy missiles, which began impacting in droves. Ten destroyers either exploded or became drifting hulks. The three remaining destroyers continued on toward our ships, and we launched three 65’s, which accelerated at maximum toward the bugs. One was hit by laser fire and exploded, but two detonated right on top of their targets. We now had one destroyer left to target, and two more 65’s were launched. One was hit by defensive fire, the other exploded the destroyer.
We had a small breather before we reached the outer layer of fighters, which were milling around, but not heading for us. We saw nearly one hundred, but I knew there were more.
On my order, we began launching capital missiles at the bug mother ship. We continued to launch until we had one hundred missiles streaming away toward the mother ship. I assigned a portion of the bug defenders to each Dresden, and moments later the faster 15g began accelerating away from our ships, two missiles being targeted per fighter. I wanted to give them something to worry about besides the capital missiles that were scorching in at their mother ship.
I asked for a count of the destroyers that we could see, and I was astonished to find that they had forty-two of them. I ordered a launch of four capital missiles per destroyer, not wanting to waste time on them. I assigned these to the Hawks, who happily dropped their huge loads off.
I had never before seen anything like the view I was looking at. The Dresdens had been refitted with much larger viewing screens than they had when we tore into them, and we could see the stream of capital missiles heading in to the center of the bug formation, while another forty eight were
just beginning to accelerate towards the same general area. Additionally, approximately two hundred smaller 15h’s streaked towards the fighters. The screen was so crowded with missile traces that the system could not track everything in real time.
I sent a message to all our ships and fighters, saying that our orders were to destroy every single bug ship and fighter. I studied the screen and tried to understand what I was seeing. It looked completely disorganized, and I decided to wait a bit before doing anything else. I did order our ships to decelerate, not wanting to fly right through their formation.
Within five minutes, the first 15h’s began striking fighters. Some fighters were able to hit and destroy one of the two missiles targeted on them, but I could not see one single fighter successfully hit both of them. The plot became speckled with more and more explosions. We lost count and we were still coming in too fast. I did not want to get so close that a bug destroyer or fighter could get lucky. Not today.
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 47
