Finally satisfied that the thing wouldn’t kill me fifteen minutes after I got underway I commed the Brezhnev and requested the use of two fighters for a series of tests. I wanted to determine its actual acceleration and its stealthiness. It took two hours for an answer. I was given one fighter for only ten hours.
The two destroyers were scheduled to leave within a few hours, so Elian and I put together a private report for the admiral, in which we detailed, on a daily basis what the flotilla had been doing. We hoped that the admiral would read it carefully and note the overuse of the Hawks, the lack of utilization of the Dresdens, the failure to change position on a regular basis and the failure to utilize the drones properly, or in sufficient numbers. Despite our growing misgivings, we were careful to only report facts, and even then we couched them in an objective format. We neither of us liked officers or enlisted who went behind their superiors in an effort to undermine.
Elian said, in the company of the chief and myself, “Well, it appears that once again my spindly companion has pissed off a superior officer.” His expression differed remarkably from his negative words, and I grinned at him and said, ‘Elian, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” The chief snorted but kept his thoughts to himself.
We suited up in our fighter flight suits, the old suits we’d worn as Dash 6 pilots, which now seemed to be ages ago, and were our only remaining link with the Essex. We confirmed that the Dash 6 was en route and set a rendezvous well away from the flotilla.
We joined up ten million kilometers on the far side of the Brezhnev from the bug flotilla. As soon as the fighter was within tight beam comm range we exchanged hellos. The crew was one that we knew from our first Lubya training session. I was careful to censor my thoughts about their captain, but needn’t have bothered. The entire crew of the carrier was fairly ready to explode over the way the captain was using the Hawks, or using them up as if they were robots.
I said, “First thing on my agenda is to try out this new suite of software they’ve thoughtfully provided that allows us to fine tune the drive signature of this thing. Go off a ways, perhaps, um, ten thousand kilometers and we’ll run in parallel, say, away from the bug flotilla if you don’t mind.”
The pilot chuckled and asked, “Sir, we only have ten hours, and part of that is already gone, so let’s get going.” She knew what we wanted to do. I clicked my mike and we separated.
As soon as we were the required distance apart I ordered an acceleration of three G’s. We maintained that heading and separation and turned our passive sensors to work, looking for each other. We were delighted to discover that the Kestrel was just as stealthy as the Hawk. We moved out to twenty thousand kilometers and ran the same tests. We could both see each other, but it was getting much harder for the fighter.
At forty thousand kilometers separation, the Kestrel was virtually invisible. I upped the acceleration to six G’s and the fighter reported that the Kestrel barely registered on the Hawk’s sensors.
We spent the next two hours upping the separation and the acceleration until Elian and I both had a good feel for the stealth characteristics of the Kestrel. At fifteen G’s, the ship became noticeably noisier, but Elian was able to adjust his systems, using the new software, to reduce that noise back down to very low levels. It was apparent that at lower acceleration the Kestrel was approximately five percent less noisy than the Hawk, which was a genuinely pleasant surprise. At the high end, the Kestrel was much better. The factory had designed it with a gravity field that was larger across but shallower than the ones used by the Hawk, and the spatial distortion was better, which is to say smaller, than anything we had ever seen. The result was a ship that was a generation better at running quietly than anything in the fleet.
We had been heading away from both the Brezhnev and the bug flotilla and the clock was ticking. We reversed course and with a grin of anticipation I upped our acceleration slowly. At fifteen G’s the Dash 6 reported that it was fire walled. I said, “OK, I’m going to increase to max. I want you to monitor for noise characteristics. We’ll run for, um, fifteen minutes. I’ll want to check to see if she’ll heat up any, and I also want to see if she has legs. Here goes.”
I upped our acceleration to max and the ship fairly leaped forward to twenty one G’s without the slightest hesitation. The Hawk navigator gave us constant readings, and it appeared that the ship was as stealthy at twenty-one G’s as the Hawk was at fifteen or sixteen.
I shut down and allowed the Hawk to catch up to us. We matched velocity and sped back past the flotilla, now heading towards the Bugs. We tightened up our formation so that we could communicate privately. I said both to Elian and the fighter crew, “I am worried that we aren’t keeping a good enough watch on the bugs, and I’m worried that they’ll find those drones, and worse, that they’ll find us. They have shown no hesitation to attack at a moment’s notice, so I thought I might just drift past the buggers and see what I can see.”
The female pilot asked, “Sir, are you saying that you’re taking the Kestrel near the bugs?” I said, “Oh my goodness no. I’m saying that I’m going to release you so that you can return within the ten-hour limit specified by Captain Speer. I’m going to return to my ship via a circuitous route.”
She said, “Ah, I understand sir. Good idea to test it, you might discover how it bears up under sustained operations.” I clicked my mike and our companion quickly pulled away, beginning to head back to the carrier.
Elian took over the controls, allowing me to play with the sensors. I set them to their maximum sensitivity and watched as the fighter retreated at a high acceleration out of range. I was able to see it for over thirty minutes before it finally went off screen.
Elian said, “This ship has better sensors than the Hawk, is quieter and quite a bunch faster. I think I’m in love. Please don’t tell my wife – she’d reprogram the thing so that whatever I did it would just head to Lubya.” I chuckled, but in a way he was right – she probably could do that.
We resumed accelerating and pushed it up past fifteen G’s. We maintained that acceleration until we’d covered half the distance to the bug flotilla, after which we began gradually lowering our accel, shutting down at thirty million kilometers. We were still on a high velocity approach to the bugs, and coasting in like a ghost.
We began to pick up signs of the bugs at a distance of twenty million kilometers and adjusted our course slightly to allow us to pass by on a reciprocal heading at a distance of four million klicks.
We drifted past, recording everything possible. We saw nothing out of the ordinary, but were only able to link up with three drones. One of them had either lost power, or it had been found. We searched through the huge memory dumps, looking for anything that would tell us what happened. It didn’t appear that the drone had been discovered by the bugs, as we could find no sign of a ship heading into its approximate location, so it appeared to have gone down on its own. This was serious, as it reduced our ability to track the bugs.
After checking records, we were astonished to discover that it had been down for over three days. We’d heard nothing, and there had been no attempt that we were aware of to replace it. What was going on?
It took five hours to pass by the flotilla. It looked to be a little more compact than our records showed from previous visits, but there appeared to be nothing else out of the ordinary. Elian said, “As a guess, they’ve closed up their formation as a reaction to our encounter last month.” I nodded in agreement. Still worried, but in agreement.
After we were well past the flotilla we began decelerating and curving around with the intent to match velocity and head back up the other side. The Kestrel flew like a dream and we both agreed that it was better than the original specifications called for.
It took us over sixteen hours to reverse course and accelerate back past the bugs, heading now in the opposite direction. We could have reduced that time by a significant margin but our orders didn’t exactly give us the op
tion of getting our brand new toy into a shooting match with the bugs, first thing out, or at any other time. We flew back up the other side, recording everything possible and continued on towards our own small gaggle of ships.
We docked the Kestrel in the Grant and wearily dropped down from the hatch onto the shuttle bay deck. We’d been gone over three days, and the Kestrel hadn’t demonstrated any problems whatsoever.
I waved goodbye to Elian who boarded his shuttle. Moments later it disconnected from the tube and backed slowly away from the destroyer.
During our absence nothing worth note had transpired, but we were both seriously spooked.
I spoke to Elian at length and decided to talk to the chief. I asked him, “Chief, do you have any information to indicate that Captain Speer has been notified that one of the four drones has gone down?” The chief was surprised and shook his head. He said, “I’ll look into it sir. I’ve got a line of communication open to the Brezhnev with a senior chief in maintenance. I’ll get with him immediately, sir.”
Within two hours the chief knocked on my door. Inside, he said, without preamble, “Sir, the Hawk surveillance sorties have reported the loss of the drone. They knew about it, within hours in fact. Captain Speer seems to be of the opinion that the bugs don’t know we’re here and couldn’t find us if they did know.”
I talked to Elian, and we came to the conclusion that there was virtually nothing that could be done. We were the lowest ranking captains in the flotilla, and were in no position to do anything save anger our superior. I was already in trouble with the captain, and dared do nothing more. In fact, if I even demonstrated that I was in receipt of knowledge about the dead drone, I’d be likely to be removed from the ship.
Over the next two weeks we maintained a high level of vigilance, and ensured that the other captains knew we were doing it. We couldn’t be called to task for maintaining a high level of readiness in a war zone, quite the opposite, and we hoped that the other captains would follow suit. About half of the captains commed either myself or Elian to talk about it, and both of us were careful to phrase our remarks so as to not appear to be talking about the captain behind his back, but these men and women had been around the block a time or two. Most had been actively involved in the previous bug battles and knew that we weren’t afraid of shadows, unless incoming bugs cast them.
Those other captains stepped up their own levels of alertness above the mid-level ordered by Captain Speer, so at least something came of it.
A third week passed with no attack or evidence that one was being prepared for. During that time a courier vessel arrived with a dispatch for the flotilla, and departed just hours later.
Some hours later we received a general comm, telling us that reinforcements were to arrive within forty-eight hours. The captain didn’t give any details, but we both breathed a little easier.
Elian was the first to spot the approaching ships. He sent his ship to general quarters and commed the Brezhnev of the approach of a number of unknown ships. If nothing else, it should serve to remind the Brezhnev crew that we were in a war zone. I commed Elian and said, “You win the first contact pool, so first drinks are on our crew. But just so you know, you were far closer to them than we were.” Elian smiled and asked, “And, that means precisely, what?”
Ten minutes later he was able to report that the ships were of fleet origin, causing everyone to breathe a sigh of release.
Three fleet carriers, ten destroyers and two battle cruisers decelerated to match course with the Brezhnev, and a shuttle crossed over to it, carrying Admiral Lee and several of his aides, including Lt. Graziano.
One hour later another general comm went out, this one explaining that Admiral Lee was assuming command of the flotilla. He immediately ordered a change of course, taking us further away from the bug flotilla. He also ordered a forty-eight hour stand down of the Hawks and their now exhausted crews. He’d brought ten additional Hawks with him, and four of them immediately departed to shadow the alien flotilla. They carried with them eight additional drones, which were to be seeded further out from the flotilla.
Admiral Lee ordered all of the ship captains to shuttle over to his carrier, the newly rejuvenated Constitution. The admiral greeted everyone with a big smile of welcome and with a box of doughnuts, which were becoming his trademark. He laughed when Elian’s and my face lit up with pleasure at seeing them. Destroyers were small ships and didn’t have the ability to provide ‘delicacies’ for their crews, as the admiral smilingly put it.
He said that the new ‘sixth incursion’ seemed to be heading unerringly for either a hook up or a collision with this group of bugs. His surveillance ships had sent drones right through the center of the mass of ships, and discovered that the energy emissions and drive signatures of the new incursion roughly matched the other flotillas. That implied that the two separate incursions originated from the same original source, although it didn’t rule out the possibility that they were antagonists.
The admiral said that it was the consensus of his advisors and experts that this huge new influx was heading for a rendezvous. That conclusion neatly explained this flotilla’s failure to deviate from its heading as well as the heading of the newest addition to our problems. He added, “I have decided that we cannot afford for these two flotillas to link up. Therefore, I am pulling back from your present up-close position for a few days so that we can put together an attack plan and let our crews get some rest. We are to destroy this flotilla. If we cannot, we may be faced with overwhelming force at some point in the future. I will not allow that to happen on my watch. You are to return to your ships and provide me with readiness reports. You have six hours. I need to know if there are any deficiencies in equipment or personnel. I’ve brought with us four FFC’s, and they should have virtually anything you need to bring your ships back up to one hundred percent readiness. Any questions?”
Through this, Captain Speer sat motionless. He didn’t speak nor did Admiral Lee call on him, or even mention him. I felt as if I’d been rescued from certain disaster, a sense I couldn’t voice to anyone, save Elian.
The strengthened flotilla moved back from the bug position to a distance of four hundred million kilometers, but the admiral kept two squadrons of the fresh Hawks out as scouts.
All together, he now had over forty Hawks and one hundred fighters, all of which were a ‘b’ version of the previously revised Dash 4. They were now reasonably quiet although they would never be stealthy. They could carry four anti-fighter missiles as well as the single thirty-five centimeter laser. In addition, he brought with him three additional pre-production Kestrels. He tasked Elian and I with putting together a proposal for the inclusion of the Kestrels into the battle plan being drawn up.
Elian and I were brought back over the next day to help plan the mission. Captain Speer was in attendance and frowned noticeably when he saw us. His frown deepened when the admiral greeted us with a smile of recognition.
The admiral called the meeting to order and asked an aide to cover the fifth bug flotilla’s approximate strength and abilities. It was a sobering ten minutes: they had at least two hundred fighters, twenty six destroyers, two remaining battle cruisers whose emissions matched the two we’d encountered, and four cruiser sized ships whose capabilities were not yet known, as their drive characteristics varied from the two Elian and I had previously engaged.
The admiral said, after his aide sat down, “We’re going to assume that those four unknown cruisers are missile cruisers, of which we have made acquaintance in the recent past. One single missile cruiser was hit by approximately one hundred anti-fighter missiles and was still fighting when it finally broke in two. I can’t tell you how deadly this opponent can be, but I can show you what the battle cruiser can do.”
He sat down and the room darkened. On a large, blank wall appeared a projection, taken from my Dresden. We watched the screens as I calmly ordered launch after launch of missiles at the cruiser and at the two encroaching
fighter elements. It was a very sobering experience for everyone. I listened to my own voice with no little surprise. It was absolutely calm and showed no strain, despite the severe stress I remembered being under at the time.
There were ten officers in attendance and we took three hours to put together a plan that seemed reasonably workable. Afterwards, the admiral asked Elian and I to stay behind and we went over it with him. He was a bright man, and he knew the theory of war frontwards and backwards, but Elian and I knew it on a far more practical level.
He asked us question after question and as a result he made several changes. It was apparent that the Admiral knew what he knew as well as what he didn’t, and wasn’t averse to asking questions of junior officers.
Instead of one massive attack of missiles, he split up his attacking forces into three separate groups, each one attacking from a different direction. Elian noted that if the timing was staggered slightly it should keep the defensive forces off balance and moving from threat to threat, thus preventing them from concentrating on and overwhelming one of the attacking forces. When the admiral looked at me, I said, “If it works as planned, the results should be the destruction of the bug flotilla for minimal losses on our part. However, if something goes wrong, you will have trouble coordinating your forces, and they won’t be able to support each other.”
Hawk Seven (Flight of the Hawk) Page 67
