Hannah Sawyer (Kinsella Universe Book 3), page 12
Ernesto looked uncomfortable. “I only talked a few times with people off the Nihon, before they went out on their cruise. They’d just returned the day before the attack. They still had their engines hot when the attack came in. The lasers are of a size with current art.” He swallowed. “The optics are more or less the same, there is considerable more capacitor capacity, and there are quite a few optimizations. There was a lot of new technology that they weren’t talking about.”
He thought quickly, trying to anticipate where Hannah was going. “You couldn’t put one on a fighter. Well you could, but you’d have one shot and then you’d be out of the fight. You could never put a power plant big enough aboard to recharge one and still be able to fly a fighter.”
“Not on a fighter, in a missile,” Hannah said, her brain churning.
Again, it was something she knew. Her father had wanted her current on all of the Sawyer Astronautics designs; he’d made her study the proposals for new models of missiles and lasers the company was going to make for Fleet Aloft.
“Jeez, a missile! Yeah, that would work!” Ernesto said with a sigh. “A carrier makes even less sense. All those eggs in one basket! If just one of those laser-armed missiles gets in the ballpark -- and those lasers make the ballpark really, really huge. The plan is for fighters to carry three missiles or two and an extra fuel tank.”
For two hours they worked at a written report and finally Ernesto declared it done -- they’d been quibbling over commas for a quarter hour. “Anyone want to back out?” The two women shook their heads. “There’s no use waiting; let’s strike while the ink is still wet.”
He reached into a pocket and pulled out his phone. “Commander Huygeens? Commander Sanchez. Sir, my study group would like permission to speak with Commander Bachman.” He listened, and then answered, “No sir, now sir. Ensigns Merriweather, Sawyer and myself.”
Hannah glanced at a clock, shortly before 2200, it was awfully late to be bothering senior officers.
A few minutes later Ernesto’s phone rang back and the three of them walked down a corridor. Commander Huygeens and his wife were waiting in front of Commander Bachman’s cabin. Ernesto handed the report to the commander, who started reading it, Ulrike peeping over his shoulder as he did.
“You sure you want to do this?” Commander Huygeens asked, no expression on his face, looking up after leafing through their report. “I don’t think Commander Bachman had this in mind.”
Ernesto shrugged. “Sir, I think this is important.”
Commander Huygeens looked at him hard. “As you will, Commander Sanchez.”
A few minutes later Commander Bachman ushered the small crowd into her quarters; she had a large sitting room with a long conference table. “Commander Huygeens, Commander Sanchez, I’m curious about what couldn’t wait until the morning.”
Ernesto handed her their report. “Commander Bachman, the three of us formed a study group. Based on my prior experience and the individual knowledge of the others we came up with this.” He went over the high points, while Commander Bachman read the report.
“You realize, Commander, that a number of the points you bring up are closely held, most secret? Talking about them in any situation other than a classified briefing is a serious breech of security,” the Commander told them.
Commander Huygeens chuckled. “Even more important: how can Ulrike and I get out off this suddenly not-very-merry-go-round?”
For a second, Hannah was nonplussed, then she saw the smiles on the face of their commanding officer and Commander Sanchez.
“You can get off the merry-go-round, Commander, when I get off,” Commander Bachman said quietly. “In the meantime, I am presented with another example of the old conundrum: never ask a question you don’t want to hear the answer to.” She stabbed a finger at Ernesto. “I’d have tossed you out on your cans without so much as a ‘bye guy’ except for this laser missile idea. That’s one I’d not thought of myself, nor, in fact, has anyone that I know of.”
Commander Bachman laughed bitterly. “You think everyone tasked for Rome hasn’t looked at the data from Gandalf a million times? Do you think that we haven’t run the stopwatch on the timeline?” she sniffed in derision, then she smiled and flipped a thumbs up at them. “Even so, good work! Now, go away and let me upset the sleep of a bevy of senior officers!”
The next days were filled with heavy duty schedules; one thing Hannah learned was that everything about the course was negotiable. She finished the sim qualification after a week, the instructor simply noting, “The student performs consistently above expectations; expectations that continually rise every time she shows her abilities. Further sim work will be required in the usual areas. The student is unreservedly recommended for solo flight.”
The actual piloting had gone equally quickly. It wasn’t that much different, Hannah thought, from flying the EVA course. A different array of instruments, a different thruster, but not much different. She survived equipment failures, pilot error on another’s part and once, pilot error on her part. Ernesto had been hard pressed to keep up; he didn’t have the natural feel for piloting that Hannah did, but, on the other hand, he’d actually been in space for years. Donna was as different from them as they were from each other -- she was far more aggressive than anyone else in the class. Moreover, no matter how radical her ideas, they uniformly worked.
At the end of the first week, Hannah and everyone else reported to a unit briefing. Again it was Commander Bachman, only now she had three full stripes on her sleeve; she was Captain Bachman now. “Some of you are progressing incredibly well. I’ll make no bones about it: I am deeply impressed.
“I’ve gone over the submissions on the question of the day. Nearly a dozen were received in the last eight hours of the time allotted. One, actually minutes before the scheduled period expired. Twenty-two people. You will find your names on the wall at the back of the hall. You are bilged, every last one of you. I was tempted to keep the four sons of Nippon who copied me a report on Japanese carrier tactics in World War Two. Quite a few others used the American tactics to base their plans on; this last group was the only team to use the Japanese tactics.
“Except while copying the loser’s tactics was a semi-clever idea, they failed to note one important detail: if the Japanese had had decent carrier tactics in that war, they might have won. They had a preponderance in quantity and quality of equipment. Their pilots flew better aircraft and were better trained. On the other hand, they never varied their tactics. The first time they won, the second time was a draw, and after that, the Americans ate them up. Who needs thinking like that?
“On the other hand, I received one report just hours after the assignment was given. Normally the Fleet looks at hasty work with the same jaundiced eye as that done late. This wasn’t hasty; it was a quick, thoughtful analysis of the situation. No one else came anywhere close to as much accurate and useful analysis.
“Of course, their analysis was negative. Quite simply, they noticed that there are Fleet ships, which, within a million clicks of our new carrier, would turn it into plasma. They proposed a simple weapons design that could be used, in conjunction with the fighters we are constructing, that would be able to turn our new carrier into plasma at a range of an AU. Perhaps several AUs.”
Captain Bachman had no trouble telling who in the audience understood what she was talking about: they were deathly pale. The ones who had no clue looked clueless.
“This has sent us back to the drawing boards. Fortunately they weren’t all that clever, our top team. They forgot that you can go to High Fan anywhere outside the orbit of Earth. Which means that’s where you have to operate a carrier -- outside the fan limit.
“Of course, that means to dodge enemy attacks, Rome is going to be zipping all over creation. In a developed system where we have latch frame communications that won’t be a problem -- we can coordinate landing on fairly simply. It will be much more interesting in systems without latch frame, but we’re working on that.
“Rome is going to need considerably more defensive armaments than had been originally proposed. That’s the upside -- a much more survivable platform. Downside, another thousand souls to lose if someone screws up or the other side gets lucky.” She shook her finger at them. “Some more of you had better start thinking about what’s going on!
“I’ve bilged less than five percent of this group. It is now clear that people can learn at several times the rate we thought possible. Some of you. Another chunk learns, but they take a little longer. That’s seventy-five percent; when I picked the people for this class, I had fond hopes of passing ninety percent plus. That no longer appears likely, it looks like just eighty percent. In order to get our carrier out on schedule, we’re going to have to seriously draw down the number of skilled pilots not otherwise committed.
“To the fifteen some odd percent of you who are here, hanging by a thread: Operations Command has decided that we can use people who bilge fighter transition for any number of tasks; quite a few of them have worked out well. You didn’t get here unless you are smart. Thus, even if you bilge, you’re head and shoulders over most. And the Fleet will use you. Starting today, I’ve authorized cadre to begin to bilge whenever they feel that the student is marginal; we aren’t going to be able to afford the luxury of taking a chance.
“The war is going badly. As you’ve heard, in the opening days of the war there were heavy attacks against twenty major systems in the Federation. Something like ten billion people died. Then the enemy switched tactics. They started making three, four and five ship attacks on nearly every system in the Federation. Eight hundred and seventeen attacks to date. Two systems in three of those that have been attacked were lost, nearly half the human race, more than forty billion people.
“Four days ago we received word of an attack against New Cairo. We had twenty-eight ships there; there were nearly a billion people on New Cairo. The enemy broke through, battering the defenders aside. Fourteen Fleet ships survived, the planet was destroyed along with the billion people who lived there. Our enemy lost sixteen ships, but they are more than willing to spend ships to destroy planets.
“The Rome will be ready for trials in seven weeks. Those of you that haven’t bilged will be aboard long before that. Unless something important is found to be deficient, you will be engaged in an enemy held system in seventy-five to ninety days after the trials are complete. In that time we can expect to lose another five or six billion people. Consider, when you feel that you are too tired to practice one more time, how many of those people would have liked another chance.
“Now some housekeeping. Tomorrow our first squadron assignments will be posted; we can’t wait any longer to begin unit training. Captain Leyten Huygeens is the Wing XO and commands the First Squadron. Commander Sanchez is Wing Operations Officer, and Captain Huygen’s exec. Donna Merriweather is promoted full lieutenant and commands Second Squadron, and Hannah Sawyer is promoted lieutenant and is her operations officer. If any of you think these appointments are arbitrary and based on favoritism, you are absolutely correct.
“More promotions will be on the board tomorrow. You will find that if you do well, you’ll go far.”
Leyten Huygeens strode up to the podium. “The captain is a fine example of the difference between the Fleet and Rim Runners, in spite of her heritage. As a Fleet Officer, she had to make do with whatever they send her. On the Rim, we make do without whomever, if they can’t do the job. I’m a jumped up newbie in the Fleet; I make no bones about it. Still, they are humoring me. Perform or leave. There are names in the back of the hall. If you’re on those lists, be very sure you’re gone within the hour; if I see you after that, I’ll kick your ass off the station.”
He stared at them. “Every pilot of every craft assigned to Rome will be fighter qualified, even if your primary duty assignment is the shuttle pilot ferrying admirals here and there, flying a fuel tanker, or a Command and Control pivot. Anything and everything that flies off Rome will have a combat pilot aboard. And be you the Admiral’s shuttle pilot or carrying a whopping big load of fuel, you’ll always have something to hand to engage the enemy with.”
He grinned at the room. “Oh, yes. Speaking about Rome reminds me. Shuttle schedules are available on your comps. Today is Friday; you have until midnight Zulu time, a week from Sunday to report aboard our new ship. BuPers has plans for the flight crew quarters. For now you can pick your own compartments. Lieutenant commanders and full commanders have individual staterooms, full lieutenants are two to a compartment. Junior lieutenants will be the senior officer in a compartment of three ensigns. We reserve the right, starting Monday, to reassign people as needed.”
Later Hannah sank down on her bunk, emotionally exhausted. Lieutenant Hamdi had gone out, the sleeping quarters area was very quiet.
The door to the bathroom opened and Hannah saw Captain Warner. “Can I have a minute, Hannah?”
“Yes, Commander,” Hannah replied.
Rachael Warner raised her arm, showing a sleeve that now had three broad rings, one wavy.
“Sometimes,” Captain Warner said, starting off in left field, “you wonder whose side BuPers is on. They mess up, and it’s someone else’s fault.” She smiled at Hannah. “On my last mission, I was a lieutenant commander, the XO of my ship. My captain was Captain Evan Carlson. After we returned he sent a promotion recommendation to BuPers for me to get another stripe. Our admiral, Charlie Gull, sent in a promotion request too.
“The dirty-feet at BuPers took them as separate requests and since we’d done good at Snow Dance, I ended up promoted twice. Then, while I was waiting on my next assignment, they decided to reconsider.”
She looked fondly at her sleeve. “So, I had to spend a couple of weeks here sitting on my bottom. I couldn’t bear that, so since I was here, I offered to help Captain Bachman.”
She paused for a second and then tossed something to Hannah. Hannah reacted quickly and caught it. It was a medal rack, with ribbons.
“Those are mine, Hannah.”
She had looked them up. Who hadn’t seen medals like this by now? Blood red: Gandalf. Black, with three snowflakes: Snow Dance. Black with red and white stripes: the Battle Star -- how many times you’d faced the enemies of man in combat. That ribbon had four stars, indicating that she’d been in combat five times.
Hannah looked up, stunned.
“I had no idea,” was all Hannah could manage to say. Hannah remembered then-Lieutenant Commander Warner patting her on her shoulder and telling her she’d done well.
“Right now,” Captain Warner told her, “you are sitting there in awe. Yet, earlier, I was just the nice lady who lived next door.”
Hannah tried not to grimace; it was true, though.
“You should learn to look up details,” Captain Warner told her. “You’d be surprised what you can find, rooting around in people’s public records. I told you I was at Gandalf. What ship?”
Hannah shook her head; she had no idea.
“I was XO of the Nihon. Admiral Saito saw to it that absolutely no one remembers my name, because of his actions.”
That was true, too. Hannah had heard repeated threats of execution if she stepped out of line as a trainee. Nihon at Gandalf was what everyone figured was the same thing for senior officers. Nihon’s captain had refused to engage and had been replaced in the middle of the battle. Officially, Captain Park of the Nihon committed suicide after the battle. No one in Fleet Aloft believed it, sure that someone had done the necessary thing so that their ship could fight the next time it was called on.
“At Snow Dance,” Captain Warner continued, “Evan Carlson and Charlie Gull hogged the limelight. I was just the XO of Nihon again. It shouldn’t have happened, I was supposed to be on another ship, but I was shanghaied.”
Captain Warner grinned at Hannah. “You have caught the eye of a number of people, people who think well of you. You have doubts, Hannah. But then, we all have doubts about ourselves. I could have had a ship command after Gandalf. All I would have had to do was nod instead of shake my head.
“Right now you don’t feel that you are deserving of anything. You think you are afraid.”
Hannah swallowed, even now, not willing to admit her private fears to anyone as senior as Captain Warner.
“Now, Hannah, you are a lieutenant, the person responsible for your squadron’s planning and training. I just have one bit of advice, for which all of this has been just one long preamble.
“Hannah, the only time you are afraid is when you are sitting still, doing nothing. The only time you lack confidence in yourself is afterwards. Find something to do, don’t sit still. Afterwards? Find something else to do.”
With that, Captain Warner turned and walked away.
Chapter 7
A few days after Captain Warner left, they started transferring people to Rome. Hannah was one of the first to go aboard. A harried petty officer assigned her to a compartment to herself, with her own bathroom. Hannah wasn’t sure if she was coming up in the world or the world was coming down to her.
Training, training, training. Morning, noon and night they flew missions, either real or in a simulator. Whether they practiced basic flight procedures or mission oriented procedures, they trained. Another week and everyone who had passed through what was now being called “Fighter Transition” was aboard Rome.
The first Monday morning aboard a meeting was called of all Wing officers. That, it turned out, meant the entire Wing staff, plus the squadron commanders, execs and operations officers.
Everything about Rome was in flux, the ship design wasn’t finalized, the crew list wasn’t finalized, nothing was final. Even the meeting had an ad hoc quality about it. The original plan had been for six hundred fighters to be aboard Rome. Now the planned number of fighters had jumped to seven hundred and fifty, with a third of those to be held back as combat patrol, the “CAP” to protect Rome itself.
