Airwolf Rule The World

Hawke looked at the information on the computer screen sent by Archangel. He was sat in the Lodge kitchen drinking what seemed his third cup of strong coffee to try to wake him up after what seemed the best nights sleep he had had in a very long time. His eyes were diverted from the screen when he saw Kristien wander down into the kitchen despite Doctor Parsons orders to stay in bed. Hawke watched her as she awkwardly laid herself out on the sofa. Alfred walked over and placed a blanket over her and put a large mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles on, Kristien’s main staple food source for the moment, on the coffee table in front of her. Kristien picked up the laptop and started to check the nights happenings, she also hacked into Hawke’s laptop and saw what he was up to with out him knowing.



Hawke continued to sip his coffee and Alfred restocked the black liquid. Alfred looked over at Kristien and raised his eyebrow like a disapproving parent, as he realised that Kristien was on the same screen as Hawke. Kristien ignored Alfred in her peripheral vision, she wasn’t about to explain herself to anyone. Hawke watched Alfred leave to go to the main house, his duties for the moment attended to.



“I need your help.” Hawke asked Kristien.



“Oh, doing what.” Kristien absently replied still speed reading the whole case file that Archangel had sent over to Hawke.



“I want you to build another Airwolf.” Hawke told her.



“Oh really, is that all.” Kristien continued to read to the end of the file, still absently replying to Hawke. “Why not take the infernal machine to Kuwait then?” Kristien asked at the same time openly admitting to Hawke she had read the file.



“How did you….?” Hawke began and then paused. “So can you do it?”



Kristien sipped her hot chocolate and calculated the time she would need to build a new Airwolf. “Not in the time scale you are wanting, and besides you have one why the hell would you want two of the bloody machines?”



Hawke wandered over to Kristien and moved the racing post and the horse and hound magazine that Alfred had placed earlier ready for Kristien to read and catch up on all the horse world gossip from the coffee table. Kristien watched Hawke sit down on the coffee table, more incensed that he had moved her next reading material.



“I don’t want to take her on this mission.” Hawke explained and looked into his coffee cup, the swirling black liquid started to settle after its move with Hawke.



“Hmmm I am sure Saddam has told all his Iraqi Soldiers to shoot anything with Made in USA stamped on its arse.” Kristien mused out aloud. “Would you not have a better chance in Airwolf?”



“All I want is a high level plane with the same capabilities of Airwolf.” Hawke tried to reason with Kristien.



Kristien stopped in her tracks in her reading and her eyes slowly wandered up and met Hawke’s. “Oh no you don’t, I haven’t even fully tested mine.” Kristien looked at Hawke, knowing he wanted to use her latest designed aircraft.



“It looks finished to me, parked up next to Airwolf.” Hawke told her.



“I haven’t tested her yet.” Kristien replied not moving from his gaze.



“I can do that, I am a good test pilot.” Hawke explained to her.



“When you turn up on time that is.” Kristien commented and reminded him of when he first turned up to Red Star Control, three weeks and four hours late, and she sipped her hot chocolate. Kristien sighed heavily. “You haven’t flown Mach 5 before.”



Hawke raised his eyebrow at the speed Kristien mentioned. He had looked at the amazing aircraft that she had designed. It was simply known as a MIG45 in all the communications with the FIRM. They were desperate to get their hands on it. But lately Archangel had not mentioned it at all. Kristien called it the Phoenix since Firefox had been taken by a book and made into a film and besides there was no Clint Eastwood to fly it. Certainly Kristien was very concerned when Firefox came out, it was so similar to what she had designed and sent the designs to the Pentagon. Once the film came out, she stopped sending any communication and kept the Phoenix at home, funding it by herself and having only three other engineers around. It took longer but it was done in secret. Hawke had looked at the amazing aircraft, it had 3 Rolls Royce jet engines, the same used for concorde, but these were a lot smaller and far more powerful. It had managed one flight with Kristien and she had coordinated with NASA to disguise any possible detection with one of their Shuttle re-entries. The Flight Dynamics Officer at NASA had a thing for Kristien and anything she asked she would get.



“Mach 5?” Hawke said with almost disbelief.



“The bloody thing is supposed to do MACH 7. Poxy bloody fuel isn’t refined enough, should resolve the problem soon though.” Kristien was quite frustrated with the fact that sometimes the earth bound minerals stopped her amazing designs in their tracks.



“I don’t need it do to Mach 5 or 7.” Hawke started to try to reason with her. “Just the high level recon and then I will bring her back.”



“Yeah with Saddam’s bloody super gun shooting the arse off it.” Kristien did not hide her unhappiness at having an untested piece of sophisticated equipment out in the open where it could fail, endangering the pilot.



“Kristie please, I could test her for you.” Hawke tried to offer his help and disguise the fact he was heading into danger with an untested machine.



“Don’t you start trying to butter me up, Stringfellow Hawke, you are in no position to ask for favours.” Kristien’s stark warning about Hawke’s recent stray with another woman was put to him. “Why is it you always want to steal bloody aircraft? Piss off will you. The phoenix is mine, you have your own government owned military piece of hardware, use that.”



Hawke fell silent and just continued to look at Kristien with a sweet smile on his face. Hawke did not look his age of forty years at all, very young looking and very handsome. He just looked at Kristien very sweetly and continued to use his charm.



“It won’t work.” Kristien continued to finish her hot chocolate and then looked for her horse magazines and saw they were out of reach. Bugger, she thought. In her pregnant state she could not move, Hawke was sat in her way, she was stuck. She knew Hawke well enough to know how stubborn he was and the fact now she was drowning in his charm.



Kristien sighed and laid back on the sofa. “Okay so why don’t you want to take Airwolf then?”



Hawke shrugged his shoulders at her.



“O oh, no don’t start that with me or the answer will be no.” Kristien warned him.



“Carsten says Archangel is after Airwolf and is working for the other side.” Hawke explained to her.



“I agree.” Kristien admitted finally to Hawke.



“You knew?” Hawke was stunned that Kristien had known and not said anything to Hawke.



“There is no physical evidence here, String.” Kristien told him. “Everything points to Archangel working for someone else, Sayid suddenly turning up after we are married, the attack on Dubawi, the aircraft carrier, the handing me over to Bryon, you having that video surveillance at that sports club, the DB7 being attacked. I have never known so much happen in such a short time. Something is going on but he is being bloody careful at covering his tracks.” Kristien explained. “That’s why we all agreed to keep my pregnancy secret, we cannot be sure about Archangel.”



Hawke listened to Kristien’s explanation. He too did not believe in coincidences and when you started to put all the things that had happened together, somehow Archangel was in the middle of it all and there was too many things too. “So can I borrow the phoenix?” Hawke made a play for the use of the machine.



“You are a bloody pain in the arse Stringfellow Hawke, do you know that?” Kristien told him as if he really didn’t know himself.



Hawke smiled sweetly at her, keeping the charm turned on fully.



“Well move then and help me.” Kristien told him resigning to his charm.



Hawke stood up and leant over and picked Kristien up in his muscular arms. “Where to me lady?” Hawke continued to smile at her.



“The hangar of course as if you didn’t know, I will have to do some modifications to the Phoenix before you can fly her.” Kristien told him.



The hangar’s computers were humming away. Hawke had pulled out the sofa from the hangar lounge area for Kristien to comply with the Doctors orders but also to work on the laptops to change various things with the Phoenix. Hawke had never pried about the phoenix when she just appeared one afternoon. He saw that the aircraft had VTOL capabilities, incredible stealth features and with those 3 engines, had to be bloody fast. What he wasn’t prepared for was what was inside the cockpit. It looked like the EDCC of Airwolf, Hawke had ever seen so many knobs and dials in such a small area before. The rudimentary flight controls he recognised, but even they had differences on them.



Whilst Kristien had laid herself out on the sofa, Hawke had climbed aboard and was having a demo lesson by the aircraft computer itself. Hawke was never one for classroom lectures but when Kristien told him the aircraft flew by thought processes and that as he had not spent any time in her, nor had the computer analyse and learn his thoughts he would have to fly it cold. When Hawke was about to moan about it, Kristien firmly reminded him that in the film Firefox was flown by thought processes in Russian, Hawke dropped it.



One thing for sure, there were some weird symbols and the manual Kristien had written was in a totally different language. Hawke descended down the ladder from the aircraft. He looked over at Airwolf, almost feeling guilty about leaving her behind, but he had a strange feeling that he could not shift. Hawke sat down on the end of the sofa over looking Kristien who was still working away. He picked up the manual and flicked though the pages.



“What language is this in?” Hawke questioned her totally perplexed by the pages. It wasn’t Arabic but some of the symbols were very strange.



“Oh its not of this world.” Kristien finally finished what she needed to do on the laptop and then closed it and looked up at Hawke. She looked shattered. Hawke felt very guilty at asking her for her help.



“Not of this world?” Hawke queried.



“I toyed with the idea of a cipher but then I would have to give away my secrets to read it so I used Klingon.” Kristien finally admitted to Hawke knowing he would not say anything.



“Klingon?” Hawke spoke with disbelief.



“Yep, most of the MIT post graduates speak it. You have to learn it when you start as an undergraduate and as you progress through MIT you are finally allowed after your masters degree to play poker in klingon.” Kristien admitted and then looked at him. “I was 10 when I went to MIT to visit the professors there, I learnt it in thirty minutes.” Kristien then smiled when she remembered the male post graduates faces when she learnt klingon. The twenty two year old male students were in no mood for a ten year old kid, especially a girl. “Soon wiped their smug little smiles off their faces when I cleared them out at Poker too.”



Hawke looked at her totally amazed at her abilities. Living with her on a day to day basis you forgot how intellectual she really was. Kristien tried to fit in and kept her amazing abilities out of the day to day routine but every now and again, when she allowed it to, she really shone through. Hawke remembered the dream he had, the small girl on her own with the horses with the darkness.



“So is the phoenix ready?” Hawke asked trying to keep focused.



Kristien shifted position on the sofa and gave a small yawn. “She is and she has all of Airwolf’s frequencies too and all the information you need.” Kristien replied. “It will be as if you were flying Airwolf out there.”



“Well you get some rest and then I will go when you awake.” Hawke told her and he picked her up and took her back up to the main house where she could get some rest.