Chapter 1
Dominic Santini worked alone late into the evening once more. His employees had all gone home prior. Caitlin had gone home for the weekend though she invited him to catch a movie with her.
Dom decided to stay behind and use his Sunday to catch up on work. Being a business owner often meant working late into a Sunday evening as it was the only time he got peace and quiet in the hangar.
As he cleaned the engine parts scattered on the table before him he suddenly felt like he was hit with an energy wave. He stumbled wondering what he felt. Perhaps, it was an earthquake. He stood waiting for another shockwave. He heard a humming coming from behind him. He noticed the parts and the table that were before him a mere second ago had simply vanished. He then heard a what sounded like a fire extinguisher. Dom turned around and was greeted by a strange and panicked sight.
A young woman with short messy blonde hair, blue eyes and a oval face wearing mechanic's overalls was frantically spraying down flames from a fire that arose from a strange contraption on the table in the middle of the hangar. She got the fire out and stood back as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She glanced up and spied Dom standing across from her with a bizarre look upon his face. She gave a funny look back wondered who he was and why he was there.
She asked, "You from the college?"
"College?" Dom replied bewildered. He then asked, "Who are you and how did you get in here?"
She puckered in thought, "I'm Sam. Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"I own this place." he insisted.
She shook her head, "No…Jo Santini-Hawke owns it and she's letting me use it. Now who are you?"
"Jo Santini is my niece." he informed.
She gave a strange look, "Really! Because she's my mom. Now who are you and what do you want?" She then squinted, "Wait…I've seen you before." She cocked her head wondering where she had seen this man's face.
He replied, sternly, "I'm Dominic Santini and I own this whole place. What do you mean Jo is your mom? She doesn't have any kids…" he puckered, "That I know of…"
She defended, "I'm not a kid. I'm twenty two! I'm Dr. Samantha Hawke and just…where did you come from?" she wondered confused.
"Where did you come from?" Dom shot back. He walked over to the table. "I was cleaning engine parts. What is this here thing?" he wondered.
"I'm working on developing a warp drive engine…" she squinted with a pucker as her mind turned. "Mom got this place from her uncle…"
Dom asked, "What's this engine do?"
"It warps space fabric to push a ship through outer space. It moves time and space around it…" she tailed off as she pondered what she may have done. "But I'm still developing it…and then it overloaded and caught fire…then you were here…" she winced, "I think I did something…"
"Outer space?" Dom squawked.
"If you are going to colonize space you need an engine that can warp space around a craft to send that craft another planet." she stated. "Wait…you're Uncle Dom. I saw your picture." she realized.
"Jo is your mom?" he asked confused.
She nodded, "This is going to seem like a silly question but can you tell me what year it is?"
"It's 1984!" he balked as if the question was insulting. He wasn't a senile old man just yet.
"Oh," she grinned nervously. "I really screwed up." She looked at the burnt out engine, "This may take a while…"
"What may take a while?" he questioned.
She took a deep breath and started, "My mom and dad closed their business and gave me the empty hangar to work on my project. I needed someplace away from people due to the physics nature of the project. There was a little…um…accident…and somehow, I'm not sure how, but my engine overloaded and created a much larger warp wave that seems to have transverse space time and deposited you here…I think."
"Can you speak English?" he asked her.
"I think I accidentally brought you through time. It's 2022." she explained. "My parents owned this old hangar and they are retired. They gave it to me to use for my project. The man who owned it before my parents was my Great Uncle…Dominic Santini. He was a stunt pilot and World War Two fighter ace. My mom told me all about you."
"Jo is your mom?" he asked still trying to comprehend what he was being told.
She nodded, "Yes."
"And who is your dad?" he asked wondered who Jo must have married and not told him about for none of it made any sense to the man.
"Saint John Hawke." she stated.
"Sinjin?" he asked slightly taken back.
She nodded.
He stood for a moment, "He's alive."
"Yes." she nodded again.
"Does String know?" he wondered.
"Who?" she asked unsure.
"String! His brother." he stated.
"Oh!" her eyes went wide. "Stringfellow Hawke."
"Yes!" Dom nodded hard.
"He died a few years back. He got addicted to pain pills after an accident of some kind. My parents never told me what exactly happened. He was in a wheelchair. His organs shut down and…he passed away." she explained.
He stood shocked at the news. He asked unbelieving, "String was in a wheelchair and died?"
She nodded, "He had a lot of issues. Dad tried to help him but…he just gave up I guess."
"What about Cait?" he wondered.
She questioned, "Who is Cait?"
He shook his head, "This is all wrong. String can't be gone." He took of his red ball cap and rang his big thick fingers through his hair, "I want to see Sinjin."
"Okay." she agreed for she had no idea what else to do next. "I'll take you to mom and dad's house."
Short Time Later
Dom found himself sitting in a car with a digital dash board and a backup camera. He noticed the screen, "You can see behind the car with that."
"It's standard." she shrugged as she put the green Subaru Forester in reverse.
He noted, "Nice car."
"It's mom's car. She letting me borrow it as all my money has gone into the project." she informed.
Dom couldn't see much of the field for it was dark but noticed fewer lights were on than usual. They soon started down the road. He asked, "Your dad have the cabin by the lake?"
She shook her head, "They had to sell it. I remember going there as a kid for a vacation before they sold it. I think they had to move dad's brother out to the nursing home then."
Dom's heart sank, "String left the cabin for a nursing home."
She nodded, "I never really knew him. Just heard of him. Dad said he wasn't the same anymore and didn't want me around him."
"That's too bad." Dom shook his head. "String was really smart. He knew a lot about physics."
"He did?" she asked surprised. "My dad is pretty smart."
"Sinjin is smart but String is the man who can design and make things." Dom told her.
"Really?" she asked. "I barely remember him and what I do remember wasn't good."
"He designed Air…" he went tight lipped. He feared he exposed the top secret chopper.
"Airwolf?" she asked.
"You know of her?" he grinned.
She nodded, "That old chopper from the 80's. It was part of some deep state CIA bullshit program that mom and dad were in. They decommissioned it and then dad had to go and buy the chopper and restore it to its 80's glory and take it air shows. That's his retirement job. Flying some old crappy chopper." she explained.
"I'm her flight engineer." he informed.
She balked, "But you were a World War Two fighter ace. Why bother with that piece of crap?"
"String helped design her." he replied upset.
"I suppose it was state of the art back then." she shrugged. "Looks kind of cool through and yeah…it can do mach one but the computer system…" she rolled her eyes.
"It's state of the art." he retorted.
"For the 80's," she miffed. "I told dad I could upgrade it with a new system and make it really cool but he won't let me touch his baby." she mocked. It was apartment there was some jealously between the young scientist and Airwolf.
He stated, "I'm glad Sinjin is taking care of her then."
Soon they pulled into the driveway of a two story home in a standard neighborhood. It was painted blue with a stone façade. Dom stated, "This looks nice." He found the home was a bit larger than a ranch style and had an eye appealing style.
"They just had it built." she informed. They climbed out of the car and she lead him through the front door. She called out, "Mom! Dad! I'm home and I brought company."
Dom heard Jo's voice call from the living room, "Leftovers are in the fridge, honey."
She rose from the sofa and made her way to see who her daughter brought home for she didn't seem to have many friends. Jo stopped dead in her tracks as her eyes settled on a man she had not seen in decades. "Uncle Dom?" she asked. She rubbed her eyes and then felt her forehead. "Do I have COVID?" she wondered if she was ill and hallucinating.
"No Mom." she shook her head.
Dom's eyes settled on Jo. She looked good and her hair was still blonde and kept short though she looked a bit older. She sported a pink sweat shirt and blue slacks. He then realized just how much Samantha looked like her mother. "It's me, Jo." he assured her.
Jo then wrapped her arms around her uncle and held him tight. "I don't know how but I am so glad I got to see you again." Tears streamed down her face.
"It was me." her daughter confessed. "I kind of had an overload with the engine and it sorta, kind of, um…it brought him here. I need to repair it and find a way to reverse what it did to send him back…I'm hoping I can send him back…" she confessed.
Jo released Dom as she motioned towards Samantha, "Meet your great niece, Samantha Hawke. She's a kid genius and at twenty two has her PhD in physics. She's also stubborn and cranky like her dad and her Uncle String was. Must be Hawke thing." Jo then called up the stairs, "Sinjin. Get down here."
Dom heard foot steps coming down the stairs and then a man he recognized as an older version of Saint John Hawke round the corner. He wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt with a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. His hair was gray. He came to a dead stop upon seeing Dom.
"Dom?" he asked unsure of his own eyes.
"It's me." he told him. "You look my age, Sinjin."
"I am your age, Dom." he replied and then wrapped his arms around the man who was his father figure during his youth. "I can't believe it." he croaked.
Jo stated, "It's that project that Sam is working on in the old hangar. She somehow brought Dom here. She warped him here…somehow."
"Really?" he asked as tears down his face.
Sam stood back for she never saw her father cry before. At that moment she realized just how much Dom meant to her parents and how much they missed him.
Dom asked, "What happened to String?"
Sinjin gathered himself and explained, "He died three years ago. He was injured in an explosion. That explosion killed you. He couldn't fly after that. Then I was rescued and took over Airwolf for a year. I flew with Jo. They closed that project down, decommission it. Then String got in a car accident. It wasn't his fault. A drunk hit him but it broke his back. He then got addicted to pain killers. They did all sort of surgery on him. They took the pain pills away and then he started drinking to dull the pain. It killed his liver, his organs shut down. The last year of his life he was wheelchair bound. He just couldn't take the pain."
"And Caitlin?" he asked.
"I'm friends with her on Facebook." he cheered. "Her father died after you so she had to go back to Texas to care of her mom. She doing good. She misses you and String. I mean you three where the original crew. Did Sammy tell ya? I got Airwolf! I own her. I got her restored and Jo and I do air shows with her. We obviously don't have any weapons. It's still the only chopper that can do mach one."
Sam mentioned, "If I put my engine in that chopper it can go from new York to California in a fraction of a second."
Her father nixed the idea, "You are not using Airwolf as an experimental platform for a warp drive engine that you don't even have control over."
"What makes you think I have no control over it?" she huffed.
He pointed to Dom, "This!" He spoke to Dom, "Don't get me wrong. I would give anything to have you back with us. And since you are back with us, I will get the guest room set up for you." Deep in his heart he hoped there was no way of sending Dom back so he could keep the man safe with him and his family.
Sam asked, "Should I tell NASA about what happened?"
Sinjin and Jo both chimed, "No!"
Sinjin added, "I'm not trusting Never A Strait Answer with Dom's life. We can fix this on our own. You can fix whatever you did. I can help…the best I can."
Jo asked, "Why send Uncle Dom back? Let's keep him here with us. We send him back he dies in an explosion and then String is never the same. If he's here, no explosion. String wouldn't get hurt."
Sinjin asked, "Then would how would String and Cait complete those mission without him?"
"I don't know." she sighed. "I just want to keep him here with us."
"Me too." he admitted.
Sam spoke, "I think I can send him back. But I have to fix the engine and figure out what happened to reverse it. It could be a while and in the mean time…we can't tell anyone."
Jo held Dom tight, "Dom will be fine with us. He can fly with us in Airwolf at the shows."
Sinjin smiled, "That would be nice. I never flew Airwolf with Dom."
Sam spoke up, "We can't just keep him. It's not like he's a stray dog or something."
Jo waved her hand, "Sure we can."
"My engine literally moved the man through time. I need to send him back." she insisted.
Sinjin asked, "Says who?"
"Um…" Sam stood thinking about what authority she had in the matter.
Jo made an offer, "You work on fixing your engine and we will take care of Dom. Okay?"
"Okay." she agreed figuring she needed to find a way to fix the situation and her parents seemed reluctant to help.
