He Who Dares: Book One (The Gray Chronicals 1)

by Rob Buckman

  Thankfully, classes started that day, and they learned all the mundane jobs that any seaman or sailor needs to know. What knot tying has to do with running a starship he had no idea, but it soon became apparent to the instructor that he and one other cadet in this class were wizards at it. Not that it any great feat for Mike, he’d been practicing knots and lashing since he was old enough to walk, and splice anything from twine to a steel wire cable in his sleep. His grandfather loved the sea, and they had spent long lazy days sailing and exploring along Avalon’s coastline. It was only natural that Mike would learn everything his Grandfather could teach him. By the time he was twelve he was almost as good a water sailor as his Grandfather, but rowing up and down the river in a Whaler was not one of his favorite pastimes, but tradition being what it is; officer cadets were required to learn this skill, along with other mundane activities of a salt water Navy. These activities had absolutely nothing to do with running a starship, or even a late modern surface warship, or so he thought, but as the instructor pointed out.

  “If you should crash land on a planet, skills learned here can help save the lives of your crew, and yourself.” He had a point.

  The one thing he hated more than anything was the weather, as it seemed to be raining or snowing all the time. Marching back and forth across the parade ground to work off his growing count of demerits or standing guard in the rain wasn’t one of his favorite pass times either. The classes ranged from ship design and construction, to personal hygiene, navigation, and military justice. Some bored him to tears, while others he couldn’t get enough.

  “This,” the instructor said, holding up a thin square of grayish looking material, “is an example of what is euphemistically called a contra-gravity or Ag plate.” He then handed the plate to the first cadet in the front row.

  “I say euphemistically as it’s actually a gravity modification plate. Can anyone tell me why?” For a split second, Mike almost raised his hand then thought better of it.

  “No one? He paused and looked around the room. It wasn’t at all surprising, as few people knew exactly what an Ag plate did, as much of the information was still secret. “Then I shall endeavor to enlighten you.” He took the plate back and laid it on the desk where he attached small clamps to wire on one edge.

  “Newton said, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and that is true in this case. This plate contains material that when excited with a small electrical current, modifies, or sheers the plane of the gravitons pulling it down.” He touched a control on a small box the wires ran to and the plate lifted off the desk a few inches. He added some weights until the plate sank slightly before touching the controls again, and the plate lifted higher.

  “As you can see, by increasing the flow of power we can raise or lower a given weight. Therefore, this is a gravity modification devise, and NOT an anti-gravity plate. Is that clear?” There were ‘yes sir’ and nods from around the room.

  He removed the weight and flipping the plate over, placed it on an electronic scale and touched the control box. Immediately the readout began to climb, settling down at 250 pounds. He touched the control again, shooting the numbers up to 1500 pounds. “As you can see, by reversing the polarity of the plate we now have artificial gravity. Again, we can raise or lower the onboard gravity to suit a particular application. Can anyone give me an example of where we might want to increase gravity aboard ship passed the standard 1G?”

  “In a cargo area to stop cargo moving around?”

  “Possibly, anyone else?”

  “For sleeping?”

  “Good, yes. The bunks aboard ship can be regulated from 1g down to zero.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “To enhance the effect of the inertial compensation field for combat maneuvers.” Mike put in. Instead of the congratulation he expected, he received an odd look.

  “How did you know you could do that, Cadet?”

  “Um, well… I read it in one of the manuals, sir.”

  “I see… anything else.”

  “Yes, sir, you could modify the gravity to impede boarder and slow their progress through the ship.” That brought laughter and a few unkind comments.

  “This is the twenty third century not the sixteenth, Gray. We don’t board ships like a bunch of pirates with cutlasses swinging and knives between our teeth.” James Heartmore giggles gleefully.

  “I beg to differ, Cadet Heartmore.” The professor said sharply to cut off the laughter. That is exactly one of the possible ways that gravity modification can be utilized.” He eyed Heartmore sternly. “Congratulation, Cadet Gray.” Heartmore didn’t look at all happy at the rebuff from the instructor, and gave Mike a dirty look.

  “Can we ask what the plate is made of, sir?” Someone asked.

  “Yes, you may ask, but whether you get an answer is another question. As you may or may know the actual composition of these plates is a closely held secret. I doubt there are half a dozen people in the world who know the answer to that question.”

  “Why is that, sir?” Heartmore asked.

  “Mainly due to the fact that it is a state secret.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh. Many people have tried to discover the composition of this plate. To date, there have been three massive explosions on the scale of a nuclear blast that we know of at laboratories that tried to learn its secret.” That brought a sober moment to the class. “All that’s left of one lab is a smoking crater in the ground about the size of Texas.” A few cadets’ blinked in surprise.

  “I’m told that Siberia now has a new Inland Sea, and that one of the moons of Jupiter no longer exists.” He paused a moment to let the implication of that sink in before continuing. “Since Captain William Enright discovered, or invented the material it has remained a secret.”

  “Isn’t that a little unfair to other counties and worlds that need to build Starships, sir?” Heartmore asked in his usual sneering tone.

  “Not at all. They are free to go and discover their own Ag or gravity modification technology. Earth and especially England is not stopping, or preventing them purchasing it from any number of other races.”

  “But shouldn’t we be…”

  “Giving the secret away?” The instructor paused and looked at the class, a stern look on his face. “England has, and will maintain a monopoly on this discovery as long as possible. All too often in the past we have, either by ignorance or sheer stupidity given away or lost some of our greatest inventions, to England’s detriment I might add.”

  “How so, sir?”

  “Do the names, radar, jet engines, computers ring any bells?” From the blank looks around the room, few if any knew the history behind those inventions. The instructor revelation wasn’t a surprise to Mike. He’d heard it all before, from Gramps. England gave one of Barnes Wallace jet engines and a huge leg up in the post World War II commercial jet airline industry, they also gave a radar unit invented by Robert Watson-Watt to America, the moped designed and built for the Parachute Regiment to give them mobility in Italy turned into a money maker to two enterprising Italians. Tommy Sands, the inventor of the programmable computer only belatedly received recognition many years after the war, and was never able to exploit his invention. Had we maintained control of just those three items, England’s fortunes would have been far better off in the economic depression, post World War II.”

  “You mean there were more, sir?”

  “Oh yes, many, many more, great and small, but in our arrogance and stupidity we failed to grasp what other countries could do with our inventions. Many times to our detriment. Other counties, especially the old US of A and the so called Soviet Union had little or no remorse about stealing our inventions and destroying our industries, thereby disrupting Britain’s commercial recovery.”

  “So, this time we kept control, I take it.” Janice remarked.

  “Indeed, we did, Cadet, this time someone upstairs recognized the potential of this discovery and immedi
ately clamped a lid on it, so to speak.”

  It was a sobering thought to realize that England’s position and wealth all flowed from one insignificant grayish looking plate. Without it star travel was impossible. Many of the things they took for granted, such as mag rail trains would be impossible. The myriad applications of that material were incalculable and in itself it was like the invention of the computer chip in the 1970. Where it would go, and how its original creators would use it were almost unseen. Like the computer chip, the Ag plate as it was commonly known was now incorporated into an untold numbers of items and uses.” Mike could see that England having a monopoly on this material didn’t sit well with some. It also brought up the question of where Avalon was getting its Ag material. He tried to remember, yet couldn’t bring one conversation or discussion to mind where it was mentioned. That in itself was odd.

  * * * * * *

  Thankfully, after six months they moved onto the second phase of training, working indoors in the simulators that represented different parts of a warship. For this, Mike was eternally thankful, as these were at least warm. After learning the basics of each station, they began throwing as many different kinds of emergencies at them as they could think of. Hull breach, loss of power, reduction and loss of gravity, as well as diabolical combinations, some downright impossible, like poisonous alien atmosphere leaking into the ship through a hull breach in zero gees. Working in complete darkness and weightlessness was the worsted, and more than one cadet failed at this point. For Mike it was like coming home, but he took care to limit his knowledge and expertise. Hiding his light under a bushel, so to speak. During this time, they were measured and fitted for their custom skin and Vac suits, but it would be a while before they would arrive. In the meantime, they use the training suits, learning the intimate details of inserting rather uncomfortable devises into various orifices of their bodies. If that wasn’t bad enough, cleaning them afterward was. After delivery of the Vac suits, they practice climbing in and out of them day in and day out until they could do it in complete darkness and in a weightless environment. The soft suit was relatively easy, so they mainly concentrated on the hard suit. The bottom half of the suits stood by themselves held in place by magnetic clamps in the boots. You simply grabbed a handrail or other support and drop into it. The moment the sensors inside detected you were settled into the form fitting sheath the chest opening clamshell closed and sealed. The top half, then lowered down over your upraised arms and automatically sealed at the waist with a magnetic locking ring, as did the helmet and gloves. The helmet could be removed, or the face shield moved up into the interior by touching a power point on the side. The face place had three shields, a clear one that polarized to black in strong light, a night vision plate and a blast plate.

  The internal power system provided twelve continuous hours of full operation, including life support, communications, internal and external lights, plus the recycling system and food dispenser. Everybody had to learn to maintain his or her own suit, and if necessary repair it in a vacuum. The outside also had hard point for weapons, and thrust packs, in case they had to work outside the hull. These weren’t just their space suits, but combat armor, with the expectation they’d have to fight in them as well as work. All this and more they tested repeatedly, and any problems carefully noted by the instructor. This was one point they took seriously and didn’t yell or get upset if you indicated you had a problem, as yours, or someone else life depended on how well the suit worked. They took nothing as trivial or unimportant, as it could save someone’s life in the future. The drills went on, week after week, now mostly in the suits, until wearing them became natural to them as wearing their uniforms. By then most of the cadets started falling into teams, helping and assisting each other as friendships were made and cemented, except, Mike. For whatever reason, few, if any wanted to partner with him, and he put it down to his status as a colonial. The one place he excelled was the ‘gauntlet’ as they called it, a sort of obstacle course in simulated space. It consisted of a three hundred foot long chamber or box, forty foot wide and forty foot high, and filled with an assortment of broken equipment, piping, stairways, catwalks, conduits and valves. This was an individual testing ground, and designed to push the cadets to the limit in operating their suits under extreme conditions. Sometimes they would have to locate a particular valve or power switch and turn it off or on, or operate a particular piece of equipment.

  This was all done in darkness, with different sections under varying gravity condition. One moment you were floating in free fall, the next crashed to the floor under the pull of three G’s. Flame or live steam would erupt unexpectedly from a broken pipe, or arching electrical connection would shower you with sparks. In the armored suits it was mealy dangerous rather than life threatening. Disorientation was the key, and many a cadet needed rescuing by an instructor because of it. Consistently, Mike worked his way through the maze, using all his natural senses, experience and the built in equipment in the suit. To him it was like being back on his grandfather old deep space tug, the ‘Prometheus’ working the barges, not that he’d ever been in one like the ‘Box’. He admitted to himself that he was show boating as he positively reveled in the challenge. In some cases he simply ripped out stanchion or piece of equipment in the way to get where he was supposed to be in the correct time. The downside was the look he received from the instructors and his fellow cadets when he did too well. His was the time to beat always, yet few came close. Even a few of the instructors doubted they could do better, even with their years of experience. It did set him aside and made pairing him up with anyone else difficult. Not that he minded, but it did sting his ego a little that no one wanted to team up with him, but he was more of a loner anyway. This fact was brought up at the second year evaluation conference with the Commandant. This was where they weeded out the cadets considered less than adequate to continue on a command track. Those that failed here would be sent on to other training centers such as environmental, engineering, navigation and sundry other training commands. They might someday be placed in command of a warship, but only under the most extreme circumstances.

  This was also where political, and family connections came into play, and the Commandant grudgingly set his stamp of approval on cadets who in his private opinion shouldn’t be placed in command of a garbage scow let alone a warship. But he kept such thoughts to himself. Unbeknownst to Mike, he just made the cut, as none of the instructors could fault him on his test scores. It was his lone wolf attitude that set him apart, and it was privately agreed to push him into a position of command to see how he held up. The simulated command deck came next and they began learning the basics of each station, from the Captains chair, to navigation, weapons, environmental and damage control. Everyone knew much of the layout of the controls were guesswork, as no one was sure what sort of equipment or ship they would serve on, but that wasn’t the point. The management of those stations under combat condition was what counted. Could you order the right action at the right time to fight or save the ship? It quickly became apparent that Janice was a natural in any position, instinctively knowing what to do at the right time, quickly and firmly taking control. She repeatedly anticipated a condition before it occurred, issuing orders in a clear voice that carried over the sometimes bedlam of the bridge. For some odd reason, Mike was proud of her. On more than one occasion, he wanted to go over and kiss, but controlled the impulse. He didn’t do or say anything to lessen or increase her feeling of accomplishment. She was proud and might take any sign of approval or disapproval as male condescension, so he kept his peace. After a month, the simulator work got tougher as they tried to weed out those unsuited for the Captain’s chair. Here, Mike began to sweat, torn between wanting a command position, and fearing he'd get it. On many occasions, he held back from taking command, letting someone else take charge, or waiting in the background when the instructor assigned bridge positions. Twice he saw the instructors looking at him, expecting the worse. He
thought about failing here, and being relegated to engineering, or something worse plagued him, yet his grandfather’s training drove him forward. He’d dreaded that moment from the beginning, knowing he might have to make that same choice again, a choice on which people lives hung. At least here he could fail ignominiously, and no one at home would be the wiser.

  “Heartmore, you’ll take the Captain’s chair for this simulation.” The senior instructor announced as he set up another training assignment. Mike picked up an odd note in the instructor’s voice and facial expression. If it was dislike for the young man, he hid it well, and Heartmore appeared oblivious to it.

  “Yes, sir!” Heartmore grinned at everyone behind the instructor’s back, as if to say it was the obvious choice.