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

by Rob Buckman

  “We up to speed yet Gramps?” He asked, shivering inside his suit.

  “Yes, speed and vector both in the green. How you doing?”

  “Getting there. Have about half done now.”

  “How’s your air holding out?” It was impossible for Gramps to hide the note of concern in his voice.

  “Doing good.” Mike answered, his voice sounding funny even to him. “Our visitors still on track?”

  “They are, and so is System Security but I didn’t mention anything about the devises, just that I have a suspicious ship trailing me.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking about that as well. Our best bet is to load all these devices onto the Prometheus and go out and meet them. That way we can get them out of here quicker, just in case.”

  “Good idea. Tell me when you get the last one unhooked and I’ll come round to meet you.” It was also a way for Gramps to get him aboard quicker.

  “Should be through in about two hours.” Mike knew he was becoming light headed and aware enough to turn up his flow control. He breathed deeply for a minute to flush the CO2 out of his system as he flew to the next container.

  By this time he’d almost given up on taking any precautions, there wasn’t time. He simply anchored his thruster pack as close to the control room hatch as possible, dived inside, unclamped the device, and got it outside. He made sure it was anchored fast before strapping his pack back on and blasting off to the next container. At last, he reached the last container, gasping for air. By now, he’d turned the flow control up to maximum but the tanks and the CO2 scrubber were depleted.

  “Done it Gramps.”

  “Breaking off tow now. Standby for pickup.” Mike watched through fuzzy vision as the ‘Prometheus’ broke her tow and ‘lifted’ towards him. He sucked what air was left in his helmet and boosted across to the tug with the device as she came alongside.

  The airlock was still open and he jetted inside. His landing was anything but standard as he crashed into the forward bulkhead, not that he felt a thing at that point. The next he knew was Gramps unlocking his helmet visor and dragging in a wonderful lungful of stale ship's air. It was the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted.

  “Son,” Gramps said, looking down at him, “you pull a stunt like that again and I will personally kick your butt from one end of this system to the other, and back again.” Unlocking and removing the helmet, he leaned down and kissed Mike on the forehead.

  “Welcome back, son.”

  “Thanks, Gramps.” Mike wheezed around a pounding headache. “I love you too.”

  “Get out of that suit and up to the bridge.”

  “We’ve got to retrieve the devices!”

  “I know, and we will. You pilot and I’ll go pick them up.”

  “Gramps!”

  “You going to argue with the Captain now?” His voice as hard as vacuum.

  “No, sir.” Mike admitted to himself that he wasn’t up to going back out just then and accepted the inevitable.

  It didn’t take long for him to change, grab a cup of fresh coffee and two painkillers and slide into the helm seat. The moment he did, Gramps took off for the aft airlock to dress. Mike checked the plot, finding the containers dead on course and up to speed on a ballistic curve for Avalon Prime. The scope showed the un-names vessel still on a heading to intercept them, but as to its purpose and intentions, that was still a mystery.

  “Ready to ex-ship, bridge.”

  “Aye-aye, sir. You are cleared to begin retrieval.”

  The airlock cycle started, and he watched the outer hatch open and his Grandfather steered himself out on his thruster. Mike chuckled. Trust Gramps to show off and exit the airlock on his jetpack, instead of walking out first. He deployed the umbrella and started across to the second container. In all, it took two hours to retrieve all of the explosive devices, and by that time, a second blip showed on the screen, this time coming from directly astern.

  “Systems Security cutter, to ‘Prometheus’.”

  “Prometheus here, we copy you.”

  “How you doing, Mike?”

  “Good, but I need to talk to you privately… it's about your daughter and me. Switch to low band frequency, Delta, Echo 555."

  "God damn it Mike… Have you been playing… shit. Switching frequencies."

  "So what the hell are you doing playing around with…"

  "Calm down, I only said that to confuse anyone listening in on the high band." On low band, no one could hear what was said outside a five mile radius.

  "What the hell is going on Mike?" In as few words as possible, Mike relayed the news.

  "Holy mother of god! Are you sure about all this, Mike?"

  "I am, and Gramps is standing by to transfer those little presents to you for disposal. You ready to take them on board?”

  “With a great deal of reluctance, yes.”

  “I’ll be glad to get rid of them, I can tell you that.”

  “We have a bomb disposal expert on board. Hopefully he can disarm the damn things and we can go home.”

  “Hell, slap a detonator on the damn thing and blow them up.”

  “Thought of that, but we want to track down whoever did this.”

  “Copy. I understand. Hope you nail the prick.”

  “We’ll try to. How soon can you have them to us?”

  “In about an hour at the rate Gramps is getting them on board. The moment he has the last one here, I’ll boost out to meet you.”

  “Good. I’ll be standing by.” Mike sweated another half-hour before Gramps came back on the air.

  “That’s the last one.”

  “Good, strap down while I boost us out of here.”

  “Copy that.” Mike waited. “Strapped down, bridge. You can boost now.”

  “Copy, boosting.”

  Gramps needed to strap down, even with the internal compensator; lateral thrust could push Gramps off the ship. Mike gently turned the tug onto a new heading and applied power. Twenty minutes later, he reversed the tug and applied braking power to match speed and course with the cutter. In all, it took him thirty-five minutes to reach a zero/zero intercept.

  “Great job, Mike, couldn’t have done it better myself.” That was high praise coming from the skipper of a Security Cutter.

  “Thanks, Captain.

  “Kill your shield so we can come alongside.”

  “Killing shield now.”

  The Cutter’s shield would cover them both while the devices were being transferred, so Mike wasn’t worried. Then an alarm pinged softly, and Mike’s eye flicked to the screen.

  “Son of a b...” He swore, forgetting he had an open comm channel.

  “What's up, Prometheus?”

  “That mystery blimp on out screen, it’s another tug and he’s heading for an intercept to pick up our tow!”

  “Damn!” He could hear the venom in the Cutter Captain’s voice.

  “We can’t stop the transfer, we have to get these devices off your ship and out to where we can dispose of them safely.”

  “I know, I know.” He sat there fuming as the two blips merged. “Damn! They hooked on.”

  “It’s going to be a few more minutes before we're through here, but I don’t know what you are going to do. By right’s you abandoned the tow.”

  “But!”

  “It’s a bitch, but there’s nothing I can do about it. There isn’t another cutter within range to help at the moment.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out.” He sat there, going over one plan after another, but nothing came to mind that had any chance of getting their charter back, at least not legally.

  He looked around the bridge, more in sadness than anything else. Then his eyes alighted on the ship’s plaque and he paused. ‘Dedicated to the men and women who served with distinction on the deep space tug, H.M.S. Prometheus’ Then came a list of all the officers and crew who’d served on her, and he nodded in respect. He’d damned if he’d let a bunch of pirate get the bett
er of this old lady of space.

  “You’re clear, Mike. Go after that haul and see what you can do, but if you’re not hooked up to her when we get there, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do.”

  “I understand, Captain, and I appreciate your help.”

  “I’m in the airlock, Mike. Go!”

  “Stay in your suit, Gramps.”

  “What?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Oh Lord, not another one.”

  He gunned the engines and sped off back to the containers, arriving back in less than an hour. To his astonishment the other tug hadn’t hooked up ahead of the containers, they’d connected astern and were in the process or slowing the string down.

  “Unknown tug, you have hooked onto a chartered haul, disconnect and back off.”

  “Says who.” A nasty sounding voice came back.

  “Who is this?”

  “None of your fucking business boy!”

  “It will be when the Systems Security Cutter gets here!” For a moment, there was dead air, then.

  “This is the deep space tug, ‘Penelope’, and we have just attached to an abandoned string of ore containers.”

  “Like hell you have. We have the charter and only left her to transfer some materials to the Cutter, now back off!”

  “So you say. As far as we, and the law is concerned, you abandoned the tow, so it’s up for grabs.”

  “Last chance low life! Back off.”

  “Go home to mummy, boy and leave us to do the men’s work!” The man gave a nasty chuckle and cut the connection.

  While he was talking, Mike maneuvered the ‘Prometheus’ ahead of the container sting and latched on. The ‘Penelope’ couldn’t see that, but they soon found out.

  “Gramps, kick that pile into high gear, I’m going to max the compensator.”

  “Max! They haven’t been up to the max in a donkey’s age.”

  “These are military grade inertial compensator and they always rate them lower than what they can actually put out.”

  “I hope you are right.” Gramps muttered. Mike watched the power curve spike as Gramps pulled out all the rods. He gradually spooled up the compensator to the red line, and then a bit over.

  “Hold onto your short, Gramps, I think this is going to be rough.” His last act was to key the containers optical bollards and tractor beams to max. He applied power, pulling it slowly upward. Around him, he could feel the ship vibrate, as she pulled harder and harder against the pull of the other tug.

  * * * * * *

  “What the hell is happening? Why are we speeding up instead of slowing down?” The Captain of the Penelope yelled. The engineer gave him a puzzled look, then checked his engines.

  “We’re running at about three quarter max power now, Captain.”

  “Well, give her full power, then, you idiot.” He snapped, pushing the power bar to the stops. For a moment they slowed, then started picking up speed again. “More power!” He yelled.

  “That’s it, Captain, that's all I can get out of the fusion plant. We are burning fuel like mad.”

  “So what the hell is making us speed up...” Then is hit him. The Prometheus was hooked on ahead and was dragging them along with the containers.“ That good for nothing kid of Gramps had gone ahead and done what he said.

  “Take those engines over the red line, the kids not getting away with it.” For half an hour, they jockeyed back and forth. First, one applying more power, than the other.

  “Attention, Penelope, this is the Systems Security Cutter ‘Amazon’.”

  “Get that kid to cut his tow!” Captain Jenkins yelled.

  “Why should I?”

  “This here container sting is an abandoned tow, and we picked it up as salvage.”

  “Funny, it doesn’t look abandoned to me. The Prometheus is hooked up ahead and it's proceeding on her way. Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake when you hooked on?”

  “Hell no. The Prometheus wasn’t anywhere around when we got here. It's legal, we have the right.”

  “Maybe so, but not the power.”

  “What!”

  “Did you forget that the Prometheus is a fission powered ship. She doesn’t need fuel. She out-powers you, and even now is hauling your sorry ass in-system.”

  “Damn smart ass kid, he can’t get away with this!”

  “Yes he can. How long before you have to break off for fuel?”

  “A long time yet!”

  “I don’t think so. He has time on his side, you don’t. You’re going to burn out your engines in a one sided duel?”

  Captain Spizt looked at his instruments in disgust. They told him the truth. The kid did have time on his side. He could keep pulling until the cows came home and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. For a few minutes, the airways turned blue with his swearing, then he cut power and disconnected. Captain Spizt didn’t hang around to hear the laughter, but headed as quickly as he could to the nearest re-fueling station. Having to be hauled in by another tug if he ran out of fuel would be more humiliating than it already was.

  “Well, there he goes, Mike.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “For what, only doing my duty, is all.”

  “Yeah, right.” He chuckled, “and pigs will fly soon.”

  “Lord, I hope not, have you seen the ways those critter shit!” With that, he signed off and headed away down system.

  “Phew! That was a close one.” Gramps exclaimed as he came onto the bridge.

  “Knew we could out pull him. I was more worried about the container tractor beams failing.”

  “Now he tells me.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry, at your age that could be bad for your old ticker.”

  “Son, you’ve been bad for my ticker since the first day I picked you up from the hospital. You know how many times you scared me to death, just growing up?”

  “I hate to ask.”

  “You don’t want to know, trust me.” He sighed. “So, what did that do to our zero/zero intercept with the freighter?”

  “Not good. I need to figure out a way to pick up the time, and speed.” Gramps sat down on the couch at the back of the bridge and sipped his coffee.

  “When you work it out, wake me up.” He said, kicking off his boots. Within moments, Gramps was sawing logs, but it didn’t bother Mike.

  He smiled and went on calculating a new base course. He ran figures for an hour, trying to find an alternative to his first run. There wasn’t one, or at least not one that gave him any margin of error. It was that or nothing. Switching the autopilot off, he punched in the new course, hoping that Gramps would stay asleep long enough for him to be committed before waking up. He was going to scream, but if they were committed, there was nothing he could do about it, save abandon the course and miss the deadline completely. They only had one shot, and Mike was going to take it, no matter what the risk. In the end, it was worth it. Orbital Center would scream, but after checking the Coast Pilot’s Manual again, he still couldn’t find anything in there to say he couldn’t do it. What he proposed was done many times in the past, for all sorts of reason, many, a lot less worthy than this one.

  “Orbital Center, this is Sierra Whisky Gulf 893.”

  “This is Orbital Center, we copy you Sierra Whisky Gulf 893.”

  “Requesting an insertion vector for a flyby of Avalon.”

  “We have you on the scope, Sierra, Whisky, Gulf 893, did you say a flyby?”

  “Yes, Orbital Center. I need to pick up a new course and heading for a zero/zero intercept with an outbound freighter. Downloading course and heading now.”