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

by Rob Buckman

  “Well, in case, I mean, if there is a possibility of us getting killed, I wanted to, um, ‘sleep’ with you one last time.” She ended.

  “Nice thought, and nice idea, but I don’t think we are exactly in any great danger of getting killed.”

  “Oh, I see, but you’d say even if we were.” She countered. Mike ran his hands through her dark hair, caressing her neck as he did.

  “What am I going to do with you?” It was a rhetorical question, as at that point he kissed her. What might have happened didn’t as at that moment there was a knock at the door.

  “Your meal, Sir.” The cook announced. Reaching up, he killed the overhead light, and with the bed behind the door, there was no way the cook could see anyone was in it, or at least he hoped so. Mike took the tray of food.

  “Thank you, I appreciate it, how are you holding up back there.”

  “Difficult, Sir, but can’t complain, I’ve been in worse spots,” he chuckled, “and besides, we are on our way home.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Aye, skipper any time.” Closing the door, he set the tray down on the bed and flipped the wall seat down.

  “Oh goody, food!” She exclaimed, making sipping sounds as she sniffed the air.

  “You get your own, brat! This is for the Captain, and he’s famished.” She pouted, and he just sighed. Lifting the cover on the dishes, he decided that he’d need help finishing it all anyway. The cook must have thought he was feeling half the crew in here by the amount on the tray.

  “I see the Prince likes traveling in style.” Mike raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, lovely, steak and lobster, fried potatoes, salad and all the trimmings.” She cooed. “I have to say, you Captains eat well, I think I’ll have a word with the Admiralty about this.”

  “Don't you dare, I haven’t seen steak this good, or lobster since I left home.” Between them they devoured everything on the tray and once or twice she gave out with a very un-lady like burp. Mike laughed and shook his head.

  “Where on earth did that come from?”

  “Down here.” She said, speaking around a mouthful of lobster, pointing to her tummy.

  “I’m sure the King would be most interested to know his messenger burp while eating.”

  “You wouldn’t dare tell him, he’d throw a fit.” She hissed. “We are supposed to be ladylike at all times.” She announced in a haughty voice.

  “You behave yourself, or I will.” Mike chuckled, slowly unwinding. It felt good to relax for a moment and not have to worry about anything. He knew it wouldn’t last, and that some other emergency would pop up.

  “And how, pray tell, are you going to do that, you don’t even know him.” She looked at him oddly for a moment.

  “I’ll send him a coded message by Navel courier, that’s how.” He dipped another chuck of lobster in the butter and licked his finger after putting it in his mouth.

  “Oh, he never reads stuffy stuff like that.”

  “Um, well maybe he should so he knows what's going on in his kingdom. Like King’s Messengers who burp and bed young Naval Ensigns.”

  “Acting Captain, no less.” The banter went on throughout the meal until Mike let out with a loud burp of his own. He hadn’t meant to, it just happened. That sent her diving into the pillows to stifle her giggle of laughter.

  That put her rear end in the air, so Mike reached over and slapped it hard. That brought a muffled squeal, and he started to draw his hand back to do it again when she didn’t stop, then the intercom sounded.

  “Oh, damn!” She murmured, looking out from under a pillow and glared at the comm unit. Mike swiveled the view screen around to face the bulkhead and keyed the accept key.

  “Captain here.”

  “Thought you might like to know, Captain, we are coming up on a rather large collection of ships guarding the Warp Point."

  “Damn! I’ll be right there.” Switching off, he stood and headed for the door. That ‘some other emergency’ popped up sooner than he expected.

  “Be careful my love.” She whispered.

  “I will.” He leaned down and kissed her hard, then left. It still took him three minutes to reach the flight deck, sliding into the second seat just after the CPO stood up and moved out of the way.

  “Here comes the real test.” He murmured, counting the number of ships on guard as they came up on his long-range sensor screen. “The last is one light minute out, the closest, fifteen light seconds.” He murmured as Jimmy cut power to the main engines and let the ship coast.

  “I just hope the Prince hasn’t made it to some long-range communication equipment.”

  “We are about to find out.” Even as Jimmy spoke, the comm unit lit up with an incoming transmission. At moment later the screen cleared to reveal the face of the duty comm tech on the lead ship by the time lag.

  “Shuttle, KING-ALPHA 001, what is your destination?” He asked, sounding a little nervous, guessing it wasn’t every day you got to challenge Prince Phillips own ship, and not something anyone in their right mind looked forward to.

  “Echo quadrant and Fielding’s Folly.” Jimmy answered without hesitation, and waited ten second for the return message.

  “Authorization code, please.” Came back as expected ten seconds later.

  “This is Prince Philip’s personal transport.” Again, the leg.

  “Yes, Captain, I know, but I still need the pass code.” The look on the man's face said that he didn’t really want to, but was following regulation.

  Jimmy sent the code, and went on checking his instruments as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. He even turned and spoke to Mike while keeping an eye on the sensor screen. The distance dropped and they were almost within instant communications range.

  “I just hope the Prince doesn’t come up here and ask what the delay is.” Mike caught on quickly.

  “Me too, you know how upset he gets when that happens.” Mike answered, playing along.

  “I’m sorry, Sir, but this is the wrong code for today, this is yesterday’s code.” The lag was only two seconds now.

  “Oh, really,” Jimmy raised an eyebrow and turned to Mike, “just a moment.” He turned to Mike looking sleepy eyed.

  “Would you be so kind as to go and wake the Prince and ask him for the current code?”

  “Yes, certainly.” Mike made movements to undo his safety harness and stand.

  “Could you hold on a moment while I get the code or the Prince for that matter? Maybe you can explain to him about the code. I’d rather have him upset at you rather than me, don’t yer know.” His upper class accent evident. They both saw the comm tech blanch at the thought of the Prince actually coming on line and asking him why he was being delayed.

  “Hold on, Sir, let me check this code again.” It was obvious that he knew what could happen to him if the Prince did come to the bridge and answer the call.

  “I’m very sorry, Captain, my mistake, this is the right code.” Mike almost breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down again. Thank God, the Prince was such an asshole. Everyone seemed terrified of him and Mike wondered why.

  “Thank you, and you have a good day.” Jimmy smiled, and accelerated the ship passed the blockade. He sat there with an intense look on his face as he pushed the ship’s speed to the max, all traces of the sleep upper class pilot gone.

  “What now?” Mike asked, suspecting the worse.

  “I’m calculating in my head the distance between us and the wrap point.”

  “So?”

  “If we can reach a certain distance, there is no way they can catch us… Oh my, someone’s taken notice.” Mike looked at the rear sensor screen and saw two ships, then three, break formation and start in their direction.

  “Your orders, Sir?”

  “The fat is in the fire now, go for broke.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.” Jimmy pressed several buttons as he said it.

  The ship shuddered a little as its entire external ordinance launc
hed at once. Missiles sped away towards the turning ships, and they held their breath. Five out of the ten missiles hit, and they saw two ships fall out of formation.

  “Thought so.”

  “What?”

  “They were on standby watch at this hour and someone forgot to raise their shields.”

  “Guess whoever it was won’t make that mistake again.”

  “If he lives to repeat it.”

  “We out of danger?”

  “I’ll let you know in about... thirty seconds from now.” The clock ticked down, then Jimmy sighed. “There is no way they can catch us before we jump.” He said at last.

  “Thank the gods for that.”

  “Now, except for those two picket ships ahead of us, we are home free.”

  “Picket ships?” Mike spun round and looked at the scope. “Now what do we do?”

  “It's a question of delta Vee, laddy, just like they taught you at the academy, either they have it and can intercept us, or we have it and they don’t.”

  “Oh, right.” Mike yawned and shook his head. He should have known that, but fatigue was taking its toll. Even a quick glance at the sensor screen told him they were safe.

  “The only thing we have to worry about is incoming ordinance, and whether or not this ship can handle it.”

  “I bloody well hope so.”

  “So do I.” He chuckled.

  As it turned out, it was a non event. Jimmy picked off the missiles as they came in. If they’d fired them in a spread pattern all at once, it might have been a different story. The point defense fire and shields handled them easily, then they were passed and heading right into the Warp Point. Jimmy hit the alarm button, warning the passenger to brace for warp transfer. He waited for the last second to get them as far into the anomaly, then hit the warp engines. The universe turned itself inside out, and for a moment time seemed to stop and they hung of the pit of forever. Mike had the same curious experience of seeing multiple images of himself receding away in all six directions at once. Like being in a hall of mirrors, except in this case, each copy of himself looked at each other at different times and different direction. He had the curious feeling that he was seeing multiple possibilities or possible alternate pasted and futures, probabilities of what might, or could be. It gradually faded and the gray of hyperspace opened up around them.

  “How long and where to, Jimmy?” Mike asked, not having bothered to see what Jimmy had laid in.

  “After the jump, about three hours to cross to the next Warp Point. After that, one more jump and a four hour run into Sol system.” Mike smiled.

  “Might even get a chance to see a ghost ship.” He added. Jimmy gave him an odd look.

  Young Naval Ensigns didn’t have enough nth space experience to know anything about ghost ships, so where had this one learned about ghost ships? There appeared to be a lot more to Mike Gray than meets the eye. Mike had hoped for more jumps, time enough for a shower and a long sleep. As it was, he spent most of his time catching up on his log and after action report. That meant a lot of writing and attachment of video logs and crew reports. That also meant he’d have to explain, in detail, the loss of Leftenant Kelso, and CPO Thurman, and his decision to promote Conner Blake and Corporal Rice. He doubted the promotion would stand, as in the face of it, this mission was nothing like what the Admiralty originally planned. He did manage two short catnaps, but in the end the jump warning alarm brought him back to this world with a thump. Brushing his large hands through his short hair he shook himself awake and proceeded up to the flight deck in time for the translation back to normal space. When they did, the sidereal chronometer restarted, showing that no time had passed at all. To human senses, it was as if a slice of time had vanished into nth space, as if everything on board had stopped. As far as the electronics were concerned the transfer had taken no time at all. It was only to the human mind that it seemed like an eternity. Lady Ann pouted and sulked a lot, but it did no good, not with so many idle eyes watching them. He tried to make her understand that the Admiral and the Admiralty would expect a complete and detailed report the moment he arrived, not in a few hours, or a day later. In the end, he had to do it three times, as he remembered something. By the time he finished, he had dark rings around his eye and he felt dizzy from lack of sleep. He did manage to get an uninterrupted shower.

  * * * * * *

  After Jimmy docked the courier ship with H.M.S. Victoria everything became a madhouse, with people shouting orders at him to do fifty things at once. After this trip, that sounded strange. He was hit with a barrage of question, from a Leftenant in fleet security, right on up the ladder to the Captain. To each he handed his report, and stood at attention while they read it. He got the impression that none of them were pleased with his performance, yet he couldn’t figure out why. He did manage to get a short break for lunch or dinner, he wasn’t sure which, and Jimmy found his at a table looking morosely at his food.

  “Cheer up, Mike, it's not the end of the World, you know.” He said in way of greeting.

  “For you maybe, you go back to driving your courier bus all over the place, for me, I’m stuck in purgatory.”

  “I did put in a good word for you with the Admiral.”

  “Thanks, I hope it helps, but from the look of it, I’m heading for the firing squad.” Jimmy laughed at that and patted him on the shoulder.

  “It's not as bad as you think.”

  “No, it’s probably worse than I think.”

  “Well, let’s just say that something important the Admiralty wanted to happen didn’t happen the way it was supposed to happen.”

  “Is that part of what you couldn’t tell me?”

  “Yes, and, as to the fate of the strange Mr. Harwood, they blew his ship out of space.”

  “So, he dead then.”

  “Maybe, unless he managed to get away in a life pod.”

  “That’s a thought, in a way it was his only option.” Mike dug through his food as Jimmy sipped his coffee and chatting on about this and that. “Did you get to see the Lady Ann?” He asked at length, looking off into the distance.

  “No, no I haven’t, not since she left the ship.” He gave Mike a strange look.

  “Oh! Why, did you want to say goodbye to her, or something?”

  “No, that’s okay.” He said quickly, keeping his eyes on his plate.

  “I saw her talking to that security Captain and they immediately went off somewhere together, smiling and joking with each other.” That didn’t make Mike feel any better. Maybe she had played him for the fool, and it was all a game to her and a way to manipulate him. He sighed and looked glum.

  “Cheer up, Laddy, it's not the end of the world, there will be other girls and other ports.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that. God, she was such a complainer, I was glad when we got back to the ship and I didn’t have to listen to her anymore.”

  “I know what you mean, she is a bit of a handful, isn’t she.” He agreed, his eyes twinkling.

  “You can say that again.” Images of her naked body flashed across his mind, hanging from the tree, her body playing peek-a-boo with his jacket, laid across his lap, her body in his arms.

  Soon after, Jimmy bid him farewell and went off to catch a shuttle back to Earth to make his own report, and after lunch or dinner, Mike cooled his heels in his cabin, waiting for orders. In the end he lay down, more as something to do more than sleep, but he did the instant his head hit the pillow. It was only the insistence of the call alarm that woke him up. He scrambled to his feet and answered.

  “Ensign Gray here.”

  “Report to the security office on the double, Ensign.”

  “Aye-aye, Sir.” He blinked, trying to get the sleep out of his eye. Grabbing his cap he took off running, arriving at the security office ten minutes later.

  “Ensign Gray reporting as ordered, Sir.” He came to attention and saluted the duty officer.

  “In here, Gray.”

  A sharp v
oice behind called before the duty officer could say a word. He looked at Mike a moment, then shook his head slightly. Walking into the cabin, Mike found three men and a woman inside, all dressed in civilian clothes.

  “Sit down Ensign.”

  “I’d prefer to stand for the moment.” There was something about these four that he didn’t like the look of. It made the hair on the back of his head itch.

  “That wasn’t a request, Gray!” The taller of the two men barked.

  “That’s Ensign Gray to you! And who the hell are you anyway?” Mike shot back, feeling his temper rise.