He Who Dares: Book Three

by Rob Buckman

  It did give Mike a number to work with, as besides the 500 hundred or so yard dogs who’d worked on his ship in some way, there were three times that number in their immediate families. All told he was dealing with transporting over 1500 people. That prompted a call to the Orion Dawn and a chat with Captain MacManus once he got back to London and the Guild Hall. They came to an agreement to use three of the Orion Dawn’s huge cargo shuttles to land at three different locations. All that was left was to wait for the signal from Cynthia and Able telling them that everyone was ready. Time was of the essence as the longer they took to get everyone ready, the more chance there was of someone finding out what was going on. Inevitably, someone would say something to someone else, a tearful goodbye to a relation, boyfriend, grandparents, the captain of the darts team and the cat would be out of the bag as they say. Mike took to pacing back and forth across the living room in their quarters at the Guild Hall driving Jenks and Taffy to distraction.

  “Christ, Skipper. You keep that up and you’ll wear a hole in the bloody carpet,” Jenks muttered.

  “What?” Mike asked deep in thought.

  “Sit down and relax man. There’s not a bloody thing you can do right now,” Taffy added.

  “Oh… yes. I see what you mean. It’s just…”

  “We know, Skipper, but it’s no good you worrying yourself sick and pacing back and forth. It’s worse than watching a blooming slow motion tennis match at Wimbledon.”

  * * * * * *

  “Excuse me, your Royal Highness, but there is someone at the gate wishing to see you.” The palace chamberlain, Charles ‘Dusty’ Miller had a frown on his face in the comm screen. He didn’t like unexpected visitors turning up at the side gate asking for a member of the royal family, especially a rather seedy looking older gentleman in a rumpled suit and a raincoat.

  “Did he give a name, Dusty?” Princess Anne, smiled slightly, knowing Dusty’s propensity to be over protective. Like a mother hen with one egg, as her father would say.

  “No, your Highness, he just said to tell you, ‘Rosetta Stone’.”

  Startled, the princess looked up from the report she was reading. “Have him brought to my office under escort immediately, Dusty.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Anne quickly cleared her desk and made sure she hadn’t left anything of importance lying around. Today, she was dressed in a more business like attire, with her hair tied back in a tight knot and wearing a cream-colored silk shirt blouse, and white slacks. She was in her “Ice Princess” mode, as her brother Richard would say. A short while later there was a knock at her office door.

  “Come.” The door opened and a tall, stooped figure of an old man in a rumpled suit stepped in. Behind him came two members of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, a corporal and a trooper, appearing short in comparison to the man they were escorting.

  “Thank you, Corporal. Would you be so kind as to wait outside and guard the door?” Both Gurkhas looked a bit bemused being in the presence of a member of the royal family. They didn’t usually see them up this close while on guard duty.

  “Yes, your Highness. It would be an honor. Anne waited until the door closed behind them before speaking. She stood and came round the desk to shake hands.

  “I’m a bit surprised to see you, Professor Chilton.” Chilton shook hands and smiled slightly, looking a little nervous. “Please, have a seat. Would you like a cup of coffee, or tea?”

  “No, thank you, your Highness. I had some on the mag-lift from Devon.” The princess retook her seat behind the desk.

  “I take it that something occurred with our mystery package.”

  “Yes indeed, but not what we expected.” The professor gave her a weak smile. “It didn’t blow up when the odd, alien numbers cycled down to nothing.”

  After returning to Earth with the fist-sized cylinder she’d received from the Harmony representative, she’d immediately turned it over to the research division at the Royal Arsenal. The consensus was that it could be some sort of explosive device intended to take out the royal family much to the princess’s displeasure. Why the Harmony would go to all that trouble to kill the royal family was beyond her. The initial report on the object didn’t shed any light on its purpose or even what it was made of. It defied examination by x-ray and any other penetrating scan. It couldn’t be cut or drilled with any known substance, and even a laser didn’t have any effect on it. Other than the row of bright red alien symbols along one side, it didn’t appear to have any purpose at all. The last symbol in the row of ten did change at a regular interval, but not to any earthly count. The assumption was that it was keeping time to that of the Harmony planet it came from. If that were true, the planetary rotation was twenty-six hours.

  “As I reported the last time, your Highness, the…” the professor hesitated a moment, as if searching for the right word to describe the object, “…device was kept in a remote bunker for safety with twenty-four hour video surveillance. For the past year, the only thing that changed were the symbols. They… counted down, I suppose you would say until it had a row of something that looked like this.” He offered the princess a slip of paper witha strange looking symbol on ite

  “Odd, very odd. Anything else?”

  “Oh yes!” The professor answered, sounding excited. “See for yourself.” With that, he reached into his bag and lifted out the cylinder she was so familiar with. The fact that the professor had taken it out of the bunker and brought it to the palace said that he didn’t think it was a threat of some kind. He turned the cylinder so she could see the row of alien symbols, and she gasped in surprise.

  “That’s impossible!” she gasped.

  “That may very well be, your Highness, but there it is.”

  Anne shook her head and looked at the cylinder again. Parading across one side in bright red letters was a message, an impossible message.

  …FOR CAPTAIN MICHAEL GRAY ONLY… Repeating itself. Both sat there in silence for several minutes, until the professor coughed, breaking Anne’s train of thought.

  “Will there be anything else, your Highness?”

  Anne mentally shook herself, “No… no, professor. Thank you for bringing this to me. Say nothing to anyone about this. In fact, as far as you are concerned, you have never seen this cylinder or the message.”

  “Of course, your Highness. We in research and development are accustomed to secrecy.” He gave her a broad smile as he stood, bowing slightly before shaking hands once again and leaving the room.

  Anne was so preoccupied that she was hardly aware of him leaving, retaking her seat, and staring at the enigmatic cylinder on her desk. How could the Harmony know about one particular naval officer in the Royal Navy by name, and why would this object be only for him? The whole point of her secret trip, disguised as a lowly King’s Messenger, was to establish direct communication between Earth and the leader… if that was the word to use, of the Harmony. It was preposterous to think that they would know the exact name of all fifty billion human beings across known space much less of one particular ship’s captain that, to her knowledge, knew nothing more than anyone else about them. She didn’t discount the importance of the cylinder nor ignore the fact that it supposedly belonged to Mike Gray. It was the “why” that bothered her. Why go to all the trouble of setting up a meeting to get the cylinder to Earth, and then have it sit around for over a year before displaying this message. It spoke of things way beyond her understanding, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit. In frustration, she tapped the comm unit.

  “Dusty, would you please have a King’s Messenger come to my office.”

  “Yes, your Highness, immediately.” She rang off and tap in another number.

  “Duty officer, here, ma’am.”

  “Leftenant, would you please put together an escort and two armored vehicles and have them ready at the rear entrance in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, your Highness. Fifteen minutes it is.”

  Finding a small pla
in box, she set the cylinder inside with a short note, and sealed it a moment before there was a knock at her office door.

  “Come.”

  “You sent for me, your Highness?”

  “Oh, Roger. Good to see you again.” She greeted him like an old friend as he’d been the one to instruct her in the duties of a King’s Messenger and how to act. “I need you to take this to the Free Traders Guild Hall. Your instructions are that it is imperative that this be handed to or forwarded to Captain Gray immediately before he leaves the system wherever he is. Highest priority. There is an armed escort waiting for you at the rear entrance.” Roger took the package and departed without a word. Now it was in the hands of the gods as to what the cylinder was all about.

  * * * * * *

  Mike was on tenterhooks waiting for the confirmation message that everyone was ready to depart. The one thing that bothered him, and he didn’t know, was how closely they were being watched. Once aboard the shuttle he doubted anyone would challenge their departure as even the shuttles were armed. Not that they could take on a warship, but system cutters, or police cruisers, were another matter. As promised they were conspicuous by their absence. Hopefully, no one would care until such a time as someone realized their importance. Much to Mike’s relief, everything went off smoothly. Afterwards he placed a call to Mr. Wellesley to arrange for his ships to be at a certain location at a certain time. As they were about to depart, a King’s Messenger turned up at Devonport with a package from Anne. Mike smiled, hefting the small box, hoping it contained a message chip from Anne. He stuffed the box into his carryall and followed Jenks and Taffy as they walked up the rear ramp and they boarded the last shuttle. Mike was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs until they docked with the Orion Dawn.

  “You handed me a bit of a headache, Mr. Gray. I had to refuse cargo to make room for your passengers.”

  “I understand, Captain, but any loss will be reimbursed by Gordon Tregallion.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that, but you know what the Guild will say. Usurping the Free Traders traditional independence is one thing, but landing 1500 um… immigrants I suppose you’d call them without prior authority of the council might cause you some problems.”

  “If they have a problem, they can take it up with me, not my grandfather, or Max.” Mike replied hotly.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong. Having 500 plus qualified ship builders added to the work force right now is a good thing to my mind.”

  Mike nodded and smiled, realizing that the captain’s complaint wasn’t really directed at him, just a friendly bit of advice about what to expect upon his arrival.

  “How are you handling the passengers?”

  “I’m using number three cargo hold and have set up cots. Once we are under way, I’ll have the doc administer ‘somanex’ and put them all to sleep for the trip. I don’t have enough food and water aboard to handle that many people for the three months.”

  “That will work, but it’ll have to be handled gently. Most of these people have never been off planet before except maybe a holiday trip to the moon.”

  “I’ll have environmental inject a little trank gas into the compartment before the doc starts his rounds.”

  “Sounds good, but I’ll warn them beforehand so they know what to expect.”

  “Now, what about you and your companions?”

  “I take it you need to top off your H3 and water tanks before you depart?”

  “I could do that. Out to Europa, or somewhere else?’

  “Europa will do. Once you leave the fuel dock, head to the North WP, and I’ll have my ship meet you along the way.” He didn’t mention anything about his separate contract as Captain Bear as Captain MacManus didn’t need to know.

  All went well, and his passengers were more than happy to comply with his request they all take ‘somanex’, as the thought of spending three months locked up in a steel coffin with nowhere to go and nothing to do, wasn’t very appealing. The Orion Dawn took on H3, water, gasses and recycled their CO2 scrubbers before departing. Beside his 1500 plus passengers, the Orion Dawn was carrying three hundred workers and families from the Gravatronics facility on the moon. Mike did wonder what else they were carrying beside the weapons replacements for his ship. Three days later, Mike sent the coded message on broadband, but it took over twenty minutes before he received a reply from the Nemesis.

  A day later they received a hail, and much to the surprise of the operations officer on the bridge of the Orion Dawn, the Nemesis seemed to pop out of nowhere. One moment his scope was clear, the next she was alongside. Mike didn’t try to explain, and after shaking hands with the bridge crew, he took his leave.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  “Welcome aboard, Skipper.” Standish-Owen shook hands as Mike walked down the ramp of the Marine shuttle. “I’ve been keeping your seat warm for you.”

  “Good to be back. Any problems?”

  “A few. We’ve been playing tag with the Navy searching for any more Sirrien spy ships.”

  Mike stopped and looked at him. “What?”

  His XO went on to explain what they’d found while hiding out in the belt, and the subsequent game of tag with the Navy after they’d sent the message about what they’d found.

  “So, that explains the message I received from Admiral Rawlings about an explosion out in the belt and untraceable messages. And the Marines?”

  “That gave me a bit of a scare when the bomb went off prematurely. We figured that some silly bugger aboard that spy ship must have sent out a pulse on the same frequency as the bomb. It took us a day and a half to find the Marines. Thankfully, none of them were seriously injured, and they happened to be behind a large rock when it detonated so no radiation exposure, but the EM pulse fried their electronics so they lost the homing beacon.”

  “Thank the Lord for small mercies. I hope you wrote them up in the log for a commendation.”

  “I did, Skipper. So what now?” The XO asked as they walked through the ship to the bridge.

  “As of this moment, we are the good ship, Hemlock under the command of Captain Bear.”

  The XO pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Just when I got this motley crew back into some semblance of naval personnel, you go and turn us into a bunch of pirates again,” he moaned as the Marine guard called out, “Captain on the bridge.”

  “Cheer up Pete. Think of it this way. It will brighten up the bridge with all those lovely colors,” Mike laughed. All he could hear was the XO’s soft groan. Mike patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.

  “Wheee, we get to dress up again,” Janice laughed, hearing the last part and guessing the rest.

  “And to think. I gave up a cushy posting on a nice, safe battleship for this.”

  “Oh well, as they say, into every life a little rain must fall.”

  “A little rain, I can take, not a bloody thunderstorm!” He grouched. “Oh well, I suppose I can live with it if I have too,” he sighed theatrically, trying hard to hide his grin.

  “We are going to be swashbucklers again, and don’t ask me what a swash is or how to buckle it.”

  “Ar har! You’ve been buckling your swash with a certain lady, I bet,” the XO accused.

  “Who me? No, no, you must be confusing me with someone else – helm, ahead two thirds for WP North. Ops, watch out for three ships traveling slow in a convoy,” he said quickly to cut off any more question from his XO.

  “Convoy, Skipper?” Jan asked.

  “Yes, Jan. I have our first assignment as a privateer. Jan, you have the bridge while I go below and change into my pirate costume. XO, you’re with me. We have things to talk over.” He eyed the ship's clock to check the duty cycle. “Jan, ask CPO Blake and Sergeant Rice to report to my quarters as soon as they have a moment.”

  “Aye, Skipper, I have the Conn. Blake and Rice to your quarters.” Jan responded as Mike and the XO departed.

  He wasn’t surprised to see Jenks
and Taffy in his quarters when he arrived, and as usual, Jenks had coffee ready for him when he walked in. He waved the XO to a seat and vanished into the bedroom to change.

  “So, who might you be?” The XO asked the tall, mournful looking man standing against the bulkhead out of the way.

  “Jones, sir. Ex-corporal Christopher Jones, Royal Marines, sir.” Taffy answered respectfully.

  “Another one of Mike Grayson’s friends, I’ll bet.” He smiled and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Jones.”

  “Yes, sir. I’d like to believe I’m one of his friends, except when he drops me in the sh… muck again, sir.”

  “Wait… Jones… yes, Borland. You were with him during that mess.”

  “Right, sir. See what I mean.”

  “Stop boring the XO you dozy Welsh twit and have a cup of coffee,” Jenks said, handing out coffee. Just then, there was a knock at the door.

  “Come.” The XO said automatically.

  “CPO Blake and Sergeant Rice reporting as ordered, sir.” Conner moved into the cabin, causing everyone to take a deep breath to make room for him.

  “Coffee, Chief, Sergeant?” Both looked at the XO, seeing him nod.

  “Don’t mind if I do. Thanks.” They both accepted a mug of coffee just as Mike came back, now changed into his more comfortable shipboard, clothes and feeling more relaxed.

  “Good, I’m glad you are all here.”

  “Welcome back, Skipper.” Conner and Rice greeted him.

  “Good to be back. Now to business, thanks, Jenks,” he said, taking a mug, “I’ll let you all read it at your leisure, but what I have here,” he held up the embossed envelope, “is a Letter of Marque from the King.” That brought a stunned look from everyone except Jenks.

  “Good Lord. The Crown hasn’t issued one of those for hundreds of years… but… but… a Letter of Marque… My god. That means we are going to war with the damn Sirriens, right, Skipper?” Standish-Owen exclaimed.