He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2)

by Rob Buckman

  “Ooooo God yes!” She muttered as her fingers found the buttons of his tunic. He slowly pushed her panties down, yet unwilling to stop to take them off.

  “Rip them off, Mike.” She whispered in his ear as she undid the front of his pants.

  He did, with one quick jerk he broke the tiny strings on each side. It only took a moment to shed his jacket and pants, then he sank to the ground beside her on the soft fragrant grass. The moment he lay down, she began kissing his body, slowly going lower and lower. He gasped as she took him into her mouth, feeling himself get even harder. Then he gave in to the feeling and stopped thinking. He knew who she was, yet other than whispering his names she kept up the pretence of being a hooker. He knew why, and respected her wish and to hell with Navy regulation. This was her way of ignoring them, playing the part of a dockyard whore. Before he climaxed she stopped, and quickly straddled his thighs, sighing deeply as his manhood entered her. She took his hand and placed them on her hips, as if telling him she wanted him to control their movements. She wanted him to set the pace for them, to use her like the hooker she pretended to be. He did, slowly increasing the pace, hearing her moan and sob softly in the darkness.

  He didn’t rush, wanting to see her climax before he did, wanting to satisfy her completely. It didn’t take long before she was wildly rotating her hips, grinding down as hard as she could, moving his hands to her breast and squeezing them. With a stifled scream she climaxed, gripping him so tightly that Mike lost control. With a groan of his own, his hips bucked up as his hands pulled her hips down, feeling the fire and ice cascade over him like a waterfall. They stayed that way for what seemed an eternity before she slowly slumped down over his chest, kissing and nibbling his earlobe. They lay there as the passion subsided, just holding each other in a warm embrace. With a final soft kiss she moved away into the darkness and was gone. Mike didn’t try to follow, or stop her. This was what she wanted, her gift to him, and he respected that. Once aboard ship it would never happen again, and Janice would keep a respectful distance between herself and her Captain. How she was going to get back aboard dressed like that without the gangway watch noticing he didn’t know. Suspecting she had something else to put on, hidden in the bushes.

  The next evening the President put on a grand gala that started at sundown and didn’t end until the wee hours of the morning. Anyone who was anyone was there, with people arriving from all over both planets. There were a few families conspicuous by their absence, but Gordon brushed it off. Old scores were hard to forget, or forgive. The families in question knew better than to make an issue out of something they knew they were in the wrong about. Then the moment he dreaded all his life happened, he met Max Tregallion face to face. It was like they were looking at the beginning and end of each other lives, Max seeing a young version of himself, and to Mike the man he would be someday. They shook hands, neither squeezing, not wanting to get into a contest that they didn’t know if they could win, or wanted to.

  “This is Captain Michael Gray, Max.”

  “I know damn well who...” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Excuse me, Gordon, and you Captain Gray. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise, Captain Tregallion.” Max nodded slightly at the recognition of his old title.

  “Been reading up on that ship of yours, marvelous design, who’s is it? Naval R&D?”

  “No, sir, it’s my design.” Both Gordon and Max looked at him a moment, as if to see if he was lying. “Well, I should say she’s a collective design. I did the first part and the crew added a lot of the refinements.”

  “Then all I can say is, you did a wonderful job.” They spoke of a few other none important things, as people are ape to do at such parties, then moved off to meet others. How he managed to get back to the ship, and with whom, he wasn’t sure, finding himself in his own bed in the morning. Groaning softly as he moved his head, he carefully got out of bed to head for the shower. As he stepped under the flow of hot water, something landed on his head, and looking up with bloodshot eye, he saw his friend peering down at him, his crest erect under the flow of hot water. He’d forgotten that they loved human showers. His little suckered feel walked down his forehead, and for a moment he looked into Mike’s bloodshot eyes. He hissed in short jerky bursts, and it almost sounded as if he was laughing.

  “Right, go ahead, you didn’t spend the night drinking the local brew, I did.” In answer, the lizard did a little dance on Mike’s head, enjoying the warm water cascading over him.

  Breakfast was a leisurely affair, with people coming, and out of the Wardroom, mostly for coffee, some for a donut of bagel. A few shot him deadly looks before retreating back to their bunk with the coffee.

  “What did I do?” He asked the mess steward.

  “You forgot to warn everyone about the local hard stuff, Skipper.”

  “I didn’t! I told them!” He answered lamely.

  “Yes, about the beer, but not the liqueur.”

  Mike just groaned softly and sipped his coffee. He’d forgotten about it himself. His hangover slowly retreated into memory as the higher oxygen content purged the alcohol out of his system, but it took a while.

  * * * * * *

  “So, what do you think of him, Max?” Max shot Andy Andrews a sharp look as he sipped his morning coffee.

  “What do you mean?” He grumbled at length.

  “Oh! Don’t come the old codger with me Max, I’ve known you too long for that.

  “I don’t think about him.”

  “Oh, in one of those moods this morning are we.”

  “I’m not in a mood.”

  “Yes, you are, you are pissed that he looks so good, and is so damn smart he designs his own warship.”

  “Heard about that, did you.”

  “Not much on this planet that I don’t hear about, sooner or later. He gave Max a hard look, and they both knew what he was referring to.

  “Captain Gray has a good man in that Conner Blake.”

  “You looked at the hover cam footage I see.”

  “Got to, no one around here tells me bloody thing about what’s going on.” Max grumbled. “Looks like he had a rough upbringing.”

  “Yes, Trinity isn’t any picnic resort. My people couldn’t find out a lot, as most records were destroyed, and they don’t bother keeping any now. I did find out he lost a younger brother there. They were planning to get out vie the Royal Navy recruiting station, but sadly, he was killed on the way there. Wanted to be an office, would you believe.”

  “He’d probably made a good one.”

  “It also answered the question of why he took such a liking to Michael.”

  “Yes, it’s understandable.”

  “So, when are you going to see him.”

  “Who said I was?” Max demanded.

  “No one.” He smiled. “You want to be a stiff neck and let him go sailing off into space without saying a word to him, that’s all right with the rest of us. BUT! I don’t want to hear you complaining that you didn’t get a chance to see him.”

  “Me complain!” Max snorted. “When have I ever complained?”

  “Don’t start Max, yes or no?”

  “Yes, damn it, I want to talk to the boy!”

  “He’d not a boy, Max, but a young man, and could probably beat the socks off you.”

  “That will be the day!”

  “Just don’t go treating him like a child, or you and him will have to go at it, just like Gordon did.”

  “Yes,” he muttered reflectively, “and look what happened after Gordon got his bell rung by the lad!” He held his hand up. “I promise not to be condescending or patronizing.”

  “You better not, Max, especially if you ever want him back here.” He didn’t have to add anything more, but Max gave him a sharp look.

  * * * * * *

  “Messenger on the gangway, Skipper.”

  “Military or civilian?”

  “Civilian, a female, young, mid to late twenties, Skipper.�
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  “Humm, hold what you’ve got. I’m on my way.” It only took a few moments to reach the boarding hatch and find out who the message was from.

  “Hello, Michael. How are you?”

  “Well, I’ll be d...,” he stopped, “I’m delighted to see you Aunt Iris. I’m doing great. How are you. Come aboard, please.

  His aunt walked up and gave him a hug and a kiss. He didn’t tell the gangway watch that his aunt was well into her fifties. He walked his aunt thought the ship, pointing out this and that on his way to his cabin.

  “Coffee for two, please Jenks.”

  “Yes, Skipper, coming right up.”

  “Sit, and please and tell me what bring you here.” She did, looking slightly uncomfortable. For a moment she looked at this confidence young Leftenant, now the Captain of his own ship. So different from the justifiable angry young teenager who vanished so many years before.

  “Two reasons. Michael. One to see you and invite you to dinner, and secondly to deliver a message.”

  “The dinner invite, you could have called in, so the important part is the message.” She nodded in agreement. “If I were to make a guess, I’d say that the message was from either Gordon, or Max himself, right?” A startled look crossed her face for a moment.

  “That's easy to figure out?”

  “Not really, just a guess.”

  “Max keeps walking into a wall. Every time he starts to comm you he freezes.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “No, I didn’t think you did.”

  After his aunt departed, Mike pondered the question of meeting his Great Grandfather, and the implications. For a world that supposedly had few secrets, there seemed way too many when it came to him. Never in all the time he was growing up with his other Grandfather, he’d never found out why Max Tregallion was so angry with him. It went way beyond the fact that he survived in the crash of his parent’s air car, or even how he survived in the first place. The records he’d seen indicated that there was a total power failure at 10,000 feet, and that the car crashed into dense jungle on South Continent. If that was true, how he’d survived, and how had they managed to find him? Considering that he was only a month old when the accident occurred. The report also didn’t explain how he lived for three months on his own before they found him. If nothing else, the mystery of that accident drove him to accept the unspoken invitation, and it was with some trepidation he drove over to his Great Grandfather’s estate the next day.

  The place wasn’t as grandiose as he expected, seeing as Max owned the whole planet , more like a semi-rustic English country estate than the Palace he half expected. Being the idiot stepchild of the family, so to speak, this was the first time in his life he’d even seen it, other than a few quick view of it from the air as he passed over on his many outing. His guts tightened as he stepped out of the Range Rover, and he wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on the side of his pants. For a moment, he was in half a mind to get back in the air car and get the hell out of there. Without warning, Max stepped out of the back door and stood there looking at him, a puzzled look on his face. At that point, Mike was loathed to turn his back on the old man, thinking he might see it as an act of cowardice if he ran away now.

  “Wondered if you’d had the gut to come here?” Max said for openers. Mike clamped down on his anger.

  “Yes, it takes a lot of guts to come and see a grouchy old man who can’t keep a civil tongue in his mouth!”

  “Feisty, aren’t you?”

  “No more than you, Max.” Suddenly Max smiled, and for a moment Mike was taken aback.

  “You old enough to drink the real stuff, or are you still on mother’s milk?”

  “I’ll drink you skinny old ass under the table any day of the week, and walk home after.”

  “The hell you say! I’ve drunk better men than you under the table.”

  “Don’t play the crusty old sea dog with me Max, it won’t work.”

  “Don’t intimidate easily, do you.”

  “You forget, your other son brought me up.” Max’s face suddenly pulled into a frown, and for a moment he looked down at the ground, nodding slightly.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid…” He whispered, but who he was calling stupid he left unsaid. “Come.” He said at last, and Mike followed him into the house.

  They ended up sitting across from each other in what seemed to be a cross between a cozy living room and a study, the walls almost hidden by the hundreds of photos and pictures displayed across them. Max produced a dark bottle of something out of his desk and carefully peeled off the wax seal. Mike had only seem a seal like that on the bottle his OX had presented to the mess. They were hand dipped in red wax and stamped with the family crest, but these seemed to be even older. Max looked at the bottle a moment before he poured.

  “This was bottled over 500 years old, and I swore I wouldn’t open it until…” His mouth scrunched up, as if he’d bit into something sour. “But never mind that, this is a much better occasion.”

  “I hope the other occasion was something a little more important than the two of us sitting down and talking?” Max looked at him a moment.

  “It was.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yu know what makes this bottle so special?”

  “Can’t say that I do.” Mike felt his anger rising again, but couldn’t put his finger on why. There was something in the way Max said it that irritated him.

  “I took a special trip to Earth, and it took me almost a year to find this.” He help up the bottle and looked at it a moment. “This was bottled the day that I was born, and I swore that I was going to drink it in celebration on the day you died!” Mike went ridged.

  “You what?” He stammered.

  “Thought that would take the wind out of your sails.”

  “You are one mean old man Max.” Mike took a deep breath, wondering if he should punch the old man out, or just leave. Max nodded in agreement and calmly poured three fingers into the glasses and set back after placing the bottle on the table.

  “You going to tell me why, or keep that a secret along with all the others?

  “Others?”

  “Gordon told me to ask you about the secret of Ag technology.”

  “Secrets? What do you mean?”

  “He said you knew the story about you and Avalon having the secret to Ag technology?” His Grandfather wasn’t angry, yet he definitely wasn’t happy that he knew.

  “Humm... did he now?” He said, looking into his drink.

  “Yes, sir.” His Great Grandfather pondered the subject a moment, as if making up his mind.

  “Do you know what your mother’s maiden name, Mike?”

  “Um... no, sir, can’t seem to remember anyone telling me. Always thought it was just mother.” He said with a slight smile. Max responded with the same.

  “It's Enright, although it doesn’t say that on any official documents you will ever find.”

  “Enright... You mean as in Enright!” Max chuckled at the stunned look on his face.

  “That’s right. She is… was Enright’s daughter.”

  “My God!”

  “He wasn’t comfortable with the fact that all the secrets of his invention resided solely on Earth. If anything happened, say a catastrophic disaster on the plant, which was always a possibility, then the secret would be lost.”

  “So why didn’t he... no of course he couldn’t trust it with anyone else.”

  “Right, so he gave it to his daughter as a wedding present when she married my grandson, you father.”