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

by Rob Buckman

  1

  Junior Petty Officers

  6

  5

  Senior Helmsmen

  3 RATING:

  2

  Junior Helmsman

  3

  1

  Communications

  3

  2

  Environmental Tech.

  12

  8

  Medical Tech.

  4

  2

  Catering

  12

  6

  Senior Ratings (All Classes)

  15

  12

  Ordinary Ratings (All Classes)

  30

  35

  Marines (All Ranks)

  36

  36

  Ensigns

  4

  0

  153

  116

  So far, they’d just muddled along, putting people where they were most needed at a given moment. That was all right while they were puttering about, but wouldn’t do in a combat situation. People had to know their duty assignment and battle station.

  The problem broke itself down into two separate sections, normal duty, and combat. The first was mealy having enough people to cover each watch station, some critical, some not so. The main areas of concern were during a normal duty cycle were the Bridge, engineering, and environmental. He took each in turn and played around with names and numbers, looking for the right combination. He tried a four hour watch schedule, but this didn’t leave much time between watches for anyone to do anything except eat and sleep, assuming they slept for 8 hours. Then he tried a six hour watch with more success.

  Stations

  1st. Watch

  2nd. Watch

  3rd. Watch

  4th. Watch

  Times

  00:00 to 06:00

  06:00 to 12:00

  12:00 to 18:00

  18:00 to 24:00

  Bridge

  5

  6

  6

  5

  Engineering

  2

  6

  6

  2

  Environmental

  2

  6

  6

  2

  Weapons

  2

  4

  4

  2

  Operations

  1

  6

  6

  1

  12

  28

  28

  12

  That brought the total up to 80, excluding the Marines. He had to keep them in reserve for combat situations, and they didn’t have the necessary training to run the ship. It left some area, such as damage control critically short, but they have to make do until they received more crew. With a new vessel, general maintenance shouldn’t be a problem, other than bugs or glitches in the system. So far, they’d been lucky, and the ones that did show up were fixable. Catering would only have one cook on duty during the evening and night shift, and he’d let the Petty Officer in charge work out his own shipboard schedule. As on most ships, the cooks started a lot earlier than the rest of the crew, for obvious reasons. It was tight, but workable, and he added that in his report before finally turning it.

  He lay back in his bunk and watched Ann’s video chip again, for the fifth time, just to hear her voice, and watch the play of expression on her face. He still felt a little bemused that such a beautiful woman was his, and drifted off to sleep thinking of their last night together, the one he was awake for. The next morning he passed his duty proposal to Pete.

  “Take a look, Number One, and let me know what you think.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “You might want to work on a similar one for battle conditions.”

  “Will do, Skipper. We need to get that sorted out in the very near future.”

  “To say the least, otherwise we’ll get caught with our pants down.”

  Two days later, Adam reported that he had a device to try out, and without and fanfare or telling operations, he had Adam launched a small torp out of the stern tube. For a moment, nothing happened, and it didn’t detonate until it reached a distance of several thousand yards.

  “Yikes! I have a faint reading of an unidentified ship behind us just off the port quarter, bearing 178.786 by 132.903 on the same course, and heading, Skipper.” Janice reported, and Adam chuckled delightedly. Janice gave him a dark scowl that threatened pain in his future if he was playing one of his jokes on her.

  “That’s it, Skipper.”

  “You sure?” Mike asked.

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure it’s my device.”

  “What are you seeing, Janice?”

  “Sir, it’s a little vague, but I’m reading something the size of a Destroyer back there!” Mike walked over to the tactical station and looked over the Jan’s shoulder.

  “What have you got?”

  “Iron, aluminum, plastic, heavy trace elements,” She pressed a few more keys, “The signature is a little confused, sir, but I’m reading organic as well.” Jan looked darkly at Adam again wondering how he’d managed to fool her sensors.

  “Adam?” Mike looked round at his engineering officer.

  “That’s right, Skipper.”

  “Can you get a lock and a firing solution on it?” He asked, turning to Gable at the weapons consult.

  “No, Sipper, the reading is too confused for that.”

  “So, if we launched a torp or a missile at it?”

  “It wouldn’t lock on, Skipper, sorry.”

  “Damn!” Adam muttered, the grin slipping from his face.

  “Don’t go kicking yourself Adam, you’re onto something, you just have to make it hot enough for a missile or a torp to lock onto.”

  “Hummm. I thought I’d covered that.”

  “What on Earth did you put in it to get a readout like that?”

  “Oh, a little aluminum powder, iron oxide, some powdered wood, and cardboard, a few other bits of junk from the recycling unit and organic scrap from the galley all fixed in with water. I guess the solution is in the density of the material as it disperses.” Adam scratched the top of his head, making his hair more disarrayed than it already was. Pete still hadn’t got him to get a haircut.

  “Nicely done, now it's just a question of giving the sensor and torps something more distinct to lock onto.”

  “I need to go look at their programs and find out what they to lock onto now.”

  “Good idea, and thanks, that was a great first effort.”

  “Thanks, Skipper, I’m working with Gable on your smoke screen idea, and he thinks he might have a way to do it, or at least a way to make the ship invisible.”

  “Really? That would be fantastic.” Mike though of the elusive cloaking shield so many have sort. “See what you can come up with next.”

  “The closest anyone had come were the ECM and ECCM pod, but that didn’t really cloak the ship, just confused the missiles and torpedoes.” Adam muttered absently, already lost in some calculation or other, and went wandering off the Bridge back to the engine room, still muttering to himself. Pete shook his head and watched him leave.

  “Did I miss the ‘yes, sir, and a salute?” He asked, grinning from ear to ear.

  “I believe the intention and spirit was there, Number One.”

  In a way, Pete didn’t mind, as sometimes the naval protocol got in the way of good working relationships. Everyone on board was comfortable, working their tails off on everything, as Mike Gray had the knack of bringing the best out in people without the need for a lot of heavy handed dedication to Naval regulations. Unlike so many Captain’s he’d served under, so he said nothing. As a junior officer on several ships, he often wondered, what it would be like to serve on a ship that wasn’t so dedicated to all the niceties of naval rules, and regulation. Now he knew and liked it. Even so, as OX it was his job to maintain discipline, even on a ship like this. They reached their first destination on the third day, bu
t Mike still had to wait another eight hours before the time lock on his orders ran out. The moment it did, he passed him thumb over the bio lock on the pad and read them.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” He muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

  To: Leftenant Michael

  Officer Commanding

  Two weeks ago, while on secret tests at the R&D station in the Angela Star System, two prototype trans-atmospheric Star fighters vanished with their Navy test pilots. These fighters are equipped with the new drives, and undergoing field trials at the time. Naval Intelligence was able to locate their whereabouts, but the recovery team failed to arrive in to recover the units. We do know, however, they are aboard a Voss Trader heading for Sirrien space via the Argos System. Your orders are to intercept the trader and recover or destroy those fighters at all costs. As we are on peaceful terms with the Voss, the need to avoid a diplomatic incident is imperative. You are hereby ordered to disguise your vessel in such a way as to make it appear you are a mercenary warship. Use any mean necessary to retrieve or destroy those ships before you return.

  Signed: Rawlings. Admiral Commanding

  There was no actual signature, and even as he watched, the orders erased themselves from the pad.

  “I’ll be damned!” Now there was nothing to prove he even had orders to proceed, and if caught, Earth Gov. and the Royal Navy could honestly deny any knowledge of him or his mission.

  They’d could claim he was a renegade and stolen the ship. His orders made sense in many ways. This ship didn’t exist in any Royal Naval archives, and rather like a ghost ship, she could be anything she wanted. Rather than announce it over the ship’s intercom Mike called all available crew to the Marine deck. Except for the Bridge and engineering watch, everyone was there, but it was a tight squeeze to get everyone in. They all looked at him expectantly as he entered. The moment he did, someone of course had to call ‘Captain on deck’, and they all stood as he walked across and climbed on one of the still unpacked crates.

  “At easy everyone, thank you all for coming, as I know some of you were catching up on your sleep after watch.” That brought a few smiles, and a couple of yawns. “What I have to say concerns you all, in so much as I’ve unseal my orders.” In brief he told them what they contained, and what they were expected to do. That brought a mixed reaction, running from laughter too solemn looks.

  “What it means is. As of now we are an armed mercenary ship, and we shall act accordingly.”

  “In what way, Skipper?” Janice Fielding asked.

  “That means you put away all your nice neat naval uniforms and only wear civilian clothes from now on, the gaudier the better.” The brought another round of laughter, as most looked a little scruffier than Naval Regulation requited.

  “Hay, sound like a party to me!” Someone threw in from the back row.”

  “Keep it down people!” Conner growled from behind him.

  “We are going to make a few planet calls on our way in to gather information, and the more you can look and act like a rowdy bunch of mercs the better.”

  “That doesn’t mean you let discipline slip!” Conner barked.

  “Again, the chief is right, any well run Merc ship would still maintain discipline, otherwise they be out of business in a hurry.”

  “Will we be boarding these Voss trader ships, Skipper?” Gable asked, looking at little dubious.

  “Yes, I expect so, if necessary, why?”

  “We might have trouble pulling in off, and no offense meant here, but we do have a lot of female crew.”

  “The Marines will do any boarding, Gable, but a few women in the boarding party wouldn’t be out of place for a Merc ship.”

  “I was thinking more of any ship to ship visual signals, sir.” With the number of female rating on the Bridge at any one time, that might look suspicious.

  “Good point. Gable, narrow the field of view and lock it?”

  “Aye, sir, no problem, and I think I’ve found a way to make us invisible as well, sir.”

  “You have! Great.”

  “It’ll means painting the hull, sir.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes, sir, to be totally effective, everything except the sensor plates and the drive units.”

  The number of groans coming from the crew told Mike they didn’t much fancy doing that in space. Working ex-hull in hard suits was hard at the best of time.

  “Do we have the necessary supplies, Gable?”

  “Aye, sir, it’s just a concoction of coating, iron oxides and titanium mesh, sir, nothing we can’t make up on aboard, or scrounge up on some class II or class III planet.

  “Jan, we need somewhere to set down where we can pick up any supplies Gable needs and work on her.”

  “Inhibition level?” She asked.

  “Class Three or four would be better. We don’t want any local Customs Inspector looking at us too close,” he looked at Gable and saw him nod his head, “If necessary, just some backwater place where we can do it without arousing too much interest would be good.”

  “I’ll get to work on it as soon as I get back to the Bridge, sir.”

  What Gable came up with was a synthetic rubber compound in liquid form, mixed with an electronic signal absorbing material such as iron and aluminum ferrite oxide. It wasn’t new, but an update of an old technology for aircraft and submarines. What was new was the fact he sandwiched it over a thin layer of titanium mesh so he could polarize the mesh, or so he hoped. This in turn would render the ship virtually invisible on command to most sensor suites. Stealth was an important weapon for them, if Gable to get it to work. Jan found a great place to set down on a small colony planet in the Signas System. The inhabitants were more interested in eking out a living on an inhospitable planet than worry about the coming and going of any interstellar traffic. Once a ship paid the landing fee, they could do pretty much whatever they wanted, within reason. Colonist tended to be a hardy lot and didn’t take kindly to unruly starship crew’s tearing up their planet. The database showed they were friendly to Earth, but out here that didn’t mean much, they could be friendly with many people, some of whom might not be friendly to Earth. Mainly they claimed neutrality in any disputes and made a perfect place for nefarious people to hide out for a while. Other than paying the exorbitant landing fees, they locals left them entirely alone. Just after breakfast the next day, the medical orderly came onto the Bridge with a tray in his hands.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Skipper, as we are landing I got an update from the local planetary medical center, so everyone needs immune booster shots.”

  “God, I hate those, everything tastes like an old sock for a week!” Pete complained.

  “You want to alien bug eating you from the inside out?” Mike asked with a smile.

  He hated them like everyone else, but understood the need. He couldn’t very well refuse to have them either, even if they didn’t do him any good, as it would look bad to the rest of the crew. The orderly took a blood sample, then gave each of them the shot, humming softly to himself while he did it.

  “Happy little bugger, isn’t he.” Janice grouched as the medic took her blood.

  “That’s me Leftenant; I just love sticking sharp objects in people.” The Marine medic chuckled.

  “OUCH! Yes, I bet you do Marine.” She growled, rubbing her arm.

  Erring on the side of caution, Mike parked the ship at the far end of the landing field, away from trade ships landing and taking off. They did get a visit from a Customs Inspector who came out to pick up the landing fee, but other than that, no one came near them. He was careful on the makeup of the groups going shore, making sure the men outnumber the woman. As far a dress went, the crew looked definitely piratical, the women more alluring as the days passed as they picked up more colorful local clothing, and soon became comfortable in civilian dress. This was in keeping with his orders yet he shuddered to think what the Admiral would say if he saw them. Even on board, most sported side arms, knives, and
headbands and on one or two occasions Mike had to wear dark glasses on the Bridge due to the brightness of the shirts and blouses they brought back. The word soon got round that they were a mercenary ship, and other than a few comm call to see if they were hiring, no one came near them.

  “Good God! This lot looks like a bunch of pirates,” Pete echoing Mike’s observation. “If the Admiral could see them now, he’d have a heart attack.”

  “Well, the instruction did say we had to look like a Merc ship, didn’t they?”

  “I have the feeling this is going to haunt us for a long time, Skipper.” Pate chuckled.

  “You could be right, Number One.”

  In all, it took a week to complete the painting to Gable’s satisfaction, as he kept walking, or flying over in the air car and taking readings, muttering to himself. Then he’d order the crew to slap on another coat in one area or another. In the end, he was satisfied, and the ship was coated jet black from stem to stern, except for the sensor plates on the front and sides of the main and secondary armament. Some of the crew, mostly those working under the ship, had almost as much stealth coating on them as did the ship. Getting the stuff off involved removing skin as well as hair, so for a while, Gable was on the top of everyone shit. It did give the ship an ever more ominous look than it had before, and once all the nice shiny steelworks and hull plates vanished the black coating, no one who saw her doubted she was a mercenary ship. They departed at night, and quickly lifted into space. As it turned out, the local traffic control system didn’t even register them leaving. That was good news to Mike, and he gave the thumbs up sign to Gable as he ordered the helm to head for the stars northern warp point at all possible speed. This jump was shorter than the others, but how long they never knew, only the human mind registers the passage of time, not the clock. It was sufficient for them to be aware of the nth space around them, and the passage of another ship, ghost like in their passing. The ship’s real time sensors displayed ship types none of them had ever seen before, others they recognized. At one point, they passed close to a balloon like vessel, and for a moment, it looked as if they’d interspace with it, but a slight correction in the course avoided another incident. Exiting the warp point, they found themselves in a binary star system and within a five day’s flight of a major trading center and immediately challenged by an intersystem cutter.