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

by Rob Buckman

  Here he could feel, see, touch and taste the past, feel closer to all the famous and not so famous seamen and sailors of old who’s walked these same streets. After a good dinner and several glasses of wine he walked back to his digs, feeling relaxed for once, but it wasn’t long before someone was knocking on his door. Jenks had taken leave along with the rest of the crew and up in London checking on Taffy and the till, so he padded barefoot across the wooden floor to the door. He took the precaution of picking up his service blaster and flicking the safety off.

  “Who is it?” He asked through the closed door.

  “Message for you, Mr. Gray.” A muffled voice answered. Mike carefully unlocked the door and opened it. The moment he did, someone rushed him and before he could react the person threw themselves against his body, knocking his back several feet.

  “The message is… I love you!” A female voice whispered just before her lips touched his.

  The Princess Royal wrapped herself round him in a loving embrace as he staggered forward and kicked the door shut as he wrapped his arms around her. Mike quickly flicking on the safety as he reached down and lifted her off the floor, their lips still locked together, and carried her into the bedroom. Mike didn’t have a clear recollection of what happened after that, only that her clothes evaporated and he lost himself in showing her how much he loved her. The universe turned on its axis several times before they finally lay side by side just looking at each other, hands softly touching skin, lips finding new places to kiss.

  “God, I missed you so much, Mike.”

  “I missed you, my love.”

  “I was so mad when you left without saying goodbye at Christmas, and for a while I thought you might be tired of me.”

  “Good God no! I couldn’t tell you, it was an emergency...” She placed one finger over his lips.

  “I know, I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, father reluctantly showed me your report, and the video of your last mission.” The way she said it he knew it scared her.

  “It had to be done, my love.” He stroked her hair softly.

  “Oh,” she sighed, “why did I have to fall in love with a swashbuckling hero, and not some nice safe normal man who would stay at home and look after me?”

  “Hero, me?” He looked surprised. “I’m not that by any stretch of the imagination, just an officer in His Majesties Navy doing his job.”

  “Right, and sneaking into a heavily defended Star Base, stealing two ships and nearly destroying the whole place is a normal part of your job description I suppose.” She laughed.

  “Well, it wasn’t that dangerous.” He grinned, pulling his ear lobe in embarrassment. He looked like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar at that moment, and Ann giggled.

  “To you maybe. And what about taking on three Sirrien Warships. One of which was a Cruiser no less?”

  “Luck, nothing more.”

  “Right and pigs will fly.”

  “By the way, what is swashbuckling, and how do I buckle my swash?”

  “Like this.” She said, and for a while they lost themselves in each other again. When they came up for air, Mike sighed.

  “Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. I just do what has to be done, that’s all.”

  “As Father said, he was just glad you are on our side.” She giggled, cuddling closer to him.

  Sometime later, they lay there looking into each other eyes. Mike smiled softly, thinking he was the luckiest man in the universe at this moment, yet a question still nagged at the back of his mind.

  “What on Earth were you doing on the courier ship?” She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. She’d anticipated that Mike would ask eventually.

  “I suppose I have to tell you the truth, you of all people should know.”

  “Right.”

  “I was on a diplomatic mission using the cover of a ‘King’s Messenger’. Sometime earlier, we, the Royal family that is, received word from a Voss Trader that someone in the Harmony wanted to open negotiation with us.” Mike immediately flashed back to the ghost ship they encountered in the void of hyperspace.

  “So how come the Princess Royal had to go?”

  “That's a long story, and an understanding of how Harmony society is constructed. They don’t have a Government, or elected leaders, only the ruling class, a Royal family if you will. They insisted in their message that they would only speak with a representative of the Royal family itself.”

  “Did Prime Minister know you went?” He asked, seeing a patch of skin on her neck he didn’t think he’d kissed before.

  “No, only the King and a small group of people.” Ann sighed softly as his lips caressed the soft spot behind her ear.

  “Also, as a ‘King’s Messenger’ I had complete freedom of movement, without question, and only answerable for my actions to the King… my father himself.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “It did.”

  “It was clear that they understood the concept of an elected Government, but to them they were nothing more than drones, and the ruling class doesn’t negotiate with workers, they just tell them what to do.”

  “Oh a hive mentality.”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “The message implied they wanted to meet with the King, but that was impossible, so either the Prince of Wales, or myself were the logical choice.”

  “And of course, the Prince of Wales going was out of the question.” He paused for a moment, and Ann looked at him, a question written on her beautiful face by the mouse of disapproval. “Because, like the King, his absents would noticed.” Mike finished with a chuckle. Ann then smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, he has far too many public engagements, whereas I have managed to stay in the background.”

  “Neat trick.”

  “Not really, I just refused to be pressured into the fish bowl existence by the Prime Minister.” Mike hadn’t really thought about what her life must be like.

  “I only have to wreck two of his carefully orchestrated public functions before he got the message.” She laughed, remembering the expression of outrage on the PM face. “I’m always off somewhere, doing embarrassing, hair brained things, so my absents wouldn’t be commented on. Out of sight, out of mind.” Mike half sat up and snapped his fingers.

  “Of course, that why you were more interested in recovering your pouch than the papers, you knew they were phony.” She padded the back of his hand.

  “Good boy, you get a prize for figuring it out.” She chuckled. “But I was more concerned with what was in my pouch than those paper.”

  “Oh, and what’s the prize.” He growled in mock anger.

  “Me, silly.” She reached up and kissed him.

  “Oh well, in that case I don’t mind being slow on the uptake.” He kissed her in return and smiled. “Go on... Oh, by the way, what was so important about your pouch?”

  “I’ll get to that in a moment, don’t rush me.” She scolded.

  “As you probably know, the Harmony has refused all contact with us or anyone for as long as anyone can remember. Even going so far as to fire on any ships entering their space, other than the Voss, oh, yes and your Avalon Free Trader.” She chuckled, kissing his nose. “But again, only in a very limited way, and strictly near a warp point. Any intrusion into their space is met with deadly force.”

  “I heard that, it's included in the navigational course at the Academy.” He murmured, remembering the ‘Directive to Ships Captain’ about entering Harmony space.

  “We receive the message from the Voss Suritan that he’d met someone who claimed to be a high ranking member of their ruling family, if you can call it that. Their, um, leader, King, Queen, ruler or whatever, let it be known that they were interested in making peaceful contact with us, Earth that is.” Mike looked at her skeptically.

  “I know, it sounds a bit farfetched.”

  “Why now?”

  “Apparently, the Sir
riens have been making more and more intrusions into their space, and you people from Avalon are the cause.”

  “So?”

  “I wish I had a star chart here to show you.”

  “Hold on, I think I can just do that for you.”

  Rolling over Mike switched on his port-comp and aimed the projector at the ceiling. He tapped in some commands, or tried to, but it was a little difficult with her kiss his bare butt.

  “Will you stop that,” he laughed, “or I’ll never get this program up and running.”

  “What is it?” She asked, resting her chin on his thigh.

  “Star charts from my Academy days.”

  “Oh good, put up the star cluster for the Vega system.” She said, biting his thigh gently. Mike winced and quickly tapped down the list.

  “Wish I had the voice module on this, damn it! Stop that. Are, here it is.” The darken ceiling lit up with a sweep of star.

  “Now highlight the Harmony and Sirrien system.” He did.

  “Okay, what are we looking at?”

  “As you know, the Sirriens claimed all the space in their system, against interstellar treaties and are setting up more and more blockades around every warp point they can.” She said, using his laser pointer to indicate the positions.

  “Yes, I follow you so far.”

  “This makes it difficult for any ships, let along Warship to pass through, virtually cutting off the outer colonies to trade.”

  “Right.”

  “But, we know there is a quicker route through the Harmony system, but until now, no one has been able to use it.”

  “So, on the off chance that the offer was real, you went and checked it out, right?”

  “More than that, I went with the power to negotiate a treaty with them.”

  “Good God! And?”

  “I did and didn’t”

  “You’d better explain that one.”

  “I wish I could, but...” She hesitated. “I was given a sealed data crystal and told to follow the direction once the crystal activated.”

  “Huh?”

  “That was it. I was handed the package containing the crystal, and they left.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither does anyone else. To date the crystal has remained locked.” That was what was in my pouch.”

  “I take it someone has tried to open it?”

  “No, actually, no one had. They didn’t give any warning should any one try, but we suspected it would erase itself if any did.”

  “I see.” None of it made any sense to him, but that was someone else’s worry, not his.

  “So, in a way my trip was a dud. I was rushing back to get the crystal to my father, just in case it activated while I was in route.”

  “Wow! That’s fantastic, but what about the courier ship and the aborted spy mission?”

  “That’s where things started to go wrong. I arrived at the Embassy on Kingston in disguise with the treaty safely tucked away, and using my credentials as a King’s Messenger demanded passage home on the first available courier ship. No one there knew anything about the spy mission, or who I was. Jimmy was under orders from the Admiralty to complete a different mission, and he couldn’t very well tell me about it for fear of compromising, or tell anyone who I really was.”

  “Oh my God! Didn’t Jimmy Bettencourt fill you in?”

  “He couldn’t, he was under strict orders. If he told me, or refused to let me aboard someone would have known something was wrong.

  “Yes, I can see that. A King’s Messenger has priority on any courier ship.”

  “I couldn’t order him to abandon his mission, had I known, as that would have put it in jeopardy, and set alarm bells ringing all over the place, what with Sirrien spy’s watching all the time.” There was no valid reason why a King’s Messenger shouldn’t be on the first available courier ship back to Earth, even at the cost of kicking the ambassador himself off.”

  “I still think he should have found a way to abort, or keep you off.” Even before he’d finished, Ann was shaking her head.

  “Jimmy’s ship was the quickest way home, and at the time, that’s all I wanted to do. I think I made poor Jimmy’s life miserable with my constant harping about need to get home.”

  “Yes, he did say that you were a bit of a handful.”

  “You mean he told you who I was?”

  “Good God no, just that you were a pain in the butt. OUCH!” He yelled as she bit him again, on the butt no less.

  “So you now know that I am,” She chuckled, “but, back to the mission. As far as I was concerned, his ship was the quickest way to get home, or so I thought.”

  “It still sounds like someone screwed up.”

  “You have to remember, neither Jimmy, I, or the powers to be were aware of each other’s mission.”

  “Yes, who was to know that you’d both end up at the same place at the same time.”

  “If it hadn’t been for your dashing rescue, both missions would have been a failure.”

  “Well,” he said, pulling his ear, “the effort to plant the phony information didn’t exactly work out they way the Admiralty expected.”

  “Don’t second guess yourself, my love, Prince Philip did get a look at some of them, enough it seems to make the Sirriens think twice about closing any more warp points. At least for now.”

  “Even if they do, we can now use Harmony space, right?”

  “Don’t know yet, the Privy Council has to review the data on the crystal once it opens, then pass it onto the King for approval, then bring the PM in on the plan.”

  “God! That could take ages.”

  “I know, but we have to do it that way, or risk exposing...”

  “Exposing?” Mike asked when she stopped. Ann looked up at him, then bit her lips.

  “My love, for your own protection, there are a few things I dare not tell you.” Mike thought about that, seeing this went deeper than Ann just being a King’s Messenger and a secret ambassador.

  Like the Shepherding moons in the asteroid belt, unseen forces were at work here, pulling him in directions he didn’t even know he was going. He looked down at her, then smiled, then nodded. It was only fair, he had a few secrets of his own he wasn’t willing to talk about right now.

  “Tell me when you are ready, my love.” He whispered, kissing her softly.

  “But what this about Avalon causing all the problems, interstellarlarly speaking?”

  “Oh, that. Well, no one can go through Harmony space, and the Sirriens are closing off the jump network through their territory and charging an extortion level fee to pass through the territory, that leaves the major junction in the ‘Rift’. The only people who know how to navigate a way through the ‘Rift’ is Avalon.” She highlighted several star systems and one the Mike recognized, the Rift.

  “And we aren’t above making a nice profit in transit fees for any ship wanting to trade on either side of it.”

  “Much to the displeasure of the Sirriens. If we can establish a transit corridor through Harmony space, especially for warships, the Sirriens would be royally screwed in the event of hostilities. They could try taking Avalon out of the picture, even if it just meant stopping all passage through that sector.” Mike was about to say something, then thought better of it.

  If the Sirriens ever dared to poke their long pointy noses into the Rift, or Avalon, they’d find they’d bitten off more than they could chew. To most, Avalon was just some rim system with no navel to speak of. In that they were sorely mistaken, but that was one secret he couldn’t share. After that, they spent the rest of the night making love and whispering things to each other. It didn’t matter what they said, just wanting to hear each other voice and feel the touch of the others hand and body. Neither of them expected CPO Blake to walk in on them after a quick knock the next morning with two mugs of coffee, and he didn’t even bat an eyelid.