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

by Rob Buckman

  “Helm, hard a-port 90 degrees in 10 seconds on my mark!” Mike barked.

  “Aye, Skipper, helm, ready.” Cindy Loftland answered. Pete Standish looked over his shoulder, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “All hands! Stand by for hard port turn in ten second, on my mark!”

  “Mark!” His eye automatically flicked to the digital readout on his display and watched it count down.

  “Executing hard a-port, Skipper.” The Nemesis heeled over and came round onto the new heading.

  “What do you see, Cooper?” Mike called.

  “There’s definitely something back there now.” She called back in excitement.

  “What’s back there, Ensign?” Pete asked.

  “Oh, I mean I have an echo from three unidentified ships, sir.” Her voice was stronger now.

  “That’s better, Copper.” Pete said softly.

  “Range and heading?” Mike asked.

  “Range 1400 nautical miles on a heading of 135.868 by 343.776.”

  “Looks like we picked up some unwanted company, Pete.”

  “Seems so, sir, but how on Earth did you figure that out.”

  “Naval history Mr. Standish.” Mike chuckled. Pete swung his seat round and gave him an ‘Oh really!’ sort of look.

  “I see.” Clearly at a loss.

  “True, Pete, I read that enemy subs use to hide in the drive wake of another sub-where they couldn’t be seen. Sub-Captain’s had a habit of turning suddenly to port or starboard to try and catch them, sometimes called ‘Crazy Ivan’ because the Russians were the first to use it.”

  “Whatever, Skipper, it worked, now what do we do?”

  “Can you get any identification on those ships, Copper?”

  “Wait one, checking the computer index, sir.” She answered immediately. Mike noted that she didn’t have any trouble speaking when her mind was on something else.

  “The computer had given me several options at this range, sir, but I’d have to say they look like Sirrien long range patrol vessels or frigates, sir.” Pete stood up and walked over, looking at the same data. He then turned back to Mike and shrugged.

  “Can’t tell, Skipper.”

  “I’ll go with Cooper’s assessment.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  “XO, sound battle station and beat to quarters if you please.”

  “Aye, sir, beating to quarters, it is.” As he said it, Ensign Cooper turned and looked at him, a surprised look on her face, as if wondering if she was wrong. The alarm sounded, and the orderly stampede began, even as the XO picked up the mike.

  “The is the XO, this is not a drill, I say again, this is not a drill, all stations close up.” People started pouring onto the Bridge, immediately heading for the suit locker and their battle armor.

  “Leftenant Fielding, as soon as you are dressed, take over on weapons.” Mike ordered as he saw Janice heading to the suit locker.

  “Aye, sir, weapon station, it is.” She answered, shooting Mike a quick look as she altered direction.

  Conner Blake arrived right behind her, and the moment he finished dressing dropped into the standby helmsman position. Cindy Loftland passed the control to him and ran for her locker. As was his habit now, Mike waited until everyone else was in their armor before moving to don his. This way all stations were fully manned and ready for combat. When they were, he donned his battle armor.

  “Seal the ship, Number One.” Called over his shoulder.

  “Aye, sir, sealing ship.” The two Marines took up their posts, checking the Bridge hatchway the moment it closed. Mike kept one eye on the battle tank as he dressed, thinking of the possible course of action.

  “Cooper, what do we have out there?” He asked, forgetting for a moment.

  “Pardon, sir?” She asked, sounding confused.

  “Sorry, my fault, what celestial anomalies do we have around here?” If he’s asked Janice that question she would have instinctively known what he meant.

  “Oh, yes, sir, um, not much, sir.”

  “Tell me what you have, Ensign.” He said patiently.

  “There’s nothing much in the way of an asteroid belt, and just a meteor swarm 1800 miles off our Starboard quadrant… oh, and a small dust cloud dead ahead at 1500 miles, sir.”

  “Um, not much to work with.”

  “Why not just vanish, Skipper?” Pete asked.

  “I don’t want to make it that obvious that we can, Pete.”

  “Right, of course.”

  “Damn,” Pete muttered, “wish we’d picked them up before we dropped so far into the gravity well.”

  “This system has an unusually thick Oort cloud, Captain.”

  “Put it up on the screen, Cooper.” She did, and Mike and the OX studied it for a moment, both doing time/distant calculations.

  “If we alter course right now, and go to flank speed, we should be able to get there before those ships are in weapons range even if they do cut the cord.” By altering course back towards the Oort cloud, they gave the pursuing ships a chance to cut across inside their curved course and cut them off. The one thing they had going for them was the Nemesis unusual turn of speed. The enemy would expect them to be able to go that fast.

  “It’ll be damn close, Pete.”

  “It’s either that, or a three to one fight.”

  “Not good odds out here. Let's run for it to where we can even the odds.”

  “Aye, sir. Helm, increase speed to flank and set course towards the Oort cloud.”

  “Flank it is, sir.”

  “Cooper, what are our dance partner’s doing?”

  “Our who?... Oh the Sirriens… um, as expected, they are cutting across.”

  “Good, at least we know it's not just coincidence or a ghost echo now.”

  “Jan, confirm that all tubes are loaded and standing by.”

  “Aye-aye, sir - confirming.”

  “Gable, the moment we enter cloud, shields up and cloak.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  “That should confuse them.”

  “Right - Helm. The moment we cloak, I want sharp, half a rotation and come to a stop. Hopefully they’ll think we went straight in and follow.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we reverse course and head smartly for the Southern warp point. By the time they figure out they’ve lost us, we’ll be a few light years away.”

  It went just as Mike thought. As far as the three Sirrien patrol ships were concerned, the Nemesis had entered the Oort cloud and simply vanished. The long range sensor showed them circling around as if searching, but by that time the Nemesis was out of range. At one point, Cooper reported the three Sirrien ships were heading back towards the northern warp point. Even so, Mike waited another three hours before moving back onto his original course.

  “Stand down from battle station, Number One.”

  “Aye-aye, Skipper, standing down.” Mike pulled the sudden port or starboard turn several times after that, but there was no sign of anything behind them.

  There next jump took them to another uninteresting binary star systems with no warp points at the first star, other than the one they’d just exited. It was either back, or move to the other star. This meant they had to pull back out of the gravity well before they could micro jump the short, five light year distance to the other star. After that the boredom set in as the days rolled by, yet everyone kept busy. Feeling restless, Mike read for a while, and finding his coffee pot empty, wandered down to the Wardroom for a refill. To his surprise, he found Jan still up, snuggled into a corner on the couch, reading.

  “What you reading?” He asked, walking in.

  “I’m taking your advice and catching up on all the Naval History I missed in class.” She chuckled.

  “You didn’t miss much.”

  “Oh, you know what, I forgot to thank you for dropping the book on the floor.”

  “Book, floor?... oh yes, I remember now, I was falling asleep myself, and had to do something
.” He answered.

  “Right, so you didn’t do it for me, huh?”

  “Well, sort of.” He grinned at her.

  “Did you have a good shore leave, Skipper?” She asked innocently.

  “Yes, wonderful, full of surprising events.”

  “Oh? Anything you can talk about?” Her innocent smile wouldn’t have melted butter.

  “Not unless you are a pervert and interested in the dalliances of your Captain.”

  “Ummm, rather not, Skipper.” She giggled. “From what I’ve heard so far, both the male and female members of this crew had quite a number of erotic encounters.”

  “What do you think of our Ensign Cooper, Jan?” Mike asked, changing the subject. He could feel his ears starting to get red.

  “She’s a little shy, but a whiz at sensors.” Mike nodded. “I wondered why you shifted me to weapons the other day, now I see.”

  “You have any problem with me shifting you over and letting her have some of the watches?”

  “Good God, no. It’s clear where her forte’ is, and I’m comfortable at weapons.”

  “It will also take the strain of Gable and let him cover operations much better.”

  “Yes, as shorthanded as we are, it's a lot of hats for him to wear.”

  “Hopefully Wheeler can jump in and help Gable, Adam tells me he’s great with electronics and power systems.”

  “Gable will probably look gloomier hearing that.” She chuckled.

  “Yes, he does have a tendency to do that.”

  “I noticed that Cooper’s all right when she’s concentrating on something else, but the moment she has to talk directly to someone she freezes.”

  “Yes, she is a quiet thing, isn’t she.” Janice sighed.

  “Yes, you and I will have to find a way to get her out of her shell.”

  “Right. She also has a knack of spotting things on the scope, Pete couldn’t see what she saw, so I think I’ll leave her there for a while.”

  “So, I’m the weapons officer now?”

  “Yes, I’ll officially change your status, as of now, but I’d like you to rotate on sensors with her.”

  “Aye-aye, Skipper. Do I get a pay raise.” She smiled.

  “No, and what’s so funny?”

  “You always give people the benefit of the doubt, don’t you.”

  “Mainly, I suppose so, why do you say that?”

  “Any other Captain would have bounced Ensign Cooper down too environmental or supplies by now, and out of the way.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair, she might sit in the Captain’s chair one day, given a chance, you will.” Janice looked at him a moment to see if he was serious.

  “I doubt it, Mike, I’ve made too many enemies.”

  “We’ll see,” He said, looking at her and smiling, “in the mean time, give Ensign Cooper all the help you can.”

  “Aye-aye, Skipper.

  Passing through the last warp point they started the two week journey across the quadrant on the last leg of their trip. More out of curiosity, Mike ordered Pete to alter course to pass close to the star to look for M Class Planets.

  “Wow! I’m picking up low radio band traffic.” Cooper yelled excitedly, causing Pete to look up at the bulkhead in despair.

  “Ensign Cooper, abet, could you phrase that in more naval terms, perchance?” Pete asked, sounding a little exasperated.

  “Sir?” Even from his position, Mike could see her ears get red. To cover his grin he turned his seat the other way, and started a conversation with a surprised senior rating on environmental.

  “So, you enjoyed your leave on Avalon?” The man looked at him, then over at Ensign Cooper and grinned.

  “Oh yes, very much, Skipper, great place for shore leave.”

  “Sir, I’d like to report the existence of low frequency, short wave radio transmission coming from a nearby system.” Cooper reported formally.

  “I see, do you have any indication which planet they might be emanating from?” Pete asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “Working on it, sir.” Cooper quickly worked out which planet the radio signal was coming from, fingers running confidently over the keyboard, nervousness gone.

  “Have it, sir.”

  “Sent the heading to helm.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  “Helm, take us in system.”

  “Aye, Skipper.” Cooper located the source on the fourth planet from the sun, and Conner took the Nemesis on a close fly by.

  The species were humanoid, in the early stages of industrial development by the amount of radio emissions. Mike ordered a scout torpedo for a close flyby as a record for the Admiralty. This would put the planet off limits. It was only a small diversion, but it did help to break the monotony for a while. He had the video from the scout torpedo broadcast through the ship, and that set off a dozen heated discussion about the implication of what they’d seen. Later that day there was a knock at his cabin door, and after he called ‘enter’ Ensign Cooper walked in.

  “Sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, sir, it's about that planet we just passed.”

  “What about it.”

  “Oh, nothing really, sir, just something I picked up as we were leaving the system.” She stopped again. It was like pulling teeth, one at the time.

  “Cooper, can I call you, Grace?”

  “Oh… um… yes sir.” She didn’t sound too sure about it.

  “I’ve noticed that you are very, very good with the sensor equipment, especially picking up the ghost in our drive wake.”

  “Thank you for saying so, sir.”

  “The point it, when you are working, you are sure of yourself, confident and assertive.”

  “Well, sir, I feel more comfortable with um… equipment than people, sir.”

  “That’s what I mean, yet the moment you start talking to someone you turn into a bowl of jelly.” He smiled, trying to make her see the funny side. “I’m not very comfortable around certain people myself.”

  “You, sir?” She asked, looking surprised.

  “Yes, some people, like Mr. Standish, or Leftenant Fletcher is people’s people, and comfortable in any situation. Lucky for me, a Captain is supposed to be a little aloof.”

  “You seem perfectly at ease with people here, sir.”

  “That's because I know them, it’s strangers that get me nervous.”

  “I know what you mean, sir.”

  “So, that’s the key, get to know the people around you, especially people close to you and relax more. You’ll see.”

  “Thank you, sir, that makes me feel a little better.”

  “Good, so, tell me what you saw, or think you saw as we left the system?” He asked it in a soft friendly voice, as if having a conversation.

  “Well, sir, as we reached the edge, I could have sworn I picked up high frequency radio traffic.”

  “Explain.”

  “You know that all radio signals spread out across the universe, like if you go out far enough, you can pick up the first radio messages every send out from Earth.”

  “OK, I follow you so far.”

  “Well, sir, this was an old message, buried in the background of inter-stellar noise, but it was definitely high frequency, I’d say at the upper end of the FM band.”

  “Could you make out what it said?”

  “No, sir, it’s in code, that was clear, but who, or what it said I couldn’t make out.”

  “And your conclusion?”

  “It was definitely a ground based originating signal, but with the level of technology we saw on the planet, it wouldn’t be impossible for the species inhabiting it to send.” Mike sat up slightly, his brow pulling together.

  “Are you saying that someone with our level of radio technology is on that planet?”

  “Um, yes, sir, I suppose that’s what I am saying.”