He Who Dares: Book Three (10 page)

“I have the feeling I’m not going to like this.”

“You are going to hate it and try to figure a way out of obeying me. Please don’t, John.” John let out a long sigh, because that’s exactly what he was trying to do even before he knew what he was going to be asked to do.

“Go on.” He said, very softly.

“You and I both know that the center will not hold. The Sirriens are gradually putting a strangle hold on this system. Trade is already falling off, and the only reason the Sirriens haven’t closed us off completely, as they have so many other star systems, is because of that damned Cg material and the ship parts we turn out. But, one of these days they are going to send a massive fleet in-system to take this world and grab the secret of Cg material for themselves.” His shoulders slumped. “The Royal Navy is in no position to stop them in their present condition.”

“Yes, worn out ships, an officer corps we can’t trust not to turn tail or simply go over to the enemy.” John added.

“True and you know as well as I do, that once they take the high ground we won’t have any option but to surrender.” John nodded.

“A few ‘messages from god’ in strategic places, or a city or two and we’d have to give up.”

“I sometimes wish we’d never make that damn stuff a secret. Maybe if everyone knew how to make Cg material, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now.” The king muttered.

“True, but there it is. We live with what we’ve got, and surrender and make the best deal we can with the Sirriens.”

“That’s of course, unless that bloody pig of a man, the Prime Minister hasn’t already made a deal with the bastards.”

“That’s a good bet.” John added, moodily. “So, what do you want me to do? Kill the stupid ass?”

“Good god, no!” The King smiled, betting with himself that John Cromwell would have no compunction about doing just that, and damn the consequences. “I was thinking that there are a few rather important items and documents I don’t want the Sirriens to get their grubby hands on.”

“I follow so far, Richard.”

“My royal command is that you take them and go along to keep them safe.” John Cromwell shot to his feet and stomped back and forth the length of the steam room, for once scowling at his King.

He stopped several times and looked at his monarch and friend, even opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and stomped back and forth again. The King wiped his sweaty face with a towel and waited patiently for John to reach the end of his scheming to try and figure out a way to disobey him.

“Damn you to hell, Richard. Why did you have to make it…” He couldn’t finish. “Yes, your Majesty. I will obey your royal command.” As he sat down beside him again, the King reached over and squeezed his shoulder.

“The body I want you to bury is yours. I’m going to give you a very nice private funeral. Lots of flowers and all that.”

“What! I mean, pardon?”

“Well, think about it. If you are nicely dead, no one will be looking for you, especially any Sirrien spies lurking about in the bushes.” He smiled, seeing the light dawn in John Cromwell’s eyes.

“Of course. Out of sight, out of mind. Um… by the way, how am I going to die? I’d rather do it with a little dignity, or better still heroically?” The King chuckled and shook his head.

“Sorry, no, you’ll break your neck going down the stairs to the wine cellar.” He laughed.

“Oh, thanks. The drunken snot slipped and broke his neck while going for another bottle of bloody wine.”

“Thought you’d thank me. I mean, everyone knows what a secret drunk you are.”

“Har! Adding insult to injury before I’m decently buried, are we?”

The King chuckled again, “I take it you have an identity you haven’t used yet?”

“Several.”

“Good. As soon as we have arranged things, and your untimely passing is announced, I expect you to be on your way to the stars.”

“And my ultimate destination being?” John queried with a raised eyebrow.

“Avalon.”

“Avalon? Why there?”

“Many reasons, the first being that they are the only ones I trust with what I’m sending. It could also be the center of a new beginning.” John gave him an appraising look.

“You think they have the wherewithal to fight the Sirriens or hold off an invasion fleet?”

“John, you know as well as I do that they are probably the only ones that can.”

John nodded. “Yes, damn difficult to get across the
Rift
. Not impossible if you are willing to take the losses, but what then?”

“Oh, they have more than enough to handle anything that gets into Avalon-Christchurch space.” John Cromwell thought he knew all the secrets, but it was clear that the King knew a few that he didn’t. “It’s all a matter of timing and whether we’ve already left it too late.” On that ominous note, they left to take a shower and dress for the King’s normal daily round of meetings.

CHAPTER THREE:

It was with a certain degree of trepidation, that Admiral of the Fleet Sir Anthony Rawlings stepped off his transport, a fully armed, class 60 assault shuttle euphemistically called the ‘Admirals Barge’ and saluted the flag. The boatswain’s pipe shrilled and the sideboys came to attention to render honors as he stepped out to greet the waiting officers. His flag officer, Rolly Vargas, stepped out after him, feeling equally apprehensive. With all the sudden unexpected deaths of important people from untimely or unfortunate accidents to suicides, it wouldn’t surprise him to have a shuttlecraft or cargo truck, suddenly appear out of nowhere and kill them both. The secret war going on behind the scenes between who knows who was starting to take its toll. A fine, upstanding officer in the peak of health could suddenly keel over with a heart attack or stroke or discover that he really couldn’t breathe vacuum when a safety interlock unexpectedly failed on an outside hatch.

Rolly breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out behind the admiral, thankful to be back aboard the flagship after Admiral Rawlings’ meeting with the inappropriately named First Sea Lord. Even after a month of “posting” several questionable officers and crew to shore stations, he felt reasonably safe here, but you never knew if you’d got all the potential trouble makers until you felt the knife slip in under your ribs, metaphorically speaking. Thankfully, the rot was mostly confined to naval personnel, rather than the Marines, but when asked, the Marine commander suggested that one or two of his people might find a healthier environment in a ground based unit. After due ceremony, they made their way up to the admiral’s quarters, with the captain and the XO accompanying them.

“By the way, Rolly,” Captain MacAndrews commented over his shoulder. “Just got a message back to say your flowers did arrive, but haven’t been delivered yet.”

“Thank you, Captain. Much obliged.” It wasn’t until they were within the security perimeter of the Admiral’s quarters that Admiral Rawlings said anything.

“Glad to hear the ‘flowers’ arrived.”

“Yes, sir. I just hope my grandmother picks them up.” Rolly murmured, making it sound like an offhanded comment.

“I do hope she picks them up before they wilt.” They both looked at each other.

“True, sir, but there’s no telling if, or when, she’ll be back from her holiday.” Admiral Rawlings nodded and looked at Captain MacAndews.

“What’s the status of our new ship’s operating system, Andy?”

“Well in hand, sir. We did install it, per instructions from the Admiralty, and we are in the process of systems ‘testing’, per your instructions.

“Thank goodness for that. We wouldn’t want anything untoward happening if we suddenly had to go into combat, now would we?” The bleak smile on the admiral’s face said volumes. Mike’s warning after the trouble he’d had with his own operating system hadn’t come a moment too soon.

The chief electronics engineer had installed it per instructions. He’d also installed another program first. Even as the new operating system unfolded and unpacked itself and began running, the first program was there to intercept it. As each segment found its way to the subroutine buffers that ran everything from the fusion reactor to the weapons and shield systems, it was wiped. From the outside, or to anyone who checked, it would look as if the infected program had successfully installed itself. The final option if all else failed was to go to combat failsafe mode where each system disengaged itself from the mainframe and went to manual as if the mainframe had been taken out due to battle damage. It was cumbersome, and they wouldn’t have anywhere near the maneuverability, but she could keep on fighting. Hopefully, his trustworthy captains had also performed a similar function on their ships. At least that would give him a core fighting unit. Now all the admiral had to do was rearrange the fleet to keep those ships close.

*  *  *  *  *  *

While the political turmoil on Earth grew, Mike and the crew of the
Nemesis
cruised in-system from the Pluto warp point blissfully unaware of the powder keg they were about to fly into. While sitting in his cabin or standing watch on the bridge, Mike couldn’t stop thinking about the alien ship. Pondering the implications of what he’d seen inside started to border on an obsession. And many times someone had to ask him a question twice before he answered. The ship was a puzzle he had to solve. It wasn’t just the super-advanced technology, the lab techs and the eggheads would figure that out eventually. No, it was the sheer size of the ship, and all those empty spaces that kept him up at night. He’d run the unedited videos taken inside by his crew over and over again looking for some point he’d missed. Sometimes the answer to the nagging question was right there, just out of reach in his mind. And yet, he wasn’t even sure what the question was. Even for all her size, much of the internal structure consisted of massive compartments, empty save for some odd equipment here and there about the compartment, and showed no signs of what they were used for. He did query the “bot” for a schematic of the ship, but that didn’t help, it only deepened the mystery. When asked, the bot could give little information on what the compartments were used for, other than to say, “Auxiliary storage.” Or something equally incomprehensible.

So why build a mile long ship, then use up better than half the internal space for empty compartments? Cargo was the obvious conclusion, yet it didn’t feel right to him. This was a warship, not a Free Trader. Avalon ships like that had massive cargo holds, but they were never designated as warships even though they were armed merchantmen. In his spare time, Mike worried away at the problem trying to think like the builders of the ship. All that did was give him a headache so he stopped and pushed it to the back of his mind and let his subconscious deal with it. That was just as bad as he began having strange dreams of walking through those empty, echoing compartments, shouting “Hello!” All he got in return was a light that led him to another cavernous compartment. Janice and Grace Cooper added to his pondering after knocking on his cabin door late one evening.

“Come.”

“Evening, Skipper, sorry to disturb you this late, but I thought you might still be up.”

“What’s on your mind, Janice, Grace?” They both looked dead tired, and obviously they’d both been working late on something. “Pull up a seat and sit. Coffee in the pot if you’d like some.”

“Thanks, Skipper. My coffee tank gauge is reading full.”

“Mine too.” Cooper put in. Both took chairs at the small table, looking at each other as if they weren’t sure where to start.

“Grace and I have been going over the star charts the alien ship provided, and well, we have a sort of a mystery.”

“You as well?” Mike rubbed his temples to try and relieve the headache.

“Oh, you’ve been working on one as well, Skipper?”

“Who isn’t on this ship? I suspect Adam and Gable are doing the same as us, trying to figure out what makes that ship tick.”

“Yes, probably, Skipper, but our concern is the warp points, or gateways as she called them.”

“Okay, drop the other shoe.”

“Um, it’s really Grace’s conclusions, sir; I’ve just been trying to help her with it.” It was obvious that Janice had pushed Grace into coming here, trying to pry her out of her shell so to speak.

“Grace?”

“Well, sir,” she looked at Janice a moment, as if seeking encouragement, “it’s about the warp point on the charts we downloaded from the bot.” She reiterated, and sat there fidgeting for a moment.

“Go on.”

“I think, sir, but I’m not sure... they seem to show that you can go to many different points in space from almost any gateway.” Mike blinked a few times as if to clear the fog out of his brain, wondering if he’d heard her right.

“Run that by me again.”

“Um, from what I’ve found, sir, from just the Pluto gateway you can travel to sixteen different points in space, and….” She hesitated and looked at Janice, “...you can jump from a position above the planet into interstellar space,” she finished in a rush.

Mike sat perfectly still, digesting the implications. To date he couldn’t think of any reports or investigations into the possibility of warp points above a planet yet in a way, it made sense. If a star warped space above and below it, why not planets to some degree. Then he shook his head.