He Who Dares: Book Three (2 page)

“If you remain on your current heading and acceleration, we should be there in two hours and sixteen minutes.”

“Very good. I’ll have my deck monkeys standing by.”

They made the rendezvous as predicted and transferred all the containers in record time. Once done, they headed back to Christchurch tired and contented, but it was late at night before they docked. Mike let out a happy sigh as he signaled “Finish with Engines” on the telegraph, hearing the compensators spooling down. One by one, he cleared the board by the numbers as his grandfather expected. By now, he didn’t even have to refer to the checklist he knew it so well, shutting down each system, or putting it on standby mode. His last act was to lock and seal the port hatch, and lock the optical bollards on the dock.

“Good trip, Mike.” Andrew sighed, as he stepped onto the dock, and closed the engine room hatch and locked it.

“Yup, be glad to get a good night's sleep.”

“Me too,” his grandfather answered, yawning and stretching. “The feces won’t hit the fan until tomorrow, sometime after breakfast I suspect.”

“Who cares, as long as I get a good sleep before they start yelling at me.” Mike laughed.

“It won’t be you they will be yelling at, son.” He laughed, putting his arm around his grandson’s broad shoulder and giving him a hug.

“Gramps… I…”

“Are we going to go through all that again, Michael?” The old man grumbled, raising one bushy eyebrow.

“Guess not.” Mike smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. To Gramps, the subject of who was going to take the blame for the fly-by was closed. Mike would have preferred it be him, but arguing with his grandfather was a losing battle once he’d made up his mind. He was right, of course. A black mark on his captain’s ticket wouldn’t look good to the examining board if, and when, he sat for his
n
th
space license. Gramps kept his arm around Mike’s shoulders, something he rarely did, feeling proud that he’d raised a boy to become a man, walking towards the air car and home.

With no immediate contacts in the offing until the board of inquiry issued their findings they worked on the ship, cleaning polishing, and checking equipment. Mike did go fishing and checked the lobster pot, bringing several nice fat lobsters home for dinner. All in all it was a boring two weeks of doing
make work
until one morning Mike looked up at the sound of the chimes from his computer and swore.

“What?” Gramps asked, looking at him over the rim of his coffee cup. Pulling his eyes away from the screen, and the newsfax report about their fly-by.

Of course, the Newsies were all over it, some calling it a crazy stunt, others a brilliant maneuver. Throw in the fact they’d discovered, and disarmed, several bombs aboard during their inbound flight just added to the hoopla. Calls for a full investigation shot back and forth, while one mining company accused the other of all sorts of nefarious doings.

“Damn it! I got so wrapped up in this book, I forgot I had to cram for today’s lecture.”

“Serves you right.”

“Thanks, Gramps, that’s a lot of help.” He muttered as he walked out of the room. He quickly sat in front of the entertainment center and fitted the VR headset over his head before stepping into the virtual classroom.

“So nice to see you all again. Good morning, students!”

“Good morning, Professor.” The virtual students replied.

Mike added his belated “Good morning” as his avatar walked into the classroom and took his seat. He, along with fifty other students, sat in a virtual lecture hall, each with a reasonable facsimile, or persona. There were a few exceptions as one student came clanking in wearing a full set of medieval armor.

“Ouch!” The unfortunate individual yelped, as the professor zapped his avatar and him.

“That will do for the comic mode, Carstairs.”

“Sorry, Professor.” The professor gave him one of those looks the professor was famous for then turned his attention to the rest of the class.

“I live in eternal hope that all of you have applied yourself to the assignment I gave you?” He looked around his audience expectantly. Even in VR cyberspace, it was possible to hear the groans around the classroom.

“Arr! I’m encouraged, by your enthusiastic expectation of the coming test. Let us begin then.” He said, ignoring the sounds of pain. “Mr. Worthington, what is your answer to the question of the similarities between the Hebrew-Greek wars, the medieval wars, in particular the battle of Agincourt, British naval warfare, the Napoleonic wars, and World War I?”

While Worthington was stumbling through his non-answer, Mike tried frantically to think of his. Mike found he was brain dead. It didn’t work, and all he could hear was the question going round and round inside his brain like some maniacal clockwork toy.

“They were all fought by man?” Worthington answered at last. The sound of a raspberry filled the room as the Professor hit a button on his “desk.”

“Wrong. That will get you a ‘C’, Mr. Worthington. Next?” The Professor looked around the room for another sacrificial victim. “Cathy Williams, how about you.”

“Err.” She answered, turning a deep shade of pink.

“That might be very informative to the Guillemots who inhabit Ceti-Cressi-4, I’m sure. However, could you translate that into a language that we poor humans could all understand? Preferably Anglic or a variation thereof?”

“I… I…”

“Hummm.” The professor rocked back and forth on his heels and toes, hands holding onto the lapels of his virtual gown as he looked up at the virtual ceiling. “The use of the first person singular is very illuminating in an English class, but in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a history class.”

“Professor, I haven’t got a clue what the similarity is, except to say that whatever the connection, a lot of people ended up dead.” That brought a laugh from the rest of the class.

“Very good, Ms. Williams. You get a ‘B+’ for that answer.”

“Huh!” Cathy looked stunned.

“Therein, the rest of you will find the answer you all are so obviously groping for.” The professor went round the class, picking off one student after the other like shooting fish in a barrel. Then the inevitable happened.

“Mr. Gray. I see you sitting there in a deep brown mood with a puzzled look on your face. Could it be that we have a winner, and that you know the answer?” The Professor looked over the top of his old fashion half glasses with great interest.

Mike’s brain came to a screeching halt. Not with an answer, but a question. If Cathy was right, why had a lot of people died? Not just in the battles the professor mentioned, but others that sprung to mind. His brain went loping off down one chain of thought after another until it hit him.

“I’ve got it!” He yelled, turning red from embarrassment at his outburst.

“Do you indeed. Please enlighten the rest of the class with your wondrous insight.”

“Rate of fire!” Mike blurted out. That brought the sound of a raspberry not from the professor, but one of the other students.

“Mr. Trent seems to have a dissenting opinion on the matter, Mr. Gray. Can you enlighten us, Mr. Trent?”

It irritated Mike that Trent was the one to make the sound. Ever since he and his brother had joined the class, they’d gone out of their way to make life miserable for everyone. New to Avalon, they were on an immigrant status at the moment, but from the way they acted, you’d think they were doing Avalon a favor by coming here in the first place. Mike did wonder why his family had left old Earth and applied for immigration status to Avalon of all places if they disliked being here so much. It might be worth looking into. There was no telling if they would finally be accepted and be permitted to reside on Avalon, or move back here to Christchurch on a temporary visa before departing for greener pastures. Many families couldn’t, or wouldn’t, agree to abide by the colony rules or failed the security test in some way. If that happened, they went on to find a warmer welcome somewhere else on another colony planet. Mike hoped this was the case with the Trent family.

“I’m sure there has to be a very simplistic answer to your question, Professor,” Christen Trent answered, “but having only joined this class recently, I’m not familiar with Avalon’s archaic education system. Therefore, I am unable to answer your question at this moment.” He sniggered at the end, spoiling his delivery, and looked round at his brother who joined him, thinking it great fun to poke fun at the “colonials” as they put it.

“Far be it for me to speak on the subject of the education system used on Earth at this time,” he paused, and looked at Trent a moment, “but here we do things a little differently. As far flung as we are, virtual communication is the only sensible way to bring all the students to one place and continue their individual education.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about that, Professor…”

“I know you weren’t. HOWEVER! As I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me. This method of teaching has served us well for many years, and coupled with cyber downloads, we feel that a student here can learn more in a year, than elsewhere with a more
modern
or
enlightened
education system." Meaning old style classroom with live students and professors.

“Of course, Professor.” Trent sniggered again.

“Therefore, I see no reason not to award you the grand high mark of ‘D-’ for this class so far.”

“What!” Trent yelled.

“The information is there in the library data banks, and your pathetic excuse of just having arrived here, three months ago I might add, is unworthy of this class. That excuse pales into insignificance compared with the sheer genius applied by some of my other students in coming up with an excuse for not being prepared.” Without warning, Trent’s avatar vanished from the class, echoed a moment later by his brother’s. A sigh of relief drifted though the classroom like a spring breeze.

“Continue, Mr. Gray.” The Professor didn’t bat an eyelid at the disappearance.

“As I said, sir.” Mike took a deep breath. “Rate of fire. The French didn’t anticipate the rate of fire from the English bowmen, and even armored and on horseback, thirty thousand of them died that day. In part due to arrogance and the muddy field from an overnight rain as well as the arrows.”

“Correct. Excellent. Continue please.”

“In all of the cases you mentioned, the enemy was out-gunned, so to speak, not just in rate of fire but accuracy.”

“Bravo, Mr. Gray.” The Professor clapped. “You have hit the proverbial nail on the head.”

“Told you a lot of people died.” Kathy chimed in.

“You have an ‘A+’ for that answer.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“Now then, applying the formula of rate of fire and accuracy to all wars, your next assignment will be to find examples where that was not true.” The class broke out into the expected and almost obligatory groans to which the professor beamed with a predator's smile. Two hours later, Mike slipped the headset off and stood up, rubbing his numb butt. Gramps entered and handed him a cup of coffee.

“How did it go today?”

“Got an ‘A+’.”

“Wow!”

“But not because I deserved it, I don’t think I did.”

“Why not?” Gramps asked as he sat down in the vacated seat.

“I answered out of desperation. I had to say something, and try not to look stupid.”

“But was it the right answer?”

“Yes, as it turned out.”

“So? Why do you say you don’t deserve the ‘A+’?”

“Because I didn’t study for the class like I should have done.”

“That doesn’t negate your answer.”

“Huh?”

“Mike, whether you know it or not, you learn a lot by all the reading you do. In particular all the military history books and information you download from the data-net.” Gramps smiled at him.

“I suppose so.”

“I know so. All the information is rattling around in your so-called brain, and given half a chance, it will come up with the right answer. So take the ‘A+’ and say thank you.”

“Thank you.” He grinned.

*  *  *  *  *  *

“Harbor Center, this is Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893 requesting clearance.”

“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, copy that, wait one.” There was no banter tonight. Harbor Center was all business.

“Copy, Center, wait one.” Mike continued his pre-flight checklist while he waited, knowing what was coming.

“Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893, be advised that you are not cleared, repeat, not cleared for take-off.”

“Clarify please, Harbor Center.”

“Captain Tregallion’s ticket is under suspension at this time, pending a hearing by the Civil Space Board.”

“That is correct, Harbor Center. This is Captain Michael Gray commanding.” For a while, all he got back was static.

“Wait one, Sierra-Whisky-Gulf 893.”

“Copy Center.”

“Power plant at 92% of max power, Mike.”

“I copy that, Gramps. Waiting for clearance from Harbor Center.”

“And taking their own bloody sweet time about it too, I’ll wager.”