He Who Dares: Book Three (35 page)

“Anne… Princess Anne assured me that it’s not.”

“Well, I just hope she’s bloody well right. It’ll make a right old mess if it blows up in here.”

“O yea of little faith.”

Jenks just snorted and went off to get him another mug of coffee. Jenks was right. The cylinder was beeping louder, but the words scrolling along the side hadn’t changed. In the end, he placed it in the gun safe. If it was a bomb and it did go off most of the blast would be contained.

“Captain on the bridge.” The Marine guard sang out. Instead of Pete, Jan sat in the Captain’s chair, and stood as he entered.

“I changed shifts with Lieutenant Standish-Owen, Skipper. He was bushed.”

“No problem, Jan. Did you get any sleep?”

“Yes, sir. I managed to get four hours of good sleep.”

“Good. So, where are we?”

“Still four hours before exit.”

“Good, that will give everyone time to get a meal and be ready when we exit.”

“Yes, sir. All sections reporting manned and ready. No major problems to report, and only two crew members on sick parade this morning.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, sir. Sprain from a fall, and a cook with a laceration while opening a can, sir.”

Taking his seat, Mike went through his normal routine, filling in log entries and checking off his to-do list. Mundane work that filled in the time before exit. As they reached the half-hour mark, everyone was at their stations and the anticipation started to build. Conner Blake was at the helm, Gable at operations, Adam Kincaid at the engineering console, Jan at sensors and nav, with Cooper at communications. Pete sat in his seat, looking as if he’d rather be standing up and pacing back and forth much as Mike wanted to do. Instead, he sat there sucking coffee out of the bulb like an infant with a baby bottle.

“OUCH!” Cooper yelled, snatching her ear bug out.

“What?” Mike and Pete asked at once. Cooper had her little finger in her left ear, wiggling it about as it to clear her hearing.

“Something just sent out a burst of energy right across the communication spectrum, sir. Damn, it was loud,” she responded, pulling her finger out. “That hurt.”

“What was it?”

“Don’t know, Skipper, but it came from within the ship.” Mike looked at his XO, seeing him shrug.

“Anything else?” Pete asked.

Cooper slowly put her ear bug in again after turning down the volume. She fiddled with the comm panel a moment before turning to face them.

“Don’t know what it is, Skipper, but it’s across all bands, high and low frequency and all the way across the electrometric spectrum.”

“Five minutes to exit,” Jan called.

“We can’t worry about that signal, or whatever it is, right now. Heads up people, here we go.”

They exited in an aurora of displaced energy above an unknown star and Mike ordered full speed ahead. He needed space to figure out where they were and where to go from here. He didn’t want to hang about his exit point for long, as he expected the Sirriens to follow.

“Jan?” He didn’t need to specify what his question was.

“Working, Skipper.” The battle tank slowly filled in with details of the system and they saw five planets in the immediate vicinity, two of them within the life zone. That was a good sign. What wasn’t was the odd looking asteroids that dotted the space all around them. One look and Mike froze in his seat, a cold sweat beading his forehead.

“Mother of god,” he whispered. “Conner, head us to the solar south warp point as quick as you can, flank speed. Cooper, order the other ships to do that same, and hope to hell we can make it.

“Skipper?” Pete asked.

“Shit!” Of all the dammed places to end up.” He wiped his hand across his brow.

“Where are we, Mike?”

“
Harmony
space. And if we don’t get out of here in the next few hours, we are all dead.”

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Everyone who’d been in space had heard of the
Harmony
, few, other than the Voss and a few Free Trader ships, had ever entered it and survived. Even then they were only permitted to go to one planet to trade and then back again to the warp point they’d come from. His Imperial Majesty, King Gustaf III of Prussia had made the mistake of sending the combined might of the Imperial High Guard fleet in to subdue the natives, as he put it, and expand his empire. Only one small scout ship had ever returned and the crew had never ventured into space again after witnessing the complete annihilation of their fleet. The
Harmony
hadn’t simply destroyed the ships but had kept bombarding the debris and escape pods until only dust and echoes remained.

“One time, a Voss Suritan tried to cheat the
Harmony
, and his ship never left their space.”

“So what do we do, Skipper?”

“We can’t go back, so the only thing we can do is run for the southern warp point and pray to god we make it.”

“Skipper, two of the ships are lagging behind.” Mike closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

“Conner. Slow down and fall back… maybe we can help.” He had no idea how. Once the
Harmony
started attacking, they didn’t stop.

“The Sirriens have dropped out of
n
th
space, Skipper, about half an hour behind us.”

“They are the least of our worries. Maybe the
Harmony
will go after them first and give us a chance to get the hell out of here.”

“Those asteroid things are starting to move towards us and the Sirriens, sir,” Jan reported.

“Shit! Here it comes. Shields to max, standby all weapons!” All they could do was put up the best fight possible, but with six hours to get to the southern warp point he didn’t hold out much chance of making it.

“Can we surrender, Mike?” Pete asked, seeing Mike shake his head.

“They don’t think like us. To them, most things outside the
Harmony
are enemies to be destroyed if they enter their space. It’s as simple as that.” He saw Pete visibly shiver. It was one thing to meet your enemy in open combat, but this was something else.

“Sir, more of those asteroid things are popping up on long range sensors… they just keep coming… my god, there must be thousands of them.

At this distance they had a ringside seat as the first of the spiky looking asteroids started impacting on the Sirrien shields. At first it was a few here and there then more and more. As Mike had hoped, the
Harmony
saw the Sirriens as the major threat and concentrated on them. There were still a few coming towards his fleet yet for some strange reason they’d stopped about a thousand yard away.

“That’s odd.” Mike checked the battle tank again. “Why aren’t they attacking?” he mused, a puzzled frown on his face.

One small group of Sirrien destroyers came out of the blackness speeding towards them in an attack run. Someone must have given orders to stop them while the fleet took care of the
Harmony
attack. As the destroyers neared more and more spiky asteroids impacted on their shields. Now instead of just a few dozen, hundreds of them came streaking in. They didn’t attack in the conventional way, they just simply dove into the Sirrien ships in Kamikaze or suicide attacks.

“Good god! Those have to be unmanned ships or missiles,” Jan breathed.

“I don’t think so, Jan. Those things are being guided somehow, and how do they discriminate between us and the Sirriens?”

“They should be attacking us, right?”

“Right, Pete, and I don’t know why they aren’t.”

“Thank god for small mercies, Skipper.”

“But… but how do you put that many manned ships in space and keep them there just in case of an incursion… that’s impossible,” Adam interjected. “Think of just what it would take in maintaining them in the first place.”

The questions of the how and why kept piling up with no answers. In the end, they all sat in silence as they watched the slow destruction of the Sirrien fleet. No matter how good their shields were and how many their point defense systems destroyed before they impacted, the stream of kamikaze ships didn’t stop. The explosions were definitely nuclear and after a while it looked as if the whole Sirrien fleet was surrounded by a cauldron of nonstop nuclear fire like a miniature sun. Gradually, ship by ship, the Sirrien fleet vanished, but even so, the stream of suicide ships didn’t stop. As Mike had said, they wouldn’t stop until even the debris was blown to dust. Gradually, the horrifying spectacle vanished astern and six hours later, they were in range of the southern warp point. By now their small fleet was surrounded by the spiky looking asteroid yet none attacked. It got to the point where they couldn’t even see where they were going the cloud became so thick.

“I get the feeling they want us to stop, Skipper.”

“Yeah, I get the same impression. Cooper, signal to all ships to come to a stop and hold positions. No one is to fire on those ships, or whatever they are for any reason whatsoever.”

“I think they got that message already, Skipper,” Pete breathed. Just then, the hatch opened and in walked Jenks holding the strange cylinder.

“I think you’d better have a look at this.” He gingerly handed it to Mike.

“I’ll be dammed.” He held it up so the rest of the bridge could see it. The scrolling red letters had changed and now read:

“…welcome to the Harmony, Captain Michael Gray of His Majesty’s Royal Navy…”

“Skipper, I’m registering a tachyon build up… there’s a ship entering,” Jan called.

“Now what?” They didn’t have long to wait, as the cloud of
Harmony
ships opened up to permit the passage of a huge ship.

“Oh… my… lord!”

“I see it, Jan. That’s similar to the phantom ship we encountered in
n
th
space a while back.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the same one.” As she said it, the main viewer came online and they were looking in on the “bridge” of the
Harmony
ship once again except in real time now. The regal-looking alien still sat on the throne-like chair with the same attendants fussing around. A very human looking being stepped forward and bowed.

“Captain Gray. My Queen has ordered me to formally welcome you home. It has been many years since she last saw you and humbly wishes you to attend her, here aboard her ship.”

“Umm… tell her I am honored that she remembers me… but, no thanks are needed. What we did for her we would do for any ship in distress…” The being turned and spoke to the being on the throne, who had to be the queen he spoke of. He turned back.

“With respect, honored Captain. You have to understand, you are now part of the
Harmony
, and the
Harmony
is you.” Mike sat back, stunned, and for a moment was unable to say a word. In all the tales, he’d heard about the
Harmony
, there was nothing remotely like this.

“If you would be so kind, my Queen would be honored if you would agree to come aboard and meet with her.” Talk about an offer you couldn’t refuse. If he said no, would they let him and his fleet depart? Surrounded as they were, there was no way they could jump before they were destroyed.

“Please tell her I would be honored to meet her… how should I come aboard?”

“A small shuttle will be dispatched to pick you up. May it land on your ship?”

“By all means. The rear docking bay will be open for its arrival.” The being bowed again and turned to relay his message.

“You have the Conn, Number One.”

“If you say so, Skipper.” Standish-Owen blew out his cheeks and raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do if they don’t let you come back, Mike.”

“We are both in the same boat, so to speak. I have nothing to go on here.”

“Let’s just hope they stay friendly, is all I can say.”

“See you in a while… I hope.” Saying that, he left the bridge to change.

He had no way of knowing if the queen would be impressed with his dress uniform, but he put it on any way. Jenks looked none too pleased as he fussed around unhappy he wasn’t going.

“You look after yourself over there, Sarge. You know how these alien types can get unfriendly.”

“Stop fussing. You’re like a mother hen with one egg.”

“Bloody well stand still while I brush you off. You’re taking your sidearm, right?”

“Fat lot of good that would do me over there in a ship full of suicidal aliens.”

The
Harmony
shuttle turned out to be nothing more than a six-foot high sphere with a flat bottom. Besides the odd glow that surrounded the ship, there was nothing to show how it was propelled. He stepped in and the hatch closed behind him without a sound. There was one seat in the cramped interior, and the moment he sat, the craft was in motion. There was nothing to see inside except the softly glowing curved hull, no controls, and no view screen until the area in front of him cleared to show outside space. Just at the edge of his hearing there was a sound rather like wind as it moved through the trees. Soft and soothing. Even a cursory look showed that this technology was way beyond anything he’d ever seen, which was curious considering how poorly designed the fusion drive on the phantom ship had been.