He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (32 page)

“Take a look, Number One, and let me know what you think.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“You might want to work on a similar one for battle conditions.”

“Will do, Skipper.  We need to get that sorted out in the very near future.”

“To say the least, otherwise we’ll get caught with our pants down.”

Two days later, Adam reported that he had a device to try out, and without and fanfare or telling operations, he had Adam launched a small torp out of the stern tube. For a moment, nothing happened, and it didn’t detonate until it reached a distance of several thousand yards.

“Yikes!  I have a faint reading of an unidentified ship behind us just off the port quarter, bearing 178.786 by 132.903 on the same course, and heading, Skipper.” Janice reported, and Adam chuckled delightedly.  Janice gave him a dark scowl that threatened pain in his future if he was playing one of his jokes on her.

“That’s it, Skipper.”

“You sure?”  Mike asked.

“Yes, sir, I’m sure it’s my device.”

“What are you seeing, Janice?”

“Sir, it’s a little vague, but I’m reading something the size of a Destroyer back there!”  Mike walked over to the tactical station and looked over the Jan’s shoulder.

“What have you got?”

“Iron, aluminum, plastic, heavy trace elements,” She pressed a few more keys, “The signature is a little confused, sir, but I’m reading organic as well.” Jan looked darkly at Adam again wondering how he’d managed to fool her sensors.

“Adam?”  Mike looked round at his engineering officer.

“That’s right, Skipper.”

“Can you get a lock and a firing solution on it?”  He asked, turning to Gable at the weapons consult.

“No, Sipper, the reading is too confused for that.”

“So, if we launched a torp or a missile at it?”

“It wouldn’t lock on, Skipper, sorry.”

“Damn!”  Adam muttered, the grin slipping from his face.

“Don’t go kicking yourself Adam, you’re onto something, you just have to make it hot enough for a missile or a torp to lock onto.”

“Hummm.  I thought I’d covered that.”

“What on Earth did you put in it to get a readout like that?”

“Oh, a little aluminum powder, iron oxide, some powdered wood, and cardboard, a few other bits of junk from the recycling unit and organic scrap from the galley all fixed in with water. I guess the solution is in the density of the material as it disperses.” Adam scratched the top of his head, making his hair more disarrayed than it already was. Pete still hadn’t got him to get a haircut.

“Nicely done, now it's just a question of giving the sensor and torps something more distinct to lock onto.”

“I need to go look at their programs and find out what they to lock onto now.”

“Good idea, and thanks, that was a great first effort.”

“Thanks, Skipper, I’m working with Gable on your smoke screen idea, and he thinks he might have a way to do it, or at least a way to make the ship invisible.”

“Really?  That would be fantastic.”  Mike though of the elusive cloaking shield so many have sort.  “See what you can come up with next.” 

“The closest anyone had come were the ECM and ECCM pod, but that didn’t really cloak the ship, just confused the missiles and torpedoes.”  Adam muttered absently, already lost in some calculation or other, and went wandering off the Bridge back to the engine room, still muttering to himself. Pete shook his head and watched him leave.

“Did I miss the ‘yes, sir, and a salute?”  He asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“I believe the intention and spirit was there, Number One.” 

In a way, Pete didn’t mind, as sometimes the naval protocol got in the way of good working relationships. Everyone on board was comfortable, working their tails off on everything, as Mike Gray had the knack of bringing the best out in people without the need for a lot of heavy handed dedication to Naval regulations. Unlike so many Captain’s he’d served under, so he said nothing. As a junior officer on several ships, he often wondered, what it would be like to serve on a ship that wasn’t so dedicated to all the niceties of naval rules, and regulation.  Now he knew and liked it. Even so, as OX it was his job to maintain discipline, even on a ship like this.  They reached their first destination on the third day, but Mike still had to wait another eight hours before the time lock on his orders ran out. The moment it did, he passed him thumb over the bio lock on the pad and read them.

“Jesus H. Christ!”  He muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

There was no actual signature, and even as he watched, the orders erased themselves from the pad.

“I’ll be damned!”  Now there was nothing to prove he even had orders to proceed, and if caught, Earth Gov. and the Royal Navy could honestly deny any knowledge of him or his mission. 

They’d could claim he was a renegade and stolen the ship.  His orders made sense in many ways.  This ship didn’t exist in any Royal Naval archives, and rather like a ghost ship, she could be anything she wanted.  Rather than announce it over the ship’s intercom Mike called all available crew to the Marine deck.  Except for the Bridge and engineering watch, everyone was there, but it was a tight squeeze to get everyone in.  They all looked at him expectantly as he entered.  The moment he did, someone of course had to call ‘Captain on deck’, and they all stood as he walked across and climbed on one of the still unpacked crates.

“At easy everyone, thank you all for coming, as I know some of you were catching up on your sleep after watch.”  That brought a few smiles, and a couple of yawns.  “What I have to say concerns you all, in so much as I’ve unseal my orders.”  In brief he told them what they contained, and what they were expected to do.  That brought a mixed reaction, running from laughter too solemn looks.

“What it means is.  As of now we are an armed mercenary ship, and we shall act accordingly.”

“In what way, Skipper?”  Janice Fielding asked.

“That means you put away all your nice neat naval uniforms and only wear civilian clothes from now on, the gaudier the better.”  The brought another round of laughter, as most looked a little scruffier than Naval Regulation requited.

“Hay, sound like a party to me!”  Someone threw in from the back row.”

“Keep it down people!”  Conner growled from behind him.

“We are going to make a few planet calls on our way in to gather information, and the more you can look and act like a rowdy bunch of mercs the better.”

“That doesn’t mean you let discipline slip!”  Conner barked.

“Again, the chief is right, any well run Merc ship would still maintain discipline, otherwise they be out of business in a hurry.”

“Will we be boarding these Voss trader ships, Skipper?”  Gable asked, looking at little dubious.

“Yes, I expect so, if necessary, why?”

“We might have trouble pulling in off, and no offense meant here, but we do have a lot of female crew.”

“The Marines will do any boarding, Gable, but a few women in the boarding party wouldn’t be out of place for a Merc ship.”

“I was thinking more of any ship to ship visual signals, sir.”  With the number of female rating on the Bridge at any one time, that might look suspicious.

“Good point.  Gable, narrow the field of view and lock it?”

“Aye, sir, no problem, and I think I’ve found a way to make us invisible as well, sir.”

“You have!  Great.”

“It’ll means painting the hull, sir.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, sir, to be totally effective, everything except the sensor plates and the drive units.”

The number of groans coming from the crew told Mike they didn’t much fancy doing that in space.  Working ex-hull in hard suits was hard at the best of time.

“Do we have the necessary supplies, Gable?”

“Aye, sir, it’s just a concoction of coating, iron oxides and titanium mesh, sir, nothing we can’t make up on aboard, or scrounge up on some class II or class III planet.

“Jan, we need somewhere to set down where we can pick up any supplies Gable needs and work on her.”

“Inhibition level?” She asked.

“Class Three or four would be better. We don’t want any local Customs Inspector looking at us too close,” he looked at Gable and saw him nod his head, “If necessary, just some backwater place where we can do it without arousing too much interest would be good.”

“I’ll get to work on it as soon as I get back to the Bridge, sir.”

What Gable came up with was a synthetic rubber compound in liquid form, mixed with an electronic signal absorbing material such as iron and aluminum ferrite oxide.  It wasn’t new, but an update of an old technology for aircraft and submarines.  What was new was the fact he sandwiched it over a thin layer of titanium mesh so he could polarize the mesh, or so he hoped.  This in turn would render the ship virtually invisible on command to most sensor suites.  Stealth was an important weapon for them, if Gable to get it to work.  Jan found a great place to set down on a small colony planet in the Signas System.  The inhabitants were more interested in eking out a living on an inhospitable planet than worry about the coming and going of any interstellar traffic.  Once a ship paid the landing fee, they could do pretty much whatever they wanted, within reason. Colonist tended to be a hardy lot and didn’t take kindly to unruly starship crew’s tearing up their planet.  The database showed they were friendly to Earth, but out here that didn’t mean much, they could be friendly with many people, some of whom might not be friendly to Earth.  Mainly they claimed neutrality in any disputes and made a perfect place for nefarious people to hide out for a while.  Other than paying the exorbitant landing fees, they locals left them entirely alone.  Just after breakfast the next day, the medical orderly came onto the Bridge with a tray in his hands.

“Sorry to interrupt, Skipper, as we are landing I got an update from the local planetary medical center, so everyone needs immune booster shots.”

“God, I hate those, everything tastes like an old sock for a week!”  Pete complained.

“You want to alien bug eating you from the inside out?”  Mike asked with a smile.

He hated them like everyone else, but understood the need.  He couldn’t very well refuse to have them either, even if they didn’t do him any good, as it would look bad to the rest of the crew.  The orderly took a blood sample, then gave each of them the shot, humming softly to himself while he did it.