He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (37 page)

“I hate to say it, Skipper, but is that wise?”  Pete muttered softly.  Mike shot him a hard look.

“Look, we spent a week putting that visibility coating on this ship, and consequently lost the opportunity to get those fighter, so let put the damn stuff to a real test.”  Pete looked uncertain.

“And if it's not as good as we think it is against military grade sensors?”

“Then at least we will have tried, and found out just how good it isn’t.”  Even as he said it, he knew he was wrong, but was loathed to say it.

“Aye-aye, Skipper,” Pete looked dubious, but other than direct disobedience he was bound to follow his Captain’s orders, “shall I set course for the Sirrien space?”

“No, Pete.  You are right even if you didn’t say it.”  Seeing Pete smile slightly.  “We need to look at our options first before we go charging in there.”  Being all ‘gung ho’ and charging straight in wasn’t what was needed right now, and he knew it.

“Aye, aye, Skipper.”

“As much as I dislike hanging around sitting around with my thumb up… well you know.   We… I need to take a step back and consider our options.”  Pete didn’t have to say anything, just his expression told Mike he approved.  Mike motioned him closer and leaned over. “In future, Mr. Standish-Owen, if you think I’m wrong, or disagree with my decision, please tell me. As first officer it’s your duty to kick me in the butt once in a while to wake me up.”  Pete looked at him a moment before a slight smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

“Aye-aye, Captain.”  He replied formally.  Your wish is my command.”

“Good.  Now we have that settled, let figure out what our options are.  Take Jan and head down to the Wardroom, and put your heads together. 

Pete and Jan did just that, and sat in the Wardroom and brainstormed possibilities, without the distracting of having to put part of their attention on the duties on the Bridge.  People came and went to get snacks or coffee but left to the alone in the corner working over a holographic display of the local warp points and the systems beyond.  In all, they send almost a whole watch going over one possibilities after another before reporting back to the Bridge with the findings.

“What are our options?”  Asked as they came back onto the Bridge and over to his command chair.

“Not many, Skipper,” Pete sighed, “we know the Sirriens are on the other side of Elders World warp point, and all the other major WP in this region, and will probably have them covered in depth, so that lets them out.”

“True.  So what else do we have?”  Pete turned his head and looked an Jan.

“As far as I can see, Skipper, we only have one option, and that is the Excelsior system.  It’s a dead star just outside Sirrien space with one of it warp point leading back into the system on the other side of the Elders World WP.  We could try sneaking in thought their back door, so to speak.”

“Somewhere in there I hear a caveat.”  Jan slighted slightly and looked down at the floor a moment.  “Come on Jan, out with it.”  In answer, she swung his side screen around and tapped in a few commands. 

  “Here the caveat, Skipper.”  She used a laser pointer to indicate the exit point of the jump.

“Ohhh I see.”  Mike murmured as he looked at the screen.  “It dumps us out at the edge of the systems Kuiper belt.”

“Yes, Skipper.  This WP is a wild one, much like Enright’s warp point in the Sol system.”  Mike nodded in understanding, calculating the risk and distance involved to get inside the systems itself.

“If we took a direct rout, which we can’t, that would give us about a six week run in real time to this Star base.

“That’s if his information is correct.”

“It should be, sir.  Our charts show the warp point he used, this one,” she highlighted the Elders World warp point.  “But we don’t have any information in our database about the actual location of the Star base on the other side.”

“Understandable.  The Sirriens aren’t about to newsfax about it or any information if they can help it.”  Pate murmured.

“True, sir, but you would have expected someone, a Voss trader, or another freighter Captain would have logged it in.”

“Unless this is new, and none of the shipping lines that trade with us, trade with the Sirriens as well.”

“Whatever the reason the Admiralty doesn’t know about this Star base is beside the point, which means three things.  One, we have to go into the system and verify it’s there.  Second, find out if those fighters are there, third, figure out a way to destroy them.”  Mike sat back in his chair, looking pensive.

“Agreed, sir.”  The both nodded.  “But you might add, a four.”

“A fourth?”

“Yes, sir.  Finding a way back out of the star systems without getting as collective assess shot off.”  He smiled.

“You have a point there, Number One.”

“So, we all agree that this is our best option is to use this warp point and sneak in the back door?” Mike queried.

“With due caution.”  Pete scratched his chin.

“Go on, Pete, what are you thinking.”

“Well, sir.  If we have to assume the Sirriens know about this WP, they must have some sort of surveillance system watching it, either a small patrol ship, if they have enough.  Or a remote sensor platform.”

“Point taken.  We’ll have to put a drone through first and see what we have.”

“And then?”

“Play it by ear when we get there.  I’m sure a solution with present itself.”  Mike smiled, seeing Pete’s look.  “Cheer up, Number One.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“Jan, let’s call this, Warp point Zulu and plot me a course to get us there in the minimum of time.  But to be on the safe side, let’s make our drop out point two light days short of the Kuiper belt and 25 degrees above the plane of eclipse.”

Even with the buffer of two light days, their exit point put them smack between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.  Is region of the star system beyond the planets, extending from thirty
AU
to approximately fifty
AU
from the
Sun
.
It is similar to the
asteroid belt
, but it is far larger.  Twenty times as wide and twenty to two hundred times as massive.
Like the asteroid belt, it consists mainly of
small bodies
, or remnants from the Solar System's formation. Although some asteroids are composed primarily of
rock
and metal, most Kuiper belt objects are composed largely of frozen
volatiles
, such as
methane
,
ammonia
and water.  The Oort cloud on the other hand is a spherical cloud of predominantly
icy
planetesimals
that is believed to surround the
Sun
at a distance up to 50,000
AU
, nearly a
light-year
.  It was risky, and there were no guaranty that they would run into celestial debris when exiting.  They’d have to exit with their untested shields a maximum and hope they didn’t run into anything bigger than they could handle, like a planetoid.  The worse fear of all was exiting in exactly the same place as some existing object.  As the physics said, no two objects could occupy the same space at the same time.   Mutual annihilation. 

“Aye-aye, sir.”  Jan answered after taking a deep breath.  She knew as well as Mike the risk they were taking.

Despite the cool air flowing through the Bridge, there was a sheen of sweat on everyone upper lips and Mike gave the order to proceed with the jump. Not because of the jump itself, as they were all old hands at that by now.  No, it was the uncertainty of what lay at the exit point that worried most.  Even Mike, who was trying the play the unemotional sphinx, even put his stoic view of life to the test.  One wrong decimal point, one wrong number inputted…if that was the dace, it was doubtful they would even know if they interspace with something.  The event would be over before the human mind had time to register the fact.   Four days after jumping from the Southern jump point from Enders World the exited back into normal space with hardly a jolt.  Sensors did register several small objects hitting the shields but there was nothing in the immediate vicinity to threaten them.   For a second, it sounded as if a gust of wind swept through the Bridge as everyone let out their pent up breath at the same time.

“Thank the lord for small mercies.”  Janice muttered.

“Amen to that.”  Gable echoed.

As it turned out, the Sirriens didn’t have a watch on this oddball warp point.  Why world they, who’d be crazy enough to jump out in the middle of the Kuiper belt/Oort cloud in the first place.  Only mad dogs and Englishmen would do something as craze as that.  Even this close, relatively speaking, Mike ordered they proceed with their passive or active sensor at full power, as even at the slow speed they could still run into something their shield couldn’t handle.  They ghosted towards the systems primary, and after a week, they entered the upper edge of the Kuiper belt and went to passive sensors only.  It was still nerve wracking, and Pete requested they change helmsman on a hourly basis.  Mike agreed, seeing the look on Sally Goldman’s face even after a short time.  It wasn’t so much about what she could see, but what she couldn’t.  The passive sensor array only gave her so much warning before she had to dodge around something larger than the ship’s shields could handle.  Eventually, they exited the Kuiper belt with only a few near misses, and Mike brought the ship to a standstill at the Heliopause, its bow pointing towards the GO star, 123
astronomical units
away at the system center.  With their position above the plane of eclipse, they couldn’t examine much of the systems, but not as well as if they’d come in by the normal WO point above or below the star.  There they could have ‘looked’ down, or up, depending on your point of view, at the North or South warp point.

“Helm - All stop.”

Aye-aye, sir. All stop.”

Fast, slow and standstill are all relative tern when speaking of interstellar or intersolar interaction. Even though they were at a standstill relative to their forward motion, the ship was still moving in relationship to the spin of the system.   Even at one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles per second, the speed of light, it still took twelve hours before the light, and information arrived at the ships sensors.  An active tachyon pulse would have been quicker, with an almost instantaneous return echo, but if the Sirrien sensor tech were on their toes, they would pick it up. Mike considered the risk for a moment. 

“Jan, take a sweep across the system in 30
o
increments.  One low powered ‘ping’ each time.”  At this distance it shouldn’t set off any alarms.”  Or so he hoped.  The passive data was too slow, and by the time it arrive it was woefully out of date, even for the relatively ‘fix’ objects such as the planets. Any ships they saw would be long gone with no way to tell if they had changed course.

Jan ‘pinged’ six times to get a 180
o
wide sweep of the system with the long-range tachyon radar, but it did fill in the immediate gaps in the passive sensor reading.  It was much as the Voss told them, except for all the warships in system.  Somehow, the Suritan had forgotten to tell them about those.  This system boasted six planets, including one Jovian, one Mercury type planet and two planets in the ‘Cinderella’ zone.  This gave the Sirriens access to a plentiful supply of fuel on one hand, and heavy metals from the Mercury class planet on the other and two nice sunny vacations spots.  Like Earth’s system, this one sported a large asteroid belt in an orbit that might at one time have supported an Earth class planet.  Occasionally, the sensors registered a tachyon search pulse as it brushed over them, but it didn’t immediately come back, so they probably registered as nothing more than a lump of rock. Their shape helped, as it didn’t conform to any know ship in the Sirrien database, and that was without using Gable’s new cloak system.

“What do we have Jan?”

“Bit of a mixed bunch, Skipper.  No heavy units above a Battleship, lots of destroyer and frigates, and quite a few inter-systems patrol boats and shuttles.”

“And the space station?”

“Typical spinning top configuration and more like a commercial/industrial station than an OWP… oh… wait.  I have a space mirror furnace unit coming into view.”

“Are har!  That means they have an orbiting shipyard.” Pete added.

“Could be, OX.  We’ll know more once we have a look on the other of the star.”

“Helm - give up a hard shove and put us on a ballistic curve to put us well above the plain of eclipse.”

“Aye-aye, Skipper - a hard shove it is.”

“Not exactly the proper naval parlance for such a maneuver,” Pete laughed, “but I guess it serves the purpose.”  Mike shrugged.

“I suppose there is a proper naval term for doing that, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head - helm, once we are moving in the right direction, give us a slight spin and a very slow tumble.”

“Aye-aye, sir, a spin, and a tumble it is.”

“Jan - set the screens to compensate so we keep looking towards where the station is.”

“Aye, sir.”  He didn’t need to tell her to sing out if anything took any notice of them.

“So, we make like a wandering rock.”

“Right.  Nothing here of interest, just us rocks wandering through the systems. But we need to get a better look at what’s on the other side of the system and fill in the gaps behind the sun and the planets and find out if they have any OWP.”

“But it’s a bit of a risk,” Pete rubbed the whiskers on he normally clean-shaven chin, “you think there might be an orbital weapons platforms, Skipper?”  Pete asked.

“I don’t know Pete.  There seems to be an awful lot of warships and activity in this out of the way system, and I have to ask myself the question of why.”

They didn’t ping as they went, as tempting as it was for a quick update, but the risk someone would spot it was too great.  Mostly, the trip was safe and boring, but Mike wasn’t taking any chances of getting surprised by some Eagle eyed sensor tech.  Hopefully, their initial drive flare would be lost against the background of the Oort cloud.  In all, it took eleven days to reach the position and fill in the blanks.  They weren’t any more surprises hidden behind the sun, or the planets.  The only thing added was more information on the huge space station and the orbiting solar mirror.   From their new vantage point, they could see a massive complex surrounding the solar furnace, with naval dockyard, finishing docks for both air and space, including several small OWP as well as a good size fleet of war ships on guard and roving picket ships.  Between watches, Mike, Pete and Jan gathered in the Wardroom to discuss what they’d seen.

“Whatever is going on here makes me feel nervous, Mike.”

“You and me both.  This has way too much activity for just a trading station, even with the orbiting dockyards.

“It’s more like a major ship building program to me.”  Jan added.

“Yes, but to what purpose… unless the Sirriens are planning to go to war.”

“If that’s the case, who are they going to go to war against?”

“We know from Naval Intelligence that the Sirriens have at least three major fleets built around a superdreadnaught.  We also have additional information that they have several smaller fleets centered around either dreadnaughts, or Battleships.”

“That’s an awful lot of fire power for a star system supposedly at peace with its neighbors.”

“True and why go to the bother of stealing fighter craft?”  Pete asked.

“We… the Royal Navy that is, don’t have the corner on light attack craft.  The Confederate and the Union Navy of the two American star systems respectively have their own LAC development programs.”

“That’s not to say the Sirriens didn’t get information on our latest version and wanted a couple to study.”

“There was one oddity I noted, Skipper, but at the time I didn’t think it worthwhile bring up.”

“Go on, Jan.”

“Well, their solar furnace was recycling a lot of old ships, freighter mostly, and a few older version warships.”  That sat all three back in their seats as they thought about the implications.

“Not unusual.”  Pete said at length, “but still.”  Jan suddenly sat upright in her seat.

“What?”  Mike asked.

“Mike, remember that lecture we had about England retaining the secret of how to make Ag plates?”