He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (57 page)

“First, let me say that I am very impressed with your ship.  She is definitely something out of the ordinary.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

“I can see your crew is equally impressive, and I hope you all have a long and successful career ahead of you.”  He saluted them with his glass, then cleared his throat.  “So, let’s get down to business, gentlemen.”  He said, accepting a refill.  “Your Captain has come up with a wild ass idea, and the King has agreed.”

“My lord!  I didn’t expect an answer this fast, Admiral.”

“Speed is of the essence here, Mike, and a certain degree of secrecy.”

“I understand that, sir, and so does everyone one here.”

“Good, as of now, you will maintain radio silence, no communication what-so-ever.”

“That’s going to be a bit difficult, sir, the picket ships and patrol vessels are going to query me.”

“Not if you new shielding does what it's supposed to.”

“And what are we doing, sir?”

“Your orders are, to leave this system without anyone knowing you are gone.  As far as the rest of the fleet, and anyone else, you are on an extended patrol to map the Oort cloud for possible Sirrien surveillance ships.”

“Sound like a good cover story.”

“I hope so,”  He looked around the table for a moment, then took a deep breath.  “Your actual mission is to go to Avalon and deliver a letter, as we discussed, Mike.”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”  Seeing the puzzled looks around the table.”

“You can fill your crew in as to what the letter is about once you have cleared Earth space.”

“Thank you, sir, I hate keeping my crew in the dark about a mission.”

“I understand, and a good policy it is.  The second part of your mission might be more difficult.”  Mike could almost hear the ‘Here it comes!’ from the rest of the group.

“Certain parties want you to find a way to get to the other side of the Enright warp point and see if you can find a way to use it to get back to Earth.”

“Oh my!”  Janice muttered, looking up at the deckhead as if pleading with God.  He held up his hand to forestall the question.

“I know, it's off limits from this side due to the binary star on the other side, but it's also the one warp point we know the Sirriens aren’t monitoring.”

“And if we can find a way through?”

“We know that Enright did find a way back through the WP, but we are hoping that a complete study of what’s on the other side, might just give us a clue as to how we might use it from this side.  If you can find a way through, then you are to use it and head for Sol and report to me.”

“That might take some time, sir, there are no maps beyond Enright’s warp, and no way of knowing how we’d get there.”

“True, and you, I hope, will be the first.”

That brought silence around the table, as each thought of the possibilities.  It was an uncharted region, and as yet, no one had been able to find a warp jump from anywhere that took them to the binary star system.  The only thing they had to go on was one poorly defined spectral analysis that Enright took before he came back.

“Any M class planets you encounter and map will be credited to you, at least in the end they will.”

“I understand, sir, even if we do find any, no one can know until this trouble is over.”

“Yes, and I have no way of knowing when that will be.”

“If we can find a way through, Admiral, it will give the Navy an edge that the Sirriens won’t know about.”

“And that might just come in handy in the future.”

“We’ll give it our best shot, Admiral.”  Mike spoke for all of them.

“I know you will, and if you can’t find a way through, don’t worry about it, just find your way back here by any route.   Also, make sure you cover your tracks and get that message to your home world first.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”  Admiral Rawlings took a pouch out of his blouse and handed it to Mike.

“Here are you sealed orders, Captain.  As of this moment, you are, by the direct authorization of his Majesty the King, hereby empowered to use your weapons on any and all ships of any nation that impede the success of your mission.  Good luck, God’s speed and good hunting to you all.”  The Admiral lifted his glass in a salute.  The Admiral then departed as quickly as possible, probably to get back to the H.M.S. ‘Victoria’ before his absents was noted.  As he sat in the rear cabin of the shuttle, Admiral Rawlings looked at the black dagger shaped ship one last time before she quickly vanished into the background of stars.  He smiled slightly, and gave a small sigh, wishing he were a junior Leftenant again and going with them.  It didn’t occur to him to wonder if he’d see them again, he knew he would.  No matter what else Mike might be, he got the job done no matter what.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

“So, what do we have, Gable?”  Mike asked as he set course for the outbound trip.

“I’m still trying to work that out, sir, according to the material that I was given, the new coating can be polarized in several different ways.”

“Explain.”

“According to this, and from what Gable told me, we can polarize it two ways, sort of positive and negative, natural, and partial by varying the amount of electrical charge.”

“A dimmer switch as it were?”

“That’s a simple way of putting it, Skipper, but accurate.”

“So, how do we test it?”

“Send a shuttle out and see what she picks up?”

“Sound about right.” 

Twenty minutes later they launched a Marines scout, as these had the best detection equipment aboard.  Gable went with them to work the equipment, and standing off at 1200 hundred nautical miles he reported in.

“Have a clear view of you on my scope, Skipper.”

“You want to go out to Max detection range?”

“Not yet, sir, let’s see what happened at this distance first.”

“I copy that, activating shielding, now.”  He nodded to Adam, standing by the control panel.

“Oops, you just vanished, sir.”

“Good, come slowly back on your reverse heading until you begin to pick us up.”

“Copy that, Skipper.”

“Can you see the shuttle, Janice?”

“Yes, sir, clear as a bell.”

“Call off the range as she comes in.”

“Aye, sir, calling range – 1000, 925, 875 - 825 - 700.”

“Christ, they’ll be in optical range in a moment!”  Pete swore.

“Gable, can you see us?”

“No, sir, not even on visual yet.”

“675 - 650 - 625 - 600.”

“Wait - now I can see you, well, sort of.”

“550 nautical miles, sir, and closing.”

“If I didn’t know you were there, sir, I doubt if anyone could really see you.”

“400 miles, sir.”

“Keep coming, Gable until you can see us clearly.”

“475 - 450 -425 -300.”

“Now I’ve got identification, but still not distinct, even at maximum magnification, you look like a lumpy cigar shaped asteroid.”

“375 - 350 - 325.”

“Now it’s getting suspicious, Skipper.”  He paused for a moment, then.  “Now I have a positive identification on you, Skipper, I can positively ID you as a ship.”

“Anything on your scope yet?”

“No, sir, still blank.”

“So, even a missile launch at this distance would have to be optical only.”

“Yes, sir, and that would be a hit or miss affair.”  Janice answered.

“They’d have to do a widespread torpedo launch, sort of F&F, fire and forget and hope they hit something.”  Pete put in.

“Just like the old subs use to do before homing torpedoes, calculate where the enemy ships would be and fire at that location and hope they don’t turn or speed up.”

“Anything else. Skipper?”  Gable asked.

“No, Janice, switch off - Gable, tell the pilot to bring her in.”

“Aye-aye, sir - now I can see you.”  Once the shuttle was aboard and they were on their way again Mike called a conference in the Wardroom.

“All right people, we now have some data to work with, now let’s start working on ways to use it.”

“We also need to do a time trial run with the new drive, Skipper.”

“Yes, I agree, Janice, pick out a course for us to follow with some fixed way points to measure against.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Now the question is, how do we go about finding and penetrating Enright’s warp point without, I might add, getting ripped apart in the process.”  Gable put in.

“We won’t really know that, Gable, until we get to it from the other side and find out if there a way around that binary star.”

“True, sir, just thought I’d ask.”

“How many scout torps do we have, Pete?”

“Sixteen, sir.”

“That does give us a few options.”

“The Admiralty tried that originally, sir, and lost every torp they sent through.”

“Yes, I know, I read up on the data the Admiral included in the package, and that was going the other way, and what little there was, and it wasn’t much help.  But Enright did get back, so there is that.  It’s our job to find a way to use it both ways.”

“Any ideas, Skipper?”

“That depends on
if
we can find that binary Star System, and what we find when we get there.  A star that size should have other warp points, and might lead us home another way.”

“Unless they’ve all ready been sucked into the black hole.” Gable added.

“We’ll know when we get there.  Once we do, I’d like to send one or two scout torps through at different point of the event horizon, say one from the very edge and another from the center and see where it goes, and what happens.”

“The angular effect might throw us somewhere instead of the center.  It’s a pity we don’t know exactly where Enright went in.”  Pete looked at Gable.  His face looked like a priest at the funeral of his best friend.

“Cheer up Gable, we’ll find a way through.”

“I have the feeling the gravitational pull on the other side warps the gravitational line, and no matter where you start from, the only place you can end up is between them.”  Gable looked glummer than his usual mournful self.

“Would speed make a difference?”

“How do you mean, Skipper?”

“Say going into the warp point at point .5 light and hitting the warp generators?”  Mike said, looking around the group.

“It’s worth a try, Skipper, don’t think they tried that that as they didn’t have that powerful engines at the time.”

“Can you get a torp up to point .5 light or better, Adam?”