He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (69 page)

“Let's just hope we don’t end up doing the same thing he did and having one named after us.”  It was a sobering thought.  The universe held many nasty surprises for the unwary.

After dropping back out of warp at the outer edge of a minor star system, they cruised in and down in a clockwise spiral to the Stars Southern WP at a leisurely pace.  Gradually, they settled back into the normal ships running routine, keeping busy with make work jobs, or catching up on some reading.  Mike even took to reading a book at his Command station, feeling comfortable enough in command now to do it.

“Excuse me interrupting, Sir, but I’m definitely getting an echo on the long range sensor, and I don’t think it's a ghost.”  Ensign Cooper announced in a soft, hesitant voice.  It sounded as if she was worried about disturbing him or the XO.  Pete Standish looked over at her sensor position.

“Is that a report, Ensign Cooper, or are you trying to make casual conversation?”  Mike turned his head and looked the other way to cover his smile.

“No, sir, it was a report.”

“Then sing out Ensign Cooper, let’s hear it so everyone knows what’s going on.”

“Yes, sir, I mean aye-aye, sir.”  Then she said nothing, and just sat there fiddling with a consult control.”

“Well, Ensign Cooper?”

“Pardon, sir?”  She asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Well, do you have something to report, or not?” Pete asked, sounding a little irritated.

“Um, no, sir, I thought I did, but it's gone now.”  Her voice was even softer and nervous sounding now.

Mike looked at the board and as far as he could tell the scope was clear out to two light seconds.  The information on the main board was an accumulation of information from all three sensor units, short, medium and long range.  There was a small amount of drift echoes from dust particles, micro meteors and small bits of debris. Dust and small meteorites did fall into their wake and tended to stay with them for a while, and could give false readings.

“Helm, hard a-port 90 degrees in 10 seconds on my mark!”  Mike barked.

“Aye, Skipper, helm, ready.”  Cindy Loftland answered. Pete Standish looked over his shoulder, a puzzled expression on his face.

“All hands!  Stand by for hard port turn in ten second, on my mark!”

“Mark!”  His eye automatically flicked to the digital readout on his display and watched it count down.

“Executing hard a-port, Skipper.” The Nemesis heeled over and came round onto the new heading.

“What do you see, Cooper?”  Mike called.

“There’s definitely something back there now.”  She called back in excitement.

“What’s back there, Ensign?”  Pete asked.

“Oh, I mean I have an echo from three unidentified ships, sir.”  Her voice was stronger now.

“That’s better, Copper.” Pete said softly.

“Range and heading?” Mike asked.

“Range 1400 nautical miles on a heading of 135.868 by 343.776.”

“Looks like we picked up some unwanted company, Pete.”

“Seems so, sir, but how on Earth did you figure that out.”

“Naval history Mr. Standish.”  Mike chuckled.  Pete swung his seat round and gave him an ‘Oh really!’ sort of look.

“I see.”  Clearly at a loss.

“True, Pete, I read that enemy subs use to hide in the drive wake of another sub-where they couldn’t be seen.  Sub-Captain’s had a habit of turning suddenly to port or starboard to try and catch them, sometimes called ‘Crazy Ivan’ because the Russians were the first to use it.”

“Whatever, Skipper, it worked, now what do we do?”

“Can you get any identification on those ships, Copper?”

“Wait one, checking the computer index, sir.”  She answered immediately.  Mike noted that she didn’t have any trouble speaking when her mind was on something else.

“The computer had given me several options at this range, sir, but I’d have to say they look like Sirrien long range patrol vessels or frigates, sir.”  Pete stood up and walked over, looking at the same data.  He then turned back to Mike and shrugged.

“Can’t tell, Skipper.”

“I’ll go with Cooper’s assessment.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“XO, sound battle station and beat to quarters if you please.”

“Aye, sir, beating to quarters, it is.” As he said it, Ensign Cooper turned and looked at him, a surprised look on her face, as if wondering if she was wrong.  The alarm sounded, and the orderly stampede began, even as the XO picked up the mike.

“The is the XO, this is not a drill, I say again, this is not a drill, all stations close up.”  People started pouring onto the Bridge, immediately heading for the suit locker and their battle armor.

“Leftenant Fielding, as soon as you are dressed, take over on weapons.”  Mike ordered as he saw Janice heading to the suit locker.

“Aye, sir, weapon station, it is.”  She answered, shooting Mike a quick look as she altered direction.

Conner Blake arrived right behind her, and the moment he finished dressing dropped into the standby helmsman position.  Cindy Loftland passed the control to him and ran for her locker.  As was his habit now, Mike waited until everyone else was in their armor before moving to don his.  This way all stations were fully manned and ready for combat.  When they were, he donned his battle armor.

“Seal the ship, Number One.”  Called over his shoulder.

“Aye, sir, sealing ship.”  The two Marines took up their posts, checking the Bridge hatchway the moment it closed. Mike kept one eye on the battle tank as he dressed, thinking of the possible course of action.

“Cooper, what do we have out there?”  He asked, forgetting for a moment.

“Pardon, sir?”  She asked, sounding confused.

“Sorry, my fault, what celestial anomalies do we have around here?”  If he’s asked Janice that question she would have instinctively known what he meant.

“Oh, yes, sir, um, not much, sir.”

“Tell me what you have, Ensign.”  He said patiently.

“There’s nothing much in the way of an asteroid belt, and just a meteor swarm 1800 miles off our Starboard quadrant… oh, and a small dust cloud dead ahead at 1500 miles, sir.”

“Um, not much to work with.”

“Why not just vanish, Skipper?”  Pete asked.

“I don’t want to make it that obvious that we can, Pete.”

“Right, of course.”

“Damn,” Pete muttered, “wish we’d picked them up before we dropped so far into the gravity well.”

“This system has an unusually thick Oort cloud, Captain.”

“Put it up on the screen, Cooper.”  She did, and Mike and the OX studied it for a moment, both doing time/distant calculations.

“If we alter course right now, and go to flank speed, we should be able to get there before those ships are in weapons range even if they do cut the cord.”  By altering course back towards the Oort cloud, they gave the pursuing ships a chance to cut across inside their curved course and cut them off.  The one thing they had going for them was the Nemesis unusual turn of speed.  The enemy would expect them to be able to go that fast.

“It’ll be damn close, Pete.”

“It’s either that, or a three to one fight.”

“Not good odds out here.  Let's run for it to where we can even the odds.”

“Aye, sir.  Helm, increase speed to flank and set course towards the Oort cloud.”

“Flank it is, sir.” 

“Cooper, what are our dance partner’s doing?”

“Our who?... Oh the Sirriens… um, as expected, they are cutting across.”

“Good, at least we know it's not just coincidence or a ghost echo now.”

“Jan, confirm that all tubes are loaded and standing by.”

“Aye-aye, sir - confirming.”

“Gable, the moment we enter cloud, shields up and cloak.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“That should confuse them.”

“Right - Helm.  The moment we cloak, I want sharp, half a rotation and come to a stop.  Hopefully they’ll think we went straight in and follow.”

“And then?”

“Then we reverse course and head smartly for the Southern warp point.  By the time they figure out they’ve lost us, we’ll be a few light years away.”

It went just as Mike thought.  As far as the three Sirrien patrol ships were concerned, the Nemesis had entered the Oort cloud and simply vanished.  The long range sensor showed them circling around as if searching, but by that time the Nemesis was out of range.   At one point, Cooper reported the three Sirrien ships were heading back towards the northern warp point.  Even so, Mike waited another three hours before moving back onto his original course.

“Stand down from battle station, Number One.”

“Aye-aye, Skipper, standing down.”  Mike pulled the sudden port or starboard turn several times after that, but there was no sign of anything behind them.

There next jump took them to another uninteresting binary star systems with no warp points at the first star, other than the one they’d just exited.  It was either back, or move to the other star.  This meant they had to pull back out of the gravity well before they could micro jump the short, five light year distance to the other star. After that the boredom set in as the days rolled by, yet everyone kept busy.  Feeling restless, Mike read for a while, and finding his coffee pot empty, wandered down to the Wardroom for a refill.  To his surprise, he found Jan still up, snuggled into a corner on the couch, reading.

“What you reading?”  He asked, walking in.

“I’m taking your advice and catching up on all the Naval History I missed in class.”  She chuckled.

“You didn’t miss much.”

“Oh, you know what, I forgot to thank you for dropping the book on the floor.”

“Book, floor?... oh yes, I remember now, I was falling asleep myself, and had to do something.”  He answered.

“Right, so you didn’t do it for me, huh?”

“Well, sort of.”  He grinned at her.

“Did you have a good shore leave, Skipper?”  She asked innocently.

“Yes, wonderful, full of surprising events.”

“Oh?  Anything you can talk about?”  Her innocent smile wouldn’t have melted butter.

“Not unless you are a pervert and interested in the dalliances of your Captain.”

“Ummm, rather not, Skipper.”  She giggled. “From what I’ve heard so far, both the male and female members of this crew had quite a number of erotic encounters.”

“What do you think of our Ensign Cooper, Jan?”  Mike asked, changing the subject.  He could feel his ears starting to get red.

“She’s a little shy, but a whiz at sensors.”  Mike nodded. “I wondered why you shifted me to weapons the other day, now I see.”

“You have any problem with me shifting you over and letting her have some of the watches?”

“Good God, no. It’s clear where her forte’ is, and I’m comfortable at weapons.”