He Who Dares: Book Three (25 page)

“Good god!” The admiral breathed, almost dropping his coffee cup. After Mike explained, the admiral looked pensive.

“I’m not sure what we can do about it at the moment, not with all the holes in our security system.”

“Oh… um… well,” Mike actually felt himself blush, “we don’t have to worry about that, sir. I sent her home.” Admiral Rawlings looked up, cocking an eyebrow, and scowled with displeasure.

“You what… where is her home? Good god, do you know what the Sirriens would do if they even got a whiff that she exists.” He growled. “They’d search every damn planet from here to the
Rift
to find her.”

“Not much chance of that, sir. She a long way away from here.”

“A long way…” he spluttered, “that’s not far enough… where is she?”

“Somewhere on her way to the Andromeda galaxy, sir.”

The admiral stopped and blinked. “Yes, I think that’s far enough way,” he said at last. “I can see why you sent her home, but I doubt that His Majesty's government will.”

“Who’s to know, sir?”

“True. There was nothing in your official report…” he murmured, “so other than, you, me, Rolly and your crew, she doesn’t exist, much like your ship, but it’s a pity we couldn’t get a look at some of her tech.”

“With that in mind, sir. I brought this back with me.” Saying that, Mike pulled out several chunks of hull plate from the alien ship and place them on the table. The admiral picked up one of the chunks and examined it.

“Light for its thickness, but?”

In answer, Mike picked up two bent bits, and as Adam had done found a straight edge where he could hold the two bits together. The moment they linked, he placed them on the table. The Admiral watched in amazement as the two pieces joined and folded out.

“I’ll be damned. How…”

“Exactly, sir. If the R&D people can figure out how that’s done, it would be a game changer as far as our ship construction is concerned.”

“You’re right, but take this and anything else you found with you and hand it over to the R&D boys and girls on Avalon. I don’t want these anywhere in-system where the Sirriens might get their sweaty hands on it.” Mike nodded in understanding.

“By the way, your warning about the virus was timely. It did arrive as you predicted, but we were ahead of the game and managed to stop it on many ships. We even managed to find a few double agents and turncoats in the fleet as well.”

“Good, it’s about time, sir.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we’ve eliminated all the Sirrien spies.”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to bring my ship in, sir?”

“Yes. The less people who know about, or see her, the better right now.”

“So what are your orders, sir?”

“As the… Lady Anne suggested. That you go to the palace as Captain Bear and pick up your Letter of Marque. I’d also like you to trail along behind the convoy as a rear guard until they are safely at their destination.” Mike noted that the admiral didn’t specify the destination. “Once you have done that, find a safe place to operate out of and start um… blockading Sirrien supply lines.”

“That’s a tall order with just one ship, Admiral.”

“Didn’t you just go to Avalon and order one hundred
Nemesis
class ships?”

Mike sat back in surprise. He never saw that one coming.

“But, sir. I don’t have the authority to do something like that.”

“As Leftenant Michael Gray of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, no. But what about as Captain Bear of the Mercenary ship,
Hemlock
?”

Mike closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt a massive headache coming on just thinking about the job of organizing a merc fleet.

“What… um… latitude would I have, sir?”

Admiral Rawlings smiled, “Do you remember the story, or history of Henry Morgan, Mike?”

“From what I can remember, there’s no real record of Morgan before 1655. He later said that he left school early and was
more used to the pike than the book.
" Alexandre Exquemelin, Morgan's surgeon at Panama, says that he was indentured in Barbados. Yes, I remember reading that somewhere.”

The admiral answered, “Morgan later sued the publishers and Exquemelin for libel after he was acquitted of piracy and was awarded £200. Exquemelin was forced to retract his statement and reprint the subsequent editions with a disclaimer that all characters in his book were fictional and bore no relationship to any person, living or dead. We still have that little bit of history in the front of fiction books today.”

“I see, but what has Henry Morgan got to do with me?” Mike asked.

“You might want to read the historical account of his adventures and use it as a template, or basis for your own plan.

“Yes, sir. But I’m going to need crews for those ships, crews I can trust.”

“True, and I think you will find them at the Royal Navy stations I’m going to have you visit. Sadly, their lordships at the Admiralty saw fit to strip the home fleet of most of its loyal officers and crew.” He held his hand up before Mike could speak. “I have managed to purge most of the unreliable officers and enlisted personnel from some key ships, mostly the heavy cruisers and battleships, so I have the core of a fighting force the Sirriens won’t be expecting.” The admiral was painting a bleak picture. If most of the home fleet surrendered, or turned tail and ran, the admiral would be left with just a few ships to fight a combined Sirrien Fleet.

“So what is your plan, sir?”

“Oh, we’ll put on a good account of ourselves, but in the end, they will annihilate us.”

“There is the Pluto WP, sir. You could run for that at some point and save some of the ships.”

“Yes, I know. That’s my one ace in the hole. If possible, I’ll arrange for the best ships' crews to be on certain ships. At the right moment, the captains will have orders to disengage from the action and run for the Pluto WP. The Sirriens won’t be expecting that, thinking they’ll have nowhere to go. I’ll order them to head for Avalon to boost your complement.”

“If… when that happens, and they have to run to Enright’s Folly, as I mentioned, the ships entering will have to follow the directions very carefully, otherwise they’ll end up getting sucked into a black hole or being pulled into a class II giant star.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“There’s only a small margin of error, Admiral.”

Admiral Rawlings didn’t look happy, even with the news about Enright’s WP.

“You don’t look happy about it, sir.”

The admiral nodded and sighed, “I have no way of knowing if those captains will obey the final order. They just might want to stay and fight one last battle. Can’t blame them really.”

“I can understand that, sir. They would be forever branded as the ships that ran away from defending Earth, their homeland.” It was a bleak picture, and a decision he’d hate to face, “And my written orders, sir?”

“You’ve just received them. The written orders will be in the Letter of Marque.” He looked straight at Mike when he said it, adding nothing.

“Yes, sir.” It was as clear as day that the admiral was giving him a free hand to do whatever he considered necessary to get the job done, and no one would be the wiser.”

“Seeing as we have been officially ordered to provide an escort for the resupply fleet, I’m going to take the opportunity to send the youngest, and most reliable crews I can on those escort ships. I’ll also include sealed orders for what to do once they reach their destinations.”

“In what way, sir?”

“I’m thinking that they and their crews could act as your core team to man those new ships. You’ll have to weed out those you think might not cut it, or seem unreliable.” Mike nodded in agreement. It would solve the problem of finding crews for the new ships.

“It’s no good leaving RN personnel at those bases. The moment war is declared, the Sirriens will take over those bases, and as things stand they don’t have the defenses to fight off an invasion fleet.”

“They wouldn’t have much choice, fight and die or surrender and probably die in some stinking POW camp, knowing the Sirriens.”

“That will be in their sealed orders. Once gathered up they can man your supply base and supply additional crews as needed depending on your losses.” That was a chilling thought.

“That’s a great idea, sir. Depending on how many people we can pick up.”

“A couple of thousand I should think. Oh yes, there is one odd thing. I received a flash report of an unexpected explosion out in the belt.”

“Odd.”

“The message that came in a few moments after that said there was a Sirrien spy ship lurking around out there. Could your ship be the source of that message?”

“It very well could be. I ordered my XO, Standish-Owen to move the
Nemesis
out to the belt. Very hard to pick up anything among those wandering asteroids,” he smiled.

“Well, whoever sent it gave me a good excuse to send picket ships and patrol craft out there to have a look. We did capture one damaged Sirrien spy vessel, not that we got much out of her. They’d purged her data banks, and as they were in uniform we had no option but to treat them as POWs instead of spies.” The admiral sighed, “As no state of war exists between Earth and the Sirriens as yet, all we could do was hold them until an exchange could be made for some of ours.” Mike could see that didn’t sit well with him.

“Anyway, I’d say the picket ships and patrol vessels should be on station for at least a week, if not longer. That should give you the opportunity to get out of the system without much trouble. How you are going to get by the OWP at Solar North, I don’t know.”

“Thank you, sir, that will help. I’ll just have to figure out a way to do it without getting into a shooting match,” He grinned at the admiral.

“Hum! I should bloody well hope so.” He returned the smile. “I’ll be on my way. Good luck and good hunting.” Mike stood and came to attention. He wanted to salute, but without a cap on, he couldn’t. The admiral understood and reached over to tap him on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Captain Bear.” Rolly did salute him, his face working with unspoken emotion before turning and following the admiral out.

Mike sat for a while before going to bed to listen to the local news feed on Earth and outer systems news. None of it sounded good. The Sirriens were intruding more into sovereign spaces, border skirmishes, disputes over planetary claims, just to name a few of the top stories. How soon outright war would be declared was anyone's guess, but the smart money had already bet on less than a year.

The prospect of seeing Anna pushed most of the gloomy outlook to the back of his mind. He had a job to do and he chafed at the delay of having to sit around the Guild Hall and twiddle his thumbs while he waited. In the end, he went to the gym and worked out for several hours before showering and going to bed wishing there was a certain, warm, compliant body in there with him. As promised, the invitation for Max Tregallion arrived first thing the next morning while he and Jenks were having breakfast.

“Ha ha! At last,” he grinned, feeling as if a load had been lifted from his shoulders, “get your best bib and tucker out Jenks; we are going to the palace.”

Jenks looked at him, startled for the moment. “What me! he spluttered. “You have to be kidding me. My dear old dad would turn in his grave if he knew I was hob knobbing with the gentry.”

“How so?” Mike asked, a bit puzzled.

“He was a diehard Labor man and a Union steward to boot.”

“Anti royalist, huh?”

“What… well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but he thought all those upper class blokes were a bunch of blood-sucking ponces, if you take me meaning.”

“Well, my old son, your dear old dad will be positively spinning after today, as I’m going to introduce you to his nibs himself,” Mike laughed at the expression on Jenks face.

“You mean… the King… Himself?”

“Yes, and you might just find he’s not such a bad sort after all.”

“Not ruddy likely,” Jenks muttered as he dug back into his oatmeal and fruit. Even so, Mike could see the bemused look on his face at the prospect.

All told, it took them and hour to prepare, and turn Mike back into Max Tregallion, Victoria used her makeup kit to apply the finishing touches. They exited the Guild Hall with all due ceremony as befitting the owner and founder of Avalon, and there were even a few news reporters on hand snapping photos as Max and Jenks entered the armored ground car. Max grumbled loudly about everything, while Jenks acted as the long-suffering servant complete with surly look and snide comments. The drive to Buckingham Palace was uneventful as Mike knew it would be. He could have taken the bus or walked and been just as safe. As much as the Sirriens wanted to drive a wedge between Earth and Avalon, taking out the founder of Avalon would probably have the opposite effect. Without knowing exactly what Avalon had in the way of a Navy, the last thing the Sirriens wanted was a bunch of pissed off supermen at their backs. The car slid through the ornate, gilded front gates of the palace with all the ceremony of a visiting dignitary and he was soon ushered inside.

“Struth! That’s the bloody King,” Jenks muttered behind “Max”.