He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (48 page)

“And where did the torpedoes come from Admiral?”  Prince Philip almost whispered the words.

“I...  I don’t know, your Majesty, we never saw the ship that launched them.”

“So, you dispatched a squadron after them, two ‘Flacon’ class destroyer and the Cruiser ‘Lion’ after the fleeing ships?”

“Yes, sir, and ordered them to try and locate, identify and destroy any non-Sirrien ships.”

“And instead, something destroyed three of my best ships, without even seeing who was firing at them.”

“Yes, sir, but it had to be a Cruiser, or a Battleship at least.”

“Based on what, Admiral?”

“To take on two Destroyers it would have had to be, sir, and two destroyer and a Cruiser, sir?  No ship’s Captain in his right mind would consider taking on that many ships, at least, and not expect to survive with anything less than a Heavy Cruiser, or a Battleship.”  He swallowed carefully, knowing how crazy that sounded.

“So, tell me, Admiral,” he said it like it was a dirty word, “how do you hide a Heavy Cruiser, or a Battleship from all our sensors, and those of two picket ships and two Destroyers?”

“I...  I don’t know, sir.”

“And neither do I Admiral,” he screamed, “this whole story sounds like a pack of lies, something you and your officer concocted to cover your complete incompetence!”

“No, sir, it's the truth...”

“Liar, this was sabotage, nothing more, Earth spy’s working inside the base.”

“But, sir, what about the torpedoes and the ships we lost?”

“I don’t know about them, nor do I care!  May be they collided or something, but don’t you dare stand there and tell me that a ghost ship, a Battleship no less entered our space without our knowing it.”

“Sir, we lost over four hundred men in those ships...”

“I don’t care!  We lost all of our new fighters and experimental combat ships when the base was destroyed, that’s what I care about!”

The Admiral blanched, seeing foam collected at the corner of the Prince’s mouth as he screamed, and his eye wild.  There was no reasoning with him.  The Prince was passed that.  The two black uniformed men behind his chair leaned forward slightly, expectantly, waiting for the Prince’s command.

“You are a fool, Admiral, a liar and a coward to boot!”  He snarled, his lips curling back.  “Kill him, and make it painful.”  With a snap of his finger the two men behind the Admiral quickly grabbed the pleading man.  The two behind the Prince’s chair, walked around the desk cheeks twisting into a grimace as they pulled the knives out of their sleeves.  Their blue eye became pinpoint, and madness lurked behind them.

“Get that piece of shit out of here!”   The Prince yelled, “And find the other senior officer in that fleet and dispose of them as well.”  The Admiral screamed as they dragged him out of the room, a wet spot spreading around his crotch, and seeing it the Prince giggled.

He walked the short distance between the interrogation and the conference room feeling somewhat better, now he’d disposed of what he perceived the author of the destruction of his Star base.  He shook his head slightly, wondering at the audacity of the man to claim an invisible Battleship had slipped into and out of the Empire’s territory.  Two ever present, black clad guards walked soft footedly behind him, ever vigilant. Ever ready to do their Master's bidding, not matter what he asked.

“Good day, gentlemen.  How are we today?”  It was a rhetorical question, as no matter what kind of day it was for them, when the Prince asked, it was a great day.  He sat at the end of the long conference table and carefully adjusted the lace cuffs of his shirt, fluffing them over the Royal blue velvet jacket cuffs.

“Shall we begin?”  He looked around the table, seeing the bright smiling face of his Admirals and Generals.

“Yes, your Highness.  By all means.  What would you like to discuss first?”  His uncle, Admiral of the Red Sir Frances Clement asked for all of them. Even he felt a little nervous around his nephew, protected by family and blood, but there was no telling what the little twit would do next.

“How is the salvage of our lost warships proceeding.”

“We have recovered 83.6% of both ships, your Majesty, and a third of their crews.”

“I don’t give a damn about their smelly crews, how much of the Ag material have you recovered?”  He snarled.

“Most of it, sir.”

“What it most, you sniveling idiot?”

“Half, sir.”

“Then that’s not most of it, is it, you fool.”

“That was my last report, your Majesty, and I expect by this time they will have recovered even more.”  The Prince recovered himself, and let it pass.

“Very well, have them return the moment they have recovered as many of the Ag plates as they can.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“I want that material to the building yards as soon as possible.  With Star base three out of commission, our ship construction schedule is falling behind.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s our purchasing of cargo ship coming?”  He asked another, the first breathing a soft sigh of relief that he was out of the line of fire.

“Not good, your Majesty.  It is getting steadily harder and harder to buy ships now.”

“I see.  Would increasing our purchase price help?”

“Only a little, sir.  We’ve picked up all the old freighters and immigrant ship on the market, so that only leave us the newer ship.”  It was an honest, straightforward answer, with no apologies in it, something the Prince liked, on occasions.  This was one of them.

“Crashed ship?”

“We have all that we can find within our scope of influence, or just outside it.”  The Prince nodded.

“I think it’s time that we started impounding ships, for safety reason?”  He looked around the table.

“I suggest we tread softly around some of the ships, your grace.”

“How so?”

“The Voss for one would react if we impounded one of their ships.”

“What about those so-called Avalon Free Traders, they have a lot of Ag material aboard one of those ships.”

“True, sir, but the cost of capturing one would be prohibitive.  We did lose one Heavy Cruiser, and two other badly damaged the last time we tried to interfere with their passage.”

“Yes, I know,” a look of distaste crossed his pale face, and he took his monocle out and tapped it on the table top, a sure sign of displeasure, "but in port?”

“Possibly, sir, if we want to suffer the consequences.”

“What consequences?  It’s not as if Avalon has a Navy worth speaking of.”

“No, your Highness, but, we do rely on them for much needed non-military items.”

“True.”  He looked pensive, as if weighing the pros and cons of capturing a Free Trader ship.

“I might add, your Majesty, that we’d probably only get one ship, possibly two at the most.  They’d broadcast that damn death signal of theirs the moment we boarded them.”

“Damn it!  Haven’t we found a way to jam that yet?”

“No, your Highness, not with present tachyon technology.”  That was a two edged sword.  On one hand, it meant instant communication across the vast reaches of space.  On the other, like the old Morse code, wireless signal, it could be picked up by anyone, and was in the case of a Free Trader death knell.  The moment one of their ships was captured or destroyed, every Free Trader knew it, and the ‘where’ and the ‘who’.

“So,” he said at last, “let’s concentrate on other vessels. I have to have the Ag material for the fleet!” He tapped the table sharply with his monocle, seeing more than one of the men and at the table flinch.  His eye swiveled to an older man on his right.  “Unless R&D has something to contribute?”

“No, no your Highness.  We lost a second lab trying to learn how it’s made.”  He gulped carefully.

“And no progress on producing our own, I take it?”

“No, sir.”  He said it softly, as if it might help.  Sweat beaded his upper lips.  The Prince turned towards a pale featured man, with what looked like a dead mouse under his nose.

“And our operative in Earth?”  He started to ask, seeing the man shake his head before he’d even completed his question.

“We managed to penetrate just about all levels of Earth’s Government and Military establishments, but to date we just haven’t been able to get anyone inside the main complex at Gravatronics corporate headquarters where the vault is.”

“Then put more pressure on that fool of a representative!”

“We did, sir, but he has no authority to get inside that complex, only the crown.”

It was a sore point with the Prince that after all their carefully laid plans to infiltrate Earth’s Government infrastructure, the one place he wanted to get into, he couldn’t.  Gravatronics was off limits to everyone, including most of the Royal family for that matter.  His intelligence teams spent vast amounts of money bribing people to learn the secret of Ag to no avail.  The one person whom they knew had the secret was out of their reach, Captain Enright, as he was dead and buried.  Who knew the secret now, no one knew, and even torture hadn’t helped them get a step closer to the secret.  It was as if no one knew the secret any more yet Gravatronics kept churning out massive amounts of Ag plates of all shapes and sizes imaginable.  The plant ran night and day, twenty-four hour, seven days a week.

“One of these days, I’m going to walk in there myself and take the secret off the shelf!”  The Prince snapped angrily.  No one disputed him, but that would mean they'd have to take on the combine strength of the Royal Navy, destroy it and then invade Earth herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY:  HOMECOMING

The remainder of the journey home was uneventful, which Mike was thankful for.  It gave them time to clean and tidy the ship and get some rest.  It also gave the engineering staff a chance to do some additional work on the damaged forward battery.  Not that there was any shortage of general work left unfinished by the dockyard crew.  When other work was completed, he set the crew identifying and labeling every pipe, line, tube, and junction boxes, plus a multitude of other components on the ship.  Everywhere he went, someone was painting something.  Mike took the time to update his log, this time careful to phrase it in correct naval terms.  He glossed over a few of the less lawful aspects of the mission, but didn’t fail to mention the outstanding performance of all the crew.  He made a special note for Gable, Adam, Pete, CPO Blake, and the Marine detachment.

As required by Naval Regulation, he downloaded a complete video log of the missions, including his use of ordinance again the two picket ships, the Destroyers and the destruction of the Cruiser.  As not officially at war with the Sirriens yet, there might be a few questions asked as to why he thought it necessary for his XO to shoot.  He doubted the Admiralty would say anything, but it was better to air on the side of caution.  As Captain, he took full responsibility for his XO actions, as he should, shielding him from any repercussions.  Once he'd completed that, he updated his personal log. The days rolled by, and it was only later that Mike realized he’d reached a turning point it was in his life.  He’d completed a difficult mission on his own initiative, and not because he was thrust into the situation by chance.  He felt proud of the way his ship and crew performed, and justly proud of his own performance.

“Coming up on warp point to ‘Solar North’, Skipper.”  The intercom sounded above his head.

“Thank you, Number One, I’ll be on the Bridge in two minutes.”