He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (53 page)

“And of course, the Prince of Wales going was out of the question.”  He paused for a moment, and Ann looked at him, a question written on her beautiful face by the mouse of disapproval.  “Because, like the King, his absents would noticed.”  Mike finished with a chuckle.  Ann then smiled and nodded.

“Yes, he has far too many public engagements, whereas I have managed to stay in the background.”

“Neat trick.”

“Not really, I just refused to be pressured into the fish bowl existence by the Prime Minister.”  Mike hadn’t really thought about what her life must be like.

“I only have to wreck two of his carefully orchestrated public functions before he got the message.”  She laughed, remembering the expression of outrage on the PM face.  “I’m always off somewhere, doing embarrassing, hair brained things, so my absents wouldn’t be commented on.  Out of sight, out of mind.”  Mike half sat up and snapped his fingers.

“Of course, that why you were more interested in recovering your pouch than the papers, you knew they were phony.”  She padded the back of his hand.

“Good boy, you get a prize for figuring it out.”  She chuckled.  “But I was more concerned with what was in my pouch  than those paper.”

“Oh, and what’s the prize.”  He growled in mock anger.

“Me, silly.”  She reached up and kissed him.

“Oh well, in that case I don’t mind being slow on the uptake.”  He kissed her in return and smiled.  “Go on...  Oh, by the way, what was so important about your pouch?”

“I’ll get to that in a moment, don’t rush me.”  She scolded.

“As you probably know, the Harmony has refused all contact with us or anyone for as long as anyone can remember.  Even going so far as to fire on any ships entering their space, other than the Voss, oh, yes and your Avalon Free Trader.”  She chuckled, kissing his nose.  “But again, only in a very limited way, and strictly near a warp point.  Any intrusion into their space is met with deadly force.”

“I heard that, it's included in the navigational course at the Academy.”  He murmured, remembering the ‘Directive to Ships Captain’ about entering Harmony space.

“We receive the message from the Voss Suritan that he’d met someone who claimed to be a high ranking member of their ruling family, if you can call it that.  Their, um, leader, King, Queen, ruler or whatever, let it be known that they were interested in making peaceful contact with us, Earth that is.”  Mike looked at her skeptically.

“I know, it sounds a bit farfetched.”

“Why now?”

“Apparently, the Sirriens have been making more and more intrusions into their space, and you people from Avalon are the cause.”

“So?”

“I wish I had a star chart here to show you.”

“Hold on, I think I can just do that for you.”

Rolling over Mike switched on his port-comp and aimed the projector at the ceiling.  He tapped in some commands, or tried to, but it was a little difficult with her kiss his bare butt.

“Will you stop that,” he laughed, “or I’ll never get this program up and running.”

“What is it?”  She asked, resting her chin on his thigh.

“Star charts from my Academy days.”

“Oh good, put up the star cluster for the Vega system.”  She said, biting his thigh gently.  Mike winced and quickly tapped down the list.

“Wish I had the voice module on this, damn it!  Stop that.  Are, here it is.”  The darken ceiling lit up with a sweep of star.

“Now highlight the Harmony and Sirrien system.”  He did.

“Okay, what are we looking at?”

“As you know, the Sirriens claimed all the space in their system, against interstellar treaties and are setting up more and more blockades around every warp point they can.”  She said, using his laser pointer to indicate the positions.

“Yes, I follow you so far.”

“This makes it difficult for any ships, let along Warship to pass through, virtually cutting off the outer colonies to trade.”

“Right.”

“But, we know there is a quicker route through the Harmony system, but until now, no one has been able to use it.”

“So, on the off chance that the offer was real, you went and checked it out, right?”

“More than that, I went with the power to negotiate a treaty with them.”

“Good God!  And?”

“I did and didn’t”

“You’d better explain that one.”

“I wish I could, but...”  She hesitated.  “I was given a sealed data crystal and told to follow the direction once the crystal activated.”

“Huh?”

“That was it.  I was handed the package containing the crystal, and they left.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither does anyone else.  To date the crystal has remained locked.”  That was what was in my pouch.”

“I take it someone has tried to open it?”

“No, actually, no one had.  They didn’t give any warning should any one try, but we suspected it would erase itself if any did.”

“I see.”  None of it made any sense to him, but that was someone else’s worry, not his.

“So, in a way my trip was a dud.  I was rushing back to get the crystal to my father, just in case it activated while I was in route.”

“Wow!  That’s fantastic, but what about the courier ship and the aborted spy mission?”

“That’s where things started to go wrong.  I arrived at the Embassy on Kingston in disguise with the treaty safely tucked away, and using my credentials as a King’s Messenger demanded passage home on the first available courier ship.  No one there knew anything about the spy mission, or who I was.  Jimmy was under orders from the Admiralty to complete a different mission, and he couldn’t very well tell me about it for fear of compromising, or tell anyone who I really was.”

“Oh my God!  Didn’t Jimmy Bettencourt fill you in?”

“He couldn’t, he was under strict orders.  If he told me, or refused to let me aboard someone would have known something was wrong.

“Yes, I can see that.  A King’s Messenger has priority on any courier ship.”

“I couldn’t order him to abandon his mission, had I known, as that would have put it in jeopardy, and set alarm bells ringing all over the place, what with Sirrien spy’s watching all the time.”  There was no valid reason why a King’s Messenger shouldn’t be on the first available courier ship back to Earth, even at the cost of kicking the ambassador himself off.”

“I still think he should have found a way to abort, or keep you off.”  Even before he’d finished, Ann was shaking her head.

“Jimmy’s ship was the quickest way home, and at the time, that’s all I wanted to do.  I think I made poor Jimmy’s life miserable with my constant harping about need to get home.”

“Yes, he did say that you were a bit of a handful.”

“You mean he told you who I was?”

“Good God no, just that you were a pain in the butt.  OUCH!”  He yelled as she bit him again, on the butt no less.

“So you now know that I am,”  She chuckled, “but, back to the mission.  As far as I was concerned, his ship was the quickest way to get home, or so I thought.”

“It still sounds like someone screwed up.”

“You have to remember, neither Jimmy, I, or the powers to be were aware of each other’s mission.”

“Yes, who was to know that you’d both end up at the same place at the same time.”

“If it hadn’t been for your dashing rescue, both missions would have been a failure.”

“Well,”  he said, pulling his ear, “the effort to plant the phony information didn’t exactly work out they way the Admiralty expected.”

“Don’t second guess yourself, my love, Prince Philip did get a look at some of them, enough it seems to make the Sirriens think twice about closing any more warp points.  At least for now.”

“Even if they do, we can now use Harmony space, right?”

“Don’t know yet, the Privy Council has to review the data on the crystal once it opens, then pass it onto the King for approval, then bring the PM in on the plan.”

“God!  That could take ages.”

“I know, but we have to do it that way, or risk exposing...”

“Exposing?”  Mike asked when she stopped.  Ann looked up at him, then bit her lips.

“My love, for your own protection, there are a few things I dare not tell you.”  Mike thought about that, seeing this went deeper than Ann just being a King’s Messenger and a secret ambassador.

Like the Shepherding moons in the asteroid belt, unseen forces were at work here, pulling him in directions he didn’t even know he was going.  He looked down at her, then smiled, then nodded.  It was only fair, he had a few secrets of his own he wasn’t willing to talk about right now.

“Tell me when you are ready, my love.”  He whispered, kissing her softly. 

“But what this about Avalon causing all the problems, interstellarlarly speaking?”

“Oh, that.  Well, no one can go through Harmony space, and the Sirriens are closing off the jump network through their territory and charging an extortion level fee to pass through the territory, that leaves the major junction in the ‘Rift’. The only people who know how to navigate a way through the ‘Rift’ is Avalon.”  She highlighted several star systems and one the Mike recognized, the Rift.

“And we aren’t above making a nice profit in transit fees for any ship wanting to trade on either side of it.”

“Much to the displeasure of the Sirriens.  If we can establish a transit corridor through Harmony space, especially for warships, the Sirriens would be royally screwed in the event of hostilities. They could try taking Avalon out of the picture, even if it just meant stopping all passage through that sector.”   Mike was about to say something, then thought better of it.

If the Sirriens ever dared to poke their long pointy noses into the Rift, or Avalon, they’d find they’d bitten off more than they could chew.  To most, Avalon was just some rim system with no navel to speak of.  In that they were sorely mistaken, but that was one secret he couldn’t share.  After that, they spent the rest of the night making love and whispering things to each other.  It didn’t matter what they said, just wanting to hear each other voice and feel the touch of the others hand and body.  Neither of them expected CPO Blake to walk in on them after a quick knock the next morning with two mugs of coffee, and he didn’t even bat an eyelid.

“Morning, sir, Ma’am, thought you might like a little refreshment.”  Ann squealed and dived under the covers, blushing furiously.

“I think her Ladyship is a little shy this morning, Conner.”  Mike commented, sitting up against the back board of the bed, tucking a pillow behind him as he did.  He looked at the lump under the bedclothes and got a little red around the ears himself.  At last, Ann poked her nose out from under the covers, eyeing the coffee mug.

“Cream and sugar?”  Her muffled voice asked from beneath the bedclothes.

“Yes, Ma’am, a little of both.”  A slim arm reached out and carefully took hold of the offered mug.  “Well, I suppose someone had to find out eventually.”  She muttered, sticking her head out and sipping the coffee.

“Yes, Ma’am, but I have been aware of the relationship for some time, your Ladyship.”  Mike sat there grinning like an idiot.  Ann looked at him, then at CPO Blake.