He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (66 page)

“That’s all ready in the works, Captain, and the words gone out that we need people to help, so far the response has been great.”

“Glad to hear it, I’d like to get those ships built, and delivered as soon as possible.”

“Things looking that bad at the other end?”

“Worse, if the Sirriens decide to attack now, Earth and the colonies are in big trouble.”

“We’ve had a few run-ins with the Sirriens here, mostly at the Rift warp points.”

“Any idea what they are up to?”

“Seems like they want to establish control over every colony they can by putting a choke hold on all warp points, is my guess.  So far we’ve managed to chase them back to the other side every time they poke their nose in, and made it clear we wouldn’t stand for any interference of our shipping.”

“That doesn’t sound good, that means they will be waiting for us when we go through.”

“You didn’t encounter any on your way in?”

“No, we came in by way of the Excelsior warp point, and there wasn’t anyone else there.”

“That one is a little outside the normal trade route.”

“That’s what they are after, I think, stopping the flow of trade between Avalon the colonies and Earth, but even one of their heavy Cruisers hate tangling with a Free Trader.”  He chuckled.

“Could be, but I’m surprised they dared attack any of our Free Trader ships at all.  They’d paid the price the last time, and lost a Heavy Cruiser in the bargain.  We had the Trader ship repair and on its way again before he were half way back to the Star base.”

“That should make them think twice.”

“You’ve got that right, we upgraded their weapon and targeting system recently, and they now pack a real punch.”

“Good, that should keep the Sirriens in check for a while.”

After the engineer left, Mike got back to his paperwork, looking mournfully at the amount of message pads in his ‘IN’ basket.  That occupied him for three hours, then he took a break and headed ashore for a meal.  It was pleasant to walk through the yards, waving and calling out to people.  He found a restaurant that specialized in West Indian and Caribbean food, and stopped in, ordering the curried chicken.  While he ate, a few people that recognized him stopped by and said ‘Hello’, and by the time he departed, he’d had more than a few glasses of wine.  The balmy night air felt good, and he slowly strolled back to the ship, taking his time.  It was a relaxing interlude before getting back to the rush, and the constant stream of question that any Captain has to handle.

“Hello, sailor, looking for a date?”  The old, soft, sensual greeting floated out of the shadows of the park he was walking beside.

“What?...”  He asked, as a tall, slim figure of a woman glided towards him out of the shadows.

”I was wondering if you were lonely and looking for company.”  She almost whispered, looking around at the empty street.  Her hips swayed back and forth in slow motion to the music drifting across the park from a nearby café.

Mike stopped, smiling slightly.  She looked and acted like a hooker, but that was impossible.  There weren’t any on Avalon.  She was just close enough, even standing in the shadows that he could see she wore heavy makeup, and her thin dress barely came to mid thigh.  Entering the park he walked slowly towards her, seeing her back slowly towards some dense bushes.  It was her perfume that gave her away, as Mike had three long years to remember.  More than one morning he’d woke up with it on his pillow at the Academy.  He walked into the circle of her waiting arms, feeling them close around him in a loving embrace, lips finding lips in the darkness.  His finger felt for and found the thin shoulder straps of her dress and slowly inched them off.  A moment later, her dress fell to the ground with a soft sigh to nestle around her feet like fallen leaves.  He pulled back a moment and looked down, seeing her almost naked except for a pair of tiny white lace panties.  She sighed deep in her throat and his hands ran down her body, pushing her small breast out for him to caress the nipples.  These were hard, begging to be kissed, and he did.  Gently sucking them into his mouth, one at the time and swirling his tongue around them.  She groaned, thrusting herself against him.  His hands carried on down her body, over her flat tummy, feeling her suck it in as he reached her mound.  One hand slid down inside as the other gripped her bottom as she began rotating her hips.  His hand encountered smooth skin, her sex warm and alive under his caressing fingers.

“Ooooo  God yes!”  She muttered as her fingers found the buttons of his tunic.  He slowly pushed her panties down, yet unwilling to stop to take them off.

“Rip them off, Mike.”  She whispered in his ear as she undid the front of his pants.

He did, with one quick jerk he broke the tiny strings on each side.  It only took a moment to shed his jacket and pants, then he sank to the ground beside her on the soft fragrant grass.  The moment he lay down, she began kissing his body, slowly going lower and lower.  He gasped as she took him into her mouth, feeling himself get even harder.  Then he gave in to the feeling and stopped thinking.  He knew who she was, yet other than whispering his names she kept up the pretence of being a hooker.  He knew why, and respected her wish and to hell with Navy regulation.  This was her way of ignoring them, playing the part of a dockyard whore.  Before he climaxed she stopped, and quickly straddled his thighs, sighing deeply as his manhood entered her.  She took his hand and placed them on her hips, as if telling him she wanted him to control their movements.  She wanted him to set the pace for them, to use her like the hooker she pretended to be.  He did, slowly increasing the pace, hearing her moan and sob softly in the darkness.

He didn’t rush, wanting to see her climax before he did, wanting to satisfy her completely.  It didn’t take long before she was wildly rotating her hips, grinding down as hard as she could, moving his hands to her breast and squeezing them.  With a stifled scream she climaxed, gripping him so tightly that Mike lost control.  With a groan of his own, his hips bucked up as his hands pulled her hips down, feeling the fire and ice cascade over him like a waterfall.  They stayed that way for what seemed an eternity before she slowly slumped down over his chest, kissing and nibbling his earlobe.  They lay there as the passion subsided, just holding each other in a warm embrace.  With a final soft kiss she moved away into the darkness and was gone.  Mike didn’t try to follow, or stop her.  This was what she wanted, her gift to him, and he respected that.  Once aboard ship it would never happen again, and Janice would keep a respectful distance between herself and her Captain.  How she was going to get back aboard dressed like that without the gangway watch noticing he didn’t know.  Suspecting she had something else to put on, hidden in the bushes.

The next evening the President put on a grand gala that started at sundown and didn’t end until the wee hours of the morning.  Anyone who was anyone was there, with people arriving from all over both planets.  There were a few families conspicuous by their absence, but Gordon brushed it off.  Old scores were hard to forget, or forgive.  The families in question knew better than to make an issue out of something they knew they were in the wrong about.  Then the moment he dreaded all his life happened, he met Max Tregallion face to face.  It was like they were looking at the beginning and end of each other lives, Max seeing a young version of himself, and to Mike the man he would be someday. They shook hands, neither squeezing, not wanting to get into a contest that they didn’t know if they could win, or wanted to.

“This is Captain Michael Gray, Max.”

“I know damn well who...”  He stopped and took a deep breath.  “Excuse me, Gordon, and you Captain Gray.  A pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise, Captain Tregallion.”  Max nodded slightly at the recognition of his old title.

“Been reading up on that ship of yours, marvelous design, who’s is it? Naval R&D?”

“No, sir, it’s my design.”  Both Gordon and Max looked at him a moment, as if to see if he was lying.  “Well, I should say she’s a collective design. I did the first part and the crew added a lot of the refinements.”

“Then all I can say is, you did a wonderful job.”  They spoke of a few other none important things, as people are ape to do at such parties, then moved off to meet others.  How he managed to get back to the ship, and with whom, he wasn’t sure, finding himself in his own bed in the morning.  Groaning softly as he moved his head, he carefully got out of bed to head for the shower.  As he stepped under the flow of hot water, something landed on his head, and looking up with bloodshot eye, he saw his friend peering down at him, his crest erect under the flow of hot water. He’d forgotten that they loved human showers.  His little suckered feel walked down his forehead, and for a moment he looked into Mike’s bloodshot eyes.  He hissed in short jerky bursts, and it almost sounded as if he was laughing.

“Right, go ahead, you didn’t spend the night drinking the local brew, I did.”  In answer, the lizard did a little dance on Mike’s head, enjoying the warm water cascading over him.

Breakfast was a leisurely affair, with people coming, and out of the Wardroom, mostly for coffee, some for a donut of bagel.  A few shot him deadly looks before retreating back to their bunk with the coffee.

“What did I do?”  He asked the mess steward.

“You forgot to warn everyone about the local hard stuff, Skipper.”

“I didn’t! I told them!”  He answered lamely.

“Yes, about the beer, but not the liqueur.”

Mike just groaned softly and sipped his coffee.  He’d forgotten about it himself.  His hangover slowly retreated into memory as the higher oxygen content purged the alcohol out of his system, but it took a while.

*  *  *  *  *  *

“So, what do you think of him, Max?”  Max shot Andy Andrews a sharp look as he sipped his morning coffee.

“What do you mean?”  He grumbled at length.

“Oh!  Don’t come the old codger with me Max, I’ve known you too long for that.

“I don’t think about him.”

“Oh, in one of those moods this morning are we.”

“I’m not in a mood.”

“Yes, you are, you are pissed that he looks so good, and is so damn smart he designs his own warship.”

“Heard about that, did you.”

“Not much on this planet that I don’t hear about, sooner or later.  He gave Max a hard look, and they both knew what he was referring to.

“Captain Gray has a good man in that Conner Blake.”

“You looked at the hover cam footage I see.”

“Got to, no one around here tells me bloody thing about what’s going on.”  Max grumbled.  “Looks like he had a rough upbringing.”

“Yes, Trinity isn’t any picnic resort. My people couldn’t find out a lot, as most records were destroyed, and they don’t bother keeping any now. I did find out he lost a younger brother there.  They were planning to get out vie the Royal Navy recruiting station, but sadly, he was killed on the way there.  Wanted to be an office, would you believe.”

“He’d probably made a good one.”

“It also answered the question of why he took such a liking to Michael.”

“Yes, it’s understandable.”

“So, when are you going to see him.”

“Who said I was?”  Max demanded.

“No one.”  He smiled.  “You want to be a stiff neck and let him go sailing off into space without saying a word to him, that’s all right with the rest of us.  BUT!  I don’t want to hear you complaining that you didn’t get a chance to see him.”

“Me complain!”  Max snorted.  “When have I ever complained?”

“Don’t start Max, yes or no?”

“Yes, damn it, I want to talk to the boy!”

“He’d not a boy, Max, but a young man, and could probably beat the socks off you.”

“That will be the day!”

“Just don’t go treating him like a child, or you and him will have to go at it, just like Gordon did.”