He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) Read Free

Admiralty would waste that much talent on a no-brainier post at a mining camp. Mike was beginning to see what Conner was talking about, yet it made no sense to hide your best talent like that, even if it was a fuzzy faced teenager, who couldn’t dress himself properly.
     
    “Good heavens, have you seen these damage reports, sir?” He asked, coming up for air at last. “Of course you have, silly question, sorry, sir.” He dived in again before Mike had time to answer.
     
    Mike looked at Conner Blake, who smiled and poured coffee for the three of them.  That took a load off Mike, as he had more to contribute at his weekly meeting with Cynthia. It also gave him clout when arguing with some demanding Captains. The next to arrive was a dour faced man in his mid to late twenties. They went through the usual naval protocol of saluting and presenting orders.
     
    “Leftenant Bushman, reporting as ordered, Sir.”
     
    “Stand easy, Leftenant Bushman, Gable, isn’t it?”
     
    “Yes, sir.”
     
    “Good, pull up a chair and have a cup of coffee.”
     
    “Sir?”
     
    “Park it, Gable.”
     
    “Yes, sir.” He parked it, looking somewhat bemused.
     
    “You are our Chief Electrician engineer, so to speak, correct?”
     
    “Yes, sir, Chief Electrical Engineer-Power Officer, but I’m not sure what my duties are here, sir.”
     
    “You will be in charge of anything that had an electric charge in it or running through it.”
     
    “Sir?”
     
    “Electronics, power generation, communication, tactical, right down to the rechargeable batteries in my shaver.” Not that he had one.
     
    “But, sir…” Just then, they hear someone pounding up the stair, and Adam came running through the door.
     
    “Sorry, I’m late, sir, I was checking the power plant location on the ship.” He panted, forgetting to salute.
     
    “No problem, pull up a chair and say hello to Gable Bushman, our Chief Power Officer.”
     
    “Hello, I’m Kincaid, I mean Adams.” He held his hand out.” The bemused expression on Gable Bushman’s face deepened, as if he was out of his depth. “Glad you are here.”
     
    “You might like to take a look at these, sir.” Conner Blake placed another copy of the specification data pad beside Leftenant Bushman, along with the coffee. Mike was beginning to have his doubt about this one. He looked at his orders and record while Gable flipped through the spec pad. It was even worse than Adam’s was.
     
    His last posting was information officer in charge of base computer systems on Titan. His credentials didn’t seem that impressive, and he shot a quick look at Conner Blake. Conner just raised a questioning eyebrow at him and held up the coffee pot, ignoring the obvious question. That was two down, now all he had to do was divine what the Admiral was expecting from all this. Between the two of them, they did give him more time to work on the problem of hull number 696. He visited the fabrication shops, hull members, plate, environmental, electronics, and so on down the line. 
     
    Over the next few weeks, he visited them all, seeing the complexity of a modern warship first hand. Most of the shop did nothing but repair or fabricate damaged or inoperable units, but they did have the capacity to fabricate new ships, but rarely did. He found it was the same with all of them, as at one time they did in fact build warship of all sizes. They still had the capacity by the look of all the mothballed equipment. Conner watched his Captain and began worrying about him. He was sleeping less and less, eating less, and spending an increasing amount of time haunting the workshop. That wasn’t good. He was becoming obsessed with building the ship on the old slipway. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, or the early hours of the morning to find Mike up and working at his port-a-comp terminal or sketching on a bit of paper. Eventually, things had to come to a head or he’d collapse from exhaustion. Things