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  HARRY HERON:

  SAVAGE FUGITIVE

  Book Four of the Harry Heron Adventure Series

  Patrick G. Cox

  Harry Heron: Savage Fugitive

  Copyright © 2018 Patrick G. Cox

  Paperback ISBN: 9781946824226

  Hardback ISBN: 9781946824233

  Ebook ISBN: 9781946824240

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949137

  www.harryheron.com

  Cover Design by JudithSDesign&Creativity

  www.judithsdesign.com

  Editing and Interior Book Design by Janet Angelo of

  INDIEGO PUBLISHING LLC

  www.indiegopublishing.com

  Harry Heron: Savage Fugitive is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons living or dead is coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher or the author except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews.

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  Names: Cox, Patrick G., 1946-

  Title: Harry Heron : savage fugitive / Patrick G. Cox.

  Other Titles: Savage fugitive

  Description: [Florida] : [IndieGo Publishing LLC], [2018] | Series: Harry Heron adventure series ; book 4

  Identifiers: ISBN 9781946824226 (paperback) | ISBN 9781946824233 (hardback) | ISBN 9781946824240 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Europe, Northern--Armed Forces--Officers--Fiction. | Space warfare--Fiction. | Time travel--Fiction. | LCGFT: Action and adventure fiction. | Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR9369.4.C748 H37 2018 (print) | LCC PR9369.4.C748 (ebook) | DDC 823.92--dc23

  The Harry Heron Adventure Series

  __________________________________________

  Harry Heron: Midshipman’s Journey

  Harry Heron: Into the Unknown

  Harry Heron: No Quarter

  Harry Heron: Savage Fugitive

  Harry Heron: Awakening Threat

  Harry Heron: Hope Transcends

  OTHER BOOKS by PATRICK G. COX

  __________________________________________

  A Baltic Affair

  Limehouse Boys

  Magnus Patricius: The Remarkable Life of St Patrick the Man

  __________________________________________

  www.harryheron.com

  Chapters

  __________________________________________

  Chapter 1 . . . Opposition

  Chapter 2 . . . Called to Task

  Chapter 3 . . . Clarke Does It Again

  Chapter 4 . . . Ambushed

  Chapter 5 . . . Close Call

  Chapter 6 . . . Hopeless Position

  Chapter 7 . . . Survivors

  Chapter 8 . . . Consortium Ascendant

  Chapter 9 . . . Hunted

  Chapter 10 . . . Ferghal’s Fury

  Chapter 11 . . . Refuge

  Chapter 12 . . . Waiting and Wondering

  Chapter 13 . . . Discovery

  Chapter 14 . . . Engage the Enemy

  Chapter 15 . . . Contact

  Chapter 16 . . . A Near Run Thing

  Chapter 17 . . . Tipping the Scales

  Chapter 18 . . . Found

  Chapter 19 . . . Explosive Reunion

  Chapter 20 . . . No Backing Down

  Chapter 21 . . . Project Ruin

  Chapter 22 . . . Juggernaut

  Chapter 23 . . . Heron’s Hellions

  Chapter 24 . . . Tipping Point

  Chapter 25 . . . The Hunters and the Hunted

  Chapter 26 . . . The End of the Beginning

  Chapter 27 . . . Stir the Hornet’s Nest

  Chapter 28 . . . Final Assault

  Chapter 29 . . . Harry’s Gamble

  Chapter 30 . . . Subterfuge

  Chapter 31 . . . Clash of Titans

  Chapter 32 . . . Prospects for Peace

  Chapter 33 . . . Reason to Celebrate

  Chapter 34 . . . Truce

  Chapter 35 . . . Diplomatic Manoeuvres

  Chapter 36 . . . The Provider Speaks

  Chapter 37 . . . The Face of the Enemy

  Chapter 38 . . . Together at Last

  Chapter 1 – Opposition

  Harry clasped his hands behind his back and stood with his feet apart, unconsciously adopting the pose so familiar aboard the 74 gun HMS Spartan when he last stood on that ship’s deck in 1804. His mind went back to the strange incident amidst a sea fight with the French during the Napoleonic Wars that shot him into the twenty-third century along with his boyhood friend Ferghal O’Connor and Danny Gunn, who served as a “powder monkey” running to and fro with cartridges to load the guns. He let his mind wander as he contemplated the nearest planet. There was so much to learn and so much to adjust to. Perhaps Ferghal was right. Maybe he did strive too hard to understand everything. He smiled briefly as he thought of his father’s parting words when he and Ferghal set out for London, and, as Harry had hoped, a position as a midshipman in His Majesty’s Navy. His father had reminded him that the true achievement lay in accepting responsibility to those under you, in taking care of their welfare, and in seeking to do one’s duty to the best of your ability. Everything had seemed so simple then.

  How different it had all become. His smile faded as he wondered what anguish his parents had known when news finally reached them of his supposed death. He knew how much it had agonized them to attend a funeral with no body to bury, commemorating their son’s life with a headstone in the grassy hillside of County Down, Ireland, and a plaque for himself and Ferghal in the ancient parish church.

  Oh, Papa, how I wish I could see you, and Mama, and James and Mabel just once more. He glanced out at the vastness of space then took in the flickering lights of the control panels in the observatory. I think you would find this century astonishing and unsettling, but interesting in the extreme.

  But his father was not here, and Harry must make his career in an entirely new era and in a fleet serving a confederation of nations that included France as an ally, not an enemy. That alone would have been unheard of in the nineteenth century. Having completed Fleet College with honours, Harry was now Junior Navigation Officer aboard a ship he and his fellows on the HMS Spartan would have considered the product of some madman’s imagination had it been mentioned in Spartan’s gunroom. His friend Kit Tanner would not believe him if Harry could return to tell of his adventures in space.

  At least his sweetheart, Mary Hopkins, understood these things. He thought of their last holocall, and his mood lifted again. He adored music and worshipped her, a classical and very talented musician. But, as he ruefully admitted, he had not a musical bone in his body. The holocalls were expensive, but he looked forward to each one, an opportunity to hear her voice, see her face and hear her funny anecdotes about her latest concerts and interactions with fans and other musicians.

  The ship’s gentle voice in his ears brought him back to reality.

  “You asked me to alert you to your next watch period, Harry. You are on duty in ten minutes.”

  “Thank you, Daring.” With a sigh, Harry prepared to make his way down to the Navigation Centre. He grinned at a sudden thought. What would Kit or his father have made of his being able to communicate with the ship’s AI through nothing but his thoughts? How would he have been able to explain the implanted link in his brain?

  That gave him a chuckle and drove out the remains of his blue mood, and he made his way out of the Observatory Dome, shutting down the displays as he departed.

  The Navigation Centre on the NECS Daring featured two tiers of consoles. The lower tier was a bank of helm and pitch controllers, and the upper
tier featured chart displays and consoles for inputting the data required for navigation.

  The entire forward hemisphere of the vast compartment was a display that gave a 180-degree view of whatever lay ahead of the ship as it travelled through space. Other screens allowed views on the quarter and astern, and the forward view could be altered to permit a wider view of the periphery around the ship. The light was kept low to avoid interference with the displays.

  Considerable thought had been given to the relationships between the position of the Navigation Officer, the helm and the attitude controllers’ stations. It doubled, as on most Destroyer Class vessels, as an alternative Command Centre, though there was a secondary Emergency Navigation Centre further aft. As Junior Navigator, Sub-Lieutenant Harry Heron occupied a seat at the large circular star chart display on the starboard side, leaving the central seat for the Executive Officer, and the seat on the port side of the display for the Navigation Officer.

  Below and forward of the “Star Tank” — as the 3D display was called by the TechRates — a Master Warrant Officer occupied the central seat with the helm controls. To his left a Rate manned the controls for attitude, and to his right, a Rate manned the engineering relays. The holographic display of everything ahead and abeam showed the receding mining platform, the swarm of flashing lights indicating the drones transferring the contents of their hoppers to the platform.

  Harry had been on this commission six months, and during that time had developed a good relationship with most of his fellow officers as well as the TechRates. The same could not be said of his relationship with Lieutenant Clarke, the ship’s senior lieutenant and Navigation Officer, and Harry’s immediate supervisor. No matter how hard Harry tried, it seemed the Lieutenant found fault with him, usually over something trivial. The constant criticism was a major reason Harry delighted in those occasions when he had the Navigation Centre to himself as duty Navigator.

  Today was not such a day. Lieutenant Clarke was hovering and in a foul mood, nothing unusual, but today he had been relentlessly petty, browbeating Harry and micromanaging his every move.

  Two decks above and further forward sat the Command Centre, which, unlike the Navigation Centre, gave the appearance of being completely open to space with its 360-degree display of everything around the ship. The cluster of seats and consoles around the Captain’s chair at the centre put the Captain in the middle of the communication links to every department in the ship, and in touch, via the hypercommunications systems, with other ships and Fleet headquarters.

  Captain Aisha Maia studied her latest exercise brief. Using her comlink, she ordered, “Commence evasive manoeuvres. Mr. Clarke, you have the con. The enemy for this exercise is the asteroid Delta Lima Golf Six-Fiver-Fiver-Niner.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Lieutenant Aral Clarke activated the display of his beloved Manual of Evasive Manoeuvres in Combat, which he followed to the letter despite the technological advances that made it obsolete. With painfully slow two-finger typing, he input LaGrange Pattern Seven://system DLG865 Alpha. Target/evasion://DLG 6559 using a keyboard he had rigged up, a relic of twenty-first century technology that he insisted on using.

  Harry checked the manoeuvre courses and patterns. No allowance had been input for the mining platform, but he considered the best way to broach the subject with his temperamental boss. He decided to ease into it with the utmost politeness, as was his norm. “Sir, there is an automated mining unit operating within the area that pattern will pass through at transit point four. I suggest a variation. We should set a course that keeps us clear of that area by at least point zero one of an astronomical unit.”

  “Rubbish! I disagree. These predetermined manoeuvres are calculated to allow for things like that. Besides, these mining types know they are supposed to keep clear.” The Lieutenant punched the command. “Helm, actuate.”

  Harry offered no rebuttal, and through his neural link to the ship, he watched the streams of code as the ship’s manoeuvring functions commenced. As he expected, at the third dropout from the microtransits, alarms blared.

  “Collision imminent!” ordered the Executive Commander through the comlink. “Close all airtight doors. All hands don survival gear now!”

  Harry stared at the looming automated mining platform, its robotic units spread around it like a school of fish. Using his link to the AI, he thought-spoke to the ship. “Daring, emergency evasion!” Harry watched the code in his eyes. “Now, full power to the port thrusters, full braking thrust. On my mark—now!”

  The ship twisted and lurched then turned away from the danger not a moment too soon while the Coxswain and his assistants stared helplessly at their unresponsive controls, not sure what had just happened.

  The Lieutenant knew. “What the hell did you do, Heron?” His face was beet red. “How dare you interfere when I have the con?”

  “My apologies, sir.” Harry thought quickly. It was useless to admit what he’d done or attempt to reason with the Lieutenant. “The ship merely read my thoughts. I had no control over it. You must not have seen the mining drone that we avoided by less than two metres. It seems to have become entangled in our aftercoms array.”

  Clarke opened his mouth to speak and was cut off by the icy tones of the Captain’s voice on the comlink.

  “Mr Clarke, report to me in the Command Centre immediately.” She paused. “Well done to whoever took that emergency evasive action.”

  Captain Maia looked up as her Executive Commander joined her in her Day Cabin. She had just had an unpleasant conversation with Lieutenant Clarke about the near miss he had caused. “Perfect timing, Anders.” She waved a hand toward the display, which now revealed only the swirling greys of hyperspace. “I’m still getting used to Mr. Heron’s ability. I think he just saved us yet again from Lieutenant Clarke’s dogged insistence on doing things by the manual, as if modern technology hadn’t been invented for a reason.” She let out a frustrated exhale.

  Anders lowered his voice. “Yes, I am well aware of Mr. Clarke’s disposition. Mr. Heron tries his best to comply with his demands, though most of them are unreasonable and unnecessary.”

  She paused. “Keep an eye on it. Mr. Clarke has a reputation, and he’s not as good a navigator as he thinks he is, as proved by today’s nerve-wracking mishap. A couple of other incidents in his record make me think he’s a problem just waiting to happen, but for some reason — I wish I knew what — Fleet can’t or won’t replace him.” She leaned closer. “There’s a suggestion he has someone higher up keeping his back. That’s the only explanation that makes sense, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll have a word with him privately,” said the Executive Commander.

  Commander Anders Nielsen entered the Navigation Centre. “Mr.. Heron, lay in a course for these coordinates. We have a lost sheep to find — a passenger liner.”

  “Aye . . . I mean, yes, sir.” Harry quickly input the coordinates to the interface. Still agitated from his earlier confrontation with Lieutenant Clarke, he stumbled over his formal reply, which came unbidden to his lips from his days in the British Royal Navy. It shouldn’t have mattered how he replied as long as he spoke with respect, but Clarke always reprimanded him for saying ‘aye, aye, sir’ — probably just to annoy him.

  The Commander watched as Harry input the coordinates using the touch pad. A frown creased his face.

  “Why are you using the manual interface, Mr. Heron?”

  “I am instructed to do so, sir.”

  “I see. But can’t you do it faster if you simply use your link to the ship’s AI?”

  “Indeed I can, sir,” Harry replied without looking up, so focused he was on entering the commands for the calculations.

  “Then stop messing about and do it.” The Commander glared across the centre at the Lieutenant, who had looked up sharply when he heard the Commander’s raised voice, a look Harry caught when he also glanced up in surprise.

  “Aye, aye . . . er . . . yes, sir.” />
  “And for god’s sake, speak as you normally do. If ‘aye, aye, sir’ comes naturally to you, that is acceptable to me. I’m certainly not that easily offended, and I’m sure the rest of the crew isn’t either.”

  Harry stared in surprise, then gulped. “Aye, aye, sir.” He linked directly to the ship’s consciousness. “Daring, set the course to these coordinates. Transfer course and movement command to helm and engine room, simultaneous link to Diamond and Hecate, please. Simultaneous entry to transit.”

  “Done, Harry,” the ship responded, her voice distinctly female. “Does this mean you will be communicating your wishes to me in this manner in future?”

  “I hope so. It was very frustrating having to work through the interface and at the same time listen to you waiting for me to complete the input.”

  “Was I impatient?”

  “A bit.”

  Harry was suddenly aware that the Commander was speaking to him again. “My apologies, sir. I was checking my input.”

  The Commander frowned. “I said well done.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Harry glanced at the Lieutenant, absorbed in his console. His glance took in the Coxswain’s position, currently occupied by Chief Master Warrant Officer Abram Winstanley, and the helm console where two TechRates were immersed in their tasks. No one seemed to be paying the slightest attention to what was passing between him and the Commander. Yet he could tell from the studious concentration of the Lieutenant’s posture, which almost, but not quite, mirrored the Master Warrant Officer’s stiff back, that the exchange between him and the Commander had not gone unnoticed. Harry wondered how the Lieutenant would respond, and then he dismissed the thought. He’d just have to deal with it if and when another confrontation arose, and he was sure there would be one.

  He recalled a recent conversation with the Coxswain. Chief Master Warrant Winstanley had been very tactful. He had told Harry that his temper and obvious contempt for Lieutenant Clarke had been noticed. “I’m sure you know how to avoid the problem, sir,” said the Chief Master Warrant.