The Middle Road (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride Book 7)

by Caleb Wachter

  “Inaccessible?” Nail repeated dubiously. “They’ve got the thing quarantined from high orbit—Saint George’s Tail, son, they could have bombarded the planet with rocks and comets until there was enough dust in the upper atmosphere to cause a global ice age!”

  “I understand that,” Kongming said patiently, “but if they did in fact cause the winter on the second planet, why are they still there? If they consumed the organic material and then, inexplicably, decided to cause an ice age with asteroid bombardment then why did they not set course for the next star system and leave this one behind? It seems more likely to me, Primarch,” he explained after a brief but pointed pause, “that they arrived in this star system ready to devour every gram of organic material they could access on the second planet—as is the modus operandi for all recorded Bug Hives—only to find that it was already frozen. Bug metabolisms do not fare well in extremely cold environs, and the accessible bio-matter available on a world covered in ice with a median thickness of three meters would be extremely miniscule—certainly not enough to fuel an apocalyptic Bug harvesting cycle, which draws most of its fuel directly from the planet’s biomass itself rather than indirectly in the Hive’s accumulated fuel reserves.”

  “So…” Nail grudged, “you’re saying they thought this would be a ripe world to ‘harvest,’ but when they got here it was already an ice brick?”

  Kongming nodded, “Which means that the Hive’s Queen decided, for whatever reason, to power down and hibernate in an attempt to wait out the winter.”

  “How long has this winter lasted?” Nail asked.

  Kongming had been running climate projections for the past several minutes and believed he had a rough guess as to the answer, “If these readings are accurate, it has been nearly three hundred years since the planet was enveloped in ice. Also, these projections suggest the planet will begin to thaw, started with the equatorial band and progressing toward the poles, sometime in the next twenty years. Within a century, seventy percent of the planet’s land mass should be exposed and whatever life survived the sudden, cataclysmic ice age will resume its previous evolution.”

  “Not if those Bugs are still waiting there, it won’t,” Nail grumped.

  “True,” Kongming agreed before stepping away from his console. “Primarch, if I may be so bold: no humans—or Stalwart,” he added hastily as Nail turned to glower at him, “have ever studied so many fully intact Bug ships in hibernation before. This could be an historic opportunity for us to expand our knowledge of Bug biotechnology—to say nothing of investigating what specific factors caused an entire Hive Fleet to come to this star system.”

  “What kind of factors do you mean?” Nail asked warily.

  “Hive Fleets are, with a statistically significant degree of displayed preference, attracted to colonized worlds,” Kongming explained. “Most accepted theories hold that agricultural industry—including desalination plants, introduction of superior flora and fauna, and a host of other factors—associated with human colonization increase the value of a planet’s biomass to a Bug Hive Fleet by as much as five hundred percent for the overall land mass of the colonized planet.”

  “You think someone was actually down there before it became a frigid tomb?” Nail asked in surprise.

  “I think it is more likely than not that this planet was recently home to intelligent life,” Kongming nodded confidently, “and, to go even further, I think it is possible that its inhabitants intentionally froze their own world in the hope of being passed over by the Hive Fleet. I will, however, require close-up, active scans of the planet to confirm that last theory.”

  Nail’s expression turned sour, “You want me to take my ship into the heart of a Bug Hive? Are you insane?” he asked, but it was clear that Kongming had appealed to the Primarch’s curiosity.

  “Perhaps,” Kongming admitted before pushing past the Primarch’s incredulous look, “but we both know this is too good of an opportunity to pass up. I will attenuate the scanners to verify that the Hive Fleet is completely dormant, but I must urge you to set course at maximum possible speed in order to increase our chances of a safe insertion and withdrawal before the Bugs can respond to our presence.”

  Nail seemed ready to reject Kongming’s proposal, but thankfully turned to his son at the Helm, “Hammer, set an oblique course for the second planet: maximum burn. If those Bugs so much as twitch in my direction, come about and make for the hyper limit.”

  “Yes, Primarch,” Hammer replied, and the Unthreadable Needle began its dangerous descent into the system’s interior.

  “Thank you, Primarch,” Kongming said graciously before a sudden thought leapt into the fore of his mind:

  What if my advocacy for investigating the Hive Fleet is what leads to Kratos’ and Abyss’s deaths?

  With that in mind, he tuned the sensors so they could gather as much data on the Hive Fleet and the planet around which it orbited. That task done, he asked, “Permission to leave the bridge to speak with Abyss, Primarch?”

  “Granted,” Nail agreed, and a few minutes later Kongming found himself in Abyss’s cell.

  “Do you recognize these ships?” Kongming asked, presenting a data slate with the image of the Mothership and a handful of nearby Heavy Harvesters.

  “These are familiar life-ships,” Abyss nodded.

  “Were they part of your original Hive Fleet?”

  “Yes,” Abyss replied eagerly, “and now it is imperative that the perspective you call ‘Abyss’ returns to the Hive.”

  “What?!” Kongming blurted. “Why?”

  “Perspective is paramount,” Abyss explained. “The Hive has been led astray by false perspective. This is an opportunity to correct the Hive’s error.”

  “What error?” Kongming demanded, having heard nothing of this during any of his previous interactions with the philosophically-inclined Brain Bug. “Why didn’t you talk about this before?”

  “Perspective and enlightenment are mutually exclusive,” Abyss replied. “You did not receive this information because your inquiries were restricted by your perspective.”

  “That’s no answer,” Kongming said, suddenly angry with the crippled Bug.

  “Perhaps not,” Abyss allowed, “but it is truth.”

  “How can I justify my returning you to the Hive Fleet?” Kongming asked as he fought to rein in his emotions. “You’ve learned so much about us; you could use that knowledge against the Alliance Gorgonus.”

  “Perhaps,” Abyss said serenely, “or perhaps this perspective, once returned to the Hive, will modify the Hive’s priorities in a manner more conducive to cooperation with the Alliance Gorgonus.”

  “Wait,” Kongming’s eyes bulged, “you’re suggesting an…alliance between this Hive Fleet and the AG?!”

  “The outcome of the reincorporation of perspective within the Hive is unpredictable,” Abyss said hesitantly, “but it seems unethical for a locus of that perspective to ignore the opportunity to correct such a potentially grievous error.”

  “What error are you talking about?” Kongming asked, finally clearing his mind enough to track down that particular thread in the conversation after leaving it unaddressed for so many exchanges.

  “The Hive was manipulated into coming here,” Abyss explained. “The origin, purpose, and even mechanism of that manipulation remains unknown, but the Hive’s original target was a star system on the edge of what you refer to as the ‘Gorgon Sectors’.”

  “Did the Imperials manipulate the Hive?” Kongming asked, having heard many conspiracy theories which essentially stated that the Empire wielded the Bugs as the ultimate terror device: bring them into the picture to serve as boogeymen, and after Imperial authority had been established they would either destroy the Bugs or turn them away for use in another theater.

  “That is unknown,” Abyss said dubiously, “but what is known is that the Hive made an unprecedented course change following the collision which resulted in our meeting.”

  “Hiv
e Fleets don’t tend to change course?”

  “No,” Abyss shook his head. “This is due to the power requirements of the Hive’s sub-light engines. To adjust course mid-journey is to expend dangerous amounts of energy—energy exclusively reserved for the initiation of a harvest.”

  Kongming tried to absorb the information Abyss was presenting, but his mind was still clouded by emotion. The thought of playing a part in Kratos’ and Abyss’s deaths was wreaking havoc in his consciousness, and he knew he needed to think clearly if he was going to make a worthy decision regarding what to do.

  “What is it you want me to do?” Kongming finally asked.

  “Return this perspective to the Hive,” Abyss replied promptly, “directly to the Mothership if possible. Once there this perspective will be analyzed by the Queen and, if it is found to be beneficial, it will be distributed throughout the Hive.”

  “What are the chances you…or your ‘perspective’ won’t be found to be ‘beneficial’?”

  “That is difficult to ascertain due to insufficient information,” Abyss said skeptically. “But it is probable that this perspective will be of use to the Hive and, if it is determined to possess value, it will instigate a Hive-wide reprioritization which could result in a resumption of the Hive’s previous course.”

  “That would benefit whoever might be hiding on the planet below,” Kongming mused. “But there has to be a more useful outcome for the Hive. You suggested it might be possible to form an alliance with the Hive’s Queen?”

  “In theory, yes,” Abyss replied. “However, Hives operate on relatively simplistic drives: hunger, procreation, neutralization of perceived threats, etc.. It is therefore unlikely that the Hive could be enticed to contribute directly to the Alliance Gorgonus. Even if it was so enticed, it is significantly more unlikely that it would be able to contribute meaningfully given all Hives’ lack of hyper drive technology—a technology so wondrous to this perspective that it was initially assumed to be of divine origin—combined with the perception of ‘Bugs’ throughout the community of sentient contributors to the Alliance Gorgonus.”

  Kongming felt a chill run down his spine as he realized that Abyss, uniquely among Bugs, had a reasonable working knowledge of hyper drive technology. Bug Hive Fleets with the ability to move at FTL like every other type of battle fleet would endanger every single living creature in the galaxy.

  ‘Harvests’ which used to take decades—or even centuries—due to the transit times between star systems could now take months…or possibly just weeks.

  Every rational, logical neuron in Kongming’s mind was screaming at him to have Primarch Nail come about and leave this star system as quickly as possible. Those neurons told him to forget inquiry into the unknown; forget following through with a difficult choice; forget the Crafter’s mysterious missive which had brought them here; and even forget his own wretched excuse of a soul.

  But piercing through the din of self-doubt was the inescapable truth of the Sight. He had seen the threads of probability just as clearly as he had back on Cagnzyz, and that Sight had not only saved the lives of everyone aboard the Prejudice but, quite possibly, it had saved an entire species from extinction in the Prichtac.

  And that did not even consider the fact that it had, at least ostensibly, saved the life of his beloved.

  A year earlier he would have thought himself insane for doing so, but in this particular moment Kongming knew he had no choice—no real choice, anyway—but to acquiesce to Abyss’s request, “I need some assurances, Abyss…but I’ll agree to reintroduce you to the Hive if you give them to me.”

  “Of course, Kongming,” Abyss replied agreeably. “The secrets of hyper drive technology must not fall into the Hive’s control. Therefore, it is with great reluctance that I request you perform what you would consider to be a ‘lobotomy’ of this perspective’s sixth neural lobe.”

  “Sixth?” Kongming repeated suspiciously, feeling no relief at Abyss’s promise—not because he disbelieved him, but because he was more concerned with the prospect of performing brain surgery on what had come to be an admittedly unorthodox friend. “You only have five neural lobes left, Abyss.”

  “That is inaccurate,” Abyss explained, reaching up with his badly damaged arm to pry away a heavily-scarred chunk of his cranial case. Within there was a shriveled, mutated-looking gelatinous blob no larger than Kongming’s thumb. “The information regarding the hyper drive is confined to this lobe; removing it will not cause any discomfort or jeopardize the reintroduction of this perspective to the Hive.”

  Kongming looked at the grizzly, misshapen lump of brain tissue and eventually shook his head, “No. I won’t do it. That would be destroying who you are since the hyper drive is so important to your personal philosophy. If we take it out, you’ll be reduced to little more than a damaged Brain Bug.”

  “This is a valid hypothesis,” Abyss admitted, “but the danger is too great to ignore.”

  “No it’s not,” Kongming shook his head, stepping back pointedly. “I didn’t see anything in my vision to suggest that brain surgery was part of what needed to happen.”

  “You said yourself that details were difficult to ascertain during your ‘visions’,” Abyss reminded him.

  “I did,” Kongming nodded, “which is why I’m not going to do anything that would go against my conscience. I’m going to trust you, Abyss, just like you’ve trusted me.”

  “Your trust may be misplaced,” Abyss chided as he lowered the patch of chitin covering the damaged, sixth lobe.

  “It may,” Kongming allowed, far from comforted by Abyss’s chilling observation, “but I’m willing to take that chance. Are you?”

  Abyss seemed to consider the query for several seconds before replying, “Yes. I am.”

  Kongming was both saddened and vindicated to hear Abyss refer to himself in the first person in what he was confident would be their last, meaningful exchange of ideas.

  “Scroll back,” Kratos said as Kongming’s first batch of active scans returned to the Needle’s sensor array.

  Kongming did as Kratos had asked, and focused on mountainous bluff on the lee side of a range which held back a ten meter thick glacier measuring hundreds of square kilometers.

  “Do you see it?” Kratos asked, pointing to an area near the base of the mountain range.

  Kongming squinted at the region, magnifying the image several times before finally realizing what Kratos was pointing at. “That is an artificial structure,” Kongming nodded in confirmation. “This planet was inhabited.”

  “Inhabited?” Kratos repeated, tilting his chin toward the quarter-circular pile of collapsed stones. “Of course it was inhabited, Kongming. That is not the interesting part—the interesting part is who inhabited it.”

  Kongming quirked an eyebrow incredulously as he multitasked, listening to the Tracto-an while also poring over the sensor feeds which attempted to shed some light on the origin of the planet’s ice age.

  “Radiation signatures,” Kongming confirmed, checking the relatively light radioactive residue signatures the Needle’s sensors finally confirmed. Each one was located near—or, in several cases, within—an erupted volcano on the planet’s surface.

  “The smoking gun,” he declared triumphantly, sending his findings to the bridge’s main viewer. “This planet was indeed blanketed in ice by design—human design, if my readings are correct. Multiple fusion-driven explosions were set off all along this planet’s primary and secondary tectonic fault lines in rapid succession, and those explosions took place approximately two hundred and seventy years ago. The ensuing concentration of sulfuric ash into the atmosphere reflected significant amounts of the primary’s stellar energy, resulting in an immediate, catastrophic cooling effect.”

  “How many bombs went off?” Nail asked.

  “There were two hundred target sites,” Kongming replied, “with some sites sustaining as many as ten coordinated explosions. Each explosion appears to have delivered at lea
st a hundred megatons of explosive force—and possibly ten times that much per device, depending on the specific technology used to drive the explosions—to these tectonically-primed fault lines. The result was an extreme, albeit short-lived ice age which even now is in the earliest stages of recession.”

  “That is impossible,” Kratos said flatly.

  “The instruments do not lie, Kratos,” Kongming said measuredly.

  “Neither do my eyes,” Kratos riposted, pointing at the image of the collapsed stone wall on Kongming’s station. “That amount of stone, in that position and arrangement and at such high altitude and climate, requires dry-fitting techniques—no mortar was used,” he explained shortly at Kongming’s confused look, which quickly turned to wide-eyed surprise as the Tracto-an continued. “The amount of human labor required to dry fit igneous rock like that is extreme; no society capable of building fusion bombs would choose such a method for anything other than artistry. That,” he declared unyieldingly as he pointed at the quarter-circular ruin, “is no artistic creation. It is a defensive barricade for a mountain citadel—in fact it is one of the largest igneous citadels I have ever seen, including Blue Fang Pass.”

  Kongming examined the feed’s topographical display for the region leading to the quarter-circular ruin, and sure enough he saw precisely the same layout as any desirable mountainous castle’s location: there was a long, winding valley stretching out before it and evidence of previously-running water was evident from multiple sources originating higher in the mountain range.

  “Kratos…” Kongming whispered in wonderment, “are you saying—“

  “My people build such citadels, Master Kongming,” Kratos said firmly. “The techniques appear identical to those used to build Blue Fang Pass, which were passed down along my paternal line—a line which can trace its origins directly back to King Lykurgos himself. He revolutionized citadel construction techniques in the years before the Hold Mistresses rebelled against his would-be dynasty. In fact, his building techniques were crucial in establishing the foundation for that short-lived dynasty. The citadels stood firm and strong against the endless supply of contentious and zealous Hold Mistresses who, like all tyrants, wished to preserve their power even more than they wished to serve their people.”