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

by Caleb Wachter

  Then the ship shuddered beneath him again, and he knew it was almost certainly only a matter of time—probably only a few minutes—before Mr. Black’s Pulsar-class warship would either be destroyed by the incoming Locust ship, or that it would be under the total control of Mr. Six.

  Neither scenario was compatible with Sarkozi’s long-term survival, but to say that his options were limited would be the understatement of the era.

  Scrambling to his feet, Sarkozi activated his com-link and switched to the emergency channels, “This is Mr. Scarlet to the crew: abandon ship. I say again: abandon ship. The bridge has been seized by a hostile agent and we are on a collision course with an enemy warship. All hands: abandon ship—all hands: abandon ship!”

  He knew he didn’t have the authority to order the crew to abandon their posts, but he could not simply leave them to die. He also knew that he could not unlock the escape pods without command override of their lockouts—which he did not have since he was not formally attached to the ship’s crew.

  He sprinted for the maintenance locker and found an EVA suit, which he donned as quickly as he possibly could. After attaching the helmet and establishing a seal, he sprinted toward the ship’s airlock and keyed in his emergency code.

  The airlock rejected his code.

  “Blast!” he cursed, desperately looking around for something that he could force the door with. He found nothing, and soon he heard the sound of repeated impacts coming from the direction of the bridge.

  A look that direction showed that the door to the bridge had begun to crack, and that every second another impact made those cracks spread wider and deeper.

  “This is Ms. Copper,” he heard an unfamiliar, anxious voice declare over the link, “I am confirming Mr. Scarlet’s order to abandon ship. All hands: abandon ship—all hands: abandon ship.”

  The crystalline door leading onto the bridge finally shattered, and Sarkozi refocused his efforts on opening the airlock door with his emergency code—which effort was interrupted when the ship shuddered under another particle wave impact.

  Thankfully, after the interruption, his code was accepted and he leapt into the airlock before closing the inner door behind him. It took a few seconds to open the outer door, but in spite of the suicidal nature of doing so he felt absolutely no trepidation about leaping off the ship.

  No sooner had he done so than a violent explosion sent the sleek, powerful, Pulsar-class warship into a tumble. A pair of escape pods jettisoned as the crystalline vessel began to suffer a series of internal explosions—scuttling charges, if Sarkozi’s read was correct.

  He activated his com-link as the hulk of a warship tumbled, its engines firing for several seconds before finally going dark. He knew there was only one other ship which could retrieve him out there, and while it was a long shot that he could contact its pilot he knew it was the only shot worth taking.

  “This is Mr. Scarlet calling the Crafter,” he said after accessing the broadband frequencies, “come in, Crafter.”

  Silence was his only reply for nearly a minute as he drifted through the dark of interplanetary space. The red dwarf primary at the heart of this star system—which had been selected by his algorithm for its correctly-predicted, albeit relatively miniscule, quantity of trillium found in its second asteroid belt—seemed so dim to him that it might have been a flashlight at the end of a long, glittering tunnel like those he had explored as a child.

  “This is Mr. Scarlet calling the Crafter,” he repeated, “come in, Crafter.”

  Again, silence was his only reply. He thought he could see the incoming Locust ship’s outline against the star—a suspicion which was soon confirmed when a beam of cold, white light lanced out from its position and carved into the ruined Pulsar-class warship which had been Sarkozi’s home these past months.

  “This is Mr. Scarlet calling the Crafter,” he said, desperation creeping into his voice as a second beam carved into the crystalline warship, “respond please.”

  “This is Ms. Copper calling Mr. Scarlet,” came the same voice which had authorized the abandonment of their ship, “stay off the comm.”

  Ignoring her, he reiterated, “This is Mr. Scarlet calling the Crafter. Come in, Crafter—I have information that will interest you.”

  “Get off the line, Scarlet,” snarled Copper—a woman he had never actually met.

  He saw the disc-shaped Locust ship fire a third and final beam into the Pulsar-class Cutter, causing it to explode violently. The Crafter’s ship then slowly came about and fired its engines, making to leave the scene—and Sarkozi—behind.

  “This is Sam Sarkozi,” he pleaded, “calling the Crafter—come in, please!”

  The Locust ship resumed its course into the star system’s interior for several seconds, eventually disappearing from his view.

  “Why should I speak with you?” the androgynous voice of the Crafter asked.

  “My name is Sam Sarkozi,” he replied quickly, self-identifying almost unconsciously since doing so had been proven to improve survival odds in such a critical moment. “I have information about what happened aboard our ship.”

  “Your ship is gone,” the Crafter said coolly, “because I destroyed it.”

  “You did,” Sarkozi agreed, “but not because your ship was superior—there was a saboteur who waited to move against the bridge crew until you were in firing range. We had mines and missiles that would have easily destroyed you, but we never got the chance to launch or fire them. I have information about that saboteur but I need you to retrieve me before I share it. After we’ve spoken, we can talk about retrieving those two escape pods—but I implore you not to retrieve them before you speak with me.”

  Static-laden silence crackled through the link for a long while before Sarkozi finally decided she had left him for dead.

  “This is Mr. Scarlet calling the Crafter,” he said futilely, but at least Ms. Copper remained blessedly silent as he spent some of his last breaths fighting for his life—and his mission! “This is Mr. Scarlet calling the Crafter. Come in, Crafter.”

  Then, with such suddenness that he felt his heart skip several beats, the disc-shaped vessel which had pulverized Mr. Black’s ship swept into Sarkozi’s view—and it was literally close enough for him to touch.

  An airlock door opened before him and the ship slowly moved toward him, engulfing him in the golden-hued hull of the Locust-built ship.

  He reached out and grasped the rail just inside the airlock, and after his fingers wrapped around it the outer door shut behind him.

  The chamber began to pressurize, and after it had achieved normal pressure he saw the Crafter’s face appear on a nearby screen. “Take off your helmet,” instructed the androgynous Crafter.

  Sarkozi complied, fighting to keep his trembling hands steady enough to complete the task. After several seconds of fumbling, he managed to wrestle the helmet off the suit’s collar, and took a deep breath of the air which had just filled the airlock.

  “Who are you?” asked the Crafter.

  “My name is Sam Sarkozi,” he replied tremulously as he fought to control his breathing, “and if I’m right, the man who sabotaged the ship you just destroyed knew you would be here—in fact, I think he manipulated that ship’s course to bring it here. Why would he do that?”

  The Crafter’s eyes narrowed, “Describe him—in detail.”

  “I knew him as Mr. Six,” Sarkozi explained, “but that was obviously an alias of some kind, just like Mr. Scarlet is an alias of mine. I think he was an Imperial Intelligence Section Chief, and the brother of that Imperial ship’s commander,” he jerked an unsteady thumb toward the outer airlock door. “Just before he attacked the bridge he changed,” he shuddered at the thought of those cold, mechanical, lifeless eyes, “into something…unnatural.”

  “Specifics, Mr. Sarkozi,” the Crafter reiterated sharply.

  “He…” Sarkozi closed his eyes and tried to recall the details, “he had what looked like metal tentacles, or tendr
ils, which came out of his hands. And his eyes…” he trailed off as a sharp pain erupted in his chest. His heart was racing faster than it had ever done, and in spite of his efforts to control his breathing and other autonomous functions his vision began to narrow.

  “What about his eyes?” the Crafter pressed, and when Sarkozi focused on the Crafter’s features displayed on the airlock’s screen he saw the barest trace of fear.

  “They were dead…and dark,” panted. “So dark,” he wheezed as he fell to a knee. “I can’t breathe,” he whispered hoarsely as his lungs felt like they were burning from the inside out, “I can’t breathe!”

  His vision blacked out and the next thing he knew he was lying on the deck of the airlock, his hands flailing in the air as he slowly began to lose consciousness. It was an agonizing experience, and he eventually realized he was being suffocated to death.

  “No—don’t!” he pleaded, clawing at the inner door even though he could barely see.

  Suddenly, the inner door swished open and he gasped a deep, life-giving breath of air. It only took a handful of breaths for his vision to return, and when it finally did he realized the Crafter was standing over him.

  The Crafter knelt before him and pressed a slender, foreign-looking pistol to his temple. “Look at me,” the Crafter commanded, and Sarkozi complied.

  The Crafter produced a small scanning device of some kind and passed it over his eyes, keeping the gun pressed to his head as the scanner passed back and forth across his head a dozen times.

  Finally, the Crafter deactivated the device and breathed a short sigh of relief. “I’m sorry,” the Crafter said, standing and proffering a hand, “but I couldn’t trust that you were telling the tru—“

  A series of alarms sounded overhead and without a moment’s hesitation the Crafter sprinted down the corridor. Sarkozi staggered to his feet, steeling his nerves as he made to follow her. He emerged onto what was clearly the ship’s bridge, which had three seated stations and nothing else.

  It took him only a few seconds to spot the ship’s tactical plotter, and when he found it his newfound breath caught in his throat. “What…” he began dumbly as he stared at the feeds.

  “It is too late…” the Crafter said in unmasked horror, “they are here.”

  The plotter slowly filled with a hundred ship signatures—then another hundred appeared, followed by yet another hundred!

  “But…how?” the Crafter whispered through gritted teeth. “This was not the future Asterion foresaw…how?!” the Crafter demanded, whirling to face Sarkozi.

  “We need to retrieve those escape pods,” Sarkozi said as the immensity of the newly-arrived fleet became clear.

  “No, we cannot take the risk,” the Crafter said while manipulating the ship’s controls with blinding speed. “It is already too late for them—as it may be for us.”

  The ship lurched forward, burning its engines faster than any ship Sarkozi had ridden as it left Mr. Black’s Pulsar-class Cutter in its wake. The Crafter was making for the lone gap in the arriving fleet’s perimeter of the star system, and it was uncertain even with this ship’s acceleration whether they would reach the hyper limit in time.

  A nearby station flared to life with a rapid series of what were obviously alarms, though the language the interface was written in was completely foreign to him. “What are those?” he asked.

  “Active scanning pings,” the Crafter replied tightly, prompting what little color remained in Sarkozi’s face to drain away, “they have found us.”

  “How can I help?” Sarkozi asked, suspecting there was no way he could contribute but feeling as though he needed to make the offer.

  “Sit down,” the Crafter instructed, pointing to the chair to the right of the console which the Crafter occupied, “and shut up.”

  Sarkozi did as instructed, and soon saw a dozen nearby tactical icons began to converge on their location with identical acceleration curves to the Crafter’s ship.

  The fleet of over three hundred ships appeared to have taken up something of a three dimensional crescent formation with a heavy concentration of ships on the far side of the star system to the Crafter’s ship, with decreasing numbers of ships the further they were from the heart of the formation.

  “Can you outrun them?” Sarkozi asked.

  “No,” the Crafter said tersely. “But I can reach the hyper limit before they fire on us.”

  “Then you can outrun them,” he asserted in spite of her protestation.

  “They have found me,” the Crafter hissed. “You do not know how difficult it was to elude them for as long as I have. Fifty years and thousands of lives sacrificed…” the Crafter said hollowly, “for nothing. What changed?” The Crafter turned to Sarkozi and angrily repeated, “What changed?!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarkozi said in confusion.

  “Asterion was certain,” the Crafter insisted. “He sacrificed himself to ensure that this path was the correct one—WHAT CHANGED?!” Then the Crafter seemed to realize something, “Your saboteur…perhaps it was him? None of you were supposed to be here!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarkozi said warily. “But it did seem like Mr. Six was expecting to find you here. He even falsified portions of the after action report he made regarding the destruction of his ship.”

  “What happened to his ship?” the Crafter pressed anxiously.

  “It was destroyed,” Sarkozi replied warily, “by ships matching your ship’s configuration and capability. I thought you were involve—”

  “Where was that ship destroyed?”

  “About three thousand light years from here,” Sarkozi said slowly, “toward the distal end of the Gorgon Sectors—”

  “Wait,” the Crafter’s eyes widened in shock, “inside the Gorgon Sectors?”

  “Yes,” Sarkozi nodded slowly, “about three hundred light years within the Rim-side border.”

  The Crafter’s eyes rolled back as the seemingly genderless figure slumped into the pilot’s chair. Shocked silence hung in the cramped ‘bridge’ as the converging Locust ships continued to gain ground on the Crafter’s ship.

  “I…I,” the Crafter stammered, “I cannot believe it…Asterion was wrong.”

  “Who was Asterion?”

  “He was my everything…” the Crafter said dully. “He was my child, my companion, and my brightest dreams given form…he was everything I wished to give back to the universe. And he sacrificed himself to save the inhabitants of the Gorgon Sectors…but it was all for nothing. I…I…” the Crafter’s eyes widened in horror before slowly meeting Sarkozi’s, “I have released a terrible weapon into the galaxy. We were wrong…I was wrong!”

  “Look,” Sarkozi leaned forward urgently, “I don’t know what you thought was supposed to happen, but I do know that if you made a mistake as large as the one you seem to think you made then your only option is to try to make it right. Tell me about this weapon you released.”

  “It is already gone…”

  “I’ll help you find it,” Sarkozi grabbed the Crafter by the shoulders and squared their bodies until their eyes resumed contact, “but first you need to get us out of here.”

  “They found me,” the Crafter repeated weakly, as though that somehow ended the conversation. “It is over.”

  “Why?” Sarkozi demanded. “You said you can jump ahead of them—we just need to evade them long enough to throw them off our trail!”

  “You do not understand,” the Crafter despaired, “I cannot deceive them now that they know where I am.”

  Sarkozi cocked his head, “What do you mean by that?”

  “They know my mind even better than I do,” the Crafter explained, “and they know my ship better than I do. When the World Ship arrives and learns I was here, it will be a small matter for them to predict my probable courses and run me down. How do you think I taught Asterion to unwind the threads? I learned the secret from them! If my memories were still remo
ved from me perhaps I could evade them, but now that I have reincorporated them—”

  “Fine,” Sarkozi interrupted with fiery determination, though he did not understand even half of what she had just said, “then let me choose our jump coordinates.”

  “What?” the Crafter asked blankly.

  “If you’re too predictable,” Sarkozi reiterated urgently, “then let me pick our flight plan!”

  “I…” the Crafter seemed dubious for a moment. Then grim determination filled the Crafter’s features, “It is possible…”

  “Good,” Sarkozi nodded, “now what do I have to do?”

  “There will be pain,”

  Sarkozi shrugged dismissively, “Better pain than failure.”

  The Crafter clambered out of the pilot’s seat and said, “Sit here and fasten your harness—and whatever happens, try not to escape or to hurt yourself.”

  That did nothing to inspire calm in Sarkozi, but a quick look at the incoming Locust ships steeled his nerves and he quickly switched seats. The multi-point harness was easy enough to secure, and after he had done so he began to ask, “Now wha—“

  Before he could finish the second word he felt a stabbing sensation in the base of his skull and for, what seemed like an agony-filled eternity, he was uncertain if he was alive or dead.

  His senses were awash in feedback they were never supposed to encounter—his eyes seemed to be smelling the air, his skin seemed to be seeing the ambient light, and his tongue was somehow hearing the blips and beeps of the console in front of him.

  Somewhere on the back of his tongue he ‘heard’ the Crafter say, “The interface is almost finished with the calibration cycle. Do not fight it any more than you must.”

  He tried to reply, but realized as he was doing so that the only voluntary action taking place in his entire body was a spasmodic twitching of his eyes.

  Mercifully, the harrowing ordeal eventually ended—though Sarkozi had no way of knowing precisely how long it had lasted.

  “There,” the Crafter said approvingly, “you did not die. Impressive.”

  “Whaaaa…” he slurred before the Crafter gripped his shoulder tightly.