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

by Caleb Wachter

  “Do not speak—focus only on the star charts.”

  He did as instructed, and after a few seconds he realized he could somehow read the charts. It was still in the unfamiliar language, but somehow it made sense to him even though he could not readily pronounce the words—not even if his mouth suddenly decided to cooperate, which it clearly did not.

  “Good,” the Crafter said after Sarkozi established a multi-point itinerary simply using his thoughts, “but it is too similar to my own.” Sarkozi refocused and repeated the exercise, this time coming up with something that seemed random enough to him. But again the Crafter said, “Too similar.”

  Sarkozi tried to ask a question—specifically: how long did the Crafter’s jump engines take to cycle?—before the answer suddenly appeared on the console before him.

  “Twelve minutes,” the Crafter said after Sarkozi had finally gleaned that information for himself.

  Sarkozi took that information and plotted a series of incredibly short-range jumps—the first taking place only one light hour outside of the hyper limit they were burning toward.

  “A short-range void jump…” the Crafter said with an initially disapproving tone before nodding eagerly. “Yes…yes, that is perfect. I would never do that; it is too stupid!”

  Ignoring the barb, Sarkozi plotted the first jump and somehow he smelled the hyper drive begin to spin up. He then laid in a series of progressively longer-range jumps, each taking them in a zigzag course before finally setting the fifth jump at the maximum range of the ship’s jump engines.

  “This might actually work,” the Crafter said, “if we can successfully evade the Combine here then we must return to the Alliance. The Compact has been broken, but the Combine would never strike that far into the Gorgon Sectors—at least not quickly enough to stop us from mounting a defense. But above all we must find Qaz.”

  “The All…i…ance?” Sarkozi slurred while wondering who this ‘Qaz’ person was.

  “The Alliance Gorgonus,” the Crafter explained as the ship shook from a faint impact—an impact which Sarkozi saw with his left eye while feeling it on his right shoulder. “They are ranging on us—we will point transfer in thirty seconds.”

  Another impact—this one fully twice as potent as the last—shook the ship. Sarkozi somehow knew that the stern shields would not survive two more hits of similarly-escalating severity.

  “Fifteen seconds,” the Crafter said tensely, “stay focused on the star charts!”

  Another impact hammered into the ship’s stern, and this time Sarkozi heard a stream of damage reports come flooding across the console before him.

  “Five…four…three…two…one…jump!”

  In a span of time nearly immeasurable due to its brevity, space folded around the disc-shaped ship and an instant later resumed its previous structure—with the Crafter’s ship having successfully escaped what would have been the fourth, fatal blow.

  Epilogue: The Round-Up

  Chancellor Foles’ office was far from lavish, with simple appointments and straightforward wooden furniture. But the government building itself—the Dome, as the locals called it—was one of the finest pieces of colonial architecture Middleton had ever seen or heard of.

  It measured four hundred meters in diameter and rose three hundred meters above the plateau on which it had been built. The structure was made entirely of stone—a greenish marble of some kind, to Middleton’s eye—and there seemed to be little, if any, mortar employed during its construction.

  The Chancellor’s office was located near the apex of the impressive structure, though there were no windows from which to view the capitol city of Mercy’s End.

  After her attendants had left the room, Middleton said, “I need to know how you got so many of those missiles, Chancellor.”

  “Have a seat, Commander,” she gestured to the padded, wooden chair opposite her own.

  She sat behind a solid stone desk with the emblem of Mercy’s End—a diagonally aligned sword with a drop of blood near the tip—carved into the front of the one-piece desk. Middleton obliged by taking his seat, and Foles slid a data slate across the desk after he had done so. “My people take security extremely seriously, Commander. Most of our forebears left the Empire because of its record of oppressively applying state force. Some of them were genuine criminals, but most were simply unable to support a system which treated its citizens like livestock. As such, the beating heart of our entire society is the desire to retain our liberties.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how you built the missiles,” Middleton said studiously.

  “Of course it does,” she said, gesturing to the data slate which he began to peruse. “You’ll find that the majority of our population here in Mercy’s end is fully de-centralized; the only cities on either of our planets are ports or, in the unique case of this city, diplomatic zones.”

  “Diplomatic zones?” Middleton repeated as he read through Mercy’s End’s census data. “You have frequent contact with other colonies in the area, then?”

  “We do,” Foles nodded.

  Middleton’s eyes scanned through the document until catching on something unexpected, “This says that eighty three percent of your population is actively engaged in the production of military hardware?”

  “That is correct,” she said matter-of-factly. “Our entire way of life is one which is fully de-centralized, from food production to power generation and, perhaps most importantly, to military hardware production.”

  Middleton opened a file attached to the census data and felt a smile spread across his face in spite of his best efforts, “Micro-foundries…precision machining equipment…every single household on your planet has at least one piece of hardware capable of contributing to an assembly line—“

  “Assembly cloud,” she interrupted pointedly, “there is no ‘line’ to be had; the logistical particulars are handled via distributed intelligence networks which maximize individual outputs by putting orders up every three hours. Any household which is not actively engaged in the production of hardware is obligated to maintain their equipment in order to be ready for emergency orders. Those orders fill unexpected gaps in the cloud’s inventory, and a nearly automated system of delivery vehicles collects finished components while dropping off the raw materials each household is best able to utilize.”

  Middleton nodded as he perused the production lists, “Rocket nozzles…flow regulators…missile fuselages…even the emitters and focusing lenses are produced in a completely decentralized system. This system impresses me,” Middleton admitted, “and that’s not an easy thing to do. But how can you generate the surplus wealth required to fund an ongoing project of this scale?”

  “Freedom is important to us, Commander,” Foles said coolly, “every citizen of Mercy’s End knows it is his or her duty to maintain constant vigilance if we are to retain that freedom. One is either expanding or declining and, in the matter of liberty, decline is inevitable without ongoing efforts to counteract it. We live relatively simple lives here, Commander, just as our forebears did. We are content to continue living such lives if it means we may do so secure in our freedoms.”

  “Most people talk a good game about maintaining liberty,” Middleton said pointedly, “but they usually balk at the first sign of trouble.”

  “I hope you will agree that we do not shy away from a fight, Commander,” she said measuredly.

  “I would,” Middleton allowed, “but I’m puzzled by something.”

  “Yes?”

  “You had all of those missiles—plus however many more you haven’t declared to this point,” he said with a dismissive gesture intended to forestall objection on her part, “and you could have easily fought off Edelweiss’s people…but you didn’t. Why?”

  “I would think the answer to that question would be obvious,” she said with an arched brow. “Much like your Void Hunter friends and their surprisingly effective boarding actions, we knew that once the Imperial Fleet was aware of o
ur missiles we would lose the element of surprise. Without surprise, our relatively short-ranged arsenal would be of little or no use.”

  “So you held them in reserve because…” Middleton said leadingly, having already arrived at a probable answer on his own. He needed to hear Foles’ answer in order to be truly satisfied on that front, however.

  “We are not stupid, Captain Middleton,” she said, pointedly reverting from the use of his ‘Supreme Commander’ title in favor of his less imposing rank, “we could never stand against a determined Imperial Fleet. Our mobile assets, prior to your arrival, had barely ten percent the tactical value of your Alliance Gorgonus Fleet.”

  “Seven point two percent,” Middleton said off-handedly.

  “A tiny fraction, whatever the figure,” she said dismissively, “which meant our best hope for regaining our freedom was not by standing proudly—and stupidly—against an unstoppable force like an Imperial Fleet.”

  “You said ‘regaining’?” Middleton observed. “You mean to say that you and your people had already considered their freedom lost when we arrived.”

  “Of course,” she said neutrally. “We had already committed ourselves to a long-approved resistance strategy.”

  “Terrorism?” he asked archly.

  “Guerilla tactics,” she retorted. “Terrorism seeks to instill fear in a civilian population; only fools conflate asymmetric warfare with terrorism. One is waged against agents of the state and the other is waged against that state’s citizenry.”

  “There’s more overlap there than I think you’d like to admit,” Middleton allowed, “but I’d concede your point in the interests of expediency. So you were going to…what…hope the Imps didn’t locate your missiles before you sprang the trap?”

  “Missiles are just one component of our resistance strategy,” she said brusquely before wavering. “If you are trying to get me to admit that we needed your help to fight off the Empire, you are pursuing—“

  “We both know that much was true,” Middleton shook his head, “but we also both know that we can gain more by working together than by arguing about whose position was strongest before this thing began. All I’m interested in at this point is setting up here in Mercy’s End so we can do the harder work of pushing back against the next batch of Imperials that come our way.”

  “To that end,” Foles said pointedly, “I must insist that Admirals Edelweiss and dela Gaultierre be transferred to my people’s custody immediately.”

  “I can’t do that, Chancellor,” Middleton shook his head.

  “I thought we were on the same side, Middleton?”

  “We are, Foles,” Middleton said, returning the dramatic familiarity in kind, “but as the Supreme Military Commander of the Alliance Gorgonus, it’s my job to safeguard the well-being of all the AG’s constituents. I understand you’d like the Admirals brought in for a proper media circus to drum up your people’s morale, and I’ll agree to hand them over for that purpose if and when their potential use to me as information sources no longer represents significant value.”

  “Meaning ‘never’,” she said coolly.

  “Not ‘never’,” he replied, “just not ‘now’.”

  “Fine,” she relented, “but there is another matter on which my people require satisfaction.” She slid another data slate across the desk, and Middleton put the census slate down to pick up this new pad.

  It took him just a few seconds to realize what her request was for, “Request denied.”

  “Captain Middleton, Green from Red is one of the most monstrous organizations operating in this region of space,” she said animatedly. “They are slavers, Captain, and I have no fewer than three hundred fellow Enders who have directly suffered at their hands. The arrangement you made with their leader, Jasmine Rashid, is an affront to that suffering. As Chancellor of Mercy’s End, it is my sworn duty to—”

  “The first three of the slavers’ Cutters have already returned with detailed reports, Madam Chancellor,” Middleton interrupted. “Would you care to know the contents of those reports?”

  Foles seemed caught off-guard, but it was evident that she had prepared for this particular segment of the conversation for quite some time and would not be deterred, “As members of the Alliance Gorgonus, we are to be granted unrestricted access to whatever intelligence you gather, Captain Middleton.”

  “Not true,” Middleton shook his head deliberately, “you’re to be granted unrestricted access to whatever non-sensitive intelligence I gather, so long as I deem that intelligence not to be of immediate and critical importance to AG security.”

  “You tread close to tyranny, Middleton,” Foles said frostily.

  “I don’t think so,” Middleton riposted. “In times of war a certain amount of centralization isn’t just acceptable, it’s flat out essential. I can understand and even support most of your peoples’ core beliefs and principles regarding decentralization of power and the protection of individual liberty, but the only possible way you—or your culture,” he added as the image of the burning Prichtac home world flitted through his mind, “are going to survive the war ahead is by voluntarily participating in it in a productive fashion. Review your history, Chancellor,” Middleton said flatly. “A smaller, better organized force always emerges victorious over a larger, less-coordinated one. We’re spotting the Imps several times our throw weight out here, and they’re not exactly known to be slouches when it comes to coordination of effort. So it seems to me that our only chance at victory is if we can cut through this social red tape and work together in a way that doesn’t put us at each other’s throats.”

  “Do you actually think you can win this fight, Middleton?” she unexpectedly asked.

  Without missing a beat, Middleton nodded, “I do.”

  “Even after playing all of your cards?” she insisted. “The Empire won’t dare attack us here again; they’ll sweep up the other star systems in the area and box us in before issuing one of their infamous ultimatums.”

  “They will—unless we sweep up those star systems first,” Middleton said emphatically. “You said you regularly conduct diplomacy with your neighbors out here; what I need is your help to contact them and get them to come onboard the AG.”

  She studied him for several long, silent moments before asking, “What did your slaver friends find?”

  “This is war, Madam Chancellor,” Middleton snapped. “They’re not my friends—they’re our friends. They’ve already gone deep into Imperial territory and found information which will prove instrumental to the formulation of our strategy for winning in this theater. I don’t like dealing with them any more than you do; I had family on a settler ship a few years ago when all hell broke loose in my home space. Pirates were taking down anything they could find, and slavers were running wild in the power vacuum. So trust me when I say that I fully understand the plight of your three hundred fellow Enders, and I still think that enlisting the slavers’ help was the right call.”

  “What did they find?” she reiterated with a fractional softening of her voice.

  Now it was Middleton’s turn to produce a data slate, which he slid across the desk toward her and said, “They found more than I thought they would—including our first counterattack target.”

  She examined the slate’s contents for several minutes before her eyebrows predictably rose, “This is…ambitious.”

  “Hard, fast, and straight up the middle,” Middleton said with conviction as he stood from the chair and offered his hand. “Will Mercy’s End lend its arm to the fight or are you going to let someone else decide your fate?”

  Foles gave him a withering look before standing and accepting his hand, “We will do our part. But I will need something to give my people to help soften the blow when they learn we’re working with slavers.”

  “One problem at a time, Chancellor,” Middleton said, shaking her hand firmly, “but I’ve got a few items I’d like to run by your assembly cloud.”

  “What
kind of items?”

  “The same type of components you’ve already been making,” he replied coyly as he contemplated just how effective this de-centralized infrastructure might be at producing the Raubach-designed turbo-laser mounts which he planned to install on every Corvette under his command in the coming months, “with a few minor modifications, of course.”

  “Got a sec, Cap?” Mikey asked as Middleton reviewed the latest updates on the fleet’s preparedness.

  “Of course, Chief,” Middleton beckoned for his long-time friend to enter the conference room where Middleton had sat alone for nearly four hours. “What’s on your mind?”

  Garibaldi pulled up a nearby seat and asked, “How are you holding up?”

  Middleton tossed a data slate onto the table, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  “You might’ve forgotten that was part of your job lately,” Mikey said easily while gesturing to the mess of slates on the conference table, “seems like you’re up to your eyeballs in this stuff lately. You could almost be forgiven for not remembering that you’re supposed to be a starship captain.”

  “Almost,” Middleton agreed, “but not quite. I know I’ve been out of the loop lately—“ he began, only to be interrupted.

  “Nobody begrudges you the recent changes,” Garibaldi assured him. “We’ve been picking up the slack and things are running smoothly enough. It helps that the Prejudice’s crew is small enough to fit in a VR booth.”

  “If you’re not here to reprimand me,” Middleton said with a dry laugh, “what are you doing here?”

  “Wojo and I finished running the numbers on the power core,” Garibaldi replied heavily.

  Middleton had almost forgotten about his order for Mikey and Wojo to examine the ship’s mysterious power supply. “I assume I’m not going to like the results,” Middleton said after taking a moment to recollect his thoughts.

  “It’s not all bad,” Garibaldi unsuccessfully tried to assure him, “but it looks like we’re down to about fifty percent.”