No Middle Ground

by Caleb Wachter

  “Yes, Captain,” the crewman replied, relaying the order. Surprisingly, there was no reply this time—and thankfully no promise to make yet another note in his Demon-blasted log.

  “Captain,” Sarkozi said, taking a few steps away from her station and gesturing to the main screen, “the three merchantmen are still on course for the collection facility; shouldn’t we interdict them?”

  Middleton shook his head. “By themselves they wouldn’t pose much of a threat, but that Corvette’s missiles make for a force multiplier. The corvette could deploy them and then—assuming this second captain is halfway capable—coordinate the maneuvers of his ship and the three merchies for an advantageous formation while we try to counteract the missiles. The merchantmen entering the fray would complicate things unnecessarily; letting them dock is a concession we have to make, given the available data.”

  “But sir,” she continued respectfully, “if they’re willing to risk an engagement with us, wouldn’t that indicate there’s something of great value to them aboard the station—something we should deny them access to? I doubt they’re going there to re-stock on H3 before beating feet, sir.”

  “Your logic is sound, Ensign,” Middleton agreed with a nod of his head, “but pirates without warships are far less dangerous than pirates with warships. Without knowing for certain what’s aboard that station, I have to deal with the threats in order of apparent priority—that means the corvettes first, the merchantmen second, and then the station and its contents.”

  “What’s to stop the second corvette from hightailing it out of here, sir?” Sarkozi asked, glancing at her Tactical team briefly before returning her attention to the Captain.

  “Greed, Ensign,” Middleton replied confidently as he ran silent calculations to confirm their next likely engagement time with the enemy—assuming the pirate captain was as capable as he, or she, appeared. “If they were going to leave they would have done so already. You’re right; there’s something on that station which is valuable enough to tilt their fight or flight response toward the former, even in the face of a superior foe. Still, we’re now officially on the clock; if we play games for too long out here those merchies will escape with whatever cargo they seem so desperate to reclaim. Then there’ll be no way to stop that corvette from doing likewise, what with her speed advantage.”

  “So we have to force the engagement here and now,” Sarkozi said with a knowing nod before turning back to her Tactical team and performing some calculations. “By my numbers, the merchantmen will reach the station in just under an hour—seventeen minutes before we reach extreme range of our forward array,” she reported, confirming Middleton’s own calculations. “If the remaining corvette follows this course toward the nearest gap in the rings,” she continued, throwing a hypothetical trajectory up onto the main screen which seemed to match the corvette’s current course, “they’ll reach an interdictory position in forty two minutes—eight minutes prior to our reaching firing range on the merchantmen, sir.”

  The Captain punched up the technical specs on their forward heavy laser array, and after finding the frequency bands the weapons operated in, made a note which he forwarded to Sarkozi’s console. “We don’t want to give the merchies that much time if we can help it, Ensign,” he said confidently. “Make the modifications I’ve outlined to the forward array and report when you’ve finished.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she replied, turning to her console and going over his note as a smile crept across her face. “I can have those modifications ready in eight minutes,” she reported hungrily.

  “Do it,” he ordered, turning to the Sensors officer. “I need the primary sensors modified to deal with the unusual amount of iron in that ice ring,” he explained. “We’re going to need to use the primary sensor array for targeting, so we’ll need tactical-level accuracy; the weapons’ own targeting systems can’t cut through the rings’ interference. Can you do it?”

  The Sensors officer looked at her console for a few moments as she got readings on the ice ring’s composition. “I think so, Captain,” she replied hesitantly, “but based on the interference, as well as our current velocity, we’ll have to slave the weapons to the sensors so they can fire as soon as a target lock is acquired. The firing windows are only going to open for a fraction of a second—too short for human reaction times.”

  Slave-rigging the computers to command fire control, even temporarily, was a breach of standard operating protocol—one that required the Captain’s authorization to make. Ever since the AI wars, humanity had been distrustful of allowing machines to have too much control over dangerous equipment like weapons, and it was possibly a punishable offense for a Captain to do so—even temporarily. Normally the solutions were populated by the computer and then the gunners would verify the readings with their own targeting computers which were completely independent from the ship’s computer networks.

  “Sarkozi,” Middleton nodded decisively, “slave fire control to the Sensors and set the solution parameters yourself. Each battery should offset their fire interval by ten microseconds from each other, firing in a clockwise sequence; the first laser will clear a hole through the ice ring debris to provide a clear shot for the second. We’re only going to get a couple shots before that corvette’s out of range, so we need to make each one count.”

  “Yes, sir,” she acknowledged curtly.

  “Helm,” the Captain continued as he forwarded another set of instructions to the helmsman, “re-orient the ship; I want our bow facing that corvette while they make for the ring break, but I don’t want to change our current trajectory. I also want axial rotation precisely as indicated—can you be that exact?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Jersey replied tersely, but even the man’s sour disposition did little to deflate Middleton’s buoyant mood. Seconds later the view screen tilted upward, showing the gas giant’s incredible ring system as the bow of the ship rose gently to face it. He knew the rate of rotation he had ordered would be too slow to observe with the naked eye, but Middleton still disliked being in less than total control of the situation so he checked his instruments to verify the Pride’s axial rotation.

  The density of the rings around the gas giant was unlike anything Middleton had ever encountered, or even read about, and it was that density which created a shield that would protect them from any beam weapon except the most powerful versions—like the Pride’s own heavy lasers, or the Starfire missiles on the corvette.

  The sensor distortions caused by the mineral content of the rings were also tactically problematic. The Pride’s sensors were likely no better than those of the pirate, but the advantage they had while the rings were interposed between the two vessels was that the Pride’s heavy laser array could recharge and fire again, even if they missed. The pirate’s Starfire missiles, on the other hand, were only good for a single attack so the corvette’s captain couldn’t afford to waste them on a low-percentage shot through the rings—especially at their present angle, which multiplied the amount of debris between ships many, many times the median thickness of the rings.

  “Comm.,” Middleton spun his chair after a minute’s silence to face the Comm. stander, “status on the primary transmitter?”

  “It’s still down, Captain,” the stander reported promptly. “Engineering reports the repairs will require at least thirty minutes to complete.”

  Before Middleton could respond to the Chief Engineer’s obviously sandbagged estimate, the forward array of the Pride of Prometheus erupted unexpectedly as all ten of her heavy lasers bored into the ice rings. “Beams away,” Sarkozi reported belatedly as she bent down to read the incoming telemetry and nodded satisfactorily, “reading three direct hits, Captain. Enemy shields are holding; adjusting battery timing to eight point seven microseconds for the next pass.”

  “Good work, Tactical; Helm,” Middleton replied as he flipped through the ship-wide status reports. This was all much simpler as a Tactical Officer, he thought half-grudgingly as he checked th
e departmental status reports. “Inform Chief Garibaldi that we need that transmitter online in no more than twenty two minutes,” he said after reviewing the ship’s status. Not a single casualty to this point, he thought with silent relief. Murphy willing, we might make it through this unscathed.

  A few minutes later the forward array fired another volley when the sensors read a clear enough gap in the ring system, causing Sarkozi to report, “Five direct hits, Captain. Their stern shields seem to have buckled and I’m reading trace atmo venting from their hull, but their engines appear undamaged.”

  Rather than ask, Middleton brought up the Shields status display and saw that their forward generators were at 62% of maximum. There had been multiple power grid failures that had necessitated re-routing of the lateral generators’ supply, but fortunately that was of little concern.

  If the two corvettes had worked together, they could have outflanked his slower, heavier vessel and made achieving firing position difficult for the Pride’s crew. But with one of the nimble corvettes already down for the count and the other well on her way to the same, by Middleton’s way of thinking, it would be little challenge to keep their bow facing the pirate vessel long enough to disable her.

  Still, Middleton reminded himself somberly, if we can’t disable those Starfires’ fire-linking system like we did with the first wave, I doubt that even our reinforced bow shields will hold.

  “Captain,” the Comm. stander began hesitantly, “I’m picking up some unusual chatter from the station.”

  “What do you make of it?” asked Captain Middleton.

  “It’s coded, sir,” the man replied as his fingers flew over his console, “but I’m getting…” he paused as he listened intently for a moment before continuing, “it’s an awfully powerful signal, Captain, and it’s being broadcast throughout the system. I don’t recognize the protocols…it must be some sort of automated SOS.”

  “Log it for later review,” Middleton ordered. He wanted to know where these pirates’ allies were located, and that signal might point them in the right direction.

  “Already done, sir,” the Comm. stander replied promptly, “I missed the first two seconds, but the rest—” he cut off mid-sentence, cocking his head briefly before shaking it in negation. “It’s gone now, sir.”

  “Contact,” reported the Sensors operator, who Middleton turned toward as she continued, “I’m reading a heat bloom at the edge of the ring system, Captain. Looks like…Captain, it’s accelerating. These energy emissions readings are off the charts.”

  “Put it on the main viewer,” the captain instructed, feeling a knot form in his stomach at the introduction of an unforeseen variable.

  The view screen shimmered, and the image of the ring system was replaced with a three-dimensional tactical overlay of the gas giant. Clearly depicted were the positions of the disabled corvette, the corvette still burning at maximum speed for the ring gap, the Pride of Prometheus, and even the gas collection facility with the trio of approaching merchantmen.

  But a new, flashing yellow icon had appeared on the far side of the planet. Its energy emission spike was incredible, and after a moment’s calculations Middleton knew that that much power could only be generated by a Dreadnaught class battleship’s multiple fusion generators—or potentially something even bigger.

  Then the flashing yellow icon disappeared without warning, causing the Sensors operator to report, “We’ve lost contact, Captain. The emissions have vanished as well…I don’t know what to make of it, sir.”

  “Give me a visual scan,” Middleton demanded, leaning forward in his chair. If there was another hostile out here—especially one so large—then a tactical withdrawal had to be considered, regardless of how it irked the Pride’s captain. “I want to lay eyes on it.”

  “Scanning now, sir,” the operator reported as the Pride’s forward weapons array fired yet again. Sarkozi had the good sense to hold her own report on the volley as the Sensors operation continued, “I’ve got visual on their last known location, sir.”

  The main viewer shimmered again, this time being replaced with a view of what appeared to be empty space beneath the immense ring system of the gas giant. “Scan along their projected course,” Middleton ordered promptly.

  “Scanning,” the operator replied, and the viewer slowly panned from top to bottom, revealing nothing but an empty star scape. “Negative contacts, Captain. Whatever it was, it’s gone...but it left behind a huge amount of radiation where we first detected it; it’s so strong we can read it through the EM field of the planet, sir. That amount of radiation is well beyond the lethal human limit.”

  The Captain gripped the arm of his chair and ground his teeth in silent frustration. Disabling the remaining corvette was essentially a foregone conclusion…if she was the last man of war the pirates had in-system.

  As the captain considered the matter, Sarkozi reported, “Two hits on the last volley, Captain; minor damage to their engines detected. The corvette has brought itself too close to the face of the rings; it’s out of our effective firing range,” she finished smartly.

  Arriving at a conclusion, Middleton nodded to no one in particular as he leaned on the right arm of his chair. “Either that energy spike was a decoy of some kind, or there’s a cloaked phantom ship out there. Seeing as I’ve never even heard of a vessel the size of a battleship being effectively cloaked at this close range—and only a criminally insane person would design a warship capable of producing that much radiation during normal operations—I’m guessing it was a ploy to keep us away from that station a few minutes longer. Continue on course to the station at best possible speed,” he instructed the helmsman.

  “It could have been an automated vessel of some kind?” Sarkozi offered after a moment.

  “Possible,” Middleton allowed tersely, “but irrelevant for now. We’ve got one job in front of us: disable that corvette. When that’s finished and we’ve re-taken the mining facility, we can investigate the matter more thoroughly.”

  “Yes sir,” Sarkozi acknowledged.

  The minutes ticked by until the pirate corvette had reached the gap between the rings. Unfortunately, the primary comm. array was still offline despite Captain Middleton’s insistence that Chief Garibaldi finish in something resembling a timely manner.

  “How long until the array is back up?!” Middleton demanded, leaping from his chair and turning to loom over the engineering officer assigned to the bridge.

  “The Chief is testing the system now, sir,” the young man replied timidly. “He says it should be up after he’s finished running through the checklists—about three minutes.”

  “We don’t have three minutes!” Middleton roared, his composure shattered by his Chief Engineer’s feet-dragging. He snatched the headset from the man and holding the mic to his own lips. “Garibaldi, I need my transmitter and I need it now; flip the blasted switch already and to Hades with your checklists!” He heard a reply from the man on the other end, whose voice most certainly belonged to the Chief of Engineering and sounded more than a little indignant, but Middleton ignored his protestations. “Give me my transmitter now!” he yelled as the screen lit up with a new swarm of Starfire missile launches.

  “Incoming,” Sarkozi relayed, “sensors read thirteen…no, make that fifteen Starfire missiles inbound.”

  The Comm. stander quickly reported, “Transmitter is back online, Captain.”

  Dropping the headset in the Engineering officer’s lap, Captain Middleton returned to his chair and accessed the tactical readouts. Fifteen? he wondered as he calculated the time to the Starfire’s range. We might have disabled one of their launchers, he reminded himself as he turned to the Comm. officer. “Repeat the previous transmission on my order; I doubt they’ve changed the operating frequencies, since doing so requires a manual adjustment of each missile.”

  “Captain,” the Sensors officer reported tensely, “I’m reading another incoming object.”

  “The sixteenth missil
e?” Middleton asked, actually feeling relieved at confirming the presence of the final weapon, since it removed a variable from the equation.

  “I believe so, sir,” the officer replied hesitantly, “but it’s moving slower than the others.”

  “Sarkozi?” Middleton asked. Starfire missiles did not have adjustable speeds; they burned at maximum until their fuel supply was exhausted, at which point they used their attitude adjustment jets for achieving a coordinated firing position. There was no reason he could think of for a missile to be traveling slower than the others…

  “Scanning,” Ensign Sarkozi replied as she leaned over her console. “It’s transmitting the same as the others, sir,” she replied after a brief review. “It must have been damaged, or have some kind of failure in its drive system.”

  Middleton felt his hackles rise. This was most certainly an unexpected wrinkle, but he still had no idea what it meant. “Time to Starfire range?” he asked, even though the information was plain to see on the main view screen. He often had to forcibly remind himself that he was the Captain; coordinating the efforts of his crew was his primary focus, and relying on them doing their jobs, was the most important part of his own role. Easier said than done, he chided himself coldly.

  “Eighty seconds,” Sarkozi replied. “The corvette is coming in directly behind the missiles, sir.…” she trailed off doubtfully as her fingers flew over her console.

  “They must be banking on the missiles to eliminate our shields, Ensign,” the captain mused. “If they do, a full-frontal assault is their best chance to win, slim as that chance is.” He turned to the Shields operator, “What’s the status of our forward shields?”

  “68%, Captain,” came the reply.

  At those numbers there was a very real possibility that the corvette’s Starfire missiles could breach their shields, leaving them vulnerable to the corvette’s strafing run. Even still, a strafing run with every single weapon on the pirate ship overcharged likely wouldn’t do more than moderate damage to the Pride of Prometheus, during and after which the Pride would be able to unload on them—if those Starfires didn’t disable the forward heavy laser array.