No Middle Ground

by Caleb Wachter

  Jo bit her lip for several seconds before nodding. “It is.”

  Captain Middleton stood and gestured to Gnuko’s sleeve, “You’re going to need to get that fixed, Sergeant.”

  Gnuko clamped his teeth quietly before nodding and snapping a salute. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “I can’t exactly make it official, of course, given the degree of separation between our given branches of the MSP,” Middleton said, “but Sergeant Joneson made it quite clear to me his preference to succeed him in the event of his inability to continue in the role. You were at the top of his list, Gnuko, and I’d like to be the first to congratulate you on impressing the Hades out of a man who was not easily impressed.” Middleton then stood and thrust his hand across the desk.

  The newly-made Sergeant nodded and accepted his hand. “Thank you, Captain; he was a good man.”

  “Yes he was,” Middleton agreed, “and he’s left some awfully big shoes to fill.”

  “I’ll do my best, Captain,” Gnuko said confidently.

  “Dismissed, Sergeant,” Middleton said as warmly as he could manage.

  After the Sergeant had left, Middleton turned to Fei Long. “I’ve arranged for the quarters you’ve been using to become your permanent lodgings,” he said. “Your service to the ship, the MSP, and your fellow Confederation citizens in general has earned that and more. Unfortunately for you,” he said with a wry grin, “you’ll have to settle for a private bed and bath for pulling off a hack that should be celebrated among your peers.”

  “I understand the need for secrecy, Captain,” he said, standing from his chair. “You have my word that I will not violate your trust in this matter. Besides,” he added with a lopsided grin of his own, “I do not seek praise for my actions. I merely seek to test myself in the most challenging ways I can; the satisfaction of passing each test is reward enough.”

  “So you won’t be needing the quarters, then?” Middleton asked straight-faced.

  Fei Long hesitated before catching Middleton’s eye and bowing his head. “I defer to your judgment in that matter, Captain.”

  “Good answer, Mr. Fei,” the Captain said evenly. “Dismissed.”

  After the young man had left, Middleton allowed a smile to creep over his face.

  “You enjoyed that far too much,” Jo chided, and he found the familiarity in her tone more than a little comforting.

  “Someone’s got to keep these kids in line,” he sighed as he slumped back into his chair. “With Walt gone to meet the Saint, the only military man aboard the ship who’s older than I am is Lieutenant Commander Jersey.” He rubbed his eyes for several seconds as the past few hours seemed to catch up to him in a sudden, draining flood of images, voices, and emotion. “When did I get to be ‘the old guy’?” he asked rhetorically as he ran his fingers over his head before gesturing to his short-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. “At this point I just might prefer an early grave to seeing the rest of this turn grey.”

  “It suits you,” she said with a shrug. “It can’t be said of all men, but it really does make you look more distinguished.”

  “Distinguished,” he scoffed. “Now there’s a word that women virtually invented so they could tell a man he’s past his prime without coming out and saying it.”

  “Take it how you will,” she said, clearly hiding a self-satisfied smirk behind her suddenly businesslike demeanor. “But there is another reason I came here.”

  “What is it?” he asked after flipping a mental switch and bringing himself back into the moment.

  “Proximity to that neutron star, combined with the dangerously powerful emissions coming off that ComStat hub out there,” she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, “wouldn’t normally be a problem. But without the ship’s shields to deflect the various radiations—including an unhealthy dose of x-rays—we’re now bathing ourselves in, I’m going to have to administer basic radiation countermeasures for the entire crew,” she explained, to which Middleton nodded his approval, prompting her to add, “I’ve only got enough supplies on board for three days’ worth of treatments, and we’ll need at least three weeks’ worth even if we manage to get out of here in the next six hours. Every hour we stay here increases the amount of radiation we’ll carry with us, and require further treatments in the future until we can clean the ship.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Middleton said cautiously.

  “It’s not that serious,” she assured him, “at least, not in the immediate sense. The level of exposure we’ve received will result in something like a three thousand percent increase in cancerous cell formations, as well as instigate the development of certain progressive motor neuron diseases. Both of those conditions are treatable with modern medicine even if we wait for symptoms to develop over the next few years, but the expense and discomfort are significant. Whereas if we get medicine at a nearby Core World,” she added pointedly, “the cost will be less than one percent financially speaking, and the side effects of treatment shouldn’t adversely impact more than a handful of crewmembers to the point they need to be taken off active duty for any length of time.”

  Middleton breathed a sigh of relief. “All right,” he agreed, “we’ll make the nearest Core World our first stop on the way back to Sector 25.”

  “Sector 25?” she asked in open puzzlement.

  “It’s where the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet is currently headquartered,” he explained, adding with a shake of his head, “that is, if the MSP still exists, or if Admiral Montagne is still in command. We didn’t exactly have a lot of time to circle the wagons, if you get my meaning,” he said before his mood darkened. “I’m not even sure I’ll be in command after reporting in…I haven’t exactly followed his orders to the letter.”

  Jo held up a hand haltingly. “I’d really rather not discuss military politics, if it’s all the same to you,” she said.

  “Of course,” he acquiesced. “Thank you for your report, and your flexibility, Doctor.”

  Jo nodded curtly and left the ready room, after which Middleton took a look at the local star charts and felt his guts tighten when he saw that the nearest Core World—in fact, the only Core World within three days’ travel from their current position—was the Hedonist system.

  But the system’s name didn’t bother him. What bothered him was that it was solidly in the ‘grey’ portion of the Sector map which High Captain Manning had secretly provided the MSP.

  Meaning its current droid status was anything but certain, which was far from a good sign.

  Chapter XXXIX: One Headache after Another

  “Point transfer complete, Captain,” the helmsman reported. “Shield drain is within parameters; shedding sump now.” A tense few seconds ensued until the ship broke free of the sump, after which the helmsman breathed a short sigh of relief. “We’ve broken through, Captain.”

  “Good work, Helm,” Middleton acknowledged as the tactical overlay began to populate with the local system’s features. It was a relatively less-traveled, binary star system. This made it essentially uninhabitable outside of properly-shielded modules, or those which were positioned within the EM field of one of the system’s three gas giants.

  “Captain,” Fei Long said in his usual, calm voice from the Comm. section, “I am detecting unusual transmissions…they appear to be consistent with droid activity.”

  “Set Condition One throughout the ship,” Commander Jersey barked. “Battle stations!”

  “Give me a picture, Sensors,” Middleton said evenly as the crew sprang into action, knowing they had been fortunate to avoid an encounter during their previous series of jumps. There was only one more jump from their current position to the Hedonist system, so all the Pride of Prometheus needed to do was maintain distance from the enemy vessels until the jump drives could spin up.

  If only it would actually play out that way, Middleton thought as he readied for the inevitable battle.

  “Reading four vessels, Captain,” Sensors reported. “The readings are d
istorted…it will take some time to get precise measurements, but it looks like three of the ships are in formation and emitting radiation profiles identical to the ship we exchanged fire with at the depot.”

  “What about the fourth?” Middleton pressed as he flipped through the accumulated tactical information on the droid vessels contained in the Pride’s database.

  “I’m working up a reading now, Captain,” the Sensors operator replied. “There’s a lot of interference from the nearby gas giant; it’s almost large enough to be a brown dwarf. But preliminary data…” she trailed off before nodding her head curtly. “The fourth ship’s radiation profile is a match for the one we recorded five months ago at the bioweapon plant, Captain Middleton.”

  Middleton felt his stomach tighten. “Well, at least we’re all acquainted,” he said grimly as he saw that the fourth vessel was far closer to the Pride of Prometheus than Middleton would have liked—especially since Garibaldi been unable to get more than 50% out of the power grid since the near-miss with the neutron star. That meant they wouldn’t be fighting and cycling the jump drives at the same time, and against four droid ships the odds of the Pride and her crew surviving were…less than good.

  “All four vessels are moving to intercept, Captain,” Sarkozy reported, and Middleton found the anxiety he had come to expect in her voice notably absent. “At current acceleration rates, the three ship formation will enter extreme firing range in thirty two minutes; the fourth, larger, vessel will do so in eight minutes.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could outrun them?” Middleton asked dryly.

  Lieutenant Commander Jersey shook his head. “The fourth ship’s not much faster than we are, but the other three are moving like corvettes; there’s no way we stay out of firing range, and there’s no nearby planet to use for cover.”

  “Then the decision’s made,” Middleton said as he set his jaw. “Open a hailing frequency.”

  “Captain,” Ensign Jardine said evenly, “the droids haven’t been reported to accept any offers of surrender thus far in the crisis, or even respond to such messages.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Ensign,” Middleton said coolly. “Open the channel.”

  “Channel open, Captain,” Jardine reported after a brief delay.

  “This is Captain Tim Middleton of the MSP Cruiser Pride of Prometheus,” he said in a carrying voice, opting to use the name he preferred rather than the one he was born with. “I would like to negotiate on behalf of my crew to safeguard their well-being…but judging by intelligence we’ve gathered on the engagements between my kind and yours, it’s clear you wouldn’t care to listen to my plea.”

  He stopped mid-sentence and closed his eyes before taking a deep breath. He knew this situation was utterly hopeless, but that didn’t mean he was going to go gently into the night.

  “Which is why I’ll save us all the act,” he said fiercely as he opened his eyes. “Your kind has fired on hundreds of vessels and invaded dozens of star systems, resulting in the deaths of as-yet uncounted sentient beings. You have made no attempt to negotiate a peaceful end to these hostilities, which would at least mark you as sentient beings yourselves. However, given your apparent lack of such a simple emotion as ‘sympathy,’ I have no choice but to treat you like the disease that you are and eradicate however much of your vile horde I can. But long after we’re dead and gone, with the hull of our ship dismantled and repurposed into components which will no doubt serve to support your continued acts of mindless aggression, I promise that those who follow us will prove more than capable of grinding your processing units into sand and casting the remnants of your blighted plague into the nearest sun.”

  Middleton made a slashing gesture across his throat, and Ensign Jardine cut the channel. “Transmission ended, Captain,” the Ensign reported crisply.

  “Let’s not make this any easier on them than we need to, people,” Middleton said, sweeping the bridge with a piercing look. “Let’s spit in their eye and meet the Saint with our heads held high.”

  “Aye, Captain,” came a chorus of confident voices which filled him with the only kind of pride he had ever known: the pride of working alongside such fine people as these.

  “Shields to maximum,” Middleton barked, “and divert all available power to the forward array for an overcharged salvo; I want to bloody their noses before we go down.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarkozy replied promptly.

  “Helm,” Middleton continued, “adjust course to make orbit of the nearest planet.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the helmsman replied. “Estimate we’ll make orbit in forty eight minutes.”

  “Engineering,” the Captain continued, as he issued what may well be the final round of pre-battle orders of his career, “tell Chief Garibaldi to prepare for maintenance on the forward laser array. We’ll need to keep them online as long as possible.”

  The Engineering officer relayed the orders before replying, “The Chief wants to confirm you’re pulling his crews off maintaining the shields.”

  “Confirmed,” Middleton acknowledged. “He is to tend the forward array to the exclusion of all else, including life support.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the crewman replied.

  “The fourth vessel will enter extreme firing range is two minutes, Captain,” Sarkozy reported. “It will take another six minutes until our heavy lasers enter their maximum range.”

  “Understood, Tactical,” Middleton replied, and judging from the size of the fourth vessel—whose configuration was completely different than the other three—they would be lucky to still have firing control in eight minutes.

  “I do not understand, Doctor Middleton,” Lu Bu said as she followed the doctor through the corridor at a jog.

  Not long after the ship had completed its point transfer, during which Doctor Middleton and Lu Bu had just been making their way to the mess hall for the midday meal, the Doctor’s hand had gone to her head as though she were suffering from a severe headache.

  Then she had grabbed Lu Bu by the wrist and told her to come with her in a dire tone.

  “I can’t explain, Bu,” the Doctor said tersely. “But you must come with me to the bridge.”

  Lu Bu shook her head as she followed the other woman into the lift. “Bridge protocol very strict,” she argued. “Lu Bu is only Lancer; this one cannot enter bridge unless summoned!”

  Doctor Middleton, for the first time since they had shared their meals, completely seemed to miss Lu Bu’s mis-tense in not using the first person to describe herself, which only served to heighten Lu Bu’s general anxiety at seeing the Doctor so clearly upset.

  The lift began to move and Doctor Middleton turned with a grave look on her face. “Bu, I need you to understand that what I’m about to do won’t be well-understood by the rest of the crew. You’re going to learn something about me that I wish we’d had time to talk about privately first…I just ask that you make up your own mind as to what it means, and only after you’ve had time to think about it on your own. Can you do that?” she asked as she input her Condition One bridge access code into the lift’s interface.

  “Doctor Middleton…” Lu Bu felt a surge of conflicting feelings. What could the Doctor be planning that would require her to ‘make up her own mind’ about? “If you are planning to endanger the ship,” Lu Bu said as she drew a frightening conclusion, and almost without thinking she took a step toward the older woman—a woman who, in many ways, Lu Bu had come to think of as the mother she always wanted.

  “No, Bu,” Jo said fiercely as the computer chimed, having accepted her codes, “I’m planning to save it!”

  The doors to the bridge cycled open just as Sarkozy reported, “Enemy vessel will enter firing range in thirty seconds.”

  Middleton turned to see Jo step onto the bridge, with Lu Bu standing so close to her as to almost touch. The young, powerfully-built Lancer had a look of concern on her face, while the Doctor locked her eyes with the Captain’s.

&nb
sp; “Doctor, this isn’t the time—“ he began just before his ex-wife reached up beside her head and giving her hair a sharp tug, causing a small tuft to come off. He watched in horror as she reached up with her other hand and withdrew a small, crystalline device the size of a finger—apparently from within her skull!—and held it out toward him.

  “You need to transmit the message contained in this and you need to do it now, Captain,” she said urgently.

  “Jo,” he said, his mouth suddenly agape at what he had just seen—and drawing a startling conclusion he very much did not want to believe.

  “Tim!” she said sharply, rousing him from his momentary shock as she glanced up at the countdown on the main viewer. “You need to do this right now.”

  All his experience and all his training told him he should do anything but what she had suggested. But he knew this woman—or at least, he thought he did—and he also knew that she had never once given him cause to doubt her sincerity. Of all her flaws, dishonesty was not among them.

  “Mr. Fei,” Middleton snapped, his mind made up, “transmit the message.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the young man said as he plucked the device from her fingers. A few seconds later, he had accessed its contents using a portable scanner and uploaded it to his console. “Message sent, Captain,” he said.

  “Firing range in five…four…three…two…one,” Sarkozy reported, and what ensued was the longest three seconds of Middleton’s life as he awaited the inevitable pounding from the oncoming warship—which was easily half again as large as the Pride, and likely packed a far bigger punch than even its size suggested.