No Middle Ground

by Caleb Wachter

  “Yes,” Middleton agreed before making his way down to the blacked-out doorway to Jo’s cell. “Buzz me in if you will, Lancer.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rice agreed, and a moment later the door slid open and Captain Middleton entered the tiny, cramped cell. Jo was lying down on the bed and sat up as soon as he entered the room.

  “Captain,” she said evenly.

  “Doctor,” he replied, fighting the urge to fidget.

  “I don’t want to make this any more difficult on you than it needs to be,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I know of the droids, as well as my history with them, and then I’d like to request a transfer to the nearest prison facility…I could bear living out my life on a penal moon somewhere, but my continued presence is disrupting the lives of the very people I had come to think of as…” she hesitated before adding, “as my family.”

  Middleton sat down on his haunches and shook his head. “I just have one question, Doctor. Mr. Fei Long tells me that based on the available evidence, you were the author of the suspicious transmissions we detected which used our grav-plating to manipulate the strange particle field. He also says that, after reconstruction using the last piece of the puzzle which you provided on the bridge, those transmissions match, identically, the message you relayed to the droid battle cruiser seconds before it came about and moved to our defense,” he said heavily. “So, as I said, I have just one question.”

  “I won’t lie to you, Captain, but I don’t know anything about grav-plating or transmissions,” she said and he actually believed her, which only served to heighten his concern.

  Middleton locked eyes with his former wife, and recent Chief Medical Officer, and asked, “What did that message say?”

  Jo leaned forward on the edge of the cot and shook her head while briefly breaking eye contact. “It’s…difficult to explain,” she said haltingly.

  “I have time,” Middleton said through briefly clenched teeth.

  Jo nodded and said, “It was a short message, which included your ship’s name and its designation as part of your fleet—the Confederation’s Multi-Sector Patrol fleet,” she added quickly. “Beyond that it contained, essentially, just two words.”

  “And those words were?” he asked guardedly, knowing that if an officer had divulged even that small amount of information it would be grounds for, at minimum, a court martial for having provided intelligence to the enemy during a time of war.

  She hesitated before meeting his piercing gaze and answering, “The words were ‘potential allies’.”

  “’Potential allies’?” Middleton repeated, temporarily taken aback.

  She nodded. “I don’t claim to know the tactical situation even half as well as you do, Tim—I mean, Captain,” she corrected hastily. “But the entities which you think of as one, massive droid force are actually multiple different factions. One such faction—the one whose battle cruiser came to our aid,” she said pointedly, “was responsible for the…repairs you saw on the bridge.” She gestured to her head, where she had removed the finger-length device containing her message while on the bridge.

  Middleton leaned back against the wall and exhaled deeply. If she was telling the truth, it wasn’t nearly as bad as he had feared…but he could not, in good conscience, treat her word as anything but potential disinformation at this point.

  “How?” he heard himself ask unthinkingly. At her look of confusion he sighed, “How did they make those…repairs?”

  She shook her head. “I would really prefer not to talk about it,” she said tremulously.

  He had heard that voice before, but he had a ship to protect and a mission to accomplish. He couldn’t be swayed by personal feelings. “What you prefer is irrelevant, Doctor,” he said hotly. “You could have come to me with this information earlier, but instead you compromised my ship’s—and potentially the entire fleet’s—security! I need answers and I needed them before we entered that firefight, but I’ll take them now since they might still be of some use.”

  “I…” she began as tears welled in her eyes, “was living on a colony in Sector 23…the Firaxis Colony. We,” she said hesitantly before lowering her head and sobbing, “we never even knew we were in danger before they destroyed the colony center from high orbit. Most of us were killed in the first two minutes…including my daughter, Jill.” She clearly tried to fight her tears back, but like they are prone to do, they seemed to consciously react by doubling their flow.

  Middleton’s eyes widened at this revelation. He knew she had gone forward with her life, since she had only been mid-way through her medical training when he had enlisted. That enlistment had been the cause of their divorce, and it had been the single most impactful event of Tim Middleton’s life—even including those events of the past year.

  But he had never heard of her becoming a mother…which was doubly surprising since it was her reluctance to have a child with him so many years earlier that had begun their eventual dissolution.

  “I had no idea,” he said softly, knowing he should fight the urge to sympathize with her but finding himself unable to do so.

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks and shook her head. “It was over a year ago,” she said almost dismissively, as though that made one iota of difference.

  Middleton knew from personal experience that, contrary to popular wisdom, time heals absolutely nothing; all a person can do is learn to live with a wound like that. The worst kinds of pain never really go away.

  “The last thing I remember was holding her hand when our hab module was struck, and then there was a loud, grinding sound from above us.” Her voice had regained a measure of composure as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Then I woke up in some kind of medical suite. They had chased the attackers off and…repaired my injuries. They tried to do so for the others, including Jill…but she was already gone.” She stopped and took a few deep breaths before explaining, “In return for their assistance, they asked only that I do one thing for them.”

  “What was that?” he asked after a moment’s consideration while fighting the rising wave of sympathy. He wasn’t sure how any of this changed his current dilemma regarding what to do with her, but he owed it to her to hear out the entirety of her story.

  “There was a gas mining facility,” she explained pointedly as she met his gaze again. Her tears had stopped and her eyes were once again clear, “They needed someone to infiltrate it and determine if it would be of value to them…or their enemies. They knew it was of strategic value but were uncertain if it was worth a full-scale operation, so they assigned a small, cloaked ship to shadow me and await my report. They had no idea the Pegasus mine would be seized by the pirates and used as a weapons manufacturing site, so I remained a prisoner on that facility until you arrived.” She gave him a significant, pleading look, “The droid tribe that saved my life believes in cooperation, Tim, while the others believe in more…absolute compliance with their own particular ideologies. But they all need resources to fuel their growth.”

  “You mean ‘replication’,” Middleton said darkly as he found himself suddenly turning cold to her plight. “They’re machines, Jo, not people.”

  “They are sentient beings, Tim!” she argued. “Just because they’re built differently than us doesn’t make them any less deserving than we are of the chance to follow their primary directives—including procreation!”

  “Spoken just like a true sympathizer,” he said acidly, more disappointed with himself for not having seen this turn of events coming than angry at her for doing what she had done. He could understand her motivations if her story actually checked out, but the truth was she had become his largest security concern on the Pride of Prometheus. Regardless of his personal—and increasingly strong—feelings for the woman, he had a duty to his fleet, his ship, and its crew.

  “I really don’t want to argue with you, Tim,” she said despondently. “I did what I agreed to do, and what I had to do; now that I’ve reported back to them I have—and
wish for—no more contact with those droids. I don’t agree with any of this violence,” she said adamantly, “but I couldn’t turn my back on them after what they had done…and what they had tried to do for my daughter.”

  Middleton stood slowly to his feet, realizing his legs had gone numb during his crouch. “I have no way to confirm any of this without the use of force,” he said, more to himself than to her before shaking his head. “But I won’t do that.”

  “You have to do your duty, Tim,” she said, and in her voice he heard a measure of understanding he would never have expected. “Just like I had to do mine.”

  Captain Tim Middleton hesitated, torn between the need to fulfill his duty and the desire to treat her statements as factual and put the whole situation behind them. But he knew that he couldn’t do either one properly, so while he now had more information than when he had entered the brig, he still had no clear course of action.

  “Doctor,” he said eventually, “in consideration of your voluntary service to this crew, and the very real fact that you quite literally saved this ship, its mission, and potentially,” he grudged, “the entire Spine with your actions, I’m inclined to confine you to quarters until I have time to sort this out with fleet command. I’m not capable of making this decision on my own due to our mutual history,” he said, knowing it was the absolute truth. “If I have your word that you won’t author any more transmissions, and that you will abide by house arrest in your new quarters—as well as limiting your interactions with the crew to those which I pre-approve—I think it would be best for everyone involved if I released you from the brig.”

  “You can’t let me go, Tim,” she shook her head. “You said it yourself: you’re not capable of thinking clearly, and I’m an admitted sympathizer.”

  “By your own admission,” he said pointedly as he turned to the door and knocked to signal he was ready to egress, “you’re a former sympathizer. But, as I said, I can’t lock you up for saving the very ship I would be trying to protect by keeping you in this cell. You give me your word that you’ll adhere to my restrictions, and I’ll accept it.”

  She stood from her cot and nodded slowly. “I have a request then,” she said meekly.

  The door slid open and Middleton turned to face her with a hard look on his face. “Don’t push it, Doctor,” he said, returning to the proper formalities rather than the familiar first-name-basis they had slipped into.

  “I’m not trying to,” she said with a shake of her head. “But I would like to know if it would be possible for Bu to share my quarters,” she said, and he saw tears begin to well in her eyes again.

  It was a risk to do as she asked, but in truth he knew from Sergeant Joneson’s reports that Lu Bu had latched onto Jo the moment they had met. He had suspected that she wanted to have Lu Bu share her new, split quarters the moment she requested them, and he had already made up his mind to allow the two to continue their interaction uninterrupted.

  “She’s a Lancer and member of the MSP,” Middleton said stiffly before relaxing, “but I won’t deny your request.” He leaned forward fractionally and lowered is voice, “Don’t do anything to hurt her, Doctor, or to compromise her dreams…regardless of whether you approve of them.”

  She looked mortified before collecting herself. “You don’t need to lecture me on parenti—” she began coldly.

  “Give me your word,” he cut in harshly.

  She recoiled slightly before nodding. “You have it.”

  Middleton stepped out of the cell and nodded. “I’ll put your transfer order in the system, then,” he said evenly. “You should be out of here before the shift is finished, Doctor.” He hesitated as he made to leave the brig before hearing himself ask, “What happened to your daughter’s—Jill’s—father?” It wasn’t a question he had intended to ask, and he silently cursed himself for asking it.

  Jo’s eyes drifted to the floor and silence hung between them for several seconds before she whispered, “She never met him,” her gaze remained fixed on the floor for several seconds before briefly meeting his, and what he saw there gave her words their full meaning, “and he didn’t know about her.:

  Middleton felt his entire body go numb as he processed what she had just revealed, and he honestly had no idea what he was supposed to say in response. He was angry—furious, even—but he could also, in some small way, understand why she had done it. So instead of saying something hurtful, or venting his sudden rush of emotion, he nodded stiffly. He tried to act as though he had just received a particularly difficult order, and left the brig without another word.

  Epilogue III: Debriefing the Admiral

  “Thank you for seeing me, sir,” Captain Middleton said after entering the Admiral’s office.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Vice Admiral Jason Montagne replied from his chair as Middleton cleared the doorway. The young man gestured to the chair opposite his own, across a far larger and more regal-looking desk than the one in Middleton’s ready room aboard the Pride of Prometheus. Where that desk had barely enough room for three people to sit on one side—even if he had three chairs, rather than just the two—this one could easily sit twice as many, and had the chairs to prove it.

  Middleton sat down awkwardly in the chair opposite the admiral’s. He had brought a data slate, as well as an encrypted data crystal, with him for this debrief. He deliberately separated the objects and slid them across the desk toward the Admiral before assuming a rigid posture opposite the young Admiral.

  It took less than a glance to see that the young Royal’s recent history had been at least as tumultuous as Middleton’s own—an observation that would have been obvious to him, even without access to the local rumor mill, which said the Little Admiral’s recent trials and tribulations would put Middleton’s to shame.

  Admiral Montagne steepled his fingers and flicked his eyes down to the two objects before meeting Middleton’s and holding him with an assessing gaze for several seconds before saying, “Now, if you’d be so kind as to tell me just what the blazes happened, that caused a simple one month border patrol to turn into an almost one year odyssey, I would be most appreciative!” Admiral Montagne said with an emphatic thump of his fist against the impressive desk.

  Captain Middleton nodded, swallowing the unexpected lump in his throat. “Yes, Admiral,” he replied, gesturing to the data slate and crystal. “The complete details are listed there—“

  “To the Demon with the details,” the Vice Admiral snapped. “You’ve brought a storm of trouble on your heels, Captain,” he stressed the rank ominously, “and I’m not sure I can handle any more crises at the present moment. I need officers who contribute to the removal of obstacles, not those who add to the seemingly endless supply of troubles the universe seems determined to hurl our way!”

  The Admiral leaned forward, his eyes burning with an inner fire like Middleton had only ever seen a handful of times in his life—and only ever in the countenances of men such as High Captain Archibald Manning IV, who had seen more than their share of the universe’s worst.

  “Give me one good reason,” Admiral Montagne seethed, “why I shouldn’t strip you of your command and put you on the first ship to Capria.”

  Captain Middleton hadn’t exactly expected such a vehement outburst from his superior officer, but he had honestly feared worse—with ‘worse’ being outright dismissal from service without the chance to plead his case—and was grateful for the opportunity to present his side of the story. “In truth, Admiral,” he said gravely, “I’ve had a similar conversation not long ago, where I asked a man for just such a reason. I hate to borrow another man’s words,” he said evenly, “but in this case I can’t think of a better way to make my case.”

  “By all means—parrot this other man’s words. This should be good,” Admiral Montagne leaned back in his chair and fixed Middleton with his steely gaze.

  “I’ll leave that for you to judge,” Middleton said neutrally as he took the data slate into his hands and
entered the password, which populated the screen with a series of shifting shapes and colors that were frankly nauseating to look at for more than a few seconds. With the visual representation live, he turned the slate over and pushed it toward the Admiral, who snapped it up without breaking eye contact with Captain Middleton.

  He held the slate in his hands for several seconds before finally glancing down at its contents for just a few moments before waving the slate demonstrably. “A screen saver?” he demanded coolly. “I expected something more…I don’t know,” he said dramatically as he shot Middleton a piercing gaze, “substantial? Backside covering? Filled with mystery and innuendo perhaps?”

  “That,” Captain Middleton said, feeling his stomach doing somersaults, “is a representation of the raw data stream for the local, Sector 25 branch of a certain communications system which, until recently, was believed to have been rendered inoperable around the same time as you assumed command.”

  The Admiral’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly before resuming their former, cold expression as he looked back down at the data slate’s contents more intently.

  Captain Middleton leaned back pointedly and folded his arms across his chest, determined to deliver the words with just as much gravity as Fei Long had done in his own office not long before. “Admiral, despite reports to the contrary, that comm. system is still very much intact and in operation throughout the Spineward Sectors. If you allow us to resupply and make a few much-needed modifications to the Pride…I can give you the ComStat network.”

  Admiral Montagne’s eyes flicked back and forth from the data slate as he, like Middleton before him, silently assimilated the full meaning of what he had just been told.

  “Captain Middleton,” Admiral Montagne said eventually, deactivating the slate and leaning back in his chair as a half-smile came over his battle-hardened features, which only vaguely resembled the clear, boyish countenance Middleton remembered, “you have my complete and undivided attention.”