Up The Middle (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride Book 2)

by Caleb Wachter

  “Ok,” he said, arriving at a decision, “we go with your maximum theoretically possible rehabilitation figures. I know you don’t want to hear it,” he said, raising a hand gently as she looked ready to engage in another outburst, “but the sad truth is that if this mission goes anything like the last one, we’re going to have bionics available before too long.”

  Jo’s eyes widened in horror, “I can’t believe you just said that…”

  Captain Middleton set his jaw and leaned across the table, “Despite what you may think, I don’t like it any more than you do. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt,” he said, stabbing his finger onto the table emphatically, “and if we were going to fold we should have done so a month ago. That said,” he allowed, easing back into his seat as his ex-wife snapped her jaw shut, “I fully intend to make every effort to secure the materials these people will need in order to bring them to peak efficiency.”

  “Peak efficiency?” she glared with a condescending shake of her head.

  “Call it whatever you will,” he retorted, “but the end result will be the same thing that each of us wants. You want them made whole, and I want them to contribute to the defense of the Confederation. So ask yourself this, Doctor,” he quipped as he drummed his fingers against the tabletop, “do they have a better chance of achieving those goals here with us or back on Tracto?”

  Jo looked like she wanted to argue, but as usual Middleton had outmaneuvered her with cold, hard, logic. “I hate when you do that, Tim,” she grumped as she folded her arms across her chest. “Fine…I’ll go over their files again and submit my final,” she gave him a pointed look, “medical recommendation. What you do after that is out of my control.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Middleton said agreeably. “Now…onto a more sensitive subject.”

  He could see Jo wince, and it wounded him that she had apparently taken his meaning to be a desire to broach a subject he would prefer remained precisely where it was: in the past.

  He shook his head and said, “The Droid implants.”

  Jo’s hand instinctively went to her head before she lowered it down to the table. “What about them?”

  “I appreciate your submission to a series of scans which were conducted by Doctor Cho prior to his transfer,” Middleton said neutrally. “And the medical consensus throughout the Fleet is that you are, in fact, in control of your faculties and no longer an artificially enslaved puppet.”

  “Puppet?!” she repeated in outrage. He held up a hand and gave her a hard look, but she would have none of it. “I told you everything I knew about them, and I also said I had no idea how those messages got sent; isn’t that good enough for you?”

  Middleton gave her a heavy look before shaking his head sympathetically. “My words were callous,” he admitted, “but I did say ‘no longer’ a…puppet.”

  Jo blinked several times before the meaning became clear. “Are you telling me…” she trailed off.

  “The truth is that we don’t know,” he said, “but some of your implants appear to have been burned out recently—probably during our battle with the Droid Destroyers. And those parts contained a transceiver which would have, potentially,” he stressed, “allowed for direct neural subversion of your conscious mind while you carried out activities deemed congruous with the Droids’ plans.”

  She opened her mouth before quickly closing it. Then Jo shook her head in disbelief, “They saved my life, Tim…I knew they had an agenda in doing so, but still…”

  “My point, Doctor,” he said, hoping to regain control of the conversation, “is that I, personally, see no reason to believe you are a security risk. Doctor Cho tentatively agreed and, barring the opinion of a neurological expert who specializes in the field of synthetic neural implants, I’m going to have to go with the information I have.”

  “So what about my ‘security detail’?” she asked archly.

  “I can’t do anything about them,” he replied, “they’re acting on orders handed down directly from Fleet Command. I’ve already bent the rules as far as I think I can in that regard, Doctor,” he said with finality.

  She nodded slowly before asking, “So why tell me all of that?”

  Captain Middleton leaned back and steepled his fingers. “ Because I need you to understand my position if there’s any hope of us working together,” he explained as he fixed her with a piercing gaze. “In spite of everything that’s happened, I trust you,” he added heavily, “and I need you to understand that. Friction between us is fine—no, it’s better than fine,” he corrected quickly, “it’s probably the main, stabilizing force in our relationship, such as that relationship is.”

  “Alright,” Jo said after a lengthy silence. “I think I understand you.”

  Middleton nodded as he stood from the table. “That was the primary goal of this meeting, Doctor,” he said neutrally.

  “Where are you going?” Jo asked shortly.

  Middleton shook his head and sighed. “We’re going to break orbit soon, and I’ve just received confirmation that our mission has been green-lit; there are preparations which require my attention. Good evening, Doctor.”

  With that he left the ready room and nodded acknowledgment to the Lancer stationed outside the door. His name was Marsh, and he was a loyal, trustworthy man who had served with Sergeant Joneson several years earlier. He was one of the few men with whom Middleton would entrust Jo’s security, primarily because he knew Marsh was sympathetic to the Doctor’s position.

  And right then, even though Middleton had no intention of getting chummy with her in the near future, he knew that his ex-wife would need all the support she could get.

  Chapter XII: Setting Course

  “I’ll begin this mission by saying that what you’re about to hear is strictly confidential,” Middleton said, sweeping the conference room with his gaze. “The details of our mission are to be kept strictly confidential—if I find a single breach in this intelligence envelope then everyone here can rest assured that the consequences will be felt by every single member of this assembly. I will also say that such consequences will be consistent with punishment for aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of open war; review the regulations if you’re unclear what that means.”

  He paused and let the gravity of his words sink in, and was glad to see that every man and woman present appeared to understand what he had implied. The Pride of Prometheus was about to embark on a dangerous mission unlike anything a Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet vessel had conducted in the MSP’s entire history. The MSP was primarily a peace-keeping force, but the Pride was about to conduct what was, essentially, a covert operation more properly suited to an Espionage or Intelligence agency than a patrolling warship. As such, keeping a tight lid on the flow of sensitive information was going to be the most crucial aspect of the mission.

  “You each represent various teams aboard this ship,” Middleton continued, having silently rehearsed the speech off and on for several days prior to this meeting, “but none of your subordinates or crewmates can be apprised of what we will discuss in these meetings. Is that clear?”

  “Tri-Locscium, sir,” more than half of the table replied in near-perfect unison, with the rest issuing a more traditional, ‘aye, sir.’

  Middleton couldn’t keep a short-lived grin from his face at hearing Walter Joneson’s phrase uttered by his command team, but after he wiped the expression from his lips he gestured to Fei Long. “Mr. Fei is our resident expert on the matter and I’ll be turning the meeting over to him in short order so he can explain the details. But now that we’ve jumped away from Tracto, the entire crew is aware of the fact that we did not accompany the rest of the fleet. The message I want spread throughout the ship following this meeting is that we received last-minute orders to investigate a nearby Star System which made contact with Fleet Command. Once we’ve done this, we’ll attempt to rendezvous with the Fleet and support their actions in Sector 23.”

  “But we aren’t going to Sector 2
3, are we, Captain?” Chief Engineer Garibaldi said dryly.

  Middleton met his Chief Engineer’s eyes and shook his head, having expected Mikey to be the one who would break the silence. “No, we’re not,” he replied shortly before grimly adding, “at least not if our mission goes according to plan.”

  “The crew has been placed on battle-ready status, sir,” Lieutenant Sarkozi, Middleton’s Executive Officer, said in her professional manner, “I assume this will continue going forward?”

  Middleton nodded. “Not only that,” he replied, “but I want all combat-readiness drills tripled in frequency, and I don’t want department heads coordinating with each other. Drill proposals will be submitted directly to me, and me alone, is that understood?”

  A chorus of ‘aye’ filled the room, prompting the Captain to nod in approval.

  “We’ve brought an unexpectedly large number of Tracto-ans aboard,” he said, turning his gaze to the trio of Lancers seated at the far end of the table, with Sergeant Gnuko sandwiched between War Leader Atticus and Lu Bu, the almost-seventeen year old girl who had helped Middleton re-stock his depleted roster nearly a year earlier. “As such, I need honest appraisals of their morale and incorporation into the general crew. So far they’ve proven adaptive and more capable than I would have thought possible,” he said appreciatively, “but while they come from a warrior culture, I cannot emphasize strongly enough just how different that culture is from any military we—aside from the War Leader—can relate to.”

  He saw Lu Bu and Atticus exchange a meaningful look, but Middleton knew he needed to keep the meeting moving along. Before he could do so, Atticus said, “My Lancer team will fight until our dying breaths, Captain Middleton. I will swear on my own life to their valor.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Middleton said after meeting and holding the Tracto-an’s gaze for several seconds. He knew Atticus was making a point about only vouching for his hand-picked team; apparently the War Leader held the other Tracto-ans which Middleton’s people had brought aboard the Pride of Prometheus in far lower esteem. “But let me make something perfectly clear,” Middleton added, leaning forward as he placed his knuckles against the table, “this is one ship, with one mission, and one crew.” His eyes bored into Atticus’ eyes, then swept slowly across the table as he regarded each of his senior officers in turn. “The time for petty bickering, social jockeying, and bigotry is at an end; if we don’t learn to work together then we might as well set our reactors to critical right now because that will prove a gentler, kinder end than the one that waits for us if we indulge in jingoism of any stripe—is that clear?”

  “Tri-Locscium, sir!” the room replied…all save Atticus. He nodded curtly a brief moment after the others had made their verbal acknowledgment, and Middleton knew that squaring off with the War Leader would only result in disrupting the meeting. He needed to leave the Atticus issue for Sergeant Gnuko to deal with.

  “Good,” he said, turning to Fei Long. “Now, Mr. Fei, if you would work through the details?”

  Fei Long stood to his feet, and Middleton could barely restrain himself from rolling his eyes at the young man’s chosen attire. He was dressed in some kind of robe—which he had learned through some research was of an ancient, ‘Taoist’ design—with an odd piece of headwear. The MSP code didn’t specifically cover Intelligence or Espionage meeting dress codes, so Middleton decided to restrict enforcement of the uniform code on the young tech specialist to those times he served on the bridge.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Fei Long said smoothly as he moved to the main view screen set near the Captain’s seat. He activated the display, and a map of the nearby Sectors sprang to life and began to rotate, demonstrating its three-dimensional nature. “Some of you are already aware, but a few of you are not,” he said with pointed looks at the pair of officers who had not been aboard the Pride of Prometheus during its previous run—the former pirate captain named Strider, who now served as the Pride’s Navigator; and the ship’s newest Tactical Officer who, as far as Middleton was aware, was the first of his species to hold a bridge post in MSP history, “so I will put this as succinctly as I can: our primary mission is to gain access to and, potentially, control over the ComStat network.”

  Navigator Strider snorted in disbelief, while Toto—the massive, silver-maned Sundered Tactical Officer—narrowed his eyes and noisily flapped his lips in a manner which bore striking similarity to the way a toddler does when ridiculing someone. “The ComStat be dead, know what I’m sayin’, man?” Strider scoffed, his accent making the word ‘man’ sound more like ‘mon.’

  “We don’t have time to indulge your disbelief,” Middleton snapped as he fixed the rebellious man with an iron glare, “so I suggest you refrain from further outbursts, mister. Examine the brief after this meeting is adjourned and you’ll be up to speed.”

  The Navigator sighed but, surprisingly, he did not roll his eyes so Middleton gestured for Fei Long to continue.

  The young man nodded agreeably, “We have already gained access to one of the estimated fifty hubs scattered throughout Sectors 23 and 24, and during that mission we were able to retrieve valuable data which allowed me to refine the program we used to gain that access. If my latest calculations are correct, we must rendezvous with no more than six additional Hubs—and possibly as few as two—in order to gain total access to the ComStat network.”

  Sarkozi leaned forward with a hungry look in her eyes, “We’ll be able to read what’s happening in the Empire?”

  Fei Long shook his head. “Unfortunately, no,” he replied with a hint of disappointment, “it would seem that the Spineward Sectors’ portion of the ComStat network no longer interfaces with the rest of the galactic network.”

  Eyebrows rose in surprise and confusion as Lieutenant Sarkozi sank back in her chair with a disappointed scowl on her face. Doctor Jo Middleton leaned forward and said, “Perhaps this is stating the obvious…but that would seem to imply some measure of complicity on the Empire’s part in not only deactivating this part of the network, but in leaving the hardware in place, would it not?”

  A deafening silence hung over the room, and Middleton let it linger for a fraction of a second longer than he might have otherwise done as he said, “That’s speculation, Doctor, and we need to keep that to a minimum. Regardless of the ‘who,’ or ‘why,’ or ‘how,’ we have a mission to carry out and conjecture won’t do us any good at this point.” He delivered the words as gently as he could while maintaining a firm grasp on the collective mood of the room—he didn’t want to be unnecessarily harsh on his ex-wife, but he also needed to nip any future murmurs in the bud. “That said,” he allowed, “these meetings are the only ones where I will tolerate any kind of conjecture, so if there are questions then let’s have them bandied about before we adjourn. For now, let’s let Mr. Fei continue his presentation.”

  Heads bobbed up and down slowly, and Middleton gestured for Fei Long to continue.

  “However,” Fei Long said hesitantly, “the ComStat hubs are not our only mission.” He gave Middleton a look, and the Captain nodded his assent, prompting the young man to change the image on the main screen to show a region of space which the Pride of Prometheus had recently visited. “This is the location of the first ComStat hub which we were able to infiltrate,” he explained, zooming out to show its position relative to the nearby inhabited systems. Middleton remembered coming out of their FTL jump and nearly falling into the neutron star around which the ComStat hub made its orbit, and he suppressed a shudder as the vivid memory replayed itself in his mind’s eye.

  “I don’t understand,” Sergeant Gnuko said as he leaned forward, “why are you showing us that system…unless you’re saying we need to head back there?”

  Fei Long bowed his head in that infuriating fashion that was his way and he minimized the image of the neutron star’s location by splitting the screen. The other side of the screen displayed an image which appeared identical—except that this image did not sho
w the neutron star as existing at all.

  “What is this, a magic act?” Garibaldi quipped. “So you made it disappear; who cares?”

  “An interesting choice of words, Mr. Garibaldi,” Fei Long said smoothly, and Middleton could tell the young man enjoyed the limelight a little too much for his liking, “because that is precisely what has happened…except I was not the one who made it disappear.” He allowed a moment to pass before he gestured to the two images, first indicating the one which showed the neutron star’s location, “This image is the Pride of Prometheus’s active star chart, which incorporates all relevant astrometric data—including data collected directly by our sensors—into its working database. While this,” he indicated the second image, “is the representation of every single database which has ever, at any point, been connected to the ComStat network throughout the Spineward Sectors—at least, as far as I can tell. I have not yet directly interfaced with each of those systems so I cannot verify with any certaint—“

  “Mr. Fei,” Middleton cut him off sharply, and the young man gave him an almost apologetic look, “if you please?”

  “Of course, Captain,” he replied evenly before getting back on track, “my point, ladies and gentlemen, is that I believe that these databases were corrupted—deliberately,” he added pointedly, “at some point in the recent past.”

  “Charts could be incomplete,” Toto rumbled, speaking for the first time since the meeting had commenced, “neutron stars not luminescent. Could be unnoticed?”

  Fei Long once again bowed his head in that maddening way, “That is, of course, a possibility. However, neutron stars are exceptionally dense and, while they are ‘dark,’ they are quite active in terms of their effect on nearby stellar structures. Additionally, modern astrometric techniques can easily detect their presence. This leads me to conclude that there is a greater than 96% probability that this particular star’s location had already been gathered and was subsequently removed.”