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

by Caleb Wachter

  There was still anger there, of that he had no doubt. And he also felt a wave of sorrow over a loss he knew he could never truly deal with. But somewhere beneath it all was a feeling he had genuinely thought was lost to him.

  He wiped his cheek before nodding silently to his ex-wife, and she did the same before she began to sob.

  Middleton turned and left sickbay, determined not to make the situation any more difficult than it needed to be. It took him three decks of walking and climbing through access tunnels before he realized the tactical significance of the ship’s chief medical officer having awakened.

  He didn’t know if he should be happy, or angry, about the delay in that particular thought’s arrival.

  “Point emergence,” Navigator Strider reported tightly. It was their third jump in two days, and Middleton was uncertain his battered ship could survive even one more jump without at least a few days to make repairs to the tattered shield grid.

  “Shields are down to seventy…sixty…forty percent,” Sarkozi said anxiously. The patch job they had done to the Pride’s shields had barely been enough to even theoretically handle a point transfer, but it had lasted this long and Middleton made a silent promise to the space gods if it held out. Exactly what he had promised to those gods was anyone’s guess, because a few seconds later the thought vanished from his mind as his ship shuddered beneath his feet.

  “We’ve shed the sump, Captain,” Helmsman Marcos reported, her hands shaking visibly as she manipulated the helm’s controls.

  “Well done,” Middleton congratulated with no small amount of relief in his own voice. “Scan the system, Mr. Hephaestion.”

  “Scanning, Captain,” Hephaestion acknowledged. Two minutes later, he shook his head, “There are no vessels in the system, Captain.”

  “Confirm that, XO,” Middleton ordered. Hephaestion had actually become as adept at his job as any of the new bridge standers, Tracto-an or not, but the Pride would be hunkered down in this particular star system for quite some time and he wanted to ensure that they were undisturbed during that period.

  “Confirmed, Captain,” Sarkozi reported confidently. “Sensors show nothing but the still-forming star and its accretion disk.”

  “Good,” Middleton said, taking some small solace in having reached this far in their trek. Capital was still one jump away, but this was as close as he dared bring the Pride of Prometheus in its current state. “Find a suitably large asteroid in the disk and come up with a flight vector; we’ll need to stay in its shadow for at least a few days, so make it a big one.”

  “Yes sir,” Sarkozi replied before carrying out the order.

  “Mr. Fei,” Middleton turned to his Comm. officer, “is your team prepared?”

  Fei Long nodded. “Mr. Strider, Sergeant Gnuko, and Yide—that is,” he added with a brief look at Toto, “Mr. Toto’s son have been briefed and are prepared to leave as soon as you order it. However, Chief Garibaldi and I still require time to prepare the yacht.”

  “How long?” Middleton asked, knowing that the sooner they departed, the sooner the Pride could get its repairs underway in earnest. Sergeant Gnuko had approached him and explained that his own travel documents were in order for entry to Capital, which had been a great weight off Middleton’s mind. He had secretly dreaded the thought of Fei Long actually leading a mission of this particular nature.

  Fei Long cocked his head before replying, “Perhaps two days, Captain. The transponders have been replaced, but the Chief and I agree that the entire computer system must be deactivated and replaced, at least temporarily, with spare units from the Pride before it is secure. I have already found multiple sleeper programs embedded in those system to which I have gained full access.”

  Middleton nodded slowly, upset at the delay but glad for his two top specialists having agreed on a course of action. “Two days, Mr. Fei,” he said with a stern look, knowing it was possible that Mr. Fei had pushed Chief Garibaldi to sign off on the delay for personal reasons—reasons involving a certain Lancer who was currently being operated on by the team of Dr. Middleton and Miss Foulchen.

  “Two days, Captain,” Fei Long agreed. “I would like to request permission to continue my work on the yacht, Captain.”

  The captain nodded as he gestured for Winters to take over at Comm. “I’ll tell Chief Garibaldi you’re on your way,” he said as Fei Long turned to leave the bridge.

  Fei Long nodded graciously, and Middleton returned his attention to the main viewer while he silently calculated the amount of time it would take to reach the rocky portion of the star’s accretion disk.

  He had been sorely tempted to bring the droid warship along, but the truth of the matter was the Pride was already short-handed and there was no guarantee that whatever workarounds Raubach’s people had wrought on it would hold out.

  So he had instructed Mr. Fei and Chief Garibaldi to salvage as much of the Raubach’s control gear as possible, along with whatever components were easily harvestable, and he had given them twenty four hours to do so. He had also gathered as much technical information as he could about the vessel, since the MSP’s database was nearly empty when it came to describing the artificial life form’s vessel specifications.

  After that had been accomplished, the Pride had maneuvered into range and destroyed the droid warship with his ship’s nine remaining heavy lasers. The little ship was tougher than it looked but, after a trio of salvos had landed against its hull, nothing larger than a meter in diameter had survived.

  “We’ve worked up an approach, Captain,” Sarkozi reported after stepping away from the helm. Helmsman Marcos was still visibly shaken from their latest point transfer, and Middleton made a mental note to sit down with her later. She had performed admirably and deserved recognitions for her efforts.

  “Good work, XO,” he said as he glanced over the plan, which would put them behind a chunk of nickel and iron measuring three kilometers in diameter. The asteroid would provide them with dual protection: first, from the star’s radiation, which would be significant at close range; and second, from nearly all long-range sensors.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a lot better protection than the Pride had found in recent days.

  After completing a shift’s worth of work removing the old computer systems from the luxurious yacht, Fei Long made his way to sickbay. He had checked on Lu Bu prior to working on the yacht, but she had been in surgery under the care of Heldryn and Dr. Middleton.

  He entered the sickbay to find the most glorious sight he could hope to see: Lu Bu was lying on one of the beds with her head inclined slightly, and her eyes were open!

  Beside her was Dr. Middleton, who still wore a breathing mask and looked pekid but was awake and alert. Her hair was gone and her head had been wrapped in a skintight cap which would facilitate the healing of her scalp so that her hair could eventually be regrown. She was holding Lu Bu’s hand, but when Lu Bu saw Fei Long approaching she withdrew her hand from Dr. Middleton’s.

  “Fengxian,” Fei Long greeted, feeling a grin light his face as he came to stand beside her bed. Her face was still swollen from the burns, but the treatments she had undergone had already reduced the visible effects significantly. He guessed that, given another day or two of therapy, she would be capable of smiling—or frowning, such was her wont—without causing herself pain.

  Lu Bu reached across her body with her right hand and grasped his tightly. They stood in silence for several moments before Dr. Middleton spoke, “The surgery was a success. Given another week of rest,” she drew a shallow, raspy, breath, and it was clear that her lungs had not yet recovered to the point where she could carry a conversation without becoming winded, “she should be fully recovered within a week.”

  “That is wonderful news,” Fei Long beamed as he looked into Lu Bu’s eyes.

  “What of the battle?” Lu Bu asked intently, her lips barely moving as she spoke but her voice sounded clear and strong to Fei Long.

  “We were victorious,”
he replied quickly, noticing Dr. Middleton give him a thunderous scowl. “The price was high,” he continued hesitantly, “but we have found shelter in a distant system and are looking to make repairs.”

  “Cassius,” she said, and Fei Long was briefly confused as she asked, “how is Cassius?”

  Then he remembered that Cassius had been one of the Lancers assigned to the Recon Team, and he gave Dr. Middleton a brief look before answering, “Cassius did not return from the mission.”

  Lu Bu’s face scrunched up in an unrecognizable expression, and Dr. Middleton’s scowl darkened. “She needs to rest, Long.”

  He nodded, knowing the doctor was correct. “Bernice and Kratos are recovered from their wounds,” he said, hoping to alleviate Lu Bu’s sorrow with good news, “and Captain Raubach was successfully recovered as well.”

  After a few seconds, Lu Bu squeezed his hand reassuringly and said in their native tongue, “Thank you for the truth, Kongming.”

  He nodded wordlessly and returned her affection by squeezing her hand tightly in his own. “I have been selected for a mission,” he continued, “and, with luck, it will be the first of several while we repair the damage to the Pride.”

  Lu Bu’s eyes flashed briefly and she tried to sit up, but both Dr. Middleton and Fei Long placed restraining hands on her shoulders.

  “You need to lie down, Bu,” Dr. Middleton said in a commanding tone which, in Fei Long’s experience, was only possessed by doctors. “You could die if you do not lie down for the next twenty four hours.”

  Lu Bu shot the doctor an angry look, but Fei Long squeezed her hand with every bit of strength his measly muscles could muster. “Obey her, Fengxian,” he said in their native language. “She seeks only your health and safety.”

  She gave him a look which he did not understand; it seemed as though she was surprised at what he said—or, perhaps, that he had said it.

  He gave her a reassuring look, and Doctor Middleton said, “I think she should rest, Long.”

  Leaving her side was the last thing he wanted to do, but even he had to concur with the doctor’s opinion. As beaten and battered as she was, it was no small miracle that she still drew breath. “I bow to your learned wisdom, Doctor Middleton,” he said with a brief, but pointed, glance in the older woman’s direction.

  He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on Lu Bu’s forehead, and bid her farewell before leaving sickbay and returning to his quarters for some much-needed sleep.

  Chapter XXXVI: Capital!

  “Point emergence,” Sergeant Gnuko reported, and unlike every time Fei Long had experienced the effect aboard the Pride of Prometheus, there was no great shudder to accompany the event. In fact, several seconds later Sergeant Gnuko surprisingly reported, “And we’re free of the sump.”

  “Truly?” Fei Long asked without the least bit of incredulity or disbelief.

  Gnuko snorted before nodding agreeably, “It’s a smooth ride, that’s for sure.”

  Fei Long looked to Mr. Strider, who had been napping until a few minutes prior to the luxurious yacht’s point transfer. The drive’s charge cycle aboard the craft were much, much slower than those of the Pride, but the fact that such a small craft could jump at all was truly remarkable—and spoke to the vessel’s immense value just as clearly as its former appointments had done.

  Those appointments had largely been catalogued and transferred to the Pride’s armory. The initial valuation estimates had not been far off; when all was tallied, Mr. Strider had reluctantly appraised the inventory and placed its value at just above the replacement cost of a Hydra-class medium cruiser like the Pride of Prometheus.

  “We’re receiving an identity challenge,” Gnuko said as he manipulated the controls at the pilot’s station. A few moments later he breathed a sigh of relief, “We passed the first round.”

  Fei Long looked at the three-dimensional tactical grid which was projected over the console to Gnuko’s right and counted no fewer than eighty vessels in the system. The readout labeled the majority of them as freighters, but standing out in the crowd was a pair of battleships and no fewer than six cruisers.

  The closer they came to Capital Prime, the more vessels showed up on the yacht’s sensors. Fei Long counted one hundred fifty six total vessels operating inside of the star system, which was more than had been present at Elysium—which, by any measure, was an affluent system—by at least double.

  “Impressive,” Sergeant Gnuko observed as they passed a freighter that rivaled even the legendary settlement ships which carried the entire infrastructure a new colony with ten thousand colonists would need to survive for several years. ‘Passed’ is, of course, a relative term considering the fact that thirty light seconds separated them, but the yacht’s imaging scanners were able to present a detailed image of the vessel.

  The rest of the journey toward Capital Prime was relatively uneventful, but Fei Long could not wait to set foot on the world. What little he had heard of the place suggested that freedom was valued above all else.

  And that made it quite unlike the world of his birth, which made the prospect of landing there exciting in itself.

  “Welcome to Capital,” the Custom’s official said after scanning their four identification packets. “You’re all cleared for forty eight hours, except the uplift,” she said as she turned to Yide, who visibly bristled at being singled out. “His visa is good for seven days; Capital is proud to lay claim to the Sector’s largest free community of Sundered.”

  Fei Long and Gnuko both gave Yide looks of muted bewilderment before accepting their ident packets. “Thank you,” Gnuko said as Strider made to push past him toward the bustling street just a few meters away.

  “The docking fees for your vessel will be one thousand standard credits,” she said as she produced a data slate. “You’ll need to pay them at the office on Sandur Street. Of course, if you’d like that to be taken care of for you, that can be arranged for a mere fifty credit surcharge,” she said as she gave Gnuko a suggestive look.

  Gnuko—who Fei Long gathered was not entirely unattractive, judging by the female crewmembers’ reaction to his presence—leaned forward and said, “We might be able to work something out.”

  The official gave him a brief, appraising look and shook her head wryly. “I thought you guys weren’t supposed to arrive for another two weeks?” she said, her eyes looking over Gnuko’s broad shoulders hungrily.

  Sergeant Gnuko recoiled only slightly before leaning back in and asking playfully, “Us guys? How am I supposed to take that, exactly?”

  The Customs official blushed and giggled softly. “You know, the smashball players,” she explained. “Still…if you’re up for some early practice, I might know of a nice place…” she said leadingly, and Fei Long very nearly vomited at the hormone-driven display.

  Gnuko nodded and tilted his head toward the ship. “Tell you what, you wait to file my ship’s landing for a few hours and I can get you those twelve hundred credits.”

  The woman cocked her eye approvingly, and Fei Long marveled at the Lancer Sergeant’s deft manipulation of not only the woman’s sexual urges but also an equally powerful human desire: greed.

  “Well…I suppose something could be arranged,” she purred as she placed her hands on his upper arms. “Of course, if you don’t show…”

  “I’ll show,” he said as he flexed his arms, evoking a stifled gasp from the woman. “You just tell me where.”

  The woman held his gaze for several seconds before pulling back and making some sort of entry on her data slate. A moment later, a small scrap of paper spat out from the device and she handed it to Gnuko. “Seven o’clock,” she said before turning and walking away.

  All four of them took a moment to admire the view she presented, and then Gnuko said, “We’ve got to find a place to liquidate some of that jewelry; looks like you’re up, Strider.”

  “That’s my final offer,” the jeweler said for the third time since negotiations had begun.

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nbsp; Strider tisked emphatically and shook his head. “You be knowin’ this ain’t no cheddar, man—this here be the stinky stuff,” he countered, gesturing to the handful of gem-encrusted jewelry. “No Imperial goods be comin’ to the Spine since the withdrawal; even Capital be short of Imperial branded shinies, man,” he said as though outraged.

  The truth was that he had already managed to secure a higher value for the trinkets than they had expected by nearly ten percent. His methodology was unorthodox, in Fei Long’s opinion: whenever the jeweler declared his ‘final offer,’ Strider would argue with him, feign indignation, threaten to leave the establishment, and then add yet another piece of jewelry to the pile.

  This amazingly obvious—yet, to Fei Long, completely novel—tactic immediately re-opened the negotiations. Fei Long was fascinated by just how quickly the negotiations reset each time Strider had pulled the simple, but surprisingly effective, maneuver. Not only did it keep the haggling going, but it also established a floor value to the jeweler’s subsequent offer.

  “We be goin’ across the street,” Strider declared as he reached down to retrieve the half dozen pieces of jewelry. Sergeant Gnuko tensed, and Fei Long was likewise alarmed at Strider’s insistence on continuing the negotiations. They had already secured an offer of two hundred thousand credits, which far exceeded this particular mission’s needs. “Maybe the Carbon Consortium be makin’ a reasonable offer—they be knowin’ the stinky from the yellow,” he said as he turned to leave the establishment.

  The jeweler tried to put on a stoic front, but even Fei Long—who was completely uninitiated in the ‘art of the deal,’ as it were—could tell that he wanted the jewelry enough to yet again increase the offer.