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

by Caleb Wachter

  The doors slid open and the Tracto-an workers began to file into the hangar. Fei Long smirked at seeing they were wearing the same clothing he had helped fold, which meant he had a sixty percent chance Atticus would be wearing the contaminated undergarments when he arrived.

  Atticus himself strode into the hangar in the first wave of arrivals, and he quickly made eye contact with Fei Long. Fei Long kept his expression neutral as he fanned himself laconically, and the hulking Tracto-an spat on the deck in open derision before he began issuing orders to his people.

  Like a well-oiled machine, the crew began to set about the tasks before them. Most of the work looked to involve the repair of several suits of power armor—an activity which even the Tracto-ans had learned to carry out with minimal supervision—and Fei Long quietly awaited the fruit of his covert plan to reveal itself.

  His heart was pounding in his ears, his skin had gone clammy, and his arms began to tremble so badly that he had to stretch them high above his head to avoid looking as nervous as he felt.

  Then he saw it happen, and his lip curled into a sneer. Atticus stood from his crouch and adjusted the groin of his work suit before once again crouching down and resuming his work. Not a minute later he repeated the action, and a nearby Tracto-an made some sort of good-natured quip in his direction which Atticus received with a snarl more befitting a hound than a human.

  Thirty seconds after that, Atticus began to rub his groin. He was circumspect at first but the gesture became more pronounced and vigorous with each passing second.

  Fei Long began to snicker, increasing his volume in direct proportion to Atticus’ increasingly intent crotch-rubbing—which now resembled a small war between his hand and his groin, with only his pants serving as mediator.

  The rest of the Lancers took notice of their leader and a few even joined Fei Long in snickering, although they were considerably more circumspect than he was.

  Atticus took note of Fei Long’s delight at his expense and his brow lowered thunderously. “What did you do, runt?” he bellowed, briefly controlling the urge to relieve the sensation spreading around his manhood. He stormed across the hangar with hot fury burning in his eyes, and Fei Long briefly doubted the wisdom of his actions.

  But before the other man could reach him, Fei Long stood on top of the crate and yelled, in his best Tracto-an, “If you have the courage to do so then face me as a man, the way we came into this world: naturalis!”

  The entire hangar went silent, and even Atticus stopped his murderous charge just a few steps away from the crate on which Fei Long stood. But his stupefied look was quickly replaced with one of triumph, “You are not worthy of challenging me in the old ways,” he sneered, “neither are you fit to die on my blade.”

  “If that’s an offer to keep it non-lethal,” Fei Long retorted smoothly, the anticipation of a few moments earlier having largely subsided, “then you have my word that I won’t kill you, either.”

  A round of guffaws echoed through the chamber and Fei Long saw a Tracto-an leave the shuttle bay. Fei Long had hoped that would not happen, preferring the matter remain more or less secret until its conclusion, but he also knew the Tracto-an was unlikely to seek a security detail to stop the affair. The more likely possibility was that he had left to tell his friends of the ‘runt’s’ impending destruction at the hands of Atticus.

  Atticus did not join the others in their laughter, and it was clear to Fei Long that the Tracto-an was still greatly perturbed by the sensation spreading throughout his lower half. If the label on the container was accurate, then everything in the vicinity of his nether regions either felt numb or as though it was on fire. The street name for the powder was ‘powdered heat,’ which was simply a concentrated form of muscle relaxant used by professional masseurs—in significantly less potent dosages, of course—to work out kinks in hard-to-massage muscles.

  “I will not kill you,” Atticus growled, “but I will make you wish I had.”

  Just a few minutes later, Fei Long had stripped off his clothing and Atticus had done likewise. A small crowd of Tracto-ans had gathered, many of whom were off-shift, and Fei Long could not help but be self-conscious as he fanned himself in an attempt to appear calm and collected.

  The truth was the same trembling which he had felt in his arms had returned and spread to the rest of his body to the point where he could no longer keep from shivering as though he was freezing. The hangar was actually quite warm, which prompted him to bounce around on his feet to keep from appearing frightened—which, if he was honest with himself, would be a mild way of describing his current state of mind.

  Compared to Atticus and his statuesque physique, Fei Long’s body was an artist’s lame joke. Atticus was two meters tall if he was a meter, and his muscles bulged in ways Fei Long had previously thought to only be possible in cartoons. Fei Long, on the other hand, was over a head shorter than the Lancer and possessed a thin frame which could only charitably be considered ‘wiry.’

  The area surrounding Atticus’ manhood was red from his incessant rubbing and scratching, and the Lancer balanced a metal pry bar in his hand as he swung it this way and that. He presumably did so out of habit since no one in the shuttle bay could possibly think the contest was close enough to warrant a serious appraisal of the larger man’s weapon.

  Fei Long looked down at his naked body and thought with no small measure of satisfaction that he at least measured comparably to the larger man in one physical aspect.

  “Where is your weapon, runt?” Atticus spat as he entered the circle.

  Fei Long continued fanning himself before looking pointedly at the fan. “I will need only this fan to defeat you,” he said, and for a moment he saw the familiar face of Haldis scrunch up in a quickly-concealed smirk. Atticus was none too popular with the crew of the Pride, at least not among those crewmembers whose assignments fell outside of his particular wing of the Lancer contingent.

  “You make a fool of yourself,” Atticus growled. “Enter the ring or walk away in disgrace, but do so now.”

  Fei Long took a deep breath and nodded as he stepped toward the ring. He knew that merely entering the ring meant he had accepted the challenge—and that once he did so there were no true rules to govern what ensued.

  That last part was something he was heavily counting on.

  He placed a foot inside the chalk-line circle drawn on the deck of the Pride’s hangar bay, and no sooner had his second foot touched down than Atticus charged him like an enraged bull intent on goring him to death with the first blow.

  But Fei Long was ready, and with a flick of his wrist not altogether unlike that of a cowboy cracking a whip in an ancient holo-vid, he snapped the crane fan toward the charging Tracto-an and half of the feathers detached in unison before sailing through the air between the two men.

  Atticus, true to his superior physical abilities, actually batted two of the feathers away with his bar before the rest landed on his body. The only part of his body which lacked one was his right arm, in which he held the crude, metal, club. The tiny threads which connected the feathers to the fan’s handle were almost invisible, and Fei Long was certain that the Tracto-an did not even notice them as he continued his charge.

  When Atticus was a mere two steps from Fei Long’s position, the young man pressed a pair of buttons cleverly concealed within the fan’s handle, causing Atticus’ body to seize violently as a high-voltage electric charge coursed through his extremities.

  Amazingly, he did not fall upon taking the ensuing step. For a moment Fei Long imagined that the rage in his opponent’s eyes radiated palpable heat as the distance between them closed.

  Diving to the side, with neither grace nor regard for appearance, Fei Long only barely managed to keep the club from crushing his skull. The weapon bashed his left shoulder with such incredible force that had he been holding the fan in his left hand he most certainly would have dropped it. Had that happened, the paralyzing current which sent Atticus crashing to the flo
or after his second step would have been discontinued, and Fei Long would have been utterly at the other man’s mercy.

  But he did maintain control of the fan, even as a cry of pain passed his lips unbidden by his conscious mind. He rolled to the ground several meters from Atticus’ spasming body, and quickly regained his feet with a triumphant look on his face.

  There were discontented murmurs from all around the shuttle bay, but no one stepped forward to intervene. Apparently he had correctly interpreted the letter, if not the spirit, of Tracto-an law—if such a barbaric custom could be called ‘law’.

  He stepped toward the hulking warrior, who had been rendered almost completely defenseless by Fei Long’s concealed weapon. “Submit,” Fei Long yelled, and even in the midst of the violent seizures, Atticus managed to swing his club clumsily at Fei Long’s legs.

  The young man easily side-stepped the attack and pressed another button on the fan’s handle, causing the current to nearly double. The muscles in Atticus’ back seized more violently than the rest of his body, and the club was thrown from his grip by the involuntary contractions of his muscles.

  “Submit,” Fei Long repeated, saliva flying from his mouth as he circled toward the Tracto-an’s head.

  The Lancer’s body was clearly no longer under his control, and Fei Long knew that a normal person would pass out after fifteen or twenty seconds of the electrically-driven seizures. He assumed a Tracto-an would prove only slightly more capable of withstanding the current—but he had still asked Haldis to install a full three minutes’ worth of power cells into the device, just to be certain.

  “If you do not submit, you will fall unconscious,” he declared, leaning down as close as he dared and meeting Atticus’ eyes as often as the other man was able to do so amid the spasms. “I doubt your people would follow a warrior who was rendered unconscious by me, of all people,” he added snidely, truly savoring the sweet taste of victory. He knew there would be consequences for his actions, and he was more than ready to accept them. “Submit, Atticus, or you will awaken in sickbay without even your precious vanity intact.”

  The crowd had inched its way closer to the scene, and their expressions were a mixture of amusement and anger.

  Atticus tried to say something, but whatever it had been was swallowed by his spasming throat before it could get to his tongue. “What was that?” Fei Long said, lowering the current just enough that Atticus might possibly be able to speak.

  “Su—sub—mit,” he bit out, and Fei Long deactivated the weapon immediately.

  “There,” he said as he leaned down and met the other man’s burning gaze with a fierce one of his own, “it would seem that you finally recognize your betters, would you not agree?”

  Atticus tore the adhesive feathers from his body with a pair of swipes by his right arm and, before Fei Long could even react to that gesture, the Tracto-an grabbed him by the neck with the same hand and lifted him into the air while regaining his feet.

  “I will crush the life from you,” he growled, and Fei Long felt something pop in his neck—something he hoped was not entirely important.

  “You will do no such thing,” a deep, grating voice said from the crowd, and the pressure of Fei Long’s neck diminished for only a moment before once again tightening.

  “Stay out of this, coward,” Atticus spat. “I will deal with you soon enough.”

  “You will deal with me now,” the voice said in a commanding tone that silenced every assembled Tracto-an. Only after Atticus dropped him to the floor did Fei Long realize the speaker had been Kratos, the one-eyed Tracto-an who served with Lu Bu’s Recon Team.

  “I will deal with you when I see fit, old man,” Atticus growled. “A coward who attacks me in a place of healing is in no position to dictate terms of honor.”

  “Honor?” Kratos spat. “Is that what this is about? The boy beat you at your own stupid game, and even after submitting for all to see you move to strike him down? That is not honor, Atticus.”

  “What would a heretic like you know of honor?” Atticus demanded, and Fei Long rolled slowly to his feet as he took several steps away from the two men. They stood very nearly chest to chest, and only then was it apparent just how massive Kratos was, even compared to the War Leader. Their heights were comparable, but Kratos was considerably thicker in both the trunk and limbs.

  “More than you, whelp,” Kratos sneered.

  “You are a parasite, Kratos,” Atticus retorted, and Fei Long slowly became aware of the tension rippling through the crowd—tension he had previously felt, but at only a fraction of its current magnitude. “It would be a boon to Men if I struck you down here and now.”

  Kratos grinned, and it was an expression that sent chills down Fei Long’s spine. “It would be unfair for me to fight you,” the one-eyed man said through bared teeth, “even at your best.”

  “I do not fear you, old man,” Atticus snapped, but Fei Long very clearly noted that neither man had initiated actual, physical, contact with the other just yet. “But if a clean death is what you want, I will give it to you here and now.”

  Kratos nodded slowly before he began stripping off his clothes. As he did so, a quiet murmur ran through the crowd as the assemblage saw hundreds of scars covering his massive, herculean physique.

  Unable to help himself, Fei Long noticed that while he may have considered himself at least comparable to Atticus below the belt, to compare himself to Kratos would have indeed been laughable—with the ridicule directed entirely at Fei Long.

  “You can choose my weapon, Atticus,” Kratos offered as he turned his back on the other man and entered the circle. Fei Long backed well away from the circle, but the press of bodies—almost entirely Tracto-an—prevented him from egressing entirely. Blood was about to be spilled, and for the first time since awakening to his alarm clock Fei Long actually thought he had made a mistake in confronting Atticus.

  “I would give you a vibro-blade,” Atticus said, “but they are behind lock and key.”

  “It’s a small matter,” Kratos replied, rolling his head around slowly before planting his feet and standing motionless. “I am waiting, whelp.”

  Atticus gestured for one of his people to retrieve some nearby tools, including the pry bar he had used against Fei Long, and they brought them forward. Atticus settled on the bar, while sending a sturdy-looking hammer to Kratos.

  The one-eyed Tracto-an accepted the hammer and held it easily at his side. The two men’s eyes never wavered from the other’s, and Atticus stepped toward the circle as he spun the bar over in his hand. “I will kill you, heretic,” he promised as his first foot crossed the line of the circle.

  Fei Long turned to leave, knowing that merely by being present without at least attempting to notify security personnel of the fight would make him an accessory of some sort. But as he tried to squeeze through the crowd, the sounds of clashing metal rang throughout the shuttle bay.

  Before turning to see the battle unfold he caught sight of Sergeant Gnuko, who was standing near the back of the line watching the event intently. It took Fei Long only a fraction of a second to realize that the Sergeant had no intention of interrupting the melee, so he turned back to watch the battle unfold like the rest of the onlookers.

  Atticus and Kratos had changed positions inside the circle, with Atticus circling slowly around the area where the larger man had stood a few seconds earlier.

  Neither man appeared to have been wounded, but Kratos stood as still on the opposite side of the circle as he had done at his previous spot. Atticus moved purposefully to his right and raised his pry bar in prelude to an attack.

  The bar came down as the War Leader lunged across the circle toward Kratos, and the one-eyed warrior brought his seemingly tiny, one-handed hammer up into the bar. The impact of the weapons once again rang throughout the chamber, and Fei Long could feel the crowd tense as one. For the first time since arriving in the shuttle bay, the Tracto-ans—whether they were Atticus’ people or the so-call
ed outcasts—were responding with absolute unity to the battle unfolding before them.

  Amazingly, Kratos managed to sidestep Atticus’ follow-up attack as the one-eyed man backed across the circle until coming to a stop very near his first position. Atticus snorted and gripped the bar in both hands before squaring his stance and moving methodically toward the larger man.

  This time, Kratos padded to his left with a measure of grace of which he should have been incapable due to his bulk. Atticus cut off the circle with a pair of quick stutter-steps before bringing the bar in an upward arc aimed at the larger man’s flank.

  But again, Kratos parried the attack perfectly with his hammer and very nearly sent Atticus sprawling out of the circle with the clearly unexpected power of his blow.

  “Your moves are as common as your name,” the one-eyed man growled as he moved across the circle, and Fei Long found he was holding his breath in anticipation—and it appeared he was not alone in doing so.

  “Save your breath, old man,” Atticus snarled before lunging across the ring and, at the last moment, pivoting on his lead leg as he brought the bar around in an attack aimed at the larger man’s leg.

  This time, Kratos made no attempt to parry the blow. He instead leapt into the air and delivered a crushing knee into Atticus’ upper chest. The blow would have killed any ordinary human, or at least crushed their ribcage, but the combination of superior reflexes and massive physique allowed Atticus to roll with the blow well enough that he appeared to retain at least some small portion of his breath.

  “My breath?” Kratos taunted as he turned his back on the recovering Atticus in a clear display of disdain. “This is no contest,” he said in disgust as he turned just in time to see the charging Atticus barreling toward him with murder in his eyes.

  The War Leader stuttered left, right, then left again before lashing out with his right leg. The kick landed on Kratos’ flank just as the larger man’s hammer clanged against the bar which Atticus had used to block the counterattack.