The Middle Road (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride Book 7)

by Caleb Wachter

  Rashid shook her head in unvarnished wonderment and repeated, “Who are you?”

  “I’m just a soldier who’s a long way from home and trying to do the right thing,” Middleton said almost without thinking. “What do you say: will you forward my request to your people? If they accept, we’ll need to fit their ships with data storage systems that will let me independently audit their itineraries, actions, and encounters. I know they won’t be happy about that, but it’s a small price to pay for six months’ supply of trillium—and if they decide to double-cross me, they can rip the surveillance equipment out and run off wherever they please. I’d be inclined to sanction them if I ever encountered them again, of course, but as far as starting points go I think it’s a reasonable one.”

  “Six months’ trillium?” she repeated.

  Middleton nodded, “I’d task them with a four month itinerary of nonstop jumps which would end with them rendezvousing with my fleet, and if they like the arrangement at that point then I’d be happy to extend it. I don’t anticipate this being over in a year, or even two.”

  “What about amnesty?” she pressed.

  “That’s part of why I’m not offering to roll them into my fleet,” Middleton explained. “There’s no way I could sell my allies on that, given the probability that your organization has directly antagonized some—or possibly all—of them in the past. I’m not interested in what you did previously; I’m interested in what you can do for me, right now, today. But this offer is of the ‘take it or leave it’ variety. If I come across another group that can fill this role tomorrow and you haven’t agreed to it, I’d be disinclined to compromise with what I’m sure you’ll agree are…problematic associates like yourselves.”

  Rashid’s eyes snapped back and forth between Middleton’s as she sat on the edge of the cot. “Fine,” she finally relented, “I’ll forward your proposal. I can guarantee they’ll all agree to it, but as to how many actually hold up their end…”

  “I won’t hold you responsible for that,” he assured her, “especially since part of this deal is that you remain a guest aboard my ship.”

  “You mean a prisoner,” she chided.

  Middleton shrugged, “If that suits you better.”

  “It does,” she insisted. “Give me back the slate and I’ll compose the message.”

  A day later, the Prejudice returned to the star system after hooking up with the rest of the fleet and informing them of the situation in general terms.

  Upon his return, and just as Rashid had predicted, all eleven of the remaining slaver ship captains agreed to Middleton’s proposal—almost certainly just to get refilled with trillium and other essential supplies. Data storage and observation units were installed aboard their ships with relatively limited oversight on Middleton’s part; he knew he couldn’t force them to do anything they didn’t want to do, so he didn’t even bother pretending to that effect.

  And, even more surprisingly, Rashid had held up her end of the bargain and transferred her two Cruisers over to Middleton’s control. The Stalwart managed to get them up and running in short order, but predictably there had been several developments which had hampered the speedy takeover of those vessels—chief among them the presence of nearly a thousand human and uplift slaves living in cramped conditions below decks aboard the two capital ships.

  The sentients were freed and provided with as much medical attention as possible. Among them was, in fact, a surprising number of doctors and other highly skilled professionals—which Middleton supposed should not have surprised him, given that skilled slaves were worth significantly more than unskilled ones.

  He made arrangements for the slaves to be transferred to the civilian vessels of the SLL as soon as they rejoined the fleet, but until then he ordered that they remain in their present berths.

  After the trillium was transferred, Middleton watched as the slaver ships departed the star system in groups of two or three, until all of them were gone. Whether or not they would return probably depended on too many variables to contemplate but the loss of trillium, while not trivial, was a price he was willing to pay for the chance at increasing his knowledge of the region.

  “Message to the Stalwart,” Middleton said after seeing the last of the slavers depart, “we are to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet with all due haste.”

  As the AG ships spun up their hyper drives, Middleton couldn’t help but wonder if he had just gone a step too far in supplying known slavers with resources which they very well might use to return to their malicious, vile practices.

  He pushed such doubts from his mind, reminding himself that this was war—and in war, one seizes every advantage he can.

  Chapter XXI: Mr. Six

  Samuel Sarkozi, aka ‘Mr. Scarlet,’ sat at his private workstation as he had for at least nine out of every ten waking hours he’d spent aboard his Section Chief, Mr. Black Nine’s ship.

  During the past few weeks he had run hundreds of possible simulations through the ship’s robust cogitators, and he had finally made a breakthrough several days earlier.

  He tried to keep from his mind the consequences of his theory proving out, and instead focused on the possibility that they were drawing ever closer to the answer which he had been enlisted to provide.

  His com-link chimed and he acknowledged, “This is Mr. Scarlet.”

  “Mr. Scarlet, would you join me on the bridge?” Mr. Black replied, much to Sarkozi’s surprise. During his entire time aboard Mr. Black’s ultra-secretive ship, he had only ever been granted access to his berth, the sub-deck on which it was located, and the observational conference room adjacent to the lift which connected his sub-deck with that of the observation room.

  “On my way, Mr. Black,” Sarkozi acknowledged before securing his workstation and setting off for the lift.

  The lift carried up for only a fraction of a second longer than it had when taking him to the conference room, and when the doors opened he found himself looking down a long corridor the bulkheads of which were pure crystal.

  He moved purposefully down the corridor toward the only open door he could see, which happened to be at the far end of the corridor.

  Moving onto the bridge, he saw an unfamiliar arrangement of consoles manned by a dozen black-clad officers whose eyes were fixed on their stations. Mr. Black, Sarkozi’s superior, beckoned for Sarkozi to join him on the raised dais at the center of those workstations, “Mr. Scarlet, take a look at this.”

  Sarkozi stepped up onto the dais and examined the hologram in front of Mr. Black. It was of a ship—or at least what was left of it—and that ship clearly had been constructed with similar materials to those present on Mr. Black’s own ship. “One of ours,” Sarkozi concluded.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Black nodded. “And it seems there is a single survivor aboard—or, rather, nearby.” He waved his hand and the hologram was replaced by the image of a misshapen lump of crystal being retrieved by what looked like a remote-operated drone. “The loss of the ship is regrettable,” Mr. Black explained, “but perhaps we can seek answers from this lone survivor?”

  “What can I do to help?” Sarkozi asked.

  “I want you to conduct the interrogation,” Mr. Black replied easily. “See what this survivor has to say about the fate of his ship.”

  Sarkozi suspected that the reason he was being tasked with conducting the interrogation—not an ‘interview,’ as would seem to be proper when collecting a survivor from a fellow Imperial ship—were myriad, but among them was almost certainly the probability that his new algorithms had brought them to this particular location. After a fashion, that made this assignment a reward for his good work.

  “Is this…survivor to be treated as an enemy combatant?” Sarkozi asked, uncertain just how far Mr. Black wanted him to go in eliciting compliance with the interrogation.

  Mr. Black fixed him with a flinty look, “You are to exercise your own judgment in that regard, Mr. Scarlet.”

  “Of course,” Sarkoz
i nodded, turning to leave, “I’ll begin at once.”

  “You may use the conference room,” Mr. Black said over his shoulder before Sarkozi had disembarked the bridge. “A certain degree of privacy is likely appropriate.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Black,” Sarkozi said neutrally, very much disliking the idea that he was being encouraged to torture whoever this person was.

  Nonetheless, this survivor might just have some of the answers they still needed. And after months of fruitless work, Sarkozi was not about to be deterred now that he had found something resembling a thread to follow.

  Two hours later, the survivor was brought into the conference room where Sarkozi had waited. He was pale and sweaty, with bloodshot eyes and tremulous extremities when he was brought in and sat down in the chair opposite Sarkozi’s.

  But his attention and focus were clearly with him and, when his eyes met Sarkozi’s, the former Confederation citizen began to suspect he knew who this man was.

  “What is your name?” Sarkozi asked levelly, glancing at the physiological monitors which displayed the man’s biorhythms. They were sometimes helpful, though never perfect, in determining the truthfulness of a person’s responses.

  “I don’t have one,” the man replied, and a quick check of the monitors showed no signs of duplicity.

  “What is your name?” Sarkozi repeated.

  “What is yours?” the man said in the exact same tone, eliciting an identical set of readings from the monitors.

  “What is your name?” he said the third time.

  “Sir Ranston Cobble of the House Cobble, Lord of the Copper Pipe and Heir to the Eternally Muddy Pot,” the man replied neutrally, and yet again the instruments showed the exact same readings as before.

  Sarkozi was equally amused and irritated, which he supposed was a failing on his part in both cases. “What is your name?”

  “Queen Elzabet the Ninety Third,” the man said calmly, “Daughter of the High Root and Mother of—“

  “That’s quite enough,” Mr. Black said as the door swished open behind the seated jokester.

  The as-yet unnamed man turned toward the door as Mr. Black entered, and an expression that was both a sneer and grin came over him as he greeted, “Mr. Nine.”

  “Mr. Six,” Mr. Black replied, clasping the other man’s hands in a customary display of familiarity. “I hope I did not give cause for offense?” Mr. Black gestured to Sarkozi, who seemed convinced he’d been the butt of a joke just as he’d suspected.

  “Not at all,” ‘Mr. Six’ said, “good help is hard to find these days, after all.”

  Mr. Black smiled, but it was far from a congenial expression as he gestured to Sarkozi, “Mr. Scarlet is a recent addition to my crew and I thought this would make for a proper introduction.”

  “If you don’t mind?” Mr. Six asked, gesturing to the seat which he had just risen from.

  “Of course not,” Mr. Black gestured for him to be seated while doing likewise at the head of the table. “But enough with the preamble: what happened to your ship?”

  Mr. Six looked skeptically toward Sarkozi, who now studied the man’s expressions and mannerisms intently—and silently.

  “We are all joined in a common cause, Mr. Six,” Mr. Black said, to which Mr. Six seemed relatively unconvinced but he nodded anyway.

  “We had just finished with our primary mission brief,” Mr. Six explained, “and decided to test some…unusual theories regarding the Locusts.”

  “What a coincidence,” Mr. Black said congenially, but his eyes betrayed his real feelings: despite their apparent familiarity, he seemed to be as suspicious as Sarkozi was about Mr. Six. “We are conducting a similar series of inquiries.”

  “Truly?” Mr. Six asked dryly, but Sarkozi detected a hint of surprise in the other man’s tone. “What a small galaxy…”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Black said with a false smile. “I trust you understand the severity of losing one of the few Pulsar-class vessels ever to be produced by the Empire of Man?”

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Six said with a dismissive wave, “they’ll probably shorten me by a head or so and then proceed to enact the truly barbaric retributive bits generally reserved for someone of much higher reputation than myself. And while I am content to surrender myself to the learned judgment of Man, first I feel it is my obligation to inform as to what we have encountered here.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Black said with a duplicitous smile, “and just how might you elucidate the situation?”

  Mr. Six reached into his mouth and, with what must have been a terribly painful jerk, removed one of his teeth and placed it on the conference table. He tore a piece from the hem of his shirt and stuffed it into his mouth before saying, “I was unable to download the entirety of my ship’s records, but I believe I retrieved enough of it to satisfy our superiors.”

  Mr. Black looked at it with open skepticism, “I doubt that very much, Mr. Six.”

  “I suspect you will cease to do so after reviewing its contents,” Mr. Black said confidently. “In summary: I found them and they destroyed my ship.”

  “Truly?” Mr. Black deadpanned. “You must admit I am justified in displaying skepticism regarding your claim.”

  “Naturally,” Mr. Six agreed, “were our roles reversed, I would be less inclined to civility than you have thus far been. But I have found them, Mr. Nine,” Six said, leaning forward intently, “and we must not tarry in returning this information to the Empire.”

  Mr. Black—who Mr. Six referred to as ‘Mr. Nine’—plucked the crystal from the conference table and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “I fear I require more than indirect evidence, Mr. Six,” he eventually said, all traces of duplicity and congeniality vanished from his now stony demeanor.

  “That would be inadvisable, Mr. Nine,” Mr. Six said in a cold, diamond hard tone. “At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I must convey to you in the strongest possible terms that we may already be too late.”

  “That may be,” Mr. Black said, standing from the table, “but whatever is on this crystal must be corroborated by directly harvested readings made by my ship’s systems. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can follow your ‘advice’ that we return to the Fleet. Too much division presently exists within the Empire; if we return with anything less than first-hand, irrefutable evidence we risk the gears of politics erasing these many years’ efforts spent searching for what you claim to have already found. You will work with Mr. Scarlet,” Mr. Black said, gesturing to Sarkozi. “It was his theory which led us to your ship, so it stands to reason that by working together you can…‘re-locate’ that which you apparently failed to evade after locating the first time.”

  “Mr. Nine,” Mr. Six stood and inclined his head before the door swished behind Mr. Black as he exited the room. Mr. Six turned to Sarkozi with something approaching respect—and possibly something more cautionary—as he asked, “You devised the algorithms which brought my brother’s ship here?”

  Sarkozi knew that his declaration of familial bonds with Mr. Black was as close to an olive branch as he was ever going to get, so he stood and nodded, “I did.”

  “Not bad,” Mr. Six mused, pausing for a moment before rubbing his jaw where he had removed his tooth, “then we had best be to work.”

  Chapter XXII: The Eye Opens

  “We make final approach to the wreckage,” Hammer reported as Kongming continued to pore over the sensor feeds describing the derelict Unbordered vessel.

  “There are no power signatures,” Kongming reported, “or waste heat inconsistent with the stated date of abandonment provided by the Unbordered.”

  “So they were not lying?” asked coyly.

  “That is unascertainable at this time, Kratos,” Kongming replied, as he suspected the Tracto-an had expected. “But there is no contradictory evidence that I have yet collected which would invalidate the Unbordered’s claims: there are massive structural failures all along the ship’s primary hull; the engines appear to hav
e suffered catastrophic coolant leaks; and the trace strange particles present near the ship’s hyper drive do seem consistent with the reports provided by the Unbordered.”

  “What about life support?” Primarch Nail asked.

  “Thankfully, it seems the Unbordered were able to largely contain the coolant leak,” Kongming explained, “though roughly half of the ship’s interior is exposed to vacuum. In order to retrieve the listed articles, we will still need to utilize EVA gear.”

  “My family can conduct the retrieval,” Nail offered. “They are experienced at salvaging hulks like this one,” his lips parted, revealing his mouth full of broken and missing teeth, “and it would be a pity to leave anything valuable aboard when we set off the scuttling charges.”

  “Your observation of efficiency is duly noted, Primarch,” Kongming said with only a trace of ill humor. He knew as well as the Stalwart Primarch that supplies were precious in this region of space and, while he disliked the notion of picking over the bones of a derelict warship whose people had essentially requested they not do so, he also understood that survival often trumped principle. “However, I must insist that my own team accompany the salvage teams. If significant value is retrieved during the course of this mission, it should at the very least be equally distributed among this mission’s bearers.”

  Nail scowled and thumped his chest, “This is my ship, boy.”

  “Indeed,” Kongming allowed graciously, “and as such one third of the salvaged value should be disbursed directly to the ship itself, another third should be kept in reserve for the AG Fleet’s general supplies, and the final third should be distributed—equally—among the many current members of this ship’s crew, which would obviously include my team as crew of equal standing with your family.”