No Middle Ground

by Caleb Wachter

  “Give me a breakdown of those strike points, Ensign,” Middleton ordered as he leaned back in his chair and considered the options.

  “Twelve structures appear to have been destroyed in total, Captain,” Sarkozi reported promptly. “The main research facility looks to have taken the worst of it with repeated impacts,” she continued as a particularly large crater’s image expanded on the screen, “while the six adjoining structures of the campus were also leveled, but with what look to be individual strikes. After that, it seems that three supply depots were also leveled…in addition to the primary residence structure of the colony.”

  Clearly needing no prompting to do so Ensign Sarkozi expanded the view of the last detailed target, showing the rubble of what the official records said had been a twelve story housing complex. The records indicated that over two thousand people had recently resided there.

  “What about radiation?” Middleton asked, turning to the Sensors operator.

  The woman shook her head. “Nothing above tolerances detected, Captain. There’s a slight increase at each impact point, but nothing dangerous for short-term exposures.”

  “Still no response to our hails?” Middleton asked again.

  “Nothing, Captain,” replied Jardine. “The orbital relays all appear to be functioning, but I can’t tell if the ground-based transmitters are functional from here. A physical inspection of the comm. station would be required for that, sir.”

  “Strange they didn’t send any distress signal,” Helmsman Jersey observed dryly. “Either they were attacked too fast to hit the panic button or they didn’t realize those ships were hostile.”

  “Just so, Helm,” Middleton agreed, having arrived at the same conclusion almost immediately. But he was more than a little surprised that Jersey had been the member of the bridge crew to first make that particular observation.

  “But that hostile was unlike anything in our ship’s database,” Sarkozi said doubtfully. “So unless they were completely asleep at the switch, they should have known those ships weren’t friendly.”

  “Pull up the specs on this colony again,” Middleton said.

  Sarkozi pulled up the data on her console and mirrored it to the main viewer. “This was a splinter colony established fifty two years ago,” she read the data clinically, “with an initial population of two thousand forty four. Demographic breakdown includes technicians, farmers, and other standard personnel. The only notable quality of the population is their fairly diverse cultural background, having been pulled from a half dozen Core Worlds.”

  “Two thousand forty four?” Middleton repeated as his eyes narrowed. “Call up the most recent population for census, Ensign.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarkozi acknowledged as she minimized the first census, before putting the newer one beside it on the main viewer. “Latest census reads total colony population of…two thousand twenty six?” she finished with a scowl.

  Middleton leaned back in his chair as the true nature of the facility was made clearer. “This was no colony,” he concluded, “this was some kind of secret facility disguised as one. No colony would be maintained without a population growth of at least fifty percent per generation during the initial stages, and fifty years of growth means a minimum of five thousand colonists just to keep from being defunded and abandoned by the sponsor worlds.”

  “Answers a few questions, at any rate,” Jersey muttered darkly.

  Captain Middleton considered the situation for a moment before arriving at a decision. He activated his chair’s com-link and opened a channel with Sergeant Joneson.

  “Joneson here, Captain,” came the man’s deep voice.

  “Sergeant, I want you to prepare a landing party,” Middleton said, “I’ll need you to lead an eight man tactical team to escort four officers into a potentially active combat zone for an estimated twelve hours.”

  “Any intel on potential hostiles, Captain?” Joneson asked with calm professionalism.

  “Nothing solid,” Middleton replied after a brief hesitation. “You’ll board the shuttle in thirty minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Joneson replied.

  “Middleton out,” the captain said before severing the link and turning to Ensign Jardine. “Sarkozi, Jardine: you’re on the away team. Get down to the armory for your gear and then meet up with Sergeant Joneson in the shuttle bay.”

  “Yes, Captain,” they replied, standing from their stations and making for the lift. After they had exited the bridge, Middleton stood from his chair and headed toward his ready room.

  Without breaking stride, he said, “Jersey, in my ready room.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the Helmsman said as he stood from his console, waiting for his replacement to take over before following Middleton into the ready room.

  When they were both within the ready room and the door had slid shut, Middleton turn to his sour Helmsman. Jersey looked at him with hard, grey eyes beneath bushy eyebrows so apparently unkempt that they bordered on violating the uniform code.

  “Jersey, I need an XO,” Middleton said, wishing to waste no time. “Frankly I can’t think of a better man for the job.”

  “Sir?” Jersey said, clearly taken aback.

  “This ship needs a proper command structure and I can’t sit on my hands any longer; you speak your mind and you know the rules as well as I do,” he said magnanimously.

  “Better, sir,” Jersey said stiffly, clasping his hands behind his back.

  Middleton fought the urge to bristle and let a cool smile play over his lips instead. “You prove my point perfectly,” he said evenly. “You’re also one of the only officers who holds a rank higher than Ensign aboard this ship, and you’re the only one to have more service time than I do.”

  “Never made it past Lefty J-G, Captain,” Jersey said, for the first time showing doubt in the Captain’s decision. “I’m not sure what good I can do you.”

  “You let me be the judge of that, Lieutenant Commander,” Middleton said forcefully with a bit more flare than he had intended. “I need a senior officer to command the away team; Sarkozi and Jardine are good, young officers, but I need a steady hand down there.”

  “Lieutenant Commander?” Jersey said with an arched eyebrow. “Wouldn’t Sarkozi be better suited for this, Captain?”

  “Sarkozi’s a fine officer,” Middleton allowed, “but I need her where she is. Your skills on the helm, fine as they are, are more easily replaced than hers are at tactical. This move won’t affect the rest of the chain, and I know I can count on you to speak your mind – especially when we disagree.”

  A smirk came over the other man’s features as he nodded slowly. “I’ll go where you need me, sir, but I’m afraid I’m too old to learn new tricks,” he said as he braced to attention. “I’ll give you my best from day one but unlike these pups we’re training up, I’ve done all my growing. You find I can’t do the job to your satisfaction, just put me back on the helm; whipping me for my shortcomings ain’t liable to do much but cause mutual aggravation.”

  “Fair enough, Commander,” Middleton said, thrusting his hand out. Jersey accepted it and Middleton found that the man had a surprisingly powerful grip for his stature. But Tim Middleton was no slouch himself, and the two gripped as tightly as they could without grimacing before Jersey cracked a smile.

  “What are we looking for down there, Captain? I can tell you’ve already got a notion,” the newly minted Lieutenant Commander said matter-of-factly.

  “Honestly,” Middleton bit his lip for a moment before shaking his head, “I think it will be best if you just run a thorough, class two scan of the ‘colony’ before making your way up to the comm. station on the nearby mountain. Maintain complete radio silence unless you find something suspicious or noteworthy, in which case you are to pipe it directly to me on a point-to-point beam using top encryption. The away team will not discuss its findings with any of the crew, do I make myself clear?”

  “As a klaxon, Captain,” Jersey replied with a sna
ppy salute that was completely at odds with his usual demeanor.

  “Good hunting, Commander,” Middleton said, returning his salute.

  Lieutenant Commander Jersey turned on his heel and left Middleton’s office, which left only one more specialist he needed to corral for the away team.

  “Visual tracking of the away team shows they’ve just finished their inspection of the colony, Captain,” the sensors operator reported. “They’re making their way back to the shuttle now. No hostiles detected using passive scans.”

  “Good work, Sensors,” Middleton said before turning to the Comm. officer, a crewman named Babin. “Keep scanning all frequencies, Comm.,” he instructed, “report any activity whatsoever.”

  “Yes, sir,” the crewman replied, “continuing passive scans; no activity detected at this time.”

  The minutes ticked by until the away team had re-boarded the shuttle. Seconds later, the craft lifted off and began its journey toward the nearby comm. station located on the nearest peak – which measured nearly four thousand feet above sea level.

  As the craft flew toward its destination, the com-link silently flashed on Middleton’s command chair, and he saw that it was a transmission from Commander Jersey. The message read: Debris at depot sites consistent with high-yield military-grade weapons containment facilities; main housing complex located above underground facility of some kind, unable to access from surface.

  Captain Middleton nodded to himself and deleted the message from his log, as Jersey had just confirmed his suspicions that this was some sort of military weapons cache leftover from around the time of the Confederation’s Union Treaty with the Imperials.

  Whoever had placed those weapons there, probably fifty years earlier, had clearly dispatched the three ship detachment they had encountered on their way into the system. Apparently the recovered cache was more valuable to them than avoiding discovery, since the unidentified warship had not returned to finish the Pride off.

  Protocol called for containment of any remaining sensitive equipment or intelligence, so Middleton watched as the shuttle bearing his away team neared the landing pad at the summit of the mountain.

  “That’s the report, Captain,” Jersey said as he handed the data slate to Captain Middleton before taking a seat opposite him in the Captain’s ready room. “Looks like you were right; this was no ordinary colony, and they were expecting those hostiles judging by the record of their handshake protocols. And the organic residue at the impact points suggests the presence of more than a handful of people.”

  “Those comm. logs were already erased when you arrived,” Middleton said, more to confirm his suspicions than to request information.

  “Yes, sir,” Jersey replied. “The entire comm. station was secured as well; it looked like they planned to return to it but never did.”

  Middleton wanted to test his new Executive Officer’s reasoning skills, so he leaned back in his chair and set the slate down on the desk without having activated it. “You conclusion, XO?”

  Jersey snorted. “Seems obvious they treated the hostiles as anything but, going so far as to erase most of the evidence pointing to their arrival and purpose,” he said gruffly. “My bet would be that the hostiles came down, conducted whatever business they meant to, which included the retrieval of a not-inconsequential quantity of high-yield weaponry. Then, under some pretense or another, the hostiles lured every man, woman, and child – assuming there were any children at this ‘colony’ – back to the base proper before blasting the place straight to the Demon’s Pit.”

  Middleton nodded approvingly. “Well done, Commander,” he said. “Did you find evidence of who those hostiles might have been?”

  Jersey shook his head. “Found a few hover-vehicle impressions but nothing conclusive. Aside from the relatively sterile scene, it looks suspiciously like a pirate job.”

  “Agreed,” Middleton concurred. “Someone was covering their tracks and trying to make it look like an act of piracy rather than what it really was.”

  “And what do you think that might be, Captain?” Jersey asked with a hint of challenge in his voice.

  The Captain chuckled. “I’ve got theories, but nothing concrete.” At his XO’s sour look, Middleton added, “I guarantee you’ll be the first to know my thoughts once they’re more than speculation, Commander.”

  Jersey sighed. “Fair enough; gotta keep some things close to the vest,” he grudged. “The, uh, fourth member of the away team would like to have a word, Captain,” he added belatedly.

  Middleton nodded in resignation. “Send her in.”

  “Captain,” Jersey acknowledged before rising from his seat and exiting the ready room.

  A few moments later, Doctor Jo Middleton entered the captain’s ready room with a scowl on her face that probably could have shattered a mirror. “I don’t appreciate you coopting me like that, Tim,” she snapped – this time after the door had slid shut.

  “I had no choice, Doctor,” he replied calmly, gesturing to the chair which Jersey had just vacated. “The situation called for my top bio-sciences expert to conduct sensitive scans; I would have sent someone else if I could have.”

  “Ha!” she scoffed before visibly collecting herself and taking a short breath. “I would appreciate a little warning next time – especially if I have to share a shuttle with those smelly, thuggish Marines.”

  “Lancers,” Middleton corrected calmly as he held his hand out. “Your report please, Doctor?”

  Jo took the data slate from her pocket and thrust it toward him, and he was surprised to see that most of her anger seemed to have already dissipated. “The planet was clean of bio-contaminants – this time,” she added pointedly. For a Doctor, she had an abnormally powerful fear of contracting a xeno-infection of some kind, and Middleton had taken no joy in exposing that particular character flaw during the away mission. “Radiation levels surrounding the craters were consistent with orbital bombardment via high-powered particle cannons, but within the habitable limits elsewhere.”

  “In your opinion are there any survivors down there?” he asked.

  Her scowl returned. “Nothing organic could have survived that bombardment,” she shook her head angrily. “And the scans we ran during flight revealed nothing but wildlife within twenty kilometers.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said after receiving her report. If the Chief Medical Officer of the ship believed there was no reasonable evidence to suggest the presence of survivors, then he could break orbit as soon as he wished.

  “Now that you’ve satisfied your military protocols,” she said with a thinly-veiled sneer that still managed to get under Middleton’s skin, “would you mind telling me what’s going on around here? First we get attacked immediately upon entering this system, and now we find a colony that quite obviously isn’t a colony at all; what’s going on here, Tim?”

  Captain Middleton actually wanted to confide in someone – anyone, including his ex-wife, of all people – but he had to keep a lid on his suspicions for now. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” he said evenly, “I can’t discuss the matter any further.”

  Her face looked fit to burst from the sudden rush of blood which turned her face a lovely shade of red as she stood angrily from the chair. “You government types are all the same,” she spat, “with the military easily the worst of the lot!”

  “If that’s all, Doctor,” he said levelly, simultaneously annoyed at her constant informalities and amused at her continued outbursts which reminded him so very much of the girl he had known two decades earlier.

  She spun and made her way to the door, which she exited through without another word.

  He shook his head and picked up the data slate to review her report – which was surprisingly detailed and dispassionate for Jo, considering her dislike of anything to do with his chosen profession.

  Chapter XV: Sleeping Dragon, the Second Visit

  “Fei Long,” Middleton began after sitting down on the bench opposite the prisoner
’s cell, “I don’t have much to work with but from what I can tell you’re some sort of political radical from your home world. Is that right?”

  The young man, who appeared remarkably composed after spending so much time in the brig, opened his eyes as the captain began to speak. “That would be an accurate description, Captain Middleton,” he said with a hint of surprise in his voice.

  The captain nodded. “Your ‘official’ files were obviously forgeries, but as a matter of course we download as much media as possible from the worlds we visit,” he explained. “Still, it seems that whatever records of your crime may have once existed were erased from the system. Only a few scraps survived, and even those took my people the better part of a day to find and collate.”

  Fei Long leaned forward and sighed. “Captain, I wish to apologize for my earlier—“

  “Save it,” Middleton said with a halting gesture. “I’m not interested in recrimination; your stated reason for compromising my hyper dish checks out…so far. Based on that, and your assistance in helping identify the second portion of the coded message, I’m willing to consider the possibility that you’re telling the truth.”

  Fei Long nodded. “You are a pragmatic man, Captain; I respect that—”

  “Again,” the captain interrupted levelly, “save it. I’ve got little time and even less patience for flowery wordplay with someone who, from what I can tell, is the single greatest visible threat to my ship’s security. Answer one question honestly and I won’t throw you out an airlock.”

  The young man gestured invitingly with his left hand. “I cannot lie to you, Captain; ask me your question.”

  Middleton leaned forward and pointed the data slate in his hands at the young man. “Are you aware of any other breaches in my ship’s security?”

  The corner of Fei Long’s mouth turned up in a half-smirk. “An interesting choice of words, Captain,” he mused as he stroked his barely-existent chin stubble. “The short answer to your question is ‘yes,’ while the slightly longer answer is to add that I am even responsible for one of these two breaches. I would never have been able to build the strange particle imager without the micro-Locsium crystal fragments you recovered from the gas mine, so it became necessary to retrieve one such fragment from the armory. That is the first of the two breaches in your security of which I am aware.”