No Middle Ground

by Caleb Wachter

  “A bigger threat than these pirates, Captain?” Sarkozi asked in obvious surprise as everyone’s eyebrows rose in unison across the room—everyone’s except for Fei Long, Ensign Jardine, and Sergeant Joneson, that is.

  “Yes, Ensign,” Middleton said matter-of-factly, “you heard me correctly: these pirates, however clever and well-outfitted, pale in comparison to the real threat facing Sectors 23 and 24.”

  He activated an overlay for the local systems, which were clustered mostly on the Sector 23 side of the 23-24 border. The colors of the various system names shifted, with some turning green, some grey, and some red.

  “Elysium is the nearest local Core World,” Middleton continued, “and with a population of one and a half billion, it’s one of the lesser-populated Core Worlds in the sector. But its strategic and economic value as a primary source of Trillium makes it worth easily twice as much as any other Core World in either sector to any force eyeing the region.”

  Garibaldi leaned forward and raised his good hand awkwardly before asking, “If you’re saying the pirates aren’t the problem, and since we already know that the Empire’s bugged outta the Spine, who’s got the gonads—let alone the resources—to take on a Core World like Elysium? Her standing SDF makes every other defense force look like a Founding Parade contingent by comparison, and her wealth lets them deploy only top-of-the-line ships—unlike certain multi-national organizations to which we all may currently be party, but will for the time being remain nameless,” he added with his usual, sarcastic flair, causing a few soft snickers which were quickly quelled.

  Middleton knew they would need the moment of brevity, given what he was about to show them, so he nodded and smiled tightly. “The systems in green,” he continued, “are confirmed to still be under the direct control of their lawful governments, while the systems in grey are as-yet unconfirmed.”

  He allowed the deafening silence to fill the room until Garibaldi finally rolled his eyes. “All right, I’ll bite,” he said, waving his hand at the viewer, “what about the red ones?”

  “The red systems,” Middleton replied evenly, zooming out the display to show a fairly damning picture of the local scene, “are now confirmed to be under the control of an as-yet undocumented droid force.”

  A series of audible gasps escaped the lips of his senior officers, and Middleton knew he couldn’t blame them for their reaction. Oddly, Jo seemed unfazed by the revelation as she leaned forward and gestured to the viewer, “Do we know what they want?”

  Middleton held back the first thing that came to his mind, since saying it would have been not only rude, but would have put unnecessary strain on their apparently-mending relationship. The relationship between a ship’s Captain and its Doctor, that is, he reminded himself silently as he turned to the viewer and gestured to the layout with a graphic pointer. “It would seem apparent, Doctor, that judging by the rapid, overwhelming nature of their attacks and the order in which these systems have been hit, this droid faction is intent on a complete takeover of Sector 23 and likely have similar designs on Sector 24.”

  Jo looked like she wanted to say something else, but she bit her tongue and leaned back in her chair, causing Ensign Sarkozi to ask, “What kind of intel do we have on them? What kind of ships do they use, how many have been documented?”

  Middleton held up a hand haltingly. “There are…mixed reports regarding their military assets, so for now we have to assume that they’re using a comprehensive assortment of ship types ranging from corvette-equivalent, to heavy cruiser.” He then switched the display over to the image of a perfect dodecahedron in front of a planet before turning to his officers pointedly, “I believe we’re already familiar with at least one of their ship types.”

  As the officers digested that image, he populated the sidebar with radiation profiles. The first they had detected at the gas giant and the second was created just before they had been hammered by the one hundred meter, twelve-sided vessel escorting the cargo ships away from the hidden military supply cache. He then overlapped the second one with a reading taken by one of Elysium’s vessels a few systems deeper into Sector 23, and they were shown to be a near perfect match.

  “I believe we’ve found our bogey,” he said grimly as realization swept across the room like flame in a hyperbaric chamber.

  “But what about the other reading?” Jo asked, again surprising Middleton with her interest.

  “The first radiation reading,” he said, flipping through a few images until coming to one of a rounded hull with several blister-shaped bulbs scattered across its surface, “is not identical, but similar enough to this ship’s that it was likely generated by a vessel of the same basic design.”

  “Yeah, but Captain,” Garibaldi said while shaking his head, “I’ve been around high-energy reactions since the day I was born—I mean, my mom popped me out on top of a workbench sandwiched between a plasma injector and a hydrogen intake manifold, for Murphy’s sake. I’ve never seen these types of readings before; heck, I’ve never even heard about anything that can generate that much radiation so quickly.”

  Middleton nodded knowingly, and he was glad that his people appeared to be processing this rather startling information so readily. “It’s a rare signature, Chief,” he allowed, “but I think Ensign Jardine might have the answer for you.”

  Jardine nodded as he leaned forward with his hands gesticulating as he spoke, “I know this sounds far-fetched, but the Captain and I believe we’re dealing with antimatter-driven systems here. It fits too perfectly; not only does it generate the radiation profiles we’ve been seeing, but if the droids’ processors are properly shielded, that radiation would be as harmless to them as rain is to us.”

  “I’m a Belter,” Garibaldi quipped darkly, “only rain we get is meteorite rain, and I can assure you there’s nothing harmless about a meteorite shower when it punches fifty three holes in your hab-module and you’ve gotta race to get your head bag on your kid sister before she suffocates.” Garibaldi shot Middleton a brief look as the two shared a painful memory from years before.

  “The point is clear,” Middleton interjected, wanting to get through this meeting as smoothly as possible. “With the available data, I think we can safely assume that the weapon systems on these droid ships are powered by controlled matter-antimatter annihilation on a scale never before seen—or at least, never before recorded and subsequently disseminated to the general public,” he added.

  “Can we review these records after the meeting is concluded?” Sarkozi asked, her eyes lighting up at the chance to pore over the tactical variables just like Middleton’s used to ten years earlier.

  “I’m expecting each of you to do so,” Middleton replied curtly. “We’ve got three days before we accompany the Elysium’s Defiance back to their home world so we can get some repairs done. This ship’s been through a beating, and I’m fairly certain the hits will just keep on coming. As of now, I have decided,” he said emphatically as he swept the room with an iron gaze, “that our secondary mission is to take these findings back to Admiral Montagne. News of these attacks has been functionally sequestered within the borders of Sectors 23 and 24, due to the increase in pirate activity on all trade routes as well as the inability of the affected worlds to access the ComStat network—which I have reason to believe is still up and running, despite widely-disseminated reports to the contrary.” He turned pointedly to Fei Long, who had been silent to this point, and gestured for him to stand. “Which leads us to what has just become our primary mission.”

  Fei Long stood from his chair and made his way to the end of the table, where he bowed respectfully. He then pinned his eyes to the top of the conference table and said, “Over the years prior to my incarceration, I developed a program which will allow me to gain discrete, direct access to the ComStat network. Although they could not prove I had done so, this is, I believe, the true reason why I was imprisoned on the world of my birth.”

  Eyebrows shot up around the room, a
nd this time even Joneson and Jardine joined in, while Garibaldi whistled appreciatively. “I heard you were sharp,” the Chief Engineer said with a chuckle, “but the ComStat network? That thing’s the most advanced piece of engineering ever devised by Man. It’s protected by encryption and defense protocols that will fry most computers just for trying to interface with it—and that’s before the guys in the black suits with the invisible com-links in their ears spike your drink and you become a victim of some ‘exotic virus’ which causes your heart to seize up like a hover-car engine ten minutes outta warranty. People have tried to crack it for decades and nobody—and I do mean nobody—has even come close.”

  Fei Long bowed his head graciously before turning and making his way to the view screen built into the wall behind Captain Middleton. With a series of rapid inputs, he pulled up a screen with a series of colors and geometric patterns depicted, which morphed gradually and hypnotically from one form to another.

  “What are we supposed to be lookin’ at?” Garibaldi asked.

  “This is the local ComStat signal,” Fei Long said simply, “filtered through a program I have re-written from memory during my free time and rendered in a visual manner which likely conveys why it is so difficult to crack.”

  Garibaldi shot Jardine a look. “Did you know about this?”

  Jardine shook his head in wonderment as he got to his feet, “Nope.” He made his way over to the display and examined its contents while the rest of the room watched, and after several seconds he nodded. “I mean…these look like the right burst intervals, and the encryption stream checks out,” he turned to Fei Long, “why can’t we pick this up on the primary Comm. system?”

  Fei Long made to answer, but Middleton held a hand up haltingly. “I hate to be blunt, but you two should probably discuss the technical terminology after the meeting’s over.” Fei Long nodded and deactivated the viewer before the two men returned to their respective seats and the Captain leaned forward deliberately, placing his forearms on the table’s edge, “It is my opinion, as Captain of this vessel, that even if the chances of Fei Long succeeding are one in ten—and he assures me it is a virtual guarantee—then this is a shot we have to take. Re-gaining access to the ComStat network would, in a very real sense, serve as a force multiplier that could augment the ability of the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet to respond to threats as they appear long before a given situation becomes untenable. In short, it could shift the balance of power back toward our side and allow us to coordinate our defensive efforts like this organization was built to do.”

  There was a brief chorus of murmurs as heads bobbed up and down around the table, and Middleton knew that they agreed with his assessment.

  “Ok,” Garibaldi said, “so how do we do it?”

  Fei Long made eye contact with Captain Middleton, who nodded his approval and the young man again stood and went to the end of the table. “Before the Imperial withdrawal, my program could have been uploaded in many individual segments across multiple different access relays—these relays are called ‘repeaters’,” he added hastily before continuing, “but since the withdrawal, it seems that the majority of these repeaters have been reprogrammed to only accept inputs from those with root-level access codes.”

  “So…how do we upload the program?” Ensign Sarkozi asked in open puzzlement.

  Jardine spun in his chair and faced Fei Long with wide eyes. “You have to upload it manually…?”

  Fei Long bowed his head in affirmation, causing Sarkozi to ask irritably, “So…what does that mean, exactly?”

  Fei Long went to the view screen again and opened an image which looked very much like a spider web spread across the Spineward Sectors, with several nexuses highlighted in gold while the rest of the intersections were silver. “This is not how the ComStat network is aligned, in actuality,” he said apologetically, “but I believe the visual representation will facilitate your collective understanding. Think of the network as being comprised of two main components: repeaters and hubs. Repeaters,” he pointed at the silver-colored points, “merely collect signals and forward them to the next, most desirable, repeater and/or hub along the route of the communication. Depending on the nature of the message being sent, and the protocols utilized to send it—whether it be a high security, confidential message like military plans, or a low security personal message—some of these messages are trapped by the hubs,” he gestured to a trio of nearby gold nexuses on the star chart, “and stored for later retrieval or for redundancy, while others are simply relayed along the route so as to minimize system resource consumption.”

  “This geek-speak really drives me nuts,” Garibaldi grumbled and Middleton had to agree with him, even though Fei Long had clearly put a lot of time into this particular presentation.

  “The repeaters are small,” Fei Long continued, pointedly ignoring the Chief’s complaint, “ranging from two meters in diameter to the size of a shuttle, depending on the local demand placed on the device. In fact,” he added as he turned to face Sergeant Joneson, “our Lancers retrieved the fragments of one such repeater from the gas mining facility following the bioweapon attack. The pirates were likely attempting to transport the repeater from one location to another and failed to observe proper safety protocols, resulting in the unit’s self-destruction.”

  “Wait,” Jardine interrupted, “what do you mean, ‘self-destruction’?”

  “Each of these devices, whether it is a repeater or hub, is safeguarded against tampering,” Fei Long explained. “It seems a logical conclusion to assume that, in the event the onboard computer determines the unit is being compromised, it would initiate a self-destruct to prevent capture and examination of the device’s internal components.”

  Middleton leaned forward and cut in, “Fei Long has been examining these fragments and believes he understands enough of the inner workings to allow himself and a small team to board a hub, upload his program, and egress without anyone knowing.”

  “Wait, ‘he believes’?” Garibaldi scoffed.

  Middleton nodded gravely. “I understand your concerns, Chief,” he said before standing from his chair, causing the rest of his officers to do likewise, “but this is our course of action. Gaining access to the ComStat network would be more than we could have ever dreamed to accomplish during this mission, and I’m not about to let this chance pass us by.”

  The Chief quirked a grin and shrugged. “It’s a good plan, Captain; you know I can’t help myself. You give me two weeks at a decent yard, and I’ll have the Pride set to rights.”

  Middleton quirked a grin of his own. “You’ll have one week, if we’re lucky, before Elysium’s elected officials wise up and politely ask us to vacate the premises—we’ll be doubly lucky if they don’t demand we return the new systems Captain Manning has graciously offered to supply so we can replace our damaged ones. It sounds like this particular government is a real piece of work,” he said before nodding his head. “Dismissed.”

  The officers filed out of the room, leaving only Fei Long standing beside the view screen with his eyes turned to the deck.

  “What is it, Mr. Fei?” Middleton asked patiently, briefly recalling his outburst toward the young man earlier in his ready room and wishing he had displayed more self-control.

  “Captain,” Fei Long hesitated, “I have a request to make.”

  “Another one?” Middleton actually had to fight the urge to grit his teeth as he inhaled deeply before exhaling in a slow, measured fashion. “What is it?”

  “Smith Haldis—I am sorry,” he gushed, “Machinist Haldis has informed me that there is a small quantity of a material called ‘Storm Drake hide’ in the cargo bay?”

  Middleton furrowed his brow as he tried to recall the inventory, and when he did so he vaguely remembered something about Storm Drake hide in the contraband portion of the items they had seized from the gas-mining-facility-turned-bioweapon-plant. “I think so, why?”

  “I have reason to believe that the deployment of su
ch a material would increase our chances of success by as much as twelve percent when we attempt to upload the program to the nearest ComStat hub,” the young man replied confidently.

  Captain Middleton had no idea what Fei Long meant, or how Storm Drake leather could help upload a program, but he gestured to a nearby chair and the two sat down beside each other, “Tell me more.”

  Chapter XXXII: A Lesson in Game Theory

  “All right, Lancers, listen up,” Walter Joneson barked as soon as the entire Pride of Prometheus’ Lancer contingent had stepped off the shuttle and set foot on a gently rolling plain of bright, green grass. It was a sixty by one hundred twenty meter patch of grass which had been cut to form a short, thick carpet of turf that looked so inviting that Lu Bu had to fight the urge to throw off her cleats and go running barefoot. She had never seen so much grass in her entire life!

  But she fought against her primal urge and gave her Sergeant the attention he deserved, noting several of the newer Lancers nervously adjusting their smashball pads, reminding her of her very first professional game where she had done likewise throughout the entire game.

  “The unit’s been through a lot lately,” Joneson continued as he tossed the ball into the air methodically while he paced up and down in front of his Lancers, “so I thought we could mix business with pleasure today and run through a few plays instead of our usual calisthenics routine.”

  The four Tracto-ans stood over to the side of the group with looks of patent disinterest, which made Lu Bu’s previous visions of frolicking through the meadow vanish as she soon desired nothing more than to get them focused on the task at hand.

  “For those of you who don’t know,” Joneson added, casting a wayward glance toward the Tracto-ans, “first we’ll talk history. This game was adapted from an ancient form of fully-armored gladiatorial combat known as ‘football,’ which is not to be confused with the inexplicably popular game of the same name played on Ancient Earth around the time of real football’s inception. The false version did involve a lot of actual kicking of a soft, round ball, but it was played by mama’s boys in bright-colored, meticulously-pressed shirts who apparently spent as much time rolling around feigning injury as playing the actual game.”