No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride)

by Caleb Wachter

  “Comm.,” Middleton turned to Ensign Jardine, “I need you to go down to the cargo bay and take a look at this ‘colony’s’ recovered satellite.”

  Jardine stood from his station with a faint look of confusion. “What am I looking for, Captain?” he asked professionally.

  “Anything that can help this ship,” Middleton replied. “Our main comm. transmitter burned out when we used it to jam those Starfires; I want you to take a good, hard look at the specs of whatever’s there. That gear might be of just a little help, or it might be a lot; either way you can pull whatever personnel you need for help, including department heads.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Jardine reported before making his way off the bridge as a petty officer took over at Comm. Middleton knew he needed to make a full round of field promotions to better establish the chain of command aboard the ship, and he had been procrastinating for too long on that front. But he needed to focus his efforts where they could do the most good, and right now that was precisely what he aimed to do.

  “Make for the hyper limit, Commander,” Middleton said as he stood from his command chair. “You have the conn.”

  “Sir,” Jersey responded with a curt nod as he surveyed the bridge crew at work with barely-concealed disappointment. The crew’s lack of operational discipline and efficiency was certainly an issue, but to the Captain’s mind it was too far down the list to gain any measure of priority. Lieutenant Commander Jersey, however, would almost certainly take a different view of the matter and begin work at once to remedy that particular shortcoming.

  Middleton made his way into his ready room to review some reports which had arrived earlier in the day—one of which regarded the young Mr. Fei Long down in the brig.

  After sitting down, he activated the com-link to sickbay and Jo answered in her usual, less-than-punctual manner. “Sickbay here,” she said, for the first time sounding reasonably comfortable in doing so.

  “I was just about to review Fei Long’s examination results,” Middleton said, “would you care to join me?”

  Jo smirked slightly but nodded. “I think that might be wise,” she agreed.

  “I’ll be in my ready room,” he said before deactivating the link and perusing the first portion of the report. A few minutes later, the door chimed and he beckoned, “Enter.”

  The doctor entered the room and sat down across from the captain, who had just finished the section regarding Fei Long’s ‘kill pill,’ which appeared to be undeniably real.

  “Ok,” Middleton said, placing the slate on the desk before himself and clasping his hands, “first things first: tell me about the kill pill.”

  “That term is offensive and inaccurate,” she snorted.

  Middleton held up a hand haltingly. “It’s just military short-hand,” he said by way of apology. “Please, just tell me what you know about it.”

  She leaned forward and took the slate from beneath his hands and opened a series of images before handing it back to him. “It’s mostly organic,” she explained, “and by ‘mostly,’ I mean basically everything but the trigger mechanism. There are miniscule quantities of chemicals which, when combined, will cause an explosion that will cause catastrophic damage to the vasculature of both his low- and mid-brain regions. Without surgical intervention within minutes he would die from intracranial hemorrhage, and even with the surgery the insult to his brain stem would almost certainly paralyze him in a best-case scenario, and destroy his autonomic functionality completely in a worst-case scenario.”

  “So, we’re talking about complete brain death either way?” Middleton confirmed.

  “Barring extreme luck, yes,” the doctor replied, and Captain Middleton flashed back to when his previous doctor had used those same words a few hours before his own death due to Captain Raubach’s bio-weapon.

  Shaking the image of the old doctor’s face from his mind, Middleton leaned back in his chair. “Can it be disarmed?”

  Jo shook her head slightly. “It’s possible,” she allowed, “but incredibly risky, assuming you’re talking about removing the micro-nodules containing the explosive components. Honestly, even with a full, Grade One neurosurgical suite I wouldn’t give him better than a thirty percent chance of survival. Those chemicals are just too sensitive, and the cystic nodules they’re encased in are specifically designed to be tamper-proof.”

  Had Tim Middleton not lived with Jo for half a decade, he would have let the matter rest at that. But he saw a familiar look in her eye that told him she was holding something back. “But?” he prompted.

  “But,” she breathed a hissing sigh through gritted teeth, “I think I might be able to deactivate the triggering mechanism non-invasively. It’s still risky, but if it works then it should decrease the risk of injury, either by accidental or intentional activation.”

  “What do you need?” he asked.

  “I’ve got most of what I need in sickbay,” Jo replied with a firm shake of her head. “If Engineering can re-wire the imaging suite in sickbay, I can interrupt the trigger’s signal using the bio-scanner set on maximum for a few seconds while I trigger the device electrically. With the scanner’s current wiring we might cause damage to the imaging matrix, but the modifications should only take a few hours.”

  “Trigger it electrically?” Middleton repeated, referring to her plan rather than the specifics of modifying the imaging scanner. He had helped her study for many of her different courses during college, but unlike the rest of the things which found themselves permanent housing in his memory warehouse, he had allowed the late-night details of neurobiology to evacuate the premises after his wife had done likewise.

  “The trigger detects activity in a few portions of his high brain,” she explained. “Truth be told, I’m amazed it hasn’t gone off accidentally since what constitutes a lie is largely debatable—even within a person’s own consciousness—and measuring electrical impulses so crudely can’t hope to guarantee success.”

  “They are extraordinary measures,” Middleton agreed, finding that even he was more than a little unnerved by the boy’s situation.

  “Extraordinary measures?” she scoffed. “Hardly; try barbaric,” she quipped as she opened the PSI results on the data slate before handing it back to him, “but everything else about that boy is extraordinary. He pegged the exam right down the line on everything except the social measures.” She snickered softly as she shook her head in wonderment, “In that regard, he’s actually a fairly normal sixteen year old boy. But his psychological makeup and intellectual capability are literally off the charts, which places him at least five standard deviations above the norm; even you and I are only in the three deviation range in total brainpower, and we were both first in our respective classes nearly every year.”

  Captain Middleton found himself almost grinning at her observation that he was fairly normal for a teenage boy, but he thought it best if he kept his reason for doing so to himself. Normal, indeed, he thought with a chuckle. “So he’s prodigal,” Middleton confirmed.

  Jo nodded. “Absolutely; even if he’s only five deviations above the norm in brainpower,” she said pointedly, “he’s one in roughly four million. If he’s six deviations above, it’s closer to one in a billion. This boy should have an entire lab built around him so he can work on improving information processing, advancing medical science, or developing that elusive ‘quantum conversion theory’ everyone’s raved about for the last fifty years.”

  Middleton nodded as he mulled the situation over, having seen that Fei Long’s apparent aptitudes lay in the fields of information processing and particle theory. “Still,” he said as he tapped his chin thoughtfully, “he was in a prison facility, and his government surreptitiously foisted off on us under false pretenses. If that’s not cause for concern…” he trailed off into silence.

  Jo gave him an incredulous look. “That boy’s perception of reality is so different from ours that it’s no wonder he got himself into trouble—”

  “Did
he say what his crime was?” Middleton interrupted as he looked down and typed out a message on the data slate, which after he was finished he slid across the desk toward her.

  Jo shook her head after a moment’s pause as she ignored the slate, “Why haven’t you asked him?”

  The captain shrugged, “I doubted I could trust anything he said until now. But with you to vouch for his honesty—“

  Jo bolted to her feet, “Is that what this was about?!”

  “Doctor—“

  “No, Tim,” she snapped, pointing an accusing finger at him, “you tell me right now if that was why you called me up here, or Murphy help me I’m getting off this ship at the next stop!”

  “Doctor,” he repeated calmly, “I don’t have the luxury of taking the moral high ground. Nearly five hundred people serve aboard this ship, and their safety is one of my highest concerns; I can’t allow my own private reservations to interfere with my doing what’s best for this ship, its mission, or its crew. Until I’m recalled, I’m going to do everything in my power to carry out my mission—including utilizing strategic advantages which allow for increased clarity.”

  She stood there gape-mouthed at him as he pointed at the data slate. “Then I’m done,” she said hollowly. “Find yourself a new doctor.”

  He actually felt a twinge of guilt at having played the scene out this way, but it was important for him to know how far she would go—or not go—and he now had his answer. “You’re a guest aboard this ship, Doctor,” Captain Middleton said as he stood to his feet. “You’re free to come and go as you please, and that would remain the case even if you weren’t the ship’s acting Chief Medical Officer. But before you make that decision, I have one request to ask,” he said with a pointed look at the data slate.

  She shook her head adamantly. “No,” she refused, “I’m done, Tim; you’ll need to speak with Doctor Cho from now on. The military has taken too much of what I love already—I’m not giving it another instant of my life.”

  She turned to leave the room, and Tim Middleton cleared his throat. To his pleasant surprise, she actually did stop—but she pointedly kept her back to him.

  Scooping up the data slate, he made his way to her side and offered it to her. “One last request,” he said, knowing that the Pride of Prometheus would be worse for not having her aboard, “and if you still want to leave, I’ll be sure we put in somewhere safe as soon as possible so you can get back to your life.”

  Jo sliced a cold, piercing look over at him before glancing down at the data slate. Shaking her head, she took the slate and stuffed it into a pocket. “I’m beyond disappointed in you, Tim,” she said coldly, “you’re nothing like the man I once knew.”

  With that, she made her way out of the ready room and left him alone. He knew that she had spoken truly, even if her reasons for doing so might have been…misguided. But any change in attitude or life view—often for the bitter, the resentful, or worst of all, the apathetic—was the non-negotiable price of experience.

  And he paid it gladly.

  Chapter XVIII: Warmer…

  The Pride of Prometheus completed two more jumps over the course of the following week, encountering nothing out of the ordinary—including no sign of the enemy vessel they were pursuing. Seconds after making their third jump, the main viewer’s tactical readout lit up like petroleum under a plasma torch.

  “Captain, I’m reading four vessels in orbit of the fourth planet,” the Sensors operator reported promptly.

  “Are they squawking IDs?” Jersey demanded, taking a step toward the man at Sensors. Middleton had to admire the way the newly made Lieutenant Commander was filling the role of XO—at least, so far.

  “Affirmative, Commander,” the man replied. “I’m reading…System Defense Force signatures on one of the four vessels but nothing on the other three.”

  “System Defense?” Middleton repeated. “Where are they based out of?”

  “It looks like…the Elysium system, Captain,” the operator replied.

  Captain Middleton saw Jersey scowl at the operator’s delayed report, but Middleton paid it no mind. He looked down at his chair’s readout as his XO leaned down next to the operator and said, “Captain Middleton requires all available information during your report, crewman—ship types, current status, handshake protocols,” he listed off in a voice only a few nearby people could hear.

  Middleton actually stopped in the middle of calling up the information which Jersey had just subtly—at least, for him—suggested the operator include in his report.

  The operator gave the XO a blank look for a moment before bobbing his head up and down as he continued, “Reading one corvette squawking SDF ID’s, Captain; handshake protocols accepted and their codes appear to be valid. Damage readings…” he hesitated as he flipped through a few screens, “it appears the corvette is heavily damaged with its power core reading near-critical. The other three signals are two merchantmen, which appear undamaged…”

  “And the fourth vessel?” Middleton pressed.

  After a pregnant pause, Ensign Sarkozi chimed in from Tactical, “Imaging scans suggest it was a settler ship, Captain.”

  “Confirmed,” Sensors agreed belatedly, “its hull has suffered catastrophic damage, its power plants are cold and even its life support appears to be off-line. At its current rate of orbital decay, it will burn up in the planet’s atmosphere in forty two hours—”

  “Captain,” the Comm. stander interrupted, “I’m getting an audio distress signal from the corvette on a secure channel.”

  “Put it through,” Middleton ordered.

  The speakers erupted into unbearably loud static for several seconds before the Comm. stander adjusted the gains. “—tain Manning of the Elysium SDF Corvette Elysium’s Wings. We’ve been overrun by pirates, our power plant is off-line and there are still survivors on that settler ship. We are requesting immediate assistance—“ the signal cut out unexpectedly.

  “Get it back, crewman,” Middleton snapped as he flipped through his chair’s com-links to open a channel to Ensign Jardine down in the cargo bay. When he had him on the line, he ordered, “Report to the bridge on the double, Jardine.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied before severing the link.

  The signal clarified on the speakers, “—n you assist us?”

  “This is Captain Tim Middleton of the MSP Cruiser Pride of Prometheus; we have received your distress signal and are moving to assist. What is your tactical situation?”

  “Only ten of my crewmen are still alive,” Captain Manning replied quickly. “We’ve barricaded ourselves into the sensitive areas of the ship, but it’s only a matter of time—“ he cut himself short as the sound of blaster fire filled the speakers. “There are still two thousand settlers aboard that vessel that need evac,” the man continued, “the merchants had been helping us ferry passengers to the planet below for several days but less than an hour ago, both of them were taken by pirates and they launched a surprise attack. Both vessels are now hostile—repeat: both merchantmen are hostile.”

  “I read you, Captain,” Middleton replied, “both merchant conversions are hostile. Our arrival will take at least two hours,” he said with a quick mental calculation, “can you hold out that long?”

  “I doubt it,” Manning replied, “we’re under too much pressure and my Marines mutinied not long after we were fired on. I tried to overload the reactor but—“ he was interrupted by the sounds of shouting and repeated blaster fire.

  Middleton muted his transmission line temporarily to issue instructions for a maximum burn toward the planet, but he saw that Jersey had already done so.

  “We’re droppin’ like flies here, Captain,” said the commanding officer of the Elysium’s Wings. “I’ve set charges around the core and am going to detonate—“

  “That’s not necessary, Captain,” Middleton cut him off. “We’re better off if you surrender; those merchants can’t outrun us and your ship’s not going anywhere in its current
state. If we can’t retake your vessel when we arrive, I’ll scuttle it myself,” he promised.

  “I have your word on that, Captain?” Manning asked after a brief delay.

  “You have my word,” Middleton replied with feeling.

  There was a momentary silence, followed by the other man’s voice shouting the order to stand down and surrender to his men. When he was finished, he said, “I’m scrambling this channel and securing the comm. transmitter. Either re-take this ship or blow it to Hades, Captain Middleton, but consider my people and I expendable—am I clear?”

  “As a Royal Proclamation,” Middleton agreed. With that, the line went dead and he went about reviewing the ship’s database on anything and everything to do with the Elysium’s Wings and its commanding officer.

  After just a few minutes of review, he was satisfied that the vessel was, indeed, assigned to the Elysium SDF force and that Captain Manning was its commander. Of course, it was possible that the man he had spoken with was an imposter, but that was wholly irrelevant to the matter at hand.

  The priority was now clearly on securing the warship, disabling and/or destroying the merchant conversions, and rescuing the remaining settlers aboard the wreckage of the settler ship—in whatever order of priority events would allow. Captain Manning had been correct in asserting that rescue of his crew was nowhere near a top priority.

  “I’ve re-plotted our course, Captain,” Commander Jersey reported, “ETA is now one hour forty six minutes.”

  “Good work, Commander,” Middleton acknowledged as Ensign Jardine made his way onto the bridge to assume the Comm. station. “Ensign,” he continued, turning to the First Shift Comm. Officer, “I have a plan but I need to know if you can make the necessary preparations in time or not.”

  “Of course, Captain,” Jardine replied promptly.

  Middleton pulled up a file he had been working on in his spare time, which detailed a particularly clever use of sensor ghosts Rear Admiral Arnold Janeski had utilized to essentially ‘pin’ a group of vessels within the Lucky Clover’s relatively limited zone of control. The ghosts had tricked the enemy into thinking that the safest route was through the Clover—which happened to be the only real ship in the sector under Janeski’s command. Middleton despised Janeski for abandoning the Spine the way he did, but he had no illusions about the man’s keen tactical mind and feel for asset deployment.