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

by Caleb Wachter

  So she knew she would survive Doctor Middleton’s absence…but she also knew it would take a small piece of her she had not expected was even there. And that, more than anything, was what made her vision narrow as she entered the rec room with plenty of pent-up frustration to shed.

  Lu Bu was halfway across the room before she realized there was no one else present—worse, all of the exercise equipment had been removed. She looked around in confused irritation before shrieking wordlessly at the ceiling in frustration. She needed to vent this anger that was bottled up inside her or it felt like it might actually burst something in her chest.

  “Training’s over,” she heard a voice call from the doorway, and she whirled to see Sergeant Walter Joneson standing there, blocking the doorway with his broad, powerful body, “and you missed the cut.” Everything seemed to freeze for a moment as his words replayed themselves in her mind. Her eyes widened in a mixture of shock and disbelief as he continued, “I’ve put in a word with the Chief Gunner and he says he’ll take you on at least for now, so pack your things and clear out.”

  “Impossible,” she fumed, breathing hot, fiery blasts of air through her nostrils. “I am twice any other recruit!”

  “Not in my book,” he said shortly as he took a few steps into the empty room toward her. “You’re a loose cannon, Lu, and the last thing I need is to be uncertain you’ll follow orders when things get hairy.”

  He was standing just a few feet in front of her, and the temptation to lash out at him was as powerful as she could ever remember, and she dug her fingernails into her palms in an attempt to control herself. “Sergeant Joneson ordered me to sickbay,” she protested as evenly as she could manage, “Doctor Middleton clears me only now; I am ready to train!”

  “There’s your problem,” Joneson said, folding his arms across his chest, “you just don’t listen. Everything’s about you, isn’t it?” He shook his head piteously, “You think because you’re gifted, or because had it rough growing up, that you’re entitled to special treatment? Every member of my team has his or her own baggage, and each of them knows when to follow orders or when to take the initiative—a capacity you clearly lack!” he snapped.

  She stood there in silent outrage as she felt blood trickle down her knuckles and drip onto the deck plates at her feet while tears began to trickle down her cheeks. But as much as she wanted to tear his head off like some kind of wild animal might do, she knew he was right: she had always had issues following rules, or controlling her temper, and it seemed like that particular failing would prevent her from pursuing the only dream she could ever remember truly caring about.

  She saw something in his expression that she did not recognize just before he said, “Blasted genies.”

  A strange sensation washed over her, and as he turned to leave the room she felt what was certain to be the last tear she would ever shed roll off her cheek. Walter Joneson, one of her true idols growing up, had just disrespected her using the most hurtful term in existence. “What…did you call…me?” she hissed.

  He stopped just short of the door and turned to face her, and when he did she took a step toward him with her fists balled at her sides. “You heard me,” he said, matching her step and then taking another, “your kind isn’t worth the test tubes you slithered out of.”

  She shook her head slowly as her body briefly went numb. “You reject me,” she said, taking a step toward him, “this I can accept. You despise me,” she said with another step, “this I must expect. But you will not,” she said emphatically, “disrespect me!”

  “And what are you going to do about it, little girl?” he growled as he leaned forward fractionally.

  “Team needs respect,” she said through gritted teeth, “and this, I will teach you!”

  She lashed out with her left hand, her fingers extended toward his throat in an attempt to put him down with the first blow. But he parried her attack with a downward block of his forearm before sweeping at her legs with his right leg.

  She turned her right knee down at the last instant, intercepting his shin and checking the kick perfectly. To his credit, he kept his balance after their legs clashed with enough force to put any ordinary human down—or in traction—but she pressed the attack with a quick, double-jab aimed squarely at his nose as she circled to his left.

  His height would normally have made such an attack futile, but he had leaned into his leg kick, which brought his chin into striking range. Her fist smashed into his broad, flat nose with both strikes, but he threw a crisp, right hook which caught her on the side of the head with incredible force.

  She staggered slightly before rushing toward him as she saw him prepare to kick her in the head with his left leg. She trapped the leg mid-kick and drove into him with every ounce of genetically engineered strength she had in an attempt to push him to the ground.

  But while she managed to secure the leg, he deftly widened his stance and danced away from her as they drove across the room for eight, hopping steps before she finally smashed him into the bulkhead. The impact knocked enough air out of his lungs that she heard him wheeze slightly, which only spurred her on as she attempted to clasp her hands behind his back in preparation for a chest-to-chest suplex.

  But he pummeled his right arm between hers and his torso, and while she knew she had raw power on him, his long limbs gave him leverage which made the contest dead even. She counter-pummeled and switched directions, attempting to attack the other side of his body while she still had him pressed up against the wall—a position she knew would be difficult to achieve a second time.

  He unexpectedly turned and presented his back while snaking his arms around her right arm. She tried to clasp her hands to prevent the classic joint lock known as a ‘kimura,’ but he managed to create enough space that her arms were unable to reach each other around his massive girth. The second he grasped his own forearm and began to apply pressure, she did the only thing she could do: she pulled him backward with a quick, powerful burst that saw his feet leave the deck momentarily before he landed on top of her.

  A scramble ensued and pushing off the wall with her left leg, she flailed blindly with her free, left hand in an attempt to clasp her right—which was dangerously close to being pried away and twisted with enough force that she was certain she would be visiting the doctor again if he succeeded.

  But the Ancestors were watching over her, as her fingers found each other and she gripped her hands together as tightly as she could to prevent him from breaking her arm. They struggled for a few seconds before he abandoned the joint lock and broke her grip by levering his head against her neck and driving his hips forward.

  After the brief bit of grappling with him, she was surprised to learn that she was actually stronger than him—but strength only counted for so much in a fight, where skilled leverage becomes far more important than raw power.

  She pulled back a pair of steps as he did likewise, and all she could feel was hot, burning rage, but she kept her focus as she knew she still had a job to do. With the Ancestors as her witness, she would teach this man the price of disrespecting her!

  “There you are,” he growled with what sounded to her like amusement as he lowered his stance, “good of you to finally show up.”

  Screaming wordlessly, she charged him headlong and made as if to deliver a vicious leg kick of her own. He moved to check her kick precisely as she had done to his at the outset—but she had expected him to do as much. In a long-practiced move, she switched her weight over her hips and leapt into the air with her knee aimed at his throat.

  He tucked his chin and moved his hands to block at the last instant, but was unable to prevent her blow from landing as her knee smashed into his chin. His head wobbled sideways and she heard something break in his mouth, but he kept his eyes on her as he grabbed her leg before she could bring her foot back to the ground.

  The massive Sergeant clutched her knee with one arm, reached up to her neck with the other, and in a fluid motion w
hich was as much a display of balance as it was of power, he pivoted and smashed her back into the nearby wall. She saw stars, and for a moment lost sensation throughout her body. As soon as she was able to do so she clawed, kicked, thrashed and fought with everything she had to escape his grip.

  “That’s enough, Lancer!” she heard him say in a voice that pierced the fog of rage which had come over her. She forcibly relaxed her body, and realized she was lying on the floor once her vision returned to her—and that the Sergeant was kneeling on her neck. After she had ceased her struggles, he removed his knee from her neck, stood deliberately and looked down at her for several seconds before offering his hand.

  Uncertain whether or not she should accept it, she glared at his proffered hand for a few moments in silence.

  “No grudges,” he said in a dire tone as he spat a pair of teeth onto the deck, “that’s going to be rule number one for you.”

  It took a moment for what he was saying to sink in, but when it did she grudgingly accepted his hand. He helped her stand, and when she was again on her feet she looked at him warily as she realized what had just happened. “This…was test?”

  He snorted loudly, wincing as he did so. “Only a fool would look at it like that,” he said reproachfully. “You just learned something about yourself; that’s what you should be taking away from this, not whether I approve or disapprove.”

  She felt her brow furrow as she tried to understand what he meant. When she failed to do so, she said, “I do not understand.”

  “I belittled you,” he explained, and his speech sounded somehow different, like it was deliberate and almost slurred, “and you controlled yourself. I rejected you, and you controlled yourself. I even dismissed you, and you still held back—even when I insulted you, you controlled yourself...briefly, anyway.”

  “But this one attack Sergeant Joneson,” she said doubtfully, suppressing the urge to fall to her knees and make her obeisance.

  “Yes, you did,” he agreed as he rubbed his jaw, “but only after deciding to. You wanted to make me pay for hurting you, and you wanted me to know it,” he added, and when he put it that way she thought she understood what he meant.

  “Your insult was unforgivable,” she said sourly, thinking back to the way his words had hurt her.

  “That’s for you to decide,” he said grimly, “but I can promise you’ll get that and worse when we see action. If you can exert control in here then you can do the same thing out there. If not, you’re a danger to everyone around you—including yourself.”

  Lu Bu thought about his words for several moments before realizing that this had not been a test at all. This had been a tailor-made lesson for her, and it had been taught in such a way that she actually thought she understood it completely. Feeling humbled at her mentor’s wisdom, she fell to her knees and bowed her head, “This one has much to learn from Walter Joneson.”

  “It’s a fine line between honest respect and boot-licking, Lu,” Joneson said in a hard tone, “but given our peculiar culture gap, I’m willing to assume it’s the former—this time.” She felt his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see him offering her his hand again. “Welcome to the Lancer Corps.”

  This time when she took his hand, she had a newfound appreciation for the man and as she stood she knew she had experienced a rebirth of sorts. A cleansing wave of positive energy seemed to course through her veins, and it felt as though she was floating just above the deck plates—she was actually a Lancer!

  “Now,” Joneson said, rubbing his jaw again, “let’s head over to sickbay to get patched up. You pack a wicked flying knee; I’m pretty sure my jaw’s broken in two places. Fifteen years of professional smashball with ten more as a soldier, and I’ve never been hit quite like that.”

  “This one apologizes,” she gushed.

  Joneson snorted as they made their way into the corridor. “Never apologize for who or what you are, Lancer,” he reprimanded. “You’re a warrior through and through, but like any good weapon you need to be properly stowed between deployments.”

  She marveled at his magnanimity, and held her head high as she walked into sickbay behind him, having finally found her very own place in the universe.

  “By the way,” he said as they sat on the waiting stools inside Sickbay, “that’s a good name you picked. I changed my own right before draft day to honor the greatest player that ever wore the pads…but you might have done me one better.” He gave her an approving nod, and Lu Bu felt a wave of exhilaration sweep through her like the cleansing rains of a monsoon.

  Chapter XXIII: A Plan Comes Together

  “Enter,” Middleton called after the chime at his door had sounded, and Ensign Jardine entered the ready room with a pair of data slates in hand. “Ensign, good,” the Captain said as he shifted his attention from his own console toward the junior officer, “what’s your status on deciphering the transmission?”

  Jardine look anything but confident as he sat down, which put Middleton ill at ease. Jardine was the top Comm. Officer aboard the Pride of Prometheus, and there wasn’t another member of the crew whose credentials exceeded his own at decryption. “I’m sorry, Captain,” Jardine said as he slid one of the data slates across the desk, “I just can’t seem to crack it. The closer I think I get, the more complex the data patterns become.”

  Middleton took up the proffered data slate and examined its contents, finding it to be a comprehensive analysis of their strange particle fields these past few jumps. “This contains the raw data, as well as your analyses of these past four transmissions?” he asked, keeping the frustration from his voice.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied. “Both the strange particle fields and the transmissions embedded in our engine wake have been isolated and cleaned up to the best of my ability.”

  Middleton thumbed the activator glyph on his console’s com-link, which had been preset to the Master at Arms’ channel. “Bring him in,” the captain said.

  Nearly a minute later, Fei Long entered the ready room with the Master at Arms close behind. The Master at Arms’ left eye was covered with an adhesive bandage and the skin on the top of his head was exposed and clearly very badly burned. Captain Middleton had received Sergeant Joneson’s report, which had listed the Master at Arms as having sustained ‘superficial injuries,’ which Middleton supposed only spoke to the general difficulty of the boarding missions.

  “Thank you, Master at Arms,” Middleton said with a gesture to the man’s damaged head. “I was unaware of your injuries being so significant.”

  “Universe builds redundancy into everything, Captain; I’ve still got one good optical sensor,” the Master at Arms replied curtly, clearly still feeling his oats from the boarding action. “Besides, Doctor Middleton thinks she can save the eye; never been too partial to the bionics, personally.”

  “Either way,” Middleton said, standing from his chair, “I’ve made a note requesting commendation for your actions; sounds like we would have lost more Lancers if you hadn’t been there.”

  “Just doing my part, Captain,” the other man replied.

  “Dismissed, Master at Arms,” Middleton said graciously, and the other man snapped a salute which the captain returned, before the other man left the room. He paused for a fraction of a second as Fei Long sat in a chair Middleton had set beside Jardine’s prior to the meeting, but then the Master at Arms left.

  “Ensign Jardine,” Middleton began, gesturing toward Fei Long, “this is Fei Long. Fei Long, Ensign Jardine. Ensign Jardine’s our senior Comm. officer and head cryptologist, and he’s got a project he needs your assistance with.”

  “I am happy to be of service, Captain,” Fei Long said with a tilt of his head.

  Middleton nodded and turned to Jardine deliberately. “Fei Long is privy to certain intelligence regarding what we might be facing out here,” he said evenly, “and during your collaboration he’s going to share that information with you, Ensign.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Jardine
said, his face a professional mask but Middleton knew the other man was surprised by Fei Long possessing any information he might not.

  “But I need to make something perfectly clear,” Middleton said gravely, “for the time being, no one outside of this room is to be included in examining—or even discussing—that intelligence. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jardine said curtly.

  “Then get to work,” Middleton said, eager to discover the identity of their hidden passenger—as well as the purpose of their carefully concealed transmissions.

  “Captain,” Fei Long began after Jardine had stood from his chair, “if you will permit it, I would very much like to build upon the rather rudimentary system we utilized to deceive the pirate vessels.”

  Middleton shook his head. “The project with Jardine takes precedence over everything else,” he said. “When it’s finished, I’ll be happy to consider your proposal.”

  “Yes,” Fei Long said patiently, “but given the nature of our assignment, it will be necessary to utilize the ship’s primary computer network, yes?”

  Middleton looked at Jardine, who nodded affirmatively. “Yes, it will,” the Captain conceded.

  “And since I am clearly not yet trustworthy—a status I find oddly comforting, to tell the truth,” Fei Long added quickly, “I must then work under Ensign Jardine’s direct supervision, correct?”

  “That is correct, Fei Long,” Middleton said, keeping his growing irritation out of sight.

  “Then, even assuming Ensign Jardine operates for sixteen out of each twenty four hours,” Fei Long said calmly, “I will have eight hours which I may devote toward other efforts.”

  Jardine cocked an eyebrow, “You don’t plan on sleeping?”

  Fei Long chuckled softly as he turned to the Ensign. “I have not slept in the two years since my untimely incarceration, Ensign Jardine. I find my faculties marginally diminished as a result, but I also find it quite liberating and am uncertain if I miss the act of sleep very much, if at all.”