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

by Caleb Wachter

  “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, and 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 in size 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 under
stand 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 such a material would increase our chances of success but 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 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.”

  There was a chorus of snickers which Lu Bu even participated, having never heard this particular bit about smashball’s history before.

  “The other version—the real version—featured so little actual kicking that it’s something of a mystery to modern historians why it was even called ‘football’ in the first place,” Walter Joneson continued after the laughter had died down. “But that’s the one that persisted throughout the centuries, eventually giving birth to the greatest game ever devised by man: smashball. The rules for smashball are simple,” he said, gesturing to Corporal Gnuko, “first we have to divide our twenty two remaining Lancers into two teams of eleven, which just so happens to be the actual size of a smashball side. Gnuko, you pick first; we’ll go serpentine.”

  Gnuko nodded and gestured to the farthest Tracto-an—a hulking brute of a man named Atticus with the longest, most powerful arms Lu Bu had ever seen—“Team Gnuko takes Atticus first.”

  Lu Bu was actually offended that she had been passed over with the first pick. It was utterly inconceivable to her that anyone—not even Walter Joneson himself, given his relatively advanced age—would be more highly valued than she would for a smashball team.

  Joneson nodded and pointed the ball at Lu Bu, “Team Joneson takes Lu and Sherman.”

  Lu Bu stepped over to stand behind Walter Joneson and glared at Corporal Gnuko for daring to suggest she was in any way, shape, or form less desirable of a player than Atticus.

  “Gnuko takes Brasidas and Peleus,” the Corporal said without hesitation.

  “Joneson takes Thomas and Gagne,” the Sergeant added.

  “Gnuko takes Laertes and Hart,” Gnuko said, and Lu Bu realized this wasn’t just a game…there was some sort of lesson being taught here, and the Tracto-ans were clearly the target audience.

  The rest of the selections went off, and the two teams were assembled and squared off against each other as Walter Joneson moved to the middle of the group and turned the oblong ball, which tapered to a point on each end, over in his hands.

  “Now since the days of this sport’s infancy,” Walter Joneson explained as he stood between the two groups, “there have been minor adjustments to the rules—”

  “Sergeant,” Atticus interrupted in his deep, rumbling voice with obvious impatience, “you brought us here to play your game; we should begin.”

  Joneson slowly turned his head to face the man, and while holding the Tracto-an’s gaze, asked over his shoulder, “Lu, what’s the average length of a starting-caliber smashball player’s career?”

  “Four point three two seasons, Sergeant,” she replied snappily.

  “Four and a third years,” Joneson said before pressing various points on the practice ball, which Lu recognized as ‘setting’ the ball to recognize the two teams by their members’ biometrics. “That is a number which, despite massive improvements in medicine and kinesthesiology, has remained relatively constant throughout this sport’s history. The only significant thing that’s changed in all the centuries between Ancient Earth football and modern smashball,” he flipped the ball to Atticus, who caught it deftly, “is what you’re holding in your hands. All you’ve got to do is get that ball to the far end of the field to score.” He snickered before adding, “Shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

  With that, he turned and led his team back to a well-demarcated set of hash-marks which marked their team’s apparent starting point, and Lu Bu felt a familiar rush of endorphins as her body primed itself for her favorite game.

  “Huddle up,” he commanded as soon as they were out of immediate earshot of Team Gnuko. When the Lancers had entered the huddle, Joneson said, “You all know your positions, except you, Lu. We’re on defense,” he said, causing her to wrinkle her nose in derision. She despised defense, since it was so much less challenging than offense from a tactical st
andpoint. “So for this play, Lu, you’re the Leo; Gnuko will probably start out as their prime back before shifting to the line after showing those Tracto-ans the basics of the playbook. That uppity blighter thinks he can fill my shoes,” he said with a harsh chuckle. “Let’s see if he’s ready; we run a cover three shell with press-man coverage on the receivers and crash pressure at the line. You bring the prime back down, Lu—along with anyone that gets in your way,” Joneson said severely.

  “Understood, Sergeant,” she said, and she actually thought she did. This was an object lesson of some kind but she didn’t quite know what lesson was to be imparted, so she focused on doing her task to the best of her ability.

  Gnuko led his men to the line, and Joneson did likewise, with Lu Bu lining up behind her front four on the right side. Her job as the Leo was simple: get to the prime back and bring him down before he could execute a play. Of course, there were at least five men standing in her way—four of them Tracto-ans, who had all taken positions on the offensive line. Atticus was the left tackle, which seeing as Gnuko was right-handed, meant Atticus was the most likely to interdict her efforts to disrupt Corporal Gnuko.

  “Set,” Gnuko called, fixing his eyes on Lu Bu as she assumed a three point stance just outside the left tackle’s immediate zone. She had always gotten a better first step out of a three point stance, owing to her incredibly powerful lower half. “Hike!” Gnuko barked, and the center offensive lineman snapped the ball to him. Before it hit the prime back’s hands, Lu Bu had come off the line and ran straight at Atticus while blatantly lowering her shoulder at him.

  The larger man easily shucked the defensive lineman to the ground with one hand before squaring off on Lu Bu, and his quick work of the other man after just two steps was a testament to his raw, physical abilities.