Against The Middle

by Caleb Wachter

  Still, it was clear to her that she was looking at Commodore James Raubach III, who had for some reason managed to flee the trap Middleton had laid for him at The Bulwark. Due to her superior hearing, Lu Bu managed to make out the enemy commander’s conversation with the egghead without activating her suit’s audio enhancement suite.

  “I assure you, C-C-C-Commodore,” the egghead stuttered, “the d-d-device has been stowed for t-t-t-transport. But without protection, we will be d-d-defenseless against attacks.”

  “Make matters with which you are passably proficient your primary concern, Director,” the Commodore said smoothly, “and leave affairs of war to the warriors.”

  “B-b-but your flagship,” the Director stammered, “it is ruined! It was the p-p-prototype for several of our new, fully-integrated systems. So m-m-many months of effort will be lost if it cannot be brought with us…”

  “Ships can be rebuilt, and exist only to be destroyed in combat; crews can be replenished and exist solely to serve their leaders’ commands; and prototypes exist solely to be tested and then improved or discarded,” the Commodore said, sweeping his gaze down the length of the device which filled the four now-connected cargo holds. “But treasures like this—and the data stored in this ship’s memory banks—are truly priceless…at least until they can be replicated by House Raubach’s engineers.”

  “And w-w-what of the experimental project still beneath the s-s-s-surface?” the egghead stammered. “We cannot yet activate its p-primary cogitators. If the planetoid is d-d-d-destroyed—”

  “This ship’s databanks contain every bit of data we have collected since the project began,” Commodore Raubach cut in dismissively. “So even if you are incorrect, and the Ancients’ space folding drive fails to do as it was designed to do, the only loss will have been of a doomed chunk of industrial grade diamond which is soon to be discovered, invaded, and ultimately pillaged by our enemies. Better that all traces of this world are erased so that we alone may carry these technological riches safely from this place.”

  The egghead stiffened, “I am never incorrect, Commodore Raubach.” He surprisingly did not stutter even once, and Lu Bu heard the Commodore snicker softly as the Director continued in his more usual fashion, “The space folding units have been c-calibrated to compensate for the loss of this unit, and the generators deep within the planetoid are m-m-m-more than equal to the task.”

  “For your sake,” Commodore Raubach said in a deceptively casual tone, “I hope you are correct. But even if you are not, and the systems are calibrated incorrectly, this brown dwarf will explode with the power of a nova when the drive units activate—and those irritating Droids will be ripped apart by their own jump drives when they point transfer into the system after most of its primary body’s mass has been decentralized by the explosion.”

  “What of th-th-th-the enemy f-fleet?” the Director asked.

  Commodore Raubach snorted in open annoyance, “There was no fleet; there was but one ship. Although,” he added darkly, “Captain Morgan’s reckless stupidity saw the Slice of Life fall into enemy hands, so I suppose it would be accurate to say there are now two ships in enemy hands which may yet attempt to derail our plans. If our ships can hold the Droids off for another three hours, we will already be gone when they eventually break through, and the planetoid will follow soon thereafter.”

  “B-b-but,” the egghead stammered, “surely you w-w-will reconsider bolstering this vessel’s c-c-crew.”

  “No,” Commodore Raubach replied simply. “The fewer people who know of this treasure ship, the better. Your failures with the weapon modifications may well be forgotten if you can dissect and reproduce this technology,” he said, waving his hand at the massive device. “But it will be worth less than nothing to us if others learn of its existence. We have ample protection,” he said, casting a pointed look at his hulking bodyguard, “and after we have egressed from this desolate system, I will issue orders to the fleet to rendezvous with this ship and escort us to the beta site.”

  There was a brief silence as the Commodore, egghead, and bodyguard moved along the catwalk at a casual pace. Then the egghead asked, “And w-w-what of Doctor Schillinger?”

  “A bargain is a bargain, Director,” Raubach said with a hard edge to his voice. “But you are simply going to have to accept her untimely death and decide on suitable compensation in her stead. Remember, however, that I told you that she would be yours to do with as you pleased if you could deliver on your promises to me. Thus far, you have only managed a handful of modest improvements to our naval weaponry, accompanied by a whole host of uncompleted prototypes—many of which may soon be lost to us. I trust you recall the other half of our bargain…” he trailed off chillingly.

  “Of course,” the Director said stiffly, stopping briefly before recomposing himself and catching back up to the Commodore.

  “Good,” Commodore Raubach said absently as he checked a wrist-mounted com-link of some kind. “It would seem we have uninvited guests on the surface,” he remarked casually as he scrolled through the message’s contents.

  “But how?” the Director asked, clearly baffled. “Our sensors are too p-p-powerful to be deceived by anything less than a cutting edge c-c-c-cloaking device! They must not be allowed into the facility; my work with the S-S-Seer is in a most delicate state, and he may not survive being moved—”

  “If that is the truth,” Raubach said as his fingers tapped out a reply on the wrist-mounted link, “then your work must stop. Return to the surface at once so you may see that your affairs are put in order,” he said coldly, “and be quick about it, lest you find yourself enjoying a front row seat to the space folding system’s first attempted activation in over a million years.”

  “Y-y-yes, C-C-C-Commodore Raubach,” Director Egghead said before turning and moving with purpose to the door through which the trio had entered. Not two seconds after he had left, the second-closest door to the Commodore opened and a dark figure wearing an all-covering cloak swept through. It seemed as though the figure’s feet never touched the catwalk as it apparently floated toward Commodore Raubach.

  “I find your vaunted powers of foresight…wanting,” Commodore Raubach said icily as the figure approached.

  A voice neither feminine nor masculine, and neither living nor artificial, hissed from beneath the cloak’s attached cowl, “I have told you that the probabilities are…difficult to calculate in this place.”

  “The worldlet beneath us is naught but a desiccated husk—a shell of its former self,” Raubach retorted, folding his arms and squaring his posture to the newcomer, “yet you continually bray and moan like my third wife during the first trimester—an experience I would not care to relive for a fifth time.”

  “You…cannot understand,” the figure hissed, and Lu Bu thought she could hear a measure of strain in the creature’s voice, “you, whose comprehension of reality is like that of an infant’s comprehension of physics, could never understand the truth of this place!”

  “What I understand is that I would have been better off having never made compact with the likes of you,” Raubach sneered, and his hulking bodyguard took a pair of steps forward. “Thankfully, that is one mistake I am both capable of, and willing to, rectify.”

  “Even…weakened as I am,” the creature said, its bulk seeming to swell beneath the folds of the cloak, “you could only hope to prick me…while I would make your suffering an exquisite…eternal…experience.”

  “I’m not easily bluffed,” Raubach said, making no attempt to hide his irritation, “nor am I easily offended. But you have managed to do both in recent days; why did you not warn me of the Droid fleet’s pending arrival?”

  “I told you…” the creature began, pausing as it mirrored one of the bodyguard’s steps, causing the hulk of a man to hesitate, “this place…it is poison…to my mind. I must leave if I am to unravel the increasingly tangled threads of probability.”

  “Then why have you not done so?” Ra
ubach demanded.

  “You know the answer to your own question,” the creature spat.

  “You Dark Seers and your vanity,” the Commodore spat. “Your counterpart on the surface seemingly has little difficulty in managing the ‘tangled strings of probability,’ as you have called them, while in this place.”

  “They grow weaker with each passing cycle while we grow stronger,” the Dark Seer hissed. “We have choked the very life from their dying order and soon…very, very soon…they will be erased from reality altogether!”

  “That’s not how I see it,” Raubach said, clearly unfazed by the prospect of dealing with a Dark Seer—whatever a ‘Dark Seer’ was. “From my vantage, I can say with absolute confidence that he would have made a far more valuable ally than you have done.”

  “You would have never found this place without my…sacrifices,” the Dark Seer said, for the first time sounding less than absolutely confident. “I have upheld my end of our bargain…you would do well to do the same. Let no permanent harm come to the Seer—he is mine.”

  “Frankly, I’m beginning to think you’re more trouble than you’re worth,” Commodore Raubach said, pausing for several seconds before adding, “but a bargain is a bargain. The deal’s parameters notwithstanding, you had best pray to whatever gods you keep that House Raubach emerges from this relationship stronger than when she agreed to it. If not,” he said, stepping past his bodyguard until he stood close enough to the creature to smell it—assuming it emitted any odors, “I’m going to satisfy my uncharacteristic curiosity regarding just what you really look like under that costume…and then I’m going to look one layer deeper, and do so again…and again…and again, until there is nothing left to peel back. I suspect the Director would appreciate the opportunity to plumb the depths of your unique…perversions in the name of science. Do we understand each other?”

  The Dark Seer did not flinch, and for several seconds they stood toe-to-toe while Lu Bu hoped against hope that they would come to blows, but then the cloaked figure seemed to float backward as it said, “You have made yourself clear…as have I.”

  The Dark Seer swept down the catwalk and left through the same door the Director had used a few minutes earlier.

  “You may yet receive that which you request,” Commodore Raubach said to his silent bodyguard, “but for now the Dark Seer should come to no harm.” A few moments of silence ensued, after which the Commodore chuckled darkly, “In that much, if nothing else, we are of identical minds.”

  The Commodore stood staring at the massive device in the freighter’s hold for several minutes—during which time Lu Bu dearly wished she had brought her sniper-outfitted blaster rifle—until he and his bodyguard left through the same door the other two had used.

  The lights in the hold dimmed a few seconds later, and Lu Bu arrived at a decision. “We reset timer,” she whispered, “we set for four hours. We wait until freighter transfers to second star system and then attempt to take ship.”

  “What did they say?” Hutch asked, tilting his head to indicate the now empty catwalk above them.

  She flashed him a predatory grin, “That in three hours, they will be alone—and this ship will be a vulnerable target.”

  Chapter XXIII: With Old Friends Like These…

  Fei Long was viscerally surprised at the lack of roving patrols his team had encountered en route to the interconnected pressure domes, but intellectually he understood that the only reason they had managed to slip past the Rim Fleet forces was because the Mode possessed incredibly powerful stealth systems which had allowed them to remain undetected.

  “I must repeat my insistence that you remain here,” Fei Long said irritably to the lone Lancer assigned to his team.

  “And I must repeat my insistence that you stop wasting time with pointless insistences,” Funar retorted.

  Deciding against pointing out the self-defeating pseudo-logic the other man had just employed in a weak attempt at wit, Fei Long followed the Lancer to the portion of the hab module he had indicated would contain the supposedly undetected secret entrance through which they would gain access to the enemy facility.

  “The entry should be right…here,” Funar said, pushing his hand against the flexible panel’s seam. He moved his fingers up and down the seam, trying to find purchase of some kind, until his hand slid between the panels. A few moments later, he had pried apart the external panel’s seam and, just as he had suggested, the panel came loose to reveal an opening which was possibly large enough for Hansheng to fit through.

  “Personal experience for the win,” Trixie whispered excitedly. “I do so hope that Doctor Schillinger is well…her latest round of life extension treatments did not go so well, and her cardiopulmonary system is not what it used to be—“

  “Trixie,” Fei Long snapped, causing her to cut off mid-sentence, “please…we must remain quiet.” He turned to the assault droid, “Can you fit inside?”

  “Probability of entry without damage to exterior structure,” the assault droid mused—a bit too loudly for Fei Long’s liking, “65%.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Funar said, gesturing for Trixie to enter the space between the exterior, radiation-shielding panels and the inner, softer surface which served as to retain the pressurized breathing gases within. The two surfaces were connected by seemingly random trusses, and those trusses buttressed the heavy, industrial-strength polymer framework which kept the soft, canvas-like gas barrier in position. Within the dome there was yet another set of panels which would protect the gas barrier from damage from within, so Fei Long knew that it was probable they would be able to move into the structure without being detected.

  Although, he knew they had already been detected since the base’s comm. transmitter array had gone into a scrambling mode—a mode designed to interfere with his ability to communicate with Lu Bu’s team aboard the freighter. Fei Long could only hope that Lu Bu had thus far remained undetected and, if she was wise, she had already planted the bomb before leaving the freighter and returning to the stealth safety of the Mode.

  The three human members of the team moved into the space between the panel layers, and Hansheng attempted to follow. At first he seemed frustrated, and unlikely to succeed, but he managed somehow to swivel his broad torso while tilting perilously onto one leg, and finally rotating his entire mass into the space between the panels. Once Hansheng was inside, Funar replaced the hard, radiation-resistant panels to cover their tracks.

  That space was not quite broad enough for him to move as he normally would, with his fixed weapon arms facing forward, but he was able to shuffle sideways and keep pace with the rest of the team as they quietly wound their way through the gap.

  “Just about fifteen meters,” Funar whispered as they wound around the dome’s perimeter via the maintenance space, “and we’ll reach an inner zipper panel.” True to his word, he led them to a large, upside-down-U-shaped zipper and turned to Fei Long. “They don’t know about this panel,” he explained, his voice still a whisper, “because there’s no soft airlock installed—the airlocks always go to the outside of the vacu-fabric. This complicates things.”

  “No airlock means that our entry may well be observed via a pressure drop,” Fei Long mused. He considered the possibilities before continuing, “Meaning we must minimize our entry’s footprint as much as possible. It would seem prudent for me to go alone, and for you to enter only after a predetermined interval has elapsed without my return.”

  Surprisingly, Funar nodded in agreement. “If they had an airlock, the only issue would have been how to neutralize internal security. But since they don’t have one, we’re all but certain to set off alarms if we all try to go in at once.” He held Fei Long’s gaze for several seconds, and the young hacker met the Lancer measure for measure before the warrior explained, “This is one of the hab modules, and I counted five total modules directly attached to this one. There’s an unattached utility bunker to the south, but given the configurati
on of the domes and their positioning, I’m guessing this one is for general crew.”

  “Where do you surmise the transmitter is located?” Fei Long asked, grudgingly impressed at the Lancer’s apparent knowledge of their surroundings.

  “It’s either at the central dome,” Funar replied confidently, “or the one to the north. The noise coming off the utility bunker can sometimes mess with the transmitter’s lower frequencies, so the standard configuration is for the comm. gear to go to the north, while the utility bunker goes to the south. But sometimes, in these heavily irradiated environments, the only module with thick enough shielding to filter out the ambient radio noise is the central, main module.”

  “Very well,” Fei Long said, deciding to keep the specifics of his infiltration plan to himself—if he went into any kind of truthful detail, he was completely certain that Vali Funar would not agree to allow him to enter the facility alone. “My Attack Dogs please, Hansheng.”

  The assault droid swiveled slightly, exposing a small cage beneath the housing which held the Starfire warhead. Fei Long quickly undid the clasps and opened the container, revealing a pair of Attack Dog drones within. One was a tread-mounted version, which could easily navigate the nooks and crannies of the pressure domes. The other was a hover unit, which he knew would be key to his plan’s success.

  After a moment of testing, he found a narrow band of frequencies which seemed to carry the signal from his glove to the drones over short distances, and he felt relieved that the portion of his plan which relied on the drones remained intact.

  “Give me one hour,” he said after keying the input commands to the drones via his control glove, “if I have not returned by then, you must—“

  “I’ll go ahead and decide what I must do,” Funar cut in harshly. “Expert or not, you don’t pull rank anywhere along the chain, Mr. Fei. I’ve got operational control over this team,” he hissed, clearly fighting to keep his voice a loud whisper, “and right now you’re wasting valuable time. Get in there, gain control over their comm. system, and get out so we can blow this place to the Demon’s Pit. Is that understood?”