Against The Middle

by Caleb Wachter

  Almost before Lu Bu could react, the Commodore lunged at her with his slender weapon aimed directly at her heart. She sidestepped and parried the blow, but the Commodore was agile and he adjusted his attack mid-stroke to turn the thrust into a swipe aimed at her exposed neck.

  She reached up with her free forearm and blocked his attack by intercepting his wrist with her own, but before she could grip his forearm his feet struck flush against her chin, one after the other, briefly disorienting her. When she regained her senses, she saw him drop into a crouch several feet behind his previous position, and she realized he had just performed a backflip which had seen him kick her in the face—twice!—while doing so.

  Growling in anger, she saw Hutch move into the room to flank her but she waved him back, knowing that this fight would require her to match the Commodore’s surprising agility and speed. Moving forward, she saw the Commodore smirk before once again lunging at her.

  But this time she was prepared for the speed of his attack, and managed to block his blade with her own. Again, his attack flowed seamlessly into another, which she successfully blocked, before he lashed out with his free hand which he used to chop at her carotid artery. She ducked that attack, but ate a knee to the chin for having done so, and once again she barely missed grasping his leg before he danced back and out of harm’s way.

  Spitting up a gob of bloody phlegm, Lu Bu lunged forward, determined to unbalance the remarkably skilled fighter with a flurry of savage offense. She began with an upward swipe which he easily swayed away from, and followed with a brutal leg kick which he checked with perfect technique by turning his knee to intercept her shin. This time, unlike with his guardsman, when Lu Bu’s shin struck against her foe’s knee she was absolutely certain that his bones were not made of bone, but of metal.

  But she knew that every fight carried its own cost—a cost she had willingly paid when breaking her leg against the Commodore’s son’s armored leg during their fight on the Droid Corvette just to give Kratos an opening to attack—and she switched her weight after connecting with his leg.

  Before she could leap into the air to deliver her trademark knee-to-the-chin, the Commodore swiped with blinding speed and she felt the blade slice through the armor over her left thigh. She abandoned the flying knee and instead stabbed quickly and repeatedly at the Commodore’s abdomen, knowing it was highly unlikely that any of her blows would land, but also knowing that he would be forced to address each and every one of them in turn or risk evisceration.

  She punched out with her free hand and was rewarded with a glancing blow to his shoulder, but for her trouble she received a swift, precise kick to the fresh wound on her thigh. The blow was far from debilitating, but she knew it had not been intended to stop her completely—the Commodore meant to bleed her slowly, and the self-satisfied look on his face as he danced backward on the balls of his feet confirmed her suspicion.

  Snarling in anger, she feinted low and leapt into the air, launching her knee at the Commodore’s chin. The Commodore seemed to have been drawn off-balance by the feint, but at the last possible second he pivoted his body and placed his free hand between her breasts and redirected her body’s forward momentum toward the nearby bulkhead with power that belied his medium-slender frame.

  She crashed into the bulkhead, but before her feet had even hit the deck the Commodore lashed out with a pair of swipes with his elaborate, far-too-fine-looking blade and opened a gash on her right thigh which was a mirror opposite of her other wound. The second swipe caught her in the flank, and she knew as he danced away that he was merely toying with her.

  Hutch entered the fray, reaching with outstretched hands for the Commodore’s torso but before he could come to grips with the Imperial, Commodore Raubach slipped to the side and stabbed down along Hutch’s calf. With a dancer’s grace, he spun three hundred sixty degrees in a pirouette, ripping the blade downward before wrenching it sideways just above Hutch’s heel and stepping away, briefly turning his back with open contempt as he did so.

  The audible pop of Hutch’s Achilles tendon when the Commodore severed it made a knot of fury form in Lu Bu’s stomach, but Hutch fought on valiantly through a roar of pain as he attempted to grasp the elusive Imperial swordsman.

  But the Commodore was simply too practiced, too quick, and too smart for Hutch to succeed. He twisted his body like a ballerina might do at the last possible moment, and Hutch grabbed nothing but air on his way to a face-plant into the deck. Knowing her ally was soon to fall to the Commodore’s lethal blade, Lu Bu planted a foot on the bulkhead and launched her body headfirst toward Commodore Raubach.

  He was actually taken by surprise by the move, and time seemed to slow as Lu Bu’s body sailed through the tiny space separating them, her feet having come completely off the deck as she drove Walter Joneson’s vibro knife toward the Commodore’s throat. It was a rash attack, and she almost regretted it as she saw the Commodore pivot his lead foot and begin to turn his neck clear of her attack while bringing his own blade up in a perfectly timed, perfectly aimed, and perfectly conceived kill shot aimed at her heart.

  But just as his blade began to come up for the death blow, the Commodore’s body was launched sideways nearly two feet as the deck beneath him shifted—a result of the freighter having once again taken fire against its hull. His blade was knocked off-target while, miraculously, Lu Bu’s managed to sink itself to the hilt in his throat directly between his collarbones. They crashed into the opposite bulkhead, and she wrenched the knife violently from side to side as they went down.

  She managed to sever something vital, because the Commodore’s body went completely limp before they even hit the deck. She kicked the ornate blade from his limp fingers and drew her own from his profusely-bleeding neck, and only then did she see just how badly she had injured him with Joneson’s knife.

  The hole in his neck was far more than that, for after looking more closely she realized she had very nearly decapitated him with the vibro knife. Still, for all of that—and even with the pints of blood which were quickly leaking to the deck and taking the Commodore’s life with them—Commodore James Raubach III gave her a wan, macabre, bloody smile.

  He mouthed something that she could not hear, and then his smile faded as his eyes rolled back into his head. Just to be certain he was neutralized—she had seen holo-vids of warriors springing back to life due to powerful cybernetic augmentations which allowed them to survive unthinkable wounds—she finished decapitating him with a swift swipe of her blade, and then bound his headless body’s hands and ankles. She knew she was not as smart as most of her shipmates, but she would not allow herself to be taken by overconfidence in her apparent victory.

  After collapsing back to the deck, she rolled over and saw that Hutch had propped himself up against the bulkhead and raised his helmet’s visor. His face was ashen and he clutched his ruined lower leg with both hands, but he nodded respectfully and said, “I thought he had you…”

  Wincing in pain at feeling the pain in her legs and side for seemingly the first time, Lu Bu nodded as she took deep, labored breaths, “So did I.”

  “Lucky we got hit when we did,” he said, his face ashen with pain but his voice controlled and steady, “but even with that luck, I couldn’t have taken him.”

  “It was not luck,” she said, now more confident than ever that luck had absolutely nothing to do with their successes to date. She had often doubted whether or not Fei Long’s faith in the Ancestors’ ability to influence events was misplaced, but now she knew that there could be no other explanation for their victory in this place. When she was reunited with him, she vowed to take his beliefs more seriously and to adopt them more firmly as her own.

  The Ancestors had been with her, and she knew that they did not bestow their favor lightly. She would strive to be worthy of their blessings in the future, but for now she had a mission to accomplish.

  “Traian,” she barked, her voice sounding more like a wheezy gasp than a proper
command.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied from somewhere beyond the doorway, “I’m trying to raise the ship out there…but there’s a problem.”

  She dragged herself to her feet, and Hutch tried to do likewise, but she waved him down and said, “Stay.” Staggering out onto the bridge, she was surprised to see that a few of the workstations opposite of where her ion grenades had gone off were still operational, and Traian was positioned before one of them working quickly at the controls. “Report,” she demanded as she arrived at his post and braced herself against the edge of the console.

  “That ship out there,” he tilted his head, “it isn’t the Pride.”

  She looked at the sensors readout and saw its profile: a Light Cruiser. As Traian worked, more information streamed across the display and it was listed as the Slice of Life, a warship commanded by one Captain D. Morgan.

  “Hail it,” she instructed, but Tray shook his head.

  “The Comm. array is fed directly through this bridge,” he explained, jerking a thumb toward where she had lobbed the ion grenades, “and I think it’s been completely cooked.”

  “Use your helmet,” she instructed, knowing it was a last-ditch attempt, but also knowing it was likely their only hope to contact friendly forces, “use Lancer Command channel.”

  “I don’t have that one, ma’am,” he reminded her, causing her to blush with embarrassment. Only team leaders and squad leaders had access to the Command channels, but he continued easily, “But that’s a good idea; I’ll try all of the Lancer channels that I have programmed into my helmet.”

  He placed a hand beside his helmet and stood silent and motionless for several seconds. It took Lu Bu a moment of wondering why he was not speaking before she realized her helmet was no longer on her head, so it would have been impossible for her to hear Traian’s communications without him having piped it into his external vox as well.

  But a moment later he nodded and said, “I got a hold of them, ma’am. They’re standing down.”

  The ship lurched beneath their feet, and Lu Bu snapped, “Repeat!”

  He did so, once again going silent for several seconds before saying, “It’s going to take them a few seconds to get word to the bridge, but Bernice recognizes our request.”

  “Bernice?” she asked warily. She had wanted to include the Tracto-an woman on this particular mission, but had been forced to leave her off the roster due to the hulking woman’s relative lack of technical expertise.

  Traian’s hands moved over the console beside the sensors readout, and a moment later Lieutenant McKnight’s face appeared on the tiny screen embedded on that console.

  “Report, Corporal,” McKnight said with a nod, her eyes moving to make contact with Lu Bu’s own.

  “We have the bridge, Lieutenant,” she reported, “and Commodore Raubach is dead. But ship is not secured; send Lancers to clear enemy from hold, and tell them to be prepared for Dark Seer.”

  “A Dark Seer?” McKnight repeated with equal parts skepticism and confusion.

  “Yes,” Lu Bu confirmed as a panel popped open beside the lift, prompting Traian to whirl and train his blaster rifle on the hairy figure which emerged from the access panel. Yide stood to his full height—sporting a handful of fresh wounds to his torso—and made eye contact with Lu Bu, prompting Traian to lower his weapon and allow the Sundered youth to approach.

  “What’s going on?” McKnight asked.

  “Only four team members present,” Lu Bu explained, turning back toward the screen, “we can hold bridge, but Lancers must secure rest of ship.”

  “Understood,” McKnight acknowledged, “I’m sending Bernice and most of her Lancers over there now.”

  Knowing there was a story behind Bernice commanding the Lancer contingent aboard the captured warship, but also knowing now was not the time for telling such a story, Lu Bu said, “We will hold position on bridge. Corporal Lu, out.”

  As she sagged to the deck, she saw Hutch limp out of the small office while Traian and Yide worked to bring the bridge’s workstations back online one by one. As they worked, she wondered how Fei Long was faring…and she wondered if the Ancestors had been able to watch after both of them, or if they had only done so for her.

  She knelt in prayer, asking the Ancestors to watch over Fei Long as they had done for her, feeling the faintest sensation deep within her belly as she did so—a sensation she was feeling for the very first time.

  Chapter XXIX: A Job Not Done

  “On the ground!” the armored policeman commanded after entering the Fei apartment, flanked by five similarly-garbed law enforcement officers. Fei Long was seated at the table, eating his breakfast while his mother had gone to answer the door, and she complied quickly with their demand—too quickly, if Fei Long was to judge the matter.

  The thirteen year old boy turned to see a look of resignation on his father’s face, but nowhere in his father’s countenance did Fei Long see the barest hint of surprise. The old man turned his bushy-browed eyes toward his son and shook his head scornfully as the policemen moved into the apartment.

  “How could you, Father?” Fei Long asked coldly as the policemen surrounded the table and one of them roughly bound his hands before standing him from his chair.

  “You ask me that question?” his father demanded, his brow beetling with anger as he stood abruptly from his seat, knocking the chair over and breaking one of the legs in the process. “You, who have abused our family name and brought shame on all who know you by committing your crimes against the harmony of our society?!”

  Two policemen trained their weapons on Fei Long, who made no attempt to resist as the continued to bind his hands, including placing traps on his fingers which would prevent him from properly interfacing with most digital devices. But he was almost unaware of the policemen as they tore through his room, uncovering the few traces of his secret life as the foremost computer hacker of his world.

  “We’ve got it, sir,” one of the policemen declared triumphantly, emerging from the room with a scrap of polymer paper which bore a series of numbers—numbers which contained, among other things, the cipher to his Shu Han network of covertly coopted computers which he had used to wage a virtual war against the authorities of his world.

  “You are no father to me,” Fei Long said coldly as the policeman who apparently led the cadre began to read off the litany of crimes for which he now stood accused. They would only be able to uncover a small fraction of his past actions, and prove his connection to even fewer still, but so strict were the laws of his birth world and so severe were the punishments, that he knew he would never again taste freedom for as long as he lived.

  “And you are no son of mine!” his father shouted, causing Fei Long’s siblings to begin crying as the policemen led Fei Long from the apartment.

  It was only when he heard their crying continue for several seconds longer than his true memory of the event had seen them do, that Fei Long realized he was not merely remembering the event, but he was somehow reliving it.

  He immediately found the Seer, who was standing calmly behind the door through which the younger Fei Long had just been led by the policemen, and the man regarded him with what seemed to be genuine interest as he said, “You have survived this much, which is more than I thought possible.”

  “Why bring me here?” Fei Long demanded, trying and failing to dismiss the scene of his crying siblings from his mind. Of all the consequences of his actions, including the toppling of several state-run entities and the removal of a handful of corrupt politicians from their perches of power, the only one which had truly caused him pain was the fact that he had made his siblings cry.

  “I have no power in this place,” the Seer replied with a shrug, “I am merely an observer.”

  “But…you are dead,” Fei Long said, remembering the man’s final moments in a blur of memory.

  “As you understood me to be, yes,” the Seer agreed patiently. “And soon you will join me…think of me as
an echo, or a shadow of all I once was. Now I am nothing more than a traveler who is bound to the doomed, sinking vessel that is you. It was not the end which I desired, nor was it the one which I vowed, but you may yet be able to finish our task before they claim you.”

  “They?” Fei Long repeated, very much disliking the ominous tone the other man had employed.

  The Seer nodded, gesturing knowingly to the nearby wall, and Fei Long turned but saw nothing there. Nothing but the mass-produced, four foot by seven foot white panel of interior walling, but then he saw something begin to move within the panel. It was not on it, nor was it behind it, but somehow it was within the panel of walling, and he immediately recognized it as the dark, writhing shapes which had lurked in the dreamscape where he had first conversed with the now-dead Seer.

  “Your mind, strong though it may be, cannot survive Seeing the truth of reality,” the Seer said, a lone note of sympathy in his voice. “Even I, who was trained from a young age and selected from amongst millions of candidates for my charge, was nearly driven mad during my first Seeing.”

  “How did you survive?” Fei Long asked, more curious than hopeful. He had already made peace with his pending sacrifice, but he found his curiosity was as strong as ever and he wanted to answer some of the many questions he had for the Seer.

  “That way is closed to you, Kongming,” the Seer shook his head piteously as the walls of the apartment began to ooze together, and Fei Long turned to see his family looked blurred and distorted as their bodies seemed to meld into one amorphous mass. “Your mind is too brittle, too limited…it will break without support, and I cannot give you that support. You will go mad and then you will die—slowly, perhaps, but you will die—and through it all you will suffer as you cannot imagine. An uninitiated mind…”

  The Seer’s voice became distant, and Fei Long turned back to focus on him. But instead of the Seer’s visage, he saw nothing but a mass of shapes which resembled nothing so much as a humanoid shape composed of snakes. Instead of scales, those snakes had equations and images which seemed to flicker back and forth between each other. For a moment, he peered closer, focusing on some of the individual equations and finding that he was nearly spellbound by their seamless transition between number and image. It was almost as though they were truly interchangeable, and as he gazed deeper and deeper into them he wondered how he could have been so blind for so long. He had missed the true nature of reality, but now his eyes had been opened and—