Against The Middle

by Caleb Wachter

  But when the proverbial smoke cleared, it appeared that both of their heavy lasers had struck a vulnerable point, and the Vae Victus went into a completely uncontrolled tumble as its superstructure shattered due to multiple internal explosions.

  “Massive capacitors are nice when your plants are down,” Garibaldi snorted, “but it’s a bitch when they take direct fire and they’re still fully charged.”

  Middleton had to concur with Mikey’s assessment; several of the vulnerable points which his Chief Engineer had selected were the locations of massive-scale capacitors which would allow the Defiance-class battleship to continue fighting for hours after its plants had gone down. It was yet another example of cutting edge technology being applied to maximize possible efficiency, and it was yet another example of a ship designer trying to get too cute with the risk vs. reward payoff.

  The two Corvettes were well beyond the Pride’s Artemis medium laser range, so Middleton nodded to Garibaldi, “Eject the core, Chief. She won’t need it from here on in.”

  “Ejecting the core,” Garibaldi acknowledged, “also ejecting the heat sinks.”

  There was an audible popping sound, followed by a dimming of the lights as the ship’s power plant was ejected from the vessel. Unlike the Vae Victus’ ejection, the Pride’s core did not explode since Garibaldi had already cut its fuel supply prior to ejecting it. Apparently, the battleship’s engineers hadn’t been as on-the-ball as the Pride’s was—and Garibaldi had been working singlehanded.

  Middleton stood to his full height, straightened his uniform, and made his way to the big chair. After seating himself, he met the gaze of each of his bridge crew pointedly before saying, “Outstanding work, gentlemen; we’ve got a path to the target.”

  He flipped on the ship-wide intercom, more to satisfy protocol than to actually communicate with the less-than-skeleton crew still aboard. At this point, even the teams of engineers who had remained under Garibaldi’s command were present on the bridge or in the corridor outside, but there was a proper way to do certain things—and captains of warships were well-served to remember that…at least, they were some of the time.

  “This is Captain Middleton,” Middleton said officiously as the ruined hulk of his once-proud warship streaked toward the surface of the strange, alien planetoid, “all hands are to report to the shuttle bay and abandon ship. Repeat,” he said as the primary lighting on the bridge failed, replaced quickly by the banks of emergency lights, “all hands abandon ship. This is not a drill.”

  He switched off the intercom and punched up a calculation before throwing up a time-to-collision clock on the main viewer. The men on the bridge looked around at each other uneasily as he straightened himself in his chair.

  “You heard me, gentlemen,” he said heavily, gripping the arms of his chair pointedly, “get to the Deathbacker and abandon ship. That’s an order.”

  “What about you, Tim?” Garibaldi asked with a note of challenge clear in his voice.

  “Someone has to fly the old girl in,” he replied, his point emphasized by a turbo-laser strike to the Pride’s stern which required immediate correction. “That duty falls to the Captain,” he added, swiveling his chair to face his old friend.

  Sensing their reluctance to do as instructed—and knowing they had only seven minutes before the ship crashed into the target zone on the planetoid which steadily grew larger on the main viewer—Middleton was about to reach for the sidearm he had fastened to his belt when Sergeant Gnuko moved onto the bridge, wearing his Storm Drake armor and helmet.

  Without a word, the Lancer Sergeant moved to Middleton’s side, causing the Pride’s Captain to tense and slowly draw his ion pistol in preparation for a mutiny at the worst possible time.

  “You heard the Captain,” Gnuko growled sweeping the bridge with his gaze and placing a hand on the butt of his blaster pistol, “move out!”

  Reluctantly, Hephaestion did as he had been instructed, stopping at the door to turn and nod thankfully in Middleton’s direction before exiting the bridge. He was followed by Toto, who limped his way from the ship’s command center. He still had a son and daughter to live for who he loved, and who loved him in return, and Middleton knew that any good father would take even a sliver of a chance to be reunited with them rather than make some grand stand at the end of the line.

  Garibaldi, however, folded his arms crossly and said, “I ain’t leavin’, Tim.”

  “Get off the bridge, Chief,” Gnuko growled, taking a half-step forward and drawing his blaster pistol. “If you want to die on this ship, do it where we don’t have to see your blatant insubordination.”

  “You’re gonna have to shoot me,” Mikey snapped, “because I ain’t leavin’!”

  Gnuko tensed, raising his blaster pistol but Middleton leaned forward and placed a restraining hand on the Sergeant’s arm as he said, “Let me talk to the Chief—“

  The butt of Gnuko’s pistol smashed into Middleton’s face before he even realized the Sergeant’s arm had moved, and the Pride’s Captain lost consciousness instantly.

  Gnuko turned and regarded his commanding officer steadily for a moment, wanting to ensure he had lost consciousness and wasn’t playing possum. When he was satisfied Captain Middleton had indeed been rendered unconscious, he turned to the slack-jawed Garibaldi and said, “If you really want to stand by my Captain—and your friend—in his time of need, do it by taking him to the shuttle. And be quick about.”

  Garibaldi moved forward, and Gnuko removed Middleton’s sidearm just to be safe. “Why?” Garibaldi asked after slinging Middleton’s arm across his shoulder and standing.

  “Because the universe needs him drawing breath a damn sight more than it needs me doing the same,” Gnuko replied shortly, having long suspected that he would have to do as he had just done—and was about to do.

  Garibaldi nodded slowly, “I’ll tell him when he wakes up.”

  “Do whatever you think best,” Gnuko shrugged, “because by the time he wakes up, it won’t matter.”

  Garibaldi regarded him silently for a few seconds before nodding, “You’re a good man, Russell.”

  Gnuko snorted, “Nobody ever accused me of that before…but thanks, I guess.”

  Garibaldi nodded and began to hobble toward the exit, but was stopped in his tracks when the massive shape of Kratos appeared.

  “Great minds think alike?” Gnuko quipped, seeing that the other man had also donned his Storm Drake armor for the occasion.

  “I could crush you,” Kratos said, stepping past Garibaldi as if he wasn’t even there, “we both know that.”

  “We do,” Gnuko agreed, “there’s no use denying it.”

  “Then stand aside,” Kratos rumbled, hefting a vibro-blade in his hand as easily as a normal man might do a machete, “and follow your Captain to the shuttle. I will remain here to pilot the ship.”

  Gnuko shook his head and gestured for Garibaldi to leave, which the Chief Engineer did as soon as Gnuko had done so. “You’re tough…but you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed are you, Kratos?”

  Kratos glowered at him through his helmet’s lowered visor. “Stand aside.”

  “Or what?” Gnuko snapped. “You’ll kill me and cause this mission to fail?”

  “I will succeed,” Kratos said, “I have learned how to pilot starships.”

  “Piloting a shuttle and piloting a cruiser are a little bit different,” Gnuko retorted hotly, “especially when you’re talking about needing to thread a proverbial needle with the tip of the bow.”

  “You doubt my abilities?” Kratos challenged.

  Gnuko thought about the question and then he sighed, “No, I actually don’t. I think you probably could pilot this hulk down close enough to the target to take it out.”

  “Then what do you think will stay my hand?” Kratos asked, thumbing the activation switch for the vibro-blade, causing it to vibrate at a frequency just below the human hearing range, but Gnuko’s helmet allowed him to pick up the sound pe
rfectly.

  “One word,” Gnuko smirked triumphantly, knowing he was about to put a hypothesis to the test—a gamble which required his own life and the mission’s success as the buy-in, “honor.”

  Kratos’ eye narrowed. “What of it?”

  “I think you actually are an honorable man, Kratos,” Gnuko said. “Oh, you play the heel to the crowd and put on a mean mug whenever the spotlight’s on you, but I’m willing to bet this mission’s success—along with my own life—on the fact that you’re going to hold true to what you told the other Tracto-ans in the shuttle bay the day you killed Atticus.”

  Kratos seemed surprised, and made no attempt to mask that surprise as he brought the vibro-blade up into a ready stance but held it there, rather than attacking. “You presume much.”

  Gnuko shook his head confidently, “Not at all. See, I’ve been around great men when they’ve made their speeches,” he explained, his mood darkening as he thought back to his tumultuous, competitive relationship with Walter Joneson—a competition he had never once won in any convincing fashion. “I’ve been around a few of them, actually,” he continued sourly, “so I know the genuine article when I hear it. You actually do care about honor, but only when it comes to the people you think are worthy of receiving its fruits.”

  Kratos snorted, “You think too much of yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about me,” Gnuko said pointedly, “I’m talking about Captain Middleton. I’m talking about a man who showed faith in you when it would have been easier for everyone involved to have you spaced; I’m talking about a man who gave you command over the largest armed force aboard his ship when you could have turned that force against him and seized control for yourself,” he said, deliberately ignoring the fact that there was no way Kratos could have succeeded while Gnuko was on watch. He had set up too many defensive mechanisms and protocols for a meathead like Kratos to overcome, even with a two-to-one advantage of numbers and equipment on Kratos’ side. “But most of all,” Gnuko said, stepping forward until the tip of Kratos’ blade lay aside his neck, “I’m talking about a man to whom you gave your word and pledged an oath of service in front of the only other person you care about as much as yourself: Bernice.”

  Kratos’ eye flared with anger, and Gnuko felt the edge of the man’s vibro-blade press through his armor but he made no move to stop it. “Watch your words,” he growled.

  “You can’t kill me, Kratos,” Gnuko said confidently, “and you can’t go against Captain Middleton’s orders, either. That only leaves you one way out of here,” he said, pointing emphatically to the door through which Garibaldi had just left, “so I suggest you take it before making a liar out of yourself.”

  Kratos seemed to consider the matter for a moment before removing his blade from Gnuko’s neck and powering it down. Gnuko wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but he needed to keep his game face on until the one-eyed brute was off the bridge.

  “This ship’s death will make a funeral pyre fit for a king,” Kratos said as he sheathed the weapon at his belt, “it is too great an honor for you.”

  “On that much, we can agree completely,” Gnuko said with a slow nod.

  Kratos returned the nod and made his way to the bridge’s door, turning at the portal and chuckling.

  “What’s so funny?” Gnuko asked irritably, wishing the man would just get off the bridge.

  “I would have killed you had you abandoned this post,” Kratos said with a dark grin.

  Gnuko snorted, “And I would have killed you if you’d tried to move me off it.”

  “You would have tried, but like all the others…save one,” he added as his brow lowered thunderously, “you would have failed.”

  “You’re still breathing,” Gnuko said skeptically, “so it doesn’t look like this mysterious warrior closed the deal.”

  “Drawing breath is different from living life,” Kratos said, turning his back on the Lancer Sergeant, “my life was taken from me by that warrior…a man who I can only hope I will meet one last time before my end.”

  “Who was he?” Gnuko asked, more intrigued than irritated at that particular moment.

  “His name,” Kratos said as he stepped off the bridge and made his way to the lift, “is Nikomedes. And when we meet again, one of us will draw his final breath.”

  With that, Sergeant Russell Gnuko was left alone on the bridge of the Pride of Prometheus. He went to the doors and cycled them shut, using his Lancer command codes to seal the bridge from anyone except the Captain—who would not be coming to for at least another ten minutes.

  Moving to the helm, he removed his helmet and drew a full, deep breath. He saw an alert icon appear on the main viewer, signaling that the shuttle bay doors had cycled open followed by the Deathbacker’s transponder pinging to signal that it was departing under emergency conditions. A quick series of back-and-forth text messages with the shuttle’s pilot—who turned out to be Toto—revealed that Captain Middleton, Chief Garibaldi, and even Kratos had managed to get aboard the craft prior to its embarkation, along with the rest of the engineering team that had remained aboard the aged warship for its final run.

  The planetoid loomed large on the viewer before him, and a pair of turbo-laser impacts struck the Pride in the stern, causing him to adjust the ship’s course with the maneuvering jets in order to keep the bow on the target zone. It taxed the ship’s thrusters to the limit, but he managed to keep the Liberator torpedo aimed squarely at the target node—a node which was glowing so brightly that the view screen dimmed automatically to avoid harming Gnuko’s eyes.

  “Everywhere I went,” Gnuko muttered as he registered a vessel lift off from the planet’s surface less than a minute before a nuclear fusion-powered explosion destroyed the Raubachs’ base site, “I never could get out from under your shadow. Whether it was on the gridiron, in the media after the game, or even fighting real battles as a Commando-turned-Marine-turned-Lancer…I never could top you, could I?”

  He wanted to fire at the ship, but the Pride’s power plant had disappeared in the ship’s wake and his thrusters were operating purely on chemical fuel tanks located near the thrusters themselves. Everything was running on backup power, so even if he’d had the time to turn the ship and fire, he had no juice to power the lasers with. So he ignored the escaping craft as it sped away from the planet’s surface faster than it had any right to do.

  “Well,” Gnuko continued, removing his helmet as the surface of the planet loomed in the viewer and the impact timer reached fifteen seconds remaining, “looks like I’ll be having the last laugh this time, you old bastard.” His thoughts turned to his greatest victories—several of which had come aboard this very ship, and surprisingly few had been on the smashball pitch. “I only wish you’d been here to see it,” he said as he made another course adjustment after receiving fire to the stern of the ship which saw catastrophic venting take place that he was barely able to compensate for with the ship’s maneuvering thrusters.

  The massive, ornate patterns carved in the surface of the planetoid were briefly visible as the pulsating power node dimmed during its rhythmic cycle of increasing and decreasing luminosity, and then the image pick-up went black automatically to protect itself from permanent damage. As it did so, he barely managed to reorient the Pride’s bow onto the target using the ship’s maneuvering thrusters.

  The clock wound down to three seconds remaining and Sergeant Russell Gnuko stood back from the helm, splayed his arms to either side with a balled fist at the end of each, and threw his head back triumphantly as he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Top this, Walt!”

  He never even felt the impact, as the Liberator torpedo went off with enough force to create a three mile wide crater in the surface of the world, completely vaporizing the power node embedded there—along with the wrecked, yet defiantly proud and venerable Pride of Prometheus—in a shorter span of time than was required for a human neuronal cell to fully process any kind of sensory input.

&n
bsp; Chapter XXXI: One Last Duty

  Fei Long was surrounded by demons on all sides, and he had nowhere left to run. The demons had the bodies of serpents, the voices of those who had betrayed him, and each had the face of Vali Funar as they mocked him in an unintelligible cacophony of jeers, taunts, and threats which he felt certain they could—and would—make good on.

  He knew he deserved it all; he had done that which he had vowed never to do, but he had done it to save the one he loved. He wanted to ask, ‘what should I have done?!’ but he knew he had no right to do so. He had made a choice—however well-intentioned it may have once been—and that choice had proven him to be the vilest of scum. Even if he endured the taunts of the demons for all eternity it would be only a fraction of the suffering he deserved.

  But, try as he might to deride his decision, he knew he would have done it again in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself. He would sacrifice anything for Lu Bu, and it seemed that he was now making that sacrifice. More than just his life, it was his very soul which he had sullied and rent asunder with his actions, but he simply could not find a way to fault himself for his actions.

  He was vaguely aware of Trixie’s panic-laden voice, but he had no more strength to lend. He was truly done for, and it was now time to—

  “Wake up, Long!” Trixie cried, and Fei Long’s head was filled with a loud buzzing noise. Looking down at her hand, he realized she had injected him with some kind of stimulant, and while his senses were far from sharp—and the intense pain in the base of his skull was so powerful that he immediately retched as soon as he was reminded of his presence—he was able to see that Hansheng had connected himself to the pilot’s console in accordance with the protocols Fei Long had designed for him aboard the Lost Ark.

  “Hansheng,” he said, brushing Trixie aside without a word as he tried to move toward the assault droid, but he quickly found that his lower half was completely unresponsive.