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

  Lu Bu was momentarily confused. “Doctor Middleton is officer,” she said slowly, “she should eat in officer’s mess.”

  Doctor Middleton snorted derisively. “I’m no officer,” she said with a note of defiance which further confused Lu Bu. “But even if I was, I would still eat with the regular crew.”

  Lu Bu did not understand, but she nodded anyway. “Thi—I,” she corrected again, feeling her face flush as she did so, “will be honored to share meals with Doctor Middleton.”

  “Good,” the doctor said with a curt nod as she glanced at the chronometer, “then we’ll run those tests in sixteen hours, forty two minutes. If you’re fit for light duty, I’ll release you with the understanding that even with your…robust metabolic processes, you’ll still need to abstain for at least a week before resuming full training,” she spat the word bitterly

  It was a more restrictive plan than Lu Bu had hoped for, but in light of the doctor’s unexpected generous offer to share her table with a lowly recruit like herself, she knew it would be in very poor form to argue further. “I will abide by the doctor’s instructions,” she said in resignation.

  Apparently satisfied, the doctor turned and made her way to a nearby bed, leaving Lu Bu to stare silently at the chronometer as the seconds ticked by one after another.

  Chapter XIII: Prejudice, Pride, and the Past

  “Sergeant Joneson,” Middleton greeted as the huge, surprisingly agile man made his way into the ready room, “have a seat.”

  “Captain,” Joneson acknowledged as he gave the chair a reproachful look before doing as ordered. When he had gently settled into the chair, he presented a data slate. “This contains my reports regarding the arrest of Fei Long, the subsequent search and seizure of his personal effects, and my official report for the incident involving my recruits earlier.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Middleton accepted the slate, skipping the first two reports and flipping to the last item, the contents of which he perused in silence for several minutes. When he had finished, he set the pad down on the desk and nodded absently. “I’m told Recruit Bu will make a full recovery, given a week or so of light duty,” he said.

  “It’s ‘Recruit Lu,’ Captain,” Sergeant Joneson said pointedly. “And I’ve read the medical report as well. Doctor Middleton’s a fine physician; I have every confidence Recruit Lu will make a full recovery well within the allotted timeframe.”

  “Be that as it may,” Middleton allowed, “while I have no intention of stepping in over your head on this thing—”

  “That’s good to hear, Captain,” Joneson said, his face an unreadable mask of professionalism but his voice betraying his displeasure clearly enough for Middleton.

  The Captain nodded, more to himself than the Sergeant’s predictable reply. “Still, recruit Lu is a special case. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Joneson shifted slightly in his seat and held the Captain in his gaze for several seconds before replying, “As far as recruits go…yes, sir, I believe she is. Her physical abilities are greater than any person I’ve had the privilege of working with. All things considered, her heart seems to be in the right place as well.”

  “All I’m suggesting, Sergeant,” Middleton said in as diplomatic of a tone as possible, “is that recruit Lu be treated as any other member of your latest batch of hopefuls. I don’t see any of them listed as sustaining ‘training injuries’ at the hands of the ship’s Lancer Sergeant,” he said pointedly. Middleton knew he was treading on thin ice, but he had no choice. A military command ran on authority, and if the person at the top of the pyramid was perceived to be incapable of directing his subordinates, the entire system was in real danger of losing efficiency…or worse.

  Joneson locked eyes with the Captain, who gave not one inch in the test of wills. For a moment Middleton was genuinely convinced it would come to blows between them – an affair guaranteed to be a one-sided pounding with the Sergeant swinging the hammer.

  “Permission to speak candidly, Captain?” Joneson said through gritted teeth.

  “You don’t need to ask in private, Sergeant,” the Captain replied immediately. He was actually angered by the fact that Walter Joneson felt the need to court protocol, as he had always considered the man to be a friend.

  “I am giving recruit Lu the same treatment as every other member of my team,” Sergeant Joneson growled. “The fact that it’s down to me and those…Tracto-ans,” he spat derisively, “to give her that treatment makes not one lick of difference, sir. My personal preferences come second—or further back than that!—to the dictates of the mission; without able Lancers, this ship is in grave danger and its mission is in peril. It’s my job to train those Lancers, regardless,” he held the last word for several seconds before finishing, “of my personal prejudices.”

  The silence lingered as Middleton tried to find the right words – a task he had always found frustratingly difficult. Eventually he sighed. “Walt, I’m not going to beat around the bush. You had one of the most promising athletic careers I’ve ever heard about, but you threw it all away over a matter which is more than vaguely similar to this one. As the Captain of this ship, it’s my duty to look to the safety and readiness of the crew. Seeing as I’ve always thought of you as a friend, I wouldn’t want to see you throw it all away again over such an insignificant matter.”

  Joneson stiffened. “If you think I flushed my playing career because I got bitter about going up against a few genies,” he said coldly, “then you misunderstand me absolutely, Captain. And if you think I dislike those Tracto boys because someone tinkered with their DNA somewhere between Old Earth and here, then you need to spend a little time with them yourself.”

  “Cut to it, Sergeant,” Middleton snapped. “I’ve got plenty of other things to deal with today; I don’t have time to mince words.”

  Joneson stood from his chair—a pointed, if relatively minor, breach of protocol—and flexed his hands rhythmically. “Those Tracto-ans have never lost a meaningful battle,” Sergeant Joneson said less angrily than Middleton had expected, “and until a soldier faces certain defeat you can’t know what he—or she—is really made of. More importantly,” he added with a hard look, “you can’t teach a man who’s never been proven fallible. To my understanding, Recruit Lu has also never lost a meaningful battle.”

  Middleton actually found himself understanding the Sergeant’s behavior toward recruit Lu—and was more than a little disappointed in himself for not having seen it earlier.

  Apparently seeing realization dawn on his Captain’s face, Joneson shook his head bitterly as he continued, “Those Tracto boys are too big, too fast, and flat-out too tough for me to school; maybe in my prime I could have taught them a thing or two, but I’m well past that now. Lu, however,” he said, his voice having returned to its stony, professional timbre, “her I can teach. She’s the only recruit we picked up who’s got the spark, Captain, and I’d be doing her and the ship a disservice if I didn’t kindle it the best way I know how. Again,” he said in a pointed voice, “my own preferences—or prejudices—whatever they may be, come a distant second to the success of the mission.”

  Middleton nodded as he rose to his feet, actually feeling relieved in all aspects at the outcome of the meeting. “Sergeant, you are a professional through and through,” he said curtly. He fought against the grin that wanted to play out over his features as he added, “I knew there was a reason I chose you for the job.”

  Sergeant Joneson’s shoulders slumped briefly as he exhaled before returning to attention and snapping a salute. “Permission to return to my duties, Captain?”

  Middleton nodded, returning the other man’s salute. “Permission granted, Sergeant.”

  Joneson turned and made to leave the room before stopping and, without making eye contact, saying, “If my read on her is good, you’re probably going to hear about one more visit to sickbay for Recruit Lu before the week is out. One way or the other, that’ll be the end of it, Captain.”
/>   “I’ll be expecting your report, along with the doctor’s,” Middleton said pointedly.

  Joneson nodded. “Of course, sir,” he said as he turned to leave the ready room.

  “Oh, and Sergeant,” Middleton called just before Joneson had made the door, “that security breach regarding our prisoner in the brig?”

  Joneson stopped in his tracks and nodded, reaching his hand into his pocket as he made his way to the captain’s desk. He withdrew a tiny, round object smaller than most old-style coins Middleton had seen in antique collections. “This was the source of it, Captain,” the large man said, handing the object over.

  Middleton turned it over in his fingers and recognized it as a low-profile security camera from the ship’s armory locker. “A button cam?” he asked with a quizzically raised eyebrow.

  Joneson snorted before his features gradually morphed into something between a smirk and a lopsided grin. “We found it strategically located in the…women’s showers, sir,” the Sergeant said with a knowing look. “I’ve had the entire ship swept for more of them but seeing as this is the only missing unit from our supply, and our physical inspections came up blank, I believe the threat has been neutralized.”

  At first, Middleton was genuinely surprised and concerned that Fei Long had managed to break into the ship’s armory undetected. Then he shook his head at the audacity of the young man’s violation of his crew’s privacy. Although, if he was being honest with himself, he could remember doing worse when he was Fei Long’s age…but at least his offenses hadn’t been committed on an actively deployed warship.

  “It looks like our prisoner is just full of surprises,” Middleton mused dryly.

  “Surprises, sir?” Joneson asked with a cocked eyebrow of his own. “He needs to be punished for violating his crewmates’ trust but I can’t say it’s all that ‘surprising,’ given his age and obvious technical abilities.”

  “True enough,” Middleton allowed. “Thank you, Sergeant; that will be all.”

  “Captain,” Joneson acknowledged before turning and exiting the room.

  Middleton looked down at the button cam and allowed the grin he had been holding back to spread across his lips. “Some things never change,” he chuckled before placing the button cam on the desk and sitting back down in his chair.

  Having survived their latest crisis, Captain Middleton decided it was time to take a closer look at this ‘Fei Long’ character. Possessing limited information to peruse, he pulled up the young man’s medical records along with everything else which had been compiled on him, and began to read.

  Chapter XIV: Bread Crumbs

  “Comm., have you received a response from the colony?” Middleton asked as they neared high orbit over the lone habitable world in the system. The enemy vessel that had overwhelmed the Pride’s shields with just two volleys had not returned, and since it had been well over a day since their initial engagement, Middleton had decided it was time to investigate the system.

  “No response yet, Captain,” Jardine replied, having resumed his first shift post after securing the strange particle imaging device after downloading the image into a detached, high-security workstation. “I’m reading the standard handshake protocols from the main comm. relays, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone on the other end of the line.”

  “Either that, or they’re avoiding contact with us,” Sarkozi offered as she populated a corner of the main viewer with a series of rotating images – most of which showed smoldering craters where buildings should have been. “The damage appears to be consistent with a highly-targeted orbital bombardment, Captain,” she continued, “if there are survivors, they might be deliberately avoiding contact.”

  “Give me a breakdown of those strike points, Ensign,” Middleton ordered as he leaned back in his chair and considered the options.

  “Twelve structures appear to have been destroyed in total, Captain,” Sarkozi reported promptly. “The main research facility looks to have taken the worst of it with repeated impacts,” she continued as a particularly large crater’s image expanded on the screen, “while the six adjoining structures of the campus were also leveled, but with what look to be individual strikes. After that, it seems that three supply depots were also leveled…in addition to the primary residence structure of the colony.”

  Clearly needing no prompting to do so Ensign Sarkozi expanded the view of the last detailed target, showing the rubble of what the official records said had been a twelve story housing complex. The records indicated that over two thousand people had recently resided there.

  “What about radiation?” Middleton asked, turning to the Sensors operator.

  The woman shook her head. “Nothing above tolerances detected, Captain. There’s a slight increase at each impact point, but nothing dangerous for short-term exposures.”

  “Still no response to our hails?” Middleton asked again.

  “Nothing, Captain,” replied Jardine. “The orbital relays all appear to be functioning, but I can’t tell if the ground-based transmitters are functional from here. A physical inspection of the comm. station would be required for that, sir.”

  “Strange they didn’t send any distress signal,” Helmsman Jersey observed dryly. “Either they were attacked too fast to hit the panic button or they didn’t realize those ships were hostile.”

  “Just so, Helm,” Middleton agreed, having arrived at the same conclusion almost immediately. But he was more than a little surprised that Jersey had been the member of the bridge crew to first make that particular observation.

  “But that hostile was unlike anything in our ship’s database,” Sarkozi said doubtfully. “So unless they were completely asleep at the switch, they should have known those ships weren’t friendly.”

  “Pull up the specs on this colony again,” Middleton said.

  Sarkozi pulled up the data on her console and mirrored it to the main viewer. “This was a splinter colony established fifty two years ago,” she read the data clinically, “with an initial population of two thousand forty four. Demographic breakdown includes technicians, farmers, and other standard personnel. The only notable quality of the population is their fairly diverse cultural background, having been pulled from a half dozen Core Worlds.”

  “Two thousand forty four?” Middleton repeated as his eyes narrowed. “Call up the most recent population for census, Ensign.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarkozi acknowledged as she minimized the first census, before putting the newer one beside it on the main viewer. “Latest census reads total colony population of…two thousand twenty six?” she finished with a scowl.

  Middleton leaned back in his chair as the true nature of the facility was made clearer. “This was no colony,” he concluded, “this was some kind of secret facility disguised as one. No colony would be maintained without a population growth of at least fifty percent per generation during the initial stages, and fifty years of growth means a minimum of five thousand colonists just to keep from being defunded and abandoned by the sponsor worlds.”

  “Answers a few questions, at any rate,” Jersey muttered darkly.

  Captain Middleton considered the situation for a moment before arriving at a decision. He activated his chair’s com-link and opened a channel with Sergeant Joneson.

  “Joneson here, Captain,” came the man’s deep voice.

  “Sergeant, I want you to prepare a landing party,” Middleton said, “I’ll need you to lead an eight man tactical team to escort four officers into a potentially active combat zone for an estimated twelve hours.”

  “Any intel on potential hostiles, Captain?” Joneson asked with calm professionalism.

  “Nothing solid,” Middleton replied after a brief hesitation. “You’ll board the shuttle in thirty minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Joneson replied.

  “Middleton out,” the captain said before severing the link and turning to Ensign Jardine. “Sarkozi, Jardine: you’re on the away team. Get down to the armory for your
gear and then meet up with Sergeant Joneson in the shuttle bay.”

  “Yes, Captain,” they replied, standing from their stations and making for the lift. After they had exited the bridge, Middleton stood from his chair and headed toward his ready room.

  Without breaking stride, he said, “Jersey, in my ready room.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the Helmsman said as he stood from his console, waiting for his replacement to take over before following Middleton into the ready room.

  When they were both within the ready room and the door had slid shut, Middleton turn to his sour Helmsman. Jersey looked at him with hard, grey eyes beneath bushy eyebrows so apparently unkempt that they bordered on violating the uniform code.

  “Jersey, I need an XO,” Middleton said, wishing to waste no time. “Frankly I can’t think of a better man for the job.”

  “Sir?” Jersey said, clearly taken aback.

  “This ship needs a proper command structure and I can’t sit on my hands any longer; you speak your mind and you know the rules as well as I do,” he said magnanimously.

  “Better, sir,” Jersey said stiffly, clasping his hands behind his back.

  Middleton fought the urge to bristle and let a cool smile play over his lips instead. “You prove my point perfectly,” he said evenly. “You’re also one of the only officers who holds a rank higher than Ensign aboard this ship, and you’re the only one to have more service time than I do.”

  “Never made it past Lefty J-G, Captain,” Jersey said, for the first time showing doubt in the Captain’s decision. “I’m not sure what good I can do you.”

  “You let me be the judge of that, Lieutenant Commander,” Middleton said forcefully with a bit more flare than he had intended. “I need a senior officer to command the away team; Sarkozi and Jardine are good, young officers, but I need a steady hand down there.”