No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) Page 14

  “Lieutenant Commander?” Jersey said with an arched eyebrow. “Wouldn’t Sarkozi be better suited for this, Captain?”

  “Sarkozi’s a fine officer,” Middleton allowed, “but I need her where she is. Your skills on the helm, fine as they are, are more easily replaced than hers are at tactical. This move won’t affect the rest of the chain, and I know I can count on you to speak your mind – especially when we disagree.”

  A smirk came over the other man’s features as he nodded slowly. “I’ll go where you need me, sir, but I’m afraid I’m too old to learn new tricks,” he said as he braced to attention. “I’ll give you my best from day one but unlike these pups we’re training up, I’ve done all my growing. You find I can’t do the job to your satisfaction, just put me back on the helm; whipping me for my shortcomings ain’t liable to do much but cause mutual aggravation.”

  “Fair enough, Commander,” Middleton said, thrusting his hand out. Jersey accepted it and Middleton found that the man had a surprisingly powerful grip for his stature. But Tim Middleton was no slouch himself, and the two gripped as tightly as they could without grimacing before Jersey cracked a smile.

  “What are we looking for down there, Captain? I can tell you’ve already got a notion,” the newly minted Lieutenant Commander said matter-of-factly.

  “Honestly,” Middleton bit his lip for a moment before shaking his head, “I think it will be best if you just run a thorough, class two scan of the ‘colony’ before making your way up to the comm. station on the nearby mountain. Maintain complete radio silence unless you find something suspicious or noteworthy, in which case you are to pipe it directly to me on a point-to-point beam using top encryption. The away team will not discuss its findings with any of the crew, do I make myself clear?”

  “As a klaxon, Captain,” Jersey replied with a snappy salute that was completely at odds with his usual demeanor.

  “Good hunting, Commander,” Middleton said, returning his salute.

  Lieutenant Commander Jersey turned on his heel and left Middleton’s office, which left only one more specialist he needed to corral for the away team.

  “Visual tracking of the away team shows they’ve just finished their inspection of the colony, Captain,” the sensors operator reported. “They’re making their way back to the shuttle now. No hostiles detected using passive scans.”

  “Good work, Sensors,” Middleton said before turning to the Comm. officer, a crewman named Babin. “Keep scanning all frequencies, Comm.,” he instructed, “report any activity whatsoever.”

  “Yes, sir,” the crewman replied, “continuing passive scans; no activity detected at this time.”

  The minutes ticked by until the away team had re-boarded the shuttle. Seconds later, the craft lifted off and began its journey toward the nearby comm. station located on the nearest peak – which measured nearly four thousand feet above sea level.

  As the craft flew toward its destination, the com-link silently flashed on Middleton’s command chair, and he saw that it was a transmission from Commander Jersey. The message read: Debris at depot sites consistent with high-yield military-grade weapons containment facilities; main housing complex located above underground facility of some kind, unable to access from surface.

  Captain Middleton nodded to himself and deleted the message from his log, as Jersey had just confirmed his suspicions that this was some sort of military weapons cache leftover from around the time of the Confederation’s Union Treaty with the Imperials.

  Whoever had placed those weapons there, probably fifty years earlier, had clearly dispatched the three ship detachment they had encountered on their way into the system. Apparently the recovered cache was more valuable to them than avoiding discovery, since the unidentified warship had not returned to finish the Pride off.

  Protocol called for containment of any remaining sensitive equipment or intelligence, so Middleton watched as the shuttle bearing his away team neared the landing pad at the summit of the mountain.

  “That’s the report, Captain,” Jersey said as he handed the data slate to Captain Middleton before taking a seat opposite him in the Captain’s ready room. “Looks like you were right; this was no ordinary colony, and they were expecting those hostiles judging by the record of their handshake protocols. And the organic residue at the impact points suggests the presence of more than a handful of people.”

  “Those comm. logs were already erased when you arrived,” Middleton said, more to confirm his suspicions than to request information.

  “Yes, sir,” Jersey replied. “The entire comm. station was secured as well; it looked like they planned to return to it but never did.”

  Middleton wanted to test his new Executive Officer’s reasoning skills, so he leaned back in his chair and set the slate down on the desk without having activated it. “You conclusion, XO?”

  Jersey snorted. “Seems obvious they treated the hostiles as anything but, going so far as to erase most of the evidence pointing to their arrival and purpose,” he said gruffly. “My bet would be that the hostiles came down, conducted whatever business they meant to, which included the retrieval of a not-inconsequential quantity of high-yield weaponry. Then, under some pretense or another, the hostiles lured every man, woman, and child – assuming there were any children at this ‘colony’ – back to the base proper before blasting the place straight to the Demon’s Pit.”

  Middleton nodded approvingly. “Well done, Commander,” he said. “Did you find evidence of who those hostiles might have been?”

  Jersey shook his head. “Found a few hover-vehicle impressions but nothing conclusive. Aside from the relatively sterile scene, it looks suspiciously like a pirate job.”

  “Agreed,” Middleton concurred. “Someone was covering their tracks and trying to make it look like an act of piracy rather than what it really was.”

  “And what do you think that might be, Captain?” Jersey asked with a hint of challenge in his voice.

  The Captain chuckled. “I’ve got theories, but nothing concrete.” At his XO’s sour look, Middleton added, “I guarantee you’ll be the first to know my thoughts once they’re more than speculation, Commander.”

  Jersey sighed. “Fair enough; gotta keep some things close to the vest,” he grudged. “The, uh, fourth member of the away team would like to have a word, Captain,” he added belatedly.

  Middleton nodded in resignation. “Send her in.”

  “Captain,” Jersey acknowledged before rising from his seat and exiting the ready room.

  A few moments later, Doctor Jo Middleton entered the captain’s ready room with a scowl on her face that probably could have shattered a mirror. “I don’t appreciate you coopting me like that, Tim,” she snapped – this time after the door had slid shut.

  “I had no choice, Doctor,” he replied calmly, gesturing to the chair which Jersey had just vacated. “The situation called for my top bio-sciences expert to conduct sensitive scans; I would have sent someone else if I could have.”

  “Ha!” she scoffed before visibly collecting herself and taking a short breath. “I would appreciate a little warning next time – especially if I have to share a shuttle with those smelly, thuggish Marines.”

  “Lancers,” Middleton corrected calmly as he held his hand out. “Your report please, Doctor?”

  Jo took the data slate from her pocket and thrust it toward him, and he was surprised to see that most of her anger seemed to have already dissipated. “The planet was clean of bio-contaminants – this time,” she added pointedly. For a Doctor, she had an abnormally powerful fear of contracting a xeno-infection of some kind, and Middleton had taken no joy in exposing that particular character flaw during the away mission. “Radiation levels surrounding the craters were consistent with orbital bombardment via high-powered particle cannons, but within the habitable limits elsewhere.”

  “In your opinion are there any survivors down there?” he asked.

  Her scowl returned. “Nothing organic
could have survived that bombardment,” she shook her head angrily. “And the scans we ran during flight revealed nothing but wildlife within twenty kilometers.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” he said after receiving her report. If the Chief Medical Officer of the ship believed there was no reasonable evidence to suggest the presence of survivors, then he could break orbit as soon as he wished.

  “Now that you’ve satisfied your military protocols,” she said with a thinly-veiled sneer that still managed to get under Middleton’s skin, “would you mind telling me what’s going on around here? First we get attacked immediately upon entering this system, and now we find a colony that quite obviously isn’t a colony at all; what’s going on here, Tim?”

  Captain Middleton actually wanted to confide in someone – anyone, including his ex-wife, of all people – but he had to keep a lid on his suspicions for now. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” he said evenly, “I can’t discuss the matter any further.”

  Her face looked fit to burst from the sudden rush of blood which turned her face a lovely shade of red as she stood angrily from the chair. “You government types are all the same,” she spat, “with the military easily the worst of the lot!”

  “If that’s all, Doctor,” he said levelly, simultaneously annoyed at her constant informalities and amused at her continued outbursts which reminded him so very much of the girl he had known two decades earlier.

  She spun and made her way to the door, which she exited through without another word.

  He shook his head and picked up the data slate to review her report – which was surprisingly detailed and dispassionate for Jo, considering her dislike of anything to do with his chosen profession.

  Chapter XV: Sleeping Dragon, the Second Visit

  “Fei Long,” Middleton began after sitting down on the bench opposite the prisoner’s cell, “I don’t have much to work with but from what I can tell you’re some sort of political radical from your home world. Is that right?”

  The young man, who appeared remarkably composed after spending so much time in the brig, opened his eyes as the captain began to speak. “That would be an accurate description, Captain Middleton,” he said with a hint of surprise in his voice.

  The captain nodded. “Your ‘official’ files were obviously forgeries, but as a matter of course we download as much media as possible from the worlds we visit,” he explained. “Still, it seems that whatever records of your crime may have once existed were erased from the system. Only a few scraps survived, and even those took my people the better part of a day to find and collate.”

  Fei Long leaned forward and sighed. “Captain, I wish to apologize for my earlier—“

  “Save it,” Middleton said with a halting gesture. “I’m not interested in recrimination; your stated reason for compromising my hyper dish checks out…so far. Based on that, and your assistance in helping identify the second portion of the coded message, I’m willing to consider the possibility that you’re telling the truth.”

  Fei Long nodded. “You are a pragmatic man, Captain; I respect that—”

  “Again,” the captain interrupted levelly, “save it. I’ve got little time and even less patience for flowery wordplay with someone who, from what I can tell, is the single greatest visible threat to my ship’s security. Answer one question honestly and I won’t throw you out an airlock.”

  The young man gestured invitingly with his left hand. “I cannot lie to you, Captain; ask me your question.”

  Middleton leaned forward and pointed the data slate in his hands at the young man. “Are you aware of any other breaches in my ship’s security?”

  The corner of Fei Long’s mouth turned up in a half-smirk. “An interesting choice of words, Captain,” he mused as he stroked his barely-existent chin stubble. “The short answer to your question is ‘yes,’ while the slightly longer answer is to add that I am even responsible for one of these two breaches. I would never have been able to build the strange particle imager without the micro-Locsium crystal fragments you recovered from the gas mine, so it became necessary to retrieve one such fragment from the armory. That is the first of the two breaches in your security of which I am aware.”

  Middleton had suspected that Fei Long’s mischief extended beyond peeping on his fellow crewmates, but even he was surprised that the young man had managed to penetrate the armory without being discovered. The security protocols surrounding the armory were every bit as tight as those in Engineering or the bridge.

  “And the other breach?” the Captain asked unflinchingly.

  Fei Long leaned forward and made an extravagant show of bringing his right arm forward across his knees, which seemed an odd gesture to Middleton. “Someone has uploaded a virus into your secondary computer system which is periodically downloading sensitive information from your primaries,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Someone?” Middleton cocked an eyebrow accusingly.

  Fei Long shook his head. “I assure you it was not I, Captain. The perpetrator – or perpetrators – are…” he hesitated before sitting upright. “Do you have an ink pen?” he asked casually.

  “How do I know you’re not lying?” Middleton asked abruptly, ignoring the boy’s query. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t toss you in the box down there,” he jerked his thumb toward the maximum security cell, which was little more than a dark, three meter by three meter vault with atmo-cycling.

  Fei Long nodded quickly as he reached his thumb up into his mouth and checked the security camera positioned across from his cell – as well as the one inside his cell – before biting his thumb and causing it to bleed. “I believe you are an intelligent man, Captain,” he said as he carefully dabbed a few drops of blood onto the wrist of his other arm, “and that you therefore already know of what I am about to write.” He traced what appeared to be letters across the inside of his forearm, careful to keep it from the view of the cameras, before finishing and gesturing for Middleton to lean down a few inches.

  With the bars between them and Fei Long’s person having been thoroughly – and almost certainly, uncomfortably – searched following his arrest, Middleton knew there was no danger so he leaned forward and read the word scrawled quite clearly on the young man’s arm. He allowed his eyebrows to rise slightly in surprise, since the last thing he had expected was to have this particular topic broached during the interrogation.

  Having read the word, Captain Middleton leaned back in his chair. As he did so, Fei Long scrubbed the blood from his forearm using dab of saliva before rendering the word completely illegible. “If I have incorrectly identified your attackers,” Fei Long said with a respectful bow of his head, “then I will tell you that, before I was incarcerated unjustly—by my own countrymen, of course,” he added hastily, “since my current imprisonment aboard this ship is absolutely justified—a device was implanted within my skull which renders my verbal expression of a known falsehood quite fatal. This device may also be activated remotely, using a certain signal and frequency which I am more than happy to provide.”

  “There was no such device reported during your medical examination,” Middleton rejected, assuming this was some sort of diversionary tactic. Although, considering what Fei Long apparently knew of their current situation, it did seem rather less likely that he would be lying.

  “Your wife likely did not know how to look for it,” the young man said graciously. “It is organic in nature, and would show as little more than a small blood clot on routine scans.”

  Middleton leaned forward and shook his head. “You’re not exactly helping your case here, Mr. Fei. Even if I believed you have a kill pill implanted somewhere on your person, those are reserved for short-term use while transporting only the most dangerous criminals.” The Captain stood from his chair and looked down at the young man, a mixture of curiosity and trepidation warring for control of his thoughts. “I’m going to have Doctor Middleton – who is not my wife,” he said pointedly, “conduct a more thorough examination. If s
he doesn’t find a kill pill, I’m going to lock you in the max-sec box until we can take you back to your world – assuming, in the meantime, you don’t give me cause to have you executed in accordance with the military code.”

  Fei Long lowered himself to his knees and clasped his hands before himself in the same fashion Lu Bu and Kong Rong had done. “I eagerly await our third visit, Captain,” he said respectfully as he bowed his head.

  The Captain looked down at him in concealed puzzlement for a moment before turning and leaving the brig.

  Chapter XVI: Breaking Bread

  Lu Bu was still fuming about her being prevented from participating in the daily drills conducted by Sergeant Walter Joneson, but she had managed to rein in her temper enough that she could make her way down the corridor toward sickbay.

  It had been three days since her injury, and already her shoulder felt as good as it had prior to the injury. Her entire life had been spent in strenuous physical activity, so she had a multitude of minor aches here and there but such was to be expected of any worthwhile warrior.

  A pair of crewmembers—both women, and both nearly a head shorter than Lu Bu—passed by and she inclined her head respectfully after recognizing their insignia showed them to be petty officers assigned to Environmental. As a recruit, Lu Bu was lower in station than anyone else aboard the Pride of Prometheus, so she made her obeisance whenever she understood that protocol demanded. But she would only do so after confirming that the recipients were worthy of such a display.

  The women nodded curtly, but as they rounded the corner behind her she could hear them whispering to each other—whispering about her.

  Such had been commonplace on her home world, but she had thought that the people serving in the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet would have behaved differently. She had truly believed that the bigotry she had encountered in her young life had been the product of her world’s culture.