No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) Page 21

  The Ensign shot Middleton an incredulous look as the Captain considered Fei Long’s words. “Fine,” he said, “but you’ll still need direct supervision when interfacing with the ship’s systems—or even when throwing the power switch to test whatever it is you’re building.”

  “Of course, Captain; I will forward my project outline immediately,” Fei Long said graciously as he stood from the chair. “I believe it will ensure future successes of the type we have recently experienced, even against military targets.”

  “I look forward to your outline,” Middleton said. “Dismissed.”

  The two men left and Captain Middleton turned his attention to the matter at hand: stopping these pirates once and for all.

  “Before we get started, I want to recognize the efforts of our Lancers in neutralizing these pirates,” Middleton said after the last of his senior officers had arrived. He gestured toward Sergeant Joneson, “Thanks to their service, the two thousand remaining colonists aboard the settlement ship have been safely evacuated to the planet below, and the immediate threat to their safety has been contained.”

  Sergeant Joneson sat stiffly in his chair and nodded curtly, “We were just doing our part, Captain.”

  Middleton nodded approvingly before continuing, “Two hours ago, Captain Manning made for Elysium aboard one of the merchant conversions. He will return in six days with a repair crew so he can put the Elysium’s Wings to rights and bring it back to his home world’s SDF. In the meantime, he’s consented to allow us to use his ship against these pirates.”

  Garibaldi leaned forward and raised his hand, much as one might do in a classroom during primary school. Middleton gestured for the Chief to speak, and the engineer said, “Captain, that ship ain’t going nowhere. Although her primary fusion core miraculously survived a live shutdown—don’t ask me how Captain Manning managed to do that without making the thing go ‘kablooey’—even if we get the generator back up and running, and even if we get her engines up to maneuvering capability, her power grid won’t support anything resembling a combat load.”

  “That’s correct, Chief,” Middleton agreed. “Tactically speaking, the Elysium’s Wings is dead in space and likely in for more than just a few weeks at space-dock after she limps home.”

  “Then, forgive me for asking the obvious,” Garibaldi said in what Middleton took to be a less-snarky-than-usual tone, “but how exactly can we use it against the pirates?”

  “We turn it into bait,” Sarkozi chimed in as her eyes flashed with realization. “We rig it with modified transponders to make it look like something else—the settlement ship maybe?”

  “Close, Ensign, but I’ve got a slightly different idea,” he said with an approving nod. “The settlement ship will burn up in the planet’s atmosphere in a few hours, and the prisoners have verified they were in contact with their commanders before we entered the system. So we have to assume they already knew the settler was done for. But, if we switch transponders, we might just be able to trick them into getting close enough for us to spring the trap.” He activated a view screen near his chair, and it displayed a vessel’s technical specifications as he gestured to the images, “Our interrogations of the pirates we took prisoner indicate that an Incumbent-class Light Destroyer is scheduled to rendezvous with the Elysium’s Wings in two days’ time, to make contact with the mutinous crew and transfer whatever valuables they deemed worth salvaging.”

  Sarkozi shook her head as though in defeat. “Incumbents are the newest class of vessel to operate in this region,” she said evenly. “They’re fast, they’re versatile, and they’ve got the longest-range weaponry of anything outside of a Dreadnaught-class Battleship in the entire Spine.”

  “And all military warships use image recognition to verify vessel ID’s, Captain,” Jardine pointed out. “Civilians generally can’t afford those systems, which is partly why our sensor decoys worked so well against the conversions.”

  “Yeah,” Chief Garibaldi agreed, “and we don’t have the time or facilities to modify the hull of the conversion to make it look even remotely like the corvette.”

  Middleton nodded knowingly, having already addressed each of these issues. “If we can’t make the conversion look like a corvette, then we’ll just have to keep them from making visual contact with either vessel until we’ve made our move,” he explained as he pressed the control pad for the view screen, changing it to show the fifth planet of the system. “The fifth planet of this system is a type two ice dwarf. The characteristics within the outer edges of its atmospheric envelope are within the limits for the merchant conversion, the Wings’, and the Pride’s shield and gravity tolerances. We can hide just beneath the topmost, visually opaque, layer without endangering our vessels while the Incumbent class Destroyer approaches. They should be unable to make visual confirmation of either the conversion or the corvette’s identification until it’s too late.”

  “Begging the Captain’s pardon,” Jersey put in respectfully, “but if we’re just going to hide the other two ships within the planet’s atmo, why go to the trouble of re-rigging transponders and modifying energy output patterns to make them think the conversion is the Wings and vice versa?”

  “Because that destroyer’s too fast, too maneuverable, and her weaponry can outdo ours at extreme range if she knows what she’s up against. In a heads-up, one-on-one fight, she beats us four times out of five,” he explained seriously. He swept the room with his hard gaze before allowing a smile to crack his otherwise stony features before adding, “And I aim to tilt the odds our way.”

  Chapter XXIV: Springing the Trap

  “Incoming jump detected at the hyper limit, Captain,” the Sensors operator reported precisely on schedule.

  “Initiating handshake protocols,” Jardine reported. Fei Long was seated at a Comm. console beside him, with his hands clasped over his lap.

  “Remember,” Middleton said, “you’ll be speaking as the conversion, Jardine.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Jardine replied before placing a finger to his ear briefly. “Incoming transmission, Captain.”

  “Go ahead, Ensign,” he said with a gesture. If this worked, they just might take the Incumbent-class vessel at the outset. If not, there was nothing to stop the faster, longer-ranged vessel from sighting in their guns at extreme range and picking the Pride apart until there was nothing left—or until he tucked tail and fled, leaving the two thousand colonists at the tender mercy of these marauders.

  “This is Lieutenant Drummond,” Jardine said, using the name of the pirate Comm. officer. He had spent the previous hours studying the man’s file, and using a voice modifier heavily augmented by static interference, Middleton had been assured that the Ensign could passably impersonate the man. “The package is secure and awaiting extraction; we require immediate assistance.”

  “This is Captain Rodriguez,” a surprisingly familiar man’s nasal voice came over the speakers, “activate your visual pickup and transmit on the assigned frequencies.” Middleton had previously met the man during a major summit some years earlier. Rodriguez had been a Lieutenant in the MSP at the time, and Middleton had actually played a game of chess against him—a game which Rodriguez had lost rather spectacularly.

  “Negative, Captain,” Jardine replied, “our engines are disabled and we’re in a decaying orbit within the fifth planet’s atmosphere. Our Comm. unit is boosted to maximum to penetrate the local EM interference; it’s only a matter of time before we lose the ability to transmit entirely.”

  “The fifth planet?” Rodriguez demanded. “What in the Demon’s name are you doing there? Where’s Raubach?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Raubach was killed seizing the Elysium’s Wings, Captain,” Jardine replied, adjusting the gain on his transmitter so as to garble the signal. “He and the others managed to disable the ship’s weaponry before they were neutralized, and our Marines disabled her engines before they could make the hyper limit, but we lost contact with them after they entered th
e atmosphere. We can confirm that Captain Manning was in Marine custody before we lost contact with the Wings.”

  “Why in Murphy’s name did you follow them in?” the pirate captain asked with obvious irritation.

  “Sir,” Jardine replied, “our top priority was to seize the Wings. We attempted to send a shuttle over after they entered the atmosphere, but encountered unexpected pockets of unstable gas which damaged our engines and destroyed the shuttle, along with our engineers.”

  “Say again, Drummond,” Rodriguez demanded, “your signal’s breaking up.”

  Jardine continued to manually degrade his transmission as he replied, “Our engines are down; without replacement parts we can’t break free of the planet’s gravity on maneuvering thrusters alone. We need an engineering team to affect repairs—“ Ensign Jardine cut off mid-sentence as he tapped a glyph to cease transmission.

  “Good work, Ensign,” Middleton said. “Now we wait for them to take the bait.”

  Minutes began to tick by after the destroyer changed course to approach the planet Middleton had chosen for the trap, and the tension on the bridge was palpable as the crew ran through their final preparations.

  Eventually, the Liberator-class Destroyer under Captain Rodriguez’s command made high orbit of the planet, while continuously transmitting hails in an attempt to contact the fake Lieutenant Drummond. The real Lieutenant Drummond was currently locked away in the brig along with nearly two dozen other prisoners, who had thus far cooperated with the Master at Arms’ interrogations and supplied the necessary intelligence for Middleton to set this particular trap.

  “Give Captain Rodriguez a little encouragement, Ensign Jardine,” Middleton said after a few minutes, “but just enough to whet his appetite.”

  Jardine nodded before adjusting the settings of his console and speaking, “Repeat, we require an engineering team to affect repairs on the Elysium’s Wings’ engines in order to break free of the planet’s gravity. Watch for pockets of unstable ice on descent—“

  He cut the transmission and turned to face Captain Middleton, who nodded his approval.

  Lieutenant Commander Jersey approached the Captain’s chair and clasped his hands behind his back as he made to survey the bridge while speaking under his breath, “How do you know he’ll go for it, Captain? Taking our shot now might be the best play.”

  Middleton shook his head. “These pirates were on explicit orders to recover Captain Manning’s corvette,” he explained, “and I doubt their superiors—whoever they are—will look kindly on their failure to do so. Not only that, but I’ve met ‘Captain’ Rodriguez,” he added with a contemptuous snort, “and the man is prone to taking unnecessary risks with his primary assets if his goal appears to be in sight. He knows his destroyer’s engines won’t be affected by the planet’s atmosphere, so he’s unlikely to risk a dangerous shuttle trip when he can just descend through the atmosphere far enough to minimize the danger to his engineers in transit. My guess is he’ll come close enough for a good, close shave.”

  Middleton shook his head in wonderment as he remembered the chess game they had played some years earlier. Now, much like then, he was offering his opponent a free piece on the board while in actuality making designs on the other man’s queen—a gambit which had paid off and won the game for Middleton. He had little reason to suspect this situation would play out any differently.

  Jersey’s face was a mask of professionalism, but a note of his former gruff, sour attitude came through as he said, “You’re the Captain.”

  “Yes, I am,” Middleton replied as smoothly as he could while keeping his eyes fixed on the tactical display.

  “They are descending through the atmosphere, Captain,” the man at Sensors reported in his people’s distinct accent. He was one of the few prisoners they had recruited whose aptitudes and performance to date had earned his way onto the bridge, and Middleton found himself more comfortable than he had expected to be with his new crewmembers’ performance and ability to integrate into the Pride’s crew.

  “Thank you, Sensors,” Middleton replied, knowing it was only a matter of minutes before his trap would spring. With any luck, they could disable the other vessel’s engines and force a boarding action before the pirates broke free of the planet’s gravity. “Bring them in, Jardine,” he said, turning to the men at Comm. before adding, “and prepare to summon your sensor ghosts, Mr. Fei.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the men replied in unison.

  “We read you on sensors,” Jardine said as he continued to adjust his instrumentation in a seemingly random fashion.

  “We’ll deploy bucking cables,” Captain Rodriguez said over the comm., “hold tight and we’ll pull you out of there.”

  “Enemy vessel closing, Captain,” Sarkozi reported, “range is now two thousand kilometers…one thousand eight hundred…one thousand five hundred.”

  “Close enough for a shave yet, Captain?” Jersey asked from his position between Tactical and Helm.

  “Indeed, Commander,” Middleton said with an encouraging gesture, “I think it’s time we said ‘hello’. Mr. Fei,” he turned to the Comm. section, “activate the ghosts.”

  “Yes, Captain,” the young man replied as his fingers flew across his console for several seconds before the Tactical display on the main viewer showed a new signal which represented the Pride of Prometheus emerging from the planet’s far side.

  “Enemy vessel’s descent has stopped, Captain,” Sensors reported. “Range now six hundred kilometers and holding.”

  “Activate your hailing program, Ensign,” Middleton ordered.

  Ensign Jardine did as ordered, and a second later a recorded transmission came through over the same channel as they had used to communicate with the pirate destroyer, “Incumbent-class destroyer, this is Captain Jardine aboard the MSP Cruiser Pride of Prometheus. Heave to and prepare to be boarded by our inspection teams.”

  “This is Captain LeBron Rodriguez of the Sector Guard Destroyer, Cardinal’s Wrath,” Rodriguez responded in obvious surprise, “we do not recognize your authority to conduct an inspection of Sector Guard assets. We are here on the orders of Commodore Raubach to investigate reports of an attack in this area, and must assume you were the perpetrators of this act of barbarism.”

  Middleton suppressed a snicker, since Jardine’s recorded message had been the only one of its kind.

  “Enemy destroyer is coming about, Captain,” Sarkozi reported crisply before pausing briefly and then adding, “she has presented her stern to us.”

  “Instruct the gun deck they are cleared to engage,” Middleton ordered, feeling a surge of excitement as he did so. “Light her up!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sarkozi acknowledged, and less than a second later the forward batteries let loose as one and the tactical icon representing the Cardinal’s Wrath flashed yellow for several seconds before reverting to a shade of slightly-dimmer-than-before green. “Ten hits, Captain,” Sarkozi reported, although anything less would have been a complete shock. Six hundred kilometers was the equivalent of point-blank range in space combat, and the enemy vessel had obviously thought they had several minutes before the merchant conversion—disguised as the Pride of Prometheus—would come into firing range. “Enemy shields read twenty percent on the stern facing with moderate spotting.”

  “Full power to the engines, Helm,” Middleton ordered, “I want to keep these blighters in our sights as long as possible.”

  The enemy vessel’s acceleration was roughly twice that of the Pride of Prometheus, and it was maneuverable enough that it could roll to present fresh shield facings often enough to make this a close affair—unless the Pride managed to damage the pirate’s engines, in which case it would only be a matter of time before the larger, heavier-shielded MSP Cruiser wore the other ship down and forced a surrender.

  Middleton flipped on his chair’s com-link and switched to the broad-spectrum frequencies while also activating the video pickup. “Captain Rodriguez, this is Captain
Tim Middleton of the MSP Cruiser Prometheus Fire,” he lied, suggesting there were in fact two MSP cruisers in the system rather than just one. “You are ordered to lower your shields, power down your fusion cores and heave to while awaiting our inspection teams. Failure to comply will result in the immediate application of deadly force.”

  “Middleton?” Rodriguez said with a blank look on his fatter-than-Middleton-remembered-them features. He quickly regained his composure as a sneer spread over his features. “Blast you,” he growled.

  Middleton couldn’t keep a smirk from his features as he leaned forward in his chair. “It was ‘rook to queen’s bishop seven,’ right?” he goaded, reminding the other man of the move which had forced Rodriguez’s resignation years earlier.

  Rodriguez’s face turned bright red and his eyes widened furiously as he leveled a finger at Middleton. “You’ve had your shot, Middleton,” he spat, “now I’m going to have mine!” With that, he cut the transmission and the Pride of Prometheus was subsequently rocked by a series of impacts.

  “Multiple laser strikes on the forward shields,” Sarkozi reported, “forward shields at 78% and holding.”

  “Return fire at will,” Middleton ordered, turning to Jardine and Fei Long, “be prepared to immediately jam any Starfire missiles you detect.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Jardine replied, while Fei Long appeared to be distracted by something on his console as he failed to respond to Middleton’s order.

  The Pride was rocked again, and this time the grav-plating was briefly disrupted. Such a disruption may have been a disaster like the one which had previously sent a pair of bridge standers to sickbay, but Middleton had made sure every workstation on the bridge was now equipped with twelve-point harnesses, which only Commander Jersey and Captain Middleton had eschewed.

  “Plasma cannon impacts,” Sarkozi reported with a note of surprise in her voice, “forward shields at sixty two percent and holding.”