No Middle Ground Read online

  “Dismissed,” Middleton nodded curtly. “Send the Chief in, if you would.”

  “Larry that, sir,” Joneson said as he turned and left the ready room, the doors whooshing quietly to the side a moment before he reached them.

  Not long after he left, a short-statured, middle-aged, balding man came into the ready room and Middleton had to fight the urge to stand in the face of the red-faced—clearly less-than-happy—officer.

  “Chief Garibaldi,” Middleton said as evenly as he could, “have a seat.”

  “Have a seat?” the engineer repeated incredulously, waving a data slate before himself accusingly. “You’ve got some nerve, Captain!”

  “Chief—“ Middleton began, but the Chief continued over the top of him.

  “I told you when I took this posting that I would run my department my way,” Garibaldi continued angrily, “and that if you didn’t like it you had two choices: first, to deal with it quietly and without interference, or barring that, to understand that the first time I wasn’t allowed to run my operation the way I want that you could consider it my effective resignation.” He thrust the data slate down on Middleton’s table and pointed emphatically, “Well, this takes it from ‘effective’ to ‘official’!”

  “Chief,” Middleton began, and when it was clear that the engineer had little interest in listening to anything he said, Captain Middleton leapt to his feet and barked, “Chief!” With Garibaldi briefly silenced, the two stood in a silent test of wills for several seconds before Middleton, without breaking eye contact, gestured to the chair Joneson had just vacated. “Have a seat.”

  The Chief Engineer reluctantly did as he was told, and only after several tense seconds did Middleton do likewise. When he had resumed his own seat, the Captain took up the data slate the engineer had tossed on his table and scanned its contents.

  “Your resignation, effective immediately,” Middleton concluded after perusing its contents, which were much like the Chief himself: short, angry and bursting with vulgarities. He shook his head as he set the slate back down on the desk. “Your objections to my command are noted, Chief, but I can’t accept your resignation at this time.”

  Garibaldi, whose face had actually begun to drain away the angry, red coloration, instantly returned to its original hue. He jabbed a finger in Middleton’s direction, and his voice was low and dangerous, “We had an agreement, Captain.”

  “We did, and we do,” Middleton agreed, “but I can’t in any good conscience accept your resignation when you are quite literally the only person who can operate my engines, let alone coordinate repair or maintenance crews on anything resembling a military schedule.” It was ironic, since Garibaldi wasn’t actually a military serviceman himself, but his attention to detail and ‘by-the-book’ approach were welcome additions to Middleton’s green crew—well, they were welcome most of the time.

  “Engineering was hardly affected by that attack,” Garibaldi waved a dismissive hand angrily, “we’re still at eighty percent readiness after the virus. You can pick any one of my crew chiefs to replace me; Trufant, Jackson and Alexander are all good men and they know the design specs as well as I do.”

  “Yes, they’re all fine young engineers,” Middleton allowed, “but none of them has more than eighteen months logged of active duty deployment. You’re literally the only person in the entire department with over five years working aboard an active-duty starship; I can’t replace that kind of experience with a greenhorn, especially not when we’re operating with literally zero support structure out here.”

  Garibaldi looked like he was about to burst, and he made as if to rise from his chair but Middleton held him with a piercing stare that froze him mid-motion. “So you’re refusing to accept my resignation?” he demanded hotly.

  “For the time being, yes,” Middleton replied evenly. “You’re too valuable to ship operations, Chief,” he said, his voice softening slightly as he continued, “believe me, I know how much being deployed takes out of you and how badly you’d like to get back to your life. If I thought there was a way to replace you, I would have already done so—minus the confrontations.”

  Garibaldi’s eyes flared briefly before he too relaxed somewhat and sank back into his chair. He sighed in obvious frustration as he nodded, “Yeah…I believe you would have, Tim.”

  Middleton leaned forward and clasped his hands over the data slate. “We go way back, Mikey,” he said sympathetically, ignoring the lapse in protocol for an old friend. Several years earlier, Middleton had led a search-and-recovery mission which had rescued Garibaldi and a few members of his family from their wrecked mining vessel, following a pirate raid. “I, more than anyone else, understand that serving on a starship again is difficult for you…but I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t honestly need your help. I hope you can believe that.”

  Letting out another sigh, Garibaldi nodded and just like that, precisely as with so many times before, the matter seemed to have been forgotten as he produced another data slate. “Repair reports,” he said, activating the slate before handing it to the Captain, “that torpedo did a number on the inner hull integrity, but we’ve patched it up for now. Even forgetting my own personal preference,” he said pointedly, referring to his fastidious and detail-oriented approach to maintenance, “we really should set in at port for a few weeks so we can replace a few of the primary load-bearing members. If the grav-plating on decks three through eight forward go outside of normal operating tolerances—like, say, because we get shot at by someone who knows where to hurt us,” he added sarcastically, “we could cause catastrophic damage to the ship’s superstructure during high-speed maneuvers—which is to say nothing of more torpedoes or whatever the Hades else is waiting for us out here.”

  “Noted,” Middleton nodded, as usual finding himself thankful for Garibaldi’s meticulously written reports. “We’re going to need to find a place to pick up recruits, anyway,” he said as he perused the Chief’s log of repairs. He stopped when he came to a particularly troublesome section and re-read it. “Chief,” he began, knowing how volatile Garibaldi’s temper could be, “I really need the forward shields back up. Thirty percent isn’t going to do it.”

  Garibaldi shook his head adamantly. “There is simply no way, Captain; I’ve already stolen an emitter from each broadside, as well as one from the stern. Any more robbing Richard to pay Percy and we might as well abandon the entire notion of raising a defensive field around those sections. Thirty percent is the absolute best we can do without all-new emitters—not to mention the fact that most of those relays are already on bypass as it is. Those old Starfires hammered us, sir, but the real problem was the woefully under-designed power grid on these old Hydras. If I had my druthers,” he said with a sigh, “we’d replace the entire forward section with all-new relays and junctions.”

  “This is a Promethean flagged ship, Chief, so it’s designated a ‘Hammerhead’ class cruiser,” Middleton said with a lopsided grin, “not a Hydra.” Garibaldi, a Belter by birth, seemed to love nothing more than poking fun at Middleton’s home world, Capria, and its system of government—when he didn’t seem to want to kill the Captain, of course.

  “You say ‘tuh-may-toe’, I say ‘tuh-mah-toe’,” Garibaldi retorted dryly. “I can’t help it if you Caprians let the ‘save the planet’ freaks run amok and re-designate warships based on whether or not some MP’s daughter is hot and heavy into marine conservation. And what’s the big deal anyway? It’s not like these old things look even remotely like those majestic, criminally misunderstood, ocean-going engines of death and dismemberment.”

  Shaking his head in mock bewilderment, Garibaldi stood from the chair and collected his resignation letter before snapping something resembling a military salute. Middleton returned the salute and the Chief Engineer nodded curtly as he turned on his heel, causing Middleton to breathe a silent sigh of relief at having averted yet another crisis with his temperamental department head.

  “And Chief,” Middleton called o
ut before the Chief had reached the door, causing Garibaldi to stop and turn expectantly. “I understand your proclivity for keeping complete records,” the Captain began, “but it’s bad for morale if you keep shouting about making entries in your Murphy-blasted log every time we’re hip-deep in it.”

  The Chief set his jaw and fire seemed to smolder in his eyes as he looked ready to launch into yet another tirade, but Middleton held up a hand calmingly which, praise the Saint, gave Garibaldi pause.

  “I’m not saying you should stop making entries,” the Captain assured him, “I’m just saying that, for the time being, it might be best if you kept it to yourself. Every piece of information we compile on this mission is going to be valuable to the MSP—including records of objectionable behavior on the part of this ship’s commanding officer—and you’re easily the most detail-minded person aboard this ship. So I hope you’ll keep your records just as you’ve done…but it would be better if we weren’t seen by the rest of the crew to be constantly at each other’s throats.”

  The fire seemed to leave Garibaldi’s eyes by the time Middleton had finished, and he nodded stiffly before pointing the data slate at the Captain. “Because of what you did for me and my family,” he said pointedly, “I’ll…try to keep my big mouth shut. But I can’t promise—“

  Middleton held up his hands haltingly, glad for the victory—however small it might be. “I’m just asking you, as your Captain, to keep it in mind, Chief.”

  Garibaldi nodded curtly as he rolled his head around, working out some tension in his neck as he cast a wayward glance at the nearby bulkheads. It was a well-known ‘secret’ aboard the Pride of Prometheus that the Chief, despite being a Belter—and therefore having lived his entire life aboard spacecraft—was a claustrophobe. With his burning rage at Middleton no longer present to distract him, his old ticks started to show up. “Captain,” he said awkwardly as he gave a nervous glance toward the ceiling.

  “Chief,” Middleton replied evenly, “go ahead and send Sarkozi in next, please.”

  “You got it, Captain,” Garibaldi acknowledged before turning to leave the ready room. A few moments later, Ensign Sarkozi entered the room.

  Before the door had slid closed behind her, she braced to attention and snapped a salute.

  “At ease, Ensign,” Middleton said, causing the young woman to proffer a data slate. The Captain perused it and found that it contained the ship’s updated readiness reports, as well as an after-action account of the engagement with the pirates. He nodded appreciatively at the fine work she had done in compiling the data, but when he had nearly reached the end he paused and re-read the section regarding Captain Raubach’s surrender.

  Ensign Sarkozi clasped her hands behind her back and looked anxiously between Middleton and the data slate before he handed it back to her, clearly taking her by surprise. “Is there something unsatisfactory regarding my report?” she asked, sounding more than slightly anxious.

  “Ensign,” Middleton said, gesturing to the chair where Garibaldi had sat as he moved behind the desk to his own chair. After they were both seated, he clasped his hands and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I’m not going to beat around the bush here; prior to my firing on the second corvette, I made no mention whatsoever of suspecting a bioweapons facility being aboard the gas collection plant.”

  “Sir,” she said stiffly, standing to her feet abruptly and bracing to attention as though she had been struck. “That is not my recollection, Captain,” she said with a conviction that was betrayed by the nervousness in her eyes.

  “Ensign,” Middleton said coldly, standing slowly and placing his knuckles down on the top of the desk, “as a tactical officer, your primary concern is obtaining and relaying accurate information, is it not?”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” she replied, jutting her chin out and staring straight at the bulkhead behind the Captain before flitting a glance over at him. “I just thought—“

  “You thought?!” Middleton roared, slamming his fist into the desk hard enough to split the skin over his middle knuckle. “During operations, I value the input of my officers—including you,” he continued angrily, striking the desk with his palm, to spare his other knuckles, “and that requires the expression of your ‘thoughts,’ whatever they may be. But this ship’s after-action reports—no, all reports,” he corrected himself, jabbing the index finger of one hand down on the data slate while making an ‘O’ with his other hand, “will include zero thoughts, feelings, impressions or conjecture of any kind. Is that understood, Ensign Sarkozi?!”

  He picked up the data slate and thrust it toward her. After a moment’s pause, she accepted it before returning to attention. Middleton slowly walked around the desk and came to stand at her side, fairly looming over the smallish woman as he tried to project his disappointment—which, in truth, was not wholly unexpected. Sarkozi was an ambitious young officer with a strong sense of loyalty, and he had feared something like this would happen.

  “This report is factually inaccurate, Ensign; correct and return it immediately. Do I make myself clear?” he asked, his voice tight with anger—only half of which was embellished.

  “Yes, Captain,” she said before turning on her heel and stepping toward the door.

  “You have not yet been dismissed!” Middleton snapped, causing her to stop mid-step and re-brace to attention immediately. After a long moment of silence, the Captain continued in a calmer, yet still deadly serious tone, “I can’t tell if this was some brazen attempt by an ambitious officer to curry favor with her superior officer as a means of advancement, or a sorely misguided display of loyalty from one officer to another. Either way, I am deeply disappointed by this ‘report,’ Ensign Sarkozi.” He breathed a pair of deliberately loud blasts from him nostrils before icily adding, “Dismissed.”

  She stood mouth agape for several seconds before collecting her wits. “Sir,” she snapped a salute and held the pose before turning smartly and exiting the ready room.

  When she had left and the door closed behind her, Middleton released a pent-up sigh. “Blast,” he muttered under his breath, leaning against the desk briefly as he rubbed the back of his neck. He had fully intended to field promote her to Lieutenant and make her his Executive Officer during that meeting, owing to her obvious abilities and excellent service record these past weeks. But the falsified report—however well-intentioned—was a serious setback to the young woman’s career, to say nothing of Middleton’s attempt to craft a fully-functional command structure aboard the Pride of Prometheus.

  Vice Admiral Jason Montagne had given Captain Middleton fairly broad authority to go along with his equally broad mandate—if one could even call his ‘orders’ a mandate. He had told Middleton to patrol Sector 24 to the best of the Pride’s ability for a month in a ‘wave the flag’ operation, and he had encouraged Middleton to craft his command team according to his own preferences. That included the responsibility of handing out field promotions to those officers that had proven worthy, and those promotions would be respected and upheld by the MSP’s sole remaining Flag Officer, Admiral Montagne himself.

  But Tim Middleton knew that in order for a crew to function properly, it needed strong leadership and part of that leadership was setting a proper example. He simply could not excuse Sarkozi’s attempt to cover for him, forgetting about the fact that she was incriminating herself by falsifying a report of that nature.

  “Blast,” he repeated, his plans for establishing a coherent command structure aboard the ship having been dealt a major setback. But, firmly believing in the philosophy of ‘what’s done is done,’ he cleared his head and went back to his chair.

  Once seated, he activated the console built into the desk and punched up the comm. channel for sickbay. An irritably long interval later, the screen was filled with a familiar woman’s features.

  “Doctor,” Captain Middleton said evenly, “how are your patients?”

  The woman shook her head. “We’ve still got six in serious
condition who should survive but one more in critical who likely won’t survive the night,” she replied coolly. “I’m doing what I can for him but I’m afraid there’s just too much lung damage. I’d need a Crimson grade trauma facility to save him, and even then we’re talking total neurological stasis along with a complete cardiopulmonary bypass and replacement, which given his age is far from a certain path to recovery.”

  “What about the healing tanks?” Middleton pressed, knowing very little of how they actually worked but knowing they were capable of working what were to his mind out-and-out miracles.

  The woman shook her head. “The tanks would only address the pulmonary failure while ignoring the neurological decay, while cryo-stasis would halt both but the process is incompatible with resuscitation due to this virus’s peculiar qualities. If we freeze him, there’s no way to unfreeze him.”

  Middleton slumped slightly in his chair. He had desperately hoped that Jo, a civilian but currently the only licensed Medical Doctor aboard the Pride of Prometheus, would have been able to save Doctor Milton’s life. But it seemed that was not to be.

  “I’m sorry, Tim,” she said with more empathy in her voice than he could ever remember hearing from the woman who broke his heart weeks before their college graduation.

  Middleton bristled and unconsciously straightened himself at hearing her utter his first name. “Is he awake?”

  Jo shook her head. “No, he’s been out for nearly four hours. I seriously doubt he regains consciousness at this point.”

  “Then, as the Captain of this ship, I must formally request that you continue to care for the wounded, seeing as we no longer have a medical officer fit for active duty,” Middleton said officiously.

  She shook her head fractionally before saying, “You know how I feel about the military, Tim.”

  “I do indeed, Doctor,” he replied stiffly. It had, ostensibly, been her dislike of the military—and his choice to join it—which had led to their divorce mere weeks prior to his shipping out. “But I, and my crew, would be greatly appreciative if you would stay on and assist us until we can find a suitable replacement for Doctor Milton.”