Up The Middle (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride Book 2) Read online

  Quintus was slow to get up from the smaller man, and Lu Bu was about to rebuke the larger man for abusing Cassius when Quintus extended a hand to the smaller man.

  But, inexplicably to Lu Bu, Cassius batted the hand away even while he struggled to breathe. Up close she could see just how badly his face had been abused over the previous days of trials. She knelt beside him and said, “Can you breathe?” She did not know the words in Tracto-an, so she used Confederation Standard instead.

  Cassius looked up at her between labored, but decidedly calm, attempts to regain his breath. It was clear to her that he did not understand her words, and she growled before looking around for a translator. She quickly saw Atticus, who was looking smugly at her while slapping Quintus on the shoulder in a congratulatory fashion.

  “Translate,” she snapped.

  He shook his head. “The strong survive,” he said matter-of-factly, “the weak perish. Leave him. If he is strong, he will return in the morning.”

  She stood to her feet and felt her blood begin to boil. “He did what you command,” she spat, “and you turn your back?!”

  Atticus took a threatening step toward her. “I have command of this recruiting mission,” he said in a dire tone. “Do you challenge my authority?”

  Lu Bu suddenly suspected that the entire scene had been designed to provoke precisely this reaction from her. She took another step toward him and growled, “You have no heart.”

  “And you have no brain!” he retorted, matching her step with one of his own. They were now standing well within striking distance, and he raised his voice as he said, “You are a runt from a broken line, assembled from the broken fantasies of humankind. We,” he swung his arms wide, “are the chosen of Men, fired and forged here, on the world of Tracto!”

  A short chorus of assent erupted from the nearby Tracto-ans—both from those who had already gained inclusion to Atticus’ Lancer team and those who awaited their own opportunity to do so.

  Atticus looked down at her, and Lu Bu could feel tears in her eyes at his hateful words. He had just defiled the memory of her forebears, and she could not allow that insult to go unanswered. Before he could open his mouth to spew more venomous, fascist, filth, Lu Bu snapped a sharp leg kick into his near shin.

  But he was ready for the attack and he checked the kick expertly by turning his knee toward the attack—a technique he could have only learned since arriving on the Pride of Prometheus—before uncorking a sharp, overhand right aimed squarely at her jaw.

  Lu Bu ducked her entire body just beneath the powerful strike and drove her shoulders into his hips. A round of cheers broke out from all around the camp, but Lu Bu could not have cared less for having satisfied their apparent bloodthirst. She aimed to put Atticus in his place once and for all, and while he sprawled his legs out behind himself to counter her attempted takedown, she had the advantage of positional leverage and continued to drive forward while grasping his thighs in either hand.

  The two struggled in the position for twenty three steps, with neither managing to gain the upper hand as Lu Bu drove him fifteen meters from the point where they had first grappled. But then his foot caught on a small ledge of stone, and the impact brought his left knee too close to her chest. Without thinking, she gripped the leg in her hand and shifted her momentum to drive through the larger man’s hips.

  She drove him into the ground with bone-cracking force, and only after she had begun to scramble for position atop him did she realize she had driven him into one of the many stony outcroppings dotting the landscape. But she didn’t care; this was not a battle of honor, or a sporting affair of any kind. She meant to teach Atticus a lesson, much as Walter Joneson had taught her a similar lesson back on the Pride of Prometheus prior to admitting her into the Lancer contingent.

  As Atticus flattened his body against the ground in the scramble, Lu Bu knew that she had one chance, and one chance only, to put him away. If the longer, undoubtedly stronger, man got on top of her then there would be little she could do to prevent whatever damage he wished to inflict. She spun around his back until she had a clear path to his head, and she drove her knee into his temple with every Newton of force she could generate.

  Her knee met his skull and, for a brief moment, she thought she had rendered him unconscious—much as she had done during an earlier training session gone awry—but the other man kept his wits and managed to clasp his hands around her leg. She tried to sprawl out of it, but he was simply too long and her best posture did little but slow his inevitable reversal of their position as he slammed her—face-first—into the same stone ledge she had driven him into a moment earlier.

  She heard him growl before the left side of her body exploded in pain, after which her vision went white, then red, then blue, then yellow, then red again before she finally regained her sense of sight.

  Not long after she had re-gained her sight, the world went black and she briefly wondered why she had slept in so late. What punishment will I receive from Sergeant Gnuko for tardiness? she wondered in her concussed stupor.

  Then she heard raised voices and shook her head to clear the confused, random images which flashed through her mind. She was vaguely aware of some pain on the right side of her face, but aside from that sensation the world was surprisingly sterile to her slowly-awakening mind.

  She looked dumbly up and saw a huge, towering man standing with his back to her and she instinctively grasped his legs as she gathered her own beneath her. The shouting continued for several seconds until it turned to mocking, derisive laughter, and only after she had climbed halfway up the figure’s legs in a weak, pitiful attempt to drag him to the ground, did she realize the laughter was directed at her.

  She looked up and saw the face of the man whose back she had nearly taken, and was immediately shaken from her addled haze. He had a heavily-scarred head, with what little hair remained atop it being more white than grey. He had only one eye remaining in his scarred, savage features, which looked as though they had endured an attack from a very large cat in the distant past. She followed the man’s gaze and saw that Atticus—whose face was bleeding profusely—was making threatening gestures while his cohorts snickered at Lu Bu.

  The two exchanged words she could not understand, but eventually Atticus spat on the ground in her direction—or, perhaps, the one-eyed man’s—and turned his back on the two as he made to rejoin his group.

  The world began to spin far too quickly after Lu Bu released her grip on the large man’s torso, and she would have fallen to the ground had it not been for his steadying hand on her upper arm.

  “Steady, girl,” he said in Tracto-an accented, Confederation Standard. His voice was deep and grating, seeming to Lu Bu like as she imagined a mountain conversing with thunder might sound, “Back to your camp.”

  She fought off his hand and said defiantly, “I walk alone.”

  He released his hold on her arm and made a grunt of acknowledgment as the two of them made their way back to the examination tent. Along the way, she stooped and helped the shallow-breathing, but still conscious, Cassius to his feet and slung one of his arms across her shoulders. The large man, however, did not do likewise.

  “What you say to him?” she slurred, the pain in the side of her face seemingly increasing with each heartbeat.

  “I said,” he replied in his deep, rumbling voice, using surprisingly clear Confederation Standard, “there is only one man born of this world who can beat me…and he is not him.”

  When they arrived at the tent, she turned to face him and examined his features while the nurse made a yelp of alarm and ran to the tent’s entrance. “Your name?” she asked, appraising the three lines of scar tissue which appeared to have been caused by the same wound which had cost him his sight.

  “Kratos,” he replied with a short nod. “I…come to serve,” he added awkwardly, and Lu Bu felt Cassius tense at her side but he said nothing.

  She turned to Cassius and said, “We dress your wounds. T
hen we talk,” she said, feeling a flare of pain from her side before darkness overcame her.

  Chapter VIII: Two Weeks…

  “Let’s hear it, Mikey,” Middleton said as soon as the door to his ready room had closed behind the apparently agitated Engineer.

  “Captain,” Garibaldi fumed, “I cannot get all of that gear stowed securely before we break out of here.”

  Middleton gestured to the seat opposite his own, hardening his visage when the Chief made as if to ignore the gesture, and Garibaldi reluctantly took his seat. “Are you saying that you know something about our departure timetable that I don’t?” he asked levelly.

  Garibaldi scoffed. “It’s plain as day that we’re only stickin’ around here for another two weeks—at most,” he added in a raised voice. “The yards have gotten through the biggest ships in the fleet and, with the Pride coming out of the dock this morning, the writing’s on the wall.”

  Tim Middleton took a slow breath as he fought to keep his jaw from clenching shut. Everyone aboard the Pride of Prometheus was on edge, what with the recent personnel transfers they’d received—a group which almost made the ship’s first group of ‘recruits’ look like model citizens—from the far flung ships of the fleet.

  “My point, Chief,” the Captain said evenly, “was that neither of us knows exactly what the Fleet’s disposition is. So we should just keep our heads down and work through the situation the best we can. Now,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall Garibaldi’s pending outburst, “what about the equipment we received from the Gambit yard crew?”

  Garibaldi’s face was beet-red, but almost as quickly as his ire had risen it subsided as he slouched in the chair. “Well…they didn’t short-shrift us there,” he grudged, “the four heavy load lifters are in nearl-new condition, and the six additional heavy work suits look as well-maintained as anything else we’ve got.” Middleton ignored the dig at the Pride’s venerable condition as his Chief Engineer continued, the other man’s mood seeming to lift as he did so, “In fact, those dozen portable micro-fusion generators might come in handier than I could have imagined. After we’re done working through all the external hull installations—assuming we actually do get finished with them,” he added with a deliberate roll of his eyes, “I can think of at least thirty applications for those generators which might help us compensate for this old girl’s…let’s say, ‘high-strung,’ power grid. Gotta hand it to you, Captain,” he added with a lopsided grin, “you pulled a fast one over them there.”

  Middleton shook his head. “Gambit’s got more resources than we can see,” he assured his Chief Engineer. “Just looking at some of the modifications made to the other ships in the fleet, it’s obvious they’ve got a little more manufacturing capacity than they’re letting on. I don’t think they’re going to miss what are, essentially, redundant pieces for an operation their size.”

  “Still,” Garibaldi quipped, “it’s nice to be the one doing the pilfering for a change.”

  “It came with a price,” Middleton reminded him, “and I appreciate you and your people working on short sleep to pay it.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” the Chief buffed his nails emphatically on his jumpsuit before a confused look crossed his face and he shrugged, “bah, whatever it was it made clear as a supernova that Engineers are the most important part of a ship.”

  “I won’t argue that point,” Middleton said with an eye-roll of his own, to which Garibaldi chuckled.

  “About those new transfers, Cap…” he said leadingly.

  Middleton’s mood soured. “I’m aware of the difficulties,” he said bitterly. “Fleet Command apparently thinks we’re the local rehabilitation vessel; not a single one of those transfers came without at least two actionable offenses in the last six months of active duty—and they’ve all spent significant time in the brig.”

  “How are we supposed to take that, Tim?” Garibaldi asked as he set his jaw. “I mean, we go out there and bust our asses in defense of the Spine just like the charter says we should, and when we come back we get ninety percent of the regulars—including all of the ones without criminal histories—transferred off the ship, only to be replaced with the rest of the Fleet’s castoffs? I’m guessing there’s a message here, but I’m not seeing it,” he said darkly.

  Middleton snorted derisively, having already asked himself the same question, and smirked as he repeated a silently-rehearsed line of bunk he had concocted earlier in the day, “We should take it as a compliment to our exemplary record for establishing and maintaining discipline among a disparate, undisciplined collection of people who, by all rights, should have never set foot on a starship in the first place.”

  Garibaldi threw his head back and laughed, slapping his mechanical leg emphatically. Apparently the gesture caused him significant pain because he cut off mid-laugh and began to shake his hand out as he said, “That’s why you’re the Captain. You know what to say.”

  A hollow smile spread across Middleton’s face. “Well…that’s one reason.”

  Garibaldi nodded and stood from the chair. “On a serious note: if we leave this system when I—and even you—think we’re going to, then you have to decide which of the salvaged gear you want left behind.”

  Middleton sighed. “What’s your recommendation, Chief?”

  Garibaldi shook his head doubtfully, “You’re gonna hate me for saying it…but I’d have to vote to ditch those broadside guns you were eyeing. Their short range, coupled with our already-shaky power grid, just doesn’t give much crunch for the cost. You want my opinion? We’re better off focusing on the shields and creating redundant power lines throughout the ship.”

  “I’ll give you the lasers and plasma cannons,” Middleton grudged, “but I’ll need those adaptive launch tubes no matter what.”

  Garibaldi shrugged before chewing on his cheek. “The power draw on those is minimal,” he allowed, “but, Tim, they don’t have any ammo for them here. Starfires went out of style before our grandparents were born; do you really think we’re going to find any more out there?”

  “I have no idea what we’re going to find,” Middleton replied evenly, “but whatever we do run into, I intend to be prepared to handle it—and possibly repurpose it. That means adaptive—“

  “—Launch tubes,” Garibaldi finished with a dismissive wave. “Yeah, yeah, yeah; I got it. We can cold weld those puppies onto the external mounts with just a few hours of prep…might even be able to have it done in forty eight hours if you’re callin’ them a priority.”

  “I am,” Middleton said with a firm nod, “I don’t want to leave the system without every single one in battle-ready condition.”

  Garibaldi grinned as he turned to leave the office, “I guess they fit the rest of this old girl’s style.”

  “Careful now,” Middleton said only half-jokingly, “she’s carried us through worse than I ever thought she would. I think she’s earned our respect.”

  Garibaldi clutched his chest in mock outrage, “Captain…nobody knows how to push her buttons like I do—and nobody does it as mu—“

  “That’ll be all, Chief,” Middleton said with a humorous shake of his head.

  “You got it, Cap,” Garibaldi replied before leaving the ready room.

  Middleton sighed and decided that, despite his reluctance to do so, it was time to pay a visit to the ship’s Chief Medical Officer.

  The Pride’s Captain entered Sickbay and was greeted by a confusing scene.

  There were several crewmembers on the far side of the room, and a similarly-sized group on the near side. Those nearest his position appeared to all be natives of Shèhuì Héxié, while those on the far side of the room appeared to be relatively recent transfers—the same group in regard to which Chief Garibaldi had recently bent Middleton’s ear. Both groups appeared to have suffered more or less superficial wounds, but the volume of injuries suggested a heated and somewhat protracted affair had been the cause.

  Sergeant Gnuko was
present, with a sonic pistol as a sidearm, in addition to several other Lancers who Middleton recognized. He approached his Lancer Sergeant and asked, “What was this all about?”

  “Sorry, Captain,” Gnuko said grimly, “I haven’t had time to file the report.”

  “I’ll take the short version now, Sergeant,” Middleton said as his gaze shifted from group to group, “you can write the report later.” He counted twenty three total ‘combatants,’ split almost exactly down the middle with eleven representatives from the Shèhuì Héxié population, and twelve newcomers who looked to have hailed from every corner of Sector 25.

  “Captain,” Gnuko acknowledged before gesturing to the newcomers, “this group apparently had some…disrespectful things to say regarding our ship’s record as it pertains to crew safety. While this group,” he gestured to the Asiatic members of the Pride’s crew, “took offense to their characterizations. Things sort of escalated from there.”

  Middleton nodded slowly; it wasn’t the first scuffle which had broken out aboard the ship during his tenure, but there was something about it that seemed slightly off.

  “In the interests of full disclosure,” Gnuko said sheepishly—at least, as sheepishly as a man of his stature could manage, “I may have become entangled in the affair in a…less than strictly official capacity, sir.”

  The Captain arched an eyebrow. “I’d expected more of you, Sergeant,” he rebuked coolly, and from the other man’s demeanor his words had taken their desired effect. “So,” he said under his breath, “which side did you throw in with?”

  Gnuko blinked disbelievingly. “I’d never get involved in a fair fight, Captain,” he protested in what seemed to be genuine, if muted, outrage, “it was eleven on eleven up until one of those three,” he waved toward a small subgroup, “brought a spanner into the mix after his group’s fortune took a turn for the worse.”

  “There are no ‘groups’ here, Sergeant,” Middleton said coldly, affixing the other man with a hard glare, “this is one ship, with one mission, and one crew—or have you forgotten that?”