No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) (26 page)

It took a moment for what he was saying to sink in, but when it did she grudgingly accepted his hand. He helped her stand, and when she was again on her feet she looked at him warily as she realized what had just happened. “This…was test?”

He snorted loudly, wincing as he did so. “Only a fool would look at it like that,” he said reproachfully. “You just learned something about yourself; that’s what you should be taking away from this, not whether I approve or disapprove.”

She felt her brow furrow as she tried to understand what he meant. When she failed to do so, she said, “I do not understand.”

“I belittled you,” he explained, and his speech sounded somehow different, like it was deliberate and almost slurred, “and you controlled yourself. I rejected you, and you controlled yourself. I even dismissed you, and you still held back—even when I insulted you, you controlled yourself...briefly, anyway.”

“But this one attack Sergeant Joneson,” she said doubtfully, suppressing the urge to fall to her knees and make her obeisance.

“Yes, you did,” he agreed as he rubbed his jaw, “but only after
deciding
to. You wanted to make me pay for hurting you, and you wanted me to know it,” he added, and when he put it that way she thought she understood what he meant.

“Your insult was unforgivable,” she said sourly, thinking back to the way his words had hurt her.

“That’s for you to decide,” he said grimly, “but I can promise you’ll get that and worse when we see action. If you can exert control in here then you can do the same thing out there. If not, you’re a danger to everyone around you—including yourself.”

Lu Bu thought about his words for several moments before realizing that this had not been a test at all. This had been a tailor-made lesson for her, and it had been taught in such a way that she actually thought she understood it completely. Feeling humbled at her mentor’s wisdom, she fell to her knees and bowed her head, “This one has much to learn from Walter Joneson.”

“It’s a fine line between honest respect and boot-licking, Lu,” Joneson said in a hard tone, “but given our peculiar culture gap, I’m willing to assume it’s the former—this time.” She felt his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see him offering her his hand again. “Welcome to the Lancer Corps.”

This time when she took his hand, she had a newfound appreciation for the man and as she stood she knew she had experienced a rebirth of sorts. A cleansing wave of positive energy seemed to course through her veins, and it felt as though she was floating just above the deck plates—she was actually a Lancer!

“Now,” Joneson said, rubbing his jaw again, “let’s head over to sickbay to get patched up. You pack a wicked flying knee; I’m pretty sure my jaw’s broken in two places. Fifteen years of professional smashball with ten more as a soldier, and I’ve never been hit quite like that.”

“This one apologizes,” she gushed.

Joneson snorted as they made their way into the corridor. “Never apologize for who or what you are, Lancer,” he reprimanded. “You’re a warrior through and through, but like any good weapon you need to be properly stowed between deployments.”

She marveled at his magnanimity, and held her head high as she walked into sickbay behind him, having finally found her very own place in the universe.

“By the way,” he said as they sat on the waiting stools inside Sickbay, “that’s a good name you picked.  I changed my own right before draft day to honor the greatest player that ever wore the pads…but you might have done me one better.”  He gave her an approving nod, and Lu Bu felt a wave of exhilaration sweep through her like the cleansing rains of a monsoon.

Chapter XXIII: A Plan Comes Together

“Enter,” Middleton called after the chime at his door had sounded, and Ensign Jardine entered the ready room with a pair of data slates in hand. “Ensign, good,” the Captain said as he shifted his attention from his own console toward the junior officer, “what’s your status on deciphering the transmission?”

Jardine look anything but confident as he sat down, which put Middleton ill at ease. Jardine was the top Comm. Officer aboard the
Pride of Prometheus
, and there wasn’t another member of the crew whose credentials exceeded his own at decryption. “I’m sorry, Captain,” Jardine said as he slid one of the data slates across the desk, “I just can’t seem to crack it. The closer I think I get, the more complex the data patterns become.”

Middleton took up the proffered data slate and examined its contents, finding it to be a comprehensive analysis of their strange particle fields these past few jumps. “This contains the raw data, as well as your analyses of these past four transmissions?” he asked, keeping the frustration from his voice.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Both the strange particle fields and the transmissions embedded in our engine wake have been isolated and cleaned up to the best of my ability.”

Middleton thumbed the activator glyph on his console’s com-link, which had been preset to the Master at Arms’ channel. “Bring him in,” the captain said.

Nearly a minute later, Fei Long entered the ready room with the Master at Arms close behind. The Master at Arms’ left eye was covered with an adhesive bandage and the skin on the top of his head was exposed and clearly very badly burned. Captain Middleton had received Sergeant Joneson’s report, which had listed the Master at Arms as having sustained ‘superficial injuries,’ which Middleton supposed only spoke to the general difficulty of the boarding missions.

“Thank you, Master at Arms,” Middleton said with a gesture to the man’s damaged head. “I was unaware of your injuries being so significant.”

“Universe builds redundancy into everything, Captain; I’ve still got one good optical sensor,” the Master at Arms replied curtly, clearly still feeling his oats from the boarding action. “Besides, Doctor Middleton thinks she can save the eye; never been too partial to the bionics, personally.”

“Either way,” Middleton said, standing from his chair, “I’ve made a note requesting commendation for your actions; sounds like we would have lost more Lancers if you hadn’t been there.”

“Just doing my part, Captain,” the other man replied.

“Dismissed, Master at Arms,” Middleton said graciously, and the other man snapped a salute which the captain returned, before the other man left the room. He paused for a fraction of a second as Fei Long sat in a chair Middleton had set beside Jardine’s prior to the meeting, but then the Master at Arms left.

“Ensign Jardine,” Middleton began, gesturing toward Fei Long, “this is Fei Long. Fei Long, Ensign Jardine. Ensign Jardine’s our senior Comm. officer and head cryptologist, and he’s got a project he needs your assistance with.”

“I am happy to be of service, Captain,” Fei Long said with a tilt of his head.

Middleton nodded and turned to Jardine deliberately. “Fei Long is privy to certain intelligence regarding what we might be facing out here,” he said evenly, “and during your collaboration he’s going to share that information with you, Ensign.”

“Yes, Captain,” Jardine said, his face a professional mask but Middleton knew the other man was surprised by Fei Long possessing any information he might not.

“But I need to make something perfectly clear,” Middleton said gravely, “for the time being, no one outside of this room is to be included in examining—or even discussing—that intelligence. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Jardine said curtly.

“Then get to work,” Middleton said, eager to discover the identity of their hidden passenger—as well as the purpose of their carefully concealed transmissions.

“Captain,” Fei Long began after Jardine had stood from his chair, “if you will permit it, I would very much like to build upon the rather rudimentary system we utilized to deceive the pirate vessels.”

Middleton shook his head. “The project with Jardine takes precedence over everything else,” he said. “When it’s finished, I’ll be happy to consider your proposal.”

“Yes,” Fei Long said patiently, “but given the nature of our assignment, it will be necessary to utilize the ship’s primary computer network, yes?”

Middleton looked at Jardine, who nodded affirmatively. “Yes, it will,” the Captain conceded.

“And since I am clearly not yet trustworthy—a status I find oddly comforting, to tell the truth,” Fei Long added quickly, “I must then work under Ensign Jardine’s direct supervision, correct?”

“That is correct, Fei Long,” Middleton said, keeping his growing irritation out of sight.

“Then, even assuming Ensign Jardine operates for sixteen out of each twenty four hours,” Fei Long said calmly, “I will have eight hours which I may devote toward other efforts.”

Jardine cocked an eyebrow, “You don’t plan on sleeping?”

Fei Long chuckled softly as he turned to the Ensign. “I have not slept in the two years since my untimely incarceration, Ensign Jardine. I find my faculties marginally diminished as a result, but I also find it quite liberating and am uncertain if I miss the act of sleep very much, if at all.”

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.”