No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) (43 page)

“Alfred said your family was settled on Tracto,” she said in confusion.

He nodded. “That’s a long story, but the short version is I didn’t want my family—however estranged—traveling to a Rim colony for their fresh start without supervision, so I decided to accompany them and provide whatever assistance I was able when they arrived. I emptied my private pension, took out loans against every single asset I’ve accumulated, and turned it into things they could barter with if things took a turn for the worse. You know,” he added, keeping the bitterness from his voice, “module-sized atmospheric cleansers, medical supplies, portable condensation units, etc.. Let me tell you something: whoever’s manufacturing all of those ‘approved’ colony supplies is getting rich, because there doesn’t appear to be much difference between those units and the standard ones that cost a quarter as much.”

“So then…you’d taken a leave of absence?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, “I’d actually retired—the official term for it is a ‘T-672 Reduction,’ which for all intents and purposes is the first step in retirement from active-duty. I hadn’t decided what I was going to do, but I’d given serious thought to settling down somewhere out on the Rim. Maybe even on the same planet my family chose.”

“You?” she asked incredulously. “Retired?”

“I’d done my twenty,” he said, “and while the benefits weren’t as robust as the thirty and forty year marks, I realized that no matter how much I thought it was my life’s calling to serve like my father did, I could never have the life I wanted—no,” he corrected, “the life I
needed
, as long as I was hopping around on starships.”

“So what changed?” Jo asked with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.

Middleton had tried to come up with a way to say this last part, but nothing had sounded quite perfect, so he just decided to ad lib the best he could. “Not long after the Imperial withdrawal, a settlement ship was attacked by pirates,” he explained, “and as fate would have it, the ship I was assigned to, the
Lucky Clover
, was first on the scene. Without so much as a single, functioning weapon, Admiral Montagne,” he said before adding, “the ‘Little Admiral’—as even I was guilty of calling him on several occasions—charged headlong into the fray and beat the pirates back. It wasn’t until after the battle that I realized it was the same ship my soon-to-be-ex-wife and son were on.”

Jo exhaled softly after he finished. “Still,” she said after a pregnant pause, “you had to know the odds they would be on that particular ship.”

“On that day, 17.3%,” he agreed absently, having gone over the figures time and time again. “All colonists are routed to central hubs to await disembarkation at the Colonial Authority’s schedule. So without the ComStat network to check the outgoing manifests on a daily basis, I calculated there was a 17.3% that everything I held precious in the universe was not only in peril, but that I would play a part in protecting it—protecting
them
—without even knowing I had done so. Now, you know me, Jo,” he said seriously, “I’m not one of those blowhard, ‘the Saint will provide’ types, but after I learned that Katie and Thomas were on that ship…for the first time in twenty years I knelt down and prayed to whatever space gods might have been listening. I told them that I’d heard their message, and would work to repay their favor…no matter the cost.”

“See?” Jo said softly. “People can change, Tim. You would never have prayed to the space gods when we were married.”

“Oh, I had a few…choice words for them back then,” he grudged. “But we didn’t exactly leave things on cordial terms. Which brings me to a question of my own,” he said, hoping to lighten the mood, “why did you keep my name after all these years? And don’t tell me it was because of the paperwork.”

Jo shrugged indifferently. “Ever since I met you, all I wanted to be was ‘Mrs. Middleton’,” she explained as though it was nothing. “Even after we separated and the divorce was finalized, I found that hadn’t really changed. I—or rather, the girl I’d been—still wanted nothing more than to be Mrs. Middleton, and I wanted to do everything I could to protect that girl and what was left of her dreams for as long as I could. Plus, I knew that I’d never re-marry after you. For all your infuriating flaws, you set the bar pretty high…it just wouldn’t have been fair to the field to compete against even the echo of you.”

Middleton had absolutely not expected this type of a reply to his question, and from the look in her eye he knew she didn’t say these things lightly. He sat in stunned silence for several seconds until she leaned forward.

“But I do understand that it’s just an echo,” she said evenly, “and it’s entirely possible that what I thought I loved in you was nothing but a reflection of what I wanted you to be. But like a wise philosopher said, ‘Belief is more important than fact; without belief in them, facts cannot create change. But belief, even without supporting facts, can—and more often than probability suggests,
does
—create change.”

Middleton was again stunned into silence, this time at hearing his own words—written out in a philosophy paper during their freshman year of college—spoken back at him.

“I’m not here for you, Tim,” she said, her features taking on a hardened cast. “I need to be perfectly clear on that.”

Middleton stood from the table with his meal half-eaten, disappointed at hearing her utter those words but knowing they were to be expected. “I don’t care why you’re here, Doctor,” he said with genuine, heartfelt feeling. “But I am grateful beyond my ability to express at this time that you are. I find your counsel, support, and perspective to be sorely lacking aboard this ship. And that ship—as well as her crew—benefits every time you offer such counsel to its Captain. I hope I can continue to depend on your continued contributions.”

“You can,” she said with a curt nod. “But I’m going to need some larger quarters eventually—something with two separate beds, if possible.”

“I’ll have something arranged.” Middleton said before nodding his head officiously, knowing that whatever she had planned did not involve him. “Thank you, Doctor Middleton.”

She stood and collected her tray. “Captain,” she acknowledged, using his rank for the first time, which provoked an unexpected mix of feelings to roil around inside his chest.

After dropping off his tray, Captain Middleton made his way to the bridge. All things considered, the meeting had gone far better than he had feared, and far worse than he had hoped—which made it a fairly typical result in the interpersonal relationship department.

But he had secured the services of the best doctor he could hope for, and that was more than enough for him…for now, at the very least.

Chapter XXXVI: A Hub and a Surprise

“Point transfer complete,” the helmsman reported. “We’ve broken free of the inertial sump.”

“Scanning the system now, Captain,” the Sensors operator reported as the system’s tactical overlay began to populate with signals. After a few minutes, the operator reported, “No vessels detected, sir. This system appears clear.”

Middleton turned to the Comm. section. “Mr. Fei, begin your scans.”

“Yes, Captain,” Fei Long replied as he went through the same sequence of gestures he had done each of the two dozen jumps the Pride of Prometheus had made in search of an elusive ComStat hub. It had been two weeks since they had left Elysium, and Middleton was beginning to believe that their priorities might require readjustment—a belief clearly shared by Representative Kong Pao.

“Tactical,” he turned to Ensign Sarkozy, “keep your eyes peeled and coordinate with Sensors; let’s make sure there’s nothing lurking in that relatively hot asteroid belt. The radiation will probably prevent standard scans from getting a clear picture.”

“Yes, Captain,” she replied.

“Captain,” Fei Long said in his usual, patient voice, “I believe I have something.”

Middleton turned his chair quickly toward the Comm. station. “So soon? Confirm, Mr. Fei,” he said evenly.

“I have already done so, Captain,” the young man said. “There is unquestionably a ComStat hub nearby; it will require several hours’ time to determine its precise location and plot a subsequent point transfer, but we have indeed located a hub.”

Middleton leaned back in his chair. “Maintain Condition Two, XO,” he said to Commander Jersey. There was no reason to expect an imminent danger to the ship, but Captain Middleton had learned a long time before that a few hours of extra tension rarely served as a detriment to morale or operations efficiency. And with Commander Jersey’s stern, yet fair, hand at running readiness drills since becoming the XO, Middleton had been more than pleased to find performance improved across the board.

“Aye, Captain, maintaining Condition Two,” the older man replied gruffly before relaying his orders. A light blue light bar along the joints of the deck plates and bulkheads continued to flash gently, signaling that the ship was on heightened alert, but not expecting imminent danger.

“Ensign Jardine,” Middleton said, turning to his Comm. Officer, “assist Mr. Fei in whatever manner you can. And inform Sergeant Joneson that his people should expect deployment as soon as we can re-cycle our jump engines.”

“Aye, Captain,” Jardine replied.

Middleton felt a flare of anticipation as he reviewed the tactical reports from the Elysium SDF—as well as a handful of other intelligence sources recently provided by Representative Kong Pao—as he prepared for what he had a hunch would be a fairly predictable surprise when they reached the hub.

Much like maintaining Condition Two aboard the
Pride
, he had no reason to believe there would be trouble waiting for them when they arrived, but he also had come to expect the unexpected over the course of his tenure as Captain of this now well-oiled machine.

There was no way he would get caught with his britches down.

“Point transfer plotted; we’ll be ready to jump in twenty minutes, Captain,” reported the helmsman.

“Captain,” Sarkozy said snappily, “as far as we can tell we’re transferring into cold, extra-stellar space just outside of a relatively uncharted nebula; there’s no telling how far we’ll be from our target since there’s no catalogued gravity well nearby for our nav-computer to plot against. Recommend we take the ship to Condition One.”

“Agreed,” Middleton said, less-than-surprised to find the ambitious young Ensign making such a suggestion, “XO, set Condition One throughout the ship: battle stations, Commander Jersey.”

“Aye, Captain, setting Condition One,” the other man replied. A few seconds later, the pulsating blue bars on the floor had shifted their hue and were now a deeper shade of blue. Those lights were also joined by a similar bar of red lights flashing at the joint of the ceiling and bulkheads.

“Captain,” Fei Long said respectfully, “I believe we should prepare for the pull of a significant gravity well upon arrival.”

“Explain,” Middleton demanded, feeling a knot form in his throat.

“I cannot confirm,” Fei Long began hesitantly, “but certain readings in the ComStat hub’s baseline signal would seem to suggest the presence of a not-insignificant mass nearby.”

“There’s nothing on the scanners,” Sarkozy interjected, “and Confederation stellar cartography doesn’t show any stars or black holes in the nebula where your readings suggest the hub is located.”

“All the same,” Fei Long said, his voice taking a harder tone, “I believe we should compensate for a potentially powerful gravity well in near proximity to our target deep within the remnants of the ancient, nearly nonexistent, nebula. I have already made the appropriate adjustments to our impending point transfer’s navigation solution, but preparing the engines for an immediate overdrive may also prove beneficial.”

“Do it,” Middleton nodded to the Engineering petty officer on the bridge, who went to work relaying the Captain’s orders to his Chief over the com-link. “And this kind of information would be appropriate to bring up
before
we’re about to jump, Mr. Fei—and I do mean ‘something a bit more substantial than ten minutes before,’—do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Captain,” Fei Long assured him calmly, “but I did not detect the subtle variations until six minutes ago. I have multiple hypotheses regarding the nature of the suspected gravity event, but I believe that verbal speculation at this time would be counterproductive.”

“Very well,” Middleton grudged.

“Transfer in two minutes,” the helmsman called out somewhat needlessly, seeing as the information was clearly depicted on the main viewer. But Commander Jersey had implemented a strict set of bridge protocols governing all manner of situations, and while Middleton probably wouldn’t have been quite so strict or demanding, he understood that his former helmsman’s method produced the desired result.

The seconds ticked down until the helmsman called out, “Point transfer in five…four…three…two…one.”

The ship shuddered and lurched violently, and Middleton was suddenly grateful for the Condition One status which Sarkozy had suggested, as he was quite certain that at least half of the bridge crew would have been thrown from their seats.

“Report!” he bellowed.

“We’re caught in a massive gravity well, Captain,” the helmsman replied as he hauled himself up against the edge of his console before the grav-plates finally began to compensate for the extreme variance. “The inertial sump is over three hundred percent of maximum; attempting to shed it now. Shields are down to 62% and falling rapidly.”

“Three hundred percent?!” Jersey snapped as he staggered over to the helmsman’s station. “Re-check your readings, Helm—” he said irritably before the color drained from his face. “Murphy’s monkey,” he breathed, “we jumped next to a black hole.”

“Negative,” Sensors reported after the ship had regained its apparent orientation and the drag only felt like twice the normal gees, “I’m reading outgoing x-rays in all directions and only a subtle bending of inbound starlight. This is definitely
not
a black hole, Commander.”