No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) (51 page)

The
Pride of Prometheus
—in what a less-logical man might consider a conscious act of defiance against its would-be killers—fired a pair of its forward lasers at an incoming craft and saw that craft disintegrate by the second shot.

“Two fighters have entered immediate range,” Sarkozy reported as a second icon entered immediate tactical range, “we’ll get shots on five more of the blighters before it’s down to the Lancers.”

“Make ‘em count, Tactical,” Middleton said as the impact alarm went off. Middleton gritted his teeth as he saw that the first fighter had just touched down on the hull—directly over the main engines. “Inform Commander Jersey that his first guests have arrived, and relay their location.”

The last phase of the battle had just begun, and Middleton knew that at this point the outcome was largely out of his hands.

“You’re sure you can land this craft?” Gnuko asked hesitantly as the shuttle made its final approach. Flashes of weapons fire could be seen along the hull of the
Pride
toward the stern, and as they continued to bear down on the ship.

“I am,” Fei Long replied confidently, knowing that there was little chance he could fail to execute such a simple maneuver.

“I wasn’t asking you,” the Sergeant growled, turning to face Lu Bu.

“I believe…yes, Sergeant,” the young woman replied in a less-than-inspiring tone.

“All right,” Gnuko said bitterly, “you’re on the stick, Fei. These are combat conditions—“

“I am well aware of the conditions, Sergeant,” Fei Long interrupted as he reached over to transfer primary control from the pilot’s console to his own co-pilot’s station. He expertly manipulated the various settings on the dash as he adjusted their rotation and velocity to match the
Pride
’s.

“We’ll need to break for the Armory,” Gnuko said, turning back to Lu Bu, “we’ll get some ordnance and form a rapid response team to deal with whatever gets past Jersey and the others.”

“Understood, Sergeant,” she replied curtly as Fei Long saw her eyes flit over to watch as he made final preparations, including activating the emergency landing system. As he did so, the shuttle bay’s external doors opened and he saw the internal doors do likewise, leaving the shuttle bay exposed to the vacuum of space—and, more importantly, making it vulnerable to a droid insertion.

Fei Long brought the shuttle into the hangar and set it down deftly, making barely a sound as he felt a self-satisfied smile spread across his lips. “We have touched down,” he said as neutrally as he could manage after successfully completing such a delicate task—a task he had silently given himself a seventy percent chance of accomplishing, which was nearly double that of Lu Bu’s likelihood of doing the same.

“Move out, Lancers,” Gnuko barked as the pressure doors began to close.

“Commander Jersey reports they’ve cleared the first wave of droids from the dorsal hull, Captain,” Jardine reported. “The first fighter has been secured and removed from the hull using grenades and shaped charges, but two more have touched down on the ventral facing.”

“Status of Corpor—make that, Sergeant Gnuko’s team?” Middleton demanded as he read the Commander’s report, which showed he had already lost two Lancers to enemy fire.

“I show they’ve just checked into the Armory, Captain; Mr. Fei is no longer with them,” the Comm. Officer replied. Just then he received an incoming message from Fei Long, stating he was making preparations to implement one of the countermeasures he and Middleton had developed in recent weeks. It wouldn’t do much more than redirect the droids temporarily, but it was worth a shot, so he signaled his approval to Mr. Fei via the link before returning his attention to the bridge.

“Massive decompression near the gun deck, Captain,” the Damage Control stander reported.

“The Gunnery Chief is reporting droids have infiltrated Battery Two,” Jardine reported.

“Tell Sergeant Gnuko and his team to double-time it to the gun deck,” Middleton growled, only fractionally grateful that the droids had gone for the
Pride
’s heavy weaponry rather than something more critical at this juncture—like Engineering or Environmental.

“All right, listen up,” Sergeant Gnuko barked over his three-man-unit’s channel as the team hustled down the corridor in their full, Storm Drake armor, “we’ve got droids infiltrating the gun deck and our crew needs a hand. Lu, you’re on point; Peleus and I will cover you while you set up. We move in five meter intervals until we’ve engaged.”

The doors in front of them, marked ‘Battery Three,’ were closed and after a few seconds Sergeant Gnuko entered his access code and they slid open to reveal a relatively one-sided firefight within.

Lu Bu surged through the breach and kept her blaster rifle trained as she made it the designated five meters. Just as she knelt for cover, she saw a roughly humanoid shape enter her field of fire, and without thinking she snapped off a shot where a human’s head would have been.

The blaster bolt struck home and the mechanical creature staggered sideways before turning to level its arms in her direction. Both arms appeared to end in weapon apparatuses of some kind, and those weapons flared before she felt a pair of impacts on her torso which knocked her into the wall.

Without even looking down to assess the damage to her suit, Lu Bu regained sight of her target and snapped off a pair of shots by way of reply. The first went wide, but the second shot struck the creature in the side of its torso, sending a spray of greenish fluid into the air near where it was standing.

Sergeant Gnuko leapfrogged her position on the other side of the short corridor before assuming a similar posture to hers and firing his own weapon across the room at a target which Lu Bu could not yet see.

Peleus quickly followed, and took up a position directly opposite Gnuko’s as he added his own fire onto Lu Bu’s target. She took another shot at the droid after Peleus had cleared her field of fire and saw the thing explode in a shower of metallic fragments.

After the droid was destroyed, Lu Bu moved past Gnuko and Peleus, making for a nearby console to use as cover as another pair of droids came into view, one of which Sergeant Gnuko hammered with a pair of shots from his blaster rifle.

A nearby crewman wearing Engineering patches—a Tracto-an, from the size and look of him—came into view with a large drill of some kind in hand, which he rammed into the second droid’s back. The drill quickly penetrated the mechanical creature’s midsection, and the two foot long bit drove completely through the droid’s body and erupted through the creature’s ‘chest.’ But the droid fought on, and tried to spin its torso bring its weapons to bear on the large, light-haired Tracto-an.

The Tracto-an, using sheer, brute strength managed to keep a grip on the drill as the droid’s mechanically-driven movements threw his powerful body around like he was a child.

Lu Bu knew her crewmate couldn’t maintain a grip on the weapon for long, so she took a risk and snapped off a shot at the droid’s legs. The round struck home and the droid’s leg blew apart in a shower of fluid and metallic fragments, some of which struck the Tracto-an. But the large man took advantage of the opportunity and shoved the droid to the ground. After the droid crashed into the deck, Lu Bu snapped off another shot at its torso. She saw her squad-mates do likewise, and their combined fire caused the mechanical to go limp after a brief, violent seizure which saw it flail in an uncoordinated fashion for a few seconds.

The Tracto-an—who Lu Bu now realized was fairly old for his kind, having seen at least forty years—nodded his thanks as he recovered the drill from the droid’s ‘corpse.’ “This was the last of them on the gun deck,” he said as he reached up to wipe the fluid from his face, which had clearly been burned by the stuff, and Lu Bu only now realized the man had a mechanical prosthetic hand. “We will clean up here.”

“Larry that,” Gnuko replied, and Lu Bu nodded curtly to the man as her Sergeant asked for status updates.

“You know,” the Tracto-an said as he approached with the drill gripped in his prosthetic hand, “I could not have made that armor without help.”

Lu Bu’s mouth went briefly agape before she bowed her head in deference. “You are truly a master of your craft,” she said graciously. “I have never seen this armor’s equal.”

“Nor I,” he said matter-of-factly. “But mine was merely the hand that shaped it; I cannot claim to have authored its design,” he said with a pointed look at her name patch. “Such a fine gift should not be taken lightly—and make no mistake, that armor
was
a gift. In my world, such a token constitutes a…significant gesture.”

This caused her to narrow her eyes as she nodded respectfully. “I would be honored to receive your wisdom, Master Smith.”

“I wouldn’t claim to know how another should act,” the other man said with a shrug as he checked his makeshift weapon’s integrity. “But a life of shaping metal into weapons and armor, while other men carried them into battle, has taught me one lesson worth sharing—”

Before she could ask after the smith’s lesson, Gnuko called out, “Lu, we make for the hyper dish on the double.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” she replied before nodding respectfully to the smith and exiting the gun deck.

Fei Long’s fingers flew over his data slate as Chief Garibaldi made the final physical adjustments to the same makeshift transmitter they had installed on the day which Fei Long had first gained ‘freedom’ from the brig.

The Chief was sweating profusely as he continued his work inside the Jeffries’ Tube. “This is just typical,” he groused tremulously, “everyone assumes that because I’m a Belter I’d be right at home in cramped spaces. It’s a physical condition!” he snapped to no one in particular, judging from his tone and continued work. “I can’t help it if me and tight spaces don’t mix, ok?!”

“We each possess a unique collage of failings, Chief,” Fei Long said evenly as he ran some last-second checks to his calculations. “I find yours to be refreshingly obvious.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?!” Garibaldi snapped as he glanced irritably at the younger man while re-connecting the primary power source to the transmitter.

“I assure you I meant no disrespect,” Fei Long said as he finished his calculations, “but in my experience, most people attempt to hide who they truly are—not only from others, but from themselves. A person who is unafraid to admit their weaknesses to others will find themselves capable of counteracting the limitations those weaknesses create. A person who is unafraid to admit their weaknesses to
themselves
, however, is capable of turning those weaknesses into strengths.”

“You’re an awfully chatty little guy, aren’t ya?” Garibaldi asked sarcastically, but Fei Long knew he had correctly navigated the Chief Engineer’s volatile temper.

“It is a weakness of mine,” Fei Long said simply while a lopsided grin played over his features, causing the Chief to chuckle harshly.

“Too smart for your own good, too,” Garibaldi quipped. “The transmitter’s connected; we’re ready for this little surprise of yours.”

“Thank you, Chief,” Fei Long said as he activated his com-link, “Captain Middleton, I am ready.”

“Good work, Mr. Fei,” Middleton said. “Let’s hope this works.”

“I have no reason to doubt that it will, Captain,” Fei Long replied.

The ship shuddered from an explosion which saw it tilt off its axis for several seconds and cause the grav-plates to fluctuate before resuming standard operation.

“We’ve lost contact with Commander Jersey’s squad out on the hull, Captain,” Jardine reported. “At last report they were setting charges on fighter number four while Atticus’ squad dealt with fighter number five. The gun deck is secure, and Engineering managed to neutralize twelve droids with an ionic burst before taking them apart with plasma torches. Twenty six casualties reported thus far, Captain, including eight Lancers out on the hull.”

“Captain,” the Damage Control stander cut in, “that explosion was from fighter four’s location.”

Middleton closed his eyes briefly, knowing that in all likelihood his XO had just been killed in the blast. An explosion with enough power to knock the
Pride
off-course was certainly powerful enough to kill anyone in the immediate area—power armor or no power armor.

When he opened his eyes again, he knew he had only one play remaining to him. Middleton calmly switched on his com-link, “Mr. Fei, make your move.”

“Yes, Captain,” Fei Long replied just as Sergeant Gnuko had finished deploying Lu Bu and Peleus, who had taken up firing positions at the mouth of the only entrance to the blind corridor in which they now found themselves.

Using his data slate, he remotely accessed the primary power grid control system. Chief Garibaldi did likewise from a nearby console while preparing to shunt the power from Reactor One.

“I’m not sure this is going to work,” Garibaldi said as he finished his own task.

“Neither am I,” Fei Long admitted. “However, it might draw them to us, providing our shipmates a clear target.”

“Yeah,” Garibaldi quipped, “with
us
at the center of that target.”

He flipped the virtual switch via his data slate, and the transmitter thrummed as it physically vibrated from the paces through which it was now being put. The power grid showed signs of severe fluctuation, which Fei Long worked via his data slate’s virtual interface to keep from reaching a tipping point and forcing a shutdown of ship-wide power.

After a few seconds, he thought he had managed to create a relatively stable constellation of settings throughout the ship before saying tersely, “Some feedback would be appreciated, Sergeant.”

“It’s working,” Gnuko replied after a brief pause. “The droids have broken off and are now en route; ETA one minute.”