Read Online No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) by Caleb Wachter - Free Book Online Page B

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