Deeper and Darker (Deep Dark Well Book 3)

by Doug Dandridge

  “We’ll finish cleaning up,” said Mandrake, who Pandora had already pegged as her flagship captain, Pandora taking the slot of Commodore.

  Pandi nodded, then walked off, heading for the nearest lift. Minutes later she was in one of the many med-labs for this section, stepping out of her armor, then taking off her clothing.

  There was a mirrored wall to her right, and she turned and looked at herself, a grimace on her face, trying not to scream at what she saw. Her fair, freckled skin was a mass of scars inflicted by the sadists of the Nation of Humanity. Her face was mostly untouched, with the exception of some burn scars on one cheek. But her body was hideous to her eyes, especially where her breasts used to be. At that spot was a mass of scar tissue covering her pectoral muscles. The muscles had been damaged as well, but on her orders her internal nanites had repaired the parts that she had needed to function. Pandora put her hands over her face and started to cry. I wish I could just take my ships to the homes of those fanatics and wipe them from the face of the Galaxy, she thought, a rage growing through her sorrow. But what would Watcher have to say about that? Genocide is what they call it. Do I really want to be such a monster?

  “I will make you good as new, Pandora Latham,” came the voice of the station computer. “All of your scars will be gone, and you will be beautiful again.”

  “What about the scars inside me?” she asked, shaking her head. “Don’t answer that. They’re my memories, and I want to keep them, no matter the nightmares.”

  Pandora walked over to the large box that was the regeneration tank and stepped in, lowering herself until she was lying prone within it. “I want a quantum entanglement upgrade,” she told the computer as the top began to close over the compartment.

  “Are you sure?” asked the computer in its calm voice. “Before, you were adamant about how you didn’t want that kind of connection.”

  “I might need your help in the future,” said Pandora, stifling a yawn as she started to relax. Nozzles came out of the side of the compartment and air sprayed things into the skin over her major veins and arteries, nanites and the substances they would need to rebuild her. “But I want to be able to block the link when I want to.”

  “Of course,” said the computer, as the lethargy began to come over the woman.

  Pandora fell into a deep, dreamless sleep while the regeneration tank went to work on her, making the repairs and improvements, and even adding a few that she didn’t specify. The computer meant her no harm, but felt an almost fatherly affection for the woman. And like all fathers, he wanted the best for her.

  * * *

  Watcher sat on the hard bed that served as his not too comfortable sleeping platform and shoveled the tasteless food into his mouth. He would have been very surprised if the men of this vessel ate the same bad food that he was served. He was sure it was another attempt to get at him psychologically, and was also sure the crew would mutiny if there were asked to subsist on such fare. But he ate to fuel his body, not for the pleasure it brought. In better times he might eat very good food for pleasure. In these times he ate to keep his strength up, and nothing more.

  Putting the food tray on the floor, Watcher lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. He used his link to connect to the ship’s computer, using a backdoor that he had discovered early in the voyage. They think they are so advanced, he thought, looking through the system and exploring the topics he was interested in. They look to be early Imperial, about the end of the first millennia, if not a couple of centuries later. And they have no idea what they are trying to conquer.

  Watcher avoided some of the systems as he looked, those having to do with ship’s operations and security. He figured that those areas were more heavily firewalled, and might not take too kindly to his snooping. He tagged their locations in his implant, knowing that later on he might have to risk penetration of them. But not just yet.

  And they don’t even know I have a working implant, he thought with a smile. Or that I’m able to penetrate this Faraday cage of a cell. The captors had of course subjected him to enough EMP to fry most implants, their own included. His were much more robust, and while they had sustained some damage, and his internal mechanical nanites had been destroyed, his bio-nanites had been able to rebuild the other microscopic robots, which had repaired his implants. And whenever they had subjected him to a scan he had made sure his implants did not show any activity, lest his captors subject him to a surgical procedure to remove them.

  Watcher looked over the history of the Empire, which also gave him a good idea of their tech base and probable order of battle. He almost wished that Pandora would not come for him, given the odds. He also knew that wild horses, as she was wont to say, wouldn’t keep her from following on his trail. But again, she would be facing the military power of an empire, and even with the ships at her disposal, it would be a daunting task.

  The problem wasn’t that her tech wasn’t much more advanced than that of the New Galactic Empire. Her skillful handling a million ton ship of late Imperial Tech would allow her to defeat a fifteen million ton battleship of early Imperial tech. But the lasers and missiles of that battleship could still hurt her ship if they hit her. It wasn’t quite like the difference between a Roman Legionnaire versus a main battle tank. Twenty of those battleships, unless they were commanded by complete idiots, would be able to destroy her. But he doubted they would be commanded by idiots. And the New Galactic Empire had several hundred of the battleships, as well as several thousand lesser vessels, the cruisers and destroyers that were deployed alongside the capital ships.

  Watcher continued to scan the information about the Empire, which was really more of a dictatorship than the original New Terran Empire. The Emperor had absolute power in his realm, life and death over all of his citizens. And from what he could see from the histories the man was a despot, the only ruler the Empire had ever known. How can that be, thought Watcher, looking at the timeline. Is he another immortal.

  But whatever he was, he was not a man he could expect mercy from. The Empire itself comprised almost two hundred inhabited planets, and it was involved in a war of conquest at this time, taking more real estate and subjects whenever they were found. That seemed to be a recurring theme with this government. They were militarily strong enough to take what they wanted, and they wanted it all. Which was bad news for the Galaxy at large.

  I wish I could contact Pandora, thought Watcher, but they had destroyed the quantum entangled portion of his implant with their intrusive EMP. And that part could not be repaired without placing another entanglement module in his brain, which had to come from the station, since it had to be made in the same incident process as the entanglement module that was emplaced in the station computer. So she was on her own as far as decision making was concerned.

  I need to tell her to not come after me in the few ships she can get crewed by Suryan personnel, he thought. She needs to forget about me and gather a true fleet, something that can knock these Fascist conquerors on their asses. But he knew she would be concerned about him, and would come quickly, no matter the odds.

  Watcher lay back and relaxed, composing himself for sleep, since there really was nothing else he could do at this time. Minutes after he slipped into slumber the sirens sounded in the cell, the interrogators continuing their psychological torture of their prisoner. Watcher sat up and stared ahead, then disconnected his brain and went back to sleep while his body sat and stared, letting the enemy believe they were affecting him in ways they were not.

  Chapter Two

  The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

  James Madison

  The station, or at least the part of the station that was being used, was crowded with sentient beings for the first time in over five thousand years. The wormhole had been installed in the home system of the Suryans, and tens of thousands of personnel now swarmed the walkways and corridors of one small section. The great majori
ty were undergoing training, as were the couple of thousand Maurids and Hustedeans who were being bootstrapped up to the modern age.

  Almost too many of them, thought Pandora, returning the bow of the kangaroo like Hustedean who was passing her in the corridor. She remembered her first sight of one of those particular aliens, on the Hernand, the ship that had traveled into the past and had been responsible for her going into the future, while the rest of her crew died a death of complete annihilation. These on the station were somewhat more mobile, and she had welcomed them aboard, even if the sight of them brought back bad memories.

  That had been one of her first decisions, after mandating that the Suryans would be running things. She did not want to establish a human hegemony over the other species. So she had ruled that as many alien races as possible should join in the mission, as well as humans from many different worlds. It was not hers or Watcher’s plans to create a human dominated Galaxy, based on one culture and religion. The Galaxy was to be as it had been, a polyglot people of many species, cultures and faiths.

  A Confederation was what she and Watcher had discussed for the Galaxy. Not really an Empire, in which all decisions were made by a central authority. Instead, the peoples of the Confederation would make their own local laws, congregate as they wished. Defense would be the business of the Confederation, as would oversight over what laws the members passed. The pair didn’t want Oligarchies, Theocracies and Dictatorships to spring up across the Galaxy. But otherwise, the free peoples would be able to pick their own religions and means of governing themselves.

  Pandora came out of the corridor and into the long gate room, in which three of the active gates were in use, one to the Suryan home world, two others to the worlds the Suryans and Nation of Humanity people had claimed for their own. Technicians were leaving the gate from the Suryan home world, while other technicians, and men and women who could be classified as missionaries, were going to those more primitive worlds, among others. Pandi smiled as she thought of the missionaries, with Marine guards of course, going to that medieval world she had visited, and telling the kings and dukes the new score.

  So many, she thought again, looking at the Suryan Marine guards that were securing this room, knowing that several other gate rooms were also so secured. The combat robots, of course, were also here, and the Suryans thought that they now had total control of the machines, which was one of her little tests of them. So far they had passed, and she was sure they didn’t know she could order a million robots to come to her aid if necessary. They may have guessed it, but they didn’t know. She had her own fail-safes built in to make sure the station wasn’t taken from her and Watcher, safeguards she had decided on after the Nation Marines had invaded the structure.

  “Niven is ready to go,” said newly promoted Captain Dasha Mandrake, the flag captain of the flagship of Pandora’s squadron.

  “How about Vengeance and Avenger?” asked the woman from the past, naming the two other vessels in the squadron. She thought the first name was best for her flag, the name of her Kuiper Belt miner that had been her home in the twenty-first century, before the paradox that was a ship from the future had destroyed it. The other two ships just suited her personality, and had been the names of two of the vessels she had used since coming to the four hundred and eightieth century. But sometimes I wonder about the luck of naming all my vessels after ships that fell to pieces around me. She shrugged while she looked at the woman who would be her right hand officer.

  “They should be ready in another eighteen hours, according to their captains,” said the woman who would also be the second in command of the flotilla. “They’re still trying to fill a couple of crew slots, especially since you insisted on some aliens for those spots.”

  “Yes,” said Pandora, thinking about what she had ordered. “I do. I don’t want this to be a human only venture.”

  “But we have the complement of robots,” said the Captain, shaking her head. “Enough combat robots to invade a small world, beside the maintenance bots.”

  “I want sentients aboard my ships,” said Pandora, shaking her head yet again. “Robots are fine, but I want the command and control functions controlled by sentients. And five thousand years is enough time for these sentients to be living in low tech squalor. They deserve a better future, and that future is now. That’s what I want, and that’s what Watcher wanted.”

  Pandora felt a little guilty invoking Watcher’s name for everything, but it worked to get the point across without argument. He had attained the status of a demigod to these people. While they revered her, they worshipped the space he occupied. And she knew he would have wanted this. God knew he had enough guilt as it was, without letting the peoples of the Galaxy die from things that high tech could prevent. And here I am, about to lead sentients beings into a crusade that might kill thousands, millions, maybe a lot more. And I justify it because it will be for the benefit of the Galaxy as a whole? But not to the poor slobs who have to do the dying.

  “The Admiral still thinks you should wait until we can get you a proper fleet,” said the Captain, looking levelly into Pandora’s eyes. “He believes, as do I, that we might find ourselves up against more than we can handle, depending on the size of this empire.”

  “And every moment I waste could bring Watcher closer to death,” said Pandora, her face reddening as the rage rose within her. “I am not going to waste a minute I don’t have to. Unless you and your people want to bail?”

  “I would not think of it,” said the young woman, her own voice rising in anger. “We are not cowards, to back out on our pledge. You insult us by even suggesting such.”

  Pandora stood there for a moment, closing her eyes and shaking her head, forcing calm back upon herself. She opened her eyes and smiled. “I am very sorry to have insinuated that you and your people might not be loyal. I feel so much stress right now, even more than I felt when those fanatics had their hands on me. I did not mean to attack you personally.”

  “Apology accepted,” said Mandrake, her own frown turning into a smile. “Now, the Admiral would like to talk to you at your earliest convenience.”

  “Of course. I guess I might find it convenient by sometime tomorrow,” said Pandora with a wink, and the other woman laughed. Pandi knew that the Suryans jumped to the beck and call of their superiors. But none of them were her superiors, in any way, mentally or physically.

  The Captain saluted and turned away, still smiling, and Pandora headed for the Admiral’s office off the concourse between gate rooms. The man had chosen an office that had belonged to a high level executive, five thousand years in the past. It probably would have suited the king of his nation, but Pandora thought it well deserved the military commander of the station.

  Pandi put her hand to the door and the portal lit up, letting her know that her signal had been received. The door slid open and revealed a good looking young Ensign manning a desk. The woman smiled at Pandora, whose appearance everyone in the Suryan contingent knew by heart. Pandi looked around the room for a moment, then back at the dark skinned young officer.

  The Suryan system, consisting of a quartet of terraformed moons around a gas giant, had originally been settled by people whose ancestors hailed from the subcontinent of India, before the exodus of humankind from the homeworld, before its destruction by aliens. Of course, in the old Empire there were no places that claimed one hundred percent pure race. But the distinctive look of the Indian people was still apparent in the Suryans.

  “The Admiral is expecting you, ma’am,” said the officer with a smile, her eyes unfocusing for a moment as she went into link. Pandora smiled back, remembering that they had wanted to pin some kind of label on her like High Admiral, or Archduchess, or some such nonsense, which she had resisted to the last argument.

  “Thank you,” said Pandi, heading for the door on the side of the opulent looking reception room. That door opened as she approached and she walked into the even more luxurious main office. The room was la
rge, of course, twenty by twenty meters, with a desk that seemed to swallow up its small occupant. Rugs of rich fabrics were on the floors, tapestries and paintings of rare artistry were on the walls, and every fixture was chased in gold or platinum, and set with jewels.

  “I’m so glad you could come, Ms. Latham,” said the Admiral, waving her toward a seat.

  “Always happy to oblige, Admiral,” said Pandi, plopping into the comfortable seat that seemed to enfold her body in a warm massage. She sighed in pleasure. “The ancestors sure were a hedonistic bunch.”

  “That they were,” said the Admiral with a laugh. His face instantly took on a serious mien. “I hear you are still determined to set off as soon as possible. Are you sure you don’t want to wait until we can put a fleet around you? We’ll have six more ships ready in a week, with crews at least as prepared as the ones you are taking. And six more the week after, including a couple of cruisers.”

  “I am afraid of what they might do to Watcher if I wait,” said the woman, running a hand through her red hair.

  “He might already be dead, Pandi,” said the Admiral, reaching across the desk and putting the palm of his hand on her forearm.

  “That he might. But I refuse to believe that until I know for sure. In my heart he is alive, and I am determined to find him before those bastards kill him.”

  The Admiral sat there for a moment, shaking his head. “I can see that nothing I can say will make a bit of difference. You are in charge. And the people going with you are all volunteers. I think it’s a foolish decision, but it is yours.”

  “I think it’s risky,” agreed Pandora with a nod. “But foolish? No more so than my taking on a herd of Nations people by my lonesome to rescue your ass from a crack.”