To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well)

by Doug Dandridge

  “Fool,” said Gerasi, glaring at the man. “I dared to invade the station, and look at the benefits of technology that we reaped. And the Abomination is not on the station, but is on this very world. We have his woman, and he has come to rescue her. If we strike now we can own that station. So send your men, and keep a com link open with them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Commodore, saluting his superior. “The men will not like it.”

  “Whether they like it or not is not my concern,” growled the Admiral. “As long as they do their duty. And I am sure they will like it more when we reap the rewards of that station, and they are given a share. Gerasi out.

  “Get me Midas on the another link,” he said to the com tech, then waited a minute for the face of his old flag captain and task force commander to come on the screen. “Vilaris. I want you to take a task force of five ships and head for the Donut with all speed. You are to contact the marines from Task Force Tisher when you get there.”

  “You’ve gotten the code?” said the other officer, a smile breaking across his face.

  “Yes, we have, old friend,” said the Admiral, feeling his kinship with the other officer who saw advantage before risk. “And I want our ships there to complete the claim. Get under way as soon as possible.”

  “Will do, Admiral,” said the Commodore.

  The screen blanked and Gerasi walked back to his chair. He had set in motion that which he had wanted to do for the last couple of years. Now he would only have to wait. And maybe his men on the planet could capture the Abomination, and gain access to the store of information he contained.

  * * *

  Watcher sat up in his chair and stared into space as the computer alerted him to the opening of this planet’s pyramid. What have those primitives done? was his first thought. They won’t know how to handle that technology. Visions of a Galaxy at war, with the fanatical warriors of the Nation of Humanity destroying all opposition with technology thousands of years ahead of their enemies. Of human polities, ones which may have grown to lead the Galaxy in peaceful expansion and reconsolidation, going down in defeat with their cities destroyed, their worlds laid to waste. Of alien races hunted down, the last member destroyed, no longer contributing their distinctive cultures to the Galactic community.

  And then he thought of Pandora. One of the strongest people he had ever known. And the probable source of the code transmission they had just used to open the pyramid. And a cold chill ran up his spine as he thought of what must have been done to get that code out of her. Is she already dead? he thought, the image of her smiling face in the forefront of his mind. He thought that a distinct possibility, but not one he accepted at this time.

  I should go back to the pyramid, he thought, imagining the hordes of the enemy going through the wormhole and invading the Donut. He could change the codes, but not on remote. He would actually have to stand in one of the control chambers and access the station computer in person, where it could verify who he was and that he was not under duress. And since the computer couldn’t order the taking of life on its own, except when it was directly threatened, a sentient was needed to initiate the defenses that would repel the invaders.

  He should turn back, so that he could get to the station and accomplish what needed to be done to keep it from the hands of fanatical killers. That would be the smart play, the one an intelligent creature would make. For what was any one person in comparison to the Galaxy? He had been created to be the ultimate rational being.

  The image of the woman danced through his mind, and memories of their times together. Making love in one of the arboretums. His explaining how something worked that her science could not imagine. His laughing at one of her silly colloquialisms. Her laugh, her touch, her scent, all things that he treasured.

  I am in love with her, he thought, images of her bent and broken from torture running through his brain. I was created to be the ultimate rational creature, but I still have feelings. I still am a man, a human, with wants and needs. And Dammit, I want and need her. His mind made up, Watcher ordered his tanks forward. I’m cut off from the Donut by that portal. So I’ll just have to use another one.

  The river was not near as wide as the monster he had crossed earlier. He stopped his vehicles at the edge, ten meters in, while he scanned the river with pizzos and microsats. There was a pair of patrol boats out there, fast lean shapes with turreted guns and missile launchers to both sides of the cockpit. From their configuration he estimated a crew of five each. Two fighters were also in the sky overhead, as well as a troop carrier further up the waterway. He thought again of his woman in the clutches of the fanatics, and realized he didn’t have time for any tricks like the one that had gotten him across the huge river. Straightforward violence would have to do.

  He prioritized the targets and assigned them to the robotic brains of the tanks, waiting a moment to make sure the enemy was doing what he wanted, patrolling in a predictable pattern. “Attack,” he ordered, manning the command and control center, ready to change the orders in an instant to suit the situation.

  The tanks to his left and right both moved forward, their turrets traversing to acquire targets as they sped onto the surface of the river, floating on their grabbers. Their kinetic cannons spoke as one, sending one kilogram projectiles down the acceleration tubes and out on flat trajectories at twenty thousand meters per second. Both watercraft were within a kilometer of the tanks. The rounds struck faster than human minds could process, and both boats were obliterated in fiery explosions that sent debris out for kilometers in every direction. The men were dead before they even realized they had been fired upon, and the first threats were eliminated.

  The tank to the left also released a hyper-v missile that tracked in on the troop carrier twenty-two kilometers up the river. That vehicle might have had time to track the missile for the first two seconds of its flight. Unfortunately for the passengers and crew the first two seconds were the only two seconds, and aircraft, crew and ten marines fell in fiery ruins into the river.

  Watcher’s tank elevated the secondary barrel next the kinetic cannon, tracking on one of the aircraft flying high above. With a loud humming sound like a million angry insects a dark red beam seemed to instantaneously link the tank with the aircraft. It was not really instantaneous, the beam was only traveling at point zero one c, a mere thirty thousand kilometers per second. It still imparted enough kinetic and heat energy into the fighter to vaporize the center section of the craft. Wings, tail and a portion of the nose fell out of the explosion caused by vapor trying to expand outward, and the fighter was gone before it knew what was happening.

  The turret traversed again, barrel tracked, and a second beam blew another fighter out of the sky. The tanks accelerated across the river, and Watcher fired his last shot before being swallowed up by jungle again. All three tanks elevated their guns upward, and fired a kinetic round and a short burst of protons up into space, striking one of the enemy battleships and blasting holes in her hull. It was a pinprick, Watcher knew, but a satisfying one.

  And then the orange and red canopy was again overhead, his tanks forging back into the jungle. Several minutes passed before there was the response he expected. A bright flash appeared behind him, followed by a rumble through the ground and a hot wind that whipped through the foliage. Branches fell from the air, striking the tanks and bouncing away. A couple of trees toppled, one hitting the leftmost tank, which shrugged it off and plowed ahead.

  More flashes appeared ahead, and soon the jungle was a burning mass of vegetation. Watcher waited a moment, letting the smoke and debris provide cover, then started going again, stealth fields on full, sticking to areas that still had some cover, until he made his way up a slope and into untouched jungle again. That should give them something to think about, he thought, looking back at the devastated river valley on his microsat network. That view bothered him a bit, even though he hadn’t caused the destruction, he had been the reason for it. Pushing those feelings
down he switched the view to the damaged Nation battleship, a sextet of new holes in her bow, and smiled. He had shown that he could strike back, and the fear of the planet’s automated defense system still restricted their use of kinetics to the smaller variety, below a hundred kilotons. And they would have to target him much better to kill him with those.

  * * *

  “We’ve lost all contact with forces in Valley Alpha Ten,” called out one of the techs on the flag bridge.

  “Show me,” said Gerasi, getting up from his chair and heading for the tech’s station. Before he took three steps another voice called out.

  “Thresher reporters they are under attack.”

  “From where?’ asked the Admiral, turning in mid stride to head for the other station. He was concerned about his forces planetside. He was more concerned for his fleet.

  “From the planet,” said the tech, looking wide eyed at the Admiral.

  “Could the planetary defenses be engaging us again?” asked the Captain, stepping up to the other side of the tech. There was fear written on the man’s face, and as much as he didn’t like or respect the man, the Admiral really couldn’t blame him.

  They really didn’t have a chance against those defenses. As far as they knew they were still over the horizon from the batteries that had fired on them before, using their reactionless drive to stay in a holding position in low orbit over the area they were most interested in. But a regiment of Marines was on the way to the pyramid that housed those batteries, and they could be in real danger.

  “What is the status of the pyramid assault force?” he shouted out, looking over at another tech, who started talking into his mic, then looked back at the Fleet Commander.

  “They report nothing out of the ordinary,” said the tech, a look of relief on his face. “ETA twenty-three minutes.”

  “Thresher reports they were struck by three particle beams originating from Valley Alpha Three,” said the first tech, the one who had reported the cessation of signals from the so named valley.

  The Abomination, thought the Admiral, clenching his fists at his side. He’s throwing a challenge in my face, the damned freak. “What’s their damage?”

  The tech talked for a moment, listened, then looked over at the Admiral. “They report minimal damage to the bow. One missile compartment opened to space, damage to one laser projector. Six killed, unknown number of wounded.”

  “We need to hit that valley,” said the Captain, looking over at the Admiral with an expression of anger. “Blow the hell out of it.”

  But we can’t hit him with a big weapon, thought the Admiral, remembering that the defenses let them get away with strikes in the ten kiloton range, then whacked them hard when they went to megatons.

  “Prepare to fire three ten kiloton range weapons,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at the Fleet Tactical Officer. “Whichever ships are in best position to deliver them.”

  “You need to hit him harder than that,” yelled the Captain, his eyes wild. “He dared to attack the children of God, and must be smitten as if from the hand of God.”

  “Calm yourself, Captain,” said the Admiral, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “This is a military operation, not a religious seminar.”

  “You dare to blaspheme,” yelled the Captain, knocking the Admiral’s hand off his shoulder. “You dare say that God is not involved in this campaign.”

  It’s my experience that God lets men settle their own affairs, thought the Admiral, looking into the Captain’s eyes and seeing only madness. “Sergeant,” he said, looking over at a Marine who was standing guard on the bridge. “Please escort the Captain to his quarters.” He looked into the Captain’s eyes and spoke as if to a child. “You are relieved of duty, Captain. Please go with the Sergeant.”

  Gerasi really expected the man to protest, or to fight back. But the Captain looked like a man defeated, nodding his head and following the Marine from the bridge.

  “Thresher reports they have been hit again,” yelled a tech.

  “Particle beams again?” asked the Admiral, running over to the station.

  “No, sir,” said the tech. “Kinetic rounds. Again minimal damage.”

  And they must have been fired at the same time as the particle beams, with a much greater flight time, thought the Admiral. And the Abomination is again under cover, escaped while we debated.

  “Porpoise is firing a kinetic round,” called out a tech. “Sea Sanke is also firing.”

  And we’ll hit nothing, while he escapes us again, to strike again, thought the Admiral. All this for a woman? And he will not even get her. He will deliver himself to us eventually, and we will remove that which should never have been made from the Universe.

  * * *

  The ground rumbled underfoot, and dust fell from the ceiling of the cavern. A second later the ground rumbled again, then again a moment later.

  “They’re’ dropping kinetic weapons again,” said Lt. Commander Dasha Mandrake, staring at the stalactite covered ceiling above.

  Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta looked up as well, wondering if some of those rock spears might come down, causing more casualties among his small command. “At least they are not targeting us,” he said, looking at the holo the robot was projecting that was giving the take of the pizzos Pandora had left for their use. The view showed a squad of Nation Marines sweeping through the jungle, then switched to some climbing the slope of a hill. So far they had not found an entrance to this cavern complex that they couldn’t even suspect existed.

  “Why do you say that, sir?” asked the Commander, looking at the holo.

  “Because, as murderous as they are, I don’t think even those fanatics would be dropping KE weapons on their own people. And those hits had to be at some distance.” And I wonder who they are attacking. Hopefully not the Latham woman. And if so, I pray to the Gods she can keep out of the line of fire.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It's a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want to be treated. Alveda King

  “Ah, she is regaining consciousness,” said the hated voice as Pandora became aware of her surroundings again.

  She opened her eyes, nausea warring with the rush of stimulants she felt coursing through her body. They had injected her with something, a drug that had helped to raise her back to awareness. She was sure that they hadn’t done that because they missed her sparkling wit. The rush was also diminishing as she took stock of herself, and she knew her nanites were already attacking it en mass.

  Pandora still hurt like hell, especially in her breasts and private areas. Her nanites were stimulating the release of endorphins and blocking nerve transmission, and there were finally enough of them in her system to reduce agony to pain. Her muscles and joints were in good shape, repaired and maintained by the nanites, which at her command had ignored needed repairs to her skin so that the game was not given away. She could tell from her implants that her muscles were fully charged with ATP, and that she was almost ready to carry out what she had planned from the moment she had found herself on this table of horrors.

  “Are you ready to answer some more questions?” asked the dwarfish man, moving to her side while his hand reached for the heat probe.

  “I thought you already got what you wanted,” she said, making her voice sound weaker than it was. “What more do you want, you sons of bitches.”

  “What language,” said the man, chuckling. “Perhaps I should burn that tongue out of your head.” The man moved the now hot probe toward her mouth, then withdrew it. “But no, we need you able to talk, for the while.”

  Pandora tried to link with the ship’s computer, using the pathway they had shown her when they extracted her code. She linked to the outer layer with ease, but the inner workings, like those that controlled her shackles, were still locked to her mind.

  “What the hel
l do you need from me?” she growled, linking with the nanites that had left her body soon after she had first woken on this table.

  “We would like to know of the defenses on the Donut,” said the man, almost caressing the handle of the probe. “We would like to know the location of the control center.”

  “I’m not telling you that,” said Pandora, spitting up at the man as soon as the last word left her mouth.

  “Oh, I think you will,” said the man, a cold smile playing across his face.

  He brought the tip of the probe close to her left eye, till she could feel the heat drying the surface of her eyeball. She closed her eye tight, but another Inquisitor put his fingers on her lid and pulled it open.

  “I think we need you to keep your tongue, for now,” said the Chief Inquisitor, hovering the tip of the probe over her orb. “But you don’t really need to see to give us the information. Only to feel.”

  Fuck, thought Pandora, staring at the probe which was weaving back and forth in her sight like the head of a cobra. Superficial damage I can take, but not the loss of my sight. She had wanted to wait a little longer, but time had just run out, and the probe was moving in a motion she knew would only end when her left eyeball was burned out of its socket.

  With a thought the nanites that had infiltrated the magnetic lock mechanisms made their final move, pulling atoms out of the power conduit that fed the manacles. They worked at blinding speed, moving objects ten thousand times a second at the nanoscale. Billions of atoms were moved in less than a tenth of a second, and power was interrupted to the locks, which clicked open.

  The Inquisitor holding the probe didn’t notice the manacles on wrists and ankles opening. The other torturer did, and tried to move away from the table and grab a weapon. Pandora moved like a snake whose tail had been set afire, her right hand smacking the Chief Inquisitor and knocking him to the side while her left hand grabbed the heat probe. With a twist she was off the table and on the floor, taking a couple of quick steps toward the second man, swinging the probe out wide, then smacking it hard into the man’s ear, piercing the auditory canal. The man screamed and his legs went out from under him. Pandi swiveled on her right foot while her left struck out in a front snap kick to the falling man’s jaws. He continued his fall while consciousness fled, and rolled flopping bonelessly onto his back.