To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) (11 page)

*     *     *

“Cease fire,” yelled Lt
Commander Dasha Mandrake, grimacing as she watched a squad of her troops blasts
limbs off of a battlebot that was definitely not of Nation construction.  The
xenophobes would only make humanoid robots, believing that only the form God
gave them was worthy of reproduction.  These were much more utilitarian, and
looked to be of much more sophisticated construction.  Still, a half hundred
hits by kinetic rounds, followed by a couple of heavy laser beams, and even
such a war machine would go down.

Mandrake froze in place
as another machine came bounding around a tree.  She made a hand motion to one
of the Marines who had raised a weapon to track this bot.  “Don’t shoot,
dammit.  Do you want to start a war against our allies?”  The Marine lowered
his weapon, but she could tell by body language that everyone in the squad was
afraid.

The robot looked them
over, then looked down at its dead brother, then back at the humans.  Mandrake could
not tell what it was thinking behind those dozen eyes on its head.  She just
hoped it wasn’t any kind of emotion.

“I’m on your side,
dammit,” came the voice of a human female from the machine, accented in a way
the commander had never before heard.  But she had heard of that female, the
one who was consort to the being that ran the space station around the black
hole.  The commander felt the thrill of almost religious awe.  This was the
stuff of legends, like the demigods of the past.

“I’m sorry,” she told
the robot, and through it the woman, Pandora Latham.  “We’re all a little
trigger happy in the middle of a firefight.”

“Well, get trigger
happy with the other fellas,” said that accented voice, the head of the robot
rotating around.  “If you would, take up a flank position on this robot and
follow us.  We could use the firepower, and you’all might be able to keep you
and yours from shooting up any more of my machines.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the
Commander, turning to the rest of the squad that was with her.  “You heard the
robot, I mean lady.  Let’s help her roll up these bastards.”

The squad cheered, then
fell in to the right of the robot in a spread combat formation.  And when the
machine went forward, so did they.

*     *     *

“What the hell is going
on?” yelled Colonel Makari Quaid into the com.  Squad after squad was dropping
off the net, while the cursed Suryans were also launching an attack on his
already preoccupied units.  He had tried to get Major Dumas to attack through
the enemy, but it seemed that the bastards had figured that one was coming, and
had reinforced their platoon facing the Major’s force.

Now the crackling of
small arms fire and explosions were coming closer.  Along with a sound like a
million angry bees that ripped for a second or two before stopping.

“Steady men,” said the
Colonel over the com, holding his own weapon up, trying to prepare to get a
sight picture on the first of the enemy that showed themselves.

Unfortunately those
enemy were in the trees, moving from trunk to trunk.  The first awareness the
Nation forces had of them was when they opened fire.  There were still some
lucky return hits that took out a couple of the bots.  But the Colonel was not
one of the lucky ones.  He saw the young woman before she saw him, and his carbine
hit her a dozen times in a shower of sparks.  Then that angry bee sound blotted
out everything else.  The Colonel didn’t hear it.  The particle beam traveled
much faster than sound, and his armored suit was already a can containing a
hundred kilos of cooked meat and ash before their waves reached him.

*     *     *

“Good to see you again,
Admiral,” said Pandora, the visor back and helmet retracted on her armor.

“And we’re very glad to
see you, young lady,” said the Admiral, taking her armored hands in his.  The
Admiral looked at the young woman and wished that he were younger, though
thinking of her consort made him glad that he wasn’t a challenge to Watcher. 
“What brought you to our rescue?”

“Just wanted to send
some of those fanatical bastards to hell,” said Pandi, a smile on her face.

I wish she didn’t have
to speak in such a profane manner
, thought the Admiral, returning the smile.  He
knew that Watcher and his lovely consort didn’t have the religious views of his
people, that they didn’t aid Surya because of any love of their philosophy,
religion or culture.  In fact, they only aided Surya at all because they were
the enemies of the madmen of the Nation.  That was their common ground, and he
would do nothing that would jeopardize that alliance, even if it meant risking
the souls of those two.  “We’re glad to have you here,” said the Admiral,
sincerely meaning every word.  “You saved every man and woman here.”

“Wish I could have
saved more,” said the woman, looking down to the ground and grinding one foot
back and forth.  “I didn’t think those fanatics would think so well under
pressure.”

“You can’t expect your
opponents to act like total idiots,” said the Admiral, shaking his head.  “You
can hope, but you can’t expect.  They have their own plans, which normally
don’t include sticking their heads beneath the ax.”

The ground rumbled
underfoot, and the Admiral looked up at the canopy and narrowed his eyes.

“That what I think it
is?” asked Pandora, squinting her eyes as she looked up at the shaking trees
and falling leaves.

“Kinetic strikes,” said
the Admiral, nodding his head.  “Since we broke contact with their ground
forces they feel free to hit us with the hammer.  I suggest we get under cover,
fast.”

“You have a place?”
asked Latham, her deep blue eyes looking into the officer’s.

“There’s a series of
deep caverns very near to here,” said the small man, looking up the path.  “The
locals showed them to us, and we cleared out the dangers.”

“How deep?” asked
Pandi, her eyes narrowing.

“They go at least a
kilometer into the rock,” said the admiral.  “With granite mountains overhead. 
And there are dozens of possible exits, so I doubt we will be trapped by a
landslide.”  The Admiral looked around and noticed that several of the Maurid
locals were back, after having disappeared during the firefight. 
Can’t
blame them for that,
he thought.  Flesh and primitive weapons had no place
in a modern battle.  But he also made a note to keep an eye on them in the
future.

“Well, lead on McDuff,”
said Pandora, gesturing with a hard gauntleted hand toward the path.  “Before
we catch a random rock from the sky.”

Krishnamurta nodded his
head and smiled as he led the young woman to the caves, nervously looking
upward at each rumble.  That was when the earth jumped beneath his feet sending
him to the ground.  There was a bright flash through the forest, and the
admiral cried out, just before strong hands grabbed him and arrested his fall.

“Big kinetic strike
there,” said Pandora Latham, her voice sounding slightly more robotic now that
her helmet had automatically extended and covered her head.  “Hope we don’t
have too many like that.”

“We had better move,”
said the Admiral, looking with fear filled eyes in the direction that the flash
had come from.  A moment later a hot wind blew through the trees, whipping
branches and leaves into a frenzy.

“Agreed,” said the
woman, picking the Admiral up under the armpits and lifting from the ground. 
She sped away down the path, passing frightened men, women and Maurids who were
making their way to safety as fast as they could.

Chapter Eleven

Get there first with the most.   Nathan Bedford
Forrest

Admiral Miklas Gerasi,
Nation of Humanity, sat on the bridge of the
Orca
as the flagship
orbited around the Maurid planet.  He had to admit that it was beautiful, with
its orange coloration combined with blue seas and white clouds.  He could enjoy
such a view if he didn’t have so many other things on his mind. 
And as soon
as we rid it of its verminous intelligent life it will be a beautiful home for
man.

One of the things he
was concerned about had to do with the small bright flashes that were appearing
on that surface.  Midas had ordered several of his ships to begin a kinetic
bombardment on the area where the enemy had last been seen, before they broke
contact with the interference of that woman.  The same one, it would seem, as
she who had piloted the small spaceship that had taken out so much of his own
force. 
The harlot
, he thought, imagining the day when he had her in his
control. 
She copulates with an abomination, and so becomes an abomination
herself.  Her entry into Hell shall be a release from the Earthly pain I will
impose upon her, and an introduction to true eternal pain
.  But first he
had to catch her.

“We cannot locate
them,” said Commodore Midas over the com.  “They’re under cover, and there are
just too damned many of those damned microsats in orbit, jamming us.  And that
damned exothermic vegetation isn’t helping.”

The Admiral grimaced as
he nodded his head.  They estimated that there were tens of thousands of the
solar powered wafer sized satellites in orbit, each a surveillance platform and
com link.  Individually they weren’t worth much.  In their thousands they were
capable of much, including causing disruption to his own sensory and
communications systems.  His ships were destroying them as they found them, but
finding them was the problem.  It would probably take a week or more to degrade
the system enough where it wasn’t a threat to his operations.

And the plant life was
also a nightmare.  Not just the motile and carnivorous vegetation.  But who had
ever heard of plants that were hot blooded (hot sapped?). 
Who but the Devil
would have created such a place?  Maybe we should just burn the surface to ash
and start over.

“We’re getting ready to
send more troops down to the planet,” said the Commodore, his face looking
strained in the viewer.

Like mine wouldn’t if I
lost half my command, then a good portion of my remaining Marines.
  “Belay that order,
Commodore,” he said to the man, nodding toward his own Tactical Officer.  “I’m
going to hit them hard with some heavy kinetics.”

“My own bombardment
vessels got taken out by that bitch,” said Midas, wearing a scowl.

“We still have a
couple,” said the Admiral, a smile crossing his face.  “We’ll stay in high
orbit and hit them with something a little more lethal.  But go ahead and
evacuate your men.”

“I thought you wanted
prisoners,” said the Commodore with a frown, raising an eyebrow.

“Not at the cost of
more men,” said Gerasi, crossing his arms over his chest.  “Not if we can take
them out the easy way.”

Gerasi waited for a few
minutes, watching the screen that showed the green dots of the Marines heading
back to the landing field.  He looked over at the repeater screen to his two
bombardment ships.  Both were the same size as
Orca,
about six hundred
and eighty meters in length, and were in fact built to the same plan.  At nine
hundred and fifty thousand tons they were the largest ships his nation had ever
built.  And they had the same compliment, two thousand Spacers and six hundred
Marines.  But they carried a score of the larger kinetic weapons that would hit
the surface with the power of a twenty megaton bomb, unlike the ten to twenty
kiloton range of the smaller weapons.

Cachalot
and
Grampus
maneuvered
into position, their noses pointed down at the planet thirty thousand
kilometers below. 
Cachalot
fired first, releasing the purpose build
kinetic round through the magnetic accelerator that ran the length of her
hull.  The round left the tube, while the ship’s engines pushed the vessel
forward to take up the recoil.  The large rounded cylinder fell through the
atmosphere, building up more velocity, until it disappeared from view.

Gerasi watched the
screen that showed the planetary surface, waiting.  The second ship would wait
until the impact of the first strike was revealed, so she would know where to
fire her weapon to get the desired overlap.  The bridge counter ran through the
seconds before impact, and when it reached zero a bright flash appeared on the
surface of the planet, followed by a rising mushroom cloud.  A few moments
later
Grampus
fired her first weapon.

Afterwards there would
be conflicting reports as to what happened.  What Gerasi remembered, a memory
that was later borne out by video, was a too bright beam of light that struck
the second projectile and burned it from the sky.  That beam then swung in to
contact
Cachalot
.  The hull of the battleship threw out sparks of molten
metal as the beam swung through the vessel, cutting it into two unequal
pieces.  Gas, liquid and debris, including hundreds of bodies not protected by
suits, flew into space from those pieces.  Many of the bodies flared into ash
as the beam continued to strike the ship.  It then moved on and struck
Grampus
in the same manner, cutting the ship in two and moving back to complete the
job.  Within seconds all that was left were seven large sections of two
warships, surrounded by their own debris field. 

Fortunately none of the
antimatter containment vessels aboard the ships had been ruptured.  How long
that state of affairs would last the Admiral didn’t know.  “Where did that come
from?” he yelled at his Tactical Officer, while he tried to figure out the
right move to save his fleet.

“From that large pyramid
structure on the horizon,” called back the white faced officer, his hands
trembling as he manipulated his controls.

The structure appeared
on the screen, reminding the Admiral of the ones on the planets of his nation. 
It would of course be made of the same superstrong materials, but the ones he
was familiar with were not armed with super powerful light amp weapons that
could destroy a warship with one blast. 
Unless they do have those weapons,
but have never had reason to fire them within our history
, thought the
Admiral, staring at the structure.

“It opened fire seconds
after the first of the big kinetics hit,” said the officer, looking at his
screens while his fingers flew over his board.  He looked back at the Admiral
with wide eyes.  “I think it’s a planetary defense installation, and it didn’t
like us hitting the surface like that.”

“That may be true,”
said the Admiral, making up his mind.  “Com.  Get all ships on the link. 
Emergency boost to lower orbit.  I want the planet between us and that thing.”

“Aye sir,” yelled the
com, while the bridge crew started
Orca
down the glide path to low
orbit, where the Commodore’s ships already were. 

The pyramid disappeared
around the curve of the planet, and the bridge crew immediately relaxed as they
realized it.  The Admiral continued to grip the arms of his chair as he watched
his other ships following. 
There could be other batteries
, he thought. 
But at least we’ll be out of range of that killer.
  And then the last of
his ships was below the horizon, and the Admiral allowed his hands to relax on
the chair arms.

“The Commodore is
asking if he should continue the bombardment with the smaller weapons,” said
the Com Officer, looking back at the Admiral with a face that seemed to beg a
no.

“Tell him, do not fire anything
at the surface at this time,” said Gerasi, feeling his own face pale.  “Tell
him to get his Marines back to that base and to prepare for extended ground
action.”  The Admiral turned toward his Tactical Officer.  “You concur?”

“There didn’t seem to
be any trouble when we were just chasing them on the ground,” said the officer,
stopping to take a composure breath after the words left his mouth.  “The
defense system only took notice of us when we started a heavy bombardment.  So
it should be safe enough to put Marines on the ground.”

“Very well,” said the
Admiral, turning back to the Com Officer.  “Tell all ships in this force to put
all available Marines on the Suryan landing base.  All are to leave a one
company reserve on board.”

“Aye sir,” said the Com
Officer, turning back to his board.

We’ll see if you can
outfight ten times your number of elite ground troops
, thought the Admiral
staring at the still rising mushroom cloud on the viewer. 
Even if that
demon and his vixen are aiding you.  You are mine.

*     *     *

Watcher looked up as
the seismic sensors registered rumblings to the west, near to where he was
heading.  “Computer,” he asked, looking at the viewer that was giving a take
from the microsats he had seeded in orbit.  “What is occurring?”

“From the seismic
readings, kinetic strikes are coming down on the area that is our target. 
Weapons appear to be in the twenty kiloton range.”

What are you getting
into now, Pandora
,
thought Watcher, grimacing.  He was sure that she was in her battle armor, he
couldn’t think of her bailing from her ship without it.  And possibly some of
her battlebots.  Even that hardware would not survive a direct hit by a twenty
kiloton kinetic weapon.  But a near miss was next to useless with the
protection she had.

The seismic meter
continued to show strike after strike, while the microsats showed a flurry of
bright flashes on the surface.  Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. 
Several minutes went by, and then a sharp spike appeared on the seismic meter
and a terrific flash appeared on the ground.

“That was a twenty
megaton weapon,” said the computer.

“Shit,” said Watcher,
shaking his head.  A near miss by that might kill her despite her armor.

Suddenly the sky
overhead glowed with a bright light.  Watcher switched the take on the
microsats, looking up, expecting to see what he actually saw.  It still
surprised him to see a ship being cut apart in real time.  The beam had to be
something like the poor fanatics had never imagined, and something they would
now covet.  He continued to watch as the beam struck the second ship, with the
same result, glowing sections of hull and the spark like smaller pieces flying
into space as bodies spilled into the vacuum, many, the lucky ones, to be
vaporized on contact with the beam.  The beam then switched off. 

Watcher looked at the
carnage for several minutes, also taking note of the other ships,
intelligently, diving for the cover of a lower orbit, though they would still
have to come in range of the pyramid sometime in that path unless they went
into a staggered polar track.  Or continuously ran their drives to stay in
place. 
I guess they must have really pissed off the planetary defense
system
, thought the immortal human, a small smile on his face.  While he
didn’t really like to kill intelligent beings, he considered the xenophobic
members of the Nation of Humanity to be barely such.

“Bring us up above the
tree line,” he ordered the computer controller.  “Let’s make some distance
while we can.”

“What about the hostile
warships?” asked the artificial intelligence.

“If you get even a peek
of them duck us back down.  Immediately.  Even if we have to scrape some paint
and alloy off the hulls.”

“Acknowledged,” replied
the AI.  The hover tanks pushed up through the canopy of the great trees. 
Cracking branches and knocking a rain of leaves that fell around them.  Within
seconds the star flecked sky was clear, and the tanks moved up to several
hundred kilometers an hour, cruising through the air.  Watcher wasn’t sure how
long he would have the luxury of traveling like this, but he would take it
while he could.

*     *     *

“This really is
beautiful,” said Pandora, looking up at the stalactites that were growing from
the roof, some joining with their mirror stalagmites to form rippled pillars. 
“Reminds me of some caves near my home.”

“On old Earth?” asked
the Admiral, wonder in his voice.  “A world of legend.”

And no longer there
, thought the woman, a
feeling of intense sadness coming over her. 
My beautiful Yellow Hammer
State, the University, the whole U S of A, gone to aliens who wanted us all
dead
.  Of course, she had learned the entire story from Watcher and the
library computer on the station.  The humans had met the aliens again, and had
kicked their asses back to their empire, soon eliminating it from the Galaxy. 
But the Earth, the mother planet, had still been lost.

“Do not be sad, Ms.
Latham,” said the Admiral, misinterpreting her sorrowful expression.  “You did
all you could, and we could not have expected better from anyone else trying to
save us.”