To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) (29 page)

“That is inadvisable,
Colonel Johanson,” said the computer, its voice again flat.  “This control room
is a vital installation on this station, and I am authorized to defend it with
deadly force.”

“Are there any weapons
in here that the computer might be able to use against us?” asked the Colonel,
looking over at the Commander.

“Not that I know of,”
said the Commander, shrugging his shoulders.  “But we really don’t know its
capabilities.  I would advise…”

“That’s all I want to
hear,” said the Colonel, raising his pistol and pointing it at the console.  He
fired a blast from the weapon, burning a hole through the metal casing with a
shower of sparks.  “Everyone,” yelled the officer to the other thirty Marines
and spacemen who were in the room.  They were already looking at him intently
as he destroyed the control console he stood next to.  “Fire up this place.  I
don’t want there to be a working circuit when we are done.”

The other men yelled
and cheered, and took aim with their weapons at other control stations and holo
screen projectors.  Within seconds everyone was blasting away at some of the
hardware in the large room.

“Initiating defense
procedures,” said the computer over the speaker.

“You’re so full of
shit, computer,” yelled the Colonel, laughing.  “And I’m going to send you to
Hell, if I have to destroy half this station to do so.”

Commander Hanson stared
at the Colonel as if the man had gone mad, which it seemed he had. 
There’s
no way we could destroy even a thousandth of a percent of this station, even
with the fleet.  So what the Hell is he talking about?

And then it happened. 
There was a ripple in the air over the control console.  The air rippled again,
and then a small hole appeared that expanded quickly.  And with the hole came a
suction that pulled at the very molecules of the Commander.  He knew what was
happening at that moment.  The computer had opened a wormhole gate, which led
to the oblivion on the other side of the event horizon of the black hole.

This is madness
, thought the
Commander, looking for a way out.  His religion and science did not know what
happened to a human who was crushed out of existence by a black hole.  Would
the soul even survive?  Hanson tried to turn and run, but his muscles could not
counteract the pull that lifted him from the floor and moved him toward that
hole in space and time.

The tidal forces pulled
at his body as he approached the wormhole, the uneven stresses pulling his
head, which was facing the hole, harder than his feet, which were facing away. 
Spaghettification was the last word to enter his mind.  Mercifully, he didn’t
have more than a fraction of a second to feel the agony that funny sounding
word was associated with.  He disappeared into the hole to reappear at the
other end of the passage through space-time, beneath the event horizon of the
black hole.  By then he was dead, and moments later he was snuffed out of
existence, as the matter which made up his body was crushed to a mathematical
point and pulled into the mass of the black hole.

The end of the wormhole
moved like the questing head of a snake, sucking each Nation Marine or Spaceman
into its hungry maw in sequence.  Some were paralyzed with fear and surprise. 
Some tried to escape from the room.  It made no difference, as all were sent
into the black hole by the wormhole mouth that was a directed weapon.  In
moments there was no one left in the room.  There was some superficial damage
to the machinery, but it was made of very strong materials, and had been able
to resist the pull that unanchored men could not.  As soon as the wormhole
winked out of existence the station computer started the repair procedures that
would set the control room back to rights.

Minutes later someone
got up the courage to see what had happened in the room.  And then the rumors
started to fly, and the men of the expedition were not so willing to poke their
noses into places they didn’t know.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Do not trust the cheering, for those persons
would shout as much if you or I were going to be hanged.   Oliver Cromwell

Pandora Latham was not
afraid of tight spaces.  No one could work in space who was a claustrophobe. 
That said, she was not a great fan of them either.  The warhead transfer tube
was large enough to move the meter wide warheads that consisting of a weapon
and sensory suite, from the front and rear magazines of the ship.  It was large
enough for her three quarters of a meter wide suit, even giving her some room
to move around, as long as she remained in a horizontal position.  Still, she
envisioned one of those warheads coming from either direction and crushing her
in its passage. 
Just have to hope they don’t get into a space battle while
I’m in here,
she thought with a grimace. 

She floated in the center
of the tube on her grabbers, her suit set to keep her in the exact center so
she didn’t scrape along any of its surfaces.  She schematic of the ship was in
her head, the blinking dot of her suit centered in it.  There were still a
hundred meters to go to get to where she needed to be, and she thought she
could be there in the next thirty seconds.  At least that was the plan, until
someone else’s plans took precedence.

The side of the tube
facing the outer skin of the ship burst in without warning.  Fragments of metal
and composites bounced from the inner surface of the tube and careened on in
both directions, a few bouncing from her suit.  The feed tube shuddered from
the vibrations picked up from the mass of the ship, and continued to shake for
ten seconds or so. 
Something heavy must have hit the ship
, she thought,
wondering what.  Then the tube shook again, this time from a heavy explosion
located some distance away.

Well, I ain’t getting
through this way,
thought
Pandora, looking at the hull metal that was curled in from the new opening. 
So
what do I do now?

“You there, lover?” she
asked on the com, not knowing what she would do if he didn’t answer, and
fearing the worst.

“I am still here,
Pandora,” answered Watcher in the flat voice that let her know he was in combat
mode.  “I see that they almost got you as well with the lasers and particle
beams.”

“So, what happened?”

“They were sweeping my
robots off the hull with the weapons from the other ships,” said Watcher. 
“Apparently, they hit the hull of the
Orca
with more than they had
planned.”

Pandi found him on her
locator and tagged his position, then looked at the schematics to try and find
a path to him.  Watcher’s system filled hers in, and she cursed as she saw the
blocking forces that the enemy had between her and her mate.

“They have my forces
pinned down,” said Watcher, who Pandi’s system knew was looking at the same
schematic.  “They are behind strong electromagnetic fields and armored
barricades, and I am not really sure how we are going to get past them.”

“Can’t you get your
bots to blast them out with missiles?” asked Pandora, realizing as the words
left her mouth that of course Watcher would have already considered that.

“I don’t have many
missiles left with the remainder of my bots,” said the superman, aggravation
creeping into his voice.  “And the enemy has layered positions.  I might be
able to blast through a couple of them, but would still run into a roadblock
that would stop us dead in our tracks.”

“Um hmm,” said Pandi,
looking at the schematic.  “So I got an idea, seeing that I’m in the position
that I am.”  She filled Watcher in on the plan, and he sent back an
affirmative.

“Just be careful,
Pandora,” said Watcher, concern in his voice.  “I did not come here to rescue
you just to see you get killed.  I wish you would consider getting off the ship
while you may.”

“And I’m not leaving
without you, you big lug,” she said, laughter in her voice.  “Either we both
get off of this here ship, or neither of us does.  Is that understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” said
Watcher, a laugh in his voice.  “You would have made a formidable officer.”

“I prefer to work for a
living,” she retorted, backing up from her position and looking for the nearest
maintenance hatch.  “You just hold tight and wait for my signal, and we’ll all
get out of here, the Suryans included.”

“Yes, ma’am,” repeated
Watcher with another laugh.  “I’ll be waiting.  Just don’t get that pretty head
blown off.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” said
Pandi, working the controls to the access hatch.  “I got plans for this head. 
Plans I think you are gonna to like.”

Pandora opened the
hatch, then shot the last of her microbots out to scout the room beyond. 
Breathing a sigh of relief she joined the tiny robot in the room and started on
her way, using the small machine as her scout.

*     *     *

“We have them boxed in,
sir,” said the Security Chief over the com.

“And you are sure of
that because?” asked the Admiral, not really willing to trust the officer who
had made so many mistakes in the past twelve hours. 
Though, to give him
credit
, thought the Admiral, remembering the abilities of the people they
were matched up against,
I’m not sure anyone else could have done much
better.  Myself included.

“We have three layers
of troops covering all the exits and any possible breakout points,” said the
man, pride in his voice.  “And we have electromagnetic screens up in front of
all of the strong points.  Ship mounted generators we took from storage, and I
don’t think he is going to just blast through them with what he has.”

“What about if he tries
to come through the walls?”

“Most of the walls lead
to other rooms, and not corridors,” said the Security Chief with pride.  “Any
walls he could come through are hooked up to superconducting heat sinks and
more electromag fields.  I don’t think he’s going to come through, and if he
does, we will get an alert and have a response team there before he even
realizes how hopeless it is.”

“I am impressed, Lt.
Commander,” said the Admiral, a smile on his face for the first time all day,
looking over the dispositions of troops and equipment on a splitter screen.  “I
agree.  I don’t see how they could get through there without antimatter, or a
big damned bomb.  Keep me apprised when you come up with a plan for rooting
them out.”

“Rooting them out?”
asked the man, fear and confusion mingling in his voice.  “I thought we could
just keep them trapped in that section until they decide to surrender.”

“And have them maintain
control of a twentieth of my ship,” said the Admiral in an angry voice.  “I
think not.  I want a plan of attack that will take them out, and I want it
within the next twenty minutes.  And if not I will have you lead the attack
that I devise, from the front.”

“Yes sir,” stammered
the officer back, and Gerasi felt a cold smile curl his lips as he listened to
the near panic in the man.  “Right away, sir.”  And then the com link was dead,
leaving Gerasi to lean back, to savor the moment he had caused such panic in an
officer who had done nothing all day but make the moments miserable for his
supreme commander.

“We’re getting a call
from the pyramid about something that happened on the
Donut
,” called out
the Com Officer, a stricken look on his face.

“What the hell now?”
cried the Admiral.  “What the hell could Johanson have stuck it in now?”  The
Admiral looked over at the Com Officer and nodded his head.  “What’s going on
down there?”

“They’re gone, sir,”
came the panicky voice at the other end.

“Who’s gone, son?”
asked the Admiral, trying to project calm he didn’t quite feel to settle the
man down.

“The Colonel, the
Commander, everyone in the control room is just gone,” said the voice of the
man, whom the com identified as Lt. Colonel Matthes.  “And all their gear.”

“Did anyone see it
happen?” asked the Admiral, wishing he had an eyewitness to talk to, and not
the man in charge of the defense of the pyramid.

“Everyone who was in a
position to see anything is gone,” repeated the Lt. Colonel.  “A couple of men
went into the room when the shouting started, but the doors closed hard behind
them, and they’re also gone.”

“And all the equipment
is gone too?” asked the Admiral, confused as well.

“All except for the
plugs of some of the computer equipment they had jacked into the native
consoles.  Besides them, everything is gone.  And the room is in perfect order,
before you ask.”

“That doesn’t make a
lick of sense,” said the Admiral, furrowing his brow. 
Even if something
used a particle beam or laser there would be residue, a lot of it.  Negative
matter?  A wormhole?  But how would a wormhole suck everything in like that,
like some kind of vacuum cleaner that only attracted our people and things.  It
just doesn’t make sense.

“What about these
yells?” he asked the officer, trying to stay logical.  “What did they say?”

“Mostly prayers,” said
the Colonel.  “Calling for help, or asking God to save them.  And that damned
sound in the background, like the roaring of air.”

The roaring of air,”
thought the Admiral,
his mind making a connection he didn’t like. 
The black hole.  Did the
station computer make a wormhole connection to the black hole?  But it isn’t
allowed to take life without sentient control, is it?  And what could they have
done to have provoked it so?

“Colonel,” said the
Admiral in a slow clear voice.  “Transmit these instructions to the ranking
officer on the
Donut
.  He is to continue his exploration of the
structure, but to proceed under extreme caution.  And to stay out of that
control room, no matter what.  We will send some more naval techs to help him
out.  Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said the
officer on the other end of the link.

What else could go
wrong?
he
thought.  Minutes later he wished he hadn’t asked that question, as he found
out what else could go wrong.

*     *     *

Watcher didn’t have any
antimatter over and above the minute amount needed to power his own suit as a
backup to its crystalline matrix batteries.  He wished he had brought some
atomic or quarkium weapons with him, and made a note to have at least a couple
mid yield bombs in his possession next time, if there was one.  One item he did
have was negative matter.  His five remaining robots all had a couple hundred
grams of the material in magnetic bottles, and he had salvaged over a kilogram
of material from the six inoperative robots he had been able to reach.  He thought
that it would be enough.  He hoped it would, or he was in dire straits.  So he
waited in the large room that fronted on a corridor it didn’t open up into,
with his robots and forty of the Suryans, while the rest of the subjects of
that kingdom kept guard at the hotspots the Nation folks had blocked.

“When do we strike?”
asked the young Commander who was in charge of the humans, Yasha Kallistara.

“When it is time to
strike,” said Watcher, looking at the nervous officer with calm eyes.  “And not
a moment sooner.”

“I wish you would give
me a straight answer, sir,” said the young officer with a scowl.

“And I wish I had one
to give, young lady,” said Watcher, himself hoping that Pandora would get into
position, and knowing that it would do no good if she were spotted and stopped
before she could.  “It all depends on my mate getting into position, and being
ready to support us when we strike.”

The young Commander
stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.  She looked back with a gleam
in her eye.  “You really love her, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” said
Watcher, not having to ask what she was talking about.  “She is the love of my
life.  Without her I would still be the lonely creature haunting that station. 
Or something even worse.”

“I hope someday I have
someone who would be willing to sacrifice all to come rescue me from danger,”
said the woman.

“I’m sure someday that
person will enter your life, Commander,” said Watcher, checking his schematic
and seeing that Pandora was almost where she needed to be.  “And I hope by that
time you will have no need of rescuing.  Now get your people ready,” said the
superman, sending the order to his robots to move into final position.  “I
think the show is about to start, as my mate would say.”

With a signal the robots
went to work, spraying a slight stream of negative matter along the planned
breakout point, slicing into the hull metal and leaving just a thin layer to
hold it together.  Within a minute the robots had expended most of their
negative matter, and had traced a two and a half meter high by three meter wide
oval in the wall.  Watcher sent the next order, and the robots arrayed
themselves for the following phase and waited.

*     *     *

Pandora was ready to
‘get the show on the road’, but it seemed that the Marines of the Nation of
Humanity had different ideas.  She had been able to make it to within thirty
meters of where she needed to be, the corridor that fronted the breakout point
that Watcher had chosen.