The Deep Dark Well (19 page)

“Range, ten million
kilometers and increasing,” said the navigation officer.  He had been ordered
to give their location every million kilometers inwards, even though the
displays showed the numbers.

Already thirty-three
light seconds inbound.
  Thirty three seconds before they would know if anything
happened to the two ships.  Over a minute for a round trip transmission between
the scouts and the rest of the squadron. 

Gerasi felt the sweat
bead on his forehead.  He knew the bridge was kept at a very comfortable
temperature.  But he hated being out of immediate contact with members of his
command.  When he had been a ship’s captain he hadn’t that worry.  All of his
command was always a nanosecond away.  As commodore there had been some
concern, but normally his division of two or three capital ships had stuck
together.  But as admiral, he had to detach units to beyond the reach of his
command all the time.  It was just that this situation was different from
patrolling the reaches of the Nation, where you could always get support within
a couple of hours at most.  Here there was no support.  His task force was it.

He chuckled to himself
as a thought crossed his mind.  When he was a captain he relished the idea of
being out of the range of his squadron commander.  Even as a commodore he was
still the king only when his division was separated from the rest of the
fleet.  Commodore Elishas must be worried about moving out of support range of
the squadron, but still fired up about being on her own.

“Sir,” interrupted the
science officer.  “Gravimetric sensors show several anomalies ahead.”

“What kind of
anomalies?”

“Unknown.  But some
kind of severe fluctuations in the gravity field of space.”

“A point source of
mass?” asked the captain.  “Or the artificial gravity of a ship?”

“Could be a point
source,” agreed the science officer.  “Neutronium or such.  It would have to be
a monster of a ship to give those kind of readings.”

“Nav sensors show
nothing besides our ships,” said the navigation officer.

“Transmit data to
Commodore Elishas,” ordered the admiral.  “Keep a tight analysis on those
fluctuations.”

Just another thing to
worry about.
 
It probably meant nothing.  After all, the space around a black hole was
supposed to be alive with bizarre phenomenon.  But it didn’t feel right.

*    *    *

The huge cylinder
rotated into place.  The wormhole com link made the distance between it and its
control center meaningless.  The wormhole sensor link made the distance between
it and its target meaningless.  The unit powered up, energy flowing along the
millions of kilometers of power cables within the cylinder.  Gathering at the
conversion chambers.  Power spiked to maximum, as the beam of gravitons, the
messenger particles of gravity, streamed through the expanding wormhole sensor
link.  Target, the
Nation of Humanity
battle cruiser
Dolphin.

*    *    *

The engineering crew of
the
Dolphin
were about their normal business.  Basically their business
was to be there when automated systems malfunctioned.  Or when damage occurred
during battle that needed to be repaired quickly.  Currently all fusion
generators were on line, powered up to three quarters full.  All that was
needed for alert status.  It was always good policy to keep a reserve.  The
matter/antimatter generators were off line at this time.  That much energy was
only needed when the space destroying drive was on line.

Crewmen and women were
dressed in their battle gear, hard composite armor panels over environment
suits, proof against most of the types of hard radiation one might find in a space
battle.  Helmets were for the most part detached, hooked to belts or set on
stands near duty stations.  Everything was running smoothly and efficiently. 
Inertialess drives were tuned perfectly, energy storage packs at full charge. 
Cooling systems were damping the heat of fusion reactors to the radiators on
the skin of the ship.

Everything was running
smoothly and efficiently, until disaster struck without warning.  The first
inkling the engineers had that something was wrong was when objects sitting on
shelves or workstations began to slide and fall to the floor.  Within moments
these same objects were flying through the air, followed by helmets and other
heavier objects.  Then the crew had to grab onto whatever was at hand, or be
pulled across the floor toward a gravity source much greater than that
generated by the ship’s artificial field.

The central fusion
center was hit the worst, and the first.  The large room was sucked free of
atmosphere, a roaring wind pulled into the high center of the chamber.  Crew
grabbed for helmets, then quickly for holds to keep from being pulled along
with the air.  The environmental systems struggled to dump enough air into the
room to keep it stable.  Not enough, not nearly fast enough.

Here objects were swept
into the point, to disappear in a flash of light.  To disappear from sight, but
not from the Universe.  A helmet swept in, obliterated in an instant.  A
crewman was pulled in, his screams over the intercom squelched at the instant
of his contact with the point, though it took a moment for the gory mess of a
disrupted body to be pulled in as well.

Survivors belted
themselves to whatever was available, using the safety straps provided on their
environmental suits.  These were the witnesses to the next phase of the destruction. 
Braces pulled loose in silence from the nearest fusion reactor, crumpling like
tin foil as they struck the point source, to disappear.  The closest crew
followed, belts tearing, or bodies and suits coming apart under the inexorable
pull of gravity.  Only those furthest from the source were to survive, for now,
though the pain of tidal forces brought screams of agony over the ship’s
intercoms.

Matter was squeezed
together by the terrific concentration of gravity.  Even compressed beyond the
resistance of the electron shells.  Charges flowed from protons, turning all
into a mass of neutrons swathed in a thin shell of electron liquid.  Gravity
increased as more gravitons entered the mix, informing time and space of the
existence of mass that didn’t really exist.

The point source began
to move, forward, pulling in more and more matter, as it crushed its way
through the bulkhead to the next compartment.

*    *    *

“Commodore,” yelled the
engineering liaison from his station.  “We are under attack.”

“From what?” asked
Elishas.  She was still trying to puzzle the data on the anomalies sent from
the flagship.  And there had been no warning of any kind of attack.

“We don’t know,”
answered the officer.  “But it’s tearing the engine rooms apart.”

“On screen,” she
ordered.  Immediately an image formed, of a distortion of glowing air, swinging
swiftly through the antimatter reactor room.  Objects flew in blurs into the
object, ripped from their places.  A cooling pipe tore loose as they watched,
to disappear in a flash.

“If it ruptures one of
the antimatter storage tanks,” said the hushed voice of the navigator.

Yes
, thought Elishas.  If
it ruptured an antimatter storage tank the
Dolphin
would be reduced to a
great number of small particles moving from the center of the explosion with
great speed.  Then the point was through the next bulkhead and moving forward. 
The bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief.  A short-lived sigh.

“It’s coming forward,”
cried the science officer, echoing the thoughts of others.

The ball of neutronium
was indeed coming forward, growing more massive with each traverse of a
chamber, pulling crew and equipment into its embrace.  The ship shuddered from
the assault as bulkheads began to buckle.  The view screens followed its
progress.  To the relief of the commodore it stopped, in the exact center of
the ship.  Already a thousand tons of matter had been compressed.  A small
proportion of the ship, to be sure, but still a threat.

Billions of kilometers
away the graviton beam was switched off.  Instantly the source of gravity that
had pulled the thousand tons of matter into a microscopic neutronium sphere
disappeared.  Matter could not exist in such a concentration without sufficient
force pulling it together.  There were still sufficient charges within the ball
to generate the natural repulsive forces of like charged matter.

Within a nanosecond of
the removal of force the ball exploded outward, particles reaching an
appreciable fraction of the speed of light.  This explosion in itself would have
destroyed the vessel beyond recognition.  The rupturing of the antimatter
storage tanks, followed closely by the destruction of the negative matter pods,
assured that little in the way of matter was left to clog the lanes of space.

*    *    *

Dolphin
flared as a brilliant
light on the view holo, followed an instant later by the form of the
Tiger
Shark
.  Bridge crew covered their eyes instinctively, though the display
would never reproduce light powerful enough to damage eyesight. 

“What happened?” demanded
the admiral, his mouth dropping open at the spectacle of the complete
destruction of two of his vessels.  No warhead he knew of could have destroyed
them so quickly, or approached so invisibly.

“Should we move the
squadron back?” asked the captain nervously.

“Yes,” said Gerasi, his
voice hushed.  “At flank speed.”

“Helmsman,” yelled the
captain, “full speed astern.  Transmit orders to the rest of the squadron to do
the same.”

“Stop us when we are
another billion kilometers out,” ordered the admiral.

“You don’t intend to
run from this display of power?” asked the captain incredulously. 

“We don’t even know
what it was,” answered Gerasi, strength creeping back into his voice. 

“The gravitation
anomaly spiked just before the destruction of the two vessels,” said the
wide-eyed science officer.  “Ejecta consisted of neutrons, gamma particles and
microscopic particles of matter.  It will take some time to completely analyze
the remains from this distance.”

“We sure as hell are
not going to get any closer to that thing until we figure out what happened,”
said Gerasi. 
And what then
.
  He couldn’t go back to the home
system empty handed, especially with the loss of two capital ships.  But what
good to sacrifice all the vessels.  All the crews.

“Transmission coming
through,” said the com officer.

“Put it on,” ordered
the admiral.

The creature appeared
on the holo.  No longer looking frightened.  Its voice no longer trembling with
fear.

“How did you like my
little pyrotechnic display?” it asked, a smile cracking its narrow face.

“You were responsible
for this?” yelled Admiral Miklas Gerasi, waving a fist at the holo.  Of course
the creature would not be able to respond for over an hour round trip
transmission.  He couldn’t wait till he had the creature in his grasp, able to
communicate by means of voice and pain, instantaneously. 

“Of course I was
responsible for this,” said the creature.  “Oh, don’t look so shocked, my dear
admiral.”

“You, have
instantaneous communications?”

“Of course,” it
replied.  “Only primitives such as yourselves do not.

“I had hoped that all
of your little ships would have stepped into my parlor.  Then I would not have
to worry about watching your vessels, filled with semi intelligent monkeys
capering about their controls.  Now you have been warned.  Stay away from the
Donut
. 
If you approach closer than two billion kilometers you will never again see the
stars of your home.  Bring this warning back to the men who sent you.  This is
my space, and mine alone, and I do not intend to share it with any half evolved
protohumans.”

“And what name shall I
give my Patriarch, when he asks who gave this ultimatum to an admiral of his
fleet?”

“Tell him Vengeance
gave the ultimatum.  Tell him Vengeance awaits whatever he might send to test
my resolve.”

The holo went blank
before Gerasi could reply.  The admiral stared into the display of stars that
took its place for a moment.

“Halt the squadron,” he
ordered.

“You don’t mean you
believe him about the two billion kilometer limit?” asked the captain with a shaking
voice.  “The crew will not like being so close.”

“He would have
destroyed us already if he meant to,” said the admiral.  “Besides, who commands
here?  The crew, or me?

“I want an analysis on
the remains of the two vessels he destroyed,” said Gerasi, as he left his seat
and headed for his day cabin.  “Keep me informed.”

*    *    *

Vengeance’s head hurt,
an aching, throbbing pain, as it always did after so much time awake.  He held
his head in his hands, trying to will the pain away, but knowing that the pain
would not recede until he lay down.  And lying down meant oblivion, at least
for a time.