To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) (22 page)

“Like God intended,”
agreed the Colonel, staring at the chair.  He looked back at the Commander. 
“May we follow the will of God, and put humans back in their rightful place, in
control of the Galaxy.”

“Amen,” said the
Commander, bowing his head.

“And how long before
you gain control of this chamber, and the station?”

“Really no telling,
sir,” said the naval officer, pulling out a flat comp and pushing his fingers
on the surface.  “I really don’t know why we were allowed in this chamber,
except that there seemed to be no security here.”

“Just like the
legends,” said the Colonel, looking up at the ceiling a hundred meters above.

“Sir?”

“The legends said that
someone had to actually be boots on the station to control it,” said the
Colonel, looking into the eyes of the junior officer.  “And if the Abomination
and his whore are off the station, it is open to control by another.”

“If we can figure out
the way in,” said the Commander, a frown on his face.

“If, yes,” said the
Colonel with a nod.  “And if God put us here, I don’t see why he won’t give us
that opening.  Now we just have to find it.”

Chapter Nineteen

Do aliens have souls?  I’m not sure of the
answer to this question.  I would like to think so, as I have trouble believing
the Gods would create a being able to reason, without ensuring that they would
be rewarded for their deeds in an afterlife, or punished.  So yes, I think
aliens have souls.  And it is up to good men to show them the way to salvation.

Grand Bishop of the Church of Surya.

Now this looks
promising
,
thought Pandora as she looked out over the hanger.  She had avoided the Marines
on the way here by moving through access corridors and spoofing the security
systems of the battleship.  The security people had attempted to shut her out
multiple times, but her on-board comp had too good a handle on the firewalls,
too many penetrations, and as soon as one was closed it sent a hard probe
through another and reestablished contact.

Pandi’s suit, the outer
skin now in complete working order, had also done good service.  Its light bending
invisibility field was much better than anything the Nation military was used
to dealing with, and she had stuck to the shadows, such as they were, the whole
way.  Shutting down lighting systems over the ship’s net and creating more
shadows had also helped.

The hanger was mostly
empty, its cavernous space and docking cradles showing that it had once been
full of a lot of small vessels.  Most were either on the planet, in atmosphere,
or climbing to and from the ship.  There were a pair of shuttles on the far
end, one with access hatches open and mechanics working, the other in seeming
good condition.  Closer at hand was an atmospheric fighter with some definite
damage to one wing, while crew worked to replace the hull panels that looked
partially melted.

That’s the one
, thought Pandora,
pulling the hyper-v launcher from her back and aiming it.  She pulled the first
trigger and locked the missile on target.  She hesitated for a moment, looking
at the technicians working within the blast zone and wondering if she should
warn them.  Thoughts of how she had been abused by their countrymen banished
those feelings. 
Just too damn bad
, she thought, pulling the second
trigger and sending the grabber pulled missile at the target.

The missile popped from
the launcher with a slight recoil, then ran with its spatial grabber engines to
the target at a thousand gees acceleration.  One of the workers must have heard
the initiating pop, and he started to turn his head.  He never completed that
motion, at least not on this plane of existence.  The missile streaked into the
fuselage of the aircraft with a bright flash, soon followed by an earsplitting
roar.  The hull under the cockpit turned to metal vapor, while the rest of the
aircraft shattered and flew in pieces across the hanger.

When the flash cleared
there was no sign of the people who had been working on the aircraft, and
Pandora again felt a bit of guilt.  They weren’t combat troops. 
But they
were fixing an aircraft that would be used to attack friends
, she thought,
again dismissing the guilty feelings.

Pandora looked up the
hanger and saw the people who had been working on the shuttle were now picking
themselves up from the floor.  One was not moving at all, and the spreading
pool of crimson under his body told of something penetrating him.  The others
were moving in a daze, and Pandora unslung the heavy laser and fired a blast
into the ceiling overhead, burning into the hull with a shower of sparks.

“Get the hell out of
here,” she yelled over her suit speakers, her voice reverberating like that of
a giant in the big open room.  The techs looked around, then one pointed wide
eyed at her while she walked forward, dropping the stealth field with a
thought.  “Get out of here,” she yelled, and the people started moving toward
one of the hatches.

As that hatch opened a
squad of Marines ran through, shouldered the naval personnel out of the way. 
“Halt,” yelled one of the Marines, “you’re surrounded.  There’s no place to
go.”

Pandi looked on her HUD
to see that a hatch to the rear had also opened, and another squad was moving
into firing position.  She looked forward and saw the last of the techs exiting
the chamber, so she initiated her next move.

The main hatch to the
hanger started opening at the center, normally something that wouldn’t be done
while there was still atmosphere in the chamber.  On a more advanced ship there
would have been a cold plasma field to hold in the atmosphere.  Though the
Nation had made many advances based on the stolen tech, she knew from perusing
their data banks that cold plasma fields were not one of them.  Suit grabbers
were not another one, and she watched as tools and boxes and anything not tied
down were pulled out of the ship like they were dust sucked from a vacuum.  The
Marines were next to go, though a couple were able to grab onto something and
stop their progress into space.

Pandora balanced on her
own suit grabbers and shot the two Marines who were not following her plan. 
The heavy laser punched through first one faceplate, then the next, not even
giving the Marines time to scream.  One let go of the handhold and start
floating out of the hanger, which was almost completely void of air by that
time.  The other floated in the breeze as his suit gauntlet continued to clamp
on the handhold, finally lowering to a rest on the deck.

The woman from the past
climbed aboard the working shuttle and hacked into its systems, which were even
less robust than those of the ship.  She started up the engines and lifted the
ship, while programming a course into it that suited her plans.  The shuttle
moved out of the hanger, and when it was free of the ship she exited from the
hatch and moved further out from the battleship.

The second
hyper-velocity launcher was in her hands, and she took sight on the remaining
shuttle, locked the target, and fired.  The missile streaked into the remaining
shuttle faster than the eye could follow, and suddenly the hanger was filled
with a brief fireball and pieces of shuttle flying all over.  A couple of small
pieces hit her armor, one scoring the stealth coating, which immediately
started to repair itself.  The woman then turned her suit and started forward,
keeping close to the hull.  She caught sight of some of the Marines on her HUD
as they drifted through space, wondering if shuttles would be launched to try
and pick them up. 
Not my concern
, she thought, hardening herself to the
guilt that she was causing so much death, while reminding herself that these
people intended to cause even more.

*     *     *

“How many?” asked the
Admiral, staring into the screen.

“We have four Marines
dead,” said the Security Chief.  “There are still life signs on eight of the
men who floated off ship.  And six techs in the hanger bay.”

“That many,” whispered
the Admiral under his breath.  “And the woman?” he asked, raising his voice.

“A shuttle launched
toward the planet,” said the Security Chief.  “I have alerted our fighters to
try and bring it down so that we might recapture her.”

“Weapons,” yelled the
Admiral, looking away from the screen and over at his Tactical Officer.  “Open
fire on that shuttle.”

“To disable it?” asked
the surprised looking officer.

“No, dammit,” yelled
the Admiral, standing up and stalking over to stand above the Tactical
Officer.  “I’ve had enough of this.  Blow her out of space.  Destroy her.  I
want to be done with her.”

“Aye, sir,” said the
Tactical Officer, sending the commands through his board.  He tracked the
shuttle with the main laser battery and a couple of particle beams, hitting the
commit button when all locked on.  The weapons fired, the laser striking first,
followed a fraction of a second later by the proton beams.  The hull of the
shuttle flared, then blasted out in a quickly extinguished ball of fire.  When
the ball cleared there was only an expanding debris field falling toward the
atmosphere of the planet, where it would soon burn up.

“That’s that,” said the
Admiral, slapping his hands together as if he were getting rid of dirt.  “And
good riddance.”

“We’ve lost contact
with Major Dumas,” called out the Liaison Officer, turning a grim face to his
Admiral.  “Last we heard they were being overrun.”

“The other freak,” said
the Admiral, his face reddening.  “Hit that area with kinetic rounds.”

“But our men,”
protested the Liaison.

“Are either dead or captured,”
said the Admiral, turning and pointing a finger at the officer.  “In either
case of no use to me.  And I want that Abomination taken out before he does any
more harm.”  He turned to the Tactical Officer.  “Now hit that area with
kinetic weapons.  Ten to twenty kiloton yield.  And pepper that area.”

The Admiral felt a
headache coming on.  They had been getting worse lately, and though the doctors
had told them there was no danger, he still didn’t like the way they destroyed
his concentration.  Especially at times like this, when he needed to think.

“I’ll be down in sick
bay for a little while,” he told his Exec, putting a hand to his temple and
rubbing.  “Keep me informed of any changes.”

Without waiting for a
reply the Admiral walked from the bridge and headed for the nearest lift. 
I
got rid of one headache when I took out that bitch and her shuttle.  Hopefully
we’ll take out another one soon.

His head still hurt,
but he had a smile on his face as the lift arrived.

*     *     *

“We need to move,” Watcher
told the Fleet Admiral as he watched the senior prisoner being loaded on one of
the two remaining tanks.  “Get all of your unarmored people either aboard one
of the tanks or on the top.  I’ll lead the armored troopers.”

“You think they’re
going to drops KE on us?” asked Krishnamurta, looking up at the canopy
overhead.  He mumbled something into his com, then looked back up at Watcher.

“I’m sure of it,” said
Watcher, looking at his HUD as the green dots began to move to where he wanted
them, some heading for the tanks, the rest filing away in a winding path that
would lead them to the next target.  “I don’t think they will be very accurate,
but then again they don’t have to be.”

“Understood,” said the
Admiral, again subvocalizing into his com.

They do well with such
primitive tech
,
thought Watcher.  Catching some movement out of the corner of his eye he turned
to see a trio or Maurids, the real thing and not his robots, looking at him in
his armored suit. 
At least they’re better off than these aborigines.  We
can bring the Kingdom of Surya into the Galactic age, even the Nations of
Humanity, once we pound the xenophobia out of them.  But these poor primitives
may need a couple of generations to catch up.  But they will.  They will.

The tanks started to
move out, crowded with a score of people each riding on top or holding onto the
sides.  The Maurids moved off with them, their long lopping four footed strides
keeping up easily with the tanks.  Watcher looked back once last time at the
mountain that had sheltered the Suryans, then turned away and started after the
tanks.

[Watcher] said the
on-board computer in his mind, [there is activity around one of the ships in
orbit.]

The view came up in his
mind and his HUD simultaneously.  A shuttle was leaving one of the ships and
heading down toward the planet.  Moments later a trio of powerful beams
intersected on the shuttle and it exploded.

Pandora
, thought Watcher,
feeling his heart sink.  He could think of no other reason for one of the ships
to fire on its own shuttle, than to stop it from being used as an escape
vehicle.  And Pandora Latham was the only prisoner he thought capable of
escaping the fanatical humans.

[There is a very high
probability that Pandora Latham was aboard that shuttle] came the computer
through the link.

[But there is still a
chance that she survived] thought Watcher, clinging to the hope.

[A very remote chance]
replied the machine.  [It would be logical to assume that Pandora Latham was
destroyed, and to act accordingly.]

[And it was logical to
assume that she was destroyed many times before] sent Watcher, thinking of
Pandora escaping the ship in the past that was blowing up around her, and then
getting away from
Vengeance
. 
And why would she take a shuttle that
she had to know would be targeted by the enemy.  That doesn’t make sense.
 
[I choose to believe that she was not aboard that shuttle, and act
accordingly.]

The computer didn’t
answer, and Watcher knew it must think him crazy with emotion.  And maybe he
was.  But he had learned in the past to not bet against the woman from the
twenty-first century.  It was smart money to bet on her.

[There are incoming
kinetic rounds] said the computer.  [Time to target thirty seconds]  A plot
appeared in Watcher’s mind and he did a quick calculation.

“Admiral,” he said into
the com.  “Get your men to head into those caverns I have marked on your map. 
Fast now, if you want to survive.”