The Deep Dark Well (44 page)

Pandora
set one of the particle beams for uncharged and one for antimatter, figuring
that the uncharged beam might cause enough surface damage to mag field
projector units to allow the antimatter through.  And then she checked her
missiles.  After she checked all the rest of her systems, and went over the
weapons systems again.  She was satisfied with all the charges, lasers and
defensive fields, but forced herself to check them again anyway.  And then she
waited until the distance closed some more.

Got
to be careful those space altering fields
, she thought, watching the enemy
vectors closely.  Coming in front of a Nation ship would destroy her vessel. 
Come directly astern?  She wasn’t sure what would happen, but she didn’t want
to chance anything.  So she set her approach and retreat vectors with care,
then waited.  Until the wait was over.

The
ship’s clock started a countdown at ten seconds, Pandora just an observer to
things that were going to happen faster than even her reaction time could
account for.  At three seconds one of the enemy ships started to turn its
vector a little, followed by another two a second later. 
They’ve seen me
,
she thought. 
Too late
, she thought with a wolfish grin, as
Avenger
opened
up with all weapons
.

The
lasers from the front ring hit first, two beams on two targets.  Both ships had
electromag fields up, not strong enough, as they were not expecting an attack. 
The ships were still moving at several times the speed of light subjective, so
the beams were fired well ahead and shot quickly along the hulls, ripping
through metal and opening rooms to space.  Particle beams hit a moment later, a
quick burst of each on the two ships that were targeted.  Uncharged particles
hit the hulls, causing ripping damage.  Followed by the antimatter beam which
hit with explosive force.

Avenger
dropped a quartet of
missiles at the same time she fired her beam weapons.  The missiles took off at
twenty thousand gravities accel, moving onto their separate targets.  One came
in too far to the front of one vessel and disappeared from current space-time. 
One missed to the stern of a ship and exploded, but the blast could not catch
the ship.  One that entered the actual field containing a ship exploded
overhead, sending a flood of heat and radiation into the vessel.  The last
missile hit its target dead center.  The quarkium warhead blasted with hundreds
of gigatons of power, and the ship was blown first to pieces, then to particles
as its own antimatter breached containment.  The space destroying drive died in
that instant.

“Eat
shit, you xenophobe motherfuckers,” called Pandi, following with her best rebel
yell.

And
then she was past the enemy ships, her stern lasers and particle beams taking
them under fire for the fraction of a second that they were viable targets. 
She didn’t bother with any missiles, they just would have been decelerating to
slow down from the imparted momentum of her ship, and would have been out of
range by the time they had developed any vector toward the enemy ships. 
Pandora smirked as she looked into her view, seeing the expanding mass of one
enemy ship, and the dead in space hulks of two others.  One of the two looked
lifeless, while the other was a hive of activity as spacesuits and repair bots
started to swarm over the surface.

Not
bad for a quick strike in what really isn’t a warship
, she thought, ordering
Avenger
to begin braking and vector changes to bring her onto the second
group, a maneuver which could take several hours.  By that time the enemy ships
would be in normal space, and she had no doubt they would find a message
waiting for them that told of her existence.  That next group would be waiting.

“Could
I convince you to preclude the second attack,” came the voice of Watcher over
the com.

“No
way, lover,” said Pandora, grinning.  “I’m having too much fun.”

“You
realize that you have just killed over a thousand intelligent beings.”

You’re
one to talk
,
thought Pandi, catching herself before she said something hurtful to Watcher. 
After all, it wasn’t really he who had destroyed Galactic civilization.  It had
only been his body under control of another mind.  Then Pandi thought about the
men she had killed, and that brought another smile to her face. 
I’m not
always the nice girl
, she thought, imagining the destruction to that ship
her missile had hit. 
And times like these call for us bad girls
.

“I
wish I could bring those bastards back to life so I could kill them again,”
said Pandora through gritted teeth as she let the anger at those kind of people
build within her.  “Those xenophobic, misogynistic, genocidal son of bitches.”

“You
are not in the proper emotional state to go into combat,” said Watcher, his
voice tone calming.  “You need to be in a better frame of mind, and not
controlled by your emotions.”

“You
know,” said Pandi, checking her tactical display to make sure nothing was about
to bite her in the ass, “my uncle Clayton told me stories about being in the
Marines during the Third Crusade.  And I think he would disagree with your
assessment of the utility of emotions during combat.  He was a fighter pilot, and
the Marines never believed in turning over air support roles to robots.  He
told me that a good old mad was just the thing to take into a fight.”

“Interesting,”
said Watcher, his voice so calm it felt almost hypnotic.  “But I think he was
wrong in this situation.  Your brain is the only thing keeping you alive.”

“You
trying to hypnotize me,” said Pandi, her voice rising along with her anger. 
“If you want to talk rationally, then let’s talk.  But none of that damned
mesmerizing crap.”

“OK,”
said the superbeing, his own voice slightly agitated at being caught in a
subterfuge.  “Just talk.  Since you have about four hours before you’ll be
ready to engage the enemy again.  So let us go over some history of space
warfare.  And just maybe you will see the wisdom of my suggestions.”

“I’m
all ears,” said Pandi, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. 
“Enlighten me.”

*    
*     *

“What
in the hell was that?” yelled Admiral Miklas Gerasi as the
Orca
bucked
from hits from particle beams.

“Eat
shit, you xenophobe motherfuckers,” came a voice over the com, following by a
high pitched warbling yell.

There
were shocked looking faces all over the large control room.  It was impossible
to attack a ship while it was in Alcubierre drive.  Wasn’t it?  But something sure
had.

“It
was a ship of some kind,” called out the tactical officer.

“A
warship?” asked Captain Lashan, his eyes wide as he looked first to the
tactical officer, then to the admiral.

“Too
small for any kind of warship I’ve heard of,” said the tactical officer,
looking at his holo screen.

“What
did they do to the rest of the force?” asked the captain in a panicked voice.

“Be
kind of hard to tell what they did while moving in hyper,” said the admiral,
raising an eyebrow as he looked at his flag captain.

“But,
if we drop back to normal space and they come back,” said the man, sweat
breaking on his brow.

“Do
you have a fix on that ship?” the admiral asked the tactical officer.

“As
best I can give for pseudo-velocity,” said the man.  “She moving away, decelerating
at two thousand gravities, and curving her vector.  Best guess is that she’s
moving to attack the second task force when they come back to normal space.”

“There
you have it, captain,” said the admiral, giving a man he now thought of as a
coward a sneer.  “Please drop out of Alcubierre and give us a look at what’s
going on.”

“Yes,
sir,” said the captain, giving the order to the helm.  Within moments the stars
to front and rear returned to normal as the ship stopped dead in space.

“Send
a signal on tight beam to the other force,” ordered the admiral.  “Hopefully
they’ll get it when they come back to normal space.”

“If
the enemy doesn’t hit them first,” said the tactical officer, shaking his head.

“We’ll
just have to pray that doesn’t happen,” said the admiral, “and adjust our plans
as if it will.”

“And
who in the hell was that on that ship?” asked the tactical officer, looking
around the bridge.  “The language sounded kind of familiar.  And that yell at
the end.”

“Feeding
it into the translator now,” said the com officer, working his board.  “OK,
wait a second.”

“There
is small particle debris behind us,” called out one of the sensor techs.  The
viewer switched to behind, where the tactical display showed a radar image of a
cloud of fragments swiftly expanding.

“We
also have two ships motionless in space behind us,” called out another tech,
and the viewer switched from first a ship sitting lifeless against the mass of
stars in backdrop, to one that was a swarm of people and robots frantically
making repairs.

“I
have a match on the language,” said the com tech, looking up from his board. 
“Colloquial English, circa 2100, old Earth.”

“No
wonder it sounded so familiar,” said the captain, nodding his head.

Yes
¸ thought Gerasi,
nodding.  English had been the language of the Old Empire, the one that had
fallen several thousand years before.  The Nation’s own language was based on
it, though it had diverged quite a bit since the fall.

“Computer
thinks the speaker originated in the Southern United States, as that Empire was
called.”

“Amazing,”
said the admiral, looking at a viewer that was showing a picture of the enemy
ship on closest approach.  “And that yell she let out.”

“No
references in the data banks,” said the com.  “Frightening though, when coming
from something streaking by at point nine five light.  And I’m receiving a
transmission from
Manta
.  She suffered superficial damage to the ship,
but major to her drive.  They are expediting repairs.”

“And
what about the other ship?”

“
Skate
,
sir,” said the tech, looking at the viewer, which was back with a view of the
ship dead in space.  “Major damage and casualties, but her captain thinks he
can get her moving again in a day or so.”

A
day or so,
thought
the admiral. 
“I’d hoped to be out of this area and back to the base in less
time than that.  So should I leave someone behind to protect her, or just take
the crew off and scuttle?

“Where
do you think she came from?” asked the captain, interrupting the admiral’s
train of thought.

Valari
Midas would not have interrupted my thoughts
.  The admiral shot a glare at the flag
captain while remembering that a good command team was like a marriage.  And he
couldn’t see this one ending in any other manner than divorce.

“She
came from the
Donut
,” growled Gerasi at his subordinate, with a look
that told the man his admiral thought him an idiot.  “Where the hell else do
you think she came from, with that kind of tech?”

“Then
maybe we should attack the station,” said the captain, squaring his shoulders
and trying to look brave.

Gerasi
shook his head in disgust and turned away from the officer.  He thought of the
attack he had carried out on the huge station two years before.  The thing was
so large that he was sure he could do no critical damage to it.  And it had
weapons that could wipe out his fleet, if given a chance.  He had barely been
able to get in close and board using a ruse, to capture what he needed and go. 
Losing almost half his ships and over half his crew.

“No,”
he said, turning back to his flag captain.  “We will not be attacking that
thing while I am here.  We will operate out here on the fridges.”

“And
if they send more ships?”

“If
they had them, or the crew to man them, I think we would have been swarmed
under.  Com,” he said, walking up behind the com tech.  “Give
Manta
orders
to stay with
Skate
.  She is to escort her sister back to base when both
are capable.  Meanwhile,” he said, walking back to his chair, “get us underway
and catch up to the fleet.”

The
helm looked back at the captain, waiting for the order to come through the
chain of command.

“You
heard the man,” said the captain, plopping down in his own chair.  “Engage the
drive.”

The
helmsman nodded and turned back to his board.  Ahead a hole of darkness grew as
the drive swallowed up space before the photons riding on it could reach the
ship.  And behind a lesser darkness grew as
Orca
outran the pursuing
photons.

Excerpt
from
The
Shadows of the Multiverse

“The game is up,
ma’am,” said Lt. Marokowski from his tactical station.  “Narrow beam lidar has
us painted.”