The Deep Dark Well (7 page)

“And not just the
energy we could tap.  This was the center of the Empire; coordinate zero, zero,
zero, with instantaneous links across the Galaxy, and maybe beyond.  Imagine
the technology that awaits the conqueror of the
Donut
.”

There was still some
fright on faces among the assemblage.  Admiral Gerasi noted who among the
officers and NCOs those were, so he could watch them in the future.  But he
noted more greed and avarice. 
Good
, he thought.  He wanted them to be
motivated.

“And the best part of
all,” he said to those who offered their rapt attention, “is we have evidence
that the structure is almost deserted, with only a few sentients aboard at
most.” 

The attitudes of
attention grew as they heard the last.  Surely a task force as powerful as
theirs could take such a lightly defended structure.

“Admiral to the
bridge,” announced the intercom system. “Captain to the bridge.”

“Attention,” yelled one
of the officers standing near the front of the crew.  The men and women snapped
to a rigid posture, the marines a step faster than the spaceship crew, as would
be expected.

“Dismissed,” called the
admiral.

He headed for the lift
as the captain fell in beside him.

“Bridge,” said Captain
Valaris Midas as the door closed behind them.  The lift started to accelerate,
horizontally toward the middle section of the ship and the well protected
bridge.

“You have a question, Captain?”
said the admiral, looking his subordinate in the face.  Midas had served as his
flag captain for years, and the admiral had grown to know the man well.

“Yes sir,” said the
captain, looking his superior straight in the eyes.  “Why didn’t you tell them
the truth about what we faced?”

“No use scaring them so
many hours before contact,” said Admiral Gerasi.  “Time enough to fill them in
later.  When they need to know.”

“Need to know what?”
hissed the captain.  “That we’re on a suicide mission?  That there isn’t a
chance in hell we’ll be able to breach the automated defenses of that thing?”

“You forget yourself, Captain,”
said the admiral with ice in his voice.  “I have my orders.  As do you, and the
crew.  This task force is expendable.  The technology on the
Donut
is
that vital to our cause.  And I might have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“When do I find out
about these tricks?”

“When you have a need
to know, captain.  But believe me, I have a plan.  I have no intention of
sticking my own head in a noose, either here or at home.”

“And you don’t believe
we have a destiny to take this, artifact?”

“Oh, I believe we have
a divine destiny.  Our people, that is.  But I don’t think we as individuals
are destined to succeed.  The only assurance we have is we are on our own out
here.  And we can fail, especially if we become complacent.”

The lift slid easily to
a halt, and the doors opened to the organized confusion of the ship’s command
and control center.  The captain walked quickly to his command chair, as the Admiral
walked the steps to his private walk, overlooking all the details of the
bridge.

“Report,” he called out
as his eyes looked around at the many displays.  Tactical showed the small
triangles of the dozen battleships, superimposed over a schematic of the Supersystem. 
They were very near to one of the systems stars, the K5 that went by the
ancient name of Garnet, the sixth star out from the hole.   Eight planets,
thirty-five moons.  Three of the planets and moons were habitable by humans. 
Filthy hydrogen breathers inhabited one of the outer worlds.

“Alien ships ahead,”
called the tactical officer.  The admiral noted the orange triangles that
denoted possible hostiles.  Three of them.  He looked to the forward view
screen.  The stars burned a bright blue ahead.  Even the nearby orange star had
a brighter hue.  The Doppler effect, he knew, as the ships had accelerated up
to almost a tenth of light speed by now.

“Show them on main
viewer,” he ordered.

The view switched, at
first a blur, then clearing as the computer compensated for their motion.  A large
vessel was centered in the view, side on to the approaching
Nation
ships.  Long and lean, with a bulbous bow and flaring stern.  Fusion flame was
coming from the stern of the vessel.  Turrets of some type were arranged on the
bow section, and the long proboscis of a kinetic energy weapon thrust from the
front center of the vessel.

“Magnify,” ordered
Gerasi.

 The ship leapt forward
on the screen.  Lettering adorned the sides of the bow section.  Letters in a
language not seen in the worlds of the
Nation
. 

“Maurids.”  The word
spat from his mouth.  The filthiest of all oxygen breathers, demons who ran one
four legs, but walked on two.  One of the fiercest and deadliest of the
nonhuman races.

“I want a close enough
approach vector to destroy those vessels,” he ordered the navigator.

“Shouldn’t take too
much of an effort,” said the tactical officer.  “They look to be very
primitive.  Fragile by our standards.”

“Do we really need to
attack these vessels?” said Captain Midas, looking up at the admiral’s walk. 
“This action is not in our mission description.”

“I set the mission
description,” barked the admiral.  “Not some desk pilot back home.  Our
instructions have always been to destroy the nonhumans whenever possible.  And
in this case it is very possible.

“Proceed,” he ordered
the crew.  “Tactical officer, target the lead vessel with MAM torpedoes. 
Communications, order the rest of the task force to follow suit.  Target a
vessel and fire as soon as we close the range.”

Minutes passed as the
range closed.  At fifty million kilometers the lead vessel of the aliens
acquired a targeting reticule. 

“Firing,” called out
the tactical officer.  Two small dots appeared on the display, very close to
the triangle of the
Orca
.  Two other ships of the task force sported the
dots as well.  Within seconds they were on the view screen, the ship’s computer
compensating for their great velocity.  Matter-antimatter torpedoes, the
deadliest long-range weapons in the arsenal of the
Nation of Humanity
. 
Each started from their tubes with
Orca
’s current .1 c velocity.

Inertia damping bubbles
enclosed the twenty-meter long weapons, really small spaceships in their own
right.  The spherical propulsion unit on the stern of each torpedo propelled
them forward at over a thousand gees, adding 10 kilometers per second onto the
velocity with each advance of the chronometer.  They could boost for an hour,
adding .12 c to their final velocity.

Minutes passed as the
weapons moved toward their targets.  The enemy had shown no attitude of being under
assault, of even knowing the
Nation
's warships were present.  Ten
minutes into the attack that changed.

“Transmission from the enemy vessels,” said the
com officer.

“Put it on screens,”
ordered the admiral, stepping down from the walk to head to the front of the
bridge.

The creatures that
appeared were like something out of a nightmare.  Dozens of them, crowding the
large bridge of the alien ship.  Long, lean bodies, fur enveloping every part
not covered by space ship overalls.  Most of the creatures carried an orange
fur with black stripes, while a minority sported spots instead.  They sat in
couches that allowed them to use all of their limbs, front and rear carrying
useable hands.

One looked into the
screen, his cat like eyes narrowed, ears flattened, lips curled back from his
long muzzle.  The fur around his neck was up in a ruff. 
Afraid
, thought
the admiral.  And with every reason to be.  Maurids, as he had thought.  The
Universe would do just as well without these running around in their primitive
warships, surely looking for even more primitive peoples to prey upon.

A scratching roar
sounded from the speakers, in time with the creature’s lips.  Nothing that the
ship’s computers had ever heard before, and no translation was forthcoming.

“Transmit back to
them,” said the admiral.  The com officer pushed a few buttons and nodded to
him.

“We cannot understand
your transmission,” he said toward the screen.  “Please transmit using standard
Galactic.”

He wanted to hear what
they had to say before they died.  And there might just be some useful
information the creatures would be willing to give for the promise of their
lives.  Not that promises made to nonhumans meant anything.

“They are 2.77 light
minutes at current transmission range,” said the com officer.  “Five and a half
minutes before return transmission.”

The admiral nodded his
head as he watched the torpedoes slowly move toward their targets on the
tactical display.  The alien captain continued to speak into the screen, though
the com officer had damped the sound so they didn’t have to listen to the
coarse racket of its language.

At five and a half
minutes the expression on the alien’s face changed to one of recognition.  It
started to speak again, this time in something almost recognizable.  After a
second the translation program in the ship’s computer caught on, and the flat
speech of its voice processor took the place of the alien’s voice.  It started
the translation from the first known words, the sounds coming through its
speakers out of sync with the alien’s mouthings on the screen.

“Unknown aliens,” it
said, “unknown aliens.  We are on a peaceful mission.  Repeat, we are on a
peaceful mission.  Why have you fired on our vessels?  Please abort your
missiles, or we will be forced to return fire.”

Several of the crew
started laughing.  As if they had anything to fear from those vessels.  Pure
bravado on the part of the Maurids. 

“Repeat, to unknown
aliens.  We are on a peaceful mission.  We have done nothing to provoke an
aggressive action.  In the name of mercy abort your missiles.”

With a wave of his hand
the admiral cut the voice, watching with pleasure the reactions of the
panicking alien crew.  They must know from the acceleration of the incoming
torpedoes that they were facing something beyond their ability to stop.  But he
still expected them to fight, to give him more pleasure in their resistance.

“Perhaps if you told us
more about your mission, and your destination, we would be willing to believe
you.”

Minutes passed.  The
tactical officer looked quickly to his personal display, then up at the
admiral.

“They have attacked the
torpedoes, sir.”

“Anything we need to
worry about?”

“No sir.  Just standard
lasers, in the UV range.  The torpedoes are instituting automatic evasive.”

It would take over a
minute for the lasers to strike the torpedoes at their current range.  The
gentlest of evasive maneuvers would make the torpedoes impossible to track
targets.  As they closed they would have to maneuver more violently, but they
had the ability to do so, among other defensive capabilities.

Seconds later the laser
light shone on the hull of the
Orca
.  If held long enough on the same
point of the hull they would cause damage.  But
Orca
would not hold
still.  Small adjustments at high gee threw the targeting of the beams off. 
And at over two light minutes, the enemy hadn’t a chance of regaining a lock. 
The target was long gone from its position by the time the beams arrived.

“Humans,” came the
transmission.  “Please, we are on a mission of mercy.  The power station of our
colony within this system’s Ort Cloud has gone off line.  We are in transit
with parts and technical experts.  If you need proof contact the colony.  The
coordinates of the colony are…”

“Track those
coordinates and get a firing solution,” ordered the admiral.  “I want as little
space capability behind us as possible, especially by those creatures.”

“Yes sir.”

Time went by, and the
torpedoes closed the distance, going through high gee maneuvers as the enemy
ships began to pour on the fire.  Lasers were avoided before they could cause
sufficient damage.  Particle beams were blocked by the charged particle
shields.  Counter missiles were taken out by the torpedoes’ own defensive
lasers.

“They’re already dead,”
said the tactical officer, looking up at the bridge chronometer.  The admiral
nodded his head, still wanting to experience the reality of the kill.  He only
had to wait a couple of minutes.

Two bright points of
light flared in the distance, as the gigaton warheads went off on target.  The
com transmission went blank immediately.  More pinpoints appeared, as the other
sets of warheads approached and destroyed their targets.  On the tactical
screen the blast wave of the weapons spread out as a red line, and the red
triangles of the alien ships disappeared.

“We have the colony
targeted, sir,” said the tactical officer.  “Two hundred million kilometers
from our position.  Electromag radiating from a large comet.”