“P Company has run into something heavy,” yelled a tech, as the view changed again. Larger robots, distinctively mechanical this time, were holding their own in a large chamber. Five of them, with an entourage of the Hustedean shaped bots. With a thought the holo expanded to a close-up on the robots, and Mathis’ breath caught as he realized the implication of the machines. Fractuals. Robots of legend to his people, rumored to be the most useful of machines. Machines taking terrible damage from the marine company trying to remove them from its path. Small blocks shattered by the thousands under the hail of fire. Explosions danced around the perimeter of the chamber, as grenadiers plied their weapons, blasting the smaller robots into incomplete parodies of themselves.
One of the fractuals blew into very small pieces in the great explosion that signaled the attack of a rocket launcher. Mathis swore at the destruction of something his engineer training made him desire above anything else they had seen so far. But the marines had no choice, if they were to win the fight. Within minutes it was over. The marines moved forward to salvage the remains. Hopefully enough to build one of the things for themselves.
Firefights erupted here and there. The enemy seemed to only have robots to throw into the battle. Sophisticated robots to be sure, but still limited. Casualty figures were still light, only thirty killed, a hundred wounded. The men were bagging huge quantities of equipment, data disks, and materials. Weapons from the hands of the robots. They had yet to find the true prize, an example of one of the space drives used by the ancients.
“L Company has run into something big,” said a tech.
Mathis swore as the view switched to take in a trio of big, ugly looking machines. The torn apart body of a marine gave the scene some scale, and the colonel realized these robots were over twenty feet tall and as heavily armored as tanks. High velocity rounds struck sparks as they hit the robots. That was the only sign that anything at all was happening to them. The robots fired back with rotating barrel cannon, rockets, and the red-hot particle beams they sprayed around the room.
“Where the hell are the heavy weapons,” screamed Mathis, as he watched the view switch several times, a sign that his computer was accessing working camera units as marines carrying them were killed. The casualty figures rose alarmingly. L Company was taking a beating.
A huge ball of fire blossomed on the torso of one of the combat robots, as molten metal and pieces of robot flew from the explosion. The robot fell backwards, its legs and arms still moving. It tried to get back up as a couple of grenades landed near it. Explosions rocked the room as the detonations did their work and disabled the combat robot.
“Chamber secure,” came the voice of the only surviving officer of the company, a lieutenant. Mathis looked again at the casualty figures. L Company had lost over half of its personnel to the trio of heavy robots. He prayed to the patriarch that there were not many more of the things.
A shout of a technician killed his hope, as two other companies were soon under assault by combinations of robots, including the heavies that had so decimated L Company.
* * *
They have guts, thought Pandi, as she watched her robots battle the invaders. The marines would not back down, taking room after room with swift assaults. And they had spread far from their multiple entry points, making her job of coordinating the defense even harder. Surely they didn’t expect to conquer the station? Not even a small portion of the station, not with the troops they had deployed. If so they were madmen.
And they fought like madmen. Their technology may have not have been as advanced as that carried by the robots, but it was powerful enough to destroy. Thousands of robots had already been destroyed, and Pandi began to feel that her feat in fighting through them had not been so great after all. Of course she hadn’t the advantages of heavy weapons and the flanking fire of comrades.
Break off that attack, she ordered with a thought, as the invaders were about to swamp some of her robots. Set up in ambush in the ready room at these coordinates.
A thought crossed her mind at that moment, as she watched several marines gunned down by a heavy combat robot. Was she on the right side in this fight? The station computer had stated that these men needed to be stopped from taking the station. Why did she trust it now when she didn’t trust it before? Could she take the risk of not listening to it?
No, she thought, even as the guilt of killing washed over her. Watcher had not wanted these people on his station. He thought they shouldn’t have access to the technology they would find here. But they were getting away with machinery and equipment. Probably enough to boost their own tech base by hundreds of years at least.
Her mind followed the battle as three-dozen firefights erupted across the station. Total control was hers, the dream of all the generals through history. Her soldiers were completely obedient, without a qualm of killing or dying for queen and country.
Finally she came to the conclusion that while she could prevent the invaders from penetrating any further into the station, she would not be able to dislodge them with the present wave of robots. And it would take a while to gather enough forces for an overwhelming assault. In the meantime, the intruders were gathering all the tech they could get their hands on.
* * *
“Can’t we fire a spread of torpedoes at them?” asked Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta. A feeling of frustration, of helplessness washed over him as he watched the images of the Nation of Humanity ships on the holo. His fleet was on the other side of the Donut, coming in at a bit of an angle, catching glimpses of the Nation squadron for a few seconds every eleven point eight minutes, the time for the structure to completely rotate.
“I don’t think that would be wise, sir,” said the tactical officer. “While we don’t know the total capabilities of the artifact, we can be sure they are greater than we can imagine. I wouldn’t want to have whoever or whatever is controlling that thing to think we are attacking it.”
“Besides,” said the captain, “even if we fired we wouldn’t be able to get a hit for several hours. They will probably be away by then.”
Damn, thought the admiral. And it was still an hour before they were at rest compared to the Donut. Even at the thousands of gravities the torpedoes were capable of accelerating, they still took time to cover a distance. His people had always resisted the idea of using the space destroying drive of their enemies. Their own warp bubble drives were more efficient in the long run, allowing them to reach speeds much greater than the space destroying drive allowed. On trips between the stars the warp bubble drive gave them a great transit advantage. The farther the distance to be traveled, the greater the advantage. But the space destroying drive seemed to give the ships of the Nation a great advantage within the gravity well of a system, as well as allowing them to launch instantaneous transit torpedoes.
Ships with space destroying drives ran the risk of their negative matter shield rupturing and destroying the ship, as well as the danger of intersecting material objects in normal space. But the Surya ships were guaranteed to implode if they activated their drives this close in to a gravity source. So their superior tech didn’t translate into superior results.
“I think this mission is a bust, sir,” said the tactical officer. “As soon as they are finished they will just warp out of there. If even half of them survive the transit they will have succeeded in their mission.”
“And we won’t be able to catch them in this space,” finished the admiral. “But we have to be in position to try.”
“Once they achieve pseudo light, it doesn’t matter if we overtake them,” continued the tactical officer.
Because the only way we would catch them then, thought the admiral, would be to try and intercept them outside of their home systems. Right under the guns of their system fleet. Odds of destroying the enemy ships before they reached safety, minimal. Odds of being destroyed before getting away, infinite. Both sides had learned early on the dangers of assaulting the defended systems of the oth
er. Which was why they played the game in other locations, away from the strengths of their opponents.
“At least one of our ships has to get home,” said the captain. “They have to learn about the warp torpedoes the Nation is using.”
“They don’t seem to be very accurate,” said the tactical officer. “I doubt they would get more than one significant hit on a planetary target in a hundred launches.”
“But they could devastate a system if launched in mass,” replied the captain. “And it might be worth it just to achieve a terror effect.”
“I agree with you captain,” said Krishnamurta. “Order Prinus and Commaga to go to maximum deceleration. I want them to pull out of this system and head for home. The rest of us are expendable.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the captain. “I feel ready to face anything as long as the home worlds are warned. And we also need to warn them about the unexpected.”
“Yes,” agreed the admiral. “No telling what they will get from that artifact. We better be prepared for the worst.”
* * *
“L, J and S companies are holding,” said Mathis over the holo link. “The rest are on the way out.”
“I’m impressed, colonel,” said the admiral . “Prize reports are coming in from the first launches. This will keep the research boys at work for years.”
“I hope they get something useful from it all,” said the Lt. Colonel.
“So do I,” said Gerasi, thinking of all the lives lost so far, and the surely more to be lost before they got out of here.
“Get your boys off of there as soon as possible,” continued the admiral. “As small a concern as it is, they’ve all earned promotions, as well as medals.”
“I’m sure they will appreciate the prize money even more,” said the colonel.
If we get back, thought the admiral. That was always the big question. Prize money was only of use if you lived to spend it.
Timed passed as the admiral was left alone with his thoughts, acknowledging with a nod the reports of his subordinates, but not really paying attention, until the final report came in.
“The last launch is aboard, sir,” said one of the com techs.
“Prepare to warp out,” the admiral ordered. “All other ships to follow.”
Orca moved up and over the Donut on inertialess drive, lining herself up for escape from the area of the black hole. Negative matter rushed from her containment pods, feeding the shield held in place by the magnetic field. As soon as the shield was in place she fired up her drive, tons of antimatter converted to energy, eating the fabric of space in front of the ship while regurgitating it behind.
Gerasi gripped the arms of his chair as they entered pseudo light, his muscles tightening in expectation of the worst. The system star they were aimed at leapt nearer, as the feeling of nausea gripped the admiral. Sapphire, the F5, second system out from the hole, with the lowest tech level of any system in the Supersystem.
The bridge crew let out its collective breath. They had survived the passage. The other ships transited in within light minutes of the Orca. None intersected another. Within minutes all had reported in. All that had made it.
“Lampre didn’t make it,” came the report from the com officer. Lampre had been the third ship to transit. “The others reported that she imploded as soon as she had raised her negative matter shield.”
Six survivors, thought the admiral. Three would get back to the home stars, while the other three set up operations within the system.
“Order all other ships to close in,” said Gerasi. “Antimatter transfer to take place immediately. Tech transfer as fast as they can move it.”
Yes, he thought. Orca and two others would head for home. They had used more fuel than had been planned, and there was only enough to power the three to home. The other three would stealth into the system ahead, pick a nice asteroid out of one of its belts, and start construction on a base of operations. The Nation of Humanity was here to stay. They would be back, in force, with logistics ships, tankers, the works. And the Supersystem would be theirs.
* * *
Vengeance cursed as the ships disappeared from his display. They had come and taken what they wanted. Oh, he and the automated defense systems had taken a great toll, and the vagaries of physics had taken more into the dark. But he had failed in his purpose, to keep the tech of the station out of the hands of the primitives.
The newcomers sat there in space, just beyond the reach of the neutronium sphere function of the graviton beams. Surely a different group, thought the immortal being.
A wave of nausea washed over, as heavy fatigue gripped him. No, he thought. He couldn’t sleep now. Not now. Blackness pulled him under; the last thought that the new intruders might make their move while he was away.
* * *
“How did we do?” asked Pandi of the central station computer. She felt as tired as if she had fought off all of the enemy marines, instead of merely supervised the robotic forces. Something about the link to the computer was very draining.
“Not very well,” said the machine. “They escaped with the critical data contained on several of the maintenance terminals in the service bay. Of course they do not know what information they have, but will be able to retrieve and reconstruct it when they return home.”
“What kind of data? Weapons?”
“No weapons,” said the computer. “But complete schematics of a class of interstellar capable merchant ships. With these schematics they will be able to reproduce the most sophisticated of interstellar drives, which will give them an impossible advantage over their enemy. Also cybernetics technology that will allow them to construct robots generations ahead of anything they have.”
“Damn,” said Pandi. “And they were the anti-alien fanatics, right? So what do we do? Can we give their enemy the same technology?”
“I am not programmed to give any technology to primitive peoples,” said the computer.
“Even though you weren’t able to keep their sworn foes from upsetting the balance of power by stealing technology from the station.”
“I will have to get orders concerning this complication,” said the computer.
“Oh, get the hell out of here,” she yelled, her mind willing the station computer to break contact with her.
“OK,” she said to the regional system computer, “let’s get to work. I want access to the central data banks, and all the information you have on the Watcher Project.”
* * *
Watcher awoke on his bed, confusion clouding his mind for a few moments. A careful scan showed him he was in his own quarters. But the woman was gone.
“Pandi,” he called, pulling his naked form from the bed. He could have sworn he still wore his clothes when he had crawled into the bed. Had she undressed him, to make him more comfortable in his sleep? But she had promised to look over him, and she was not here.
He accessed his local net and found he had been out for over twenty-four hours. It had happened again. He had blacked out while his brother had full run of the station. Why did one always disappear when the other appeared? His head hurt at the thought, and a wave of confusing nausea swept over him. Why had it always affected him so to even think about it? Why was he not allowed to put his full intellect to the solving of the problem that vexed him so?
“Where is the woman Pandora Latham?” he asked the computer, his mind already thinking the worst.
“The being known as Pandora Latham is in Hustedean quarters B1 at the present time,” said the computer.
“Is she OK?”
“Pandora Latham is in control of the habitat at this time,” said the computer. “She is surrounded by robots under her control.”
“What happened while I was out?”
“Vengeance and Pandora Latham fought off an attack by the alien intruders who had been waiting to assault the station.”
“Pandi joined forces with Vengeance?”
“Not exactly,” said the computer.
“She ran for safety as soon as she lost contact with you and learned that Vengeance was looking for her. She fought her way free of Vengeance’s forces and gained control of the region of the station she now occupies. Coincidentally, that was the region which the alien ships assaulted.”
“Did the aliens get away with anything?”
“The aliens, though taking heavy losses, were able to gain significant sources of technology. Enough to progress them hundreds of years past their current level.”
“How in the hell did they get past our defenses? Never mind,” he said, walking to his closet to select the clothing and equipment he would need to travel.
“I want to contact Pandora Latham. Now,” he said while he pulled on a jumpsuit and buckled on a utility belt.
“Watcher, is that you?” asked the throaty voice of the woman as her image appeared on the holo in the center of the room. “Where did you go? Oh, you don’t know, do you?” She had an expression of exasperation on her lovely face.
“I would like to talk to you,” she continued. “I’ve learned some fascinating information about your development.”
“You have,” he said. “Like what?”
The holo began to fade and waver as her voice began to break up.
“Where is the closest gate to her?” he asked the computer, staring at the holo in dismay. Had the system been damaged during the assault? How else could he explain a system that had never shown any indications of trouble doing so now?
“The nearest gate is in the administrator’s office, approximately ten kilometers from her current location.”
“Which means I go to the administrator’s office five kilometers from here, then through the terminal room,” he said, gathering the rest of his equipment, making sure that the holstered AM blaster was attached to his belt. “Order a full platoon of robots to meet me in the office. If I’m going out of my stronghold I want at least sufficient body guards for safety.”
The Deep Dark Well Page 21