The Deep Dark Well

by Doug Dandridge

  “I’ll see you tonight, lover,” she said as she checked her navigation status once last time.

  “It’s a date,” he said. “Bet you never thought you’d be in this situation when you were out prospecting the Kuiper Belt.”

  That's an understatement, she thought. But it has always been her fondest wish. She hoped the realization of her dream would be worth the cost. So far, it had.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Doug Dandridge is an ex-professional student with degrees from Florida State University and The University of Alabama, and coursework in Psychology, Biology, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Anthropology and Nursing. Doug has interest in all of the fantastic, including science fiction, fantasy and horror, as well as all eras of military history. Doug is a prolific writer, having completed 25 novel length manuscripts. He is still seeking a major publishing contract, but has decided that self- publishing is the way to go at this time. His work can be found on Amazon and Smashwords, as well as his own website. Doug lives with his five cats in Tallahassee, Florida, and currently has no social life, as he is too busy writing around his work schedule.

  Follow my many characters and settings at http://dougdandridge.net

  Contact me at BrotherofCats@gmail.com

  Follow my Blog, Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge at http://dougdandridge.com

  Follow me at @BrotherofCats

  The Favor of a review.

  Reviews, rating and comments on Amazon about this novel are much appreciated. If you liked the storyl please leave a review that will help others to discover this novel. If you have comments about mistakes I might have made, posting them in a review will tell me what I need to do to grow as a writer and put a quality product out on the net. If you want to see these characters again (at least the ones that survived) a review will let me know I should consider writing in this particular Universe again.

  I read all the reviews of my books and love to hear what my readers have to say. If you have a moment I would be grateful for your time. Review page.

  Books by Doug Dandridge

  Science Fiction

  The Deep Dark Well Trilogy

  The Deep Dark Well: An Adventure 40,000 years in the making. Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama. She’s used to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole, halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future. Pandora must discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars. Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down the roads of Barbarism.

  To Well and Back: Pandora Latham is back, working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization. But first she has to deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own. Pandora is angry at the hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

  The Exodus Series

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1: The introduction to the Exodus Universe. Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years to a new home. Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to be going well for the New Terran Empire. Until the enemy appears once again at the gates. And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2: The saga continues. The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the Empire is at its most chaotic. There are other enemies as well, waiting for their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans. And a young man with no ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

  Other Scifi

  Diamonds in the Sand: When a perfectly healthy scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened. The scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the Government to the Mob. There are too many suspects, including the woman that Gary comes to love. The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

  The Scorpion: The Scorpion had been the world’s deadliest living terrorist. Kestral McMann had been in on the kill. Now The Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security of an isolationist United States. McMann is the only man who can stop him. But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan back into the Stone Age.

  The Shadows of the Multiverse: Something has been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages. It’s back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the Universe from Monsters from another Dimension. Can they learn to use the powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been playing the game for billions of years?

  Afterlife: What if you didn’t believe in the afterlife of the World’s Religions? And what if science offered you the alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want? And what if the World decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy your reality? What would you do? Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

  Fantasy

  The Refuge Series

  Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1: A nuclear war in Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy. The Evil Emperor of the Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to immortality. But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge. The war is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

  Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2: The Ellala have a plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians. And the humans find that their weapons will soon cease to function. So it’s use it or lose it for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance. Tanks against Mages, Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods. And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy. But will it be enough?

  Refuge: Doppelganger: Set thousands of years after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim. The world is at a crisis point as the Evil Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology. And Kurt must face a creature of legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

  Other Fantasy

  The Hunger: Abused wife, drug addict, prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life. Left for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire. When he is destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her. The crime boss of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a bloodbath. But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest, the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

  Daemon: A Steampunk Fantasy. The world is dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred years. Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit them for sacrifice on Earth. But something has come with them, a force that is killing the employees of Daemon Corp. It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of Daemon Corp from silencing
him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of the public eye.

  Aura: Triplets are born on a world where the magical Aura decides the fate of its owner. Ariel is a girl with more than double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage. Aiden has a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer. While Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative Auras. Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

  New Imagination Unlimited Newsletter

  Sign up for my free Newsletter at Mailchimp, for insights into my writing, future projects, promotions and new releases. The Newsletter will come out at least twice a month, and will always contain something new.

  Excerpt from To Well and Back

  Pandora thought about her strategy for another moment while the closing velocity and the distance dropped. The particle beam projectors gave her the option of four different loads, all corresponding to a separate wormhole portal to a different accelerator loop on the station. Charged particles were best for hitting targets with full force, as they didn’t lose velocity in a charge strip, which wasn’t required for them. The problem being that any kind of electromagnetic field could repel them, or at least spread them from a concentrated beam to a diffuse shower. Uncharged particles didn’t have that problem, and could hit with a hard kinetic impact, but still lost some velocity in the stripping process. Negative matter was a special use weapon. Negative matter simply made a like amount of matter disappear on contact. The matter and any effects it carried, including kinetic energy, just ceased to exist. Due to conservation of mass more of the impacted matter would disappear, but not all that much, as a little bit of mass was the equivalent of a lot of energy. Negative matter was really better when something needed to be breached without a lot of collateral damage. And of course antimatter had to carry a charge, or it was nothing. A negative proton was a neutron. But antimatter was the ultimate particle beam, causing kinetic destruction followed by the effects of total conversion.

  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.