Deeper and Darker (Deep Dark Well Book 3)

by Doug Dandridge

  There were thirty-three military contacts moving under their own power, going to and from the military stations in orbit around Odin, or simply patrolling the home space. Another twenty-five icons were smaller patrol vessels meant to stay insystem. The rest, over two hundred and twenty of them, were in orbits around Odin or the moons of the gas giant. She couldn’t tell if there were any ships docked in the large stations, but she wouldn’t be surprised if there were several score more.

  “More than we expected, ma’am,” said Dasha Mandrake, looking out from the com holo. “So, what’s our next move?”

  Pandi stared a little longer at the tactical plot, recognizing this as a highly industrialized system. There were a lot of satellites in close orbit around the star, obvious antimatter production stations. Several tankers were making their way around the satellite circuit, on the rounds to pick up the volatile substance used for both warheads and energy storage for engines. There was also a close in asteroid belt that was swarming with ships, the material fueling the industrial expansion of the system. And many relatively small stations in orbit around the gas giant, what looked like ship building slips. From the number, it looked like the Empire was working on a large scale expansion of its fleet, a sure sign that they were getting ready to ride a new wave of conquest.

  “We do what we had planned all along,” she told the Captain of the Niven. “We and Vengeance will sneak into the system, while Avenger stays out here at the edge. We’ll just take it slow and easy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the Captain, not looking really happy about the idea.

  She doesn’t have to be happy about it, thought Pandi as her ships translated into normal space with a minimum of disturbance. She just has to execute my orders.

  Niven was moving ahead at point one light, her electromag screens set to complete stealth, taking all the light hitting the hull and reflecting it at a point one hundred and eighty degrees from impact. The hull was set to absorb all coherent radiation, anything that might be the active sensor of another vessel. And the ship sucked all of the heat it produced through superconductive conduits in the vessel, funneling it through a wormhole heat sink, and removing the largest source of detection from the equation.

  Avenger started to decel at one hundred gravities, a little over eight hours to a stop that would leave her a light hour from the capital planet. The other vessels decelerated at fifty gravities, which would bring them into a distant orbit of Odin in sixteen hours. A slow trip for the technology they possessed.

  A lot better than we had in the Kuiper belt, thought Pandi, smiling. Her ship there could at best do two gravities, and only for a short period of time. And she still had fifteen hundred gravities better than just about any other vessel in the system.

  “Weapons ready?” asked Mandrake.

  “I don’t think so,” said Pandi, watching the side plots being fed by the small probes that surrounded her ships at a range of ten light minutes. “We’ll get plenty of notice if something sees us. And I don’t want any kind of accidental discharge.”

  The Captain nodded, understanding in her expression. She realizes I’m not such a military dummy after all, thought Pandi, looking back at the plot. Of course, I’m glad to have someone like her along, to keep me from making rookie mistakes.

  The first couple of hours was easy, even though there was the tension of finding out if their stealth systems actually worked as advertised. Of course, they were much more advanced than the technology of the people they were trying to fool. And, of course, the ships they were in had very advanced stealth systems meant to do this very thing they were trying to do. But, until they saw actual evidence that it worked, it just didn’t seem real.

  Six hours into the penetration they were starting to get into the first of the actual enemy traffic. There were several freighters passing off several light minutes to the port. Not the kind of ship they really had to worry about, as they didn’t have military grade sensors, even for their more primitive tech base. A little later a small patrol ship passed to the front, and the sensors picked up the lidar and radar coming off of that craft. It was just a quick sweep, something that might locate a large object that wasn’t trying to hide. And not something that was trying to tip toe into the system.

  At ten hours they were passing through one of the belts, another area of industrial activity. There were more and more ships here, mostly small miners, and some ore freighters moving their product back to the Odin moon system. Like most belts it was really too spread out to be much of a risk to her ships. The large rocks were light seconds apart even in their most compact clusters, and light minutes distant on average. There were billions of small rocks, but even they were spread across a vast distance. The destroyers were moving through with only passive sensors, and the rocks were not giving off any kind of emissions, meaning they were almost impossible to track. The ships still kept a close watch all around them, looking for any kind of reflection of the primary off of the rocks. Several were spotted, and minor course corrections were all that were needed. But there were still some tense moments when it almost came down to the choice of firing on the object or letting it hit the ship. Even a strike might not cause much damage. Then again, it might.

  Fortunately, they made it through without contact, and moved closer to the planet and its inhabited moons.

  “Four more hours, Commodore,” announced Mandrake over the com. “Looks like we’re going to make it.”

  “We have missile launch,” called out the Sensor Officer on the main bridge. “We have missile launch.”

  “Where from?” asked Pandi, leaning forward in her chair and trying to locate the missiles on the plot. A flare of anxiety ran through her. She didn’t doubt they could take on any single vessel’s missile swarm. But this system was full of ships, and there was always the risk that they would be overwhelmed before they could escape, even if they could jump into hyper VI from their current location. And, dammit, this might be our only chance to get to Watcher without blasting through with a major fleet.

  “Missiles straight ahead,” said the Sensory Officer. “Acceleration, four thousand gravities.”

  “Target?”

  “Not sure yet, ma’am. But from their trajectory, it could be us.”

  * * *

  “They’re on to us,” said the voice over the secure com.

  It’s only secure as long as we don’t use it much, thought Tony Garcia, cringing as he heard those words. Those were words to fear, but not really telling him anything substantive.

  “Let’s meet at the alpha three five location,” said Tony, specifying one of the ten places that could be used today for face to face.

  Tony disconnected the com, then pushed a combo into it that caused the unit to self-destruct, the nanites within the device taking apart the circuitry on the molecular level, destroying any information that might be stored in the unit. The engineer tossed the device that had been his own creation into a waste receptacle, knowing that his fingerprints and even any loose proteins that came from his body would be wiped within a couple of minutes.

  Could he be overreacting? thought Tony as he headed for one of the nearby train stations. He forced himself to take his time, not showing the least amount of anxiety. There were plenty of watchers around, both professional and amateurs, all looking for any sign that someone wasn’t part of the community, not currently caught in the constant brainwashing that pervaded the environment.

  But that wasn’t like Nathan Jerwiki, his off planet contact to the Opposition. Tony was not the leader of the entire planet’s opposition, but he was the designated contact person for this year. They took every precaution possible to make sure that the entire organization was not penetrated by the Secret Police and brought down around their heads. In fact, thought Tony with a bit of morbidity, if they captured me they wouldn’t get much. Because you can’t get much from a dead man.

  The civilian spaceport was ten kilometers from the outskirts of the city. Jerwiki ran a
tramp freighter, and as a captain was fully checked out by the government. He was thought to be completely trustworthy by that government. That was the only reason he was allowed to operate his freighter. And the reason he was such an asset to the Opposition. There were people in open revolt on some of the outer worlds, humans and aliens both. Something they couldn’t do, yet, on the Core worlds of the Empire. But those people depended on the support of the members who weren’t in open revolt. Those who could send material aid to revolutionary organizations. And Jerwiki was able to run arms to those organizations along with his more mundane cargo.

  In fact, thought Tony as he walked off the train and headed for the entrance to the passenger concourse, his ship should be loaded and ready to go. He tried to stay calm as he walked toward the security checkpoint, working on his story for being here in his mind. He almost had his story cemented when the alarms went off, the doors to the concourse slid shut, and the security guards all drew their weapons and stood in front of those entrances.

  This isn’t good, thought Tony, standing in place with all the other people who had been heading to the terminal on their own tasks. His first inclination was to turn and walk away, to get out of the area before anyone questioned his being here. But that in and of itself would be suspicious. So he forced himself to stand in place, the same stupid look on his face that graced the expressions of everyone else around him.

  A ship roared off into space, a small freighter, not more than ten thousand tons and very capable of landing on a planet. It boosted into the high atmosphere, out of sight in an instant. It took some time for pursuit ships, small fighters, to take off and follow.

  Dammit, thought Tony, staring into the sky. He panicked. He didn’t know what the man was thinking. Sure, the freighter was actually more capable than anyone outside the Opposition had reason to assume. But the chances of it getting out of the most heavily militarized system in the Empire were between remote and nil.

  Police started walking around among the crowd, a sweep that was methodical, as only an exercise conducted by a well-practiced organ could progress. They stopped at each person, asking their identity and reason for being where they were. They took pictures and cell samples from each person, then moved on after telling them they could leave.

  “What happened?” he asked the police officer that approached him when his turn came.

  “Some subversive tried to escape from justice,” said the officer, looking closely at Tony’s face.

  Tony felt his anxiety grow, and said a calming mantra in his mind to keep his somatic component relaxed. “I hope you get him.”

  “I’m sure we will,” said the cop, taking a quick holo of Tony, then a cell sample with a small probe touching the back of Tony’s hand. “And what were you doing here at this time, Mr. Garcia?” asked the cop, looking at his flat comp.

  “I was meeting a friend for lunch,” said Tony, glancing back at the sky.

  “The friend’s name?”

  “Judith Larenzo,” he said without hesitation, knowing that the woman, who was a member of his cell, worked at the concourse, and would back up anything he said, if he had the chance to talk with her. They shouldn’t have any reason to talk to her right now, he thought. There’s bound to be more important people to talk to, including eye witnesses.

  “You can go, Mr. Garcia,” said the cop, nodding his head. “We may want to talk with you later.”

  Tony nodded, from the tone and expression of the Policeman sure that contacted him would not be a priority. He turned and walked away, a quick frown passing across his face before he got it under control. I can only hope that Nathan gets away. And if he doesn’t, I can only hope he dies before he is captured. He shook his head as he walked onto the next waiting train car. He knew that was a cold way to look at things. But it would not be any favor to Jerwiki to wish his capture, since he would then experience an interrogation that would not be pleasant, and would end with his death anyway. And now we’ve got to find another off world contact, he thought. Because whether he is killed or gets away, Jerwiki will not be coming back to this system as long as the current government is still in power.

  Chapter Eight

  Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Nathan Jerwiki was pretty sure that he was a dead man. At least if they get me out here I won’t be able to tell them anything, he thought, as he stared at the holo plot that showed a quartet of insystem fighters on his tail. He was almost hoping he would elude them, when the icon of a destroyer started blinking and its vector arrow started turning slowly his way. If that one fires on me, I’m dead, thought the New Krakow native.

  Lodz’ Pride looked like a ramshackle freighter, one whose body looked sure to fall apart the next time he applied major boost. Looks were deceiving, and he was already putting on more gravities than the destroyer that was joining the chase could achieve. The fighters were pulling a hundred gees more than the freighter, and he was sure they would have caught him if he hadn’t planned to put on more when needed. It’s needed now, he thought, increasing his gee load to seven hundred, well beyond the capabilities of any Imperial craft.

  Good thing the bastards didn’t get all of our secrets out of us, thought the revolutionary as he started to gain a velocity advantage on all the ships chasing him. New Krakow had been a peaceful world before the Empire set its sights on them. They were about a century in advance of the Imperials. That didn’t make much difference when a hundred battleships came calling, and all the Republic had to face them was a dozen small system defense frigates. Still, they had hid some of their abilities from the Imperials, which was the reason why his ship had better inertial compensators and n-space acceleration than the pursuers. And I’ll be damned if they get their hands on any of my tech now.

  That was the reason he had decided to make a run for it in the ship, instead of just quietly walking away into the city. Sure, he could have gotten away, the members of the Opposition would have hidden him. But he would have lost his ship, and with it not just the one ton of weapons he was smuggling among two thousand tons of more pacific material. But also the other tech he didn’t want the Imperials to gain. He had, after all, to think of his fellow countrymen, who were depending on that tech to give them an advantage in the coming revolt, when the fighting moved off the surfaces of a few planets and across the Empire.

  “Shit,” he said under his breath, watching as another ship, this one a frigate, started heading his way from a trajectory that was already taking it out of the system. It would only need a minor adjustment of vector to fall into a following trajectory.

  “We are being hailed,” said the ship computer.

  “What else is new,” said the Captain, more than happy that he was the only one crewing this ship on this run. They had been hailing him ever since he left the atmosphere of the moon. They would keep hailing him until his ship was nothing more than a spreading cloud of plasma. And I really don’t want to hear what they have to say.

  “We have missile launch,” called out the computer. A moment later the vector arrows of missiles appeared on the plot, five of them, all coming from the destroyer. I could possibly handle that, he thought, then frowned as another five missiles left the icon of the destroyer, on an acceleration profile that would bring both flights into contact with his ship at approximately the same time. The missiles would reach him in two minutes, when he was ten minutes out from the moon, with a velocity of over four thousand kilometers per second.

  Nathan thought for a moment of going to the shuttle bay and trying to escape the ship. But that would be picked up just as easily as his freighter, and he would either be killed in the shuttle or captured, which would be the worse outcome. He thought for a moment, then headed for his suit cubby and got into the hard shelled outfit. “One minute till impact,” said the ship’s computer as he moved down a corridor and to the hatch leading to an escape pod.

  I’m not real
ly sure why I’m bothering, thought the man. He could probably escape detection in the pod, which meant he would die out here in space, alone. His survival instincts were high enough that he was compelled to take that chance. And it still was worth a try. Death was an end. Escape was probably still an end, but not definitely.

  Jerwiki backed into the pod and closed the hatch, making sure it was sealed, despite the indicator lights showing that it was. He tapped in the commands he wanted on the keypad, setting the pod for manual launch and taking the distress beacon offline. Then he waited, watching the missile tracks coming in on his suit HUD. When the counter hit four seconds he hit the commit button. Nothing happened for two seconds, and he wondered in panic if he had waited too long. Then the gee forces of the launch pushed him back into his seat as the acceleration pushed past the pod’s inertia compensators by fifteen gravities.

  The pod made it out a microsecond before the first two missiles hit the freighter, converting it into an expanding cloud of plasma that hid the pod from the other weapons’ seeker heads. The small object moved away from the debris of the ship, still traveling on an outer vector of over four thousand kilometers a second, with an additional acceleration vector of a hundred kilometers per second in the direction of its launch. The plasma cloud and debris continued, for the most part, to travel outward at four thousand kilometers a second, the same as the pod, which was separating from the debris at a hundred kilometers a second of side vector. Within ten seconds they were a thousand kilometers away, a tiny object moving under its momentum alone, and unlikely to be detected.

  And now I have to figure out my way out of this trap, thought the man, watching a small viewer that was centered on the destroyer that was coming out to look over the remains of the freighter it had demolished. Jerwiki stared at that ship as long as it was on the screen, looking for the least amount of vector change that might indicate it was on to him. He checked his life support, grunting as he saw he had enough oxygen and water to survive indefinitely with the on-board purifiers. But I’ll starve in a month or less, he thought, wondering if he would ever see that time span pass before he ejected himself into space sans suit, to end his misery.