Deeper and Darker (Deep Dark Well Book 3)

by Doug Dandridge

  * * *

  “They’re aiming at that freighter, ma’am,” said Captain Mandrake over the holo.

  The central holo tank plot showed the blinking icons of the ships in question, and the vector arrows of the missiles approaching the freighter. She was amazed at the acceleration figures below the merchant ship, much higher than any of her pursuers, even the fighters.

  “Is there any way we can save that ship?” she asked Mandrake, frowning as the other woman shook her head.

  “Not without giving away our position,” said the Captain, as another holo sprang to life, showing a view from less than a light minute from the freighter. “And even then, I would place the odds as remote at best that we could intercept those missiles.”

  Pandora saw that some of her crew were looking at the holo while whispering words, prayers to their gods. She didn’t know how much that accomplished. She didn’t believe in any kind of God, the legacy of having a bible thumping father who preyed upon his own children. But it sure seems to comfort them, she thought, wishing that she still had some of that innocence. And their prayers didn’t seem to have any effect on the real Universe, as portrayed by the plot.

  Pandi stared helplessly at the plot as the missiles gained on the singular freighter, the seconds counting down, until, with a the blink of the ship’s icon, it disappeared from the holo.

  “They’re gone, ma’am,” said the Captain, shaking her head.

  “Dammit,” said Pandi, slamming a fist on her chair arm. Whoever was in that ship could have provided us with all kinds of intelligence. It was obvious from his fleeing the ships of the Empire that he was not their friend. And any enemy of her enemy was sure to be an asset. But not anymore.

  “Our probe is picking up a life pod from the freighter,” said Mandrake, looking at her from the holo with furrowed brows.

  “Do you think the enemy has picked it up?”

  “Not sure, ma’am,” said the Captain. “But it isn’t putting out any kind of distress signal. And our probe is barely picking it up from twenty light seconds distance.”

  And the probe’s sensors are orders of magnitude more sensitive than anything these people have. “Can we get a shuttle out there to pick him up?”

  “Possibly,” said the Captain, nodding. “Whether we can get a shuttle there and back without detection is quite another matter.”

  “Shit,” growled Pandi, staring at the plot and thinking of a way out. “Could we use the probe to open a wormhole in front of the pod? Bring him aboard this ship?”

  “He is travelling over four thousand kilometers a second, ma’am,” said the Captain, shaking her head. “Our combined closing velocity is just over nine thousand kilometers a second. Bringing him aboard would be, problematical, to say the least.”

  “Damn,” Pandi cursed again. She understood how the wormholes worked, at least as much as any well-educated layman could. There was always a difference in motion between the entrance and exit of a wormhole gate. Somehow, most of that energy was absorbed during the transition. No one really knew where the energy went. Watcher had joked that eventually the Universe would come apart from that excess energy. The absorption was well and good at velocities under five thousand kilometers per second. Above that there were problems. If they used a wormhole to snatch the pod from space and brought it aboard the ship, it would come out of the portal at just over four thousand kilometers per second relative to the inside of the vessel. And problematical was not the term she would have used for such a situation.

  Pandora pondered the problem, looking over her resources and attempting to come up with a solution. Each of her vessels carried sixteen wormholes. Each had a pair of connections back to the Donut, one for com, one for the heat sink. There were also two wormholes aboard each vessel that gave them direct connections to the other two ships in the squadron. And eight wormholes that could be used for other functions, like the probes that currently surrounded each vessel. It’s worth a try, she thought as an idea came to the surface.

  “Captain,” she said, looking into the holo. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  * * *

  Well, that worked well, thought Jerwiki, watching to plot on his HUD, fed to him by the passive sensors of the pod. It was not really all that great a view, but good enough to plot the ships that were moving through space within a light hour of the pod. Two hours had gone by since he had launched from the ship. He figured that if they hadn’t found him by now, they weren’t going to. He was just another cold object drifting along in a system filled with such objects. At his current velocity he was moving out of the system at fourteen million kilometers every hour. In the month he had, he would be over ten billion kilometers out from the Odin moon system. And if I eject myself, my body will go just as far.

  He thought he saw a flash of silver, then doubled over with a brief but intense nausea. The plot died, and he wondered if something had happened to his systems. A moment later an icon appeared on the plot, a small vessel within a thousand kilometers of his position, perfectly matching velocities with his pod and moving closer.

  How in the hell did they do that? he thought, wondering if his time had come. The com light came on, an indication that whoever they were, they wanted to talk. Might as well see what they want, he thought, connecting to the com. And finding himself looking into the face of a non-human.

  “We mean you no harm,” said the long snouted creature over the com. “We will be taking your pod aboard our shuttle, then back to our ship.”

  It’s a Maurid, thought the man, recalling the pictures he had seen of these creatures from ancient databases. And a species that did not exist within the Empire, to the best of his knowledge.

  “Then what are your intentions?” he asked, a sliver of hope rising within his heart.

  “We assume you are enemies with the people who hold this system,” said the alien in accented terranglo, the language of the ancestors. “We too are the enemies of these people. We would like your aid in helping us to complete our mission.”

  “And what do I need to do?”

  “For the moment, nothing,” said the creature, its grin showing an alarming array of teeth. “Just relax, while we take you aboard.”

  Jerwiki couldn’t think of anything better to do, so he sat back in his chair and let them take him aboard the shuttle. He thought that whoever he was dealing with could not be allies with the Empire, since those bastards would not use aliens in any kind of military position.

  When his pod was opened on the shuttle he found himself looking at a pair of armed humans, along with five members of three different alien species. That the aliens were armed was telling in and of itself. That the armored suits they wore, as well as the interior of the cargo bay, were representative of an advanced technology, was also telling. Wherever it came from, this vessel was not of Imperial design.

  A half an hour later he was exiting the shuttle on the hangar deck of a much larger ship, which to his practiced eye was also much more advanced than anything he had ever seen. He was escorted from the hangar and down a corridor to a lift that lowered him to another level of the vessel. He was amazed to see humans and aliens rubbing elbows, or other anatomical units, on this ship. Could this be the salvation we’ve been looking for, thought the Opposition leader. Surely these people could defeat the Empire. He told himself to calm down, that one advanced ship proved nothing, other than the one advanced ship had arrived here.

  “Our Commodore wants to meet with you,” said a human wearing what looked like a military uniform. All of the humans aboard were dusky skinned, also unlike any he had seen within the Empire. There were people with brown skins in the Empire, just not the shade that most of these people possessed, along with their particular facial features. All dark haired and dark eyed, much like the people of the system they were in. Not at all like the mostly fair skinned people of his system.

  “I would be happy to meet with your Commodore,” he told the Captain, for such he judged him to
be.

  “She is on another vessel. We will be transferring you to her whenever our velocities match enough to make that possible.”

  “You know this system is heavily militarized,” he told the man, wondering if these people had a clue as to what they were doing here.

  “We understand that,” said the Captain. “No need to worry. Unless they get within a couple of hundred kilometers of us, they will not even know we are here.”

  “That advanced,” said Jerwiki, stunned by the concept of a ship that stealthy. What I could do with a ship like this, he thought. He followed the Captain into what appeared to be a conference room that had a holo floating above the table. The holo showed a representation of the system, and his eyes immediately sought out the moons of the Odin group. “Where are we?” he asked, not sure what the other icons on the holo denoted, though he was pretty sure the majority of those near the gas giant were military vessels.

  “We are out here, near the edge of the star system,” said the Captain, pointing at one of the icons on the edge of the holo. “We picked you up about here,” continued the man, pointing to a spot near to the ship.

  “How in the hell did you pick me up there?” blurted Jerwiki, his eyes widening. “I couldn’t have been more than a few light minutes out from the gas giant.”

  “We have our ways,” said the Captain with a smile. “So, let me tell you a little bit about us. The Commodore will have questions for you when you get to her ship.”

  “And where is her ship?” asked Jerwiki, surprised that a woman was in charge of these ships, however many there were.

  “They’re almost at the gas giant,” said the man, pointing at a pair of icons that were decelerating into the moon system.

  “So you’re going to fly me there on your shuttle,” said the man, doing a calculation in his head and determining that he had at least a half a day flight ahead of him, depending on their capabilities.

  “Something like that,” said the man, gesturing for Jerwiki to take a seat. A steward appeared, with a tray of snacks and a carafe of wonderful smelling steaming liquid. “Now,” said the Captain as they sat there with cups of hot coffee in their hands. “Let me tell you a little bit about us.”

  Jerwiki sat there in stunned silence as the Captain told him the story behind their mission, how they were attempting to both free and restore the peoples of the Galaxy. It was almost more than he could process, as well as more than he had ever hoped for.

  “It’s time,” said the Captain as his eyes unfocused for a moment, the sign of some kind of mind computer link. “Let me show you to your transport.”

  The Captain walked him down the corridor to another small room, in which a rectangular door like frame was set at one end, a shimmering mirror surface within it.

  “That’s, a wormhole,” said Jerwiki, staring at the mirrored surface. He had heard them described in the legends, but had never expected to actually see one. He walked cautiously toward the surface, reaching out a hand.

  “When you touch it, it will pull you through,” said the Captain with a smile.

  “Is it safe?”

  “It’s what transported you from the region near Odin to out here,” said the Captain, his smile growing.

  “That flash? The nausea?”

  “That’s it,” said the Captain. “The nausea only lasts for a few moments for most, and it gets better over time.”

  Jerwiki stared at the mirrored surface for a moment. I’ve been through it before, he thought. And why would these people save me just to hurt me?

  “Believe me, Mr. Jerwiki,” said the Captain with a smile. “I was nervous at first stepping through one of these things. But it got me from where I was to a point hundreds of light years away in an instant. And it gave me control of this ship, far in advance of anything my own people had.”

  “OK,” said Jerwiki, a nervous smile on his face. He took a hesitant step toward the wormhole, shrugged his shoulders, and took the last pace, his right foot going through the surface. As soon as his foot entered the hole he realized there was no turning back. The force of the hole pulled at him, a gentle force that nonetheless was impossible to resist. He let his body go with the pull, and within an instant his body was within the hole. Going, where?

  To his mind it seemed like he was in a limbo for an eternity, something he hadn’t experienced the first time through. It was disorienting in an extreme, frightening. He would have screamed if he had the lungs to do so. And then his leading foot was hitting a floor, and his body followed. The room he stepped into across light hours of space looked the same, except there were different people standing there looking at him.

  Including a most striking red haired woman wearing a uniform with a single star on each collar. Her clear blue eyes looked at him out of a lightly freckled face, her white teeth showing in a brilliant smile.

  “Mr. Jerwiki,” said the woman in an accent that the man couldn’t place, holding out her hand and taking his in a firm grip. “I am so happy to see you. We have much to talk about, and not much time for it. So, if you would follow me.”

  Jerwiki nodded, then followed her from the room, not sure of much of what was going on. Only that it was sure to be interesting.

  Chapter Nine

  Dictators and oppressors should continue to fear me because I will be here for a long time.

  Lech Walesa

  “Your trial begins in the morning,” said the Immortal Emperor Alphonso Kitticaris, standing in the center of the cell and looking down on Watcher.

  There were four armored guards with the man, his personal bodyguard. Watcher would still have risked attacking the madman talking to him. He was sure he was stronger and faster than the man he saw as a pale copy of himself, the best the scientific minds of the past could come up with when they decided that Watcher’s genome was too dangerous. Of course, chained as he was to the uncomfortable bed along the wall, he was not in a position to attack anyone.

  “Give me what I want, and I will make sure that you survive this trial,” said the Emperor, giving Watcher a look that expressed his desire for some other outcome. “You will become my right hand, and rule the Galaxy with me.”

  He must really think me an idiot, thought Watcher, who was almost insulted by the offer. There is no way he would let me have a hand in his destiny. He has to know that I will usurp him in the future, whether to take his place, or to stop him, it wouldn’t really matter to his plan.

  “You are lying,” said Watcher, looking straight into the man’s eyes. “Those who created you developed the perfect politician, didn’t they? Or was that as a spy. You can lie with almost no change in your inner or outer physiological signs. But I can still read those small changes. So don’t waste your time.”

  “You will not enjoy the trial, Abomination,” said Kitticaris, his eyes flashing his anger. “You will be humiliated, vilified, written into the history books as the greatest criminal in the history of the Galaxy.”

  “Those things have already happened to me, you moron,” said Watcher with a laugh. “How can you make it worse.”

  The man moved in a blur, swinging his hand to strike Watcher in the face with a crack that sounded through the cell. The guards growled in anger as the Emperor unconsciously released pheromones that stoked their emotions.

  “After the trial you will be publicly executed in a manner that people will remember for thousands of years,” he yelled at Watcher, pointing his finger in the superman’s face. “It will be long, drawn out, and painful. And you will wish you had cooperated when you had a chance.” With that the Emperor turned and stormed from the room, two of his guards on his heels, while the other pair took a moment to stare with murderous rage at Watcher, before they too walked out and the cell door slid shut with a clang.

  Maybe I could have done better, thought Watcher, looking toward the closed door. Maybe I could have given him what he wanted. It wouldn’t have done him any good, since I’m sure that all the codes have been changed.

>   But he couldn’t be completely sure of that, since he wasn’t there. Besides the codes, there was other information that might be of use to the would be conqueror. And he refused to help the man in any manner. This was an internal conflict that was as much torture to his system as the physical torment they were putting him through. His survival instinct had been hard wired within him, with the big strong wires of his genetics. But he was an intelligent being, able to overcome his genetics, and stubbornness was also a hardwired trait.

  The only thing I can think to do is to kill the son of a bitch, thought Watcher, laying back in his bed and closing his eyes. If it’s the last thing I do, and no matter the cost. Maybe I can make a satisfying spectacle killing him before the eyes of everyone on this moon. That last thought left him with a smile on his face. He wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish it, but he knew he would make the attempt. He was still smiling as the cacophonous noise and flashing lights came on in the cell.

  * * *

  The small probe hovered over the street, all sensors alert as it scanned the streets of the city. Only minutes before it had been entering the atmosphere of the moon, slowly gliding down through the blanket of air with all stealth fields engaged. The probe entered on a shallow drop that generated little heat, and what heat was generated was absorbed through the wormhole, what didn’t radiate away with the air flowing around the device.

  The probed scanned the city from above, looking for the area that most fit is parameters, then dropping toward that area, scanning for a region with low sensor coverage. It located a park, a large area of trees with a lake in the center, fronted on all sides by robust neighborhoods of well-kept but low rent housing. There were, of course, a variety of sensors within the park, but not all areas were covered equally. The probe sent the information about the area back to the ship, and received its next set of instructions.