Deeper and Darker (Deep Dark Well Book 3)

by Doug Dandridge

  “Time for phase II,” she said, leading the way toward the wormhole.

  * * *

  Kitticaris stared at the holo that showed the battle going on outside the courthouse, cursing at his lack of foresight. Robots? I never expected them to send battle bots into action. And how in the hell did they get them here? He watched as the robots all but annihilated the force he had in the courtyard, only a few suited soldiers still firing from hasty cover, and his tanks. Their heavier armor was protecting them somewhat. But the larger robots took out those tanks, and the men under cover found themselves in an untenable position.

  Where the hell are the rest of my men? thought the ruler, sending out a priority alert on his com link. The alert was answered immediately, as well as a sitrep from the nearby barracks that showed that all available forces were preparing to vector toward the square. Including air cover.

  That was when the wormholes expanded within the building, two near the top of the dome. An instant later big armored suits started coming out of the portals. The first was speared in a dozen particle beams fired by some of the men within the main court chamber. His suit resisted for a moment, something the suits of his own people never would have been able to do. Then a couple of holes burned through, the steam of vaporized body mass shot out, and the suit went limp, still floating in the air on its grabbers.

  By the time that man died there were a half dozen more suit floating in the air, firing down at the targets on the floor. They had the disadvantage of being out in the open, and the advantage of quick movement, tough armor, and superior targeting systems. Within ten seconds half the courtroom guard force was down amid the roasted pork smell of charred meat and rising smoke.

  “Kill the Abomination,” he yelled, standing up in his seat and glaring down at the object of this rescue attempt.

  A pair of guards near the defendant’s box, staying low and using the panicking spectators for cover, stood up and turned toward Watcher, pulling their magrail rifles to their shoulders and taking aim.

  * * *

  Pandi stepped out of the wormhole and into a corridor of the courthouse. She had insisted on being the first to go through this portal. The Marines and her crew had balked, but had been talked into it since it was the portal that would not be under fire. Or at least it was hoped.

  There was a guard stationed in the corridor for some reason. That man had frozen in shock when the wormhole expanded ten meters from him. He had recovered just enough to start bringing his weapon around when Pandi ran through. She was surprised by his presence, in his Storm Trooper type uniform and magrail rifle. Surprise was not shock, and her right hand pistol was tracking in on him before he could complete his aim. The red beam cut through the magrail rifle and into his body with a spurt of red steam. She was jumping over the body before it could complete its fall, the sounds of the rest of her team coming out of the wormhole behind her.

  “Wait, Commodore,” yelled the voice of Major Sengupta from behind.

  “Follow faster,” she yelled back, increasing her speed as she ran toward the door that led into the courtroom. She was monitoring both battles, the one in the courtroom, and the one outside, on small views on her HUD. Outside was going well. Inside was also, except…

  Pandi screamed and ran through the door to the courtroom, the strength of her suit bursting the heavy steel door outward and shattering the faux wood paneling to fly into the chamber like missiles. A couple of fleeing spectators who had been heading for that door went down, one with a large splinter through her chest.

  Collateral damage, thought Pandi, as she saw the dying woman who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She knew she would feel guilt later. At the moment she didn’t have time for it.

  A magrail round bounced from her shoulder armor, and she tracked her left hand pistol on the new target that was firing at her on full auto. He would have been better served to have fired single shots at higher velocity. It still would have been unlikely to have penetrated her tough armor, but all the scattering of shots were doing was bouncing off. Her beam didn’t have that problem with cloth impact armor and flesh, and the man went down, the beam scorching through him and hitting another spectator.

  Pandi shook her head, wondering if this had been an ill-conceived plan after all. She had counted on the courtroom spectators causing confusion for the guards. She hadn’t counted on so many of them getting in the way. And now she had been responsible for the deaths of at least two of them. Then she had no more time for thinking as she looked over at the defendant’s box and saw Watcher, and the two men that were aiming rifles at him, their fingers on the triggers.

  No way, you assholes, she thought, launching herself into the air and tracking a pistol onto each target. Her particle beam blasts hit dead center, and both men went down, one’s weapon firing as he was hit and barely missing Watcher. In a couple of seconds she was dropping into the box.

  “Get down, you big lummox,” she yelled at Watcher as she fired both pistols at some more guards. One shot hit, one missed.

  “I’m glad to see you too, my love,” said Watcher, crouching down in the box. “I wish you would have planned a little less exciting rescue though.”

  “Take that cutting tool off of my belt,” she said, sparing him a glance, then turning her attention back to the fight. She had lost maybe six men, but otherwise things were looking good. Good, that is, except for the dozens of battle suited men the enemy was pouring into the room. Those people were trying their best to kill hers, and they didn’t seem to care if civilians got in the way. One burned down a dozen people trying to get through to one of her Marines. And all it got him was a grenade impacting on his faceplate and blasting through.

  “OK,” said Watcher, starting to stand. “I’m free.”

  “Then keep your head down and get into this protective suit,” she yelled, pushing on the crown of his hat rack toward the floor with a gauntleted hand. She moved her other hand just enough to intercept another round that would have hit that head, bouncing it back into the air.

  Watcher grabbed the box she had dropped and held it to his chest, activating the device as soon as it was in place. The box expanded, thin plates of metal moving over his torso, then branching out over his head and limbs, the nanotech sealing the armor as soon as it was in place. In moments he was encased in a light armor that, while nowhere near as effective as Pandi’s battle armor, was near the match for the Imperial suits when it came to protection. The sensor suite and propulsion systems were also nowhere near as efficient, but were better than his natural equipment.

  “Take this,” she said after looking down to see if he was prepared. She handed him her left hand pistol, then pulled another from a shoulder holster on her suit and handed it down to the man as well. She pulled her last pistol from the other shoulder holster, and they were both fully armed.

  “Oh shit,” she said, as a wave of aircraft and tanks supported by suited infantry entered the fray outside. This is not looking good, she thought, as she called up the last reserves she had in her arsenal.

  * * *

  The fucking idiot, thought Watcher as he watched Pandi come flying toward him in her battle armor. Of course her face was covered, but he would have recognized her specially made suit, the one he had put together for her, anywhere. The little fool. Gods, but I love her.

  She had shown him the tool for cutting his restraints, then dropped him the suit that gave him more protection that most of the people in the room. And a pair of pistols. And he suddenly felt better than he had in months. He was armed and again dangerous, with enemies around him. To Watcher, the ultimate genetically engineered soldier, this was what he was made for.

  As soon as he had the guns in his hands, he was looking for targets. The first to fall to his rage was a battle armored soldier trying to change positions so he could get a better shot at a Marine. Watcher hit the soldier with both beams, and kept them in contact with the running man until his suit armor ruptured from contact
, and the body slid to the floor. Watcher switched his aim to two targets, taking out one uniformed guard and making another in battle armor dive for cover after brief contact.

  “Kill them,” yelled an amplified voice, one he would never forget. He looked up to see the Emperor Alphonso Kitticaris standing in his box, flanked by his guards and pointing down at the box.

  Fuck you, thought Watcher, as he raised his pistols and took quick aim at the man who had caused all of his recent problems. He lined up both pistols to put a shot through the torso and squeezed the triggers. The angry red beams connected his pistols to the body of the Emperor in an instant. The beams were only traveling at point four c, but at the range of less than forty meters, they might as well have been traveling at light speed. They hit the Emperor and tore through.

  And the figure of the Emperor, distorting a little on the edges, looked down on him with a predatory smile.

  * * *

  “We’re taking fire from that large structure in lower orbit,” called out Satyapathy.

  The tactical holo zoomed in on the space station that was hovering about a hundred kilometers over the capital city. The structure was blinking red, and targeting reticles appeared over areas of the station that were firing on the ships, lasers and missile tubes.

  “Take it under fire,” ordered Mandrake. “Make sure you don’t knock it down. Just take out those weapons emplacements. I don’t want it coming down in the city.”

  Satyapathy acknowledged and went to working his board, while the Com Officer sent the directive to the other ship. Lasers lanced out, each striking through a cold plasma field erected around the station to defeat them. The field had an effect, dispersing the beams a bit. Beams from the local ships would have been reduced to less than half strength. The advanced beams, terawatts of power, were reduced by ten percent, and struck for the instants they needed to destroy weapons installations and missile tubes, as well as knocking the already launched weapons from space. The station started to turn, to bring its remaining weapons to bear, and each in turn was destroyed as soon as it entered the targeting solution of the ships.

  “Make sure that any small craft that leaves that station is destroyed,” called out the Captain, pointing at two icons that appeared on the tactical, a small portion of the holo zooming in to show what looked like attack craft.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  “The outer assault party is being overrun,” called out Satyapathy, bringing the view of the plaza up on the main holo.

  Madrake looked at the feed, seeing what looked like a disaster in the development. There were still robots on the ground, and they had given a good account of themselves, probably inflicting over twenty to one casualties against soldiers, most of whom wore heavy powered armor or had fought from battle vehicles like tanks and APCs. Unfortunately, the Imperial Army had reacted faster than expected, and what looked like at least a brigade of soldiers were now engaging the robots.

  “Send another group through,” she told the Tactical Officer. “And raise wormhole three into the air. I think it’s time to send some air support through.” And I wish to all the Gods that Pandora would hurry up down there.

  “Move the ships closer to the moon,” she ordered the Helmsman. “I want us over that city, in case they need some more support.”

  She took another look at the tactical holo that was live beside her command chair. The enemy ships were starting to break off their patrols, now on vectors for the moon. Of course her ships would get there first, even while still stealthed. But the enemy vessels wouldn’t be far behind.

  “And get those shuttles warmed up, just in case we need them.” She looked back at the holo, following the battle and trying to gauge if their reinforcements had arrived.

  Eight hundred ton tanks were now firing into the square, their hypervelocity rounds tearing through the large battle robots that were their targets. Unfortunately for the city, they were still mostly intact and carrying a considerable velocity after they hit the bots. Some tore into buildings fronting the plaza, other into the courthouse building that was the target of the mission. One building was hit four times in rapid succession, and the entire façade of the structure came tumbling down into the plaza. One ripped through the dome of the courthouse, blasting stone rubble into the air.

  The smaller bots were most capably avoiding the large projectiles, but were still falling prey to tank mounted and infantry wielded particle beams. They had fought their way into the plaza, and were now in a very exposed position relative to the heavy units closing in from all sides. And then the aircraft started in, coming down from the sky at supersonic speeds and flushing missiles and guided bombs into the clusters of robots still around.

  One of the wormholes elevated in the air, expanding, attracting the attention of ground based and aircraft weapons. Most missed the fast moving hole, some shots went into the mirrored surface, and the first object to come through from the other side came as flaming debris. What followed was anything but a wreck, as a three meter wide UAV came roaring from the hole and immediately pulled skyward, its particle beams taking down a ground support aircraft in a flare of flame and molten metal. It flipped over in midflight, launching a pair of missiles that tracked in at a thousand gravities on two more aircraft, raining their parts on the city below.

  The second UAV came through a second later, going into a turn while dropping low, then firing a pair of hypervelocity missiles at two of the tanks that were surrounding the plaza. For all their tough armor they were no match for the missiles that sent two turrets spinning through the air.

  The next two also went into ground support mode, while the two after that joined the first in battling the aircraft. In moments the air was a mass of swirling, diving aerial vehicles, all trying to kill those on the other side. The UAVs had the advantage, robotic craft capable of pulling thousands of gravities and outmaneuvering any manned craft. They seemed to turn at right angles from high Mach speed, while their opponents could at best manage tight curves. Their weapons were also much more accurate, and every shot a UAV took knocked a manned aircraft out of the air. Still, with so many aircraft seeking their destruction, a hit was bound to occur, and one of the UAVs fells flaming from the sky after it was struck by several projectiles, followed by a missile.

  The ground support UAVs continued to strike at tanks, while the other two wormholes disgorged two companies of battle bots, the remaining reserves, which struck the tanks and infantry from the rear. The attack started to roll the Imperials up, but the look down view showed more units on the move, heading for the plaza.

  The last of UAVs to make it through the wormhole came on just before a dozen aircraft and as many ground based weapons took the wormhole itself under fire. Nothing could harm the wormhole itself. Anything that hit the mirrored surface simply disappeared and reappeared on the other end, which faced out into space on the Vengeance. The frame that supported the wormhole was another matter altogether. It was a thin strip of superhard alloy that could telescope from a centimeter to three meters, holding a layer of negative matter in a magnetic field. Though the material was tough, it was also fragile due to its lack of thickness. It didn’t have the mass to absorb the heat of a dozen particle beams, or the concussive effects of several missiles. The ribbon disintegrated, and the wormhole slammed closed on another UAV, cutting the craft in half and dropping the forward portion onto the plaza.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” shouted Satyapathy. “Shit,” he yelled again. “A grenade just came out of wormhole four and exploded in the room. The wormhole went down.”

  “Get a message down to the Commodore that she needs to get up here, now. And get some fire on that advancing armor.”

  * * *

  “He’s a holo,” shouted Watcher as he watched his beams go through the image of the Emperor with no effect.

 
The guards in the Emperor’s box were not holos, and their particle beams exploded the defendant’s box around them. Watcher dove from the box to the floor, turning while still in the air to see Pandi diving in the opposite direction. He started to fire back at the guards before he hit the floor, tracking one blast into the first guard on the right, while Pandi hit the one to the left. The holo of the Emperor continued to yell at them, pointing down at the floor.

  Something hit the roof of the structure, blasting out part of the dome and sending rubble to the floor. There were still civilians in the room, some frozen in place by fear, others moving in a panic and making no headway as they ran in circles that led nowhere. Some were struck down by the rubble, as were a few of the remaining uniformed soldiers. Large pieces of stone bounced from battle armored Imperials and Confederation Marines with little harm to the men inside.

  Loud booms sounded through the hole in the dome, and indication of the ferocity of the fight going on between robots and men. And there seemed to be more battle armored Imperials in the room every moment, arriving through side doors that had not been secured.

  “Is this how you planned it,” he yelled to Pandi as he rolled behind an overturned spectator bench and laid down fire on one of the doorways the enemy was entering from.

  “Not so much,” she yelled with a smile. “But this is a lot more interesting, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  “Enemy ships are entering effective beam range,” called out the Tactical Officer, who had switched off from controlling the ground action to resume his original purpose.

  Madrake looked at the tactical and saw that thirteen enemy vessels were closing on orbit. All were destroyer class, but there were some cruisers class vessels forty thousand kilometers behind them. All were within range of her weapons, of course, but chances were always better the closer they were.