Deeper and Darker (Deep Dark Well Book 3)

by Doug Dandridge

  “Fire on the destroyers with beam weapons, then take out the cruisers with missiles.”

  “Avenger reports she is closing on our position,” called out the Com Officer, looking back at the Captain. She’s at six light minutes and moving forward at fifty thousand KPS.”

  “Order Avenger to launch missiles at any target near the orbit of the gas giant,” ordered Mandrake, pointing at the tactical holo. “Designate our targets, so they don’t go after the same.”

  The two high tech destroyers, each five times the mass of the enemy cans, opened up with all laser rings. They burned through the electromagnetic shields of two of the destroyers in seconds, then through the armored hulls in seconds more. Both ships erupted with fire as superheated atmosphere gushed from the holes. Moments later explosions erupted from both hulls as the superpowerful lasers dug deep. One ship rolled over as she lost half her grabber units, while the other erupted into plasma as its matter antimatter reactor breached.

  Particle beams hit two more vessels at the same moment. Travelling at point nine nine nine five light, they blasted their streams of antiprotons through the negatively charged electromag fields and into the hulls. Antiprotons exploded on the hulls, sending both ships spinning off their courses. The two were fortunate. Though most of their systems were down, the majority of the crew members were still alive.

  As soon as those two were out of action, the destroyers fired on the next four, while launching missiles that sped at thirty thousand gravities toward the cruisers.

  “As soon as you take out those four switch laser fire to the planet,” ordered Mandrake. “Particle beams can continue to service enemy ships. Now get your asses out of there Commodore,” she whispered under her breath. “I know we’re bad, but maybe not quite that bad.

  * * *

  “You need to get out of there, Commodore,” came a call from the ship.

  “Understood,” yelled Pandi back to the com officer on the other side of the transmission.

  “The wormholes,” yelled the holo of the Emperor, pointing at one of the two floating in the air. “Destroy them. Now.”

  The Imperials seemed confused for a moment, then started to fire on the wormholes. Particle beams, rifle grenades, even some suit launched antiarmor missiles were soon headed for the two wormholes. At first there were no hits, though some grenades went through one of the wormholes. Some particles came back through, and the hole collapsed on itself.

  “Keep them from shooting at that hole,” she yelled.

  “Get out of there now, Commodore,” said the Com Officer. “They’re taking out our wormholes. If you don’t get back here, fast, there won’t be an egress waiting.”

  “Understood,” said Pandi, taking out one of the Imperials before he could launch a missile at the chamber’s remaining wormhole.

  “We need to get out of here,” she yelled in the com to the Marines. “Get the first platoon through the hole.”

  Acknowledgements came back, men started to rise to the wormhole while the rest laid down covering fire. Eleven Marines made it through, three were knocked to the floor in masses of destroyed metal, while the men on the ground poured every bit of firepower they had into the enemy. Marine number twelve never made it completely through the portal, which collapsed as its ribbon was destroyed. The Marine’s lower torso and legs fell to the ground, blood flowing from the severed major arteries as the metal encased limbs kicked.

  “Everyone,” shouted Pandi on the command circuit. “We need to make for the last wormhole.” She looked up over the cover she was using to see that the enemy had a platoon sized force covering that doorway. I thought I had left people to guard that corridor, she thought, then realized that whatever she had left there had been overrun.

  * * *

  The Emperor stood in his office, mimicking the stance that the holo was projecting into his personal box in the courtroom. He thrust a fist into the air as the second wormhole died in that chamber. I’ve got them, he thought, listening to the coms coming in from his soldiers. The fight was still going on outside, but they had taken out one of the grounded wormholes out there as well. The fight was also still going on inside the courtroom, and the Confederate Marines were still killing off his people at the rate of twenty to one. But they have no way to reinforce, he thought, looking at a side holo that showed their one functioning wormhole, and the team that was preparing to send a surprise through it.

  “We’re launching now,” called out the officer in charge of that team. A hyper velocity rocket, one of the larger type made to kill heavily armored tanks, flew from its launcher like a streak of light. Almost as soon as it disappeared an explosion rippled back through the portal, knocking the other launcher over and throwing men against walls, floor and ceiling. If not for their suits the blast wave would have killed them. As it was, stunned men were struggling to their feet, in confusion trying to get to the second launcher and get it back into action.

  * * *

  “We have an explosion in the hangar deck,” yelled out the CPO in charge of damage control.

  “How bad?”

  “It took out a shuttle and blasted a hole through the hangar doors,” called back the Chief.

  “What happened?”

  “It looks like someone on the ground fired a hyper velocity rocket through the wormhole. The rocket went through the bulkhead, the shuttle and the door.”

  “Is the wormhole still working?” asked the Captain, a feeling of panic coming over her. We’re shit out of luck if they took that one out.

  “It’s still working,” cut in another voice, an officer down in the area. “But the enemy controls the other side, and I’m afraid they could keep sending those things at us if it remains so.”

  And we don’t have any more battle bots to send through, thought the Captain. And maybe a half dozen Marines, and sending them through might just be sending them to their deaths. But can the Commodore and Watcher make it to that portal?

  “Can you open the doors?” asked Mandrake, looking at the damage schematic, another plan forming in her mind.

  “Give us five minutes and we’ll get them cut open, ma’am,” said the Chief.

  “Then do so.” She switched back to the officer. “Send something bad through the wormhole, then kill it,” she told him.

  “How bad?” asked the officer.

  “Bad enough to take out the corridor the enemy is occupying. And any armored troops that might be in it.” She looked over at the Com Officer and pointed at her, giving her the signal to connect her to the Commodore.

  “Ma’am. We’re losing all the wormholes but the one outside. I’m going to send shuttles and attack craft down to take you off.” If we can last long enough to bring you aboard and boost away, she thought, looking at the enemy craft coming toward them on the holo.

  The closest destroyers had all been taken out, and most of the cruisers had been damaged. They hadn’t escaped unscathed. Vengeance had some hull damage, and one grabber unit was off line, while Niven had not only the damaged hangar door, but another hole through its armored hull. And there was another layer of ships on the way, more destroyers and cruisers, and several light minutes out, the first of the battleships.

  Chapter Nineteen

  From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  “We got more problems, lover,” Pandi whispered in Watcher’s ear on the com.

  Many more, and we won’t get out of here, thought Watcher, taking a shot and scoring a hit on the man who had been the target of the second.

  Before he could answer, something exploded behind the Imperial soldiers who were barricading the way out. The blast wave threw several of them over the barrier they had erected from debris. Those soldiers were dead in an instant as they were targeted by the Marines.

  “Was that where our wormhole was?” asked Watcher, staring at the hole in the wall
that led to a corridor, filled with what looked like dead men in wrecked suits.

  “That was it,” said Pandi with a nod, stopping for a moment to get off shots from both pistols at a rifleman who was lurking on one of the spectator balconies. That man scooted back out of sight. “Looks like we’re going to have to find another way out.”

  The man came back into sight, scooting forward with rifle raised, just in time to take a pair of Pandi’s particle beams in the face.

  “And is it a way to get out of here without killing the entire city?”

  “Of course, lover,” said Pandi, her faceplate rising for a second to show her smiling face. It dropped down in an instant when a fast moving pellet came cracking near. “The real problem is whether or not we’re going to get ourselves out, not the state of the city.”

  Watcher nodded, then concentrated on shooting at another group of Imperial soldiers coming over a balcony railing, their suits dropping them slowly to the floor. Too slowly, as they made good targets for the pair and the thirty-two still effective Marines with them. Three quarters of the men were dead before they hit the floor, and only three were still alive to get to cover. Cover that didn’t really help much as Marines sent armor piercing rockets into those positions.

  “We’re clear, for the moment,” called out Major Sengupta over the com.

  Watcher looked at the HUD on his own suit. His armor might have been thinner than that of the Marines, the price of a truly portable emergency suit like he was wearing. But his com system was first rate, and he was getting the feed from the Marines around him.

  The Marines had launched thousands of microdrones as soon as they had entered the building, their suits automatically releasing the tiny robots to fan out over the building and provide intelligence. They were not nanoscale, since nanoscale robots were actually quite fragile. And they hadn’t penetrated all areas of the building, which had been sealed off to them until the Imperial troops had come out of those hiding places.

  About a third of the robots were still working, and were sending back their data. And that data was not very comforting. While there were not any Imperial soldiers left in the chamber, there was definitely a horde of the bastards on the way, coming from tunnels that ran into the basement of the building.

  “Marines,” called out the Major. “Check your weapons and equipment. Anyone without heavier ordinance, get some. Check the bodies of our killed and get what you need.”

  The men moved across the room, quickly, stopping at the bodies of their dead comrades and taking power packs, proton stores, grenades, rockets, anything that would allow them to keep on fighting. Meanwhile, the Major was planning his dispositions, putting his men in positions to take all the entry points under crossfire while protecting his own people.

  “If I might make some suggestions, Major,” said Watcher over the com, thinking the dispositions fine, but seeing a couple of improvements.

  “Of course, my Lord,” said the Major, continuing to move what he could to build one of the redoubts he had planned.

  Watcher assigned some of the men his HUD signified as the best marksmen, and put them on the balcony, including the now evacuated Emperor’s box.

  “Thank you, my Lord,” said the Major, making the changes and sending the men to their positions.

  Not a moment too soon, as Imperial soldiers came rushing through four entrances into the chamber. Right into crossfires that dropped dozens up them to the floor in groups that soon grew to heaps that made the advancement into the room all but impossible.

  A soldier dropped through the hole in the ceiling, what the enemy must have hoped was a surprise attack. His body fell hard to the floor, leaving a clear shot at the next man. In moments more fire was directed toward that means of entry, as less was needed to strike at the four entrances, and soon the bodies of Imperial soldiers were falling in a constant rain to the floor. All was going well, until a blast on the roof blew a much larger hole into the chamber, one that would allow ten men to fall through at once.

  * * *

  “Launching shuttles now,” called out the hangar control officer.

  Five icons representing heavily armed and armored assault shuttles appeared on the tactical holo, along with six fast attack fighters. Six shuttles and six fast attack fighters were also launching from Vengeance, all on a heading into the atmosphere of the moon and the city where the rescue mission was taking place.

  The two destroyers shifted their positions somewhat, their grabbers holding them in a steady position between the shuttles and the oncoming enemy. Their laser rings continued to fire on the enemy ships, while retaining ten percent capacity to help support the assault.

  * * *

  “I want those shuttles splashed, and I want them down now,” called out the Emperor, following the icons of the ships as they entered the atmosphere.

  “We’re launching aircraft now, my Lord,” said the panicked officer on the other end of the com.

  “Tell those pilots it will be their heads if those shuttles take off the Abomination and his party,” roared the Kitticaris, slamming his fist down onto his desk.

  The Emperor turned in his chair back to the feed coming from the courthouse. His holo projector to his box was no longer working, taken out by enemy fire. As were all of the sensors in the room. He was getting the combined take of the suits of the men still assaulting the enemy Marines. It was a very disjointed picture, wavering at times as men were taken off the net, their suits knocked out, their bodies savaged by modern weapons.

  But all in all it was not looking good. Even with the new hole in the roof, his forces couldn’t feed men in fast enough to get any of them to the floor, and anyone floating in the air in that chamber was soon dead.

  He looked back at another holo to see a view of one of the military airfields outside the capital, as long, lean shapes rocketed into the sky to try and bring down the enemy aircraft. He cursed as the next four ships to roll down the runway exploded, the cloud of debris illuminating the invisible laser beam coming from above and destroying them. That beam swept on, hitting more of the fighters that were waiting their turn. Of course they could have lifted vertical, and not used the runway, but they saved energy by doing a standard takeoff. Now they had no choice, and fighters began to leap into the air, maneuvering all the while to present the hardest target possible. Some were still knocked from the air.

  A nearby missile battery sent a pair of weapons into the air, both to explode before they had gotten a kilometer into the sky, while the battery itself went up in a ball of fire.

  “And get those damned spaceships,” he yelled into the com.

  They’re making my military look like idiots, he thought, not even realizing that such was an effect of his method of ruling. And that even a force led by military genius would still have problems with the tech they were trying to deal with.

  * * *

  Ensign Nishtha Chopra wanted to cringe as she watched the sensor screen, showing as it did so many aircraft and missiles rising from the surface to try and blot her shuttle from the sky. Normally the third Engineering Officer on Vengeance, like all officers she had also been trained to pilot shuttles and fighters. And because of that she found herself outside of the well protected engineering section of the ship.

  I can’t show fear, she thought, glancing over at her copilot, a Petty Officer who actually had more experience piloting than she did, and so was the actual controller of the craft.

  “Get them,” yelled out the Petty Officer, as a half dozen of the rising enemy fighters disappeared from the tactical plot, victims to the lasers of the spaceships above.

  The fast attack fighters boosted ahead, ramping up to Mach thirty as they sought out their prey, anything that might threaten their charges. Several launched missiles that streaked away like beams of light, and more enemy fighters disappeared. They flew through the first wave of enemy fighters, blasting most of them from the sky, their stern lasers continuing to fire after they had flown past and
started their tight turns back to come in behind the foe.

  Chopra took charge of the shuttle’s own weapons, mostly monitoring the targeting and making some corrections as needed. The nose laser took out a fighter while the wing particle beams knocked four missiles from the air in rapid fire. And if it gets any heavier, we’re going to start taking hits. The shuttle was heavily armored, or as much as a flying craft could be, with a strong electromag field. Any beam weapon mounted on one of the enemy fighters would most probably disperse on the field and reflect from the armor. Missiles were another thing altogether.

  The HUD showed the surface of the planet, and the icons of aircraft launching from several fields. It was looking to get worse very soon, when the icons started to disappear from the display.

  “Yes,” shouted the PO, a smile on his face. The destroyers were only putting ten percent of their laser power into supporting the shuttles. That meant multiple aimed beams from each ship, and they only required less than a second to blast through any protection the enemy craft had, blowing them out of the air. Or off the ground, in the case of craft still trying to get into the air.

  Those poor people, thought Chopra, looking at one of the secondary views on the HUD that showed aircraft being blasted before they could get more than ten meters above the ground. Pieces of aircraft flew through the air as the fuel cells blew out. On one aircraft the rag doll of a body could be seen among the debris, whole for a moment, then separating into pieces that flew through the ball of fire.

  “Better them than us,” said the PO, glancing over at that screen.

  Yes, thought Chopra, launching some of her own air to air missiles at enemy craft that had gotten past the fighters. Better you than us. So eat fire, you sons of bitches.

  * * *

  Mandrake watched as the bright pinpoints of kinetic strikes appeared on the globe on the viewer. It was still daylight below, which, while washing out the harsh brightness of the blasts, was still not enough to mute them entirely.