“What the hell?” shouted the Tactical Officer.
“What?” said the Captain, watching as the icons of the missiles began to curve away from the enemy ship, accelerating at over a hundred gravities until they were dropping straight down. At eight hundred atmospheres they started dropping off the plot, crushed out of existence by the pressure. Antimatter breached contain, and explosions rippled up from the depths. They were too far away to do more than increase some of the turbulence around the Imperial ship, though they had to have more of an effect on the enemy ship.
“How long before we can get the next spread out?” asked the Captain, thinking that now would be the time to strike.
His ship jerked before he could get an answer, then was pulled down at over forty gravities.
“Six hundred and forty atmospheres,” yelled out the Sensory Officer in a panicked voice. “Six hundred and sixty. Six eighty.”
We’re dead, thought the Captain, while a little voice in the back of his mind told him that the designers had built a better ship than they had thought. But still not good enough. A moment later the outer hull ruptured in a hundred places. Internal bulkheads, not as sturdy as the armored hull, held a moment, then ruptured themselves. Human bodies, even encased in battle armor, did not hold up for more than microseconds. The antimatter storage containers, the toughest structures on the vessel, lasted until they were mere meters from the upper part of the liquid hydrogen ocean. When they detonated, with gigaton force, they were far too deep to do much to the Confederation ships above.
* * *
“I’d forgotten all about the graviton projectors,” said Pandi in a quiet voice. Those poor sons of bitches, was her thought. She had seen ships blown out of space with all hands. This was just, different, in some way, watching a ship and crew crushed out of existence.
“Their grabbers made them perfect targets,” said the Watcher, his own expression one of disgust at what he had been forced to do. “They allowed us to jerk them where we wanted them to go, and let the planet do the rest.”
“Anybody else near?” asked Pandi, looking into a com holo at the Sensory Officer on the main bridge.
“No, ma’am. But they’ve got to know something happened in this area.”
So more will be coming down toward us, and soon. “Captain, move us a hundred kilometers to the north. And I want you to launch a pair of missiles on our same current course and speed.”
“Can I ask why, ma’am,” said Mandrake, signaling her Tactical Officer to comply.
“Decoys, Captain. Have Satyapathy set the missiles to mimic our two ships. I want the enemy, if they’re looking for us, to find those missiles, while we slide silently away.”
“Good thinking,” said Watcher, laying a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll make you a fierce tactician yet.”
“We have a problem, ma’am,” said the Chief Engineer to the Captain from his station. Pandi’s station also intercepted the signal, since she was privy to all operational comcasts between major departments on the ship.
“What’s the problem, Engineer?” she asked before the Captain could, earning her a look of reproach from Watcher. Sure, it’s her ship, but our asses are on it, and I want to know.
“We are having some problems with hull integrity,” said the Engineer to Commodore and Captain. “Those antimatter explosions increased the local pressure a bit, and some of the structural supports and the armor over them were weakened.”
“What do you suggest, Engineer?” asked Mandrake, glancing out of her holo at Pandi.
“We take her up to six hundred and fifty atmospheres while damage control parties work on the supports. And I recommend that we send repair bots out onto the hull.”
“Will the bots be able to handle the pressure?”
“No problem, ma’am,” the Engineer answered Mandrake. “Their sealed compartments are more than strong enough, and most of the interior will equalize pressure with the outside.”
“Go ahead and do it Captain,” said Pandi. “And com Vengeance as to our intentions. I still want us to stay on the heading to the north, so we don’t have to deal with these assholes while you make repairs.
“Aye, ma’am,” said the Engineer, who was immediately off the com to do his job, in the way of engineers.
“What are those?” asked Pandi, seeing more objects appearing on the plot.
“I think we’re about to be on the receiving end of a very old tactic,” said Watcher. “And I don’t think we’re going to enjoy it.”
Chapter Twenty-four
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
James Madison
“We’ve already lost seven ships, your Majesty,” said the Chief of Naval Operations on the com holo. “That environment is one my captains and crews are not used to operating in.”
And I doubt they are any more practiced at operating in that environment, thought the Emperor of the enemy, glaring at his top naval commander. “I want them found,” he finally said, a simple demand on the surface. “I want the pressure put on them.”
“They are more able to handle that pressure than we are, your Majesty,” said the Fleet Admiral. “We are dropping the depth bombs on them that you suggested, but we can’t drop those near to where we have ships.”
And you don’t need to, you dolt. That’s the whole reason I’m having you use them, to cover the areas that our ships can’t, deeper down into that hell.
“Just keep the pressure up, Admiral. It will go bad for all of us if they get away.” And most of all for you.
“I still don’t see how they can get away, your Majesty. If they come out of Odin, we will spot them. We have too many ships close in on the planet for even their stealth tech to work. We will pick them up, and we will engage them.”
Unless they use a wormhole to evacuate, thought the Emperor. One of the things that Garcia had told him was how Pandora Latham had come to Kallis through a wormhole, inserted on the planet by a probe. And used the wormhole, in his presence, to bring through equipment for use for espionage. And I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of stealthed probes in our space, connected to their ships by wormholes. Even after going over Tounces’ after action report, which almost spelled it out for me. If they still have probes, they could be watching us in real time. We can’t see what they’re doing, but they can see everything that we are. They could be watching this building at this time. They could deliver a weapon here in the next second. Kitticaris shook his head. Paranoia could be useful at times. Or it could be paralyzing.
“Just keep looking, Admiral,” he said, deciding not to share his conjecture on the wormholes, which would just dishearten the man, and those under him. “Keep up the pressure, and leave the higher strategy to me.”
Kitticaris killed the link, then linked to the commander of his other service. “Your Majesty,” said Field Marshal Juan Gonzalez. “We have called up the reserves to help with search, rescue and recovery duties.”
“Pull all of your units off those duties, Field Marshal,” ordered the Emperor. “Call up all the reserves. And I mean all of them, even the inactive and retired. I want them patrolling the entire moon. Any place where someone might hide.”
“That’s a tall order, your Majesty,” said the Field Marshal in a disbelieving tone. “Even with all my manpower, I can’t station men at every possible hiding place on the planet.”
“Then set up a schedule of patrols to cover them all,” said the Emperor, mentally cursing yet another inferior for stupidity.
“And the people affected by the attack on the city?” Left unsaid in that question was the people who were injured in the nuke the Emperor had ordered to strike the city, for no result other than damage to the capital.
“Just follow your orders, Field Marshal. Or I will have to find someone else to do your job.” And left out of that statement was the fate of the Field Marshal if that came to pass.
“Is there a reason f
or this?” asked the Field Marshal, pushing the limit.
“Yes, there is,” growled the Emperor, his anger almost gaining control of his reason. “Now, follow my orders.” The Emperor stared at the man, who seemed to be frozen in fear. “Now,” he yelled at the top of his voice, and the man moved, head nodding as he reached for something off screen.
“Fool,” growled the Emperor as he disconnected the com. Maybe the solution is to clone more of myself, he thought, dismissing that thought out of mind. Then I would just have more competition for the post of Emperor.
* * *
“They’re depth bombs of some sort,” said Watcher, as explosions blossomed on the plot at the altitude Niven had been when the enemy destroyer engaged them. “They look to be in the hundred megaton range.”
“How in the hell did they rig up such horrors in so short a time?” asked Mandrake over the com.
The plot was showing thousands of the devices, all dropping into the atmosphere and falling quickly to the higher pressure zone. Each was radiating some kind of energy as they fell, searching for a target.
“They’re using sonar,” said Satyapathy in a disbelieving voice. The atmosphere was now echoing with sound energy, moving in waves through the depths.
“I think they rigged missile warheads to act as their depth bombs,” said Watcher. “And sonar is just about the only thing that would work in this soup of an atmosphere.”
The ship rocked from a blast, this one only a couple of hundred kilometers away.
“How in the hell are they targeting us?” asked Pandora, wondering what would happen if one hit close, very close.
“That’s how,” said Satyapathy, pointing to some dots that were now appearing on plot. Each was also radiating with sound waves. “There’s one about twenty kilometers off our port.”
Pandi tried to pull up the visual of the probe, and was defeated by the atmosphere. And she knew there was no way any of Niven’s beam weapons would reach it
“Can you get ahold of it with the graviton projector,” she called out to the Tactical Officer.
“There are no graviton emissions to track with,” said Satyapathy. “It’s just, floating there, without using any kind of power.”
Balloons? she thought, recalling an image she had once seen at the space training facility she had attended prior to becoming a Kuiper Belt miner. It had shown how Jupiter’s thick atmosphere had been explored using bathyscaph type probes floating on hot air balloons. Or in the case of Jupiter, hotter hydrogen balloons. “How in the hell did they get them here so fast? Surely they didn’t carry a passel of the things on their ships.”
“They have fabbers aboard their ships, just like we do,” said Watcher, looking over at her. “They just ran them off.”
“Which means they have a plan to run them off from,” said Mandrake. “What could they have used these things for?”
Another explosion, this one closer than the first, rocked the ship, followed by two more.
“They don’t have a complete fix on us,” said Watcher, stepping up onto the platform her chair rested upon and putting a hand on her shoulder. “They have a good idea, within fifty kilometers or so, but not an exact pinpoint.”
The ship rocked again, and warning klaxons went off while the ship schematic showed some areas that had already been red with damage now blinking with an indication of further such.
“Some of the areas of low integrity are getting worse, ma’am,” called out the Engineer. “I’m not sure how much longer she’ll hold out the gas. We’re already getting some leakage.”
Hydrogen was one of the smallest molecules around, able to get through microscopic gaps that other gases couldn’t. And having the ship load up on the volatile gas, especially with the oxygen they already held, would not do much good.
“We need to move the ship higher up,” said the Engineer. “That’s the only way we’re going to survive.”
And we keep moving up to survive our damage, until they can track us from outside the clouds, and they blast our asses out of the sky. If they could have a complete day without being hit with anything, they could repair the hull using nanotech. As it was, the microscopic robots could start knitting the damage, at least within the hull, but continued poundings would keep them from completing repairs until it was too late and the damage was greater than before.
“What do you think about us abandoning ship?” she asked Watcher, looking up into his face.
“Do we have a way off? Other than rising above the clouds and coming under fire while we bail out?” Watcher closed his eyes for a moment, linking with the vessel. “The last wormhole probe?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” she said. “The other end of the link would be outside this gravity well, and we wouldn’t have to deal with transit distortions. Or at least not as much. We would be back on Kallis. Or one of the other inhabitable moons. Whichever you think is best.”
“And Vengeance?”
“They could continue to hide out down here. They are better able to go deeper, where they can’t be tracked.”
“There’s always the possibility they will be tracked,” said Watcher. “It would help us to have their people with us, until we can get off the moon. Until Krisnamurta can take us off.”
“And what should we do with the ships?” she asked, willing to take the advice of someone who was her master in the arts of strategy and tactics.
“Oh,” said Watcher, as the ship shook around them with the twin hammer blows of nearby depth bombs going off. “I think I can come up with a use for them.”
“OK,” said Pandi, looking over at Mandrake on the com holo. “Find us a place on Kallis, one that’s away from the population, with good cover. Fly the last probe there, check it out, and open a passenger gate. Contact Vengeance. Order them to do the same thing with one of their probes.”
“What’s your plan, ma’am?” asked the Captain, her brow furrowing.
“We’re going to abandon ship to the moon. And there we’ll wait until Krishnamurta comes for us.”
“You don’t want Vengeance to evacuate to the Donut?” asked the surprised Captain.
“No. We’ll take control of her by remote and use her as a decoy. But we may need her people where we’re going.” The ship shook again with another blast, this one closer than any before. A moment later, another went off, this one quite a bit further. “Get your people moving as well, Captain. We’ll want weapons and armor for all of us, and any more we might have aboard. We’ll be taking everything that’s not nailed down, anything that might be of use.”
“I want us fairly close to their capital, even if it is out in the boonies,” said Watcher, studying a holo globe of the moon.
“What’s your thought?” asked Pandi.
“I’m not quite sure yet,” said Watcher, looking intently at the globe. “Just a thought.
“I’m transmitting additional orders to the Vengeance,” said Watcher, grimacing as he said that hated name, once the designation of his other self. “It’s about time they used that wormhole back to the Donut for something other than a com link. And make sure we bring all the fabbers we have with us.”
“Permission to stay with my ship, ma’am?” asked Mandrake, a fierce expression on her face.
“Permission denied. You’ll have to die and come back some other time. I need you to be the hell on wheels landing force commander again, like the one I met in the Supersystem”
A little less than an hour later the probe had found its spot, a small valley a hundred kilometers southeast of the capital city. The valleys beyond were farming lands, the kind of large mechanized concerns that fed industrial worlds. Nothing moved in the valley except the small animals that lived there, and a hunting cat that prowled the woods. The cat watched as the probe flew around the valley, looking for any sign that this might not be the right place. The cat growled as the probe came to a stop in the clearing it was looking over. The growl increased in volume as the small silver mirror extended
from the probe, then grew into a three by four meter portal. It stopped growling, eyes widening, as the first figure stepped from the portal, rifle in hand. The cat decided at that point that the valley was not such a good spot to lair after all, and it ran flat out to vacate the area.
Another Marine followed the first one from the portal, then another, until an entire squad stood on the sward, spreading out, then fanning out to sweep the valley. “It’s clear,” came the signal back to the ship, and armored spacers followed through, all carrying their suits’ capacity in boxes and baggage. The next group through pushed larger boxes on floating pallets.
Engineers began moving the boxes to a small cave nearby, the same one the big cat had used as a lair. More armored people came through the gate, carrying more equipment, until the clearing was filled with boxes and bags,
A second probe landed, another portal opened, and more people came flooding out of the portal. After fifty or so had come through, burdened with baggage, battle robots followed.
Watcher came walking out of the first portal, wearing his custom battle armor, followed a moment later by Pandora Latham in her own ground action suit, now repaired and recharged.
“I still think it would be a good idea to just take the portal back to Vengeance, then back to the Donut.”
“And what happens to the people who helped you, who are now in prison?” asked Watcher, leaning over and pointing a finger in her face. “No, we end this, here and now. That psychopath in charge needs to go down. A revolution is going to start here.”
“We’re still seriously outnumbered,” she said, trying to reason with her enraged lover.
Watcher stood there, looking at the robots that were piling out of the second portal. Coming through the portal to the station, then jumping immediately into the one on-board Vengeance to come out into the clearing. More people were coming out of the first portal, carrying large boxes marked with the danger sign of antimatter, two atoms coming together.
Deeper and Darker (Deep Dark Well Book 3) Page 25