Pandora pulled the probe from the power plug and turned quickly, extending her other gauntlet out and triggering the laser as she completed the turn. Shots hit her suit, mostly the rapid clatter of automatic fire that lacked any kind of penetrating power. The one rifle firing high velocity single shots did not do any better, slowed some by the electromag field, then bouncing away from the hard armor. Pandi swung her fist across the men, the laser burning through them like an infinite sword blade. Men scream as they were cut in two just above the waist, smoke and a searing meat sound accompanying the shouts of agony. The upper sections fell away, the men still alive for the moment, their veins and arteries cauterized shut. The legs stood for a moment, then fell at all angles.
Pandora grimaced at the cries the dying men were emitting. She wanted them dead, all of them. But their cries of agony were too much, and she walked over and shot each of them in the head in turn, silencing the screams that were tugging at her heart. They’re bastards, she thought as she sent a pencil thin beam into the forehead of the last man, one who looked up at her with entreating eyes. But even bastards don’t need to suffer like that. Unless they’re some of them Inquisitor fuckers, or that Admiral. She thought of inflicting such pain on them and gave a sharkish smile. Then she cleared her head of such thoughts and perused the racks of weapons, selecting what she wanted.
The armored warrior looked up at the grill and shook her head. The armor would not fit through those narrow tunnels, which left the corridors of the ship. And they would fight her every step of the way, unless she found a path that wasn’t so heavily guarded. She jacked into the ship’s information system through her suit and smiled as an idea came to her. It seemed like a good one to her, though she was sure the enemy wouldn’t be quite so enthused.
* * *
“She’s broken into an armory,” called out the Security Chief over the circuit. “She killed some Marines and took off from there.”
“Are you able to track her,” growled the Admiral, slamming a fist on the arm of his chair.
“No sir,” said the distressed Security Chief. “She’s disappeared from our scans.”
“What was in that armory?” asked the Admiral in a quiet voice, feeling misgivings raised by the inability to track the woman in their own ship.
“Shit,” said the Security Chief after a moment’s hesitation. “It was the armory where we were storing her suit. And the suit is missing.”
“Dammit,” screamed the Admiral, looking into the frightened face of the Security Chief through the visual part of the link. She seems to be one step ahead of us all the time. And our computer safeguards aren’t enough to stop her.
He glowered at the Security Chief for a moment, the words on his lips that would relieve the man of his duty. But he wasn’t sure if the next man in line would do any better against this woman. She was smart, very smart, and she had resources they had never begun to suspect. Like breaking free of her restraints and killing five inquisitors. That was unheard of. Then finding her way to the one room among a thousand on the ship where her major resource was stored, and activating a suit they were all sure was disabled.
“Alert all crew to arm, and to be on the lookout for her,” said the Admiral, staring into the screen. “Only try to stop her if they have the firepower to do so. Otherwise, stay out of her way, and alert security so the Marines can try to take her. Understood?”
“Understood,” said the Security Chief, wiping his brow with a sleeve, relief on his face as he realized he would keep his position, for the moment.
The Admiral cut the circuit and sat back in his chair, rubbing his temples with his fingers to try and relieve an oncoming headache. What the hell can she be up to? he thought, trying to get into the mind of the woman. Is she trying to escape? That would be the smart move, but she has to know that anything she steals to get to the planet will be seen and shot down. So what will she try to do? And in a flash it came to him. She would try to damage or destroy this ship. Which would seem a totally mad plan on the outside, unless one knew the woman and the capabilities of the advanced combat armor she now wore.
“Security Chief,” said the Admiral, relinking through the circuit. “I need to talk to you.”
“We’re getting a message from the surface,” called out the Marine Liaison Officer, looking back at the Admiral.
“What now?” asked the Admiral, putting the security chief on hold.
“It’s not good, sir,” said the Liaison, his face troubled.
Watcher, thought the Admiral, putting his face in his hands and readying himself for the bad news.
* * *
First had come the calls from the company holding closed the backdoor in preparation for the main assault. The calls had been panicked and confused, and Major Dronning Dumas was not sure what they meant. The most rational explanation was that another force had attacked out of the jungle, and he knew the Abomination had some assets out there in that horror of a forest. The Major had not thought them so close. But I guess we should never underestimate his capabilities.
The Major still had almost a regiment of Marines, and he couldn’t comprehend the small force the Abomination was said to have actually defeating his command. It might be a long and bloody fight, short and bloody more like, but surely the Abomination’s force would succumb to the numerically superior Nation Marines.
Dumas had ordered his flank units to consolidate and attack into the sides of the force that had routed his company. And had prepared to move on the cavern with a battalion at the same time. And then had come the second shock. A shock that was still rolling up his lines, when the tanks, robots and armed Suryans came through the jungle and hit his flank. All led by that monster of a combat suit that destroyed everything in its way.
“Get that son of a bitch,” yelled someone over the com. There were more screams and yells, the sound of something exploding, more yells, then silence.
“All men, concentrate fire on that big combat suit when he comes within sight,” yelled the commander, watching his heads up display to see where the dot tagged as the Abomination was centered. The tanks were still around him, as well as many other dots that signified robots and Suryans. As he watched one of the tank dots blinked for a moment and then faded off the screen.
“We got one of the vehicles,” came a voice over the link. A moment later the angry bee sound of a heavy particle beam drowned out all background noise. Then silence, and the Major knew the hyper-v crew had been destroyed.
The cries and screams and shouted orders continued over the com, and the Major knew the situation was getting out of hand. And we can’t even call in a kinetic strike, he thought, glaring at the enemy symbols that were continuing to sweep his flanks. Not with the enemy within our lines. He was almost afraid to give the fleet any more information about the situation. They might consider himself and his troops expendable if there was a possibility that they could take out the Abomination. He almost wouldn’t blame them. Almost. Of course, when it was his hide, and the lives of his men involved, he would damn them to hell for dropping a big kinetic on his command. Even though it might not make any difference as far as their survival was concerned.
* * *
Watcher had been developed to be the ultimate soldier. One that was tougher, stronger, and most important smarter than any possible opponent. He was also made immortal so that he might rise to be the ultimate commander, building his knowledge and wisdom throughout the ages. He was the only one of his kind, because once those who were involved in his development discovered just how dangerous he could be their fear made them hold back on making any others.
So Watcher felt in his element in battle. It was exhilarating to him in a way nothing outside of great sex was. A rush, putting his life on the line while he pitted his abilities against those of an armed foe. Even if the armed foe was equipped with weapons and armor a millennia behind his.
A Nation Marine fired a string of grenades at Watcher, armor piercers that might have actual
ly damaged the suit, if they had hit. Might have, if they hadn’t been repelled by the powerful electromagnetic field that surrounded the suit. The grenades popped in the air as they were flung away. Watcher turned his weapon on the grenadier and fired a short stream of protons into the man. Beam hit armor and transferred kinetic and heat energy into it, megajoules that melted and blew a hole through the suit at the same time. The body behind that armor turned mostly to vapor or ash, the pressure blowing outward and sending metallic fragments in all directions. The wreckage that had been a Nation Marine fell to the ground, and Watcher scanned for the next target with a twinge of guilt at what he was doing.
These men captured Pandora, he thought, pushing the guilt from his mind. They deserve what they get this day, and are fortunate I am in a killing mood, that they not be captured and tortured for their information. That might come later, when he had caught some senior commanders that might actually have information of use.
Watcher looked at a flight of aircraft on his HUD, circling helplessly over the battle, unable to fire for fear of hitting their own. With a mental command his three remaining tanks each fired off a hyper-velocity missile. The missiles wound slowly through the overhead foliage, then accelerated at max toward their targets. The aircraft barely had time to register the missiles and attempt laser lock. One actually got a hit on the missile coming its way, but contact time was too short to cause any damage. Three of the four aircraft were blasted from the sky, while the fourth dropped low and hit full thrust, getting out of the kill zone while it could.
Something hit one of the tanks, and Watcher cursed as he lost another of his most powerful assets. He ordered the others to go higher into the canopy, realizing that they were no longer needed in this fight as he watched red dots streaming away, the enemy routed. “Close in on that last concentration,” he sent to his Suryan allies, while he took aim at the hyper-v crew that had destroyed his tank and blotted them from existence. “And try to get some prisoners.”
“Acknowledged,” came the voice of the Suryan Commander who was in charge of their ground forces. The Admiral acknowledged a moment later, and Watcher headed that way himself, blowing away the few remaining enemy positions he encountered.
A signal came through from his on-board computer, a message flashing on his HUD at the same time as it contacted his mind. [All local recon assets that the enemy had in this area have been neutralized.]
That had been another battle going on, never in doubt except for the exact timing. The enemy had recon drones in the area, and Watcher’s own pizzos had gone after them in a robot to robot battle. The drones were larger, the pizzos much more advanced, and with the downing of the last drone the enemy now only had the takes of their armored troopers to tell the ships in orbit what was going on. And the singular vegetation of this world would not allow orbital sensors to see what was going on beneath the hundreds of meters of foliage.
[The enemy has found the wormhole control chamber on the Donut,] came the relayed signal from the Quantum Computer of the station through the quantum entanglement com.
[What can you do to delay their control?] asked Watcher, already dreading the answer he knew was coming.
[Nothing,] said the computer. [If they present the proper signals they will become master.]
Watcher cursed yet again. He had to get Pandora and head back to the station as soon as possible if he were to retain control. It would not obey any instruction from him as long as he was off the station. That had been the way it had been programmed, as a failsafe, and there had been no way to change that programming without destroying the computer.
“We have their commander,” came the voice of Lt. Commander Dasha Mandrake over the com. “The Gods have been good to us, and he is intact.”
“I’ll be right there,” said Watcher, checking his HUD and seeing that the only red dots were those surrounded by the green dots of his forces. He propelled the suit into the air and weaved through the trees, returning the waves of some of the Suryans he passed. Seeing the group he wanted he turned the suit and came down in a soft landing, then walked up to the smiling Suryan Commander. She smiled back, her helmet retracted, and pointed to the closest prisoner.
“This is the officer in charge of the ground troops,” she said, looking into Watcher’s eyes after he retracted his own helm.
“Very good,” said Watcher. “I need some information from you about the landing field.”
“I will tell you nothing,” said the young officer, squaring his jaw and trying to glare back at the superman, but only showing his fear.
I really hate having to do this, thought Watcher, as he prepared his suit to project a pain induction field. “I am afraid I cannot allow that,” he said to the wide eyed officer. “I am very sorry for this, but you have made it necessary.”
* * *
“This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” said Colonel Johanson, walking into the huge room. It appeared bigger than a battleship, though he knew some of that was holographic projection. But the rows of comfortable looking chairs, hundreds of them, in front of what had to be advanced tech control stations, those were not holographic.
“We think they control the production of wormholes from this chamber,” said the naval Commander, Hanson, who accompanied the Colonel through the room. “My guess is that they also monitored all the gates that were opened across the Galaxy.”
“And how many was that?” asked the Colonel, looking at the holographic globe in the center of the chamber that showed the entire Milky Way Galaxy. A true Galactic Empire, thought the officer as he looked at that mass of stars. Like we will be, someday.
“We figure there must have been millions of them,” said the engineering officer, shrugging his shoulders. “How many million? We just don’t know.”
“And is this the only control center?” asked the Colonel, the size of the chamber almost overwhelming his mind.
“Maybe,” said the Commander, again shrugging his shoulders. “Probably not. We don’t really know. Until we can actually tap into this thing, we won’t really know where everything is in relation to everything else. This station is just too big.”
That’s God’s truth, thought the Colonel, walking to one of the control stations and looking it over. Billions of cubic kilometers. It would take the population of a world to actually explore this thing. The Colonel looked down at the panel and the chair, then squatted and touched the seat. “This doesn’t look like it was made to fit a human,” he said, looking up at Hanson.
“Probably for an alien,” said the naval officer, spitting out the last word like it was excrement in his mouth. “Of course we’ll have to pull these chairs out of here, what there are of them, so we can put humans in control of this system, like God intended.”
“Like God intended,” agreed the Colonel, staring at the chair. He looked back at the Commander. “May we follow the will of God, and put humans back in their rightful place, in control of the Galaxy.”
“Amen,” said the Commander, bowing his head.
“And how long before you gain control of this chamber, and the station?”
“Really no telling, sir,” said the naval officer, pulling out a flat comp and pushing his fingers on the surface. “I really don’t know why we were allowed in this chamber, except that there seemed to be no security here.”
“Just like the legends,” said the Colonel, looking up at the ceiling a hundred meters above.
“Sir?”
“The legends said that someone had to actually be boots on the station to control it,” said the Colonel, looking into the eyes of the junior officer. “And if the Abomination and his whore are off the station, it is open to control by another.”
“If we can figure out the way in,” said the Commander, a frown on his face.
“If, yes,” said the Colonel with a nod. “And if God put us here, I don’t see why he won’t give us that opening. Now we just have to find it.”
Chapter Nineteen
Do aliens have souls? I’m not sure of the answer to this question. I would like to think so, as I have trouble believing the Gods would create a being able to reason, without ensuring that they would be rewarded for their deeds in an afterlife, or punished. So yes, I think aliens have souls. And it is up to good men to show them the way to salvation.
Grand Bishop of the Church of Surya.
Now this looks promising, thought Pandora as she looked out over the hanger. She had avoided the Marines on the way here by moving through access corridors and spoofing the security systems of the battleship. The security people had attempted to shut her out multiple times, but her on-board comp had too good a handle on the firewalls, too many penetrations, and as soon as one was closed it sent a hard probe through another and reestablished contact.
Pandi’s suit, the outer skin now in complete working order, had also done good service. Its light bending invisibility field was much better than anything the Nation military was used to dealing with, and she had stuck to the shadows, such as they were, the whole way. Shutting down lighting systems over the ship’s net and creating more shadows had also helped.
The hanger was mostly empty, its cavernous space and docking cradles showing that it had once been full of a lot of small vessels. Most were either on the planet, in atmosphere, or climbing to and from the ship. There were a pair of shuttles on the far end, one with access hatches open and mechanics working, the other in seeming good condition. Closer at hand was an atmospheric fighter with some definite damage to one wing, while crew worked to replace the hull panels that looked partially melted.
That’s the one, thought Pandora, pulling the hyper-v launcher from her back and aiming it. She pulled the first trigger and locked the missile on target. She hesitated for a moment, looking at the technicians working within the blast zone and wondering if she should warn them. Thoughts of how she had been abused by their countrymen banished those feelings. Just too damn bad, she thought, pulling the second trigger and sending the grabber pulled missile at the target.
To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) Page 21