The Deep Dark Well (40 page)

The ship slid to a stop
in front of the target area, a kilometer out.  Weapons were charged, hatches
opening on the hull.  As soon as they were ready they opened fire, hurling a
maximum charge of negative matter at the station hull.  A large hole opened up
immediately, the matter of the superstrong hull canceled by the strange
material that struck it. 

“Initiating ping, now,”
she said as she hit another commit switch.  Radar flew out at light speed and
was reflected back from within.  Fifty meters into the station.  Not quite
enough.  But enough of a signal to let the computer know where her ship was.

The sequence had already
been programmed in, and her ship sped on emergency boost along the wall of the
station.  Safe from the homing missiles the computer had launched at her last
known position.  She waited a few moments for the missiles to sniff for her and
move on.

“It’s safe,” said
Watcher over the com system.  Again she struck the commit button, putting the
ship into motion.  The ship flew back in a long arc over the station, avoiding
the still firing weapons that were trying to sweep her from space.  With no
warning they stopped firing.

“What happened?” she
asked Watcher over the com link.

“I reminded it that is
what not supposed to kill a sentient creature,” said Watcher.  “And that firing
into space at random when your ship was out there was coming close to killing a
sentient creature.”

“So you destroyed
whatever rationalization it was using to fire at me.”

“Correct,” said
Watcher.  “The computer has learned how to lie to itself effectively.  A
reminder of the truth brings the programming to the fore.  But look out.  It
can still fire to disable your ship, if it knows where you are.”

Hellfire
slipped back into
position, particle beams opening up as soon as they were in line with the
target.  Firing for effect, the nozzles released tons of negative matter, more
than the small ship could possibly carry.  Eating into the station.

The wormhole in the
negative matter storage tank seems to be working perfectly
, she thought, as the
digital readout showed a full load even after twenty tons had been released. 

Her ship slid back,
within the arc of the weapons at the computer’s control, still not firing.  The
particle beams erupted again, this time with a more violent effect on the
material of the ship.  Antimatter, striking with hell fire at the material of
the station.  Hot white light flaring within the hull, as a jet of hot gasses
was blown into space.  The ship backed away with randomly alternating thrust as
it fired, putting some distance between itself and the station, until she had
gained a hundred kilometers separation.

“Fire,” yelled Watcher
over the com link.  “And get the hell out of there.”

Pandi committed to the
next phase of the attack, launching two pairs of torpedoes in quick succession,
again giving her position away to the computer.  But
Hellfire
began her
next maneuver as soon as the torpedoes left their tubes, thrusting to the side
as she swung her orientation, racing down the curve of the station.  Not fast
enough to completely outrace the explosive power the four antimatter torpedoes
unleashed, and the eruption that followed.

Tetratons of explosive
power, blowing quadrillions of tons of vaporized material out toward the black
hole.  The explosion caught her ship before it could get completely out of the
field.  Pandi gripped the arms of her chair as the ship rocked and bucked with
the force of the ejecta hitting the stern of the vessel.  Even the inertial
compensators couldn’t adjust fast enough, and Pandi cursed in panic as her seat
was surrounded by a mass of soft material that threatened to suffocate her.

Then her breath came to
her, as the mass fed her oxygen, and she realized that the stuff cushioned the
force of the explosive power that was pushing her ship away.  The
Hellfire’s
on-board computer maneuvered quickly to avoid the station, piling on emergency thrust. 
Then they were home free, the ride smoothed out, and the gelatinous mass
dissolved around her into nothingness.

Pandi looked on the
holo display at the raging inferno that was the station behind her.  Even more
powerful than the last, she was sure, with the combined effects of the
detonator charge, the torpedoes and the array of antimatter particles her beams
had loosed upon it.  Pushing the station again into disequilibrium.

Her ship sped away,
along toward the next and final target, as she waited in nervous anticipation
for the next event that must occur if they were to be successful.  It seemed
like forever, but the flares in the distance finally erupted, starting the
process of nudging the station back into a stable orbit.

Watcher's right
, she thought.  The
computer still held out the hope that it would survive their attack.  And it
could not allow itself and the station that housed it to go to destruction in
the black hole while hope remained.

Time to plan for the
next leg.  This last one was easy.  The next one would be anything but.  And
the ship would present a killable target if the computer located it this time.

*    *    *

There was a glimpse
, thought the
computer.  A small picture of a moving object, accelerating along.  It
disappeared, then appeared again.  Then disappeared.  Her ship, if such it was,
was damaged, and he could see through the small rupture in her hull, no longer
protected by the absorbent skin.

Not enough of a glimpse
to guarantee a disabling shot.  Not at the speed it was traveling, piling on
more by the second.  But that would come.  If it were patient and waited, the
ship would be at rest, and it would be able to get enough of a target lock to
send her spinning out into space.  Then whether she lived or died would be up to
fate, otherwise known as probability, and the station computer could function
with a cleanly programmed conscience.

Chapter 21

O, for an engine, to
keep back all clocks,

Or make the sun forget
his motion!

Ben Jonson (1573-1637)

The wormhole mouth opened
before the target area, homing in on the proper orientation to unleash its
burst of radiation.  Within a microsecond the mouth collapsed, the wormhole
flashing out of existence before it could truly stabilize.  Within moments
another opened a little distance from the first, collapsing just as fast.

“Damn,” said Watcher, and
Pandi looked up from the display at the holo.  “Stop the ship.  Emergency
boost.”

Pandi ordered an
immediate stop, still short of the assault zone.

“What’s happening? 
Can’t you open a wormhole?”

“No.  He’s throwing
point gravity wells into the wormholes before they can complete their opening,
collapsing them.  And I’ve already done the mass dump.”

“Graviton beams?”

“Yes,” said Watcher. 
“And I’ll bet he has instantaneous transmission lines all through the area.”

“I guess it’s time for
Plan B,” she said, getting up from her seat.

“And what is Plan B?”

“Entry at another point
and fighting my way to the target area.”

“And how do you intend
to get out before it swallows you?”

“Hadn’t thought that
one out yet.”

“I have a better idea,”
said Watcher.  “Attack from the specified zone, blasting through deep into the
hull.  Follow up with antimatter.  Then attack inward through the wasted zone.”

“You think that will
take out all the defenses?”

 “Probably not,” he
answered.  “But it will reduce the odds against you.”

“OK,” she agreed with a
nod.  “I’m going to suit up.  If anything happens to me…”

“I’ll flood the area
with antimatter,” he said.  “I won’t allow your sacrifice to go for naught.  But
be careful and keep your eyes open, and you’ll come back to me.”

He doesn't sound so
sincere at that last
,
she thought.  But what was he expected to say?  I think you’re going to die,
which will make me very sad, but you must to accomplish my purposes.  For after
all, it was his salvation he was worried about.  She could care less about
Galactic civilization, and whether the peoples of the Galaxy took thousands of
more years to climb back to the heights they once occupied.

She added to the suit
as he had shown her.  This time she was less worried about maneuverability, and
more worried about overall firepower.  The plasma cannon mounted on the
shoulders of the suit, linked into her eyes and the sensory systems of the
armored vessel for her body.  Portable rocket launchers in sheaths attached to
the backpacks.  A pouch of grenades on the belt.  The box containing the
special
attached to the other side of the belt.

She looked over her
handiwork.  Now the gorilla suit looked even more like a gorilla.  She wouldn’t
be able to carry all of that if the repellers went out.  The repellers would
just have to hold up. 

She shuffled back up to
the bridge encased in a half ton of armor, weapons and environmental suit.  The
schematic of the ship came through her link, showing the explosive bolt system
that would blow the view screen from the bridge for an emergency exit.  The
nanobots of the ship’s repair system could build a replacement facsimile on the
trip back, if there was a trip back.  Speed was more important now than any
other factor.  She had to fire and get in.

*    *    *

A heavy gauntleted
finger hit the commit pad on the control board.  The ship accelerated on
emergency burst, building up and killing velocity in an instant, sliding into
place.  Another pad lit as she hit the commit, opening fire with the particle
beam weapons.  A flood of charged negative matter hit the superstrong material
of the hull, disintegrating matter both positive and negative, blasting a large
hole deep into the station. 
Hellfire
rocked at the same time, as
particle beams of more normal material opened up on her as well.

Damn
, thought Pandi,
how
has it located me so fast
.  She stabbed the next commit pad to light,
switching the load of the particle beams to antimatter.  The ship’s nose swayed
back and forth, up and down, as the volatile material was sprayed into the
interior of the station.  White light flashed as the explosions ripped through
the section.

Hellfire
shuddered from another
hit, and Pandi cursed her luck.  She had hoped to be able to totally fry the
interior, all the way to the computer core.  The plan had been for nothing to
be in her way.

Her gauntleted hand
pushed pads on the control board, maneuvering the ship closer, as she continued
the fire upon the station.  Another punched pad ceased fire, and then blew the
view screen.  Vacuum sucked at the air within the bridge, pulling anything not
strapped down into the space in front of the ship.  Anything, including one
woman in a half ton of assault unit.

Then she was in space,
the ship retreating behind her.  Within moments the link between her and the
ship was severed, and she rotated her suit around to see what had happened. 
Her eyes widened at the sight of
Hellfire
, spinning out of control
toward the black hole among a cloud of debris.  She watched several spins.  The
bow of the ship was intact, except for the missing view screen.  But the stern
was a total wreck, inertialess drive ball gone, the attaching boom a shredded
mass of metal and crystal. 

No time to think of
what she would do to get away. 
That worry can wait
, she thought, as she
turned the suit and boosted into the station.  Maybe her knight in shining
armor would have to ride his charger out and get her.  If he had the time, and
she gave him the opportunity.

Small pieces of
material struck her suit as she entered through the mass of debris that choked
the interior. 
All hell's broken loose in here
, she thought.  She had to
switch on active radar to avoid large pieces of debris, or even parts of still
attached station.  The suit maneuvered beautifully, responsive to her signals,
accelerating and decelerating smoothly as it changed vectors to get around
obstacles.

Pandi cringed within
the suit again and again as objects came out of nowhere to strike her.  Thoughts
that she might be under attack came to mind, to be quickly rejected as a piece
of twisted metal bounce back into the maelstrom.  She still worried that a
particle might penetrate her suit, killing her before she could do what she had
come to accomplish.  The thought of drifting here forever struck her as ironic;
to travel through time and space to become a derelict like the one she had
found so many tens of millennium ago.

The rational part of
her mind realized that wasn’t going to happen, at least not as she was
envisioning it.  Already the masses of particles were beginning to fall toward
the opening as they lost their own explosion provided momentum.  They were
acting under the pseudogravity of the spinning station, settling against the
outer skin, or falling through the opening to be captured by the pull of the
black hole.