To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) (12 page)

“Uh huh,” said Pandi,
shaking her head. 
And I do feel bad about letting so many of your people
die, Admiral.  But I feel more sorrow for my lost home, damn my selfish little
heart.

“We are quite safe
here,” said Krishnamurta with a smile.  “We are over a kilometer back in the
cave system, with a couple of kilometers of hard rock overhead.”

“And that will protect
us from those KE weapons they’re dropping?” said the woman with a tight smile,
looking up at the ceiling while she was monitoring her micro-robot surveillance
system that surrounded the jungle around this mountain.  She had not seen a
kinetic strike in the last half an hour.  But she had noted that shuttles were
landing at the field twenty kilometers distant, unloading armored troops, then
leaping back into the air.  She also noted that some atmospheric transports and
attack craft had landed and were being prepped for operations.  She didn’t know
what they would be used for, but her guesses didn’t bode well for her, or her friends.

“Not if they drop a big
one right on top of us,” said the Admiral, shaking his head.  “I think that
would bring the mountain down on our heads.  But they have no reason to know
that we are here.”

Unless some of their
people saw us go into the cavern mouth
, though Pandora. 
But I didn’t see anybody
that might have seen us going underground.  Still not impossible that we were
seen, just unlikely.  And unlikely might have to be good enough.

Pandora looked around
the large cavern, illuminated by the portable lanterns the Suryans had carried
with them.  There were about a hundred men and women in sight, and she knew
there were more in the tunnels leading here, as well as the sentries at the
openings.  Still not much compared to the thousands of Marines the Nation could
land.  And it had been less than twenty-four hours since the Suryans had held
this system.

Her remaining robots
were out there with the sentries, and on individual patrols that crisscrossed
the jungle.  They didn’t need rest or shelter, and it would take weeks to run
down their batteries.  If it took longer than that to get off this planet then
she was really screwed.  She didn’t believe Watcher would wait long before
putting something together to come get her.  She couldn’t think of what he could
do, but he was the most intelligent sentient in the Galaxy as far as she knew,
and she didn’t doubt he would come up with something.

The Suryans were taking
out rations and portable heaters, and putting together what they could to eat. 
There was a strong curry odor to the food, and Pandi wondered again at the
people’s origins.  They would not say they were from India, in fact they had
probably never heard the name of that old Earth subcontinent.  But from their
skin tones, their slightly polytheistic religion, and now the food they were
preparing, she would not be too surprised to learn that these people had
originated on the flood plains of the Ganges.

“I think we will be
here for a little while,” said the Admiral, gesturing toward an area where many
of his people were now sitting and talking.  “If you want to get comfortable,
this might be the time.”

“Comfortable?” asked
Pandi, feeling a little confused.

“That battle armor
you’re wearing,” said the Admiral, patting his hand on her hard metal shoulder. 
“I assume it’s great protection, but it can’t be too comfortable.”

Pandi thought about
that for a moment.  The armor gave her links to her other robots, macro and
micro, but she could still link in through it from a short distance.  And even
though the suit’s nanosystems were keeping her clean, she still thought some
exposure to the air would be welcome.  With a nod of her head she walked over
to the nearest wall, turned around, and positioned herself where she was out of
the way.  With a thought the suit opened along the seams that didn’t exist a
moment before.  The gloves attached to the legs and her hands came up and out,
the arms split open, while the helmet lifted and folded away.  The chest and
groin section opened and folded back, and with a pair of steps Pandi was out of
the battle armor, her skin suit feeling clean and comfortable on her body.

“That suit is amazing,”
said the Admiral, coming closer and studying the mechanism.  He put a finger on
the metal.  “You must have been very lucky out there.  I don’t see any hits.”

“Oh, I was hit,
alright,” she said with a smile.  “More often than I should have been,
really.” 
And Watcher will give me hell when he sees the video take of the
fight
. 
If he has time after he gives me hell about the other things I’ve
done. 
She looked at the suit, then over at the Admiral.
 
“The armor
repairs light battle damage almost as soon as it happens.  And it will service
itself while I am out of it.  Only thing is I don’t have a station to recharge
it, so once it’s out of power it’s just a hunk of metal.”

“And how long would
that take?” asked the officer, his hand running along the padded inner surface
of the suit.

“About a week,” said
Pandi, checking her stores while she had the moment.  “In heavy combat take
maybe a day or two off of that figure.”

“Simply amazing,” said
the Admiral, a longing look on his face.  “And something still far beyond my
people.”

And something you would
really like to have for your Marines
, thought Pandora, looking at the man and
wishing she could do more for him.  She had no concern that they would take the
armor without her permission.  They knew better than to cross Watcher, and
valued their friendship more than any single gain.  But as good of friends as
the Suryans were, they couldn’t just give them all the superior tech they had,
lest the kingdom go on the offensive.  It was too easy to become the conqueror
when given the means to conquer.

“One day your people
will achieve this again,” said Pandi, putting her hand on the man’s shoulder. 
“You have my word on that.  And remember, from when I come from the tech you
have is pretty advanced.”

“As long as the Nation
does not surpass us,” said the Admiral, his eyes intensely fierce.

“We’ll just have to
make sure those xenophobic bastards don’t get the upper hand,” said Pandi,
clapping her hand on his shoulder, then looking over at the people cooking. 
She looked back at the Admiral.  “Next time I’ll have something a little more
lethal under me, now that I know what I’m facing.  Now let’s say we have a go
at some chow.  The suit will feed me what nutrients I need, but it sure doesn’t
do anything for an empty stomach.”

*     *     *

Major Dronning Dumas
cursed again as he followed his point team through the steaming jungle.  He had
heard the term before, but had never really experienced it.  But here it was, a
mass of vegetation that was actually putting hot moisture into the air. 
What
in the Hell was God thinking when he created this mess.

“Anything to report,
Dumas?” came the voice of Colonel Hermann McClain over the com. 

Dumas cursed again, but
made sure it was a silent epitaph.  He didn’t like this officer, not one bit,
and wished once more that Colonel Quaid had made it through the first battle. 
Instead the Colonel from the
Orca
was in overall command.

“Nothing at all, sir,”
said the Major, wishing again that he could leave this green hell behind for a
nice fight aboard ship, where at least he didn’t have to worry about being
swarmed under by killer insects, or stabbed by ambulatory poisonous plants.  He
shuddered again as he thought about the trooper who stepped onto some kind of
nest, and was covered in stinging insects in an instant.  His armor protected
most of his body, but some of the arthropod like creatures had gotten into the
crevices, and the soft part of the suit had not stopped their stingers from
going home.  The man had died with a scream of agony, and the bugs had
continued to fight their way into the bounty that had come to them. 
They
didn’t get to enjoy it
, thought the Major with a grimace.  Lasers had
incinerated the man and the insects, while explosive shells had taken out the
depths of the nest.  But the man had definitely not enjoyed the revenge that
was taken on his behalf.

Then had come the
trooper who had stumbled into some plant that looked like a harmless bush
underneath a tree.  Harmless until the man had run into it, at which point
slender branches shot out and hit the man with hundreds of thorns.  As with the
insects, most of the thorns had been stopped by the armor, but one or more had
penetrated the suit at the joints, and the man had died in moments.  Again the
cause of death had been destroyed.  And again the victim really hadn’t cared.

“Well, keep an eye
out,” came the voice of the martinet officer over the com.

What the hell do you
think I’m doing, you ass
, thought the officer.  “Yes sir.  We’re keeping a close
watch for the bastards.”

“McClain out,” came the
reply, a relief to the younger officer.

“Look out,” yelled
someone over the com.  The yell was followed by the sound of mag rifle rounds
thwacking through the brush, then more screams and cries.

Dumas ran toward the
sounds, while yelling over the com for a sitrep.  All he got in return was more
yelling and cursing, which told him nothing except there was trouble ahead. 
The Major burst into the small clearing from which the commotion arose, and
cursed again as he saw the creatures his men had run into.

There were a couple of
armored forms lying on the ground and not moving, his men, and checking their
telemetry he cursed yet again.  One was dead, the other had vitals that were
low and dropping.  The creatures he took to be Maurids at first.  They were of
a similar shape, with the same stripped or mottled skins in an orange theme as
the alien sophonts.  One of the creatures was swinging an armored trooper
against a tree, the heavy smacking sounds echoing through the clearing.  Dumas
noted the size of the creature, gauging it to be at least three hundred kilos,
and as it turned its head a bit he saw that the skull was narrower and the jaw
heavier than a Maurid’s.  It was a close relative, but not the evil alien
sentient, as his people thought them.

This only took a moment
to go through the sharp witted officer’s mind.  At the same time he was aiming
his weapon at the alien predator, lining it up and pulling his trigger.  A
burst of high velocity rounds ripped into the beast, and its orange fur became
spotted with deep red blood.  With an almost human scream the creature went
down, and with it the man it had been attacking, both to lay unmoving on the
ground.

More Marines joined in,
shooting down all the creatures in sight.  Within seconds all of the predators
had been killed, and there were a dozen orange furred bodies lying in the poses
of death.

“What’s going on?”
called the Colonel over the com, his voice angry.  “What is holding your people
up?”

“We were attacked by a
pack predator, sir,” said Dumas, taking a close look at one of the beasts.  It
had hands, he noted, just like the Maurids, and he wondered at the relation
between the two species.

“How did they get to
you, Major?” asked the Colonel, his voice sullen.  “Couldn’t your point men
have taken them out?”

“They seem to be
arboreal, sir,” said the Major, realizing that no matter what he said he would
take the brunt of the blame.  “They took out five of my men before they knew
what was happening.”

“Took out?  What do you
mean, took out?”

“I have four dead and
one seriously wounded,” said the Major, looking over to where the Doc was
opening the armor of the one living man.  “These things are big and powerful,
and they just banged men against the trees until the Marines died of concussive
shock.”

“Well, get moving,
Major,” said the Colonel, his voice cold.  “The Admiral expects us to find
those Suryans, not play with the wildlife.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dumas,
holding his anger in.  “Well get right on it, sir.”

“Move the men out,”
yelled Dumas over the com, circling a finger in the air and pointing forward. 
A movement caught the corner of his eye, just in time for the Major to see
another half dozen of the big creatures drop from the trees and go into the
attack.

Chapter Twelve

Aliens are either soulless creatures, the
wretches of the Universe, or they have a soul that is only fit to dwell in the
realm of Satan, their creator.  Man is the only intelligent creature touched by
God, and it is up to man to make sure he is not contaminated by the creations
of Satan.  What better task can a man devote himself to than the reunion of the
souls of the Alien with their creator, to dwell with him in the Lake of Fire.  
Teachings of the Church of Humanity.

“One of our sats is
picking up something moving on the surface,” called out a sensor officer.

Admiral Miklas Gerasi
looked over from his seat on the flag bridge of the battleship
Orca
, his
brow raised in curiosity.  “What do you have?  One of the Suryans?”

“I don’t think so,
sir,” said the officer, looking back at the Admiral.  “Take a look.”

The Admiral looked over
at a repeater screen as the vid came through.  There were what looked like five
objects cruising speedily above the canopy of the jungle.  They were just about
invisible, with very sophisticated stealth fields that blended them in with
their background.

“We picked them up when
a computer scan noticed the foliage moving from something,” said the officer,
nodding toward the large screen that sat above his board.  “Foliage that was
moving in a straight line, while the brush twenty meters to either side was
not.”

The Admiral jumped from
his chair and strode to the officer’s station, where he could get a better look
at the objects. 
That was a stroke of luck
, thought the Admiral, looking
over the officer’s shoulder. 
Maybe God is favoring us with his Will.

“Their field is really
good, but once we knew where to look we were able to use infrared to pick them
up against the slightly cooler vegetation,” explained the Sensory Officer. 
“Not much of a temperature difference though.”

“Still hard to see,”
said the Admiral, straining his eyes to look at the objects, a velocity vector
below them showing two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour speed.  “Put it up
on the main viewer.”

The officer nodded, and
an instant later the image was on the main viewer, much clearer on the eight by
seven meter holo.

“I would guess that is
technology from the
Donut
,” said the Tactical Officer, pointing a finger
at the screen.

The Admiral walked to
the viewer, which had centered on one of the moving objects.  He could make out
the general shape of it under the stealth field, and wondered if he would have
been able to see anything if the object had been stationary. 
They look like
some kind of armored vehicle
, he thought, staring at the object.  “Zoom in
on the center one,” he ordered, and the object ballooned.  It was a rectangular
box of some kind, and he would have bet his life it was a tank.

“What do we have that
can hit them?” he said, looking back at his Tactical Officer.  “Quickly, and
with max force.”

“We have a squadron of
atmospheric attack craft at the landing field,” said the Tac Officer,
consulting his screen.  “They can be there in less than thirty minutes.”

“Tell them to come in
low and slow as they approach the target,” said the Admiral, waving his
finger.  “I don’t want those things to know they are there until they are on
top of him.” 
And just maybe we can catch that mutated bastard out of his
fortress.  Please, God, let him be in one of those vehicles, come to rescue his
harlot.

“We’re receiving a
sitrep from Colonel McClain,” called out the Marine Liaison Officer.  “He says
they are being delayed by the forest, but he is triangulating on some signals
that might lead them to the target.”

“Tell him to push on,”
said the Admiral, pointing at the Liaison Officer.  He turned back to look at
the viewer, then thought of something else and turned back to the Marine
officer.  “Make sure that those transports are loaded with as many Marines as
they can fit.  I want them ready to take to the air as soon as we find the
Suryans and their ally.  They can put a blocking force in place so the assholes
don’t get away, again.”

The Liaison Officer
nodded and went to work, making sure the ground forces got the orders of the
system commander. 
Before the sun goes down I’ll have crushed you all
,
thought Gerasi, raising a fist in the air. 
By my God I swear it.

*     *     *

“Where are you getting
this from?” asked Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta, watching the projected
holo that put him in the middle of the Nation Marines that were searching for
him and his.  The Marines were walking through the jungle, and the picture
zoomed in to the face plate of one of the troopers, allowing the Admiral to
read the name tag over the plate.

“About ten thousand
micro-pizzos,” said the woman, pausing for a second to take in a spoonful of
soup and swallow.  “This is really good for rations.  I’d have to join your
organization, if I didn’t object so much to taking orders.”

“Surely you had to take
orders when you worked as a spacer,” said one of the other Suryan officers,
seated nearby and studying the holo.

“Not like in the
military,” said Pandora as she swirled her spoon around in the curry, looking
for morsels of meat.  “As a civilian I had a little more leeway, and I could
always quit between missions.”

“So these are robots?”
asked the Admiral, looking over at the woman.

“Very small robots,”
she agreed, nodding her head.  “Not in the class of nanobots.  More like
micrometer scale.  And a whole bunch of them are out there tagging the Nation
force, then transmitting the signals back to me.”

“How are they not
picking them up?” asked the Admiral, his eyes narrowing.

“Oh, they’re probably
getting some bleed from a couple dozen or so,” said Pandora with a smile.  “At
least I hope that’s all they’re getting.  But the signal from any one is so
small it will really confound their systems.  Each only sends a narrow beam out
to their nearest fellows, and on and on all the way back to this here place.”

“Amazing,” said the
other officer, watching the view zoom out from the face of the enemy and move
upward.

“The pizzo is not
really moving,” said Pandora, grabbing a canteen and working on the cap.  “The
swarm is simply shifting the take to other bots.  But now for some real fun.”

Pandora took a swig
from the canteen, then put it on the ground and closed her eyes, linking in
with one of her large combat robots and giving it orders.  It shot lasers out
to its six companions, all holding onto the sides of the tree they perched on,
above the lower level of the canopy.  All acknowledge and set the ambush into
motion.

Each robot had a built
in microgrenade launcher capable of firing a hundred rounds a minute.  Each
round was not very powerful, with only a few grams of explosive crystal
matrix.  But in volume they were deadly.  And now the robots fired them on full
automatic, unerringly missing the branches below and pushing the grenades
through the leaves, which were not hard enough to detonate the mini explosives.

The take from the
pizzos showed two of the battlebots firing away, the extended tube of the
launcher retracting for a fraction of a second on each shot from the recoil of
the magrail launcher.  The take switched swiftly to the scene below the trees,
where grenades were detonating in winks of white fire as they plunged among the
troops.  Several men were hit instantly, grenades blowing holes through helmets
and into the skulls below.  These men dropped like limp rags encased in hard
tubes.  The explosions ripped across other men trying to find cover.  In
moments there were dozens of men on the ground, most not moving, others
twisting and turning in agony, while a few tried to return fire.

A rocket launcher fired
below, sending a hypervelocity missile up into the canopy.  There really was no
target, and the missile should have been a clean miss.  By luck it struck a
battlebot across the body, blasting the robot in half, and sending the pieces
large and small to the ground below.  The other five machines scrambled upward
into the tops of the trees, putting thick branches between them and the humans
they had targeted.  In moments they were scrambling away along the treetops,
heading for the next ambush site that Pandi had already picked out with her
pizzos.

“That was amazing,”
said the younger Suryan, a smile on his face.

Even I don’t hate the
bastards half as much as these guys do
, thought Pandi, following the view of one of
the robots in her link. 
But then again, I haven’t been fighting them for
over four decades.
  “I’m down to nine functional robots,” she said,
switching the link through the other bots in sequence.  “Wish I could have
brought the others along, but they kind of got broken when my ship got hit.”

“How many more did you
have?” asked the Admiral, his eyes still locked on the holo that showed the
Nation troopers cleaning up the mess and rendering aid to their wounded.

“I had a hundred of
them aboard
Avenger
,” said Pandi, waving a hand at her mouth and
reaching for the canteen.  “This stuff is really good, but maybe a little
hot.”  She up ended the canteen and took down a large swallow.

“That is mild curry,”
said the other Suryan officer with a smile.

Pandora frowned at the
man, then took another swig.  “I had a hundred of them, with enough ammo and
power packs for a week’s operations.  But the bastards blew holes in my
beautiful ship, which continued on into most of my robots.”

“We sure could have used
them now,” said the Suryan officer, shaking his head.

“We are grateful for
what you could do,” said the Admiral, patting Pandi on the shoulder while he
shot a look of anger at the younger man.  A look he caught, and he shifted his
gaze to the floor.

“Well, it looks like
I’m gonna need to do more,” said the woman, her eyes narrowing as she looked at
the holo, which had changed to a far overhead view with the red dots of the
Nation of Humanity Marines showing through the foliage.  A lot of red dots, with
some getting very close to the green dots that were the outer sentries at the
cavern entry points.

“What do you need us to
do?” asked the Admiral, getting to his feet as soon as Pandora stood up.

“Stay here and get
ready to boogie,” she said, walking over to her armor.  She backed into the
standing suit, which closed around her and sealed immediately, leaving her head
exposed.  “I’ll try to give you as much time as I can.  And I’ll leave one of
the bots with you so you can keep apprised of what’s happening, and we can
talk.”

“Do you know what
you’re doing?” asked the Admiral, a worried expression on his face.

“I think so,” said
Pandi, her hand reaching up and patting the hilt of the katana reaching over
her shoulder.  “If not, I’ll let you know.”

*     *     *

 “Aircraft approach,”
called out the computer, at the same time as they appeared on the scope.

Watcher  looked at that
scope, noting that the returns were very faint. 
Probably would have been
completely invisible to their own technology
, he thought, wondering if they
were on some kind of a patrol, or already targeted on his own well stealthed
vehicles.  But they had just come over the horizon, which was not a good
altitude for a patrol.  All this went through the superbeing’s mind in an
instant, the command through his link an instant later.

All turrets swiveled
onto targets, weapons hot, while the tanks changed their vector in a downward
angle, trying to get under the canopy before the attack craft reached them. 
The turrets fired as soon as they had a target.  A dozen attack craft roared
over, their own weapons flailing out at the tanks.  Four of the craft were
trailing smoke and pieces of wreckage, and Watcher was sure they would not make
the turn to come back.  As he watched another attack ship took a triple hit and
exploded in midair, raining burning hydrogen fuel and pieces of wreckage onto
the canopy of the jungle.

Fortunately the attack
craft really didn’t have a good weapons’ lock on his tanks.  But as soon as he
fired on them they fired back.  A dozen missiles dropped from weapons’ bays and
homed in on the laser emitting tanks.  Lasers and close in defense systems
immediately shifted fire to the missiles, blasting nine of them from the air. 
A tenth took a glancing blow that sent it spinning into the trees to explode
below the top canopy. 

Two of the missiles hit
directly into the tanks.  One exploded on a turret that reflected the blast
away with its superhard material construction.  One hit the fourth tank in line
over the engine compartment and blasted through, sending the flaming vehicle on
a long fall to the jungle floor below.

Watcher cursed under
his breath at losing one of his weapons and the robots aboard, while at the
same time thanking the Universe that it wasn’t his command vehicle that had
taken the killing blow.  The attack craft were turning in a quick loop, the
seven that had survived the first pass.  The other five were gone, and he was
sure they had been too low for pilots to bail, especially the one that had
exploded.  He willed his group to continue to drop, down to the jungle floor. 
Explosions rumbled above them as missiles exploded into the canopy, starting
fires that threatened to spread even through the moist vegetation.