To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) Read Free Page B

this
officer over the coals in front of his crew, and only a stupid man would not
realize they were on a long deployment in which the Admiral’s word was law, and
there was no contact with the Theocracy of the home state.
    “We should be in orbit
in about forty-nine hours,” said the officer, his eyes unfocused in the faraway
look of link.  His voice stayed in that haughty tone of better than thou, and
when his eyes focused on the real world again the same look returned to his
face.  “We will return to normal space drive in thirty-eight hours, then
continue into the system on reactionless.  With the Admiral’s permission, of
course.”
    Gerasi thought about
the information for a moment, making the Captain wait as well as a benefit. 
With Alcubierre, or the FTL pseudo drive that actually destroyed the space in
front of the ship and recreated it behind, they were still in touch with normal
space in most respects.  They could look out over the Universe to all sides
with the exception of front and rear.  Signals, including light, could not
reach them from the bow, as they were obliterated along with the space they
were in.  And anything coming from the stern could not catch up, as space was
created faster than the light could travel.  And basic doctrine taught that it
was a very bad idea to operate the drive within the confines of a solar
system.  They could destroy space, but material objects were another matter
altogether.  They could wipe out a small asteroid massing much less than the
ship.  But run into a moon or a planet and the story was different.  The
surface of the body might take some damage, a hundred meters or so into the
soil, over a hundred of square kilometers of surface.  But the ship would come
apart at the seams, and spew particular matter of atomic and subatomic material
in all directions.  That would also be bad for the planet, but it would still
exist at the end of the incident, while the ship would not.
    He had used the drives
on his fleet the last time he had been in the system, within close proximity to
the Donut and the massive black hole it orbited.  It had been a
desperate gamble, and had cost him a quartet of battleships, one into the maw
of the black hole.  But it had been the only way to get in through the defenses
of the station, and get the tech he had come for.  People back home had not been
happy with those losses, but had been ecstatic at the haul.  And someday the
ships of his nation would be equipped with the same advanced drive as used by
the Ancestors.  But this was not yet the day.
    “Very well,” said
Gerasi, getting up from his chair and walking to the main hatch to the bridge. 
“Keep me apprised of any changes, and I will be back on the bridge in four
hours for an update.”
    Gerasi could feel the
glare of the Captain on his back as he headed off the bridge.  So we don’t
like each other , thought the Admiral.  Well too damned bad.  We just
have to work together.
    *     *     *
    “You have made great
strides here, Commodore,” said Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta of the Kingdom
of Surya.  He looked up and down the long corridor of the station, and the
Marine honor guard that stood along the passageway.
    “Thank you, Admiral,”
said the slightly pudgy woman who had been put in command of the Kingdom’s
presence in the Supersystem.  “Our friends have been of great service as well.”
    Our friends , thought the Admiral,
shaking his head.  I still wonder how much of our friends those two really
are.  Or if there are more of them, hidden in the shadows.
    He couldn’t complain
too much though.  Their friends had equipped them to be on equal footing with
the Nation of Humanity.  It would have been nice if they had given them
superior tech, but the pair of humans had been unwilling to go that far.
    A superman from the
here and now, and a woman from the past , thought the Admiral, continuing along behind
the Commodore into a large