Free To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) by Doug Dandridge

taking fire,”
called out the ship’s computer as a klaxon sounded.  The ship shook and bucked.
    “What’s going on?”
yelled the voice of Watcher, and then the com was gone.  Not interrupted, just
gone, cut off.
    “We have hull
breaches,” called out the computer.  “Lasers and particle beams impacting the
hull.”
    “Shit,” cursed Pandora,
looking over the control board, which kept fluctuating between active and
down.  “Get us the hell out here.  Maximum velocity, maximum evasive.”
    “Engines two and three
are down,” said the computer voice.  “More hull breaches.”
    The ship continued to shake,
and Pandora could now hear the sound of air whistling through, something.  And
suddenly there was no air to breath, and she felt a moment of regret that she
hadn’t put on that armor after all.

Chapter Six
     
     
    I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain,
that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you
call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.   Oliver Cromwell
     
     
    “We’ve got her,” cried
Midas, raising his fist in the air.  On the viewer was a telescopic shot of the
enemy vessel.  He was surprised at how small it was, to have done so much
damage to his force.  Now it looked pretty damned helpless, with laser light
reflecting from its skin and alloy boiling off into space.  A couple of
particle beams struck as well, cutting runnels through the hull metal.
    And then she blurred
away, using her impossible engines to pull six hundred gravities on an evasive
course that his weapons could not follow at distance.
    “We hit her hard,”
yelled out the Tactical Officer.
    “Not hard enough,” growled
Midas, watching as the other ship juked away.  At five light seconds difference
there was no way they could tell where the ship was at this moment, and so
could only fire a wide spread and hope for a hit.  There were some hits, some
reflected light and vapor boiling into space.  But not enough to totally
destroy the vessel.
    “Midas,” came a voice
over the com, and the Commodore turned to the repeater screen to see the
Admiral, sitting on his bridge.  “Break action with that Donut vessel. 
We need your firepower to swing the action against the Suryan force.”
    “Yes, sir,” replied the
Commodore, knowing it would be six seconds before the admiral received his
reply, turning back to the tactical screen which had switched view to the main
fleet action.
    There were nine Nation
ships dueling with twelve Suryan ships.  Even bringing in his five functional
vessels would not be enough to ensure victory.  Not with the Suryan station
adding its fire to the mix.  Unless he did something rash.
    “Order all ships to
engage Alcubierre drive,” he said to the Captain and the Com Tech.  “Course
directly toward the enemy force and their station.”
    “Toward the station?”
asked the Captain, his eyes wide.
    “Yes,” said Midas,
nodding his head.  “Engage on my command.”  Midas waited for the
acknowledgements to come in from the other vessels, time in which he watched
one of Gerasi’s ships taken out by missiles.  “Engage.”
    Space blurred ahead
before turning black, while it darkened behind, the ship warping space.  The
engines were only engaged for a second.  Anything more would have risked
plowing into the planet.  There was still risk, and Midas breathed out a deep
breath as the drive shut off and the ship sat above the planet.
    All five of his ships
were still intact, none having come close enough to the planetary body to wipe
themselves from existence.  The same could not be said for the enemy force.
    The station was now a
mass of drifting debris, caught on the edge of a drive field and totally
destroyed.  Eight of the battleships were also gone, blotted out of existence
when their space was destroyed.  Midas knew that there were new debris fields
of elementary particles somewhere behind his ships.  Conservation of matter and
energy