To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) by Doug Dandridge Read Free Book Online Page A

them.  The problem being that any kind of electromagnetic
field could repel them, or at least spread them from a concentrated beam to a
diffuse shower.  Uncharged particles didn’t have that problem, and could hit
with a hard kinetic impact, but still lost some velocity in the stripping
process.  Negative matter was a special use weapon.  Negative matter simply
made a like amount of matter disappear on contact.  The matter and any effects
it carried, including kinetic energy, just ceased to exist.  Due to
conservation of mass more of the impacted matter would disappear, but not all that
much, as a little bit of mass was the equivalent of a lot of energy.  Negative
matter was really better when something needed to be breached without a lot of
collateral damage.  And of course antimatter had to carry a charge, or it was
nothing.  An uncharged anti-proton was a neutron.  But antimatter was the
ultimate particle beam, causing kinetic destruction followed by the effects of
total conversion of its mass and an equivalent mass of matter to energy.
    Pandora set one of the
particle beams for uncharged and one for antimatter, figuring that the
uncharged beam might cause enough surface damage to mag field projector units
to allow the antimatter through.  And then she checked her missiles.  Then she
checked all the rest of her systems, and went over the weapons systems again. 
She was satisfied with all the charges, lasers and defensive fields, but forced
herself to check them again anyway.  And then she waited until the distance
closed some more.
    Got to watch those
space altering fields ,
she thought, watching the enemy vectors closely.  Coming in front of a Nation
ship would destroy her vessel.  Come directly astern?  She wasn’t sure what
would happen, but she didn’t want to chance anything.  So she set her approach
and retreat vectors with care, then waited.  Until the wait was over.
    The ship’s clock
started a countdown at ten seconds, Pandora just an observer to things that
were going to happen faster than even her reaction time could account for.  At
three seconds one of the enemy ships started to turn its vector a little,
followed by another two a second later.  They’ve seen me , she thought.  Too
late , she thought with a wolfish grin, as Avenger opened up with all
weapons .
    The lasers from the
front ring hit first, two beams on two targets.  Both ships had electromag
fields up, not strong enough, as they were not expecting an attack.  The ships
were still moving at several times the speed of light subjective, so the beams
were fired well ahead and shot quickly along the hulls, the projectors swinging
them along to increase the milliseconds of contact, ripping through metal and
opening rooms to space.  Particle beams hit a moment later, a quick burst of
each on the two ships that were targeted.  Uncharged particles hit the hulls,
causing ripping damage.  Followed by the antimatter beam which hit with
explosive force.
    Avenger dropped a quartet of
missiles at the same time she fired her beam weapons.  The missiles took off at
thirty thousand gravities accel, moving onto their separate targets, vessels
further back in the formation that they could intersect at the times the
hyperspatial ships got there.  It was a difficult mathematical problem, and
like most such it didn’t provide perfect answers.  One came in too far to the
front of one vessel and disappeared from current space-time.  One missed to the
stern of a ship and exploded, but the blast could not catch the ship.  One
entered the actual field containing a ship exploded overhead, sending a flood
of heat and radiation into that vessel.  The last missile hit its target dead
center.  The quarkium warhead blasted with hundreds of gigatons of power, and
the ship was blown first to pieces, then to particles as its own antimatter
breached containment.  The space destroying drive died in that instant.
    “Eat shit, you
xenophobe