Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

As soon as the Kalindans could regain their senses, they headed for the surface, popped up, and saw a nearby longboat with four Imtre and three insectlike Jerminins in it, loading up a mechanical rack with five more of the depth charges. The trouble is, they looked pretty full and pretty busy, and the two other boats were moving to other locations and preparing for more of the same.

Ari didn’t have to wait for an invitation. They swam quickly to the big ship and found a rope ladder leading to an open compartment where supplies had been unloaded as called for to the smaller boats. It was above the surface and it was inside a big ship. That, for the moment, was all the Kalindans cared about.

While the initial battle had been going on, Imtre scouts knowledgeable from intelligence as to the Paugoth boundaries had placed small surface markers denoting both ends of each Paugoth reef. These red markers, hobbling up and down, were now the objects of the small boats, each of which chose one and moved to a position in between. Using Imtre and the “glass” bottoms as confirmation that they were where they wanted to be, they waited for their Imtre to be out of the water and then released a rack of depth charges.

Hanging for dear life from the rope ladder and trying to pull themselves up, the Kalindans found that the explosions were just as spectacular if not as damaging on the surface.

After the loads were dropped on three more, though, an Imtre who went down to check damages came rushing back up and they could hear him shout, “Cease fire! Cease fire! They’ve had it!”

What do you think? My brain s been scrambled and I know we’re gonna hurt like hell from those whacks against the hull, but I’d rather be down there than up here if it’s over, Ming commented.

I agree, on everything, including the scrambling, Ari came back, and with that they dropped back into the sea.

Couldn’ta stood it long up there anyway, Ming noted. That hot sun was peelin’ our skin off.

Still, the scene below was not easy to look at even when you could see anything through the still swirling dust and debris.

As it cleared enough to see the reef below, as through a fog, the sight was one of horror. There were dead Sanafeans all over, some torn to shreds but others looking remarkably like they were just sleeping, but with no life inside them, but there were also dead and dying sea creatures. The coral reef itself seemed shattered, scarred, and gashed, the living top layer scorched and motionless. Here and there the vicious giant spotted sea snakes that had been so effective could be seen, some decapitated, half out of their holes and burrows. Sharks, too, lay dead and dying in mad twisting frenzies, as well as countless other fish who had depended upon the reefs for everything from protection to food.

The Chalidangers hadn’t weathered things that well, but at least they were alive, for they’d known what was going to happen and had been as prepared for it as they could be. Even so, a number who’d apparently been in the path of the concussion’s upward force seemed stunned and only slightly alive, their armor, which Mochida had bragged could stop the harpoons and even some much higher tech energy weapons, cracked, in one case shattered, by the forces their General and their allies had unleashed.

“Sweet Jesus! Is there anyone left alive down there to surrender?” Ari cried.

General Mochida saw them, possibly heard the comment, and approached.

“Sorry, my guests, but I fear I will be slightly deaf for a while. I hope not forever, but even if so, it would be worth it. Victory is worth any price.”

“It looks like the price was real high, particularly among the Sanafeans,” Ming noted.

“Yes, they put up a much tougher fight than we hoped. Fortunately, we had contingency plans for such eventualities, and this is the result.”

“It doesn’t seem to me that you won anything, General,” Ming replied. “I mean, the object wasn’t to kill, it was to get that whatever it was you wanted to get, or did I misunderstand you?”

“No, you’re quite right. They are bringing it to us now. There were a half-dozen or so survivors, and they gave me their word and went to get it. That is what we are waiting for.”

“You really think they’re gonna come back and bring you this trophy?”

“I do. The price is that I do not blow up the rest of their reefs. You see, they can’t survive without their reefs. The reefs not only are at the heart of their food chain, it’s where they bear and nurture their young. 1 daresay we probably killed quite a number of the clan’s children today, before they could ever taste the freedom of the open sea.”

“Some deal! And as soon as we’re gone, the other clans’ll come in and wipe out the rest of them and take over here anyway.”

“Not my problem. Ah! I see that this affair is close to a conclusion…”

Coming from a valley between two blasted reefs was a small contingent of Sanafeans. Most were adults, but there was a difference you couldn’t quite pin down in some of the larger ones in the rear.

The wives and mothers, I bet, Ming guessed, shaking her head.

In the front of the group, and bearing in his hand an odd-shaped piece of, well, something, was a young male, perhaps too young to have yet been a warrior in the big contests like this one.

The young creature stopped just short of the Chalidang line, and General Mochida, sensing the hesitancy, descended to the young one’s level.

“I am Colonel General Mochida. You have brought what we came for?”

The young male quivered, as if summoning up courage, but he replied, in a shaky yet clear voice, “I am Kirith, High Lord of the Paugoth. In the name of all our sacred gods, take this cursed thing and depart our lands.”

Ari and Ming both had a sudden sense that there was more meaning to this sad scene than merely surrender with honor. It was unlikely that the old lord had been the father of someone this young; he was too big and too old for that.

Most likely Mochida’s bombs had killed his grandfather and his father, and possibly his older siblings as well. A second look at the remains of the carnage below showed harpoons with expanding heads in almost every intact body.

The Chalidangers who’d recovered first had descended and finished off those of the enemy still living.

Mochida extended one of his two extra long tentacles and took the object, then immediately moved up and away.

He moved toward the large ship, tapped on the side in what seemed to be a code, and a panel slid back noisily to reveal a water-filled central compartment aboard the vessel.

“Put the medical people and the wounded inside the ship,” he instructed. “We’ll sail into Kalinda and get the benefits of modern medicine, at least. The rest of you form up and prepare to follow the ship.”

“You’re going into Kalinda now ?” Ari asked incredulously. “There’s no way you’re fit or in any numbers to resist internment!”

“I have no intention of being interned,” the General responded. “We are going to go in unarmed and request the right to fair return under the Neutrality Treaties. We will be escorted directly to the capital and we will then be unceremoniously thrown out through the Zone Gate. There are only… oh, I’d say 115 or so of us. I should think that word of this should make your people more relaxed about us. We have what we were after. I hope to receive word from Quislon that we have another shortly. If so, that will leave only one piece of the Straight Gate left to acquire. If not, we’ll have another bloodbath at some point before it is all gone. Our air-breathing agent has proven extremely capable.”