Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [43]
“I already have gunners suiting up. They can work in a vacuum if they have to. But we took that hit from ten thousand klicks away. Our rail guns and missile launchers won’t be any use unless we can close the range. That particle gun is the only thing we have with enough range.” He turned back to the CIC screens. “What’s the status of the fight out there?”
“Troy is not making way, sir. She’s still firing. Looks like she’s given one of those alien destroyers what for.”
Indeed, the screens displayed a remarkably high resolution image of ships that were a continent’s breadth away from them. The Troy and two other large ships appeared to be stationary, and smaller ships were weaving between them. Periodically the flashes of weaponry would light up the screen.
“Mark a course for that fight,” Carstairs declared, making up his mind. “And get a crew down to that particle gun.”
“Already there, sir,” came the voice of the female petty officer who first had reported the lower deck damage. “We need to do some rewiring, but I think we can be up and running in a few minutes.”
“Good work, Amy,” the captain said, grimacing silently before turning back to his helmsman. “Give us some juking but no more deceleration; I want to mix it up with those bastards!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Captain, we’re getting a hail over the ship-to-ship!” the radioman announced.
“Put it on the speaker!”
An accented voice, its tone muted by the effects of a translator program, came over the system a few seconds later. “Ahoy there, humans! Is that the Pegasus?”
Carstairs glared at the speaker as if it had offended him. “Who the hell—?”
“Sir! That’s Olin Parvik!” Jackson declared, wincing as his voice again brought throbbing pain to his nose.
“Damn, you’re right!” the captain declared. “Parvik! What’s the sitrep? That’s our sister frigate down there!”
“I thought so,” the Assarn warrior replied. Even through the translator, his tone was grim. “She came to our rescue, she did, when these Eluoi buggers were trying to blast us out of space. And she’s paid for it in spades.”
“We’re on the way,” declared Carstairs. “See if you can draw them off.”
“Righto, Captain.”
Jackson could picture the swashbuckling pilot as he heard his voice. Courageous and loyal to a fault, the Assarn would do whatever he could.
“Captain. We have the particle gun ready,” Chief Petty Officer McClennan reported.
“Fire at will. Target those two destroyer-class types on either side of the Troy.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Now the viewscreen was illuminated by a new brightness, a greenish tint that swept outward from the Pegasus in a pulsing pattern, bolting toward the space battle as the frigate continued to race closer to the combatants.
A flare billowed around the nearer of the two destroyers, flickering and surging on the screen. Again and again the particle cannon fired, each blast pulsing through the hull of the frigate. Jackson felt the stutter in the engines as the energy-hungry weapon sucked power away from the ship’s drives. But the volleys were having a telling effect: Already one destroyer was peeling away from the stricken Troy while the other turned its batteries on the rapidly approaching Pegasus. Bursts of light flickered on the screen, and the frigate jumped and twisted, vibrating hard, shaking from powerful forces. Jackson couldn’t tell if she was being hit by enemy fire or simply maneuvering hard to try to avoid the barrage.
Suddenly there were more ships visible on the screen as the smaller Assarn vessels reversed course with the firing of their powerful rockets, swooping back toward the fight. A half dozen or more were visible, little specks emitting big flashes of light that were indicative of the powerful armaments the Assarn had installed in their ships. Their fire was concentrated on the destroyer that was shooting at the Pegasus, and McClennan continued her own relentless bombardment with the particle gun. The firing built to a frenzy, flashes and clouds of debris obscuring the image on the screen for moments at a time.
“Decelerate!