Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [45]
“There it is!” reported one of the lookouts in the bow a few minutes later. “Looks like the CIC. I see lights on the outer surface; it might still be secure.”
The combat information center of the Troy was an armored compartment just as it was on the Pegasus. The nerve center of the ship was designed for maximum survivability in the event of an explosion, and a visual inspection seemed to indicate that the CIC of the Troy was intact, floating within the steadily expanding cloud of debris that was all that remained of the frigate. Still, even if it held survivors, the compartment lacked any means of propulsion and of necessity could possess only a limited amount of life support supplies, primarily air. Still, the discovery gave the crew of the sister ship at least some hope that they might recover survivors.
The helmsman aboard the Pegasus set the ship into a steady course, drifting under minimal power a hundred meters away from the large, circular metal disk. Several sailors in pressure suits ventured out and, by virtue of the time-honored technique of pounding on the metal and hearing a returning series of blows, confirmed that at least one person was alive within the sealed chamber.
At the same time, some of the Assarn scouts, smaller and more maneuverable than the frigate, swarmed around them in a protective barrier, ready to ward off any hostile approach. The supply crew of the Pegasus was able to snare the compartment with her robot arm, but the module was too large to be pulled into either of the frigate’s docking bays even if a drop boat was expelled temporarily to make room. They could see that the CIC had an air lock, currently sealed, but it was an interior hatch, not a match for any of the external entry points on the Pegasus. There seemed to be no way to get the crew members out without exposing them to hard vacuum.
It was the chief of the boat, Swanson, who came up with the lifesaving idea. He affixed a flexible metal tube, a duct that was more than a meter in diameter, to the brackets on the frigate’s air lock. Working with several sailors, all of them in pressure suits, they first glued and then welded the outer end of the tube around the sealed air lock of the Troy’s CIC. All the while they kept up an encouraging series of taps, resorting to Morse code to determine that there were eighteen crew members in the drifting compartment. None of them was seriously wounded, but their air supply was running low.
Working quickly and efficiently, the chief and his seamen secured the two ends of the tube. The air lock to the Pegasus was opened, immediately pressurizing the duct. Chief Swanson tapped several times on the drifting compartment, now leashed to the frigate, and was rewarded with a feeble but audible response.
Two medical corpsmen in pressure suits went into the duct and all the way to the air lock on the disembodied command center. The hatch opened and the pressure held, maintained within the flexible tube, albeit with a few small leaks spitting air into space. The corpsmen pulled the survivors out of the CIC and propelled them toward the open air lock on the Pegasus. One by one the Troy’s survivors—four officers, including Captain Kilkenny, and fourteen enlisted men—were pulled to safety in the other frigate. Faces gray from oxygen depletion, they were moved quickly to the infirmary or to bunks in the frigate’s crew compartment and immediately began to recover.
Even so, it was a hollow victory. One-half of the spacefaring ships of the United States Navy had been destroyed in a surprise engagement. Of further concern to Captain Carstairs was the fact that there was still no sign of the Pangaea or any indication of where she and her complement of crew and VIP passengers might have gone. As soon as Carstairs learned that Captain Kilkenny had recovered enough to talk, he went to visit his fellow skipper in the crowded infirmary.
“Damn, Pete, they lured me into a trap. My crew! My ship…”
Kilkenny had regained the ruddy color of his skin, but his eyes were hollow, his voice stricken. “Were there any other