Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [46]
Carstairs could only shake his head. “We did a thorough search. We had help from some of those little scout ships piloted by the Assarn. But there was nothing to find. It was only the armor around your compartment that allowed the CIC to survive.”
“Dammit, Pete, it should have been me! Ninety brave sailors, dead on my watch…”
“I know how you must feel,” Carstairs said, realizing that the statement was at best an exaggeration. He could barely begin to imagine the sickening sense of loss that must infuse the spirit of a captain who lost his ship and much of his crew but personally survived.
But there was no point dwelling on that.
“Listen, Skip. This mission is not completed. We don’t have any word about the Pangaea. Were you in contact with her after you made the jump to Arcton?”
The question seemed to restore some of the grieving captain’s spirits. “Yes,” he replied firmly. “We got separated on the jump itself, but we had a message from her within a few minutes of arrival. She was going to mark a course for the free port and use Arcton II as a sling point. We were supposed to come after her at flank speed.”
Carstairs understood: A sling point was a body in space exerting a powerful gravitational field. When a ship needed to change course dramatically, it could do so with much improved efficiency if it could use the gravity of such a body to sling its course around. With the right coordinates, a sling point could alter the course of a rapidly traveling vessel by as much as 180 degrees without burning off a great amount of speed.
“We made good time coming after her, but it was right around here that we got the last signal. The Pangaea reported some ship traffic in her vicinity, but there wasn’t any indication of alarm. Then, by the time we got here, she was gone, and the damned Eluoi were waiting to jump us. They would have taken us out right at once if it wasn’t for those little scouts. You said they were Assarn?”
“Yes. One of their pilots, the leader, I think, is a captain I encountered on our first jump.”
“Ah, yeah. To the Batuu system, wasn’t it? To collect those SEALS that got hauled off from Mars.”
“That was the one.”
“Then where do you suppose the Pangaea is hiding?” asked the skipper of the Troy. “You don’t think she was wrecked—blown away or something?”
Carstairs shook his head, partly because he didn’t believe it and partly because he couldn’t imagine the scale of the disaster if the ship carrying the diplomatic party was lost with heavy casualties.
“Captain to the CIC,” came the summons from Lieutenant Commander Seghers.
“Listen, Skip. You need some rest. Soak up the oxygen, let the IV do its work. I’m going to need your help on this, but not yet.”
“Yeah, okay, Pete. And…thanks.”
Carstairs shook Kilkenny’s hand, clasping it hard for several seconds, before turning to leave the infirmary. In thirty seconds he had traveled up to C Deck and pulled himself into the crowded combat information center, where he was met by a visibly excited XO.
“We’ve got some information from this Assarn pilot, Captain Parvik. He’s been talking to Lieutenant Jackson.” The exec indicated the SEALS officer, who was listening attentively to a headset that he was wearing at the communication station.
Jackson nodded. “No sign of the Pangaea anywhere around here. But that Eluoi destroyer was dinged pretty bad in the fight. She’s gone into orbit around the ice moon. The Assarn say there’s signs of a lot of shuttle traffic between the ship and the Eluoi base down on the ground.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” To Carstairs, any pursuit of the Eluoi ship seemed to be a wild-goose chase when what they really needed to do was find the civilian ship.
The SEALS officer met the captain’s frank stare. “Sir, that crippled ship is our only link to the Pangaea. Doesn’t it seem likely that she encountered those Eluoi bastards when she was coming around the planet to her sling point? After all, the Troy came up on them as she was trying to catch up to the Pangaea.”
“What do you suggest