Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [118]
The frigate remained on the far side of Batuun, away from the city, and was in a fixed orbit when the hulk of the Assarn destroyer started to come around again. Jackson, Carstairs, and Olin Parvik watched the hulk as it drifted near, the Assarn complimenting the skill of the navy helmsman as Pegasus gently maneuvered into a matching orbit.
“Do you want to have a look at my ship?” Parvik asked. “I’d like to get aboard again for some personal effects. There’s no chance of finding survivors, but there might be clues as to what happened. I’d reckon it’s likely that you could find something useful to salvage. She took a lot of hits in the engine, but some of the weaponry might be intact.”
Carstairs all but leaped at the chance and quickly assembled a salvage Team of men in pressure suits. Eight sailors, led by the COB of the Pegasus, Master Chief Swanson, would make up the work party, and Jackson, Ruiz, and Olin Parvik would come along as observers.
With some nimble maneuvering, the frigate, in her matching orbit to the wreck of the destroyer, moved in even closer to the derelict. The robot arm again was extended and secured, holding the two vessels together, and soon the party drifted across the space between the two vessels, using the arm to carry them safely to the destroyer. In single file, led by Olin Parvik, they entered the Starguard through one of the holes that had been blasted in its hull. Oddly, Jackson noted, the metal strips of the hull were bent outward; this breach had been created by something bursting out of the ship, not blasting in.
“The magazine exploded,” Parvik said grimly. The whole midsection of the ship was a charred chasm, confirming his diagnosis.
In eerie silence, accompanied only by the rasp of the breathers and the privacy of his own thoughts, each man made his weightless way through the hulk that was all that remained of the Assarn destroyer. Each sailor and observer carried a light, and the beams played through the shadows, emphasizing the ghostly darkness all around them.
“Looks like she was caught in a cross fire—Eluoi particle cannons,” Olin Parvik deduced after moving up toward the nose. He indicated a couple of holes that extended through the outer hull and inner bulkhead, where the metal had been sheared off cleanly, as if it had been burned through with a torch.
“Nasty stuff,” Jackson agreed.
“It shoots a burst of energy at near light speed,” the pilot noted grimly. “Like sending a virtually solid slug of pure heat out to about ten thousand kilometers.”
The SEAL officer shook his head, relieved that the Team hadn’t come under fire from that particular weapon.
“But here—our own laser cannon is intact,” Parvik explained through his comlink. “I think we could pop it out of here if you want a souvenir.”
“I think Captain Carstairs would be happy to come back from this vacation with a little keepsake,” the COB allowed.
His men set to work with a vengeance, using a mixture of hand tools and plasma cutters. It took a few hours, but they finally worked the large-barreled weapon free. With the help of the frigate’s crane, the particle cannon was loaded into the shuttle bay of the Pegasus.
Six hours after departing, the members of the salvage party and their prize were back aboard, and the Pegasus started for home, bearing a secret of alien technology that went far beyond any military information the Shamani had been willing to share. Carstairs’s gunnery officer, Lieutenant Williams, was practically drooling as he looked over the laser weapon. With his first cursory inspection he was able to declare it many generations, perhaps a couple of centuries, ahead of what the most advanced Terran technology had been able to achieve.
Jackson had just shucked out of his pressure suit, using the compartment that the ship’s executive officer had lent him on B Deck, when he encountered Dr. Sulati coming up from below.
“How’s he doing?” the lieutenant asked.
“Mr. Robinson is recovering well,” she said. “Better than I would have expected.”
“Smokey always did have the constitution