Planet Pirates 1 - Sassinak by Anne McCaffrey

Author:Anne McCaffrey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

By the grace of whatever gods ruled this section of space, they had a brief respite, and Sassinak intended to make the most of it. She had the grain of an idea that might work to buy them still more time. Now, however, her crew labored to dismantle the escort’s docking bay hatch - although not as large as their own, it could form part of the repair far more quickly than Engineering could fabricate a complete replacement. Another working party picked its way along theZaid-Dayan’s outer hull, rigging detector wires and dishes to replace the damaged portside detectors. Inside the cruiser, the marines hauled away the battered remains of the enemy assault pods, and stacked the corpses near the docking bay. That entire quadrant remained in vacuum.

Red lights began to wink off on consoles in the bridge. A spare targeting computer came online to replace the one destroyed by a chance shot, a minor leak in Environmental Systems was repaired without incident, and Engineering even found that a single portside pod could deliver power - it had merely lost its electrical connection when the others blew. One pod wasn’t enough to do much with, but everyone felt better nonetheless.

One hour into the safe period, Sassinak confirmed that the escort vessel had been stripped of everything Engineering thought they might need, and was empty, held to the cruiser by their tractor field.

“This is what I want to do,” she explained to her senior officers.

“It’ll stretch our maneuvering capability,” said Hollister, frowning. “Especially with that hole in the hull - “

“The moon’s airless - there’s not going to be any pressure problem,” said Sass. “What I want to know is, have we got the power to decelerate, and has anyone seen a good place to go in?”

Bures, the senior Navigation Officer, shrugged. “If you wanted a rugged little moon to hide on, this one’s ideal. Getting away again without being spotted is going to be a chore - it’s open to surveillance from the ground and that other moon - but as long as we don’t move, and our stealth gear works?” Sassinak glanced at Hollister.

“That’s all right - and it’s the first time I’ve been happy with it where it is.”

“ - Then I can offer any patch of it,” said Bures. “ - the only thing regular about it is how irregular it is. And yes, before you ask, our surface systems are all functional.”

The next half hour or so was frantic, as working parties moved the enemy corpses and attack pods into the escort - along with escape modules from the cruiser, a Fleet distress beacon and every bit of spare junk they had time to shift. Not all would fit back in, and cursing crewmen lashed nets of the stuff to the escort’s hull. Deep in the escort’s hull and among the wreckage in its docking bay, they placed powerful explosive charges. Last, and most important, the fuses, over whose timing and placement Arly fussed busily. Finally it was all done, and the cruiser’s tractor field turned off.

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