Event Horizon (Hellgate) Read Online Free

hearing me?”
    “Yo,” Rodman called. “You want realtime coordinates.” Not a question.
    “Best you can guesstimate,” Vaurien affirmed. “Relay what you have direct to the AI. Michael, use the deep scan to derive a firing solution and configure the Aragos, get some shielding between us and them.”
    The Wastrel ’s deep scan platform was the sensor array from a Resalq research vessel. It was designed for observing stellar phenomena, and far more sensitive than the close-range sensors which normally guided the guns. Vidal swore quietly. “Damnit, I’m getting slow. I should’ve thought of that.”
    “No,” Marin argued. “You’re used to the resources of a warship. You’re still trying to adjust to think civilian. Richard, we’re outside. Where do you want us?”
    “Pick your ground,” Vaurien offered. “Nowhere’s going to be safe, and you’re already wearing the toughest armor this side of Zunshu space itself. Michael, any joy?”
    And Vidal, as appalled as he was self-satisfied: “Oh, yeah. I’m seeing six, Harlequin , not five, but you pegged the size dead right. Just over the three meter mark … some weird-ass engine signature, doesn’t even look like an engine. The only thing I’ve seen that’s halfway similar –”
    “Is the signature off the mines the Fleet battle group flew right into, at Velcastra,” Barb Jazinsky finished. “Oh yeah, these bogeys are Zunshu. No question about it now. Okay, Tully, I’ll take Ops – get moving. Weimann ignition procedures. Get us to jump minus three seconds and hold it right there.”
    Ingersol: “Will do. You better check the highband. According to everything I’m seeing on sensors, those bloody fools on Oberon are charging up for another pulse. They blind us again, and we’re a sitting bloody duck.”
    “Shit,” Jazinsky swore in a rasp. The comm clicked audibly as she switched up, and Travers almost winced as she bawled, “Danny Ramesh, are you listening to me? Ramesh!”
    He was there at once. “Like I’m going anywhere? What the hell is your problem, Jazinsky?”
    “Shut down your goddamned pulse generator,” she told him, “right now. Do it, Danny, or I swear I’m going to blow the emitter right off the shoulder of Oberon.”
    He snorted a laugh that was terrible in its ignorance. “Yeah, right. Take a pill, go have a lie down. I might talk to you later when you’re making more sense.”
    “They’re still feeding power to the emitter,” Richard warned. He touched his combug. “Doctor Ramesh, I should warn you, we’re serious.”
    “You have got to be kidding me,” Ramesh groaned.
    “Etienne, clear Starboard 22 and lock onto the Oberon J-band emitter. Standby to fire on my command,” Vaurien said in a tone like crushed velvet. The words carried clearly over the comm. “Ramesh, shut it down.”
    “Or we’ll shut it down for you – permanently,” Jazinsky breathed.
    Marin’s helmet turned toward Travers. His voice was a bare murmur. “Which is what we should have done hours ago.”
    “This is the property of the taxpaying public of the Deep Sky,” Ramesh roared.
    “All the more reason to go dark and keep it in one piece,” Vaurien said reasonably. “You have one minute, Doctor Ramesh. Etienne, countdown and fire on zero if the pulse emitter fails to deactivate. Acknowledge.”
    “Fifty-eight,” Etienne said calmly. “Fifty-seven. Fifty-six.”
    “Michael?” Vaurien’s voice betrayed nerves wound tight as steel hawsers.
    “I’m glimpsing objects,” Vidal told him. “But they’re so damn’ small, target acquisition is going to be like spitting into a cyclone. Looks like two are vectored on the Wastrel , the rest are going for Oberon.”
    And Jazinsky: “Time?”
    “Maybe two minutes before they get to us,” Vidal judged, “three minutes before they reach Oberon. It’s difficult to be exact because they’re surfing on gravity fields, their velocity’s constantly changing.”
    “And we,” Marin