Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [0]
Title Page
Dedication
A Knock on the Door
One: Envoys to the Stars
Two: SOS
Three: The Lotus
Four: Defusing
Five: Kicking Asteroid
Six: Saga of the Second Squad
Seven: Cold and Lonely
Eight: Rendezvous with Nothing
Nine: Broadsides
Ten: Seeking Survivors
Eleven: Ambush in Ice
Twelve: Shelter from the Storm
Thirteen: A Knock on the Door
Fourteen: A Lot of Hot Air
Fifteen: Cold Vengeance
Sixteen: Assault from the Rear
Seventeen: Ursine Allies
Eighteen: To the Bazaar
Nineteen: A Measure of Respect
Twenty: The Trail of the Pangaea
Twenty-one: Reclaiming the Mother Ship
Twenty-two: Unwelcome Interference
Twenty-three: The Lazarus Plan
Also by Kevin Dockery and Douglas Niles
Copyright
In Memoriam: Hank Reinhardt
Swordsman, Smith, Author, Businessman
He lived life to the fullest,
a Renaissance man who thrived in our time,
and would have thrived then as well.
A Knock on the Door
Each breath was a blast of frost shooting straight into Falco’s lungs. He knew he’d suffer frostbite on his face in a few minutes if he didn’t protect his skin, but that was the least of his problems. He crawled to a vantage point between a couple of square-topped rocks and snapped another full magazine, his second to last, into his G15. The pursuers were fanning out as they moved down the crest, and at the last second he lowered his carbine and picked up the Mark 30 Hammer rifle.
At less than 200 meters’ range there was no way he could miss, and in rapid succession he squeezed off six rounds, killing or wounding an equal number of the enemy. LaRue snapped off controlled bursts, the 6.8-mm slugs churning the snow around the pursuing soldiers, dropping several of them onto their faces. The SEALS could see several places where the pristine white snow was being stained a shocking bright red.
They heard it before they saw it: a grinding engine, treads crunching the snow. It loomed suddenly on the crest of the ridge like some arctic-equipped Abrams tank, rumbling up the crest and immediately toppling over to descend the near slope. Snow flew from the churning treads as the second snow tank came into view, veering and juking wildly so as to present a difficult target. The barrel in a low, flat turret was aimed toward the SEALS’ position, and it immediately spit a gout of flame. A high-explosive round smashed into the rocks before them, sending both men tumbling backward.
One: Envoys to the Stars
The ship was a silver giant: a long, sleek cylinder with four massive engines arrayed at the stern and docking pods for as many as six shuttles at a time jutting from various spots along the otherwise sleek hull. Rows of bright portholes allowed passengers and crew to gape at the vastness of space in all directions. Three Plexiglas domed observation pods—very high-tech cocktail lounges, each offering the occupants an unprecedented view through a full 180-degree sweep—sprouted from the hull near the bow. The entire vessel spanned a length equal to two football fields. Her name was Pangaea, and she was the first internationally commissioned spaceship built by humans—and the largest spacefaring vessel ever to call Earth her home. Her captain, and much of his staff, was a United States Navy officer, and the rest of the command group included members of the Chinese, British, Russian, French, and Indian navies, though the vessel herself flew the flag of no country.
She was crewed by some forty men and women, with another fifty staff aboard to tend to the needs of the passengers. Although she could be configured to haul cargo, there was little of that on the current mission. Instead, she carried an official embassy party of some 100 dignitaries. Those luminaries had been boarding over the last three days, rocketing upward from planet Earth aboard a succession of shuttles while the Pangaea orbited the globe and her crew finalized the preparations for an interstellar jump.
Unlike the two United States Navy frigates (space) that made up her escort, Pangaea was unarmed. Her mission, symbolized by the United Nations