Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [102]
“Roger that, skipper,” the junior lieutenant replied. He knew better than to ask how but also knew enough to wonder about that very important question.
Fortunately, there were other officers in the conversation, and a few of them had some creative ideas.
Once again it was Olin Parvik who provided transportation for the SEALS, carrying them toward the industrial station where the supply ships departed, one about every five hours, for the nearby Pangaea. Unlike the four-man mission to the diplomatic station, the Teammates in Sanders’s party were all in uniform, each man carrying a full complement of weapons and ammunition.
The Assarn pilot guided the Starguard II into the industrial station’s vast docking bay. With a little deft negotiation—Sanders suspected that credits changed hands—Parvik was able to lock on to a port just two bays over from the supply ship that recently had returned from the Pangaea.
The station seemed to be a vast warehouse conglomerate in space. It was about six klicks across, and unlike the diplomatic station where the human hostages were held, there was no rotation-generated gravity effect. Essentially it was a great disk orbiting the planet Darius III that had numerous hatches in its “upper” surface, that is, the side of the disk opposite the planet. Those hatches were massive, ranging in size from one to five hundred meters across, and were opened to allow the entry and exit of ships.
When a ship was in the dock, the hatch was closed so that the whole hangar could be pressurized. Each berth was separated from the others by solid walls so that some docks could be pressurized while others were exposed to the hard vacuum of space.
The Starguard II hooked up to a docking berth, similar to an airport jetway, connecting to the vessel’s main air lock and leading into the central passages of the station.
“Don’t you think we’ll attract a lot of attention, moving through the station with our suits and weapons?” Jackson asked as they reviewed the plans.
“Ha!” the Assarn pilot snorted. “If you didn’t have weapons, you’d attract more attention, most of it undesirable, I assure you. This is a place where everyone is expected to take care of themselves and nobody asks too many questions. It’s used by vessels of all three empires, but it’s sort of a no-man’s-land. None of the governments hold sway here, and everything is more or less ruled by the almighty credit.”
“Isn’t that how you described the Bazaar?” Sanders asked skeptically.
Parvik flashed him a shrewd smile. “You’re catching on,” he said, “though the level of violence here is a lot higher than you’d find on that commercial station. Here, pirates have been known to charge right through an air lock to steal a ship. Which, now that I mention it, is pretty much what you’re planning to do, isn’t it?”
“I’m not a goddamn pirate!” Sanders snapped, revealing more of his nerves than he cared to display. But the truth was, his stomach was in a knot, and he had to admit that the plan he was currently in charge of was pretty much of an intent to commit an act of piracy, at least as far as the opinions of the locals might go. Not that they would care, apparently.
“Let’s go ashore, then,” the officer added, wanting to get the plan moving. He’d already spent too much time thinking about it.
Parvik led them through the entry passage, each man pulling himself along by using the numerous handles and railings on the side. Drifting weightlessly, they soon emerged into a crowded passageway where individuals moved in all dimensions and a number of small air-powered carts and tractors hauled cargo through the crowds. The floating “pedestrians” were expected to yield to the vehicles; Sanders discovered that immediately as an angry honk caused him to pull himself out of the way of a cruising cargo train. It consisted of a single man driving a device that looked more like a flying snowmobile than anything else; attached to the rear of the machine was a string of about