Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [107]
They passed only one hatch on the exterior wall of the shaft, and Sanders remembered from the deck plan that it provided access to one of the three large domed viewing compartments that extended outside of the ship’s long hull. This hatch, too, they secured with the mechanical lock.
Finally they reached the terminus of the transport shaft, which was at the bridge level, or B Deck, of the large spaceship. The A Deck, the only level forward of the bridge, was a massive viewing dome and cocktail lounge. When the ship was under way and generating artificial gravity, first-class passengers could while away the hours there, enjoying very expensive drinks and looking “up” through the Plexiglas dome at the vast darkness of space.
The SEALS collected at the hatch and just below it, as always in pairs, with Harris at the tail of the column. Every man knew it had to be a surgical attack: If they regained control of the Pangaea but knocked out all of her control systems in the battle, it would be a hollow victory indeed. Sanders waited until every man was in position, each SEALS holding his carbine in one hand and a handle, rung, or railing with the other. Only then did he wave the scouts forward.
Sanchez spun the wheel of the hatch and pushed it open, and Marannis shot past him onto the ship’s large bridge. Sanchez followed his partner, each man again armed with a blade for the initial attack. Sanders and Schroeder came next to see Sanchez grappling with a big Eluoi soldier who had been posted just inside the door. Marannis glided past the melee and sank his breaching tool into the skull of an Eluoi in gold braid who was trying frantically to unstrap himself from a seat at the large navigation console just inside the hatch.
In all, there were some two dozen Eluoi on the bridge, which was a circular compartment about twenty meters in diameter. About half of them were armed soldiers; the rest were uniformed officers and crewmen seated at the various controls around the large room. Many banks of equipment, including screens, monitors, keyboards, and mechanical controls, were bolted to the deck. None of them extended all the way to the overhead bulkhead, so the SEALS could see all the way across the bridge, but there were many obstacles behind which an adversary could take cover.
The SEALS came in shooting fast, sending vicious controlled bursts while quickly spreading out to command the entire compartment. Sanders fired the first three rounds, taking out a sentry near the main computer bank. The rocket rounds sizzled through the air and caught the target in the chest and shoulder, sending him spinning away while his ray gun floated out of his hands and drifted nearby, attached only by the heavy battery cord.
Robinson and Keast rocketed up to the “ceiling” and shot across the bridge, snapping off short bursts at a pair of Eluoi troops who were bringing their guns around to the hatch. Marannis pulled his breaching tool from the ghastly wound in the helmsman’s head, leaving a trail of blood and brain droplets drifting in the air as he pushed off toward the next seat. Another officer, wearing even more braid than the first, held up his hands in stark terror, and the scout loomed above him but didn’t strike.
“I got one prisoner here, Lieutenant,” he said, his eyes never leaving the terrified captive’s face.
Rodale, Dobson, and Schroeder also fired at the armed troops. One of the Eluoi got off a burst from his assault rifle; the rounds punched into Dobson’s chest and belly, knocking him back against a computer console. The lanky Alabaman grunted as the wind was knocked out of him, but his armor absorbed the impact of the shots, leaving him bruised but unbloodied.
The Eluoi who had been seated at the controls faced a significant disadvantage in that each of them had been strapped in to his seat, whereas their armed