Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [109]
His own little party, he knew, lacked nearly all of the training and a lot of the equipment of the SEALS. Still, he was proud of the contribution they were making and was determined to do whatever he could to live up to the standards of the men of the SEALS Team, the first human military unit trained specifically to function on a battlefield in space.
“Damn, I’m thinking too much,” he told himself aloud, trying to focus again on the matter at hand. His orders were clear, his task specific: He and the four sailors who had crewed the drop boats were to watch the stern access portal to the docking bay. They had positioned themselves behind bulwarks and docking shelves where each man could see the large hatch leading to the Pangaea’s stern section.
Grafton held his G15 comfortably in his hands, the butt cradled against his shoulder and the muzzle generally aligned toward the stern hatchway. He saw Roberts nearby and returned the young gunner’s mate’s thumbs-up. He was just a kid, the petty officer thought, a round-faced youngster from some small town in Wisconsin. And now he was carrying a ray gun that could cut an enemy—or a slab of plate steel—in half with a single burst. Christ, did the guy even shave yet?
Then came the warning from Lieutenant Sanders to Grafton’s immediate commander, Wesling. Broadcast on full power, the urgent call to watch out for unwelcome visitors echoed long in the coxswain’s ears.
The hissing of the big hatch was a subtle sound, but his external microphone picked it up at once. “Look sharp!” he hissed into his communicator, watching as the wheel on the large air lock continued to spin. In another second it stopped, and Grafton’s fingers tightened around the stock and the trigger of his carbine.
When the explosion came, it was a sudden flash of light and pressure that almost cost the petty officer his life. The hatch was blasted inward by the force of a charge that had been set to explode after the hatch’s lock had been released. Grafton, his head a little too high above the bulwark that was providing him with cover, tumbled backward, the force of the blast smashing into his face, wrenching his neck with whiplash force. In the weightless space he didn’t come down but instead continued into a second somersault, drifting away from the hull and into the utterly exposed space in the middle of the docking bay.
It was Gunner’s Mate Roberts who saved his life. The boyish sailor somehow had managed to hold on to his perch even as the more experienced petty officer had been careless. Now a stream of hostiles, at least a dozen Eluoi commandos in pressure suits, burst through the hatch into the docking bay. Roberts activated his ray gun, and sent the searing beam of energy sweeping back and forth through the haphazard formation of attackers. Wherever the beam touched a suit, it cut through the material and, inevitably, the flesh underneath.
At the same time, the rest of Grafton’s little detachment opened up, as did the attackers. One of his men caught a burst in the face, the rounds exploding his helmet and scattering bits of blood droplets into the air. Still drifting in the bay, Grafton shot into the attacking file, cursing as the recoil sent him rolling backward. He activated a maneuver jet on his suit and shot toward the outer hull, where he was able to grasp a handle and pull himself around.
In that instant he saw that the center hatch into the docking bay also had been breached, and an even larger company of hostiles was pouring into the compartment. Wesling’s sailors, including the small complement at the forward hatch, caught this group in a