Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [11]
The after section had avoided visible damage except where two of the engines had been blown away, leaving struts blackened and charred like the branches of a dead tree. As the coxswains slowed the boats by reversing the thrust of the rocket engines, Jackson studied the massive hull, knowing he had only seconds to choose a point of attack.
“There,” he said, pointing over the coxswain’s shoulder at the wide slash of a shuttle hangar. The hangar door was open and was more than wide enough to allow the two drop boats to enter. The navy pilots did their job well, and the two small vessels coasted to a halt just as they entered the large, well-illuminated hangar space. Tommy and Mikey floated weightlessly, as the coxswains matched the regal tumble of the Lotus’s orbit.
Open to space, the hangar was hard vacuum, utterly airless. Jackson saw signs of battle there: Two small shuttles had been peppered by some kind of projectile weapon and were clearly out of service. Several air locks led to the interior of the ship, and one of them had been blasted open. The entrance gaped dark, obviously exposed to the vacuum of space. The SEALS couldn’t see how far they might have to go before reaching a secure air lock.
Then the coxswain cursed, and Jackson felt the drop boat shudder. He recognized it at once:
They were under attack.
Three: The Lotus
Mikey’s gunner opened up with the chain gun in its bow-mounted turret. A stream of depleted-uranium slugs chewed across the hangar floor, tearing up a bank of metal cabinets and perforating the body of the hidden shooter just beyond that cover. The barrage of fire was strangely soundless in the vacuum of space, but Jackson could feel the stuttering vibration—more of a zip than a chatter because of the high rate of fire—through the drop boat’s hull. The body of the target floated into view, a torn space suit leaking crimson-tinted vapor from a number of obviously lethal bullet holes. An ugly-looking firearm floated out of his lifeless hands.
At the same time, the overhead Plexiglas hatches swished backward on each drop boat, and the SEALS sprang upward and away from the landing craft. Each man used the mobility jets on his suit to guide his trajectory, and so the eight SEALS emerging from each of the drop boats scattered in a haphazard and unpredictable pattern. Fortunately, the chain gun seemed to have dealt with the initial threat.
The Teammates took cover at various places in the hangar without drawing any more fire. Exploiting the lack of gravity, four men—one complete fire team—took shelter between the overhead bulkheads of the large compartment. Others moved toward one of the disabled shuttles parked near the drop boat. The alien craft was strapped down to the deck, though a halo of debris—bits of metal and plastic, some stuffing that looked like it might have been part of a seat—floated in space all around the perforated craft.
From his position below and behind the chain gun turret at the chin position of the drop boat, Jackson took stock of their initial deployment. His men had remained together in pairs, each shooter pair and fire team intact and ready. Rodale and LaRue had their heavy weapons up, and the gunners on the two drop boats continued to swivel the bow turrets, the multibarreled chain guns pointing around the hangar with dull menace. The two scouts, Sanchez and Marannis, jetted across the deck to a large workbench, positioning themselves back to back as they scrutinized the corners of the vast, shadowy space.
“LT, over here, sir—take a look.” It was one of the new men, Keast, and he gestured to Jackson from his position near the ruptured air lock the officer had noticed earlier. Charring blast damage scoured the steel of the bulkhead, and the air lock hatch itself—about the size of the door of a single-car garage—floated incongruously sideways, attached to the ship only by a thin strip of metal, all that remained of a shattered hinge.
Keast gestured toward the far end of the hangar, beyond the