Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [12]
He was still studying the small shuttles when he saw movement, and then observed another canopy popping open. Three manlike figures wearing supple space suits and carrying small assault guns flew upward from the cockpit and immediately opened fire. Tracers zipped through the hangar, terrifyingly close, even as the recoil from their weapons sent the ambushing pirates tumbling backward.
Jackson squeezed off a burst from his G15 at the same time a dozen other SEALS opened fire. The rocket slugs fired straight and true, each round sizzling through the vacuum, trailing fire and smoke. Almost instantly the three attackers were killed, their bodies twisting and tumbling crazily as the pressurized suits vented freely from the many bullet holes. Unlike their enemies, the SEALS, with their recoil-free ammunition, had no difficulty holding their weapons ready, seeking new targets. The firefight occurred in silence, with the vacuum snuffing out any suggestion of sound, though the officer’s breathing was loud in his earpiece as the lieutenant caught his breath and looked around for additional threats.
“Anybody hit?” Jackson asked over the local communicator. He was relieved as all his men checked in; no one had so much as a tear in his pressure suit. “All right. In pairs, let’s secure this hangar before we move into the ship,” he ordered.
The men moved like the precision-trained commandos they were. As half the SEALS started out, one moving along each wall and several checking the ceiling or poking around behind the hulks of the battered shuttles, the other member of each shooter pair kept his weapon ready and his eyes open, watching for any threat. When the first group had moved halfway across the hangar, which was large enough to hold three or four good-sized jetliners, they halted and took up firing positions so that the second member of each pair could advance.
“Got a varmint runnin’ over here!” barked Gunner’s Mate Dobson, his thick Alabama accent unmistakable over the comlink. The SEALS snapped off a shot at a suited figure who dived between a pair of metal crates, but the slugs skipped off the cover in a shower of sparks. Dobson kept his weapon sighted on the spot while Keast and his partner, Robinson, shot past the crates, weapons trained on the place where the pirate had disappeared. With a push of his long legs, the lanky Alabaman followed his fellow SEALS to investigate.
“Damn, skipper. Sumbitch made it through the air lock!” Dobson declared in a disgusted tone.
“Well, we know where they are, then,” Jackson noted, using his jets to propel him over to the fire team. He saw the secured hatch, smaller than some of the other passages out of the hangar, leading toward the interior of the ship. It was a personnel access hatch, about the size of a small door. Of course, there was no way to tell how many bad guys were on the other side of that barrier or what kind of reception they were arranging for the SEALS.
“Want me to blow the door, LT?” asked Harry Teal, who, despite his medical skills as a corpsman, was also a whiz at just about every kind of explosive. “We could make it pretty hot for them.”
“I know,” Jackson replied, thinking. He looked to the right, where the gaping black hole of the blasted air lock provided another way into the ship. Below the awkwardly floating hatch itself, which no doubt possessed several tons of mass, he could make out smaller pieces of debris, probably the residue of the initial blast. But there was plenty of space for his Team to move through the opening. He knew that within that dark chamber they eventually would come up against