Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [26]
At the same time, the charges he and Dobson had set erupted at the end of the corridor. “Keep going!” he ordered, and the chief led the other two SEALS forward. Jackson paused long enough to drop a couple of grenades onto the main computer consoles, ducking out of the room just before their explosion shook the deck under his feet.
“We got company, LT—from the left of the front door,” Harris’s voice crackled in Jackson’s earphones.
“Can you hold them up?” he asked.
“For the time being, sure. They’re suited up, but Falco poked holes in the first two with his squirrel gun. The rest seem a little reluctant to come up and get acquainted.”
“Good.” Jackson knew that the sniper’s squirrel gun, the Mark 30 Hammer sniper rifle, could send a high-velocity 10.2-mm caseless slug through just about any level of body armor or personal protection. He hoped his lethal shooting would give the attackers enough pause for the LT to get a better view of the situation.
To that end, he bounded down the corridor in two long strides, coming up to the hatch he and Dobson had just blown. Following his men through, he found that they stood atop a surprisingly deep pit, a stone-lined depression that apparently had been excavated within an existing crater on the asteroid’s surface. A metal catwalk circled like a balcony around the rim of the pit, and multiple layers of concentric decks dropped into the depths below him. Because of the numerous breaches caused by the SEALS’ attacks, the whole area was depressurized, and the sight of a dozen pirate bodies sprawled on the stairs and decks indicated that the sudden loss of air had come as a shock.
“Shit!” Dobson cursed, and tumbled backward, falling in slow motion toward the floor. “Hostiles at twelve o’clock!” he shouted, bouncing onto his back and, in the low gravity, propelling himself to a sitting position by flexing his back and legs. “Sumbitch creased my helmet, LT,” he added, to Jackson’s considerable relief.
The officer already had spotted the shooters: Nearly a dozen men in pressure suits carrying assault rifles had appeared across the wide atrium of the crater. They shot at the SEALS from the cover of a long bank of equipment, popping up to squeeze off short bursts, then dropping from sight again. Slugs sparked off the gridwork of the catwalk, and Jackson felt the impacts through his feet; the Teammates could see that the enemy shooters were being forced back by the recoil of their weapons.
Robinson and Keast returned fire, spraying long, carefully aimed bursts of rocket rounds from their G15s. Unaffected by recoil, the double barrage chewed along the top of the consoles behind which the pirates hid. One raised his head at the wrong time, and a number of rounds shattered the faceplate of his helmet and the skull behind the Plexiglas barrier.
With his launcher still attached, Jackson pump-cocked a grenade into firing position and launched the missile against the far wall of the large compartment. It burst against the stone barrier, spraying fragments, he hoped, against a few of the enemy shooters that were out of the SEALS’ line of sight. Another man popped into view, spraying a round, and the LT was knocked backward by the force of a slug punching into his shoulder. Fortunately, the flexible armor of his suit absorbed the impact without rupture, but even so, he dived for cover behind a table Robinson had toppled over, cursing the low gravity that made it seem like forever before he dropped behind the barrier.
The four SEALS of Jackson’s fire team held a position on the inside of the upper level of the crater. They had a good view of the opposite side of the depression, including several of the lower levels, though the farther down they tried to look, the more of the opposing decks were covered by the overhang of the upper floors. Quick bursts from the G15s kept the pirates down, but they could see hostiles starting to work their way around the circle in both directions. The only connection