Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [3]
“Please,” Jackson muttered as his shoulders slumped at the thought of a battle he knew he couldn’t win, “don’t let it be Ball-Breaker again.”
He pushed a button to open the hatch and was pleasantly surprised to see Doctor Irina Sulati, the petite, attractive physician he had first met on Mars more than a year earlier. She smiled, her white teeth dazzling against her chocolate skin and ink-black hair.
“Stonewall Jackson!” she declared with a laugh, grinning as she looked up and down his dress tunic. “I thought that was you—and I must say, you clean up very well!”
“Irina!” Jackson replied, giving her a hug and an affectionate kiss. “Fancy meeting you here!” He blushed, suddenly uncomfortable, and looked around at the tight confines of the dressing alcove. “I’d invite you in, but as you can see, I’d have to leave just to make room for you.”
“Never mind,” she said, taking his hand. “Come with me—there’s a little more space on the medical deck. We can sit down and get caught up. It’s so nice to see you again!”
Jackson was pleased at the encounter, as well. He had said goodbye to Irina only reluctantly when Pegasus had returned to SATSTAR1. She had embarked for her position on Mars, where she led the medical team on the most important research station, while Jackson had dropped back to Earth for a well-deserved leave. In the months after that he had been reassembling his Team, training the new men, and preparing for the next mission.
“I’d love to come with you,” he replied, knowing the transport tube hatch was only a few paces away. Certainly Ballard would never find him on the medical deck.
“But first, have a look around for me,” he suggested, nodding toward the passageway. “You don’t see any admirals out there, do you?”
“Congratulations, Lieutenant Sanders,” Captain Carstairs said to the beaming young man. He nodded at the silver bar on the other officer’s collar. “It’s a well-deserved promotion.”
Newly minted Lieutenant (j.g.) Dennis Sanders couldn’t help smiling broadly. “Thank you, sir. It means a lot to me to hear you say it.”
“Nonsense. What you SEALS accomplished last year will go into the annals of the U.S. Navy as one of the finest military actions in this nation’s history, not to mention the first action outside of our own atmosphere.”
“I expect this mission will be a lot smoother,” Sanders suggested.
“We can only hope,” the CO of the Pegasus replied.
The two officers occupied the observation dome in the bow of the frigate. They stood firmly on the circular deck, oriented so that the top of the dome—the very prow of the spaceship—was directly overhead. The gravity holding them in place was provided by the ship’s steady acceleration, muted by the inertial dampening system that prevented them from being squashed flat under what was in reality more than 10 Gs of artificial but potentially crushing gravity.
To one side they saw the speck of light that was the Pangaea accelerating in formation some ten kilometers away; the second frigate of the escort, the Troy, was barely visible another ten klicks beyond the civilian ship. The sun was directly astern, invisible from their position, though Sanders knew that it would have been the brightest thing in space if they had been in the aft observation platform, looking “down” through the deck at the life-giving orb. In fact, he had been on L Deck just an hour before and had been surprised at how small the sun already looked. The little fleet was moving toward deep space at a phenomenal speed, still accelerating, and already had passed outside the orbit of Mars.
“How long until we make the jump?” asked the recently promoted lieutenant.
Carstairs checked his watch. “A little over two hours,” he replied. “Is your Team all settled in?”
“Yes, sir. They know the drill—all except the new men, of course.”
“Ah, right,” the captain replied. For a moment both men were silent, remembering the four Teammates who had died on Mars during the SEALS’ first mission.
“That tall Minnesotan—Robinson, right?—looks like he made a good recovery,