Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [31]
When it was ten or fifteen kilometers away, the rocket ship vanished in a vast explosion, a searing circle of flame brightening the darkness of space for just an instant before the vacuum snuffed out the flames.
The asteroid’s gravity was so low that most of the pieces didn’t come down.
Seven: Cold and Lonely
By the time the low hatch was breached, Ruiz and Baxter had completed an inspection of the ship’s launching site. It proved to be connected by an underground tunnel to the crater in the middle of the pirate base, but all the hostiles who had escaped through that passage apparently had boarded the ship for the short one-way flight to oblivion.
“The installation is secure, LT,” Master Chief Ruiz reported.
Jackson immediately activated the medium-range communicator. “Grafty?” he called, seeking the drop boat’s coxswain.
“Thank God, Lieutenant,” the petty officer replied with palpable relief. “We saw a pretty big flash over there and were prepared for the worst.”
“That was the Jolly Roger’s going-out-of-business celebration,” Jackson replied. “I do have two men wounded, though. Can you get the boats over here ASAP?”
“We’re on the way, sir.”
Ruiz had brought the battery pack and energy weapon he had picked up from the dead pirate. “Permission to try a few practice shots, LT?” he asked.
“Sure, Rafe. Just don’t point it at anything too important.”
The master chief, together with Electrician’s Mate Baxter, went out through the breached air lock to check out the captured device on the surface of the asteroid. At the same time, Chief Harris and Harry Teal brought the sole surviving pirate up to Jackson, who was supervising operations from the upper deck of the central crater. The prisoner was sullen but seemed to have no fighting spirit left. His face was downcast, and through the faceplate of his visor the officer could see that he was gaunt and unshaven.
“Look at me,” Jackson snapped, presuming that the fellow’s comlink contained a translator program—if he didn’t have one implanted in his skull, which was a common practice throughout the galaxy.
Indeed, the prisoner raised his face, and the LT found himself looking into eyes of a full, startling green. “So you’re an Eluoi?” he began, speaking conversationally. “Where is your home?”
The pirate flinched at the first words but then seemed to relax a bit. His eyes glanced this way and that as if he couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to be summarily executed.
“I come from the Arakest system, near the center of the galaxy,” he said. The words in Jackson’s earpiece were tinny and flat, as the man’s voice was changed by the SEALS’ translation program. Even so, he detected that the fellow was sincerely proud of his home world.
“There was a piece of cargo on that ship, something stolen from the Shamani ship near the star in this system. I know it was removed from the ship and brought into this station.” Jackson was bluffing; he knew no such thing. “If you tell me where we can find it, things will go easy for you. We’ll see that you’re fed and taken off this rock when we leave.”
“I know nothing about that!” the pirate said. “I worked in the atmosphere module. I don’t know what happened outside of my own compartment.”
“Did you know when the ship arrived back here?” Jackson probed.
The man looked away briefly, then met the officer’s eyes. “Yes,” he admitted. “We had to pressurize the connecting tunnel from the ship dock to the installation. It was no more than twelve hours before you bandits attacked us.” The pirate managed to convey a little hostile bravado in the last remark.
The LT snorted with laughter, a bark of contempt. “I will ask you again: Where did they take the object that came off the ship? Answer me, or I might just decide that you’re a waste of valuable air.”
“I tell you, I don’t know where