Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [41]
With growing fear the SEALS officer saw that the second gunner’s station was gone, with only the twisted base of his chair remaining in place. Neither the man nor the rest of his seat was anywhere within the confines of L Deck. Another glance at that six-inch hole gave horrifying proof of the pressure of the escaping air and the fate of any person or thing tumbling around in this compartment. Wherever the missing gunner was, the sailor was beyond the effects of any pain.
“Damage control, all decks report!”
The loudspeaker crackled, barely audible above the rush of escaping air. Jackson didn’t dare release his grip to seize his communicator; survival had to come first. He saw that the wounded sailor was coming to, looking around wildly. As if by instinct, the man grasped for the buckle of his safety strap.
“No!” Jackson shouted, his head throbbing from the force of his own voice. The sailor looked at him and stopped fumbling with his belt.
The lieutenant pulled himself along the handrail, buffeted by the wind, until he could get one hand on the wheel of the air lock hatch at the base of the axial transport shaft. Another fear occurred to him: How much time did they have?
As in a submarine, a hull breach in a spaceship was a serious, potentially fatal problem. Instead of water pouring in, of course, the hole allowed air to escape from the pressurized ship into the vacuum of space. To protect against catastrophic failure, the individual compartments in both types of ships could be sealed so that the breach to the outside doomed only one compartment, not the entire vessel.
The problem was that if you were inside the breached compartment when it was sealed off, you were screwed.
Gritting his teeth, Jackson spun the wheel of the air lock, relieved when it moved. His ears were popping, and his breathing grew frantic and raspy as the air pressure rapidly declined on L Deck. But he wasn’t doomed yet.
The sailor, still strapped into his seat, looked at Jackson and then turned his head to stare in horror at the hole in the deck. The blood, no doubt dried by the force of the wind, had crusted around the gash on his skull, leaving his forehead and cheeks caked with red, his eyes white-rimmed and staring in the middle of the garish mask.
“I’m going to reach for you!” Jackson shouted. “I want you to take my hand. Do you understand?”
The sailor nodded mutely and once again put his hand to the quick release buckle of his seat strap. He extended the other hand toward the SEALS lieutenant.
Jackson was clinging to the hatch with both white-knuckled fists, and it took all his courage to release the grip of his left hand. Immediately the wind pulled him toward the hole, and his right shoulder nearly was wrenched out of its socket as the grip of that one hand held him in place.
But he could feel already that the force of the wind was easing, no doubt because the air pressure on L Deck was falling rapidly toward vacuum levels. His left hand touched the sailor’s extended finger and then moved past the palm until the SEALS could wrap his hand around the sailor’s wrist. He felt the corresponding pressure as the man held on to him while still keeping one hand on the release latch of his belt. The sailor stared into the lieutenant’s eyes, alert and waiting for the next command.
Jackson’s head was hurting from more than just the blow to his nose; he could almost feel his eyeballs expanding. But he waited another few seconds until he could feel that the sailor wouldn’t immediately be pulled out of his grasp.
“Release it!” he barked finally.
Immediately the man snapped out of his belt. Jackson pulled him toward