Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [73]
“Good work,” the lieutenant replied, impressed. “Keep your finger on the trigger. This thing isn’t over yet.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came Grafton’s reply.
Feeling a little more energized, Jackson pushed himself to his feet and started over to the two electrician’s mates who were studying the alien control consoles. He paused, though, to watch Teal and Ruiz carefully wrap Mirowski’s body in a cloth they had found below, but he snapped his attention back to the job when Baxter called to him.
“What can we do from here?” the officer asked.
“I can make out these controls, LT,” Baxter reported after studying the command console for a few minutes. He was the first of the SEALS to complete one of the new alien language courses at Quantico, specializing in the Eluoi alphabet, and what were bizarre hieroglyphics to Jackson apparently made at least a little sense to the electrician’s mate. “This is the climate control system, and over here you’ve got the defensive systems. They had an external gun turret, remotely controlled, but it looks like it’s been taken out.”
“Good,” Jackson said approvingly, suspecting that LaRue might have had something to do with that.
The electrician’s mate twisted a dial, and a screen illuminated, displaying an image of geometric shapes, including several grids marked by lines and bars. Jackson couldn’t read the symbols, but it looked like a series of charts or tables. “These are their inventories, I think. Supplies of food and fuel and ammunition.” He indicated a circular display that resembled a pie chart. “That place we came in is the reactor, and this graph seems to display the power situation for the whole installation.”
“What about the remaining hostiles? Anything you can learn about the tactical situation?” The LT tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. In truth, he was amazed at the man’s ability to decipher the alien technology.
“I’m working on that right now, sir. I think I might be on to something.” Baxter punched a few keys, and a three-dimensional schematic appeared on the large central wall screen. One bullet hole in the lower left corner marred the image, but the rest of the screen functioned perfectly. Another few keystrokes brought an array of green dots into sight, perhaps fifty of them scattered about the diagram. Thirty or so were off to the right, mainly on the second level, and more than a dozen were clustered around a central circle and in the compartment just above that circle. Five more were down on the bottom level, right near the entrance to the reactor room.
“This is the floor plan of the installation,” Baxter explained. “The green spots are living beings, including us and the hostiles.” He pointed to the quintet on the lowest level. “These five are Coxswain Grafton and his sailors.” He next indicated a nearby compartment on the lower level, and the LT discerned another group of green spots that were so faint that he hadn’t noticed them previously. The electrician’s mate continued. “These pale spots down here are probably the yetis we saw in that cell. They don’t cast much of a heat signature, and this image is obviously based on IR detection.”
“I understand,” Jackson said grimly. One section of the screen indicated a large compartment adjacent to the outer hatch, but the image was dark. “What do you make of this?” he asked.
Baxter could only shrug. “That looks like, for lack of a better word, the garage, sir. At least, it’s some kind of access to the outside, probably the interior of that big hatch we spotted from the ridge. The sensors in there aren’t working. They probably took some damage when LaRue started tossing slugs their way.”
“Makes sense.” Jackson’s attention was focused on the area of the installation occupied by the hostiles. “These sections to the right are held by the Eluoi, correct?”
“Yes, sir. We hold the high ground in here—this command center—and about half the middle and lower levels. The