Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [76]
More sniping came from the left, and two shooter pairs leapfrogged into an assault, one man firing while his partner advanced. A series of long freestanding shelves like the stacks of a library provided cover, and they quickly closed in on the shooters. Robinson snapped off a couple of rounds, spattering some cans of liquid—paint or sealant, apparently—and driving a hostile from cover. Ruiz cut him down with a short burst just before the Eluoi reached shelter behind the snow tank.
The blast of heavy machine-gun fire took everyone by surprise, slugs sparking off the floor between Chief Harris and Dobson. The two SEALS dived for cover as the gun chattered again, firing high, sending a stream of big rounds spattering through the motor pool.
“Where the hell did that come from?” the master chief demanded.
Jackson finally noticed the movement of the low, flat turret atop the big snow tank. The barrel of the gun was recessed into the swiveling dome so that it was almost invisible except for the flames that issued when it fired. Like a half dozen other SEALS, he shot at the gun with his G15 but stopped after two bursts. Clearly, the slugs were simply bouncing off the armored plate. When the turret swiveled toward him, he dived unceremoniously behind a workbench, keeping his head down as the rounds chewed through tools and supplies, sending a shower of metal splinters raining down on him.
The turret swiveled farther, with the gun firing like a buzz saw, gnawing through the shelves where four SEALS clutched the floor, trying to melt into the ground. The heavy storage unit gave them some protection, but when the gun aimed another burst, one of the shelves was torn in half, and a cascade of cans and crates tumbled down onto the men trying to avoid the machine gun.
The LT wanted to capture the tank, but not at the expense of any of his men. “Rocky!” he barked, signaling Rodale.
The gunner’s mate (missile) merely nodded and raised his rocket launcher to his shoulder. He flicked the setting for direct fire and pulled the trigger.
A flash of fire and smoke blasted from the back of the launcher as the sleek, arrowlike projectile streaked toward the target faster than the human eye could follow. Playing it safe, Rocky hadn’t aimed for the steeply sloping armor of the turret dome. Instead, he had fired right at the narrow glass windshield. The rocket impacted and exploded, spewing fire out several side windows, blowing out a hatch on the top of the snow tank. The turret immediately stopped moving, and the SEALS could only duck and watch as secondary explosions rocked the doomed vehicle.
In another two minutes, the garage area was secured. There were bays for three of the big snow tanks, and two of those bays were empty. The hatch to the outdoors had been impacted by at least one of Baby’s copper-coated uranium core slugs; the impact had started a fire inside the garage that appeared to have been extinguished quickly. A number of lockers lined one wall of the big area, and although most of them were empty, a few contained insulated parkas, trousers, and snowshoes. Nearby was a rack of small arms, also mostly emptied, so Jackson was forced to conclude that a fairly muscular sortie force had charged out of there after his diversionary fire team.
The lieutenant and his men tried to raise G-Man and Falco on their comlinks, but even when they stood in the open doorway, they could pick up nothing but static. Jackson stared into that storm-swept landscape, noting that it was still daylight, and the wind and snow appeared to swirl unabated. The wreckage of a snow tank, still smoking, dominated the view from the open hatch. He barely could make out the ridge where his two men had been posted. A number of bodies littered