Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [8]
“The Lotus is in this star system, I take it.”
“Yes, on the near side of the star. We’ve plotted as close to a straight line as we dare, but it’ll take us a few hours to get there, and we’ll have to decelerate into the site in order to attain a stationary orbit relative to the Lotus. The Troy is keeping watch on the Pangaea, and the Secretary General himself suggested it would be good if we could do the Shamani a favor on the way to the conference. So we’re authorized to embark on a rescue mission.” The captain rubbed a hand across his forehead and then looked frankly at Jackson. “I’ve got a knotty feeling about this one, Tom. I think your Team should be ready to take to the boats if it comes to that.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I’ll go down to the hold and spread the word.”
The lieutenant found his second in command, Sanders, in the officers’ wardroom. Together they descended the five decks to the hold where the Team bunked and trained. Jackson found his men sharp and edgy after the slightly unsettling experience of the jump.
“Any prospects of action, sir?” asked Master Chief Rafael Ruiz. “The men are getting a bit of cabin fever.”
“As a matter of fact, Chief, you’ll need to have the boys get their play clothes on. There’s a good chance we’ll need to drop in about three hours.”
“Hot damn!” crowed Mirowski, slapping the G-Man and Harry Teal on their sturdy shoulders. “Now you guys can show a newbie how it’s done.”
“Just keep your eyes open, Grasshopper—you’ll learn a lot,” the massive LaRue growled. The G-Man already was inspecting “Baby,” his massive rail gun. “Permission to take an extra case of ammo, sir?” he asked the lieutenant.
“Rack it up for this one, LaRue. You’re going to be packing enough with the breacher’s gear. Master Chief, I want a zero-G close-quarters battle loadout made ready.” The close-quarters battle (CQB) routine meant leaving most of the heavy and long-range weapons behind, selecting grenade ordnance for stunning blasts rather than frag or incendiary, and so forth. “Prep for shipboard CQB. This may be a rescue op, but there’s no reason not to be ready for the worst. I’ll get back to you with a clearer picture of the action when we get a little closer.”
“Aye, sir,” Master Chief Ruiz answered in a clear voice.
The men knew what to do without having been told by either their officers or their chiefs. Everyone had a job to do and set to work preparing the Team’s gear as well as his own. Extensive training had instilled knowledge of what had to be done even in the new men.
Sanders stayed with the Team to coordinate the preparations: The men would embark in the pressurized yet flexible suits that protected them against the vacuum of space. These were the Mark IV models, the next generation from the suits they had worn on the first mission. In addition to an improved self-sealing capacity that allowed them to repair small punctures such as bullet holes quickly, they were made of a tough interwoven fiber that added some significant protection against abrasions, cuts, projectiles, and blast effects. Like the earlier versions, the suits included complete life support and communication systems for the wearer.
For normal combat operations, the SEALS carried an astonishing amount of firepower for such a small group of men. The standard shoulder weapon was the G15 assault rifle, a compact rifle that fired 6.8-mm caseless ammunition from a magazine that lay horizontally across the top of the receiver, just underneath the aiming module. The top-mounted magazine allowed the SEALS to reload the G15 quickly and watch what they were doing by just lifting the weapon to their sight line. New men didn’t think that was such a big deal until they found out that one couldn’t bend one’s head downward while wearing a hard vacuum suit.
For the possibility of close-quarters battle in a zero-G environment, even the low recoil of the 6.8-mm caseless