Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [87]
Finally Teal shut off the engines, and the SEALS were immediately weightless, held in place only by the straps on their seats. The LT looked around, hoping—unrealistically, he knew—to catch sight of the frigate. There was only that eternal blackness, with the shrouded world below and the distant pale fire of Arcton so many millions of kilometers away.
But Baxter went to work with the radio, holding the microphone in his right hand while his left twirled a dial through a variety of frequencies. “This is SEALS Team Jackson calling USSS Pegasus. Come in, Pegasus. Come in.”
He repeated the call over and over, rewarded only by static, and Jackson began to wonder if his faith had been misplaced. Surely the ship was up there somewhere. They must be able to hear them!
And then he was rewarded with the most beautiful phrase he had ever heard:
“This is Pegasus. Come in, SEALS. What is your status?”
Eighteen: To the Bazaar
A locker in the commandeered shuttle’s launching bay had contained several serviceable pressure suits, although not quite up to the Mark IV’s standards of armor, comfort, and technological advancement. Still, the SEALS had been able to find one for Falco, who was the only member of the Team unprepared to face a vacuum environment because of his shattered faceplate. With everyone suited up, the Teammates and their navy comrades were able to transfer to the Pegasus without a direct air lock docking between the two ships.
Carstairs merely brought his frigate into a matching orbit with the shuttle after Teal had killed the engines of the little escape ship. Navy crew members aboard the Pegasus used the frigate’s docking arm to hold the two ships in close proximity—about twenty meters—and Chief Swanson led a small party through space to establish a static line between the two ships. In the meantime, after double-checking everyone’s suit for pressure integrity, Teal had depressurized the shuttle slowly until the interior was as perfect a vacuum as the space beyond the hatch.
Once that had been accomplished, the shuttle’s hatch was opened. One at a time, the men snapped D-rings to the static line and pulled themselves hand over hand into the open drop boat dock of the frigate. Once there, each man secured himself to one of the many fasteners in that hold. It took somewhat less than half an hour for the fourteen SEALS, the five drop boat crewmen, and the bodies of Zimmer and Mirowski to be transferred to the Pegasus. Finally, the hold doors were closed over the drop boat dock, and the large compartment gradually was repressurized. In a little over an hour from the time the docking arm had been attached, the men who had survived the ice moon were able to remove their suits and weightlessly enter the passages of the Pegasus.
Master Chief Ruiz and Chief Harris saw to the establishment of the men back in SEALS country on H Deck, and Jackson, accompanied by Sanders and Coxswain Grafton, wasted no time seeking out Captain Carstairs. The CO welcomed them heartily and invited the trio in to the CIC for a debriefing. Consul Char-Kane was already there, her cool visage softening with a hint of relief as the SEALS entered.
Jackson gave them the CliffsNotes version of the operation on the ice moon, recapping in five minutes the terrible conditions, the landing that had wrecked the drop boats, the attempted ambush by the Kyne-Ursa, and finally their infiltration and capture of the Eluoi installation. He acknowledged Falco and LaRue’s bravery in creating the effective diversion, made note of Grafton and his mates’ important contribution in the battle for the ice station, and grimly reported the loss of two personnel.
“We learned from the computer records that our old friend Tezlac Catal is in charge of the place,” he concluded. “But we still haven’t figured out what he was getting out of there. Still, my