Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [98]
Baxter and Teal, each holding a heavy tool chest suitable for carrying heating elements, but actually containing the four SEALS’ weapons, followed him while Ruiz made a show of consulting his wrist computer, as if seeking the data on the elements to be exchanged. The door whooshed shut behind them, and they took stock of their surroundings.
They faced a long hallway with a series of doors on either side; two shorter halls led to the right and left immediately inside the door. There was no one in sight along any of the three hallways.
“Let’s scout the sides first,” Jackson said, indicating that Ruiz and Teal should go right while Baxter followed him to the left. They quickly learned that this corridor ended in a closed door with an electrical control on the outside. Jackson pushed the button, and the panel slid to the side, revealing a dozen people engaged in various forms of exercise. They wore black tunics and pants, similar to martial arts uniforms, that reminded the LT of his time as an Eluoi captive aboard the captured Shamani ship, the Gladiola. Some were jogging around a track, others were working out on various weight machines, and a few were playing a game that looked a lot like basketball.
The distinctive physical difference between the races of the three galactic empires, of course, lay in the color of the pupils of the eyes: The Shamani tended toward shades of red, from bright crimson to pale pink; the Eluoi covered the same range in the green spectrum; and Assarn eyes were cobalt blue. However, hair color was another telltale sign. The Shamani he had met all had hair as black as the typical Asian’s. The hair of the Eluoi varied between coarse dark brown and black, and the few Assarn he had encountered—including Olin Parvik and his crew—were Viking blond or redheaded.
Though they were too far away for him to get a close look at their eyes, Jackson saw that the people in the exercise room covered the gamut from blond to black hair. Their racial features included Caucasian, Asian, and African. It was that fact that caused him to conclude that these were Earthlings, presumably some of the captives taken from the Pangaea.
At the same time, not one of them seemed to project an aura of authority or command, and he guessed that these were probably the support staff of the embassy mission or the crew—but not the officers—of the Pangaea. He filed away their location but closed the door and returned to their starting point, where he met Ruiz and Teal returning from their own recon.
“That is a big mess hall, skipper,” the master chief reported. “Looks like it’s staffed by about six human prisoners; they seem to be working up a meal right now, though none of the customers have come in yet.”
Jackson nodded. “I think we’re in the right place, but we need to find someone who’s in charge.”
They went down the long hallway, past doors that contained the ubiquitous outer locks. A hundred meters along they encountered a guard station where four Eluoi sat or stood behind a desk, each wearing a battery pack and a wicked-looking plasma gun resembling the Nazi machine pistols of World War II. When Ruiz consulted his monitor and pointed straight ahead, Jackson led his little party right past the guards, acting as if he owned the place. They watched the “maintenance crew” march by but made no effort to question them. Apparently, once they made it through the outer door, their right to be there would be taken for granted.
Now they entered a different section of the prisoners’ quarters, and Jackson felt that they were getting warm. The halls were narrow but carpeted, the walls lined with decorative patterns. They turned a corner, and once they were out of sight of the guard posts, Jackson knocked on the first door they came to and opened it. It was a small room furnished with a pair of comfortable-looking beds, both unmade, as well as a vidscreen on the wall and