Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [112]
Jackson had been thinking about that very issue, his eyes darting around the landscape. He spotted one remote launch pad where a shuttle rested, oriented toward the sky, while one of the massive tractor haulers was slowly rumbling away. The shuttle appeared to be standing alone for now; at least, he couldn’t spot any signs of activity around it as they approached. He reasoned that it was a fueled shuttle that had just been hauled into launching position. It was no more than three or four kilometers beyond the far end of the vast tank farm where the rocket fuel was stored.
“How about that one?” he said, leaning past the pilot and pointing. “Do you think you can fly it?”
“Does a pig have wings?” Parvik replied with a grin. “Of course I can fly it.”
“Good. But—um—pigs don’t actually have wings where we come from,” the lieutenant pointed out.
The Assarn looked at him, eyes wide in mock astonishment, and Jackson couldn’t help laughing. The fellow’s swashbuckling good humor was infectious and actually made him think that they might just possibly get away with this harebrained off-the-cuff operation.
“SEALS, get ready,” the officer ordered through the intercom. “I want you to hit the ground running.”
“Roger, LT,” crackled Ruiz’s reply from the passenger cabin. “We’ll drop the door as soon as we stop moving.”
“Take her down,” Jackson said to Parvik.
The pilot pushed the control stick, and immediately the jetcar swept into a dive. The launching pad, which was a flat circle of concrete some hundred meters in diameter, appeared to grow rapidly as the pilot brought them in a little faster than regulations specified. Even so, he pulled up smoothly and dropped them vertically onto the pad just a couple of dozen meters from the fueled shuttle.
An Eluoi officer, his sleeves gleaming from a heavy load of gold braid, came jogging toward them, waving his arms over his head. A dozen soldiers trotted behind him, spreading into a skirmish line, holding their weapons at port arms.
“Looks like the reception is going to be a warm one,” Jackson announced. “Chief, how fast can you swing that turret around?”
“Give the word, LT.”
Parvik signaled that the back ramp was ready to drop.
“Here we go,” Jackson declared. “No slowing down until we’re off this goddamn planet. Chief, start the party!”
Harris had been holding the barrel of the turret gun trained to the rear to avoid alarming the welcoming committee. Now, with the slight pressure of his knee on the control, he wheeled it around quickly, dropping the muzzle of the weapon to shoot almost parallel to the side of the fuselage. His first burst cut the Eluoi officer in two and scattered the man’s escort, dropping two or three of them at the same time.
The ramp dropped sharply, and the SEALS came tumbling out. Falco dropped prone and started cracking off shots with his rifle, taking the time to aim carefully before squeezing the trigger with cool precision. Three quick shots dropped two more hostiles onto the tarmac. One lucky Eluoi soldier tripped and fell with such fortuitous timing that the 10.26-mm slug merely grazed his scalp instead of splattering his brain. The terrified man crawled away, and Falco let him go, knowing he’d have one hell of a headache to remember the SEALS by.
Ruiz and Teal sprayed suppressing fire with their assault rifles, charging from the jetcar in a crouch while LaRue and Rodale, firing with more careful aim, covered them from the open hatch. Marannis, Sanchez, and Sanders tumbled out of the hatch and sprinted toward the nearby shuttle, which had an inviting ladder dangling from the low open hatch.
Chief Harris kept up a devastating barrage from the turret gun, and in seconds none of the Eluoi soldiers was moving. Jackson and the three civilians came down the ramp with Olin Parvik and looked at the shuttle, which had been untouched by so much as a ricochet, thanks the precise shooting of the Team.
“Teal and Chief Harris, get Robinson over to the shuttle as soon as Ensign Sanders secures the ship,” Jackson ordered, seeing that