Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [120]
“You will be remembered,” he whispered.
Harris, Ruiz, and Sanders seemed to understand exactly what he meant, for they, too, saluted the darkness of space. Char-Kane watched solemnly, and Olin Parvik, his eyes moist, nodded.
For a long minute they all stood in silence. Not surprisingly, it was the ensign who finally spoke.
“Do you think we’ll be back here, to Batuun?” Sanders asked rhetorically. “It’s one of the closest stars to our own sun, after all.”
Jackson could only shrug and gesture to the vastness spreading beyond the Plexiglas windows.
“Maybe,” he allowed. “But it’s a damned big universe out there.”
Read on for a sneak peek
at the next exciting installment
in the Starstrike series,
Operation Orion
The Lotus
The drop boat had barely come to a halt in the huge hangar of the Lotus when Mikey’s gunner opened up with the chain gun in its bow-mounted turret. A stream of depleted uranium slugs chewed across the hangar floor, tearing up a bank of metal cabinets—and perforating the body of the hidden shooter just beyond that cover. The barrage of fire was strangely soundless in the vacuum of space, but Jackson could feel the stuttering vibration—more of a zip than a chatter because of the high rate of fire—through the drop boat’s hull. The body of the target floated into view, a torn spacesuit leaking crimson-tinted vapor from a number of obviously lethal bullet holes. An ugly looking firearm floated out of his lifeless hands.
The vast space of the hangar deck was cluttered with several shuttles and miscellaneous debris floating in the zero-G environment. Emergency lights glowed eerily from many bulkheads, creating a kind of washed out, shadow-free dim. The massive passenger ship drifted, crippled and disabled, but somewhere within the great hull the SEALS knew that some of the Shamani crew remained alive. The unknown attackers, meanwhile, had blasted their way into that interior, and now controlled an unknown number of compartments within the massive Lotus.
Even as the gunner swiveled the boat’s weapon around, seeking potential targets, the overhead Plexiglas hatches swished backward on each drop boat. The sixteen SEALS sprang upward and away from their landing craft. Each man used the mobility jets on his suit to guide his trajectory, so the Teammates scattered in a haphazard and unpredictable pattern. Fortunately, the chain gun seemed to have dealt with the initial threat. The SEALS came to rest at various places in the hangar without drawing any more fire.
Jackson took stock of their initial deployment. His men had remained together in pairs, each fire Team intact and ready. Rodale and LaRue had their heavy weapons readt, while the gunners on the two drop boats continued to swivel the bow turrets, the multi-barrelled chain guns pointing around the hangar with dull menace. In the zero gravity space the men floated all over the place, some near the upper bulkhead, others close to the deck. Each SEALS had his weapon trained, and between the eight fire Teams they covered all directions, in all three dimensions.
“L.T. Over here sir—take a look.” It was one of the new men, Keast, and he gestured to Jackson from his position near the ruptured airlock the officer had noticed earlier. Now Keast gestured toward the far end of the hangar, beyond the two destroyed shuttles.
There were several other small spacecraft over there, the lieutenant saw: low and sleek, with outboard engines and bubble canopies. At least three of those canopies were open, and Jackson allowed himself to drift upward to get a better view over the wrecked transport ships. These mysterious boats were scuffed, stained, and dented—they looked nothing like the sleek boats used by the Shamani. Jackson guessed this was how the pirates had come aboard.
He was still studying the small shuttles when he saw movement, observed another canopy popping open. Three manlike figures, wearing supple spacesuits and carrying small assault guns, flew upward from the cockpit and immediately opened fire.