Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [17]
Chief Harris saw the hole in the cockpit dome where the shell had entered; it must have passed out through the body without exploding. Outside, the SEALS were pouring fire out at the supply dome while moving toward the barracks building. He glanced again at Foxtrot. The wreckage was scattered in a wide circle, dust still settling. There was no prospect of finding a survivor. But the SEALS never left one of their own behind, alive or dead. When they could, the squad would search through the wreckage for their Teammates.
Right now, they were in the fight of their lives on alien soil.
“Dismount—we close in on foot!” barked the LT, pulling the lever to pop the cockpit canopy. Jackson pushed himself up and out, landing in a crouch. Rocky Rodale came right behind him, his rocket launcher cradled in his arms as he looked for a target.
Harris snapped the latch on the turret’s Plexiglas, and the dome sprang open.
Only then did he notice Consul Char-Kane slumping limply in her seat. Her suit looked intact. She must have been stunned by the shock of the shell, which had burst through the cabin right beside her head. Biting back a curse, Harris scrambled down the hull and unstrapped the Shamani woman from her seat. Grasping her under her arms, he hoisted her, pulling her with him as he toppled over the side of the rover.
She lay on the ground, and he looked at her face through the clear helmet. Her eyes were half-open, like slits of blood, but he reminded himself that that was the normal color of her pupils. She showed no signs of consciousness. He picked her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest, and sprinted for the nearest dome, about eighty meters away.
His gear weighed more than a hundred pounds, and the consul, even with her lighter suit, added some two hundred more. Though the gravity level was only about a third of Earth’s, the mass was the same, and Harris staggered and stumbled, bouncing from one leg to the other as he tried to remain upright, moving as quickly as he could. He was falling forward for the last ten or twelve meters of the sprint. Finally, he and the consul tumbled to a stop against the outer air lock of the research dome.
Sanders’s SEALS had taken shelter behind the shattered barracks dome. One by one they slipped through a gap where the wall had been ruptured. The LT scrambled back, looking for Harris and Char-Kane just as the Shamani woman pushed herself into a sitting position. She blinked at Harris, then glanced at the disabled rover before looking back at him.
“Thank you,” she said, nodding her head formally.
“Forget it,” he said. “Can you walk?”
“I…I believe that I can. Help me up, please.”
She extended a hand, and he took it, lifting her to her feet. She swayed, and he caught her, holding her for a second until she could stand on her own. “I am all right now. I can walk. Where must we go?”
“Sanders has cleared out a chamber in the barracks. Follow me,” Jackson said. “Move fast.”
He darted across the space to the barracks dome while their comrades covered them with fire directed at the supply building. Harris and the consul hurried after, hunched low, sprinting for the gap in the wall. In a few seconds they tumbled inside, breathing loudly in the confines of their bubble helmets.
One of the SEALS, Falco, pointed toward the other large dome. “They’re shooting from the air lock with some kind of heavy projectile weapon. Might be the same gun that punched all the holes in this dome.”
“Any sign of the station crew?” Jackson asked.
“Not out here. The shell is ruptured, but the interior air lock seems intact. Haven’t had time to go there, sir,” Falco replied.
“I will inspect the living quarters,” Consul Char-Kane announced, “while you and your men make war upon this unseen enemy.”
The LT nodded in agreement, then pointed to Harris. “Keep an eye on her, Chief,” he said. “We’ll go after the shooter.” He quickly checked his G15 carbine, making sure that a full fifty-round magazine of 6.8-mm caseless ammunition was seated in place with a round locked in the chamber. Then he started out