Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [31]
As he saw the first of the robot tanks come from wherever it had been patrolling off in the distance, G-Man knew that this was a target worthy of Baby’s attention. As the tank started to come around the curve of the dome to a point where it could bring its weapon to bear on his Teammates, G-Man braced himself and laid the heavy weapon down across the edge of the ravine. The electronic reticle in his sight picture automatically adjusted after he lased the range to the target. The computer read the velocity the controls had been set to—maximum—and adjusted the aiming point accordingly. Even as another tank appeared, G-Man shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and pulled the trigger.
A huge gout of flame and gas belched out the rear of the rail gun as the recoil-canceling counterblast charge fired. There was a brilliant splash of green-colored plasma as the copper and uranium slug struck the robot tank and penetrated to the interior. But G-Man had no time to admire his handiwork as his first armored target exploded. It had a partner that needed to be destroyed, which Baby did with a quick follow-up shot.
While the echoes of the roaring shots from the rail gun quickly dissipated in the almost airless Martian atmosphere, the nearly dozen enemy forces that had been outside the dome were falling to the sudden violence of the SEALS’ onslaught. The men knew how to creep up on a target stealthily, and they prided themselves on being able to complete a mission without having to fire a shot. But when it came time to start shooting, the Navy SEALS took a backseat to no one, and they had just proved it.
With rapid hand signals, Jackson had part of his forces establish a security perimeter around the single air lock they had spotted during their examination of the exterior of the alien dome. Now Chief Harris and Harry Teal went into action as breachers while the rest of the unit maintained security.
With practiced motions, the two SEALS placed long, thin explosive charges along the outer edges of the single air lock door. There wasn’t time to try to persuade the enemy inside to come out and surrender, and the SEALS wouldn’t have known how to communicate with the aliens even if they could have spoken to them. With Falco and G-Man once again providing overwatch security, the rest of the SEALS lined up in what they called a train as the two breachers completed their work.
Once more, the squeeze signal went up and down the line. When he pressed down on the shoulder of Chief Harris kneeling down in front of him, Jackson knew what would be coming a moment later. Compressing the firing device in his hands, Harris detonated the linear explosive charges with which he and Teal had lined the hatch.
In traditional SEAL fashion that dated back to the frogmen of World War II, because the two breachers hadn’t known the strength of the hatchway that blocked their entry, they had overloaded the entryway with explosives. The blast cut away the frame and the hatch. Then the internal pressure inside the dome blew the free chunk of alien alloy out into the Martian desert.
For three seconds the gush of air spewed across the nearly airless landscape, a visible mist of whitish vapor carrying small objects, followed by chairs and a table and a couple of empty pressure suits, all blasted out by the explosive decompression. Three of the alien men, none of them wearing pressure suits, came tumbling out, carried by the blast of air. They rolled across the sand, thrashing and flailing helplessly, dying very quickly. They wore startlingly white uniforms, like jumpsuits, but the cloth was torn and tattered by the explosive force of the air escaping into near vacuum.
Not a pleasant way to go, Jackson thought before turning his attention back to the breach.
While the dome was decompressing,