Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [38]
He felt as though his lungs were being crushed, as if a massive weight—a boulder or even an entire house—were resting on him, flattening his body, pummeling his organs, clutching at his heart. Straining hard, he drew in a breath; when he exhaled, the air seemed to drain right out of him. He tried to draw another breath and felt like he was suffocating, felt that his lungs lacked the power to fight against the crushing force.
Then, gradually, it eased. The SEALS were still flat on the floor, but the shuttle was already high over Mars, and the G-force had eased back to perhaps four times Earth’s gravity. With an effort, the lieutenant turned his head and saw his Teammates similarly prone, all of them gasping in the confines of their bubble helmets.
G-Man was the closest, and with a grimace LaRue pushed himself up to his hands and knees. It was an awesome display of strength, since he weighed the equivalent of some 800 pounds. With a thud and a grunt, LaRue flopped down on his side. He flipped on his communicator, and when he didn’t wince, Jackson did the same. The jamming noise had ceased.
“I guess I need to work out a little more,” LaRue gasped.
In spite of everything, Jackson laughed, albeit weakly. He rolled onto his back and stared at the overhead bulkhead, his mind whirling, seeking ideas, making plans, discarding them. They were in a tough spot, of that there could be be no doubt. But one thing was sure: They still had their weapons and enough explosives to blow this shuttle right out of the Martian sky, including all the SEALS and the other captives with it, of course. That seemed a little drastic right now, though Jackson didn’t rule it out as an eventual possibility.
With shocking abruptness, the pounding of the engines ceased, and in the sudden silence, the SEALS were immediately weightless. Jackson drew deep breaths with immense relief, feeling the pressure of the deck simply vanish. He could see that he was drifting slowly upward and reached out to take hold of one of the many handles recessed into the deck.
“Don’t float too high,” he cautioned the men of his Team. “If those rockets kick in again, you don’t want to slam down on the deck with 6 Gs of weight.”
Staying prone, the men crawled through the compartment, looking for anything that might prove useful to know about. With each refreshing breath he took, Jackson was considering another problem. He checked the HUD on his helmet visor and saw that he had less than an hour of air left in his breather; he knew the rest of the men would be in the same predicament.
Each pressure suit was equipped with an outside atmosphere sensor, and he activated the device, watching the data as it, too, was projected onto the inside of his visor. The air was good quality, just a little less than 1 atmosphere of pressure: about the equivalent of 12,000 feet of altitude on Earth. Warily, he unsnapped the seal holding his helmet to the collar of his suit and lifted the Plexiglas bubble off his head.
The air was cool, and dry and smelled vaguely of metal. “Seems safe to breathe. Let’s conserve our breathing mix for now, but be ready to snap the helmet back on,” he suggested.
The other SEALS followed suit.
“What now, LT?” Chief Harris asked.
Jackson patted his VP90 sidearm, then picked up and checked the chamber of his assault rifle. “Well, these bastards won’t get us without a fight. And I want us to set some charges in case it comes to that.”
If any of the SEALS were dismayed to realize what “that” meant, they didn’t let it show.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Harry Teal said. He was probably the best man in the platoon when it came to using the C-6 explosives, and he quickly started digging around in his pack for a few of the deadly packages.