Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [49]
The four unarmed orderlies were being overcome by the rest of the Team. The men pulled the masks off their captives and watched as the four Eluoi almost immediately collapsed.
Jackson and Ruiz first donned the guards’ masks, then armed themselves with their mysterious guns. Each included a heavy backpack—presumably a battery—connected by thick wires to the “firearm” device. Harris went to check, reporting that the hatch to their compartment was open. The orderlies presumably had intended to pull them right on through and into the shuttle bay.
“What’s the plan, LT?” Ruiz asked.
“First, take us to our gear!”
Soon they were outside the storage locker where the two chiefs had spotted the equipment. When the door proved to be locked, Jackson had the others get back and unleashed a burst from his weapon. The fire turned out to be some kind of energy ray with zero recoil and the cutting power of a plasma torch. In seconds, he had burned away the lock, and the SEALS rushed inside, gathering their gear.
“Ruiz, Teal,” Jackson said. “Take a block of C-6 and find that control center for the ship’s gun batteries. You said it was around here, right?”
Master Chief Ruiz nodded. “Timing on the charge, LT?”
“Give it fifteen minutes. And then meet us at the shuttle bay. Harris, you come with me, show me where those Shamani were locked up.”
In few more minutes, Jackson had burned through another door. He entered Consul Char-Kane’s chambers to her wide-eyed surprise. “We’re getting out of here. Come with us?”
For a moment she hesitated, then nodded.
“And what about the rest of the Shamani?” Jackson asked. “Will they make a run for it?”
“No, they will wait for orders from a commandant.”
“I need at least one of them—one who can fly a shuttle.”
Char-Kane blinked. “I can fly a shuttle,” she declared.
“All right. Let’s go.”
The Shamani woman moved with remarkable speed, joining the Earthlings as they hastened to the transport shaft and quickly took it two decks down to the hangar bay. They passed many busy Eluoi crewmen, but though Jackson had his finger ready on the trigger, none of them seemed to take any notice of the unusual party.
“Why are they ignoring us?” he whispered to Char-Kane when the last of the alien crew members had passed. “Not that I’m complaining,” he hastened to add.
“Theirs is a rigid society, and these men come from the lowest levels of that culture. The deference for others—their betters and those they do not recognize as their equals or inferiors—is ingrained. It would be as if you were to stop and ask an admiral or your president why he is walking in a particular place.”
He nodded, amazed but relieved. Entering the hangar, they found themselves in a glass-enclosed booth with several air locks leading to long passages, not unlike airport jetways, that led to the four shuttle bays. Two of the bays were empty, but the other two were connected by the flexible tubes to the booth where the SEALS had entered.
The SEALS could observe teeming activity in the great compartment. The outer hangar doors were slowly opening on the first bay, indicating that the air already had been expelled from the hangar itself.
The air lock leading to the first shuttle opened, and an Eluoi officer emerged. “What are you doing here?” he demand in that bizarre, hissing language, automatically translated by the device Jackson still had in his ear. The lieutenant replied with his heat gun, a single burst that instantly silenced the fellow.
“Go, go!” he barked, and the Earthlings and the Shamani woman floated through the air lock.
“Disable the other shuttle,” Jackson ordered, and LaRue and Falco went to plant charges on the air locks. It was not enough to blow up the ship, but breaching the hatches certainly would render the shuttle unusable for a while.
Jackson followed through the first air lock onto the flight deck of the shuttle to find that Consul de Campe Char-Kane already had settled herself in the