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CHAPTER 58

Low Earth Orbit

Wednesday

5:11 p.m. Pacific Time

8:11 p.m. Eastern Time


“Blow the hatch!” Frank ducked behind the edge of the module with the rest of the team. Mac released the charge igniter and the outer hatch door to the airlock was blown. They hadn’t expected the inner door to be open. The International Space Station depressurized explosively and various pieces of debris and equipment flew out into space along with the atmosphere. “Go! Heads on a swivel. Watch each other’s blind spots.”

Using the PMU, the four of them fired jets and used handholds as needed until they managed to pull themselves into Node 1. They did their best to keep one another covered, but being astronauts was not what they had been trained for.

“First corner, clear!” Thompson said. He pulled himself through with Mac and Casey behind him. Frank scanned behind him, wondering what had happened to Stevens. That made him very nervous.

“Okay, move slowly.” Frank followed in. He sent Dugan to the left, down the Russian segment, and Thompson to the right, down toward the JEM. He and Mac would move forward toward Node 3, the BEAM, and the DSIHM.

Suddenly the lights to the module went out. Then lights through the entire station went out. Frank noticed that Mac’s headlamps turned themselves on and, likewise, he realized his had come on as well.

“Shit! That’s not a good feature.” Mac looked at him. “Do you know how to turn them off?”

“No. Hold on. Commander, do you copy?”

“HE1 team. Stevens was a traitor but has been dealt with. We have two dead, one wounded. Me. We have a new team member in a Russian Orlan space suit. She is a friendly. Copy?”

“Copy. Shit. Commander, how do we turn these damned helmet lights off?”

“Sorry, sir, I don’t think you can.”

“What a shit show,” Mac said. “Keep moving?”

“Have to.”

“Yeah, I knew you were gonna say that.”

The two of them very slowly moved through Node 3 to the entrance to the BEAM. As soon as Mac leaned around the corner, a green dot lit up the wall near him and tracked in his direction. Frank pressed his legs against the bulkhead, flinging him forward into him.

“Mac, look out!”

Several holes suddenly appeared silently in the bulkhead around them and they did all they could to scramble away from the opened hatchway to take cover. Frank bounced off the opposite bulkhead but managed to grab one of the blue handhold bars. He leaned his modified M4 around the corner and began firing it in short bursts in random directions. There was no familiarity to the action as in space there was no sound and only the flashes of light. It was odd. But Frank didn’t let up until he was certain that Mac was in a position to fire back as well.

“Thompson! Dugan! Taking fire. Node Three now!” Frank shouted over the comm.

“Shit!” Michael did his best to hold cover for Vladimir, but fighting in microgravity was damned near impossible. Fortunately, the Dorman suits stabilized their attitude and they could fly using the mental mouse.

“I’m hit, comrade,” Vladimir said. “I have a quick patch on it. I’m not leaking air. Not sure about blood.”

“Okay, we’re getting the fuck out of here.” Michael used the virtual view controls and cycled the hatch for the DSIHM airlock. Then Vladimir jetted to it and pushed it open. “Let’s go. Get to the Vyrezka.”

More holes suddenly appeared in the bulkheads directly in line with the hatch through the BEAM to Node 3. The assault team was coming fast. They had to go. Michael pushed Vladimir through the hatch and followed him. He reached into a pouch on his thigh and pulled a cylindrical-shaped container about the size of a soda can from within. He tapped at the buttons on the surface entering a code.

“Shit, I didn’t want to do this!” He pressed the activate button and then threw it across and through the BEAM hatchway. He closed the airlock door behind him. “Go, V! Go!”

The two of them jetted across to the Vyrezka as fast as their jets would take them.

Frank and Mac worked their helmet lights back and forth, watching for any motion coming from in front of them. Dugan and Thompson had made their way into Node 1 behind them. The gunfire seemed to have stopped for a moment and Frank wasn’t sure that was a good thing or a bad thing. At least with the gunfire, he knew where the bad guys were and what they were doing. Frank suddenly caught a flicker of something out of the corner of his eye and turned his helmet in time to see a little black cylinder with some blinking lights and buttons on it. He knew an explosive when he saw one. He swatted at it but missed.

“Grenade!” he shouted.

“Shit!” Mac dropped his weapon, fired his PMU with his left hand, and grabbed the explosive with his right in an amazingly athletic catch. The PMU cold gasses sprayed out, jetting him forward into and through the BEAM all the way through the hatch to the hotel, and slammed him into the giant window of the DSIHM with the grenade between the window and his body. He saw the two men jetting by, making their escape, and one of the warheads ignited just as the explosive detonated.

The grenade was designed for space with antipersonnel pellets surrounding the charge. The metal balls tore through everything—including the bulkheads and Mac. Several of the pellets pierced the hull and partially severed the main umbilical between the Vyrezka and the DSIHM, cutting the command line. Others zipped into the rear of the igniting warhead, damaging the rocket motor and causing it to explode out one side, throwing shrapnel into the other two. The DSIHM was torn to shreds and most things in it or attached to were as well.


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