Sil -- you have very sharp eyes. AO-7 was designed with a ~13.5v (i.e. 10@ NiCd cells) bus. The RAE battery was already assembled for the NASA mission with 12 cells. As a result, two cells were not used. The Orange & Black wires going to the DA-9 connector are indeed the battery's "gozinta/gozouta" wires. a V/2 telemetry tap (white) is at the right-hand end. The other wires are for thermistors.
The battery box was carefully sized to the cells. The cells expand when they get hot (under charging) and you will see thin Teflon sheets between the cells, and thicker Teflon sheets surrounding the pack, to provide som cushion. In addition, the Teflon provided electrical insulation between the battery cases (as I recall, the cases were supposed to be insulated, but one of the failure modes for this type of battery was for the case to develop a leakage resistance to the NiCd "guts").
73, Tom