Lem felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It was as if he had suddenly peeled back a layer of the Formics and discovered something far more sinister underneath. That voice belonged to someone. And Lem got the sense that it was more dangerous and more powerful than anything he had seen so far.
Another one of the technicians leaned back and got his attention. “Mr. Jukes. You better come see this.”
Lem joined him at his console.
“Not all of the transports are returning to the landers, sir. Some of them are lifting up into the atmosphere.”
“Show me.”
Two video feeds appeared on the terminal screen in front of the tech. They were both taken from people’s personal cameras. In each, the transports shot up into the clouds.
“You’re sure these aren’t heading toward the landers?”
“I’m sure, sir. I tracked them. They’re moving away from the landers, out over the South China Sea, gaining altitude.” More blips appeared on his screen. Three. Four. A dozen. Twenty.
“What’s happening?” said Lem.
The technician was busy for a moment before answering. “These are all transports, sir. They’re all heading into space.”
“Contact Captain Chubs on the Makarhu,” said Lem. “That’s one of the Juke ships maintaining the shield above Earth. Tell him he’s got a few dozen transports heading his way. I want their shatter boxes ready and loaded. Those transports are heading back to the Formic ship. Tell him that under no circumstances is he to let a single one through.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lem hurried back to the first technician.
“I’ve checked a few more vids, sir, and you were right. The Formics all respond at the same time.”
“Forget that. You have a new job. I want you to pull up the feeds coming from the strike team inside the Formic ship. I want you to tell me exactly the moment when the crew first made contact with a Formic inside. The moment our men were discovered.”
The tech rewound feeds and searched and worked.
“Don’t give me our time,” said Lem. “I want to know what time it was in China. The time zone you mentioned before.”
The technician took a moment more. “It’s tough to say when that exact moment was, sir. Is it when we first shocked the Formics, when the others attacked later—”
“When we shocked the first one.”
“That would be 4:32 p.m. and 48 seconds, China time.”
“Five seconds before all the Formics on Earth received their message. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“What are you thinking, sir? You think the Formics on the ship called the others back to help?”
“What else could it mean?”
“Five seconds isn’t enough time, sir. That’s barely enough time to form a response, let alone send and receive a transmission to Earth. There should be a time delay.”
Lem wasn’t going to argue the point. Part of him didn’t think it was possible either. But there it was.
“I’m going to my fighter,” Lem said. “Send me updates on the strike team. I want to know the instant they disable that ship.”
He flew out of the helm and to the back of the ship to the locker rooms. He put on his suit and helmet and flew to the airlock. His fighter was anchored to the hull of the ship outside. He waited for the airlock to give him the all clear, then he opened the hatch. The tube led straight to his cockpit. He flew in, buckled up, and decoupled. His fighter drifted away. He moved slowly toward the rear of the Valas. Then, he put the Valas between him and the Formic ship so the Formics couldn’t see his movements, then he punched it and rocketed toward the shield. He had sixteen shatter boxes loaded into his sling. He hadn’t trained as much as the other pilots. There hadn’t been time. But he had flown all of Benyawe’s simulations, and she had dubbed him a decent shot.
He hoped she had been right. If the shield fell, if a fleet of transports reached the Formic ship, all was lost. Wit and Mazer and the others wouldn’t last an hour.
* * *
Imala sat in her fighter several hundred kilometers away from the Formic ship, watching the helmet feeds and feeling completely helpless. She wanted desperately to rush to Victor’s aid, to do something, anything, but she couldn’t. If she moved, the Formics would fire too soon. She would trigger the pipes and nozzles and unleash the plasma prematurely, while everyone was still inside. She would kill the entire strike team.
She dared not say anything over the radio either. Talking to them would only distract them from the job at hand. All she could do was sit and wait for her cue: for them to tell her that they were out, that she was a go.
But what if that message never came? What if they were overrun in the shafts? What if they were trapped inside?
“Fly back to the Valas,” Victor had said. “If we fail, get safe.”
She had nodded at the time, but she had never intended to obey. If they rotated the nozzles, she was going to charge, even if they failed to get out, even if the mission was essentially over. She could still do her part. She could still cripple the ship.
Her console beeped. It had detected the “X” painted on the surface. She pulled up the image and zoomed it. There it was, glowing as promised. Bungy had come through. The “X” was sloppy, but it was enough for the computers to detect and target. ZZ was supposed to have helped paint, but he had been hit in the shaft right at the exit.
Imala closed her eyes and shook her head. Three dead. And so far only Bungy was out.
She gripped the flight stick. Her hands were trembling. Victor wasn’t half the solider ZZ had been. Not even close. And if ZZ hadn’t made it …
No. She couldn’t think that way. She had to act on facts. And the only fact that mattered right now was that the “X” was painted. The nozzles were turned. All of them. She was going. Whether the crew got out or not she was going.
* * *
Victor launched up the shaft, breathing hard. He collided with Benyawe, who collided with whoever was ahead of her. They had been moving this way for almost a hundred meters now, advancing up the shaft in a stop-go-stop-go manner. They were all positioned in a line, but you could only advance when the person ahead of you advanced. And the space—which was narrow and tight to begin with—was now cluttered with Formic corpses.
Victor waited for the line to advance. Shenzu was behind him, with Deen bringing up the rear, firing a steady stream of ammo and lasers back down the shaft toward the cargo bay. Dozens of Formics were clamoring up the shaft after them, crawling on top of each other, scrabbling forward, coming up the shaft like water rising in a well.
“Move!” Deen kept yelling. Or, “More clips! More clips!”
Ammo clips kept being passed down the chain to Deen, who shot at and sliced the Formics to ribbons as he shuffled backward up the shaft. This didn’t slow the Formics in the least, however. The advancing mob consumed the dead ones and pushed them back, surging forward, never slowing.
“Move!” said Deen. “Launch!”
Benyawe had a clear path. She launched, and Victor launched right behind her, colliding with her before she had reached the person ahead. That sent her into one of the walls and stopped her.
“Keep moving!” said Deen. “Don’t stop!”
More flashes of gunfire. More launching. More orders screamed. Victor’s heart was hammering in his chest. They weren’t going to make it. Deen would be overrun any moment. The Formics were less than ten meters away.
Victor felt a rush of air. The hole ahead. Wit had reached the hole and pulled it. The air in the shaft was being sucked out into the vacuum of space.
There was ten meters of empty space between Victor and Shenzu behind him, who had stopped to help Deen fight back the onslaught.
Suddenly a wall slid down into place just below Victor’s feet, sealing off the shaft and leaving Shenzu and Deen on the other side with the Formics.
“What happened?” said Benyawe.
“The shafts,” said Victor
, “they’re gas isolated. They must automatically seal when they detect a leak. There’s nothing you can do. Keep going. I’ll cut them free.”
She launched away.
Victor bent down the shaft and immediately started cutting with his laser. It seemed painfully slow. He wasn’t going to reach them in time. The Formics would overrun them, and when he opened it, he would only unleash the Formics onto himself.
After a long painful minute, the hole was cut. Shenzu immediately burst through, colliding hard into Victor and sending him ricocheting up the shaft. Another rush of air as the vacuum sucked up the shaft from below.
“Where’s Deen?” Victor shouted.
A moment later Deen’s head appeared through the hole, he was still firing his laser below him. Victor couldn’t see; Shenzu was blocking his way.
“He’s hit,” said Shenzu. “Three in his legs.”
Deen tried to push off with his legs, but it was no good. His legs were useless. Victor saw the projectiles protruding from Deen’s thigh, like narrow black darts.
“Take him,” said Shenzu. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
He passed Deen up, who winced and moaned.
“We need to get these out now,” said Victor. “We’re in the vacuum of space. Your suit is punctured.”
“You can’t pull them out,” said Deen. “I’ll bleed to death. You’ve got to patch the holes with the darts still in.”
Shenzu was firing down in to the hole, but not with the same urgency that Deen had before. The Formics left in the shaft were asphyxiating.
“Do it,” Deen said to Victor. “Put the seal casts on now. I’ll die if you don’t.”
Two of the darts had embedded close together into the meat of his right thigh. The other one was protruding from his left calf muscle. Deen was wincing from the pain and gritting his teeth.
His suit had detected the punctures and inflated rings around the damaged area to seal off the escape of air, but this was only a temporary fix. Victor would have to move quickly. He unzipped his tool bag and pulled out his med kit. Shenzu did the same. They each had a sealant cast. One cast was big enough to cover both of the darts on this leg. A second cast would go over his calf.
“I need to cut the darts first,” said Victor, pulling out his laser. “You’ve got three inches protruding. When I put on the cast, it will squeeze the area tight and press the dart deeper into your leg. I need to cut as close to your leg as possible.”
“Don’t talk. Just do,” said Deen.
“This is going to hurt.”
Victor gently pressed the suit down around the first dart as far as he could. Deen winced and went rigid but said nothing. Being careful not to damage the suit, Victor made the first cut, then the second, then the last.
Deen tried to laugh. “I’ll make sure you get your field medic certification when this is over, space born.”
Victor delicately slid the first cast over Deen’s boot and up his leg to his thigh, pausing at the darts. The cast was essentially an elastic sleeve until it was turned on, at which point, it squeezed the area tight as a glove and sealed everything at the edges.
“Do it,” said Deen.
Victor slid the cast up over the two darts and pinched the button. The cast shrunk and Deen screamed through gritted teeth. When the cast stopped, Deen’s breathing was labored, and his face was red and perspiring. “Do the other one. Faster this time. I’m losing my patience.”
Victor did. Deen swore and banged a fist against the inside of the shaft.
When it was done, he exhaled and said, “Whew! We should charge admission to this place. This is more fun than an amusement park.”
They got moving again. Victor clawed his way forward, pulling Deen behind him, who had no use of his legs. Benyawe was long gone, so the path was clear and they moved quickly. Shenzu brought up the rear.
They found Mazer waiting inside the shaft just beyond the exit hole. There was so much blood on Mazer’s suit that for an instant Victor thought the man was dead. Then Mazer moved and waved them to proceed up the hole, offering to be the last man out. The shield Mazer had made and pushed up the shaft was ahead of him, bloody and tossed to the side. Mazer had apparently set up a defensive position here to keep the Formics from taking the shaft from the other direction. Now a gas-isolation wall sealed off the shaft ten meters ahead.
No words were said. The blood obviously wasn’t Mazer’s.
Moments later they all were outside. The rest of the team was already at the rendezvous point on the surface a distance away.
“Hold still,” Victor said to Deen.
The spool of wire was still on Victor’s belt, left over from wiring the batteries. He quickly wrapped several meters around Deen’s chest and then tied it off to his own shoulder bag. “I’ll pull you behind me. The wire will hold, but we can lock wrists if that will make you feel more secure.”
“A hospital bed on solid ground would make me feel secure,” said Deen, “but a good grip and strong wire will suffice for now.”
They got moving across the surface, with Deen floating behind Victor like a kite, clinging to his hand. Minutes later they saw the others, clustered together in the middle of a giant aperture. It was the top of one of the launch tubes the Formics had used to launch reinforcements down to Earth. The gamma plasma couldn’t reach them here.
As soon as Victor and the others were inside the circle, Wit said, “Okay, Imala. You’re on. Light up and fly straight.”
Imala’s voice crackled back over the radio. “Roger that.”
She was trying to sound confident, but Victor could detect a hint of fear in her voice. He had installed several large blinking lights to make the ship as conspicuous as possible once Imala started. Victor looked up, zoomed in with his visor, and saw in the distance the tiniest twinkle of light.
* * *
Imala tapped the boosters and rotated the ship slightly to get it into position. This would be the most difficult part of the process. The computer had a lock on the “X,” and the guidance system would do most of the work. All she had to do was make sure the ship was in alignment from the get-go and slow down as soon as she was able. It was a simple job, really. Anyone could have done it. She might be the most qualified space pilot of the bunch, but it didn’t have to be her at the stick. Victor had known that, of course. And yet he hadn’t argued the point when she had insisted it be her. Maybe he had seen the determination in her face and he had known better than to press the issue. Or maybe he simply had understood that she needed to do this, that she had to contribute somehow.
She’d like to think it was the latter reason: that he understood her.
The shapes on her screen aligned and turned green, signaling she was set.
She tapped the boosters and accelerated. Heavy metal plates covered the ship completely, acting as a radiation shield, but the cameras outside fed straight to her HUD. The lights blinked and ran back and forth across the front of the ship like a home decorated for the holidays. A neon sign that read SHOOT ME wouldn’t have been more obvious.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. The ship was still a tiny dot in the distance. It would be better if the Formics fired sooner than later. The closer she got to the ship, the narrower the tunnel she would be flying into.
The ship grew in size. They should have fired by now. Were the Formics inside all dead, she wondered? Had Victor and the others killed the Formics who monitored the ship’s defenses?
Suddenly she was bathed in light. A square of it all around her, like diving into a cube. It felt as if the tips of the spacecraft were inches from it. She fired retros and kept the ship steady, slowing down but still moving at a decent speed. The radiation reading outside was well into the red.
The Formics would shut it off any moment now, she knew. They would realize they were killing themselves, and they would turn off the gamma plasma.
Only they didn’t. It continued.
Imala was suddenly seized with panic. If they didn’t shut it
off, she would die. She would fly right into the ship. If she wasn’t crushed on impact she would ricochet into the line of fire. Or, if she slowed to a negligible speed, she would drift into the plasma.
Had it not worked? Maybe the rotated nozzles hadn’t fired inward. Maybe the act of rotating them had simply made them inoperable. Maybe the ship wasn’t damaged at all and this was all for naught.
She tried calling Victor over the radio, but of course that was impossible with all the radiation. She yelled at the cube of light. Yelled for it to stop.
But it didn’t.
* * *
“Why haven’t they killed the plasma?” asked Wit. “They should have shut it off by now.”
They were gathered around his holopad above the launch tube. On screen it looked as if the Formic ship was being skewered. Beams of plasma shot forth from one side, encircling Imala, while the rotated nozzles fired a column of plasma out the other side, blowing a hole clean through.
Only now it wouldn’t stop.
“What’s happening inside the ship?” asked Mazer.
Benyawe had left sensors in the cargo bay and shaft. She checked her wrist pad. “Radiation levels are skyrocketing. They’re much, much higher than we thought they would be. A hundred times higher.”
“What about the Formics inside?” asked Mazer.
“Dying or dead,” said Benyawe.
“And the flight crew?” said Wit. “The ones who are supposed to turn off the plasma?”
Victor opened his holopad and checked the cam feed he had left in the helm. Formic corpses floated in the space. “They’re dead as well.”
“So there’s no one to shut off the pipes?” said Shenzu.
Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) Page 36