"The pilot's not a he," said Imala. "It's a she. I'm doing it."
Everyone looked at her.
Victor was so surprised it took him a moment to find words. "Imala ... we agreed that one of the MOPs would do this."
"It should be me," said Mazer. "I have the most flight experience."
"Not in space you don't," said Imala. "I'm the most qualified pilot here."
"I flew an antigrav ship on Earth," said Mazer. "I'm familiar with flying with minimal gravity."
"Minimal gravity is a world away from zero gravity," said Imala. "You're used to maintaining an orientation. This fighter has boosters on all sides to maintain a straight course. You've never flown that way. None of you have. It has to be me."
Several people turned to Wit, deferring to him.
"If Imala says she can do it, I believe her," said Wit. "What about radiation, Victor? If she's flying through a tunnel of gamma plasma, won't she die of radiation poisoning?"
It took a second for Victor to gather his thoughts. He was staring at Imala, who was looking back at him, arms folded defiantly, daring him to question her. "We've ... added several layers of shielding to the fighter," said Victor. "That should protect her. Also she'll be wearing a radiation suit like the rest of us."
"Why not use a drone?" said Mazer. "Wouldn't that be safer?"
"We considered that," said Victor, "but the radiation from the gamma plasma would interfere with the drone pilot's connection to the spacecraft. A human pilot inside the vessel is more reliable."
"Sooner or later she's going to fly into the Formic ship," said Mazer.
"She'll be decelerating the whole time," said Victor. "And we don't think the Formics will fire the gamma plasma for very long. Once the crew at the helm realizes what's happening, they'll shut off the gamma plasma. At that point the vacuum of space will work to our advantage. Any remaining radiation will be sucked out into space. We wait an hour or so to ensure it's clear, than we go in, mop up, and seize the helm."
Victor made a gesture with his stylus, and the holofield disappeared. "That's it. The ship will be ours."
Everyone waited for Wit to respond. He looked around the room. "All right, people. Let's shoot holes in this. What are we forgetting?"
There were several questions. Someone asked about the suits they would wear. Benyawe answered, pulling up the holofield again and showing them the radiation suits her team had designed.
"How long will we be in these suits?" asked ZZ.
"The cocoon flight to the ship will take three days," said Benyawe. "That's a long time to remain motionless, but you need to drift that slowly. We dare not risk you moving any faster. The suit will stimulate your muscles, and you can access food and water at any time through straws in your suit."
"How do we go to the bathroom?" asked Bungy.
Benyawe pointed to the apparatuses on the suit and explained.
"Looks painful," said Deen.
"Like all things in space," said Victor. "It takes some getting used to."
They talked for another hour, hashing out the details; then Mazer, Shenzu, and the MOPs followed Victor into the cargo bay. Victor had them line up along one wall while holding the handrail. He showed them how to launch, point their bodies, and rotate midflight to land feetfirst on the opposite wall. It was a simple move he was sure they would grasp easily, but when he invited them to try, they were awkward and tentative. "I feel like I'm going to fall," said Deen, clinging to the handrail. "I know there's no gravity, but my brain doesn't want to release the idea of an up and down. It wants to maintain the orientation we had when we came in here."
After several attempts, they gradually began to master the mechanics of the movements; although none of them ever felt particularly comfortable doing so. "Flying in the corridor is easier," said ZZ. "There's an up and down out there, and the space is confined. When we come into a big room like this, I feel this existential panic."
"It's not easy to rewire the brain," said Wit. "And that's essentially what we're doing here."
It struck Victor as strange that anyone would struggle with such an easy movement. It was second nature to him. He had been flying and launching since before he was walking.
"What's the trick, space born?" asked Deen. "You make this look easy."
Victor shrugged. "No trick. I root myself like each of you. I just do it without a gravity-conditioned mind."
"If we weren't trained paratroopers, we'd be doing much worse," said Cocktail. "We've got landing and rolling down. It's the leaping and positioning of the body that's difficult."
They practiced for several hours, making gradual improvements. Victor began to wonder if they would have been better off enlisting miners, who were clearly more accustomed to maneuvering in zero-G. But no, once they got the practice weapons out, it became obvious that the MOPs' soldiering skills were far more critical here. Their individual movements might be imperfect, but they thought as a group, functioned as a team, often without even speaking to one another.
Next Victor brought out the practice pipes that Benyawe and her team had built. They were similar in design to the pipes and nozzles of the Formic ship. Victor and two of the MOPs set them up on the far wall, and they practiced flying to them and rotating the nozzles.
They ran the drill over and over again. They practiced cutting thick sheets of metal with the laser cutters. They flew up and down the tight corridors of the Valas. They set up targets in the corridors and practiced hitting those on the move. They split into two teams and battled against each other. They played again with all of them against Wit. Or all of them against a group of three. Shenzu and Mazer held their own against the others. Victor was no soldier, and despite his superior maneuverability, he was almost always the first person tagged.
When they stopped hours later, they were all soaked in sweat.
That night no one had trouble sleeping. The Valas continued its slow approach to the Formic ship, and the next day they did all the same drills again, only now while wearing their bulky radiation suits. They were far less graceful in those, but they quickly adapted to the slight decrease in mobility. Benyawe joined them in their exercises. No one objected to her being part of their group, especially when they saw how easily she flew or how deftly she handled the tools and nozzles.
At day's end, everyone agreed they were as ready as they were going to be. The MOPs drew straws to see who would go. Wit was a given, as was Victor, Benyawe, and Shenzu. That left eight spaces. The others were all equal in their abilities, so they couldn't choose based on skill. In the end it was Bungy, ZZ, Cocktail, Deen, Bolshakov, Lobo, Caruso, and Mazer.
They slept eight hours. By then the Valas was in position and the cocoons were ready, loaded with the batteries and cable. The team ate, dressed in their suits, and climbed into their cocoons. Imala was there to see them off. The technicians from the engineering team sealed them in one by one. Victor was the last to climb inside his cocoon. His helmet was in his hands. Imala floated before him, one foot anchored to the decking.
"Fly straight," Victor said.
"I will." She brushed a hair out of her face and looked at him, concerned. "Stay close to Mazer and Wit. And don't do anything stupid."
"This whole plan is stupid."
"No. It isn't, Vico. It's a good plan. Just come back safe, okay?"
He nodded. "In my family, we would always say, 'Si somos uno, nada nos puede danar.'"
"Which means?"
"If we're one, nothing can hurt us."
"Let's hope you're right, space born."
They embraced. It was a clumsy move with him in his radiation suit. After a moment she stepped back. Victor snapped on his helmet and wiggled down into the cocoon. He connected his suit to the muscle stimulators and gave the technicians a thumbs-up. They closed the lid and all went dark. Victor turned on his HUD and watched as Imala and the technicians left the bay and sealed the hatch behind them. In front of him, the giant bay doors slowly opened, revealing the imm
ensity of space and a tiny red dot glinting far in the distance. Then the propulsion system on his cocoon gave a hiss, and he was away.
CHAPTER 22
Nozzles
Mazer touched down so gently on the surface of the Formic ship that he hardly felt the impact at all. The magnets on the cocoon initiated, and a message on his HUD told him that he was sufficiently anchored to get out. He turned the release lever by his head, and the lid above his face came free. The view before him took his breath away. The vastness of space was like a black abyss dotted with a billion pinpricks of light.
The cocoon was standing on end, anchored at his feet, he realized. He would have to climb up out the top, away from the surface of the ship, and then swing his body downward as he initiated his boot magnets.
It wasn't supposed to work that way. The cocoon was supposed to be flat against the hull, so that Mazer was on his back and could crawl out easily. I'm here for two seconds, and already everything's going wrong, he thought.
He didn't want to move. The cocoon--dangerous as it was--felt safer than the nothingness before him. He swiveled his head to the side and saw the red surface of the ship stretching out before him like a vast metal plain. He looked in the other direction, and saw more of the ship that way. It was bigger than he had imagined it, and he suddenly wondered if a hole forty meters square would be big enough to cripple the thing.
He was alone, he realized. He saw no other cocoons. There were pieces of debris out in space, but they were all so small and so far away that he didn't know if they were part of the mission or not. They had planned to stagger their arrival, but Mazer was to be one of the last to arrive, not one of the first. Was he the only one who had made it? Had the others been vaporized by the collision avoidance system?
He gripped the edge of the hole and pulled himself up, suddenly afraid that he would rock the cocoon and break the magnet's hold on the ship. Every muscle in his body tensed as he freed his feet and slowly swung downward. When his feet made contact and his boot magnets initiated, he realized he had been holding his breath.
He bent down, opened the cocoon's compartment near his feet, and pulled out his shoulder pack filled with tools. He strapped it to his back and checked his HUD. They had agreed to radio silence until they were all inside the ship. It was probably an unnecessary precaution--Victor and Imala had used radio to no ill effect--but Wit wasn't taking any chances. In the meantime Mazer could sync his HUD with the latest updates from Valas, which was tracking everyone's position and progress. With the sync, Mazer would be able to see which cannons had been disabled, if any.
When the sync came through he learned that he was the last to arrive. The person before him had arrived three hours earlier. Cocktail was supposed to be his partner in disabling two of the cannons, but the team hadn't waited for Mazer. They had disabled the cannons without him and were now moving toward the cargo bay.
Mazer brought up the map of the ship's surface in relation to his own position and saw that he had a long walk ahead of him. The cannon where he would enter the ship was several hundred meters away.
He began walking, taking soft, tentative steps across the hull, being careful to firmly plant one boot magnet before lifting another. It would be just his luck to step too quickly, lose his grip, and slip away. Death by walking.
After a few minutes he was into a rhythm. His legs were getting quite the workout, though. The magnets were strong, and each step took some effort. He was sweating profusely and breathing heavily when he saw the first cocoon in the distance lying flat, far off to his right. A minute later he saw another one to his left. When he started passing pieces of the drift debris, he knew he was getting close. He stopped and checked one of the pieces, but of course whatever equipment it was carrying had already been retrieved and carried inside.
Mazer pushed on and finally reached the damaged cannon. He crawled down into the hole and made his way into the ship. There were two bubbles over the hole, forming a makeshift airlock. When Mazer was inside the ship and the hole was sealed behind him, he turned on his radio. For a moment he heard nothing, then Wit's voice crackled in. "Make sure that wiring is secure."
Mazer said. "It's Mazer. Checking in."
"About time," said Wit. "We're in the bay setting the nets. So far so good."
"Heading your way."
He moved up the shaft. They had watched Victor's vid several times, and it was odd to experience it now in person. He passed the glow bugs, which seemed particularly agitated after so much traffic. He kept his eyes open for cart pushers but saw none.
They were done setting the nets by the time he arrived. A series of wires crisscrossed the space to a large bank of batteries anchored to the far wall, where Victor was making final adjustments.
"Oh sure," said Deen. "Mazer shows up when half the work is done. Slick move, kiwi."
Mazer smiled but said nothing. The team was gathering at the wall where they would expose the pipes. Benyawe was marking off the area with spray paint.
Mazer had been assigned to stand watch. He picked a spot high up on the wall opposite the shafts and anchored his feet. He scanned the shafts back and forth looking for any signs of movement. The plates came away faster than Mazer had expected. The lasers cut quickly and accurately, and it was easy to simply push the cut pieces away in zero-G.
They were three-fourths of the way finished when Mazer saw the first Formics. "Victor, I've got movement in shaft thirteen." The team had spray painted numbers above each shaft. Mazer zoomed in with his visor and put his rifle to his shoulder. "It's one of the large carts. Filled with wall plating. Repair crew."
Victor's voice came over the radio. He was positioned at the batteries and switches. "How many?"
"Can't tell. The shaft is dark. I can only make out vague shapes. At least five. Maybe more."
Mazer checked his HUD. The cutting crew had stopped and taken cover.
"Are they on the netting?" Wit asked.
"Not yet," said Mazer. "They're probing it."
They knew something was different. They weren't animals, baited into a simple trap. They're too intelligent to fall for this, thought Mazer. They're as smart as us. If not smarter.
One of the Formics stepped tentatively onto the mesh, approaching the end of the shaft. Then another one came forward. Then a third.
"Not yet," said Mazer.
A fourth. A fifth. Was that all of them?
They pulled the cart forward. It was close to the lip of the shaft.
"Now," said Mazer.
Victor triggered the juice, and the Formics were seized by the electricity. Mazer launched across the space toward them. He had attached his laser cutter to the barrel of his assault rifle. He sliced through the first two Formics before he had landed, cutting them in half. A stream of blood oozed from the top halves of as they slipped away from the bottom half.
Mazer came to rest to the right of the shaft. He twisted, bent forward, and cut through the others. It was gruesome work. One moment they're shaking, seized by the electricity. The next moment they're in pieces seeping droplets of blood into the air.
"Cut the power," said Mazer.
"It's cut. You're clear."
Mazer swung down into the shaft and shined his light into the darkness to see if he had missed any. The shaft was empty.
"Clear," he said.
"We need to move quickly," said Victor. "If they can speak mind to mind, they might have gotten off a message."
The crew returned to cutting, moving fast.
Mazer grabbed the pieces of sliced Formics and tossed them toward the floating debris in the cargo bay in case any others came down this same shaft. Then he shot back to his position on the opposite wall. The front of his suit and his right hand were slick with blood. He tried wiping his hand on the wall to get rid of it, but it didn't help. He put his rifle back to his shoulder and scanned back and forth, watching for movement. The shafts remained still and dark. The cutting team cut away large squares of wall. Oth
ers were already busy rotating the nozzles of the exposed pipes. Mazer had worried that the nozzles would prove stubborn or the pipes would pinch, but Benyawe led the effort and was giving careful instruction that seemed to be working.
A Formic launched from shaft twenty-five, heading straight for the cutting crew. Mazer hadn't even seen it approach the shaft entrance. Caruso, who was also on watch and perched far to Mazer's left, saw the Formic first and sliced it in the air with his laser cutter before Mazer had time to react. Four sections of the Formic separated and continued their flight to the opposite wall. The severed bloody pieces smacked into the pipes, leaking fluid.
A Formic shot from shaft fifteen. Two more from shaft thirty.
"Victor, turn on the power!" said Mazer. "All shafts."
Victor acknowledged and cranked up the juice as Mazer and Caruso sliced the Formics soaring across the space. Formic body parts spun and bled and ricocheted off the walls.
"Double-time, people," said Wit. "This place is going to be crawling with bugs any minute. Bungy, ZZ, get outside and start painting our giant square for Imala. Mazer, Caruso, check the shafts. We may have lost our element of surprise."
Caruso nodded. "I'll take the shafts on the left. Mazer, you take the ones on the right."
Mazer acknowledged and launched, his rifle up, the light on the barrel illuminating the shaft directly in front of him. A dozen sets of eyes in the darkness stared back at him, glinting in the beam of his light. One of them launched directly at him, arms outstretched, maw open. It was right when Mazer was going to rotate his body so he could land gracefully beside the shaft entrance. He fired instead. The laser went through the Formic's face, down its back, and out the other side. Mazer only had time to raise a protective arm before he collided with the corpse. They bounced off each other clumsily, with Mazer spinning away, out of control.
"Formics!" said Caruso. "Shafts twenty-one through twenty-four. I count fifty, maybe more. Shaft twenty-five, too."
Mazer struck something hard. A floating piece of debris. He was disoriented. He tried to right himself. Something hard collided with him, clinging to him, striking him in many places at once. A Formic. They crashed into another piece of debris. Mazer was in an awkward position. On his stomach. He didn't know up from down. Something struck his helmet. He flipped around to see the Formic had a piece of debris in its hand. A sharp sliver of wreckage, jagged at one edge. It would puncture and cut through Mazer's suit.