Ten minutes later it was over. Nine of the mining ships were lost. The others were intact and celebrating over the radio, thrilled to be alive. It was then that Lem realized the Valas had been trying to contact him. He responded to their pinging. "This is Lem. Go ahead."
"Mr. Jukes. The landers. They're taking off."
*
After ten seconds in the ship Wit's nose was bleeding. He felt like he was being cooked in a microwave. Every instinct told him to fly back to the safety of the launch tube and seal himself in tight with the others. The heat wasn't just burning him, it was sucking him dry, draining the life out of him like a vacuum. He had never felt so weak or sick in his life. He gripped the wheel at the base of the launch tube and turned. All of the launch tubes except for the one where the others were waiting opened with a whoosh. He could feel the air around him being sucked out of the tubes; like standing against a heavy gale. Had his feet not been anchored to the floor as Victor had suggested, he might have been sucked out as well.
The air depletion went on for almost a minute. Formic corpses flew by him, along with various small items that hadn't been tied down--all of it whisked out of the tubes and into space. Wit could feel the heat in the room dropping, as if the furnace had been turned down from high to medium heat. When it was over he stood there a moment gathering himself. There was more for him to do, he knew. He had another task. He had remembered what it was a moment ago, but it had slipped away.
Crackling static in the earpiece. "Captain O'Toole."
That was his name. Someone was calling him. The team from the tube. He turned and faced them. They were at the glass watching him, their faces concerned. Then he remembered.
"I'm all right. It's ... not bad. Like a ... really hot sauna. The radio gets through ... that's good. I'm ... going to need it."
"Let me come in and help you," said Victor.
"No. I've already been exposed. There's still radiation ... in here. Just talk me to the helm. I've got the map ... but my mind can't ... focus."
"He's too disoriented," someone said. "He'll never make it."
"Shut up and let Victor talk," another voice said.
"Move around to the other side of the console," said Victor. "You'll see a passageway on your left."
Wit tried moving. His feet wouldn't come. "My ... feet."
"Your boot magnets are initiated," said Victor. "I'll decrease their strength from here. Get ready to launch."
Wit pulled again, and this time one foot came free. He pushed off with the other and flew to the wall, making his way around the console.
His nose was bleeding worse now. There was nothing he could do to stop it. His hand couldn't reach inside his visor.
"Where's Imala?" someone asked.
"Getting close," said Victor. "She's going as slow as she can. We need to hurry."
"I'll get there," said Wit. "It's not far."
His insides were burning, like someone had built a fire in his gut. His eyes were burning, too. He wanted desperately to rub them.
Wit found the passageway. Victor told him which direction to go. Wit obeyed.
He and Father were tossing the football. The big one, the one they used in the NFL. It hurt every time Wit caught it. Like catching a big inflated stone.
Father was drawing the run on the palm of his hand, explaining a buttonhook. "You run out downfield. Then after twenty yards, about where that tree is, you turn back to the line of scrimmage and I hit you with the pass." Wit nodded. He was eight years old and big for his age.
The ball hit him in the face, square in the nose, blood was everywhere, all over his shirt. Momma would be furious. It was a school shirt. He wouldn't cry, though. Not with Father watching. The tears were there in his eyes, ready to jump out, but he wouldn't let them come. "Don't lean your head back, son. Lean it forward. Let it drip into the grass." Mother came out with the dishrag. Wit could taste the blood in his mouth. "This is why they wear helmets," Father had said, wiping gently at Wit's nose. "Does it feel broken?"
"No, sir."
"You sure?"
"Yes, sir. I just hit it hard is all."
"You caught it with your face is what you did."
"You should use one of those foam balls, David. He's too small for the real thing."
"No I'm not, Momma. I just caught it wrong. It was my fault. Please, Daddy. Let's do it again."
Father chuckled. "Your nose is still bleeding son."
Your nose is still bleeding.
Your nose is still bleeding.
Your nose is still bleeding.
"Captain! Can you hear me?"
Wit jerked awake. He was in a corridor. Floating. Alone. A dead Formic floated to his right.
"Captain. Wit. It's Victor. Can you hear me?"
"Yes ... I'm here."
"You're not responding. You missed the turn. You have to go back."
"Go back. Yes. I'm sorry."
Wit reached out to the nearest wall. Lifting his arm took more energy than he thought he had. He turned his body. He was so hot. So very hot. He had lost control of his bowels, he realized. Thank God for his suit.
"Sir, you need to hurry."
"Yes ... I'm moving.
He pulled himself forward, using a pipe as a handhold. One hand over each other. It surprised him that he still had hands. It felt as if they had burned off. It felt as if everything had burned off, as if he were floating through flames.
As if ...
He was sitting too close to the fire. He would melt the bottom of his sneakers if he wasn't careful. The smoke was thick and kept blowing in his face. Lana Taymore was beside him--lithe and freckled and wearing flip-flops. Her legs were longer than his, it seemed.
He had told his parents he was sleeping over at Harry Westover's house. That's what all the guys had told their parents: there was a sleepover at Harry Westover's house.
Some people were drinking. Wit had no idea how they had gotten the beer. Curt Woback was playing a guitar on the other side of the fire, murdering a folk song. Someone else was trying to sing along, but she didn't know all the words.
Smoke billowed into Wit's eyes again, and he fanned it away.
"Smoke follows lovers," someone said. "Smoke follows lovers."
They meant him and Lana, Wit realized. Which was stupid. She was a junior. She didn't know he existed.
"You're so immature," Lana said. She tapped Wit on the arm. "Come on. Let's leave the children. Help me get some firewood."
He got to his feet.
"Uh oh," Curt said. "They're off to the bushes. Watch yourself, O'Toole. She's got smoke fever."
They started chanting. "Smoke fever. Smoke fever. Smoke fever."
Wit followed Lana into the woods, his cheeks flushed. He hadn't brought a flashlight. He couldn't see a thing. Thin branches snagged at his face. He tripped on a stick. He bent down and picked it up. His eyes were slowly adjusting. There were other sticks nearby. He picked those up too and added them to his arms.
Lana was ahead of him. She wasn't picking up anything. "Hurry up, slowpoke."
He followed her. There was a path. He could barely make it out in the dark. They reached a pond. She walked out onto the wooden pier. He looked around. The trees were dark on all sides. He was still holding the sticks. He joined her at the end of the pier. She pulled her T-shirt off over her head in one fluid movement. She was wearing a black lacy bra underneath.
She looked at him funny. "What? You don't know how to swim?"
"Captain. You're not responding, sir."
Victor's voice again.
"I'm here," said Wit. "I'm awake."
"You've arrived, sir. You're at the helm."
Wit looked around. It was true. The helm was there before him. The hatch was open. There were the controls. There were the dead Formics. He pushed his way inside. The wheel was to his left. He reached it. Somehow he lifted his hands to it, gripped it.
"You can do this," said Victor. "Counterclockwise. As far as it will g
o."
It took a moment for Wit to remember what that meant. A clock. He knew what a clock was. The hands moved one way. "Counter" meant the other way. Counterclockwise. He pulled the wheel but it wouldn't budge. He tried again but nothing happened. Maybe when he was stronger he could have done this. But not now. He was too hot, too weak and empty. He felt so drained even breathing was difficult.
He hawked up another glob of blood and spat it out. It floated there in his helmet.
"It's ... not moving."
"It will, Captain. It will. Try again."
He tried again. Nothing happened. He wanted to sleep. That's what he needed now more than anything, to sleep, to close his eyes and rest. Sucking in air was so difficult now. He didn't have the strength for that, let alone the strength to turn a wheel.
"You can do this, Captain."
"No ... I can't."
His voice didn't sound like his own. It sounded like an old man. A dying old man--raspy and phlegmy, with rattling in the lungs.
"Try again," Victor said.
I am trying, Wit wanted to scream. I'm giving it all I have. There just isn't anything left anymore.
He pushed and turned. He changed his grip and tried again. It felt as if his gloves were filled with shards of glass. The tiniest amount of pressure on his fingers and palms sent lightning bolts of pain up his arm.
And still the wheel didn't move.
"I ... can't. Nothing ... left in me."
"Give me the holopad," a voice said. "Captain, it's Deen. Can you hear me?"
Deen. He knew that name. A friend's name. There were memories attached to that name swirling around in the soup of his mind. He tried reaching for one, but it ran through his fingers like water. Deen. A name he knew. He tried to say it aloud, to give it meaning, to define it more in his head. But when he opened his lips, no words came out, only the softest exhalation of breath.
Then the world faded. Blackness crept in from all sides. For a moment he thought he was dead. But no, he could still feel the heat, he could still hear his own wheezy, labored breaths. His eyes had stopped working. That was all. There was a word for this condition, this blackness. A simple word. He knew it. It was right there in front of him. He blinked and squinted and blinked again--an action that took enormous effort--but he still saw only darkness.
"His blood pressure is dropping fast," said a voice.
"Captain, it's Deen. We're going to sing you a cadence. That's what moves a soldier. Isn't that what you always said, sir? The beat moves the feet. The feet moves the man. The man moves the world."
Yes, thought Wit. He had said that. Many times. A marching cadence. Yes, that's what he needed.
"It's a cadence you taught us, sir. One you learned in the SEALs."
The SEALs, thought Wit. I am a SEAL. Before I became a MOP I trained as a SEAL. The memory made him smile.
Deen began, leading the group, shouting each line alone in the singsongy rhythm of the cadence. The others echoed him, shouting as one.
"Heyyyyyy there, Army!"
"Heyyyyyy there, Army!"
"Backpacking Army!"
"Backpacking Army!"
"Pick up your packs and follow me!"
"Pick up your packs and follow me!"
"We are the Sons of UDT!"
"We are the Sons of UDT!"
Wit smiled and gripped the wheel. He had sung those words a thousand times during Hell Week, the most rigorous, painful, five and half days of his SEAL training. He had thought he would die at the time. He had never experienced such physical exertion, such pain, such relentless battering to his body. But the song, the song had steeled him. The song, sung by brothers, had carried him through. It had carried them all through. For twenty-four months of backbreaking training, it had carried them through.
The Sons of UDT. That's what the SEALs were. The Underwater Demolition Team was the precursor special commando unit to the SEALs. The UDT had been the crazy ones, the pioneers of combat swimming, from World War II through Vietnam. The cadence was a message to every other branch of the military. Come. Run alongside us, fight with us, whatever you can do, we can do as well. Sea, land, air. We are the sons of the UDT.
Deen didn't stop. He knew every verse. Sing, Deen, Wit wanted to say. Sing for me.
"Heyyyyy there, Marine Corps!"
"Heyyyyy there, Marine Corps!"
"Bullet-sponge Marine Corps!"
"Bullet-sponge Marine Corps!"
"Pick up your steps and run with me!"
"Pick up your steps and run with me!"
"We are the Sons of UDT!"
"We are the Sons of UDT!"
It was not about physical strength, Wit reminded himself. It was 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. That's what the SEAL instructors were looking for: men and women who could disregard the pleadings of the body. Pain was nothing, sleep was nothing. What was freezing water to a SEAL mind? What was chaffed skin, wrecked muscles, bleeding sores? The body chooses to be sore. The body chooses to be exhausted. But the SEAL mind rejects it. The SEAL mind commands the body, not the other way around.
The wheel was nothing. The radiation was nothing. The blood in his nose and throat and gums and bowels was nothing. The heat was nothing. The Formics were nothing. They were bugs to be squished, bugs to be stepped upon.
He tried turning it again. It wouldn't obey. The beat of the cadence was like the beat of a drum. He hawked up another globule of blood, spat to the corner of his helmet, and tried turning it again. His arm was going to rip out of its socket. Fine. Take my arm. I have another. And here take my leg, I have another one of those, too. And here take my torso, take it all. But you can't have my mind. I am a son of the UDT. I am a son of David and Jeanine O'Toole. I am a son of Earth. And you, you bug-eyed bastards, cannot have my mind.
He pulled, he twisted, he grit his bleeding teeth. Something broke inside him, something snapped or came loose. A muscle perhaps, or a ligament, or bone. Wit ignored it. He pulled, straining, screaming, burning in the darkness.
The wheel turned. An inch at first. But then more.
Two inches. Three. Six. Twelve.
"Heyyyyyy there, Navy!"
"Heyyyyyy there, Navy!"
"World's finest Navy!"
"World's finest Navy!"
"Set a course and follow me!"
"Set a course and follow me!"
"We are the sons of UDT!"
"We are the sons of UDT!"
CHAPTER 24
Landers
The gamma plasma disappeared. The tunnel of light was gone. Imala responded immediately and spun away, getting clear. She had been in a slow drift for over an hour and it had become harder and harder to stay within the tunnel. Four more kilometers, and she would have collided with the ship. That was far, far too close.
She punched the rockets and took off, accelerating away as fast as she could, the G-forces slamming her against her seat.
"I'm clear," she said over the radio. "I don't know if you can hear me, Vico, but I'm clear."
*
Inside the sealed launch tube, Victor and the others stared at Wit's biometrics on the holopad. All of the numbers had dropped to zero. The heart monitor was a flat line. The flashing message that had beeped and warned of an impending fatality had gone silent. Deen and the others had stopped singing. There was no need to continue anymore.
Imala's voice crackled over the radio. She was clear. She was alive. She was laughing. She didn't yet know what had happened.
Before anyone could speak, another transmission came. "Acknowledge. Acknowledge. Repeat. If you can hear me, Victor, acknowledge."
It was Lem. Victor wiped his holopad clear and popped up the holo antennas in the four corners. Lem's head appeared before them.
"Lem. It's Victor. We read you."
"Where the hell have you have been? I've been hailing you for ten minutes."
"You weren't getting through. It was the radiation. We've taken the ship."
"Yes, well the Fo
rmics know that and now they're coming to take it back. Both landers have launched from Earth. Every Formic on the planet climbed back inside the landers, and now they're coming for you. All of them."
The landers? Victor looked at the faces of the others. No one said a word.
"Our shatter boxes are useless," said Lem. "They won't initiate unless they're exactly opposite each other, and the cables aren't long enough to get on opposing sides of the lander obviously. Our lasers aren't doing much better. We're leaving scratches and scorch marks and that's it. The landers' shields must be down, but we don't have the firepower to take advantage."
"Are you still in the Valas?" asked Victor.
"I'm in my fighter," said Lem. "I'm with ships of the shield. We're tracking with the landers, coming your way, but we can't stop them. Nothing can stop them."
"We can't let them reattach to the ship," said Mazer. "If that happens, they'll retake it. It's over."
"They'll retake it," said Deen, "but they can't go anywhere. We scuttled it."
"They'll repair it," said Mazer. "They'll kill us, fix the ship, and get right back to taking Earth."
"What about a nuke from Earth?" said Victor. "If their shields are down--"
"Won't work," sad Lem. "None of us are armed with nukes. If we had a military fleet already out here, it would be a different story, but we don't. We've got a few mining ships with a few useless weapons. I'm sorry. Maybe we can reach you first and get you out in time."
"I'm not leaving," said Mazer. "We took this ship and we're holding it."
"How?" asked Shenzu.
"We destroy the landers before they reattach," said Mazer. "This ship is a weapon. We use it against them. We've done it once. Let's do it again."
They all looked at Victor.
"Is that possible?" asked Shenzu.
Victor thought a moment. "Maybe. If we can leave the launch tube and get back inside the ship. Benyawe, what are the radiation levels?"
"They've plummeted ever since Wit cut the gamma plasma. And they're dropping further by the second. It's nearly ventilated. In a few minutes, we could probably go back inside."
"Probably?" said Shenzu. "I'd like something a little more definitive than 'probably.'"
"If Benyawe says we'll be fine, we'll be fine," said Victor. "And I'm with Mazer. We should hold the ship and destroy the landers, if we can."
"What are we suggesting here?" said Shenzu. "Fire gamma plasma at the ship? We can't do that. If we open the gamma plasma again, we'll send radiation back into the ship through the rotated nozzles. We'd kill ourselves."