“Mazer,” said Bingwen over the radio, suddenly panicked, “what are you doing? Get out here.”
“The Formics don’t know how many of us there are,” said Mazer. “So here’s the plan. Bingwen, you get visual contact on their ship. We need to know what it is and what it’s made of. If it’s hullmat, there’s nothing we can do, and you stay put until they leave and hope they don’t scuttle the selenop. Nak, you watch the perimeter. Scan as much of space around us as you can see. Find out if there are others in the area, or if this Formic vessel is here alone. If their ship is not covered in hullmat, if it’s vulnerable, and if it is alone, both of you sneak up on it and scuttle it. Find the retros and damage those first. If it can’t turn, it can’t chase us. Thrusters in the back are next. It won’t take much to disable them. Then get to the selenop.”
“We’re not leaving you,” said Bingwen.
“I certainly hope not,” said Mazer. “My job is to keep them busy inside to give you the time you need to scuttle the ship. The one exception is if I’m dead. I’m sending you a link to my biometrics. If I flatline, follow orders, then get to GravCamp. All the data’s in your pouch.”
Mazer then switched on his dark-vision tech, put the slaser to his shoulder, and moved into the corridor.
CHAPTER 3
Saboteurs
Ansible transmission between Colonel Chin Li and Oliver Crowe, director of ASH. File #487766 Office of Hegemony Sealed Archives, Imbrium, Luna, 2119
* * *
CROWE: Your students are surprisingly thorough in their analysis. They’ve identified fifty-three commanders who don’t deserve their posts. Most of these names match what my own analysts had already identified, but there are some new ones here we hadn’t considered.
LI: That might not even be a complete list. I have yet to receive reports from two of my finest students, who are currently investigating the Kandahar.
CROWE: Sending them on that mission wasn’t wise. If we lose two of our candidates now, we may lose support from the Hegemon.
LI: We will only lose his support if he learns of their loss.
CROWE: Believe me, if anything happens, Ukko Jukes will learn of it.
LI: Then we will take every precaution.
CROWE: See that you do. If we don’t control these boys, we don’t control the future.
* * *
Bingwen stayed low as he crept forward along the surface of the Kandahar, taking one deliberate step after another as the tether cable slowly extended behind him. In the near total darkness, he could see very little ahead of him. The black surface of the ship stretched out before him, like a giant metal hill he had to summit, ending at a distant horizon line high above his head, beyond which was even more blackness dotted with stars. He couldn’t see any Formic ship or, for that matter, the selenop. The curvature of the ship made that impossible from his current position. He was on the opposite side, assuming the Formics had landed near the hole, which seemed likely.
Bingwen glanced behind him, where Nak had anchored himself flat against the hull of the ship on his back, gripping the surface with his NanoGoo boots and turning his helmet slowly from side to side as he scanned space around them. It wouldn’t be a thorough scan. There could be an armada of Formic ships on the other side of the Kandahar and Nak wouldn’t see them from his current position. He’d need to circumnavigate the ship to scan in every direction.
Bingwen glanced into the upper right-hand corner of his visor where Mazer’s biometrics were projected. Mazer had an elevated heart rate, but that was to be expected. His body would be pumping adrenaline and all kinds of survival-based neurotransmitters. Bingwen only wished he could see Mazer’s camera feed.
Bingwen was moving too slowly. Each step of his boots with the goo felt like slogging through the muddy rice paddies back home, like he had buckets of cement on his soles. He needed to pick up the pace. If there were Formics, they might be harming the selenop. Maybe they had the same battle plan that Mazer did: take out the enemies’ transport, cut off their escape, isolate, and kill.
“NanoGoo command override,” he said. “Toes only.”
“Warning,” a woman’s voice said. “The full surface of the sole is recommended to—”
“Warning received. Override and execute.”
At once his boot grip on the surface of the ship lessened. His heels were suddenly free, while the front third of his soles still clung to the ship like flypaper. He moved nearly twice as fast now. No longer did he have to wait for the full sole to lock. But the risk of the goo not gripping tight enough or not finding enough surface scratches to hold on to was exponentially higher. He could easily slip off and drift away from the ship. Then he would have to climb up the tether cable to reach the ship again, and it would put him back where he had started at the cargo bay.
He found a seam in the surface of the ship where two hull plates met, stretching out before him in the direction he was heading. He moved to it and tightrope-walked the seam forward, which relaxed him a bit. The goo easily seeped into the seam at each step and secured a firm hold.
Twice he released his foot too soon, causing his heart to skip a beat in panic, but in both instances he slammed his second foot down and reattached himself before he could drift away. Moving up the seam, he got into a rhythm, moving about half the speed of a belly crawl, which still felt painfully slow, but much faster than he was moving before.
“Status, Nak?”
“No birds in the sky that I can see. But I need to move around to the other side of the ship to make sure. Any sign of the uglies?”
“Nothing,” said Bingwen. “But I’m not close enough. Check the far side and tell me what you see. Mazer? what’s your status?”
“I got visual on three Formics ahead of me in the corridor,” came back the quiet reply. “Maybe twenty yards away. Pressure suits, jar weapons. They’re checking the Frenchman. There’s a lot of debris between them and me, so my view is somewhat obstructed. I can’t tell if there are more behind them or not.”
Formics, thought Bingwen. Confirmed. The Frenchman’s wrist pad flashed in his mind: took three crewmen alive.
“You got a visual on their ship?”
“Negative,” said Bingwen. “But advancing. Mazer, you need to get out if they have jar weapons.”
Jar weapons fired doilies, which were flat, bioluminescent webbed creatures encased in a thick tarlike substance that exploded violently almost instantly after striking a target.
“The debris in the corridor is working in my favor,” said Mazer. “The obstructions will make it hard for them to get a shot to my position, whereas I can pick them off. Let’s keep chatter to a minimum. We both need to concentrate.”
Bingwen remained silent and advanced up the seam. The slaser rifle was held tight in his hands and anchored to his arm via the anchor strap, but his arm was so thin that the strap set to its tightest position still felt awkward and loose. The gun was no better. The grip felt far too fat for Bingwen’s small gloved fingers.
A bump became visible above the horizon line. As Bingwen neared, the bump rose and came into full view. A microship, maybe half the size of the selenop. Bingwen couldn’t make out much definition from this distance, though he doubted it was covered in hullmat. Every microship the Fleet had discovered was covered in crudely processed metal and looked like a piece of untreated iron that had been left to rust for years out in the rain.
“Microship,” said Bingwen. “Anchored near the hole. No hullmat. No Formics. I’m moving in closer.”
He would be in the open now, completely exposed, without any shielding whatsoever. He stayed low. The microship continued to rise above the horizon line as it came more into view. And then Bingwen saw the selenop as well. A Formic was crawling over its surface, perhaps looking for a way inside.
“Formic on the selenop. Mazer, I’m taking the shot. You ready to engage?”
“Don’t take that shot,” said Mazer. “They’ll know you’re out there. If I engage the
m, the one on the selenop might leave it and join his buddies. I want both of you unseen. Stand by. Engaging.”
The radio went silent, but Mazer had obviously opened fire in the corridor because the Formic on the selenop whipped his head around toward the hole and immediately began crawling off the selenop and then across the surface of the ship toward the hole, like a roach scurrying away from a bright light.
Bingwen didn’t move. If the Formic looked in his direction, he would be spotted.
The Formic disappeared down the hole, and Bingwen picked up his pace. He so desperately wished he could run forward. To move so slowly was maddening.
“Nak, what do you see?”
“A lot of empty space.”
“Watch close. If there’s something out there, they’ll be moving in now. Mazer has engaged them inside, which means every Formic in the system probably knows we’re here.”
He checked Mazer’s biometrics again. Heart rate steady. Still alive. Come on, Mazer. Stay with us.
“Three dead, but more coming,” said Mazer. “Retreating back toward the cargo bay.”
“Almost to the microship,” said Bingwen.
He didn’t have to wait further. He could see the thrusters in the back from here. Maybe twenty meters away. He brought the slaser up and targeted the center of a thruster. Mazer had said to take out the retros first, but Bingwen couldn’t see those.
He fired.
A steady beam of red heat bore into the thruster. Bingwen didn’t know what he was hitting exactly, but he was causing all kinds of damage. He could see metal turning red hot and liquefying. He moved the beam around, cutting one way and then another. Then shifted the beam to the thruster beside it. There were six thrusters total. Did he need to take them all out?
A shape flashed above him, soaring overhead, trailed by a thin cable tether. Nak’s cable went taut and he swung downward fast toward the surface of the ship. He somehow got his feet under him at the last moment and landed in a squatting position about ten meters to the left of the microship. “Okay. That was either brilliant or incredibly stupid.”
“You pendulum swung from the other side the ship?” said Bingwen.
“I figured I’d get here a lot faster. A miracle I landed that. I hope my helmet was recording.”
“Take out the retros on that side,” said Bingwen.
“On it.”
Nak raised the slaser. “Oof, this thing feels like an elephant gun. Apologies in advance if I shoot you.”
“Just don’t hit the selenop. Come in closer if you need to.”
Bingwen continued slicing the thrusters. He burned through another one, then a fourth. A hatch opened on the microship, and a Formic emerged. It moved faster than Bingwen thought possible, scurrying toward the back of the microship and leaping in Bingwen’s direction. Bingwen brought up the beam and caught the Formic midflight, slicing him through the center of his abdomen up through his head. But the Formic already had momentum, and it had executed its launch perfectly. Its dead body slammed into Bingwen, ripping him away from the surface of the ship and launching him backward into space.
Bingwen spun end over end, his head ringing, his chest throbbing with pain. The ship spun by his field of vision, then spun by again, but farther away. He couldn’t stop himself, his orientation was gone. He felt like a rag doll. “Warning,” said the women’s voice. “Suit breach, chest area. Warning. Suit breach, chest area.” Alarms were going off in his helmet.
His body snapped in half, or so it seemed, as his helmet slammed into his knees and his violent spin and motion came to a sudden and more violent stop. Pain, like a blanket, covered him all at once. His tether line had grown taut and reached its full extension, he realized. He was spinning again, but slower, moving back toward the ship in a slow rotation, stars whirring past his visor. The dead Formic was nowhere in sight.
“Warning. Suit breach, chest area.”
He was leaking air, he realized. His head was ringing. He felt like vomiting. He tried looking down at his chest, but the metal ring in his suit where his helmet attached made it hard for him to look directly at the top half of his chest.
“Warning. Suit breach, chest area.”
If he had a leak, he couldn’t see it. He could see his suit from the sternum down. Everything above that was beyond his field of view.
“Warning. Suit breach, chest area.”
“Where specifically? I can’t see it.” He fumbled for his cargo pouch. No, not that one; the data cube and wrist pad were in that one. Couldn’t lose that. His hands found the other pouch, the one with the sealant tape.
“Warning. Suit breach, chest area.”
“Yes, I know. Warning end. Siren off.”
His helmet went quiet. “Where is the breach exactly?”
“Chest area.”
“Where on the chest area?”
“Chest area.”
Bingwen was screaming. “That doesn’t help.” He pulled the tape dispenser from the pouch. Could he feel the escaping air with his hand? He brought up a gloved hand to the area beneath the metal ring but felt nothing. His oxygen indicator on his visor was flashing. He was down to 17 percent. He was at 40 percent only a minute ago. He was leaking fast.
He brought the tape dispenser to his chest and began applying the sealant tape strips in random lines high on his chest. He moved quickly, applying multiple layers at the base of the ring. Perhaps the impact had separated the ring from the fabric.
The flashing leak warning stopped. Whatever he had done had sealed it, though how well Bingwen didn’t know. Oxygen was now at 13 percent.
Stars around him continued to spin, and his tether cable was now bunched up all around him in a knotted mess.
“Bingwen, you all right?”
Nak’s voice.
“Focus on the microship,” said Bingwen. “I’ll reel myself in.”
He gingerly grabbed at the tether cable in front of him, worried that any big movements might break whatever tenuous seal he had placed over his suit breach. But it didn’t matter anyway, because the cable was out of reach, and he had no means of stopping his spin.
He reached behind him instead until he found the place where the cable’s end anchored to his back. He gripped the line and quickly began sliding his hand up the cable to bring in the slack. A moment later the line suddenly went taut and his body snapped forward, bending at the waist. Bingwen lost his grip on the cable, but he soon realized it didn’t matter. Someone was pulling him back toward the ship.
“It’s me,” said Mazer. “You all right?”
The bay doors were open by several meters, and Bingwen could see Mazer inside anchored to the floor, pulling the cable in hand over hand.
“The Formics?” Bingwen asked.
“Dead. Five of them. What about the microship?”
“Not going anywhere, even if there is another Formic inside it, which I doubt. Thrusters disabled. Nak took out some retros. I’ve got a breach in my suit. I’ve covered it with tape, but I don’t know how long it will hold.”
“We’re getting out of here,” said Mazer. “Nak, get to the selenop.”
“Already on my way. You okay, Bingwen?”
“I will be once we’re inside.”
Mazer reeled him in, and they ditched the tether cable and quickly maneuvered back through the corridors. They passed the dead Formics drifting in the corridor, and Bingwen hurried around them, fearful that they weren’t quite dead and might spring back to life and attack.
They didn’t.
When Bingwen and Mazer reached the hull, Bingwen moved to the blinking console.
“We’re not hanging around to dig for data,” said Mazer. “We’re leaving. Now. We were spotted, which means the Hive Queen knows we’re here and may send reinforcements.”
Bingwen didn’t argue. They untied their original tether lines from the flight chair and hooked them back into the rear of their suits.
“If we walk, it will take forever,” said Mazer. “You wi
lling to launch to the selenop?”
“I’m willing to try.”
They climbed up out of the hole. Bingwen positioned himself on the far side of the hole, then pushed off toward the selenop. The curvature of the ship worked against him, as the selenop wasn’t directly in his path. He overshot, but he reached downward as he passed over the selenop’s roof. His fingers scraped across the surface, desperate for purchase. Then his hand hit a handhold, and Bingwen gripped tight, stopping his forward motion. Mazer had an easier time of it and was back in the airlock before Bingwen crawled along the hull from one handhold to the next. When he finally swung down into the airlock, he found Mazer and Nak waiting for him. Mazer sealed the airlock door, and in ten minutes, the room was pressurized again. Bingwen had three percent oxygen when he finally removed his helmet and breathed in the cool stale air.
Mazer moved instantly toward the flight controls and detached the selenop from the Kandahar by reeling in the anchor arms. Bingwen and Nak braced themselves against the wall as Mazer pulled the craft up and away from the wrecked ship.
“Strap in,” said Mazer. “We’re punching out of here.”
Bingwen and Nak climbed up into their flight seats and began attaching the oxygen and vitals-monitoring equipment. Mazer climbed into the seat between them and did the same.
“That data from the recon drone better be worth it,” said Nak.
Bingwen smiled. “That cushy quiet teaching position at GravCamp isn’t looking so bad after all, eh, Mazer?”
“I’ll admit it has a sudden appeal,” said Mazer. “Hold on to your breakfast.”
He hit the launch button, and Bingwen was slammed back hard into his flight seat as they accelerated away from the Kandahar, the most wonderful and glorious feeling Bingwen had had all day.
CHAPTER 4
Zipship
One of the Hive Queen’s most successful military tactics at the outset of the Second Invasion was in creating multiple military targets for the International Fleet to investigate and pursue, some of which were true targets but many of which were feints. These targets were positioned at strategically placed locations within and outside the plane of the ecliptic and forced the International Fleet to divide its ships and forces into three smaller fleets to investigate all potential targets simultaneously.
The Hive Page 5
