But the Formics were armed as well. And they had him from all sides. The darts came all at once. Deen didn't even make a sound.
*
Lem spoke over the emergency frequency and addressed every mining ship that was there. They were nearly thirty in number. Corporates and free miners alike. Many of them were the surviving ships from the shield, but there were others there as well. He had called to them in desperation. When the landers had launched and escaped the atmosphere, Lem had sent out an emergency message to every ship within the sound of his voice. Ships docked at Luna. Ships in a holding pattern above Imbrium, waiting for permission to land. Come, he had said. For the good of Earth, for the good of the human race, come.
They had abandoned what they were doing and answered his call. Not all of them. But most had. Italians, Africans, Argentineans, Dutch. He had ordered them to slow the landers, and they had obeyed. Now here they were, outnumbered three or four to one.
"This is Lem Jukes. This war ends right here and right now. I will give five million credits in cash to the mining ship that takes out the most skimmers and transports. Repeat, five million credits in cash. Ships of the shield, only use shatter boxes if you're sure of your target. I don't want any friendly-fire casualties. And take out the transports landing on the mothership. Do not let them retake that ship."
The miners rushed forward, whether out of a love for Earth or five million credits, Lem couldn't say. But it didn't matter. If the team held the ship, he'd get a thousand times that much for whatever tech they recovered inside.
Lem dove at a transport and sliced it in half. He spun away and sliced through another one. Then a third. They were all packed so tightly together, it was hard to miss.
A mining ship to his left was cut to ribbons, attacked by four transports at once. The transports didn't stop, even when it was obvious the mining ship was lost. They crashed into it like kamikaze fighters, using themselves as missiles and tearing the ship to shrapnel. It wasn't until Lem had flown past and checked his holofield that he realized he knew the ship well. It was the Makarhu, the ship he had captained to the Kuiper Belt. Chubs and the crew were gone.
*
A short distance away, well out of the fighting, Imala watched the battle unfold and again felt completely helpless. I should be among them, she told herself. They need all the help they can get.
If she could only ditch the radiation shields that covered her weapons. If she could shed them somehow, she might be useful. But no, that was impossible. She had watched Victor weld the plates on, she had seen how meticulously and carefully he had ensured she was properly shielded.
Two skimmers broke away from the fighting and moved unhindered toward the other side of the Formic ship. None of the mining ships gave chase. In the confusion of the battle, none of them seemed to notice.
Where are you going? Imala wondered. She grabbed the stick and accelerated, taking off after them. They were making for the hole in the back of the ship, she realized, the hole the gamma plasma had made. They were trying to get inside the ship that way.
"Victor, can you read?"
"Imala, please tell me you're safe on Luna."
"There are two skimmers heading for the hole in the ship. If they land, if they get through, they will make for the helm. You need to get out of there."
"I'm not leaving, Imala. We're holding this ship."
"Then call the others to come help you."
"They've got their hands full, Imala. The Formics are pouring down the launch tubes."
She came around the other side of the ship just in time to see the two skimmers fly into the hole. "They're inside, Victor. They're in. I'm going after them."
"Negative, Imala. You are not equipped. You have no way to stop them, nowhere for you to go. You can't land in here."
She ignored him. The hole was the same size as the tunnel of gamma plasma she had flown through. She could do this. And she did have a weapon, she realized--she did have a way to stop them. Her fighter. Herself. She could ram them from behind, she could push them into something, crush them.
She angled her approach to come at the hole head on. She saw the skimmers now, far inside the ship. They had stopped to a slow drift, and Formics in pressure suits were leaping from them and clinging to the inside of the mothership, grabbing at anything they could. Two of them scurried into the ship, disappearing from view. Then two more. It was too late to stop them, but she could stop the others.
"Imala, listen to me," said Victor. "Don't do this. You can't stop in the tunnel."
But she could stop. She would stop. But not before she did her part, not before she did what she could to save him.
She entered the hole. The interior of the ship rushed past her. Her console was beeping. "Warning! Warning! Collision imminent."
It all happened in an instant. She collided with the first skimmer and sent it careening into the wall. Her impact foam inflated, slamming her back against her seat and encasing her in a tight inflatable cloud. The skimmer bounced back and hit her. By then she had rotated. She struck something protruding from inside the ship--she never saw what--and started spinning end over end down the tunnel. She smashed into the second skimmer and crushed it. The Formics were thrown, shattered, ripped apart. She saw it all happen in her HUD in a blurred, spinning flash of violence, and then she struck something else, and all went black.
*
They were pouring down the launch tubes in a flood of bodies. Hundreds of them, rushing downward in a fury. Already there were twenty or more inside the ship, firing their weapons. Caruso was down, a dozen darts in his chest and back and throat. Bungy and Lobo had found cover with Benyawe and were mowing down Formics from their position, slicing through them as quickly as they could.
But it wasn't fast enough, Mazer realized. The Formics would overrun them any minute. "Lobo, we need to seal the tubes shut and launch them. Bungy, hold your position with Benyawe. Lobo, you take the tubes on the right. I'll take the tubes on the left. Do you know which lever to push?"
"Affirmative."
"Don't worry about orientation. There is no orientation in space. Launch back and forth between walls. Upside down, right side up. It doesn't matter. Keep your movements random. Change your approach every time. Don't give them a pattern to follow. Don't let them predict where you'll be."
"I got it."
"Bungy," said Mazer. "Give us as much cover as you can."
"Will do."
"Ready," said Mazer. "Launch!" He pushed off with his feet. Landed on the wall nearby and launched again. In three quick leaps he was at the console. He spun the big wheel, closing all the tubes at the top and bottom and trapping hundreds of Formics inside. Then he pressed the lever to launch the tube nearest him. The mechanism shot upward, catapulting the Formics up against the ceiling and into each other in a bone-crushing mass of suits and limbs and broken bodies.
Mazer didn't stick around to relish the moment. He was already leaping away, moving to the next tube, repeating the process. Darts pinged on the wall where he had been only a moment before. He fired his laser as he twisted through the air, taking out a cluster of three Formics who were giving him chase. He reached the second tube. A large crowd of Formics was gathered at the base of the tube, scratching at the locked hatch in a desperate attempt to climb inside. Mazer pushed down the lever, launched the tube, and sent them to their deaths instead.
*
Imala blinked her eyes open and thought she might be sick. She felt dizzy and disoriented and sore. The world was warbling like a tapped tuning fork. Her whole body was one giant bruise. She initiated her helmet lights and gave the order to deflate the foam. It unstiffened and she pushed it away from her face.
"Imala, can you hear me?"
Victor's voice. "Vico. Hi. Don't let me forget where I parked."
"Are you hurt?"
"Not at all. Just sitting here sipping lemonade with my feet up."
"Let me rephrase. Where are you hurt?"
"Pretty much everywhere. But I don't think anything's broken. Your precious shields took most of the impact. And my new best friend, Mr. Impact Foam."
"Stay there. I'll come for you when this is over."
"Wrong. You've got at least four Formics coming to your position. I'm on my way."
"No, Imala. You don't have enough oxygen to leave your ship."
"I've got at least fifteen minutes of emergency reserves in my suit."
"You may not reach me in fifteen minutes."
She blinked the command to open the cockpit canopy. To her surprise, it obeyed. The top had caved in slightly, and she had worried it was too damaged to operate. She undid her harness and disconnected her suit from the ship.
"Warning! Warning! You have disconnected life support."
"Override warning," she said. "Silence system. Display oxygen remaining."
The numbers appeared on her HUD. She wasn't sure if it was fifteen minutes' worth. She needed to calm her breathing and make it last as long as it could. She pulled herself out of the cockpit and crawled up the side of her ship. The gamma plasma had seared through everything on the mothership as evenly as a knife through butter. Imala didn't want to touch the edges in case they were radioactive or sharp enough to cut her suit. She hopped into a corridor beside her and landed on the far wall. She couldn't tell which was the floor and which was the ceiling. "Vico, send me the map of the ship. Show me where you are in relation to my position."
"I don't know where you are exactly, Imala. And my map isn't comprehensive. I didn't explore every corner of the ship."
"Send me what you have. Can you see my helmetcam?"
"Yes, but it doesn't mean much. The shafts and corridors all look the same."
"But if I keep moving in the direction I'm going, I'll get closer to you, right?"
"Go back to your ship, Imala. Reattach your oxygen. Please. I've already lost too many people close to me. I can't lose you, too."
That almost stopped her. The pleading in his voice and everything behind it--it almost turned her around. What could she do anyway? She didn't have a weapon.
"Do you have a weapon, Vico? Did Wit bring a gun to the helm?"
"I have my laser cutter, Imala. And I've barred the hatch. I'm fine."
A laser cutter could make a formidable weapon, true. She had one herself, now that she thought about it. An emergency one in the pocket of her suit, for cutting away her harness or cutting away the cockpit canopy in the event of a crash. She unzipped the pouch and pulled it out. It was such a little thing.
She launched up the corridor. A barred door wouldn't stop the Formics. They would find a way in. And when they did, they'd pull Victor apart. If she could find one of the big shafts from the vid, or maybe the main corridor that scooted the garden, if she could find any of those, she could get to the helm.
She checked her oxygen. The numbers had gone down significantly. I'm coming, Vico. I'm coming.
*
Victor listened to the celebrations. The surviving miners were cheering over the radio, singing and shouting in a multitude of languages. They had wiped out the last of the Formic transports and skimmers--including the ones that had landed on the hull of the ship. Lem and a few others had strafed those from above, slicing them in two.
None of the Formic ships had fled or retreated in the end. Instead, they had turned and launched themselves at their enemies. Only twelve human ships had been lost, which was nothing short of a miracle considering how many Formic ships there had been in the swarm.
The Formics were distracted, Victor realized. That's why the miners had won. The Formics were so focused on retaking their ship, so determined to win back what they had lost, that they had been blind to anything else.
Victor removed his laser cutter from his tool bag and severed the rod that held the gamma plasma wheel to the console. The wheel drifted away, leaving a metal stump behind. If Imala was right, if Formics were coming, he would make sure the helm was useless when they arrived. He cut off switches, sliced off levers, slashed every surface of the controls. Lem would go ballistic when he saw the damage--all that alien tech destroyed! But it wasn't destroyed completely. Not really. With a little time, a smart team of engineers could piece it back together and figure out how it all ticks. For now, however, Victor would do what he knew needed to be done: Remove the Formics' last hope and chance. End it once and for all.
When he was done, he looked at the cutter in his hand and smiled. Funny that it would come to this, in the end. It wouldn't be a nuke or another WMD, but a tool every decent mechanic carried in his bag.
A heavy object slammed against the hatch. It was not human. No one was calling him on the radio. It hit the hatch again. A third time. The bar he had put in place wouldn't hold. Not for very long. Maybe if he had carried with him a few other tools, he could have secured it better. Father would be disappointed. A good mechanic is never without his--
The hatch door exploded inward, flew across the room, and struck him, knocking him back against the far wall. The pain was instantaneous. His upper arm was broken. Maybe his collarbone as well. His vision was blurred. His visor was cracked. The laser cutter was gone from his hand. He initiated his boot magnets, and they snapped to a wall behind him.
The Formic scurried into the room. It was wearing a pressure suit and carrying a jar weapon. It went straight to the console, ignoring Victor. It saw the damage. Its eyes moved back and forth across the bank of controls, taking it in. It stood there a long moment as if unable to comprehend what it was seeing. Then its head turned, and it saw him. It raised its weapon. Light spun within the jar. Victor was cradling his arm. He deactivated his boot magnets and leaped to the side just as a glob of mucus slammed into the wall where he had been positioned. Victor careened into another wall, landing on his shoulder. Searing pain shot through him, like breaking his arm all over again. The membrane on the wall exploded. Victor recoiled into the corner. He was behind a bank of levers and switches, not concealed at all, really. He looked to his left and right for a weapon, but there wasn't one.
The Formic approached and regarded him. Victor waited for it to raise the weapon again. It had a clear shot. Victor had nowhere to go. Five seconds passed. Ten. But still the jar didn't move. The Formic cocked its head to the side. Its eyes seemed to grow in their intensity.
It's trying to speak to me, Victor realized. It's sending me a message. Victor listened but heard nothing, felt nothing, sensed nothing. Then the Formic's face relaxed. A small black device was suddenly in its hand. Victor had seen that device before, the first time he was in the cargo bay. It was the tool they had used to eviscerate the pilot.
The Formic reached out with the device.
There was a flash, and the creature's hand holding the device was no longer connected to its body. The hand drifted away, spinning slowly. Another flash and a line appeared at the Formic's midsection. A line that had not been there a moment before. Slowly, the top half of the Formic slid away from the bottom half, and the life in the creature's eyes faded.
Victor turned and saw Imala at the hatch entrance with her laser cutter. She flew to him and attached her own suit to his. "I'm borrowing some of your oxygen. Tell me where you're hurt."
"I thought you said there were four of them."
"There were. Mazer killed two and is chasing down the last one. We're safe. Where are you hurt?"
"My arm and collarbone. Maybe ribs, too. Hurts to breathe."
She tapped the medical screen on the side of his suit. "No external bleeding. No holes in your suit. Visor's cracked, but it's not leaking. Don't move. I'll tell your suit to give you something for the pain."
"No offense, but do you know what you're doing?"
"It's a mild sedative, Vico. The system knows your size and weight. It won't let me give you too much."
He felt a small prick in his arm, and in moments much of the pain subsided. His muscles relaxed. His breathing normalized. (He had been taking short, quick breaths to keep h
is chest from expanding.) He turned to her and studied her face a moment. "You crashed your ship, Imala. That was stupid."
"Or you could say, 'Thanks for saving my life, Imala. You're the most amazing human being in the world and my hero.'"
He smiled. "I was getting to that."
CHAPTER 25
International Fleet
A Juke mining vessel carried Mazer and the other survivors back to the Valas for the return flight to Luna. The mining ship docked above the freighter's cargo bay and extended a tube down to the airlock. The medic team and several of the engineering techs were all waiting at the hatch inside. Victor came through the airlock first, and the medics whisked him away to the sickbay, with Imala close behind. Mazer came through the airlock next, pulling behind him the body bag that held Wit O'Toole. A pair of techs took it with the greatest reverence. There were also bags for ZZ, Deen, Bolshakov, and Caruso. Collecting Cocktail's remains had been a messier business, but Bungy and Lobo had found some, and there was a smaller bag for him.
The engineering techs then escorted Mazer and the others to the decon showers. Mazer was instructed to stand in a box while still wearing his radiation suit and to scrub himself clean with chemicals. If the technicians were bothered by the blood on his suit they gave no sign. Mazer then sucked up the chemicals and shed the suit for disposal. He was given clean clothes and then directed into a room barely bigger than a closet. There were storage cabinets on the wall, and a small holotable.
"What am I doing in here?" Mazer asked the tech.
"You have a holo from Earth, sir." The man left and closed the door behind him.
A holofield appeared above the table. Mazer put his head into the field and waited. A man's head appeared. Midfifties, clean shaven, square jaw, buzzed head. Definitely military. Probably eastern European.
"Captain Rackham, my name is Lieutenant Colonel Yulian Robinov of the Russian Ministry of Defense. I currently act as chair of Strategos, the international military body that operates under the direction of the United Nations and dictates orders to MOPs. Captain O'Toole reported directly to me."
Reported. Past tense. So he knew what had happened. "My condolences, sir. Captain O'Toole was the finest commander I have ever had the privilege to serve under."
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