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.
"What happens if we don't shut them off?" asked Mazer. "Other than we lose Imala?"
"Gamma radiation superheats if it's on too long," said Victor. "Everything will burn up and melt. The whole ship will become radioactive."
"So we lose all the tech," said Deen.
"And we all die," said Benyawe.
There was a brief silence, then Wit said, "Victor, do you know how to shut it off? If I go to the helm could you walk me through it?"
"You can't go in there," said Victor. "The ship is superheated. You'll die of radiation poisoning. Even in your suit. The levels are way too high."
"Could I make it to the helm and shut off the pipes before I die?"
Victor stared at him. "But--"
"Answer the question. The longer we stand out here, the hotter the ship becomes and the less chance I have. Would I survive long enough to get it done?"
"Um, yes. Maybe. I can't be certain. It depends on how quickly you reach the helm. I wouldn't go through the cannon hole. We're much closer here. You could cut a hole where we're standing and fly down the launch tube. You'd be very close to the helm."
"Send the directions to my HUD."
"But I can't walk you through the steps once you get there. The radiation might interfere with the transmission. I should tell you now just in case." He rotated his holopad. "This is the helm. You see this large wheel. Rotate it as far as it will go counterclockwise."
"That's it?"
"That's it. No computers. No buttons. Just a big wheel."
"I'll do it," said Mazer.
"You're too small," said Wit. "The radiation will kill you faster. I'm the biggest and have the best chance of getting there. Mazer, you're in command."
Mazer looked surprised. "But ... I'm not one of your men."
"You're as much a MOP as I am. You always have been." He walked away from the group to the center of the aperture. He took out his laser cutter and started cutting a hole wide enough for someone to crawl through.
"Turning off the gamma plasma won't be enough," said Victor. "You also need to ventilate the ship."
"How?" said Wit.
"By opening all these launch tubes," said Victor. "They go all the way around the ship."
"That sounds like a lot of work. Do I have time for that?"
"There's a single wheel. Rotate that clockwise and all the tubes will open."
"Another wheel?" said Wit. "I thought these Formics were innovative."
"Fancy tech, simple controls."
"Show me where the wheel is."
Victor pulled up images of the ship's interior from his vid. "You'll see a console like this at the base of the tube. The wheel is here." He circled it with his finger and sent to Wit's HUD.
"Anything else?"
"Yes, all of us need to come inside this launch tube as well. We'll seal the bottom hatch once you go. That way, when you ventilate the ship, we won't be outside and bombarded with all the radiation."
"What about the top of the launch tube? Can I close this one, yet keep the other ones open? You need to be sealed in tight, both at the bottom and the top."
Victor showed him the image again. "Each individual console has an override wheel. At the base of this launch tube here. Turn it to close this tube only."
"Turn three wheels. This is easier than I thought."
He finished cutting and pushed the cut manhole down into the launch tube.
Victor got down beside him. "It should be me, Wit. I know the way. I've watched them turn the wheel."
"This is not open for discussion," said Wit. "Now follow me into the tube and seal it shut behind me." He pulled himself down into the manhole, got his feet anchored inside and launched downward toward the bottom of the tube.
One by one they followed him in.
*
Lem fired the shatter boxes, and they catapulted away from his fighter, spinning through space like a thrown bola. War was all around him. Juke mining ships of the shield were battling a swarm of Formic transports in near-Earth orbit. The Formics outnumbered them two to one, and the transports were just as nimble in space as they had been on Earth. Lem couldn't tell who was winning. Everything was happening too quickly.
There had been an order at the beginning--a coordinated effort to take the Formics together. But that had gone out the window the moment the shooting started. Now it was every man for himself.
Lem's spinning shatter boxes zeroed in on their target and snapped to opposing sides of the transport. An instant later, the tidal forces were ripping the transport to shreds, breaking down molecular bonds and turning every molecule into its constituent atoms. One second it was a transport. Two seconds later, dust.
To Lem's right, a mining vessel was sliced in half with a laser. The ship's lights flickered and extinguished. Screams were heard over the radio. Equipment and bodies were sucked out of the two severed pieces. Lem's fighter arced right, dodging a laser and avoiding the same fate. A transport had zeroed in on him. He released another set of shatter boxes at his pursuer, but the shot was wide and the shatter boxes spun off into space.
Lem dove. The transport tailing him dove after him. Lem spun, twisted; the transport responded, mirroring his moves. A laser narrowly missed him on the right. He f
ired a third pair of shatter boxes, but these missed as well. Another dive and spin and twist. Still he wasn't free. He banked right and narrowly avoided colliding with a different transport. He fired behind him and obliterated that one, but the original pursuer held its course.
Lem accelerated and spun left. He couldn't keep this up. He would soon vomit or pass out. The G-forces were overwhelming. His equilibrium was shot. His harness held him tight, but his body was being flung back and forth against the straps like a ragdoll.
He spun again, fired again, missed again.
He had gotten off a few lucky shots. That was it. He was out of his league here. He was not a combat pilot. Why had he thought he could do this? What was he trying to prove?
Ahead of him a mining ship broke apart as two transports cut into it at once. Lem spun away to get clear of the line of fire.
He was going to die, he realized. The only reason he had lasted this long was because he was such a small target.
A laser to his left missed him by inches. He dove again, spun away.
No one would grieve his loss, he realized. There would be headlines and sad admirers and a few blips on the nets about how he had died heroically, but no one would really care. Not deeply. Not in any meaningful way. They would shake their heads, call it a shame, and move on.
Those who actually knew him might even call it a relief.
Father would care, he thought. Father would grieve. Despite whatever it was they had between them, Lem was still his son.
And Simona. She would be upset as well, almost like a friend might, despite how he had treated her.
He thought of Des. Not the real Des. But the person he had thought she was. The fake Des. Young and bright-eyed and full of affection. That version of her would have grieved.
But of course the real Des would only laugh at such news. What a fool, she would say. How easily played.
He wondered where she was now. In another man's arms? Another man's bed? No, not a man. A customer.
The transport giving chase disappeared from his holofield, turned to dust.
A familiar voice sounded over the radio. "You have me to thank for that, Lem," said Chubs. "I take personal checks or money transfers."
Lem smiled. "How many times have you saved my neck now, Chubs?"
"More than I can count. But I hope you're keeping a tally."
Chubs. The man who had been his cocaptain for their two-year trip to the Kuiper Belt. Not a friend, necessarily. But certainly a welcome sight now.