Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) (44 page)

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. Others 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.

Mazer fumbled for his rifle. He had wrapped the strap around his arm so he wouldn’t drop it, but the strap had twisted, and now there wasn’t enough slack to swing the rifle forward. He yanked, pulled. The Formic raised the sharp weapon up to deliver a blow.

And its head exploded in a burst of automatic fire.

But not from Mazer’s rifle. He looked to his left. Cocktail was holding his rifle up. “Grenades. In the shafts. Move, move!”

Mazer got his feet under him. All around him grenades were being pitched into the shafts like baseballs. They exploded inside. Formics were launching outward from the shafts. Lasers shot across the space, slicing them in two. The mesh nets were holding most of them back, but every Formic in the ship would know they were here now. Mazer unsnapped the concussion grenade from his belt then pushed off the debris. He didn’t move as quickly as he would have liked—the debris wasn’t anchored. He floated slowly. The shaft in front of him had a handful of Formics tentatively approaching the mesh netting. Mazer threw in the grenade. Its magnet base snapped to the shaft wall. A Formic was inches away from it. It turned its head to look at it just as the grenade detonated.

Mazer reached the wall. Shafts were all around him. A few Formics were stuck on the mesh netting convulsing. Mazer sliced them. The shaft to his right had Formics crawling forward. He reached in and fired his automatic, bullets pinging around the shaft. He chased them with a grenade for good measure. Victor had been wrong about the Formic count. There were more than a hundred on board. Much more.

Several from the cutting crew had left their post to join the fight. Mazer looked back at the pipes. Most of the wall plates were cleared but there were still a lot of nozzles to rotate. They weren’t going to make it. They couldn’t hold this many Formics coming from this many directions for much longer. They didn’t have enough people.

Wit shouted over the radio. “Mazer, you and Cocktail clear the exit shaft. When we’re done with the nozzles, we need a clear path out of here.”

Of course. If there were Formics in the shaft with the glow bugs, the MOPs would have no way out.

Wit continued shouting orders. He made new assignments to take on the shafts and ordered others who had joined the fight to get back to the pipes and turn the nozzles. “We have to turn them all. If we miss just one, it will vaporize Imala.”

Cocktail was suddenly beside Mazer. “We need to hold that shaft. Any ideas?”

“We need one of the wall plates,” said Mazer. “Help me.”

They flew to retrieve one of the discarded wall plates. There were more grenade explosions and automatic fire all around them.

“Here,” said Mazer. “Let’s use this one.”

“What for?” said Cocktail.

“We’re going to make a shield. Help me fly it to the shaft entrance.”

They each got on one side of it and, on the count of three, launched with it toward the glow bug shaft. When they arrived, Mazer shined his light in the shaft and saw three Formics scurrying forward. He annihilated them with three quick bursts.

He turned back to Cocktail. “They’re coming up the shaft. We’ve got to clear a path and hold them back. We need to cut this wall plate down so that’s it’s the shape of the shaft, only smaller. Then we’ll get behind it, and ram our way down the shaft.”

Cocktail nodded. They slid the wall plate over the shaft and started cutting. Large chunks fell away.

“Snap your magnet grips to it,” said Mazer. “We’ll use those as handles.”

They had hand discs in their tool bags. Mazer removed one and placed it on the wall. Then he gripped the magnet and held the wall plate like a shield.

Something collided with the shield. Formics inside the shaft, trying to get out. A second collision. A third.

Mazer unsnapped a grenade. Cocktail nodded. On three, they moved the shield away for an instant to allow Mazer to drop the grenade in the shaft where three Formics were inches away. Mazer and Cocktail snapped the shield back into place, and the grenade detonated on the other side.

Cocktail made two more cuts on his side, and the shield slid forward into the shaft like a wall.

“Cut a hole for your rifle and sight,” said Mazer.

Mazer cut one for himself, and a second hole for his light, which he quickly secured with some metal tape.

“Ready?” asked Mazer.

Cocktail nodded.

They braced their feet against opposite walls and pushed their way up the shaft. The dead Formics clustered at the wall, obstructing their view.

“Rotate the top forward,” said Mazer. “Let the corpses pass.”

They rotated the shield so it was horizontal. Mazer grabbed the Formics and pulled them to his side to clear the path. The bodies were wet and limp and bleeding. Others were blown into parts. An arm, a torso, a head. Mazer pushed back the instinct to vomit and moved quickly. When it was clear, he and Cocktail snapped the shield back into place and pushed on.

They didn’t get far before they encountered more Formics. Mazer shot through the rifle slit. It was hard to miss. The Formics crumpled, bled, died. The glow bugs were in a frenzy, buzzing all around them, their luminescence filling the shaft. The shield had knocked their nests away. They shot back and forth across the shaft, bouncing off the wall.

Mazer and Cocktail pushed on. They could hear the radio chatter from inside the cargo bay. It didn’t sound good. Shouts, explosions, quick orders. ZZ was down. Bolshakov, too. Both of them dead. The news washed over Mazer like a wave. There was nothing he could do but clear a path for the others.

Slowly, tediously, they charged up the shaft. Objects started pinging off the shield. Projectiles. Thin small metal needles about half the size of a pencil, fired from a Formic weapon.

“They’re armed,” said Cocktail.

He and Mazer fired, and those with the needle shooters fell.

“I can’t see well,” said Cocktail. “Too much obstruction.”

Mazer checked the shaft ahead of them. It was clear. “Let’s rotate and clear the path.”

As soon as they rotated the shield, the glow bugs poured inside like water, shooting back down the shaft toward the cargo bay. Cocktail and Mazer furiously pulled at the dead Formics to get them out of the way.

A glint of light ahead of them in the shaft caught Mazer’s eye. He turned in time to see a Formic holding a jar weapon. The light inside was swirling and ready to fire.

“LOWER THE SHIELD!” he shouted.

Too late. A thick glob of mucus slammed into Cocktail’s chest, pulsing with light. Cocktail looked down at it, shook violently, and exploded.

Mazer was slammed against the inside of the shaft, stunned, disoriented. A red mist filled the air around him. Blood had splattered across his visor, obstructing his view. Ahead of him, through the haze, he saw a swirling disc of light.

Mazer steadied his arm, squeezed the trigger, and emptied his clip.

CHAPTER 23

Casualties

Lem stood at the helm of the Valas and watched the vids in the holofield with a sinking feeling. The strike team was getting hammered. It was chaos in the cargo bay. ZZ and Bolshakov had flatlined. Cocktail’s biometrics had gone completely silent. The remaining helmetcams were projected all in front of him, but the movements were so erratic and fuzzy, it was difficult to tell what was happening.

A technician approached him. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Jukes, but we’re getting strange reports from Earth.”

“What type of reports?”

“The Formics, sir. They’re all returning to the landers.”

Lem followed the technician back to his console.

The tech had a vid on screen. “This is from surveillance cams in the city of Chenzhou.” The tech pressed play. A Formic death squad was spraying a crowd of hundreds of people outside a rail station. Gas billowed forth from the Formics’ wands, enveloping those trying to escape. Men and women gasped and fell. The Formics advanced in a wide line, meeting no resistance. A time code in the bottom of the feed was counting off the seconds.