Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) (45 page)

“What am I supposed to see?” said Lem.

“Right here, sir.”

The Formics suddenly stopped spraying, turned around in unison, and ran.

“Where are they going?” asked Lem.

“To their transport, sir. They then climb inside and fly southeast.”

“So?”

“So every Formic on Earth is doing this. They’ll all returning to the landers. I have dozens of vids coming in every minute, all showing the same behavior.” Twenty vids began playing on the tech’s terminals. Formics in skimmers, foot soldiers, harvesters, transports. As Lem watched, the Formics all abandoned their attack, or turned their harvester, or changed direction midair.

“How do you know they’re returning to the landers?” asked Lem.

The vids all disappeared, replaced with two new ones. Each showed one of the remaining Formic landers still entrenched in southeast China. The giant circular structures were half buried in the earth, each larger than the world’s biggest athletic stadium. The center of the lander had opened at the top, like the middle of a doughnut, and now every class of Formic ship was flying inside and docking—like a hive sucking in all its bees.

“What are they doing?” asked Lem. “Are they retreating and hunkering down? Why withdraw?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Go back to the first vid you showed me. From Chenzhou. Play that again.”

The tech brought that vid forward and hit play. They watched again as the Formics stopped spraying, turned, and ran back to their transport.

“Go back,” said Lem, “back to the moment when they stopped spraying.”

The tech obeyed and rewound again.

“What time did that happen? Note the time code. Down to the second.”

The tech clicked back frame by frame. “About 4:32 p.m. and 53 seconds.”

“Now do the same to one of the other feeds you’ve received,” said Lem “I want to know the precise instant when the Formics made for the landers. The exact time.”

“Yes, sir.”

He watched as the technician worked, choosing one of the other vids at random. There wasn’t a time code on this one, but the data was stored in the file. After the tech had bookmarked the instant on the vid, he dug into the file and found the answer. “4:32 p.m. and 53 seconds.”

“The same exact moment,” said Lem. “It’s as if they were all told to return to the landers at precisely the same time. How is that possible? None of them is wearing any communication devices. Did the military intercept any message? A transmission of sorts? A sound in the air? Any communication whatsoever?”

“Not from the Formics, sir. Not that’s been reported. No one ever has.”

Lem didn’t like this. Victor had theorized that the Formics communicated mind to mind, but Lem had dismissed the idea. It was completely unscientific.

And yet he couldn’t deny that Formics always seemed to move as one, as if they
were
communicating.

“Check the other vids,” said Lem. “Make sure the time is the same.”

But even as the technician went back to work, Lem knew what the answer would be. They had all received a message at the exact same instant.

The notion frightened him. When Victor had said that the Formics communicated mind to mind Lem had assumed he meant two Formics beside each other, in the same room perhaps, sending a message across the short distance between them. Even that had seemed preposterous, but this, this was something else, something wholly inexplicable. The Formics were scattered all across southern China, hundreds of kilometers apart—on the ground, in the air, in valleys, in mountains. And yet the voice they had heard, the voice of authority that had given them a command—and which they had all obeyed without hesitation—was a voice strong enough to reach them all. Instantly.

Lem felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It was as if he had suddenly peeled back a layer of the Formics and discovered something far more sinister underneath. That voice belonged to someone. And Lem got the sense that it was more dangerous and more powerful than anything he had seen so far.

Another one of the technicians leaned back and got his attention. “Mr. Jukes. You better come see this.”

Lem joined him at his console.

“Not all of the transports are returning to the landers, sir. Some of them are lifting up into the atmosphere.”

“Show me.”

Two video feeds appeared on the terminal screen in front of the tech. They were both taken from people’s personal cameras. In each, the transports shot up into the clouds.

“You’re sure these aren’t heading toward the landers?”

“I’m sure, sir. I tracked them. They’re moving away from the landers, out over the South China Sea, gaining altitude.” More blips appeared on his screen. Three. Four. A dozen. Twenty.

“What’s happening?” said Lem.

The technician was busy for a moment before answering. “These are all transports, sir. They’re all heading into space.”

“Contact Captain Chubs on the Makarhu
,
” said Lem. “That’s one of the Juke ships maintaining the shield above Earth. Tell him he’s got a few dozen transports heading his way. I want their shatter boxes ready and loaded. Those transports are heading back to the Formic ship. Tell him that under no circumstances is he to let a single one through.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lem hurried back to the first technician.

“I’ve checked a few more vids, sir, and you were right. The Formics all respond at the same time.”

“Forget that. You have a new job. I want you to pull up the feeds coming from the strike team inside the Formic ship. I want you to tell me exactly the moment when the crew first made contact with a Formic inside. The moment our men were discovered.”

The tech rewound feeds and searched and worked.

“Don’t give me
our
time,” said Lem. “I want to know what time it was in China. The time zone you mentioned before.”

The technician took a moment more. “It’s tough to say when that exact moment was, sir. Is it when we first shocked the Formics, when the others attacked later—”

“When we shocked the first one.”

“That would be 4:32 p.m. and 48 seconds, China time.”

“Five seconds before all the Formics on Earth received their message. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“What are you thinking, sir? You think the Formics on the ship called the others back to help?”

“What else could it mean?”

“Five seconds isn’t enough time, sir. That’s barely enough time to form a response, let alone send and receive a transmission to Earth. There should be a time delay.”

Lem wasn’t going to argue the point. Part of him didn’t think it was possible either. But there it was.

“I’m going to my fighter,” Lem said. “Send me updates on the strike team. I want to know the instant they disable that ship.”

He flew out of the helm and to the back of the ship to the locker rooms. He put on his suit and helmet and flew to the airlock. His fighter was anchored to the hull of the ship outside. He waited for the airlock to give him the all clear, then he opened the hatch. The tube led straight to his cockpit. He flew in, buckled up, and decoupled. His fighter drifted away. He moved slowly toward the rear of the Valas. Then, he put the Valas between him and the Formic ship so the Formics couldn’t see his movements, then he punched it and rocketed toward the shield. He had sixteen shatter boxes loaded into his sling. He hadn’t trained as much as the other pilots. There hadn’t been time. But he had flown all of Benyawe’s simulations, and she had dubbed him a decent shot.

He hoped she had been right. If the shield fell, if a fleet of transports reached the Formic ship, all was lost. Wit and Mazer and the others wouldn’t last an hour.

*   *   *

Imala sat in her fighter several hundred kilometers away from the Formic ship, watching the helmet feeds and feeling completely helpless. She wanted desperately to rush to Victor’s aid, to do something, anything, but she couldn’t. If she moved, the Formics would fire too soon. She would trigger the pipes and nozzles and unleash the plasma prematurely, while everyone was still inside. She would kill the entire strike team.

She dared not say anything over the radio either. Talking to them would only distract them from the job at hand. All she could do was sit and wait for her cue: for them to tell her that they were out, that she was a go.

But what if that message never came? What if they were overrun in the shafts? What if they were trapped inside?

“Fly back to the Valas,” Victor had said. “If we fail, get safe.”

She had nodded at the time, but she had never intended to obey. If they rotated the nozzles, she was going to charge, even if they failed to get out, even if the mission was essentially over. She could still do her part. She could still cripple the ship.

Her console beeped. It had detected the “X” painted on the surface. She pulled up the image and zoomed it. There it was, glowing as promised. Bungy had come through. The “X” was sloppy, but it was enough for the computers to detect and target. ZZ was supposed to have helped paint, but he had been hit in the shaft right at the exit.

Imala closed her eyes and shook her head. Three dead. And so far only Bungy was out.

She gripped the flight stick. Her hands were trembling. Victor wasn’t half the solider ZZ had been. Not even close. And if ZZ hadn’t made it …

No. She couldn’t think that way. She had to act on facts. And the only fact that mattered right now was that the “X” was painted. The nozzles were turned. All of them. She was going. Whether the crew got out or not she was going.

*   *   *

Victor launched up the shaft, breathing hard. He collided with Benyawe, who collided with whoever was ahead of her. They had been moving this way for almost a hundred meters now, advancing up the shaft in a stop-go-stop-go manner. They were all positioned in a line, but you could only advance when the person ahead of you advanced. And the space—which was narrow and tight to begin with—was now cluttered with Formic corpses.

Victor waited for the line to advance. Shenzu was behind him, with Deen bringing up the rear, firing a steady stream of ammo and lasers back down the shaft toward the cargo bay. Dozens of Formics were clamoring up the shaft after them, crawling on top of each other, scrabbling forward, coming up the shaft like water rising in a well.

“Move!” Deen kept yelling. Or, “More clips! More clips!”

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.