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Victor pulled out his holopad and turned on the field. A model of the Formic ship appeared in the air. Victor made four quick moves with his stylus, and three axes appeared, skewering the ship. "Here's the ship," he said, pointing. "X axis, y axis, z axis. Here's where the nozzles are." He tapped the ship in the holo and illuminated the area. "This holo feeds to my HUD. Spin the ship with your hands to align it with whatever is coming. I'll do my best to mimic your movements. I'll also be watching through your helmetcam, but I'll need verbal cues from you as well. You need to tell me when I'm tracking with the target. I can't remain stationary and wait for them to fly over the line of fire. I need to be rotating and keeping the target in the line of fire when I pull the trigger. I can't miss that way."
"Tell you when you're tracking," said Deen. "Got it. Anything else?"
"If I miss, shoot down the landers with your rifle."
Deen smiled. "I'm good. But I'm not that good."
Victor extended his hand. "Good luck."
Deen shook his hand. "Luck's got nothing to do with it, space born. When it's time to kill, it's all in the skill. Shoot straight, brother. And let's all go home."
Victor left him there and returned to the manhole. He flew down the launch tube and crawled under the base of the tube. He found the mechanism that increased the force of the launch and began fiddling with it to set it to maximum power.
"Vico. It's Imala, can you hear me?"
Her voice was a like a blanket of calm in his ear. "I'm here, Imala."
"I've got us on a private line," she said. "I've been listening. I'm sorry about Wit and the others. What can I do?"
"You can get clear, Imala. Head back to Luna. I'd feel much better if I knew you were safe." He was using the wrenches he had brought for the nozzles. They're weren't the best tools for the job, but they were all he had.
"I can help stop the landers," said Imala.
"You don't have any weapons, Imala. We covered your collision-avoidance lasers with shielding plates. You're nothing but a flashing hunk of metal at this point."
"You say that to all the girls."
"I'm serious, Imala. Please. At least one of us needs to get out, to tell everyone what happened here."
"Don't talk like that. Like you're giving up."
"I'm not giving up, Imala. But I'm also keenly aware of what we're up against here. If we don't make it, this war needs to go on. People need to learn from our mistakes. You can help them."
There was silence on the line for a long moment. "All right," she said. "I'll go back."
"Will you? Or are you only saying what I want to hear?"
She didn't answer directly. "Stay safe, Vico. If you need anything, I'm here on the line."
He finished with the launch tube. Then he moved to an adjacent tube and did the same. When he was done, he spray painted a giant "X" on the hatch of each tube so that Mazer would know which ones had been set. Then he gathered his tools and flew to the helm.
The lights from his helmet swept the helm when he arrived. He saw the Formics first, floating in the space, their four arms limp at their sides. He pushed one out of his way and there was Wit, still at the wheel. Victor launched to him and turned him over. Wit's face was red, blistered, and covered in blood. Victor gave Wit's hand a squeeze. "Vaya a Dios, y al cielo mas alla de este." It's what his family always said when someone passed on. Go to God, and to the heaven far above this one.
He released Wit's hand and gripp
ed the wheel. He blinked out a command and brought up the model of the ship with the three axes, the one in Deen's hand. Next came Deen's helmetcam feed. He pushed that over into the corner of his field of vision and waited.
*
Mazer turned a few nozzles in the cargo bay, but it quickly became apparent that everyone was much faster at the task than he was. They had done it before; he hadn't. They moved with confidence; he moved with caution. He was only getting in their way.
He left Benyawe in charge of the effort and launched back across the bay to the shaft they had just exited, the one that led back to the launch tubes. They had found several large carts along the way, and they had pushed them all here for loading. The question now was: How would they move the pieces of wreckage floating in the middle of the bay to the shaft? There was nothing to anchor their feet to in the middle of the room. They couldn't launch to the wreckage, and expect to launch back. Everything was a free-floating object. They wouldn't have any leverage.
The solution was right there in front of him, he realized. Victor had unspooled several hundred meters of wiring across the bay, connecting all of the mesh nets to the batteries. It looked like a haphazard spider's web, but it was exactly what Mazer needed. He launched again and began cutting and collecting the wire. By the time the team had finished with the nozzles, he had twisted and semi-braided the wiring into three long, thick ropes. One of the ropes was tied around his chest and thighs like a harness.
As Benyawe and the others joined him at the shaft entrance, Mazer called to Victor. "Nozzles are rotated. We're gathering the wreckage now."
"Hurry," said Victor. "Lem doesn't think he can hold them much longer."
