At day's end, everyone agreed they were as ready as they were going to be. The MOPs drew straws to see who would go. Wit was a given, as was Victor, Benyawe, and Shenzu. That left eight spaces. The others were all equal in their abilities, so they couldn't choose based on skill. In the end it was Bungy, ZZ, Cocktail, Deen, Bolshakov, Lobo, Caruso, and Mazer.
They slept eight hours. By then the Valas was in position and the cocoons were ready, loaded with the batteries and cable. The team ate, dressed in their suits, and climbed into their cocoons. Imala was there to see them off. The technicians from the engineering team sealed them in one by one. Victor was the last to climb inside his cocoon. His helmet was in his hands. Imala floated before him, one foot anchored to the decking.
"Fly straight," Victor said.
"I will." She brushed a hair out of her face and looked at him, concerned. "Stay close to Mazer and Wit. And don't do anything stupid."
"This whole plan is stupid."
"No. It isn't, Vico. It's a good plan. Just come back safe, okay?"
He nodded. "In my family, we would always say, 'Si somos uno, nada nos puede danar.'"
"Which means?"
"If we're one, nothing can hurt us."
"Let's hope you're right, space born."
They embraced. It was a clumsy move with him in his radiation suit. After a moment she stepped back. Victor snapped on his helmet and wiggled down into the cocoon. He connected his suit to the muscle stimulators and gave the technicians a thumbs-up. They closed the lid and all went dark. Victor turned on his HUD and watched as Imala and the technicians left the bay and sealed the hatch behind them. In front of him, the giant bay doors slowly opened, revealing the imm
ensity of space and a tiny red dot glinting far in the distance. Then the propulsion system on his cocoon gave a hiss, and he was away.
CHAPTER 22
Nozzles
Mazer touched down so gently on the surface of the Formic ship that he hardly felt the impact at all. The magnets on the cocoon initiated, and a message on his HUD told him that he was sufficiently anchored to get out. He turned the release lever by his head, and the lid above his face came free. The view before him took his breath away. The vastness of space was like a black abyss dotted with a billion pinpricks of light.
The cocoon was standing on end, anchored at his feet, he realized. He would have to climb up out the top, away from the surface of the ship, and then swing his body downward as he initiated his boot magnets.
It wasn't supposed to work that way. The cocoon was supposed to be flat against the hull, so that Mazer was on his back and could crawl out easily. I'm here for two seconds, and already everything's going wrong, he thought.
He didn't want to move. The cocoon--dangerous as it was--felt safer than the nothingness before him. He swiveled his head to the side and saw the red surface of the ship stretching out before him like a vast metal plain. He looked in the other direction, and saw more of the ship that way. It was bigger than he had imagined it, and he suddenly wondered if a hole forty meters square would be big enough to cripple the thing.
He was alone, he realized. He saw no other cocoons. There were pieces of debris out in space, but they were all so small and so far away that he didn't know if they were part of the mission or not. They had planned to stagger their arrival, but Mazer was to be one of the last to arrive, not one of the first. Was he the only one who had made it? Had the others been vaporized by the collision avoidance system?
He gripped the edge of the hole and pulled himself up, suddenly afraid that he would rock the cocoon and break the magnet's hold on the ship. Every muscle in his body tensed as he freed his feet and slowly swung downward. When his feet made contact and his boot magnets initiated, he realized he had been holding his breath.
He bent down, opened the cocoon's compartment near his feet, and pulled out his shoulder pack filled with tools. He strapped it to his back and checked his HUD. They had agreed to radio silence until they were all inside the ship. It was probably an unnecessary precaution--Victor and Imala had used radio to no ill effect--but Wit wasn't taking any chances. In the meantime Mazer could sync his HUD with the latest updates from Valas, which was tracking everyone's position and progress. With the sync, Mazer would be able to see which cannons had been disabled, if any.
When the sync came through he learned that he was the last to arrive. The person before him had arrived three hours earlier. Cocktail was supposed to be his partner in disabling two of the cannons, but the team hadn't waited for Mazer. They had disabled the cannons without him and were now moving toward the cargo bay.
Mazer brought up the map of the ship's surface in relation to his own position and saw that he had a long walk ahead of him. The cannon where he would enter the ship was several hundred meters away.
He began walking, taking soft, tentative steps across the hull, being careful to firmly plant one boot magnet before lifting another. It would be just his luck to step too quickly, lose his grip, and slip away. Death by walking.
After a few minutes he was into a rhythm. His legs were getting quite the workout, though. The magnets were strong, and each step took some effort. He was sweating profusely and breathing heavily when he saw the first cocoon in the distance lying flat, far off to his right. A minute later he saw another one to his left. When he started passing pieces of the drift debris, he knew he was getting close. He stopped and checked one of the pieces, but of course whatever equipment it was carrying had already been retrieved and carried inside.
Mazer pushed on and finally reached the damaged cannon. He crawled down into the hole and made his way into the ship. There were two bubbles over the hole, forming a makeshift airlock. When Mazer was inside the ship and the hole was sealed behind him, he turned on his radio. For a moment he heard nothing, then Wit's voice crackled in. "Make sure that wiring is secure."
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.