"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.