"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.