The ship grew in size. They should have fired by now. Were the Formics inside all dead, she wondered? Had Victor and the others killed the Formics who monitored the ship's defenses?
Suddenly she was bathed in light. A square of it all around her, like diving into a cube. It felt as if the tips of the spacecraft were inches from it. She fired retros and kept the ship steady, slowing down but still moving at a decent speed. The radiation reading outside was well into the red.
The Formics would shut it off any moment now, she knew. They would realize they were killing themselves, and they would turn off the gamma plasma.
Only they didn't. It continued.
Imala was suddenly seized with panic. If they didn't shut it off, she would die. She would fly right into the ship. If she wasn't crushed on impact she would ricochet into the line of fire. Or, if she slowed to a negligible speed, she would drift into the plasma.
Had it not worked? Maybe the rotated nozzles hadn't fired inward. Maybe the act of rotating them had simply made them inoperable. Maybe the ship wasn't damaged at all and this was all for naught.
She tried calling Victor over the radio, but of course that was impossible with all the radiation. She yelled at the cube of light. Yelled for it to stop.
But it didn't.
*
"Why haven't they killed the plasma?" asked Wit. "They should have shut it off by now."
They were gathered around his holopad above the launch tube. On screen it looked as if the Formic ship was being skewered. Beams of plasma shot forth from one side, encircling Imala, while the rotated nozzles fired a column of plasma out the other side, blowing a hole clean through.
Only now it wouldn't stop.
"What's happening inside the ship?" asked Mazer.
Benyawe had left sensors in the cargo bay and shaft. She checked her wrist pad. "Radiation levels are skyrocketing. They're much, much higher than we thought they would be. A hundred times higher."
"What about the Formics inside?" asked Mazer.
"Dying or dead," said Benyawe.
"And the flight crew?" said Wit. "The ones who are supposed to turn off the plasma?"
Victor opened his holopad and checked the cam feed he had left in the helm. Formic corpses floated in the space. "They're dead as well."
"So there's no one to shut off the pipes?" said Shenzu.
"What happens if we don't shut them off?" asked Mazer. "Other than we lose Imala?"
"Gamma radiation superheats if it's on too long," said Victor. "Everything will burn up and melt. The whole ship will become radioactive."
"So we lose all the tech," said Deen.
"And we all die," said Benyawe.
There was a brief silence, then Wit said, "Victor, do you know how to shut it off? If I go to the helm could you walk me through it?"
"You can't go in there," said Victor. "The ship is superheated. You'll die of radiation poisoning. Even in your suit. The levels are way too high."
"Could I make it to the helm and shut off the pipes before I die?"
Victor stared at him. "But--"
"Answer the question. The longer we stand out here, the hotter the ship becomes and the less chance I have. Would I survive long enough to get it done?"
"Um, yes. Maybe. I can't be certain. It depends on how quickly you reach the helm. I wouldn't go through the cannon hole. We're much closer here. You could cut a hole where we're standing and fly down the launch tube. You'd be very close to the helm."
"Send the directions to my HUD."