"Brilliant crap," said Deen. "Crap that might get the Captain and Rackham out of jail."
"This little orphan boy is playing international politics better than most grown-ups," said Bolshakov. "Don't ask Sima anything, don't beg, don't extract. Just give him all the credit and announce to everybody that our men are in his headquarters. He's not going to deny any of this. We did this without his consent and it worked, but by giving him credit for it we take away all his embarrassment and give him every incentive to treat our guys like heroes."
"I wrote it in Chinese because I know how to make it sound formal and proper," said Bingwen. "But now I need somebody with better English to write it so it will sound right in the international version."
For the next fifteen minutes, Deen and Bolshakov helped Bingwen make a credible sentence-by-sentence translation into credible English that sounded as if it might be the original from which Bingwen's announcement had been translated. Meanwhile, ZZ and Cocktail came up with a recipient list that included high Chinese government offices, MOPs' own headquarters, and news nets around the world. "One more thing," said Deen. "Sign Captain O'Toole's name to it."
"He won't like that," said ZZ.
"He'll love it, if it gets him away from the Chinese," said Deen.
A few moments later, Deen reached down into the holodisplay and twisted send.
"If this doesn't work," said Cocktail, "we can still go in and kill a lot of people and drag our guys out like in an action movie."
"What Cocktail is saying," ZZ translated to Bingwen, "is that if this works, you saved a lot of people's lives and got us out of a jam."
What Bingwen was thinking was: Mazer wasn't killed by the nuke or the Formics, and maybe I just saved him from the Chinese.
CHAPTER 2
Glow Bugs
Victor cut into the Formic ship knowing full well that he would likely never come out again. There were simply too many variables beyond his control, too many unknowns. What was beyond the metal wall in front of him, for example? A squadron of Formics waiting with weapons drawn? An automated security system that would incinerate him the moment he stepped inside?
He had no way of knowing. The ship was the largest structure he had ever seen, bigger even than most asteroids his family had mined in the Kuiper Belt. And every square meter of it inside was a mystery. How could he possibly find the helm and plant the explosive if he had no idea where the helm was located? There might not even be a helm, for that matter. And even if there was, how could he reach it undetected?
He pushed such thoughts out of his mind and focused on the wall in front of him, turning his head from left to right so that the beams of light from his helmet could illuminate its surface and show him every detail.
He had reached a dead end, or more accurately the bottom of the hole he had climbed into, a hole on the side of the ship so deep and dark and narrow that it reminded him of the mine shafts his family had dug into asteroids. Pajitas por las piedras, Father had called them. Straws through the rock.
Father. The thought of him was still like a knife inside Victor.
Even now, weeks after learning of Father's death, Victor still couldn't fully grasp the idea. Father was gone. The one constant in Victor's life, the one unshakable foundation Victor had always clung to was gone.
It was Father who had always been the steady voice of reason during a family crisis. If there was a mechanical breakdown on the ship, for example, if life-support was failing, Father never panicked, he never lost faith, he never doubted for an instant that a solution could be reached, even when Victor saw no possible outcome. Father's calm, set expression of absolute confidence seemed to say, We can solve this, son. We can fix it.
And somehow, despite the odds against them, despite having hardly any replaceable parts, Father had always been right. They had fixed it, whatever it was, a busted coupler, a faulty water purifier, a damaged heating coil. Somehow, with a bit of luck and ingenuity and prayers to the saints, Victor and Father had set everything right again. The so
lution was rarely pretty--a jury-rigged, make-do repair that would only last them long enough to reach the nearest depot or weigh station--but it was always enough.
And now that pillar of confidence was gone, leaving Victor feeling untethered from the only anchor he had ever known.
A voice sounded in Victor's earpiece. "Are you sure you want to go through with this, Vico?"
It was Imala. She was outside in the shuttle, hovering a few hundred meters from the Formic ship. She and Victor had flown the shuttle from Luna, moving at a slow, drifting pace so as not to alert the Formics' collision-avoidance system. Victor was now sending her a live feed from his helmetcam.
"If you want to pull out now, I won't think any less of you," said Imala.
"You said it yourself, Imala. We can't sit idly by. If we can do something, we should do it."
She knew the risks as well as he did, and yet she had insisted on accompanying him.
"We don't know what we're getting into," said Imala. "I'm not saying we shouldn't help. I'm saying we should be certain. If you start cutting there, there's no turning back."
"This is the only place I can cut, Imala. I can't cut through the hull outside. It's covered with those plate-sized apertures, any one of which could open while I'm hovering above it and unleash laserized material directly into my handsome face. Cutting out there would be like cutting into the barrel of a loaded gun."
"Keep telling yourself your face is handsome and it might come true," said Imala.