For a moment, Lem was speechless. "How do you know that?"
Father smiled. "That unethical information is suddenly quite useful, isn't it?"
"These were innocent people, Father. This isn't a game. What happened to them?"
Father tapped his wrist pad, and the solar system disappeared sav
e for a single yellow dot of light, floating in the black expanse. Lem approached it and touched it. The yellow dot ballooned outward until it was a WU-HU outpost two meters across.
"It's in the Asteroid Belt," said Father. "One of several outposts WU-HU has in that sector. This is a computer-generated model based on schematics. The color might be wrong, but this is essentially what it looks like. According to Parallax, this is where your WU-HU ship went. There would be food there, Lem. The captain there is a good woman. If we're reading her profile right, she would have taken them in. Fed them. Sheltered them. I thought you would want to know."
Lem stared at the outpost. Relief welled up inside him like a wave. He didn't know why exactly. These were not his people. They were strangers to him, really. Most of them probably still hated him for bumping their ship off the asteroid in the Kuiper Belt, a move that had gone terribly wrong and resulted in the death of one of their crew.
And yet, it didn't matter if they hated Lem. They were right to hate him. He didn't want their acceptance. He only wanted them to be alive. And now they were. They had suffered, yes. They had lost their husbands and fathers, their livelihood, their home. But at least they still had each other. At least they had someone to lean on in their grief.
Father was behind him, his voice soft. "I've watched these interviews you've done, son. I've seen you tell your story about what happened out there. It had a profound effect on you. I see that now. I thought it might bring you some comfort to know that a few more made it out alive."
Lem turned and faced him. "This is why you brought me here? This is why you showed me Parallax?"
"I should have shown it to you a long time ago. You're my son, Lem. I've kept too many secrets from you for too long. I regret that. I'm not saying this makes me a good father suddenly. I know what I am. But if I can do something to alleviate any pain my son is carrying, then I'm going to do it."
Lem was at a loss. Was Father actually doing something kind? Was he actually giving without an ulterior motive?
"I don't want you doing these interviews anymore," said Father. "You're not to be paraded around. The PR team will object, but I'll tell them to deal with it. I want you focusing on destroying the mothership."
Lem was taken aback.
Father smiled. "Don't look so surprised. I've learned my lesson, Lem. You have good ideas. Your strategies are better than mine. I ruined what you had planned with Victor and Imala. I take full responsibility. Their deaths are on my hands. I don't expect you to forgive me for that. I only expect you to keep going. Your plan worked, or at least as much as I allowed it to. Your team got to the Formic ship. That's more than I've accomplished. Now you need to do it again. And this time, I assure you, I won't get in your way."
CHAPTER 9
Goo Guns
Mazer lay on his back in the mud beneath the fuselage of the HERC, twisting two wires together, trying to make a spark. They had landed in a rice field southwest of Lechang, with the nose of the fuselage resting on an embankment between two paddies. That left a narrow space beneath the HERC at the edge of the embankment where Mazer could crawl in, remove some of the hull plates, and access the main electrical system. The two wires touched, there was a crack of electricity, a small motor whirred to life, then something popped inside the circuit boards and a puff of acrid smoke wafted out into Mazer's face.
"That doesn't sound promising," said Wit. He was kneeling at the bottom of the embankment, bending low to look under the fuselage where Mazer was working.
"I think I just cooked the avionics," Mazer said. "Plus the lenses are inoperative, and I can't reboot the system. The only way this thing is flying again is if we launch it from a giant slingshot."
"I'm not heartbroken," said Wit. "I didn't want to get back in that thing anyway."
It had been a rough landing. The rotor blades had slowed the HERC's descent, but they hadn't stopped it. Mazer had brought it down as best as he knew how, but the landing had rattled everyone on board.
Mazer turned over onto his stomach, commando-crawled out from under the HERC, got to his feet, and squinted at the sun. He was covered in mud, and his wet uniform clung to his body. He had shed the biosuit after they had landed. It wasn't much use at this point; the glass shards from the windshield had left gaping holes in it. As for the cuts, Mazer had come out better than he had expected. Two shards of glass had imbedded into his skin, the worse of which was on the back of his right forearm. It had just missed the ulnar artery. Wit had pulled the shard out using tweezers from the med kit, then he had put a few stitches in the wound and covered the area with a liquid bandage. The paste had dried hard and created a sort of vambrace on Mazer's arm.
Mazer walked up the embankment that separated the paddy from the one adjacent and got one of the water bottles from the emergency kit. He unscrewed the top, took a long drink, then poured water into his hand and cleaned the mud from his face.
"Any sign of Shenzu?" he asked.
Wit put the binoculars to his eyes and looked west toward the mountains. Shenzu had gone in that direction a few hours ago with the antenna to try to get a radio signal. "Here he comes now."
Far in the distance, Shenzu stepped from the jungle and made his way across the field toward them. When he arrived Mazer could see it wasn't good news.
"The dozer got through to Dragon's Den, but it makes no difference. The entire convoy from Lianzhou was destroyed. Most of the camp at Lianzhou as well. A small group got out and have regrouped north of the city, but General Sima's army is essentially annihilated."
"That was eleven thousand men," said Wit.
"It gets worse," said Shenzu. "The transports are more aggressive now than they have been. All of them are targeting populated areas now. And I don't just mean the new transports from the second wave. I mean all of them, including the death squads that were in rural areas spraying rice fields and livestock. They're all targeting cities now."