The names meant nothing to him. "How can I help you, Ms. Bootstamp?"
"I need to speak with Captain Wit O'Toole and Captain Mazer Rackham. I'm told you're at the same facility where they are."
Bingwen felt uneasy. He wasn't sure if he should reveal anything to this woman.
"I'm making you uncomfortable, Bingwen," said Imala. "I don't mean to. I know you want to protect Captain O'Toole and Captain Rackham. I don't mean them any harm. I need their help."
"Are you reporters?"
Imala smiled. "Hardly. We're working with a team of engineers on Luna to infiltrate and destroy the Formic ship."
"Infiltrate? You mean get inside? Don't the Formics vaporize every ship that approaches it?"
"Every ship but ours," said Imala. "We've reached it, Bingwen. We've already been inside it. And while we were there we found a weakness. We think we know how to destroy it. Only, we're not soldiers. We need a capable, organized strike team to partner with us. We were hoping the MOPs would at least hear us out."
"Why contact them through me?" said Bingwen. "Why not go through the military?"
"We heard about the doctors' program you set up. That put us in contact with Dr. Arnsbrach. When she told us of your connection with Mazer Rackham, we knew we had our answer."
"Also, you asked the military already and they said no," said Bingwen.
"Correct."
"Why not contact Wit through his superiors at Strategos? Or Mazer's superiors in New Zealand?"
"We tried that as well," said Imala. "Neither have had any contact with Captain O'Toole or Captain Rackham since right before they left India. The Chinese at Dragon's Den are restricting any outside communication."
"I don't know how to help you," said Bingwen. "Wit and Mazer are in a restricted area. I can't reach them."
Imala seemed crestfallen. "I see."
"But if you prove to me that this is legitimate, if you can show me that you have in fact penetrated the ship's defenses, I'll do everything I can to connect you with the MOPs."
"How will you reach them?" asked Imala.
"Let me worry about that," said Bingwen. "Kindly show me proof, and I'll do what's necessary."
Imala nodded. She looked down at something on her console on her end. "We're sending you a clip, Bingwen. It shows you the inside of the Formic ship's cargo bay and the wreckage from human ships collected there. Along the wall, you'll see Formics pulling carts. Do you see it?"
The vid had started playing in the holofield to Bingwen's right. He stared at it. "Yes. I see it. Who took this vid?"
"I did," said Victor.
"And you can get a team of soldiers back in there?" asked Bingwen.
"I will or I'll die trying."
The was good enough for Bingwen. "Send me your uplinks. I'll take a holopad to Wit and Mazer and connect them to you directly. Give me a few hours." He disconnected the call, put the holopad into his knapsack, then went and found Pipo.
"I need to get inside the restricted area and see the MOPs," he said.
"That's impossible," said Pipo. "There are guards, hololocked doors. You'd never get in."
"I have to try. But I need your help. Can you pretend to be my sister?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Your sister? Why?"
"I need someone to argue with me and validate my story. It'll be more believable that way."