Earth Awakens by Orson Scott Card
"So we rotate the nozzles back again," said Victor.
"Flip them back around?" said Deen.
"I know how to roll the ship," said Victor. "The apertures in that area are still open. No one has closed them. If we turn the gamma plasma back on, those same nozzles will fire and no others. I'll go to the helm and rotate us so we're pointing those nozzles at the landers when they arrive. Then I turn the wheel and we blast it."
"You'll only hit one of them," said Mazer. "You won't hit both. Can you rotate the ship fast enough after you hit the first one to slice through the second one?"
"Probably not," said Victor. "The other lander would simply change course and avoid it."
"So we need another way to take out the second lander," said Shenzu.
"A way they don't anticipate," said Benyawe.
"We don't have any other weapons," said Deen.
"Yes," said Mazer. "We do. We have the launch tubes. Each is like the barrel of a gun. Victor, you knew how to seal off the tubes and open them. Do you also know how to launch something in them as well?"
"I watched the Formics do it," said Victor. "I studied the mechanism. Yes. We can launch something."
"What exactly?" said Deen. "Last time I checked we didn't have a giant bullet in our ammo packs."
"The ship debris from the cargo bay," said Mazer. "We load a bunch a scrap into the tubes and we fire it like shrapnel."
"Won't that just bounce off the lander?" said Deen.
"The launch tubes are extremely powerful," said Victor. "And I know how to increase the tension in the springs. It would fire like a cannon. It would rip through anything."
"Theoretically," said Deen.
"There's no guarantee of anything, if that's what you mean," said Victor. "But I think it could work."
"How do we move ship debris from the cargo bay to the tubes?" asked Shenzu.
"The same way the Formics move anything big," said Mazer. "We use the big carts. Victor showed us the passageway. From here to the cargo bay isn't far. There won't be any resistance. The debris is all weightless. We could move it easily if we work together.
"There are eight of us," said Deen. "How are we supposed to do all of this before the landers arrive?"
"Victor goes to the helm," said Mazer. "The rest of us go to the cargo bay and start turning nozzles. When the nozzles are ready, we load as much wreckage into the big carts as we can carry and hurry back here. Then we load the tubes and we're in business."
"I'll need a pair of eyes," said Victor. "Someone will have to go back outside and lie flat against the hull. They'll have to help me aim and tell me when to fire. I don't know how to use the Formics' targeting system."
"I can do that," said Deen. "I won't be much use in the cargo bay with these legs. I have to be helpful somehow. Victor could carry me outside and anchor me down before he goes to the helm."
"I can do that," Victor agreed. He turned to Lem in the holopad. "We're going to need some time, Lem. Can you stall the landers?"
"That's like asking a bunch of dragonflies to stop a passenger jet," said Lem.
"There are other ships," said Victor. "Call them all. Every ship in your father's fleet in near-Earth orbit. Every ship on Luna. Get the Valas involved. Get them all involved."
"I'll do what I can," said Lem. "But hurry. We won't be able to hold them for long. If at all." He disconnected.
"Benyawe," said Victor. "What are the radiation levels now?"
"Low enough," she said. "We're good to go."
"Then let's move," said Mazer.
They flew down to the bottom of the tube where there was a small airlock. Mazer opened it and led the group through. Victor and Deen stayed behind and watched Mazer lead the others into the passageway that led to the cargo bay. When they had disappeared, Victor said, "Are you sure you're up for this?"
Deen smiled. "Hey, I got the cake job. I lie around and give you orders. That's like being on holiday. Plus I get a front-row seat to all the fireworks."
Victor flew him back up to the top. They removed the manhole Wit had cut and climbed back outside. They found a spot on the surface of the ship halfway between the launch tube and rotated nozzles. Victor lowered Deen to the hull and laid him gently on his back, anchoring him in place with disc magnets that he secured to Deen's belt.
When he was done, Victor pulled on the magnets, testing their strength. "There. You're not going anywhere."
Deen was hugging his rifle to his chest. "How am I supposed to direct you in rotating the ship?"
Victor pulled out his holopad and turned on the field. A model of the Formic ship appeared in the air. Victor made four quick moves with his stylus, and three axes appeared, skewering the ship. "Here's the ship," he said, pointing. "X axis, y axis, z axis. Here's where the nozzles are." He tapped the ship in the holo and illuminated the area. "This holo feeds to my HUD. Spin the ship with your hands to align it with whatever is coming. I'll do my best to mimic your movements. I'll also be watching through your helmetcam, but I'll need verbal cues from you as well. You need to tell me when I'm tracking with the target. I can't remain stationary and wait for them to fly over the line of fire. I need to be rotating and keeping the target in the line of fire when I pull the trigger. I can't miss that way."
"Tell you when you're tracking," said Deen. "Got it. Anything else?"
"If I miss, shoot down the landers with your rifle."
Deen smiled. "I'm good. But I'm not that good."
Victor extended his hand. "Good luck."
Deen shook his hand. "Luck's got nothing to do with it, space born. When it's time to kill, it's all in the skill. Shoot straight, brother. And let's all go home."
Victor left him there and returned to the manhole. He flew down the launch tube and crawled under the base of the tube. He found the mechanism that increased the force of the launch and began fiddling with it to set it to maximum power.
"Vico. It's Imala, can you hear me?"
Her voice was a like a blanket of calm in his ear. "I'm here, Imala."
"I've got us on a private line," she said. "I've been listening. I'm sorry about Wit and the others. What can I do?"
"You can get clear, Imala. Head back to Luna. I'd feel much better if I knew you were safe." He was using the wrenches he had brought for the nozzles. They're weren't the best tools for the job, but they were all he had.
"I can help stop the landers," said Imala.
"You don't have any weapons, Imala. We covered your collision-avoidance lasers with shielding plates. You're nothing but a flashing hunk of metal at this point."
"You say that to all the girls."
"I'm serious, Imala. Please. At least one of us needs to get out, to tell everyone what happened here."
"Don't talk like that. Like you're giving up."
"I'm not giving up, Imala. But I'm also keenly aware of what we're up against here. If we don't make it, this war needs to go on. People need to learn from our mistakes. You can help them."
There was silence on the line for a long moment. "All right," she said. "I'll go back."
"Will you? Or are you only saying what I want to hear?"
She didn't answer directly. "Stay safe, Vico. If you need anything, I'm here on the line."
He finished with the launch tube. Then he moved to an adjacent tube and did the same. When he was done, he spray painted a giant "X" on the hatch of each tube so that Mazer would know which ones had been set. Then he gathered his tools and flew to the helm.
The lights from his helmet swept the helm when he arrived. He saw the Formics first, floating in the space, their four arms limp at their sides. He pushed one out of his way and there was Wit, still at the wheel. Victor launched to him and turned him over. Wit's face was red, blistered, and covered in blood. Victor gave Wit's hand a squeeze. "Vaya a Dios, y al cielo mas alla de este." It's what his family always said when someone passed on. Go to God, and to the heaven far above this one.
He released Wit's hand and gripp
*
Mazer turned a few nozzles in the cargo bay, but it quickly became apparent that everyone was much faster at the task than he was. They had done it before; he hadn't. They moved with confidence; he moved with caution. He was only getting in their way.
He left Benyawe in charge of the effort and launched back across the bay to the shaft they had just exited, the one that led back to the launch tubes. They had found several large carts along the way, and they had pushed them all here for loading. The question now was: How would they move the pieces of wreckage floating in the middle of the bay to the shaft? There was nothing to anchor their feet to in the middle of the room. They couldn't launch to the wreckage, and expect to launch back. Everything was a free-floating object. They wouldn't have any leverage.
The solution was right there in front of him, he realized. Victor had unspooled several hundred meters of wiring across the bay, connecting all of the mesh nets to the batteries. It looked like a haphazard spider's web, but it was exactly what Mazer needed. He launched again and began cutting and collecting the wire. By the time the team had finished with the nozzles, he had twisted and semi-braided the wiring into three long, thick ropes. One of the ropes was tied around his chest and thighs like a harness.
As Benyawe and the others joined him at the shaft entrance, Mazer called to Victor. "Nozzles are rotated. We're gathering the wreckage now."
"Hurry," said Victor. "Lem doesn't think he can hold them much longer."
Mazer faced the others. "All right. Listen up. We make three teams of two. Each team has a fisherman and a hook. The fisherman anchors his boots here at the shaft entrance and holds one end of the rope. The hook ties the other end around his chest and thighs like so." He raised his arms so they could see how he had tied the harness. "Then the hook leaps out and seizes a piece of wreckage. The fisherman reels them both back in, and the team works together to get the wreckage into the cart. If the piece proves too big for the cart, cut it down if the cuts can be made quickly. Otherwise ditch it and grab something else. Target pieces that are smaller than the cart but that have some mass to them. Engines, drive systems. We're making cannon shot here. The denser the better. We keep fishing and loading until these carts are full. Shenzu, you're with me."
They all moved quickly, pairing off and making their harnesses.
Shenzu seized his end of the rope, set his boot magnets to maximum, and signaled to Mazer that he was ready. Mazer launched toward the wreckage and landed on a hunk of fuselage. It spun and twisted from the force of his impact, but Mazer held on. Shenzu quickly pulled in the slack on the rope, and the fuselage steadied. Mazer snapped his hand magnets to it and called back to Shenzu that he was ready. Shenzu pulled him in, and the two of them loaded the fuselage into one of the carts.
After fifteen minutes they had filled five carts. The wreckage was bulky and oddly shaped, so they only fit two to three pieces per cart, but Mazer figured it was enough to arm two launch tubes.
"Everybody take a cart," said Mazer. "If you're wearing a harness, consider wrapping the rope around the cart and pulling it like a horse. You'll be able to see where you're going. We form a line and we move double time. Shenzu you and Benyawe share a cart."
"Because I'm old and feeble?" said Benyawe.
"Because we have five carts and six people," said Mazer. "Because you've turned more nozzles than anyone and because we need you rested." He had noticed her movements were becoming sluggish. He couldn't have her slowing down the line.
"Now let's move!"
They moved. Mazer led them out, pulling his cart behind him like a beast of burden. The load was weightless, but the wheels on the cart were old and rusting and slow to turn. After fifty meters Mazer's legs felt as if they were on fire. He was pouring sweat. His water supply was nearly depleted. He pushed on, setting the pace, hurrying toward the launch tubes. The others followed, lagging slightly behind but hustling nonetheless.
They were still a short distance from the launch tubes, when Victor came over the radio. "Here they come!"
*
Victor had seen the landers on the nets. He knew they were large. He had seen how everything around them seemed small and insignificant in comparison--the aircraft that had attacked them, the jungles or mud slides that had surrounded them, the villages and cities near them. The landers had dwarfed them all. But in each of those images, the landers had been mostly submerged into the ground. Now he was seeing them in their entirety. Massive. Unstoppable. Mountains of mechanical engineering. A swarm of mining ships were firing at the landers, and Victor was relieved to see that the ships were in fact inflicting damage. Not much, but the landers' surfaces were riddled with cuts and gouges and scorch marks. The landers might be big, but they weren't indestructible.
They were coming in a line, Victor saw, one right behind the other. If he was going to destroy them both, he would have to do it quickly. There wouldn't be much time between shots. He needed to destroy one with the gamma plasma and then chase the second one with the plasma beams back into the line of fire of the launch tubes. If the second one didn't retreat from the gamma plasma, great. Victor would destroy it the same way as the first. But Victor didn't suspect that would be the case. "Mazer, what's your status?"
"We just reached the launch tubes with the carts."
"I marked the tubes with paint," said Victor.
"I see them," said Mazer. "We're moving there now. We'll need a few minutes to load the wreckage."
"You've got about four minutes. Maybe five. Then they'll be on top of us."
"We'll load what we can," said Mazer. "Hopefully it will be enough."
Victor blinked a command to connect directly to Deen. "Talk to me, Deen."
"You're going to get one shot at this," said Deen. "They're big, yes. And that means they're easy to hit. But it also means they're resilient. Put the beams right through it, dead center. I say we wait until they're as close as possible, directly above the nozzles so you can't miss."
"Lem," said Victor. "Pull back your ships. Get the miners out."
"Roger," said Lem. "Good luck."
Victor saw the holo model of the ship rotate. His hands were already on the levers and switches he would need. He had watched the vids a dozen times, learning from the Formics at the helm, studying how they handled the controls and moved the ship. He mimicked them now, moving the levers and rotating the ship.
Deen continued to make slight adjustments, and Victor continued to follow him. The minutes passed quickly, and the first lander had grown so large in the window that it seemed like a collision was inevitable.
"More to the left," Deen said. "You're rotating too quickly ... Down four degrees ... Left another degree ... That's it. Keep it coming. Almost. There you go. Now you're tracking. Hold that rotation. You've got him."
"Mazer, are you loaded?" Victor said.
"One of the tubes is loaded," said Mazer. "That's all we had time for."
"That's going to have to do," said Victor.
"The underbelly is coming up," said Deen. "You're still tracking. Hold that rotation. Ten more seconds. Steady. Three. Two. One. FIRE!"
Victor spun the wheel clockwise as hard and fast as he could. On Deen's helmetcam he saw the beams of gamma plasma explode outward, puncturing through the lander as if it were tissue paper. The lander continued moving forward, breaking apart.
"Now rotate back!" said Deen. "Come back, cut through it, slice it in half."
Victor's hand flew back to the levers. He stopped the rotation and rolled the ship back the way it had come, cutting through the lander like a saw as the lander continued its trajectory. There was cheering and shouting in his earpiece. From the mining ships, from Imala, from the team in the launch tubes.
The second lander was already retreati
"I'm at the console," said Mazer. "How do I fire?"
Victor pulled up Mazer's helmetcam so he could see what Mazer was seeing. "Move your right hand to the right," said Victor, "three levers over. There. That's it. When Deen gives the signal, push that forward. Deen, you're our eyes. Tell us when."
"You need to move the ship, Victor," said Deen.
The model of the ship rotated in Victor's HUD. He tried to mimic it.
"Faster," said Deen.
"I'm rotating as fast as I can," said Victor.
"It's opening!" said Deen. "It's opening!"
It was true. The bottom of the remaining lander was folding backward like two parting lips. A swarm of Formic transports and skimmers poured out, like a hive of angry wasps. Fifty. A hundred. All moving like a single mass, spiraling downward toward the mothership.
"Stay on the lander!" said Victor. "That's our target!"
Deen gathered himself. "Ten degrees to the right. Two degrees down. Three degrees. Four. That's it. Closer. Closer. Keep it coming. Keep it coming. Okay, now you're tracking. You've got it, you've got it. Now, Mazer! FIRE!"
Mazer pushed the lever forward, and the contents of the launch tube exploded upward like a cannon. The wreckage moved so quickly, that Victor didn't see it on his screen. All he saw was the top of the lander exploding, like the exit wound of a headshot. Large chunks of the lander's hull spun away, leaving a gaping hole in the roof of it.
There were more cheers over the radio, but Victor ignored them. "We need to finish it with the gamma plasma, Deen. It's wounded, but it's not out. Guide me. Let's go! Let's go!"
Deen gave him the directions, helping him rotate. Victor sliced through the second lander once, twice, cutting it to pieces.
"They're on the hull!" said Deen. "They're landing."
Victor turned the gamma plasma wheel hard counterclockwise, shutting it off. Then he looked at Deen's helmetcam, and saw with horror that several transports had landed on the hull, surrounding Deen. Formics poured out of them, wearing pressure suits. Deen was already firing. His laser sliced through a whole row of them, cutting them in half. Their bodies burst apart like overripe fruit.