harvesterâan early vessel in the space-mining industry designed to latch on to small, near-Earth asteroids and pull them to a harvesting station where miners would pick them clean of iron ore and precious metals.
âJust like we practiced,â Mazer said. âThe cubes may be live, but nothing we do changes.â
At the appropriate time, he launched from his capsule and touched down on the surface, locking his Nan-Ooze boots into place. Three small vid screens on the left side of his HUD showed him the helmet cams of his teammates, who touched down nearby.
The team moved swiftly, covering each other as they anchored their cubes to the hull. There would be no augmented-reality battle this time. This was get in and detonate.
Mazer felt tense as he withdrew from the detonation zone and launched upward with the others. Four lines of Nan-Ooze stretched as the team shot away from the ship. Then the skinnywires snapped taut as they reached the maximum height.
âCubes align,â Mazer said, giving the order for the activated cubes to recognize each other, the last step before deploying the weapon.
To Mazerâs horror, however, only three of the four cubes emitted a green go light.
âCubes align,â Mazer repeated.
Nothing changed. One cube was nonresponsive.
Mazer opened a radio frequency. âControl, this is Captain Rackham. We have a faulty cube here. Request permission to abort test, over.â
The technicianâs voice crackled back over the radio. âCaptain, this is Control. Your request is denied. Proceed to contingency Beta. Over.â
Mazer frowned, furious, then he pushed his frustration aside and refocused himself.
There was a chance that one of the four team members would be killed in action or lost in transit, or that a cube would somehow prove defective, so a contingency had been created in the mission plan. The three remaining cubes would form a single triangle instead of four overlapping triangles. The tidal forces wouldnât be as strong, and the resultant breach may not be as large, but the hope was that the team could still penetrate the hull and fulfill the mission.
Mazer glanced at the others. âCubes, engage contingency Beta. Authorization Captain Rackham.â
The visual on his HUD told him the three cubes had realigned and were ready.
âDeploy,â said Mazer.
A force punched through the steel-reinforced hull as if it were thin aluminum, ripping jagged sections of the hull inward and sending cracks in every direction, as if the entire ship were about to crumble. A half second later the ship rocked to one side as the center of the breach widened unevenly, consuming one cube of the GD and then another, ripping, tearing, caving inward. Mazer spun, yanked to the right by his tether, slamming into someone, he didnât know who.
A scream of pain in his earpiece. Shrapnel flew around him, whizzing by his visor. He spun, disoriented, twisted in his tether line or maybe someone elseâs, then he slammed into the side of the ship and bounced off, arms flailing, pain shooting up his shoulder, the ship vibrating for an instant beneath him.
And then the vibrating stopped.
As quickly as it had begun, the violence on the shipâs surface ceased. Cracks froze in place, no longer extending, and the hole in the side ceased bending inward.
Mazer, however, didnât stop. He was still in motion, spinning to his left, his tether further tangling with someone elseâs.
He reached down, trying to orient himself, and grabbed the tether at his ankle, his body in a ball. Then he struck the side of the ship again and grabbed at a crevice in the hull. The act was instinctual, and for a terrifying instant he thought the jagged edge might rip his suit. But no, the material held.
âIâm hit,â Shambhani said, his voice heavy with pain. âReel in.â
Mazer saw him to his left. Sham was crumpled in a ball as his tether reeled him in.
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