The Swarm Read Free Page A

keep himself from ricocheting off into space. Then Mazer swung his legs down, took Sham’s cube, gave it a final twist to activate it, and anchored it to the hull.
    â€œCube Four is set,” Mazer said. “Clear the square.” He moved a safe distance away from the square and said, “Launch!”
    He winked a command, and the Nan-Ooze sole of his boots released their grip on the surface save for a small square of Nan-Ooze in the center of his foot. Mazer leaped upward away from the ship, with the Nan-Ooze forming into a long thin polymer line, growing thinner and thinner as it extended, tethering him to the small square of Nan-Ooze still rooted to the ship.
    Mazer was firing the whole time. He took out three virtual Formics. Then a fourth. Rimas and Kaufman fired also, soaring up beside him. Then Kaufman was hit, and his Nan-Ooze ceased extending.
    Mazer soared another ten meters. Then his skinnywire snapped taut, stopping his ascent thirty meters above the ship.
    â€œFire,” he said.
    Had the gravity disruptor been live, and not merely practice cubes, the cubes would have unleashed their tidal forces and ripped a hole in the hull, throwing the torn debris inward.
    Mazer and Rimas took out the last few virtual Formics, and then all was still.
    Mazer shut down his slaser and said, “Reel in.” The Nan-Ooze pulled him downward, the polymer nanotech line getting thicker and thicker until it formed back into the sole of his boot when he reached the surface.
    At that point, the exercise was over.
    Mazer got on the radio with the space station and called for an extraction. Then he turned to see that his teammates were all deep in thought, heads down, mentally retracing their steps. He had trained them to do this, to dedicate the time immediately following an operation to silently consider what they had just done. Where were they weak? What had they failed to consider? How could they improve?
    They remained in silence for the duration of the flight back to WAMRED. It wasn’t until they had changed out of their gear and gathered in the debriefing room, feet anchored to the floor, that Mazer spoke again. He started his recording device to ensure that he captured everything they discussed. “Mission succeeded but we lost two men,” he said. “Fifty percent wastage. Not acceptable. Thoughts?”
    Rimas spoke first. “We had a whole Formic army coming at us from every side. We weren’t ready for that.”
    â€œThere were a lot,” Mazer agreed. “But that might be exactly the battle conditions marines face.”
    â€œIt wasn’t just the numbers,” said Rimas. “They were all staying really close to the hull this time. Combat-crawling. That made it hard to get a bead on them without standing up and further exposing myself. If I had had better cover from a standing position, I could’ve inflicted a lot more damage instead of worrying about getting shot.”
    â€œThere is no cover,” said Shambhani. “There’s nothing on the surface of the ship we could have used.”
    â€œWhat if marines were to bring cover with them?” said Rimas.
    â€œHow?” Kaufman asked. “In the capsules? There’s no room for anything else. And if you make the cockpit any bigger to accommodate more cargo, you risk drawing unwanted attention to the thing. It starts looking less like debris and more like a ship.”
    â€œWhat about shields?” asked Sham. “Like riot police carry. We could use them as covers for the cockpits. That way, the shield wouldn’t take up any more room inside the capsule.”
    â€œNo riot shield is going to stop a doily,” said Kaufman.
    â€œNot a traditional riot shield,” Sham said. “It wouldn’t be made of fiberglass. You’d need something sturdier. Steel maybe.”
    Kaufman shook his head. “Wouldn’t work. Your feet are locked to the surface by Nan-Ooze. The force