Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

my whole body turns to ice.”
    Wit’s voice came over the communicator. “Calinga, you set?”
    “Set and freezing my ass off,” said Calinga. “Let’s get a move on.”
    “Punch it,” said Wit.
    Mazer hit the throttle, and his drill sledge surged upward, spewing back lava and taking off. The cockpit shook, and Mazer gripped the steering bars tighter, holding on, pushing the drill to build momentum. He could feel the heat rising inside the cockpit. It was a welcome relief after the cold, but it quickly became blazing hot. “Two hundred and fifty meters to target,” he said.
    The three drill sledges surged upward, chewing through rock and earth. Mazer kept his eyes on the depth gauge, but the growing vibrations made it difficult to focus his eyes on the readout. “Two hundred meters,” he said.
    More white lines appeared on the screen. First there were only a few, but then dozens materialized as the drill sledges drew near to the lander. The Formics were definitely tunnelers, Mazer thought. No doubt of that now.
    The depth gauge scrolled up and revealed a huge spot of white immediately beneath the lander. “Wait!” Mazer said. “Slow down. There’s a large air pocket right beneath the lander. We’ll never make it.”
    “I see it,” said Wit. “Full stop at the air pocket.”
    Mazer continued to slow, breaking through the last of the earth and coming up into the air pocket almost at a crawl. The drill began to wind down, and the sledge tipped forward and leveled out on what looked like the floor of a massive cave. Wit’s and Calinga’s sledges appeared beside him. Mazer opened the cockpit and stood in his seat. He shined his helmet lights directly above him and saw the underside of the lander. A few more meters and he could have reached up and touched the metal surface.
    The air pocket was huge. Mazer wasn’t sure how wide it was; he shined his floodlight all around him and instead of seeing side walls, he saw only blackness.
    “Well that was anticlimactic,” said Calinga. He was standing in his open cockpit, staring up at the underside of the lander, a giant alien ceiling above them. “Here I thought we were going to bust through that thing, and now we can’t even reach it.”
    There was a crack of ice and a hiss of air, and Wit’s cockpit opened. “Talk to me, Mazer. What are our options? Any way we can reach the hull?”
    Mazer shined his helmet lights up again. “I wasn’t anticipating an air pocket here. This complicates matters.” He considered the distance from the floor to the ceiling. “If we came up like planned, we could fly up through the air pocket with enough ejecta behind us to reach the lander. But the drill bits would never get a grip on the hull. We’d bounce off.”
    “So we can’t bust through?” said Calinga. “What do we do? Leave the nuke here?”
    “We could,” said Wit. “But it would do far more damage inside. Our chances of success grow exponentially if we break through. Mazer, could we burn our way in? What if we turn these gophers around and hit the underside of the lander with our lava spew? Could we melt a hole big enough for Calinga to launch through?”
    “No idea,” said Mazer. “Maybe. It’s worth a shot. Trouble is, we’ll have to get out, turn the drill sledges around, extend the stilts, and get the sledges in an upright position, with the back end pointed up at the lander so we can hit the lander with our lava spew.”
    “Calinga, get back in your sledge and go deep,” said Wit. “Get into launch position again. Mazer and I will melt a hole. If it works, we’ll tell you to surge up and soar through. We’ll come right after you. Then we ditch your sledge and the nuke as planned.”
    “Roger that,” said Calinga.
    “I’ll need to extend your stilts and get you into a diving position,” said Mazer.
    Calinga closed himself in his cockpit. Mazer went to Calinga’s sledge, pulled back the side paneling, and punched in the sequence to operate the stilts. It was a multistep process that took a few minutes, but soon all the stilts were out and in place.
    “You’re set,” said Mazer. “But wait until I’m back in my gopher and out of the path of your spew.”
    Calinga waited for the all-clear then fired up the sledge and dove into the earth. An ejecta of lava spew shot back and hit the underside of the lander. Where it did, the hull sizzled and dripped away.
    “Hull’s melting,” said Mazer. “I’d say your plan’s a go,