Earth Afire (The First Formic War) (16 page)

In truth it stung him slightly that she had changed the design a bit, even though he had fully expected her to do so. He wasn’t an engineer after all, and he only understood the science on the most fundamental level. Of course she was going to change it.

He had commissioned her months ago to develop a replacement for the glaser, and at the time he had given her a suggestion for its design, fully expecting her to dismiss his idea outright, pat him on his little head, and tell him to stop playing in her sandbox. Instead, she had thought the idea worth pursuing and assembled a team of engineers to make it work. Now that nugget of an idea had grown into schematics and actual plans.

“We call them ‘shatter boxes,’” said Benyawe. “As you know, the problem with the current glaser is that the gravity field spreads outward too quickly and too wide.”

Lem hardly needed reminding of that. It had almost meant his life. Back in the Kuiper Belt, when they had fired the glaser at a large asteroid, the gravity field had grown so quickly and stretched outward so far that it had nearly consumed the ship and turned them all to space dust. Lem’s quick thinking was all that had saved them.

Benyawe pointed to some crude drawings on the wall that looked like two cubes connected to each other by a long, coiling string. “Your initial idea was a device like a bola, with two small glasers on both ends that attach themselves to opposite poles of an asteroid.” She wiped the crude drawing away with a flick of her stylus, and floated over to the detailed schematics. “The shatter boxes operate the same way.”

The cubes were now thick discs, and one of them was disassembled in the air, as if the whole thing had been photographed a microsecond after it exploded apart, revealing each of the individual pieces inside. “When they’re fired from the mining ship, they spin through space like a bola, which as it turns out, is a brilliant mechanism if we detach the cable from each glaser at just the right instant. The spinning motion and additional guidance from us will sling them to opposite sides of the asteroid, where these anchor braces will dig into the rock.” She indicated the teethlike claws on the sides of the shatter boxes. “All that’s left is pushing the button and letting the glasers rip the rock to shreds. The two gravity fields will interact, counter each other, and keep the destructive reach of the fields to a minimum.”

“So it works,” said Lem.

“In the computer models, yes. It’s much safer than the current design.”

“Then why aren’t you clicking your heels in glee?” said Lem. “Or am I missing something?”

“There is a problem, yes,” said Benyawe.

“Which is?”

“Money. The original glaser isn’t destroyed every time we use it. The shatter boxes are. They’re consumed in the gravity field along with everything else. That’s enormously expensive and would offset most of the profit we’d reap from mining the asteroid. It’s not cost effective.”

“Then make it cost effective,” said Lem. “Use cheaper components and materials, shrink the size of the shatter boxes, remove anything that’s not absolutely essential. Do whatever it takes.”

She was quiet a moment then asked, “Are you sure this is how we should be spending our time, Lem?”

“How else would you be spending it?”

“Finding a way to fight the Formics.”

“My dear sweet Dr. Benyawe, what do you think you’ve been doing?”

She seemed confused. “You want to fire these at the Formic ship?”

“I want to use them however we can. If they can safely destroy asteroids, maybe they can safely destroy the ship or whatever happens to be inside it.”

“We’ll never catch it before it reaches Earth. And if it enters Earth’s atmosphere, it’s beyond our reach. Plus it will take months to build these once we arrive at Luna.”

“We’ll need to move this through production much faster than that,” said Lem. “We may not have months.”

Lem’s wrist pad vibrated, signaling a message from the helm. He tapped it. “Go ahead.”

Chubs’s voice said, “Long-range sensors have detected an emergency beacon.”

“From where?”

“We can’t determine its point of origin. Considering its trajectory however, it appears to have come from the Battle of the Belt.”

Lem glanced at Benyawe and saw that her interest was piqued as well. The Battle of the Belt was the name the crew had given to the massive line of wreckage the sensors had found since flying closer to the Formics’ trajectory. The
Massacre
of the Belt would have been a more fitting name in Lem’s opinion, considering how one-sided the outcome had been. It was impossible to say what had happened exactly, but the amount of wreckage suggested that anywhere between fifty to one hundred mining ships had attacked the Formics in a coordinated assault. Sensors couldn’t identify the ships at this distance, but they were likely free miners and corporates alike, allied for once against a common enemy.

A beacon sent from one of the ships in the battle might hold critical, useful intel. Maybe they had discovered a weakness in the Formics’ defenses. Or perhaps they had more information about the Formics’ weapons capabilities. Any nugget of information could be helpful.

“Is the beacon broadcasting a message?” asked Lem.

“Affirmative,” said Chubs. “But sensors are only getting a billionth of it through the interference. We can’t make it out. The light sequence suggests it’s a STASA beacon, though.”

Every satellite used blinking lights to identify itself from a distance in case radio had failed. No sequence was more familiar to anyone than that of the Space Trade and Security Authority.

“I’m on my way,” said Lem. He clicked off and launched toward the push tube. Benyawe, as he expected, followed close behind. When they reached the helm, a rendering of the beacon spun in the system chart in front of them, its lights dancing across its surface.

“Can you determine
when
it was sent?” asked Lem. “Was it before or after the battle?”

“Impossible to say,” said Chubs. “It may have nothing to do with the battle. We don’t know.”

“Where is it now? Could we intercept it?”

“It’s not along our current trajectory. If we alter our course, we could snag it in about eighteen hours.”

“Would that delay our arrival to Luna?” asked Benyawe.

“By twelve days at least,” said Chubs.

“Twelve days?” asked Lem.

Chubs shrugged. “That’s the math. We’d have to decelerate to intercept the beacon and then accelerate back up to our current speed. Twelve days minimum.”

Lem considered a moment. “You think we should go for it?”

“In all honesty, it’s probably not worth pursuing,” said Chubs. “If it were a free-miner or corporate ship, I might expect intel on Formic defenses or weapons, something useful. But this is a STASA beacon. It’s probably a worthless emergency announcement.”

“Maybe it’s a distress signal,” said Benyawe.

“If it is, it was sent from the ship before the ship was destroyed,” said Chubs. “There’s nothing left from the battle but debris. And even if by some miracle a few people survived in a scrap of wreckage and fired off a beacon, they couldn’t have held out this long. Too much time has passed. There’s no one out there we can save.”

“Maybe it has information about the battle,” said Benyawe. “Which ships were engaged, crew manifests. That would allow us to at least document the battle for historical purposes.”

“We’re not historians,” said Chubs. “That’s not our mission.”

“Even so,” said Benyawe, “thousands of people lost their lives. Their families on Earth have a right to know what happened to them. That battle is a testament to human courage.”

“And a testament to human inadequacy,” said Chubs. “You’re not going to boost morale on Earth by pointing out how our new alien friends wiped out dozens of heavily armed ships.”

“We’re not going to keep it a secret either,” said Benyawe. “Earth needs to know what it’s up against.”

“The Formics will reach Earth long before we do,” said Chubs. “By then Earth will know exactly what it’s up against.”

“I say we go for it,” said Lem. “Right now we don’t have any critical intel that’s going to make any difference in the coming conflict. With that beacon we might. If we show up twelve days late, so be it. It’s not like they’re expecting us.”

Eighteen hours later a crewman extended one of the ship’s claws normally used for mineral extraction and snagged the beacon from space. Lem watched from the helm as the claw brought the beacon into a holding bay. There crewmen attached cables to the beacon’s data ports. Three seconds later the download was complete.

Lem went to the conference room beside the helm with Benyawe and Chubs and pulled up the beacon’s files and projected them in the holofield above the table. There were images of the Formic ship; 3-D models; information about the ship’s trajectory, speed, and estimated date of arrival at Earth, but nothing new, nothing Lem didn’t know already. No weapons analysis. No identified weakness. Lem waved his hand through the field, pushing files aside and bringing others to the forefront to take a closer look. Worthless, worthless, worthless. It was all old news. His hand moved faster. He was getting impatient.

A man’s head appeared. It was a vid. Lem stopped.

The man looked to be in his fifties—old for a space commission, but not that abnormal for high-ranking officers. Lem made the appropriate hand gesture, and the vid began to play.

“I am Captain Dionetti of the Space Trade and Security Authority, commanding officer of The Star Seer. As the evidence in these files shows, an alien vessel is approaching Earth at incredible speed. We have been tracking alongside it for the past three days, and we will continue to match its speed and monitor it until it reaches Earth.”

“Don’t monitor it, you idiot,” said Lem. “Destroy it.”

The captain continued uninterrupted. “Two weeks ago, reports circulated among the ships here in the inner Belt that an alien vessel had attacked an unspecified number of ships near Kleopatra. News of this engagement spread quickly among the ships in the area. Several clans and corporate vessels decided to stage an offensive against the alien vessel once it reached our position. I and other STASA officers made repeated attempts to quell such an illegal and unprovoked attack—”

“Unprovoked?” said Lem.

“We reminded miners that attacking any ship is against space trade law established by STASA and ratified by the U.N. Security Council. We do not know this alien ship’s intentions, and such aggression might justifiably provoke it to defend itself or retaliate, thus putting all of Earth in jeopardy.

“Sadly, the mining ships ignored our counsel, and a total of sixty-two ships joined in the assault. Our vessel recorded the events from a distance, and the vids of that battle are included amongst these files. I am saddened to report that all sixty-two ships appear to have been destroyed. As you will see from the vids, the alien vessel is fully capable of defending itself if provoked. Therefore, by the authority invested in me by the Space Peace Act and the Space Emergency Response Act, STASA is issuing a cease-fire against the alien vessel. Any mining ship which fires upon or attempts to obstruct the alien vessel will be subject to arrest.”

“Cease-fire?” said Lem. “Tell me this is a joke.”

“Typical STASA,” said Chubs.

“The human race is a peaceful species,” continued the captain, “and STASA will do everything in its power to maintain that peace. Rather than provoke our alien visitors and assume malicious intent, we will extend to them the hand of welcome and begin diplomatic efforts to establish a lasting, peaceful relationship between our two species. If the intel in this beacon reaches Earth before we do, we implore you to notify STASA of our escort and to make preparations to greet the alien ship with the proper delegates and peace offering. God protect us. End of transmission.”

The man’s head winked out.

“Are they insane?” Lem said. “A peace offering? He watched the Formics wipe out sixty-two ships, and he wants to shower them with gifts? Unbelievable.”

“He saw the Formics’ firepower,” said Benyawe. “He’s trying to prevent another massacre and maintain calm. Firing on the Formics is only going to lead to more deaths. You can’t argue with that. He’s doing what he thinks is best for Earth.”

“He’s wrong,” said Lem. “We saw their firepower too. We saw what they did to El Cavador. That doesn’t mean we’re suddenly going to crawl into bed with them.”

“I’m not saying I agree with him,” said Benyawe. “I’m saying he’s asking for diplomacy over rash action. I see his point of view.”

“His point of view is boneheaded arrogance. You didn’t see these creatures up close, Benyawe. I did. And believe me, a nice present in a pretty pink bow isn’t going to make them our best friends.”

“What do we do now?” said Chubs.

“We get to Luna as fast as we can and pray the political idiots don’t roll out the red carpet.”

“Faster than our previous speed?” asked Chubs.

“We can bump it up a notch,” said Lem. “We’re trying to avoid collision threats, I know, but our previous speed was still a little cautious. Let’s push the safety parameters.”

Chubs nodded. “I’ll give the order immediately.” He hurried back to the helm.

Lem returned his attention to the holofield where the captain’s head had been. “How could someone be so asinine? An escort? The man watched all those people die and he has the audacity to give the Formics an escort?”

Benyawe shook her head, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sixty-two ships.”

“We thought it might be more than that,” said Lem.

“So many people.”

Lem wiped his hand through the holofield, searching through the files for the vid of the battle. He found it and played it.

A massive cluster of ships appeared in the holofield. In the center was the Formic ship, huge and imposing, like a giant red moon hurtling through space. Dozens of mining ships were matching its speed, buzzing around it like bees at a hive, firing at the Formics with everything they had, which despite their numbers, seemed woefully inadequate.

Even at a distance Lem recognized several ships from his father’s fleet, all of them armored with additional plates crudely welded to their hulls. They had apparently hastily readied themselves for war, but the added armor did nothing for them. One by one, the Formic guns picked off the ships, slinging hundreds of globules of laserized gamma plasma with perfect accuracy, vaporizing whole clusters of ships in flashes that sent debris hurtling in every direction.