Earth Unaware (First Formic War) (30 page)

Lem brightened, as if the idea had just struck him. “Weigh Station Four. El Cavador will need supplies. We’ll go there and wait them out.”

“They’d see the ship,” said Chubs. “They wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t work.”

“Drop me off,” said Podolski. “Let me stay there, while you go off a ways. I’ll clean their system, they leave, I call you back, you pick me up.”

Chubs shook his head. “Ships like theirs have incredible sky scanners. They’d see us from way out. The only way that would work is if El Cavador believed we were heading back to Luna.”

Podolski paused, staring down at the holotable, his face taut with tension. Finally he looked up. “Then that’s what we do. You drop me off at Weigh Station Four with some gear and money. Then you head back to Luna. I wait them out, clean their system, then buy passage back on a freighter.”

Lem and Chubs looked at one another.

“You know,” said Chubs, “that just might work.”

CHAPTER 14

Pod

Concepción stood at the holotable at the helm, watching one of the PKs cut through the wreckage of the Italian ship. The miners outside were sending her live video to the holospace in front of her. Everyone who worked at the helm was gathered around Concepción, their faces taut with worry. For her part, Concepción did her best to appear poised and in command, though inside she felt tense and helpless. Whittling down the wreckage with a laser was taking an incredible risk. If the wreckage were to shift or rotate unexpectedly while they were cutting, even only slightly, the laser might cut into the room where the survivors were waiting, breaching the airtight walls and killing everyone inside within moments.

Concepción shuddered at the thought. It would be a cruel death, made all the more horrible because the people trapped inside now believed they were being rescued. Right as we fill their hearts with hope, we screw up and give them a death more terrible and traumatic than what they would have suffered had we never come along.

But no, the wreckage wouldn’t shift, she told herself. The miners were taking every precaution. They had set up mooring cables and two long pylons that extended from El Cavador out to the wreckage, holding the wreckage in place and preventing it from drifting into the ship. It was a precarious procedure, yes, but they were doing everything they could to protect those inside.

The laser finished a cut, and the severed section of wreckage broke free and drifted away. There was an audible sigh of relief from the crew, and a few of them even applauded and embraced one another. Concepción remained still and unresponsive. The job was nowhere close to being finished, and she had learned through sad experience never to celebrate prematurely. They were not out of danger yet. Whatever had done this to the Italians was still out there.

The laser beam stopped cutting. The miners turned on the winches and pulled on the mooring cables, rotating the wreckage into a different position in preparation for a second cut. Since the wreckage was unstable and had lifelines attached and people inside, the miners didn’t rush the process. They rotated the wreckage slowly, being careful not to jerk any of the lines. It made Concepción realize how tedious and lengthy a process this would be: cutting and rotating and cutting and rotating until they had whittled down the structure small enough to fit inside the airlock.

It relieved her to know that Victor and Segundo and Toron were out there somewhere continuing the search. The work with the laser drill hadn’t put a full stop on the rescue efforts.

Of course, sending the three out in the quickship didn’t exactly put her mind at ease either. Under any other circumstances she wouldn’t have taken such a risk, especially with the only two mechanics in the crew. If something happened to both of them, who would keep the ship operational? Not Mono. He was too young, too inexperienced. He had barely had enough time to learn the fundamentals, if that. I should have considered that before blessing the mission, she thought. That had been careless. But what could she have done? Only Victor could fly the quickship, and Segundo wouldn’t have let him go without accompanying him.

The laser started cutting again.

Concepción watched a moment, then her handheld vibrated. She put it to her ear and answered it.

Edimar’s voice was rushed and panicked. “It’s coming back,” she said. “The pod. It’s already close and moving fast. We have about twenty-eight minutes before it reaches the debris cloud.”

Concepción leaped forward to the holotable and swiped her hand through the holospace. The video feeds disappeared. “Show me,” she said.

The people around her recoiled, sensing her alarm. “What is it?” asked Selmo.

A system chart with dots of light appeared in the holospace. One light was marked
EL CAVADOR
. Other smaller dots of light immediately around the ship represented debris. Concepción ignored those and focused instead on a distant dot of light off to the side, alone out in space. As she watched, a computer-rendered line representing the ship’s trajectory extended from the dot across the holospace and landed directly on El Cavador.

The crew stared. They all knew what it meant.

“How much time do we have?” asked Selmo.

“Less than twenty-eight minutes,” said Concepción.

“Everyone to stations,” said Selmo. “Move!”

Selmo stayed by her side while the crew hurried to their workstations. Dreo entered from the corridor and flew to the holotable, coming in from the crow’s nest. Concepción spoke into the handheld. “Watch the pod’s progress, Edimar. If it changes speed or its trajectory notify me immediately.” She ended the call and turned to Dreo and Selmo. “What are our options?” she asked.

“Hard to say,” said Selmo. “We don’t know what we’re up against. We know next to nothing about this pod.”

“We know it destroyed the Italians,” said Dreo, “one of the best defended clans in the Belt. We know it’s lethal. We know the Italians’ death wasn’t an accident. The pod destroyed four ships, not just one. You can’t chalk that up as a mistake. It wiped them out. This was an intentional kill.”

“Agreed,” said Selmo. “But we don’t know if it considers us a threat as well.”

“It’s heading straight for us,” said Dreo. “It’s not coming here to play a hand of cards. It likely thinks we’re part of the Italians. And for whatever reason it considered the Italians a threat. We don’t know why, but it’s probably safe to assume that the Italians didn’t provoke it. That would be foolish. The Italians wouldn’t endanger themselves. They’d play it cautiously. Which would suggest that this thing killed them indiscriminately. But in my mind that isn’t even the question we need to answer. The ‘why’ is irrelevant right now. We need to know the ‘how.’ How did it wipe them out? What are its weapons capabilities? Can it attack from long range? Are we already within its reach? Consider the debris. The pieces of wreckage aren’t clean cut. The edges aren’t straight. This doesn’t look like laser work. It looks like explosions, like something ripped the ships apart. How did it do that? And more importantly how do we defend against it?”

“Maybe we can’t,” said Selmo. “Unless the pod attacked and destroyed the Italians incredibly fast, the Italians would have fired back. They would have given the pod everything they had. Yet their weapons, which are much stronger than ours, apparently had little to no effect on this thing. What makes us think we can take it down when the Italians couldn’t?”

“Then what do you suggest?” asked Dreo. “We can’t run. The pod’s too fast. It would catch us easily. Plus running only makes it harder to defend ourselves or to hit it with the lasers.”

“If the pod thinks we’re with the Italians,” said Selmo, “if we’re an enemy by association, then perhaps we should move out of the debris cloud. If we distance ourselves from this place, the pod might disassociate us from the Italians and leave us alone.”

“If we move out of the cloud, we’ll be exposed,” said Concepción. “The debris is the best defense we have right now. It provides some cover and it likely throws off the pod’s sensors.”

“If it even has sensors,” said Dreo.

“Point taken,” said Concepción. “We need information about this pod, and the only people who can provide it are the survivors inside the wreckage.” She punched a command into her handheld and called Bahzím, who was supervising the effort outside. When he answered, she told him the situation and asked if there was any way to speak with the survivors.

“The only way to communicate with them is by light board,” said Bahzím. “We write, and they give simple responses, nodding their head or writing words on the glass of the hatch one letter at a time.”

“We don’t have time for that,” said Dreo. “Look, these survivors are hindering our maneuverability. We won’t be able to move around the debris field quickly if we’re moored to a massive hunk of wreckage. They’re an albatross. I hate to be the one to say this, but we need to consider cutting them loose.”

“Absolutely not,” said Concepción.

“We could come back and get them when it’s over,” said Dreo.

“They can’t survive without us,” said Selmo. “We’re supplying them with oxygen.”

“Think,” said Dreo. “These are nine total strangers. Are we willing to handicap ourselves and risk everything for people we don’t know?”

“They’re not strangers,” said Concepción. “The moment we started helping them they became a part of this crew. End of discussion. Selmo, have the miners remove the pylons and pull the wreckage in close with the mooring cables. That will give us more mobility. Dreo, contact the quickship. Get Victor and Segundo and Toron back here immediately.”

Dreo hesitated, as if he would argue further, then went to his workstation.

Concepción turned to Selmo. “We need a better defensive position. I want us behind a large chunk of debris if there is one. Then put our best men on our five pebble-killers.”

“That may not be enough,” said Selmo.

“It’s going to have to be,” said Concepción.

*   *   *

Victor floated in the quickship, watching the large, twisted piece of wreckage beside him. An hour had passed since Father and Toron had gone inside through the hatch, and Victor was on the verge of flying to the wreck to investigate. Just as he began unspooling cable to produce a makeshift safety line, a voice crackled over the radio.

“Quickship, this is El Cavador. If you can hear us, respond. Repeat. Victor, Toron, Segundo, if you can hear us, respond.”

Victor dropped the cable. El Cavador was using radio, which meant one of two things. Either the ship had determined that radio wasn’t what had attracted the pod, or the pod was no longer a threat. A different voice sounded in Victor’s helmet. “El Cavador, this is Segundo, we copy. Over.”

Victor relaxed. It was Father. He didn’t sound injured.

“Toron here as well,” said Toron.

Victor swallowed, composing himself. “And Victor. I’m here, too. Over.”

“Get back to the ship immediately,” said Dreo. “The pod’s coming back.”

Victor’s relief at hearing Father’s voice was gone in an instant. They weren’t prepared for the pod; they had five pebble-killers. The Italians had been armed with as many as twenty-five, and the pod had wasted them. Father began asking questions, and Dreo shared what he knew.

“We can’t come back immediately,” said Father. “Toron and I are still inside one of the wrecks. We’re moving back to the quickship now, but it will be ten minutes before we reach it. We won’t get back to you in time. Don’t wait for us. If you need to run or move elsewhere, do it now. We’ll catch up to you later if we can.”

“Concepción won’t like that,” said Dreo.

“She doesn’t have much choice,” said Father.

El Cavador clicked off. Victor hit his talkback: If the ship had abandoned radio silence, there was no need for him to adhere to it now. “Father, what happened?”

Father sounded solemn. “We found Faron shortly after we came inside. He was dead. There were a lot of people in this one, Vico. None of them made it. We had to cut through some heavy debris in one of the corridors to reach the rear of the wreck. We knew it would take a while, but we went for it anyway. It didn’t pay off.”

Victor said nothing. Faron. Dead. Here inside this wreck. That meant this was Vesuvio, Janda’s ship; it meant that if they were going to find Janda, it would likely be here. Faron would have stayed close to her; he would have protected her. Yet Father and Toron hadn’t found her; Father would have said so if they had.

They weren’t going to find her, Victor realized. Ever. It had been an unlikely possibility from the beginning, but Victor had still clung to hope. Now that lingering chance was gone. Alejandra was dead. Nine survivors was more of a miracle than they could have hoped for.

Father and Toron emerged from the hatch. They deflated the bubble and flew back up to the quickship. Toron looked vacant as he climbed back into the cockpit. Victor watched him, seeing that Toron had reached the same conclusion he had: Janda was gone.

Concepción’s voice came over the radio. “We’ve moved to a more defensive position, but don’t come to us if you have enough air. The pod is nearly here, and you may be safer where you are. We’ve managed to get a communication line to the survivors, and we’ve learned more about what we’re up against. The survivors believe the pod is drawn to heat. It stopped at their position and sat there for hours doing nothing. The Italians tried communicating with it, but the pod was nonresponsive. Then, without provocation, it flew to the rear of one of their ships, clung to it with grappling arms, and began probing the ship’s engines with long, thin drills, like needles almost. The drills went in like a ‘knife through hot butter,’ they said, hardly any resistance at all. The pod was systematic about it, as if looking for something. The first ship blew up before anyone knew what was happening. At first the Italians thought the pod had planted an explosive, but it appears the probing of the engines is what caused the detonation. That’s why the debris looks ripped apart. It blew up from within. As for the pod, it sustained no visible damage. Not even the needle drills. The other ships fired their lasers, but the pod moved quickly to the engines of the second ship and repeated the process. The pod took several direct hits, but again, no damage. Either it’s shielded or its hull is impermeable to lasers. It might not attack us, but if it does, we’ll destroy it. Bahzím has a team of miners already outside with penetrating tools. If it lands on our engines, we’ll rip it to shreds.”