“The U.S. doesn’t think so. The Formic weapons systems are hidden inside the ship and only emerge when the ship is threatened. STASA footage of the Battle of the Belt and the footage of the Formics taking out the U.N. secretary showed us where those weapons are concealed.”
“How? The surface is round. Every square inch of the ship looks identical.”
“I don’t know. They must have some way. Maybe the ship’s close enough now to detect small discrepancies on the surface. All I know is they intend to target those places where the weapons are stored and cripple the guns before they can emerge. A second team of ships will be striking the Formics here, at the tip, where the shield-generation equipment is located. The U.S. is confident that with those two objectives achieved, they can easily push on with a full-scale assault.”
“They’re wrong,” said Lem. “The Formic guns are only the first line of their defense. The ship itself is a much more lethal weapon. There are apertures all over the surface. Any of them can open and fire laserized gamma plasma in any direction. I’ve seen it happen. The shuttles don’t stand a chance. When do they plan to do this?”
“In about forty-eight hours,” said Simona.
“You have to stop them.”
“That’s your job. That’s what the interviews are for. Tell the world what you know. You don’t have to exaggerate. You don’t have to lie. Be honest. You and your crew have seen the Formics up close. No one else has. Convince the U.S. to withdraw and let Ukko conduct a drone strike.”
“I’ve already told you. Drones with glasers could be a bad idea. I’m not endorsing that approach. If you want me to say that in an interview, forget it. You’ll have to find someone else to do that.”
“Fine. We will. Say what you think is best. But if you say anything against the drones, we’ll only cut it out later, so don’t bother. Just help us stop the U.S. assault. You’d be saving lives.”
“Spare me the saving-lives argument. You and I both know that Father wants to be the hero here. He doesn’t want the U.S. and its allies taking out the mothership because he wants that glory for himself. I know how my father thinks, Simona. If it doesn’t benefit him, he doesn’t care.”
“You really don’t think much of him, do you?”
She would echo everything he said to Father, but at the moment he didn’t care. Right now his mind was racing. A spark of an idea had ignited. What if this was the opportunity he had been waiting for? The drone strike was destined to fail. And yet Father was putting all his eggs in that basket. Fifty drones and fifty glasers. A massive fortune. Not enough to bankrupt the company, but certainly enough to pass a vote of no confidence in Father and boot him off his throne once the glasers and drones were destroyed. The Board couldn’t ignore a mistake like that.
It would take some time and effort to rebuild the company, of course, but Lem had rebuilt companies before. Never on this scale, but the game was the same regardless of the company’s size.
Booting Father wouldn’t be enough, though, he knew. Lem also had to position himself as the rightful successor, and having Father elevate him as a national hero certainly wouldn’t hurt in that effort. The Board would have their eye on Lem. They would be desperate to rebuild the company’s image, and what better way to do that than with a media darling with proven business success who just happens to be the founder’s tenacious son?
Granted, the Formics would still be an issue. That would need addressing as well. But they were an enemy for another day. Right now Father was the one with the exposed flank, and Lem wasn’t about to ignore it.
Lem straightened his jacket and gestured to the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
She looked relieved. “You’re doing the right thing, Lem. People need to hear this story. And don’t edit yourself. Give it some drama. People want drama.”
“Relax, Simona. I’ll have them biting their nails.”
CHAPTER 22
Crows
The airlock was small, but all fifteen women managed to squeeze inside it.
Rena pulled the interior hatch closed—sealing them off from the cargo bay—then she spun the wheel and secured the lock. The exterior hatch, on the opposite wall, was now all that separated them from the vacuum of space.
“Check the suit of the person beside you,” said Rena. “Look for punctures, scratches, any sign of structural deterioration, especially at creases: elbows, armpits, back of the knees. Make sure everyone’s suit is airtight.” Their pressure suits were newer and nicer than anything they had ever had on board El Cavador, but Rena wasn’t taking any chances.
The women obeyed without hesitation. They had come to trust Rena’s leadership when it came to the equipment. “Check your oxygen levels,” said Rena. “Fiddle with the air valves, make sure you have manual control of your air intake if you need it. Know what you’re breathing. Monitor your mixture. Ask your helmet to run a full scan of life support. If any of your biometrics are off, if you sense the tiniest of glitches, speak up now. This is not a drill this time. This is the real. No mistakes.”
Their faces were visible through their visors, and Rena could see that many of them were nervous. Rena didn’t blame them. She was afraid as well. Most of them hadn’t done a spacewalk in years; it was the men on El Cavador who had done all the mining. Worse still, crows didn’t use lifelines—or the long hoses that connected to the back of a spacesuit and kept a person anchored to the ship. On El Cavador, going outside without a lifeline was suicide, the most dangerous, reckless, stupid decision a miner could make. The lifeline was exactly what its name implied. Power and air came down the lifeline, and if you were ever in trouble, if you needed a quick rescue, the lifeline was the means by which you were pulled back into the ship.
But lifelines were impossible with scavenger work. The wreckage constantly moved; lifelines would knot and twist and kink once everyone got on board. Plus the insides of ships were mazes, with corridors extending in any direction; lines would too easily twist and tangle and tie into knots. Then there was the risk of severing a lifeline on the sharp edges from torn metal and wreckage.
No, portable oxygen and batteries were better for scavenger work. Yet lifelines were the only type of spacewalking any of the women had ever done. The idea of going out into the black without a tether was terrifying.
“We’re going to be fine,” Rena assured them. “We’ve been practicing for this.”
She moved to the exterior hatch and looked out the small porthole at the wreckage outside. It was difficult to tell what type of ship it had been. The alien weapons had blown most of it to bits during the battle, leaving only this rear section intact.
She turned back to the group and lifted her arms high over her head. “Stretch out. Muscles need to be loose for takeoff and landing.”
The women complied, bending their legs and getting loose. Rena took a moment to reposition some of the gear she had strapped to her shoulders and belt. Arjuna had loaded each of them with salvaging tools. Rena carried a rotating saw, industrial shears, and a dozen other smaller tools stuffed into her suit’s many pockets.
Arjuna’s voice sounded in their helmets. “Move quickly. Don’t waste time on parts of little value.” He was up in the helm, monitoring them, tracking the wreckage. “When you enter a room, look at everything. Put a price on every piece you see. And remember that the most valuable pieces may not be out in the open. Look for pipes, wiring, conduit. Follow them to their source. Find whatever they’re powering or pumping from. Rip back panels. Expose everything. Then go to what’s worth the most and start cutting.” He was repeating himself. He had drilled this into them for weeks now. “And how much extra do you cut away?”
He meant extra wiring or pipes, all the replaceable pieces that fed into the part and anchored it to the ship. Cutting a power cord was fine. Cutting the part wasn’t.
The women all answered in unison, some with a tired rhythm in their voice. They had been over this so many times already. “At least half a meter,�
� they said
“At the least,” Arjuna repeated. “At the least. More is better. Err on the side of caution. If you cut the part too short or if you damage it when you cut it free, it’s junk. We’ll get nothing for it.”
Rena looked to her right and saw Abbi beside her. Abbi had come to El Cavador as a young bride from a Peruvian free-miner family that had never allowed their women to do spacewalks. She looked terrified.
“Stay close to me,” said Rena. “We’ll go everywhere together.”
Abbi nodded, grateful.
Rena’s heart ached for the woman. Abbi had lost her only son, Mono, when El Cavador was destroyed, and the loss had been devastating. Ever since then Abbi had been detached and distant. Rena had tried comforting her on a few occasions, but Abbi had always brushed off the gestures and preferred to be left alone. Now, however, she was terrified and desperate for companionship.
“We’ll help each other,” Rena told her. “No one’s alone on this.”
Abbi nodded again, putting on her best face. She was trying at least, thought Rena.
Arjuna’s voice returned. “We’ll have the nets open. Once you pull a part, bring it outside and push it to the nets.”
The nets had been a source of contention among the women. Arjuna had ordered his original crew to man the nets and catch the salvaged parts while he had ordered the women of El Cavador to go inside the wreckage and retrieve the valuables.
“You see what he’s doing, don’t you?” Julexi had said. “He’s giving us the dangerous work and giving the light, safe labor to his own family.”
“We’re better cutters than they are,” Rena had said. “We know the parts better than they do. He’s doing this for practical reasons. We’ll move faster and salvage more this way.”
It was true, but no one liked it.
“You see how she always takes his side instead of ours?” Julexi had said. “Arjuna can do no wrong as far as Rena is concerned.”
It was a ridiculous accusation. Rena had argued privately with Arjuna on a half-dozen issues, usually winning those arguments and getting what the family needed. But she never bragged about these small victories to the women. No one else even knew they had occurred. That would only fuel those who still griped about being here. They would use those arguments as proof that coming along had been a mistake. It didn’t matter that all ships had arguments like the ones Rena had with Arjuna. It didn’t matter that all families operated that way. It had happened every day aboard El Cavador. People argued. Disagreements were voiced on how things should be done. Opposing viewpoints were considered. Compromises were made.
But people like Julexi seemed to forget that fact when they were so desperate to build a case against their current situation.
Arjuna said, “Hatch is opening in five … four … three … two … one.”
The hatch cracked, and the rush of oxygen in the airlock was sucked out into the vacuum of space. With the bolts pulled back and the seal broken, Rena pushed on the hatch, and it swung outward, revealing the wide, infinite expanse of space beyond. She had told herself that she would be the first one out, leading by example, showing the women that they could do this without lifelines, that all would be well.
But fear paralyzed her. The blackness was a well she would fall into and continue on forever. It had taken Segundo. It would take her, too.
“What are you waiting for?” said Julexi. It was an accusation as much as a question. It was as if she were saying: You see how she hesitates? You see how she’s afraid?
It was exactly the motivation Rena needed to shatter the fear. She reached up, pulled herself through the hole, got her feet outside on the hull of the ship, and pushed off hard toward the wreckage, moving a little faster than was necessary to prove she wasn’t afraid.
She flew, heading straight for the flat side of the wrecked ship’s hull, which they had determined was the safest place to land.
She knew the others were behind her. She could hear their grunts and exhalations as they launched from the Gagak’s hull and made for the wreck.
Right at the last moment, Rena tapped the retros on her shoulder pack, which shot out small bursts of compressed air and slowed the forward movement of her upper body. As she had hoped, the lower half of her body continued forward and she rotated so that her feet were now in front of her. She landed expertly feetfirst with her boot magnets turned on, anchoring herself to the wreck. Then she quickly turned around, saw the others coming, and shuffled back out of the way.
Abbi came next, but she didn’t land nearly as gracefully. She failed to get her feet under her in time and hit the hull with her shoulder and bounced away, nearly spinning off into space. Rena caught her by the arm and pulled her back, helping her to a standing position. Abbi was breathing hard, eyes were wide with terror, but she nodded her thanks and worked to compose herself.
Julexi twisted her ankle on her landing, and when Rena approached her to help her up, Julexi waved her brusquely away. “Don’t pretend to care. I’m fine.”
They found a hatch and went inside, entering into the airlock of a cargo bay. It was completely dark, and when Rena shined her spotlight around the room, the beam fell upon two corpses twenty meters away. They had expected this, but Rena still gave a quick intake of breath. The bodies were both men. One of them was turned away from them, but the other seemed to be looking at them, his expression pained. They wore heavy, nonmatching jumpsuits, which meant they were probably part of a clan; corporates would have had uniforms.
The women crowded around Rena, staring at the bodies. Rena lowered her beam and faced them. “We knew we’d find corpses in here. Ignore them. Let’s focus on the equipment.”
A quick scan of the cargo bay revealed all sorts of useful tools and heavy equipment: suits, helmets, mining tools, even a few digger mechs that looked to be in perfect working condition and worth a small fortune each. Most of it was anchored down tight and thus had not been thrown around and damaged during the battle. Rena radioed back up to Arjuna and rattled off what they had found.
“Not a bad find for your first wreck, Lady of El Cavador. We are opening the nets now. I’ll send down some men with cables and wenches to pull in the mechs. What about elsewhere?”
“We haven’t explored beyond the bay yet.”
“Leave most of your team there to recover what you’ve found and send a few out to check the rest of the ship. This is a sizable wreck. There might be more worth taking.”
“Roger that.”
Abbi was shining her light at the two dead men. “Doesn’t seem right, Rena. Taking from the dead like this. These were free miners like us.”
“We’ve salvaged from dead ships before, Abbi. A lot of our equipment on El Cavador came from things we found.”
“Yes, but I never had to be the one to take it. And anyway, we were doing that to stay alive. Crows take to make a profit.”
“It’s no different, Abbi. It’s all survival. Now come on, I need your help.” She pulled her away from the corpses. Several of the women had their drills out, removing the anchor bolts to the equipment they were hoping to bring in. “Julexi,” said Rena. “Abbi and I are going to scout the rest of the ship. You’re in charge of the recovery here.”
Julexi seemed surprised then narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “Why me?”
“Because if anyone can handle a big job like this, you can.” Rena figured it would help Julexi to feel some ownership for their success today. Arjuna had agreed to give them 30 percent of whatever they recovered, so today’s haul would be a decent sum. It was nowhere near what they would need to buy their own ship, but it was a start. If Julexi felt responsible for that, it might mend things between them.
“So we work while you two play explorer?” said Julexi.
“We won’t be poking about,” said Abbi. “We’re looking for other parts. That’s why we came.”
Abbi’s response surprised Rena. Usually Abbi was all too eager to echo Julexi’s complaints, but here she appe
ared to be siding with Rena. Maybe the infighting was beginning to subside.
“We’ll hurry back if we don’t find anything,” said Rena. She launched toward the hatch on the far side of the cargo bay, and Abbi followed. Out in the corridor they found two more bodies, one of them a woman about Abbi’s age, the other an old man. Rena pushed them aside without looking at their faces, and the corpses floated to the opposite wall.
“You paint,” said Rena. “I’ll lead.”
Without lifelines or a lot of light to see by, it would be easy to get lost in the labyrinth of a ship, so Arjuna had supplied them all with spray paint. They were to mark the walls wherever they went and use the painted markings to lead them back to the ship.
Abbi painted a circle on the hatch they had come through while Rena moved down the corridor, scanning right and left with her light, searching for anything useful. She followed pipes for a while, but they turned upward into the ceiling, heading up to another deck. They passed several less-valuable items—compressors and filters and purifiers—but Arjuna had given them strict instructions not to waste their time on those. Big-ticket items were their goal. They moved through a series of hatches, turning right or left. Abbi sprayed arrows whenever they changed direction. The size of the ship surprised Rena; it had seemed much smaller at a distance.
They passed more bodies: men, women, some young, some old. Rena made a point not to look at their faces. She paused, however, when they came upon the corpse of a young women clutching a bundle wrapped in a blanket. The expression on the woman’s face was earnest and desperate, as if she had passed her final moment pleading to God in prayer. Rena didn’t dare pull back the blanket flap; she couldn’t bring herself to see a dead infant.
The signs on the walls were all in French, and the people had a European look about them. Rena passed door after door of living quarters. The rooms were decorated with colorful paints and bright fabrics and framed portraits, as if everyone had worked hard to make their little corner of the ship their own. There were hammocks and containers of food, children’s toys and holopads. Rena even saw a few paper books floating in the hall.
Earth Afire (The First Formic War) Page 35