Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

"He hasn't spoken any more than you have," said Father.

"Yes," said Toron. "And I am a member of this Council. He is not. He is disrespecting the captain."

"She asked for objections," said Mother. "He politely voiced one."

"Which he had no authority to do," said Toron. "I recognize that your son can do no wrong in your eyes, but by the code of this Council, he is out of line."

"I happen to agree with him," said Marco.

"I agree with him also," said Toron. "Everyone here wants to do the right thing. Of course we will send a warning to everyone if that ever proves necessary. But right now is too soon. We don't know enough. And for Victor to presume to know how pirates would respond is laughably naive."

"We don't even know if there are pirates this far out," said Father.

"Exactly," said Toron. "We don't know. That's why we should be prudent, not rash. I propose we put it to a general vote."

"I second that," said Father.

Concepcion looked at the crowd. "Objections?"

There were none.

"Very well," said Concepcion. "All those who agree with sending out a blanket transmission immediately."

A third of the room raised their hand, including Mother, Father, and Marco. Edimar raised her hand as well, but a withering look from her father made her put it down again. Victor kept his hand down since he wasn't a member of the Council. Concepcion took a visible count, nodded, and said, "All those who feel we should inform only the Italians and Juke ship at this point."

The remaining hands in the room went up, a much larger portion of people. Toron allowed himself a small, triumphant smile.

They were going to do nothing, Victor realized. Nothing immediate anyway, nothing significant, nothing that would ensure their safety in the coming months. They would send out two messages, and then they would sit and wait and hopefully learn something new.

Victor wasn't going to wait with them. He couldn't control when and how the family warned others, but he could control the mechanical functionality of the ship. He could make improvements to the ship's defenses and weapons. He didn't need Council approval for that.

The meeting was breaking up. People were dispersing.

"You tried, Vico," said Mother. "I'm proud of you for that."

"Thank you, Mother." He turned to Father. "We should focus on the pebble-killers first."

"Agreed," said Father, already tapping a command into his handheld. "I'll wake up Mono."

Victor knew he wouldn't have to explain himself to Father. It was obvious what they needed to do. They had to find a way to make the pebble-killers more powerful and lethal. With the whole ship helping, the work would have gone much faster, but now it was going to be just the three of them. Victor hurried from the room. Toron and others would probably think that his quick departure was that of a pouting teenager who had lost an argument, but Victor didn't care. Let them think what they wanted. He had work to do.

CHAPTER 5

Benyawe

Lem was in his office with the lights out, watching a holo simulation of asteroid 2002GJ166 being hit with the glaser. It was a simple holo sim. Only ten seconds long. But the engineers who had put it together had spent three days building it. Every detail of the asteroid had been meticulously re-created. The engineers had even gone so far as to painstakingly re-create the mineshaft the free miners had cut into the rock. In all aspects it was identical to the real thing, albeit a thousand times smaller. At first, nothing happened. Then, as the glaser hit it, the asteroid exploded, sending thousands of rock fragments shooting outward in every direction like a giant growing sphere of gravel. Soon the pieces of the sphere became so far apart that the sphere lost any semblance of shape and all that was left was empty space. The holo sim winked out. Lem turned to Dr. Dublin and Dr. Benyawe, who were standing beside his desk patiently waiting for his reaction. "It's completely obliterated," said Lem. "How am I supposed to mine an obliterated asteroid?"

The Makarhu was less than a day away from the real asteroid. Chubs's "Red Light Green Light" approach had worked flawlessly for nine days. El Cavador was oblivious. The free miners had shown no sign of knowing another ship was approaching their position. No threatening radio messages, no warning shots, nothing. Either they were exceptionally good at playing dumb, or they were in for the surprise of their life.

Now, however, the engineers were telling Lem through a holo sim that it didn't matter anyway, because the glaser was going to annihilate the asteroid and leave them empty-handed. "This is unacceptable," said Lem. "There's nothing left of the asteroid."

"Our math could be off," said Dublin. "We've never fired the glaser at an object this big before. The simulation only runs the data we give it, and we don't have a lot of data. Much of this is conjecture."

"Then what's the point of building a simulation?" said Lem. "You're showing me what might happen? I can do that myself. I have a pretty decent imagination. Forgive me for being blunt, Dr. Dublin, but guesswork doesn't help us here. I need facts. What you're showing me are half facts. And to be perfectly honest, not the half facts I want to see. The glaser is a mining tool. We're in the business of extracting minerals. What you're showing me is skeet shooting. I don't care if you blow up the asteroid, but sending millions of pieces hurtling away in every direction is not going to work. Miners can't chase down rock fragments all day. The glaser is supposed to expedite the mining process, not complicate it. I can tolerate this reaction with pebbles, but not with big rocks. That isn't what the Board had in mind."

"You don't want guesswork, Lem," said Benyawe, "but guesswork is mostly what we have. We haven't done enough field tests to predict with a high degree of accuracy what exactly is going to happen. That is why the mission was designed the way it was,

with us conducting many tests using gradually larger asteroids."