Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

Afraid? Concepcion? Victor couldn't imagine it. "Of what? Another corporate? The starship?"

"I don't think it's the starship. Toron and Edimar said it was several weeks away at the earliest, and more likely several months away. This is something else."

After the corporate attack, Victor and Father had divided up the repairs. Victor and Mono were to focus exclusively on the generator, while Father would put all of his efforts into repairing the sensors the corporates had cut away from the ship. The miners had successfully plucked a few of the sensors from space, but many of the most critical instruments, including the laserline transmitter, had never been found.

Father didn't even knock before entering Concepcion's office. Inside, Concepcion and Toron were gathered around Concepcion's desk, studying a mapped quadrant of space floating above the desk in the holospace.

Concepcion only barely looked up when they entered. "Close the door," she said.

Father did so. Victor glanced at Toron, but the man's face was unreadable.

"There are ships at the Italians' position," said Concepcion. "We're close enough now for the Eye to detect them. It's not the cleanest data, and without communication we can't confirm their identity, but what data we do have suggests that they are in fact the Italians."

"That's good news," said Father. "We desperately need help with repairs."

"And a new laserline transmitter," said Victor.

"Even if the Italians don't have a spare transmitter," said Concepcion, "we can use theirs to send as many laserlines as we need to, I'm sure. But that is not why I called you in here. Edimar and Toron have made another sighting."

"A second starship?" Victor asked.

"We don't know what it is," said Toron. "But I don't think it's a starship." He maneuvered his stylus in the holospace. A dot appeared in the top corner. "This is the starship, or what we're all assuming is a starship." He moved his stylus, and a second dot appeared at the opposite end of the holospace. "This is the Italians." Toron made another hand gesture, and a third dot appeared between the first two dots, though relatively close to the Italians. "And this thing is a giant question mark. It's something, but we don't know what. We know it's small, at most the size of El Cavador, but probably smaller. Which is why we didn't see it before now."

"You think it's related to the starship?" Victor asked.

"Maybe," said Toron. "Edimar is more certain than I am, but we've been following its trajectory for a few hours, and it looks as if it came from the direction of the starship."

"That could be a coincidence," said Father. "It could be a family or clan ship coming in from way out whose angle of approach makes it seem as if they're coming from the starship. Look at the distance between the two anomalies. That's a lot of space. Connecting the two is kind of a leap, don't you think?"

"That was my reaction," said Concepcion. "But Toron made me think otherwise."

"It's way too fast to be human," said Toron. "We've picked it up at a few spots now. It's moving at fifty times our top speeds, easy."

Victor was surprised. There were plenty of ships much faster than El Cavador. But fifty times faster? Unheard of.

"Could it be a comet?" Father asked. "Or some other natural object?"

Toron shook his head. "It's no comet. The Eye recognizes comets easily. This is something else. It's tech. It has a heat signature."

"A scout ship," said Victor. "From the starship. Has to be. Whoever they are, they've sent out a scout to scan the area. This is new territory for them, and they're playing it safe. They're getting the landscape."

"That's a possibility," said Toron. "But if it's true, that puts us in a very precarious situation. Let's assume for a moment that this is in fact a scout ship. If so, why is it heading straight for the Italians?"

"Maybe it can detect life-forms," said Victor.

"At that range?" said Father. "I doubt it. It's possible, I suppose. If it can travel at near-lightspeed, who's to say what it can do? But it's more likely that it can detect movement in much the same way the Eye does."

"The Italians aren't moving," said Victor. "They're stationary; have been for at least ten days now. If the scout were attracted to movement, it would come to us instead of them. We're the ones who are moving. Maybe it picked up the Italians' radio frequency. Radio is tech. Radio implies intelligent life. If I picked up radio waves in another solar system, I would definitely want to check them out. And the Italians use radio all the time. They have four ships. That's how they communicate with each other."

"And our radio is down," said Father. "Which would explain why it didn't come to us."

"How soon could you have our radio up?" asked Concepcion.

"Within the next day or two," said Father. "I'm working on it now. But again, that's for blanket transmissions. Not focused ones. We need a laserline for that."

"Finish the repair," said Concepcion, "but don't transmit anything. Not even to test it. We're silent right now, and we'll stay silent until we know what we're dealing with." She turned to Toron. "How far away are we from the Italians?"

"Three days," said Toron.