Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

Wit stared at him for ten long seconds. "Are you a MOP, Deen?"

"Yes, sir. To the core, sir. Absolutely."

"Then I expect you to take down twenty-four armed men, using only a spear. I expect you to take down a thousand men with a toothpick. We are not soldiers until we know how to go stark naked against a fully armed enemy and kill him."

Deen nodded, humbled. "Yes, sir."

Wit turned to the others. "We have become too reliant on our tech. Who's to say we will always have the technological advantage? What if there were an enemy with capabilities and weapons far beyond our own? Do we give up?" He waited for a response. "I said, do we give up?"

The men shouted in unison, "No, sir!"

"This is an inevitability, gentlemen. Sooner or later we will face a threat whose tech surpasses our own. Or we will face an enemy who figures out how to completely neutralize our tech. Weapons, communication, GPS, drones, rifles, explosives, everything. Let's figure out how to fight them no matter what they do and no matter how hard it is." He paused, coming to a decision. "From here on out, we will also train for missions without tech. Zero. Then we'll train for missions without gunpowder. Then we'll train for missions in which the enemy can always see us. Whatever the situation is, we will always be at the severe disadvantage. It's time we reminded ourselves what makes us PCs and MOPs. It is not the chips inside our rifles. It is the gray matter between our ears. The enemy may outgun us, but they will never outthink us." He turned to the six MOPs with whom he had taken the compound. "Gentlemen, leave your rifles and tech here. Carry only a pouch of spider pads. These will serve as your spears. Wear only your dampening suits. No helmets. Head into the hills, no farther than three miles. In two hours, twenty-four soldiers equipped with all the tech we possess will come hunt you down and kill you unless you kill them first."

The six MOPs stood and began removing their gear.

"And Deen," said Wit, turning to the man. "I'd like you to go with them. You may doubt your own abilities, but I don't. I will be coming for you personally. Take me down before I find you."

Deen stood and smiled, pleased for the chance to redeem himself. "Thank you, sir."

The MOPs ran away from the group at a sprint into the forest. Deen ran after them, hopping over the underbrush at the tree line and disappearing under the cover of trees.

CHAPTER 13

Files

Lem looked through the mining reports in the cargo bay and tried his best to appear pleased. The crew chief was beside him, smiling, waiting for Lem's praise. By the look of the reports, the man deserved plenty of praise indeed. The numbers were impressive. The scoopers were bringing in so much metal from the dust cloud that the men couldn't smelt it into cylinders fast enough. Iron-nickel, cobalt, magnesium, all the big-money metals. Thousands of tons of it already. It was more than Lem could have hoped for. Yet Lem's mind was so plagued at the moment by El Cavador and the files that they had stolen from the ship's computers that he couldn't even enjoy the good news.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" said the crew chief. "I've been in this business for twenty years, Mr. Jukes, and I've never seen anything like this. This is the fastest I've ever brought in ferros."

Ferros, or ferromagnetic metals, the most valuable of minerals extracted from asteroids.

"The scoopers are working well, I take it?" said Lem.

"It's like trolling for fish, Mr. Jukes. We stick out the magnetized scoopers, move the ship back and forth through the dust cloud, and when we bring the scoopers back in, they're teeming with ferro particles. My whole career has been digging and scraping and blasting away at rock to get metal up out of a mine, but this glaser turns that whole model on its head. Now we blast the rock to dust, wave some magnets in the cloud, and the minerals come to us." He laughed and shook his head. "Damndest thing I ever saw."

"Yes, yes. This is all very impressive."

"We picked the right asteroid for it, too," said the crew chief. "It's no wonder those free miners were camped here. This rock was the mother lode. All kinds of high-value metals, and plenty of them to go around. Most miners see a rock this good once every few years or so. I got to hand it to you, Mr. Jukes, you picked one helluva rock to blow up."

Lem was only half listening. "Yes, wonderful. Well, keep up the good work. Is there anything you need?"

"More people," said the crew chief. "This is a research vessel, so we're shorthanded. Our boys smelting the dust and making the cylinders are already working two shifts."

"How many do you need?"

"Another ten would work wonders."

"I'll have Chubs send some people down."

"Thank you, Mr. Jukes." He pulled off his hat and scratched at his head, looking hesitant. "Now, you're sure you don't want us to load up a few quickships? We'll get a much bigger haul if we send some of these cylinders straight on to Luna."

"No," said Lem. "I don't want to send anything back ahead of us. Once we load the cargo bays, we'll pull out."

The crew chief shrugged. "Seems a shame to leave the cloud when there's so much metal here for the taking. We only have four cargo bays on the ship, and we'll fill those easy. That's quite a big load, to be sure. But using quickships, we could double that. That's a lot of money we're letting slip through our fingers."

"I appreciate your dedication to the company bottom line," said Lem. "In any other circumstances, I'd agree with you. But I don't want my father or the Board to know we have a full load. I'd like it to be a surprise when we arrive."

The crew chief winked. "Smart thinking, Mr. Jukes. Those suits will be surprised all right. They'll probably give us all a hearty bonus when this is all over."