Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

"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 appeared 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.

They had been a wealthy family by the look of things. Rena couldn't tell if they had belonged to a big clan or were a single-ship operation, but either way they had been a successful outfit. More importantly though, they had been happy. She could see it in their faces in the portraits. Husbands holding wives, children clinging to parents like monkeys held to trees. It was as if each portrait held all the love in the world.

Her thoughts went to Segundo. Her rock, her other self. She had never been afraid with him at her side. When he held her, all anxiety melted away. There was nothing they couldn't face together, no pain they couldn't endure when they shared the burden and held each other tight. And yet when he had needed her most, she hadn't been there. He had been alone. His last moments, his last breaths, he had passed and taken alone.

Rena opened the door to a mechanical room and found something worth salvaging. The electrical generator was tucked neatly in the corner, and appeared to be undamaged. Generators didn't usually bring in a lot of money, but this one looked fairly new, only a few years old at the most, with decades of life left in it.

Rena moved closer and examined it, noting the many bolts and anchors that held it fast to the wall. Cutting it free wouldn't be easy, and carrying it back to the bay would be a cumbersome task--the generator was tall and bulky, and maneuvering it through the corridors without damaging it would be tricky.

For a moment Rena considered not calling it in and ignoring it completely, but the thought left her just as quickly. To come back empty-handed would be to invite the wrath of Julexi. No, she needed to prove that she was pulling her weight while the others salvaged what was in the cargo bay.

Rena clicked on her transmitter and radioed it in, sending photos and vids directly to Arjuna. The crow captain sounded pleased by the find and asked her to bring it in as quickly as possible. Rena anchored her spotlight to the wall and used her juice meter to ensure that the generator didn't currently have power. Then she unstrapped the saw from her leg and got busy. The room was tiny, so Abbi waited out in the hall while Rena cut.

The blade screamed as it sliced though the steel braces, shooting sparks back toward the hand guard. Rena cut the first two braces away easily, but the third and fourth ones were behind the generator and the saw wouldn't reach them. Those she would have to do by hand. She set the saw aside and got out the hacksaw. The space was barely wider than her arm. When she reached back with the hacksaw, she didn't even have room enough to turn her bulky helmet to the side to see what she doing. She felt around blindly with the hacksaw until she found the brace and started cutting. It quickly became apparent that this would take forever. By the time she stopped to catch her breath, she was hot and sweating and frustrated.

She called Abbi on the radio to give her a hand.

Abbi didn't answer.

Rena tried calling her again, but still got no response.

She retracted her arm from the tight space and went out into the corridor. Abbi wasn't there.