Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

"Keep cutting, Vico," said Father. "Stay focused."

Victor returned to his work, cutting furiously, pushing pieces away, trying to clear a path.

"He's writing again on the glass," said Nando. "H ... U ... R..."

"Hurt?" suggested Bahzim.

"Hurry," said Chepe. "He's saying hurry. They're out of air. Now he's drifting away. We're losing him."

"We've got to get air in there now!" said Toron.

"Chepe," said Bahzim. "You and Pitoso get a bubble over that hatch you found. Get nine masks and canisters. I want you to find another way to reach these people and get them air as fast as possible."

Victor guided the shears through a particularly thick girder. There was still so much to cut away, still so much work to do. We're not going to make it, he realized. We have nine people just a few feet away, and we're not going to reach them in time.

*

Chepe shot upward from the wreckage, twisting in such a way that his lifeline easily avoided the sharp protuberances. Protecting your line was the most critical part of flying, but it was also the first thing most novice flyers forgot. Everyone was always in such a rush to shoot forward that they never took the time to look back. Which was a mistake. If you wanted to avoid snags, kinks, knots, and cuts, you had to "keep your mind on your line," as the saying went, and Chepe always did.

The hatch he and Pitoso had found was on the opposite side of the wreckage, so Chepe flew straight up to a distance that he figured was at least twice the distance to the hatch and begin his descent, moving, as always, in an arc. Most young flyers assumed that the best route between two points was a straight line, but Chepe knew different. Tall arcs worked best. You avoided the obstructions that could snag your line, and wherever you were going, you always arrived with plenty of slack.

Pitoso appeared beside him, keeping pace, moving in a parallel arc, with their lines trailing behind like a parabolic tail. They both slowed at the same instant as they approached the jagged debris around the hatch. As soon as they landed, Pitoso pulled the deflated bubble from his bag and unfolded it. Chepe then helped him spread it over the hatch. Bulo, another miner, arrived carrying a bag of masks and canisters, and Chepe took them and slid them under the bubble canopy. Then he reached back and detached his own lifeline. His suit powered off. His comm went silent. His HUD disappeared. He climbed under the canopy, found the ripcord and pulled it. The bubble inflated into a clear dome that sealed itself to the hull with Chepe and the masks inside. Pitoso plugged Chepe's detached lifeline into the external valve on the bubble while Chepe took the internal line and plugged it into his back. Power returned to his suit, and with it, fresh air and heat.

"I'm set," said Chepe.

"Go," said Bahzim.

Chepe removed the emergency lid from the center of the hatch to access the manual wheel lock. Then he gripped the wheel and turned. At first he strained, but the wheel suddenly loosened, and it spun quickly thereafter. Finally he felt the lock snap free, then slowly lifted the hatch. He felt no rush of air as the vacuum of the bubble was filled from air inside. He checked his sensors on his wrist and confirmed what he already suspected. "There's no air beyond the hatch. There must be a leak inside."

"Then we don't need the bubble," said Bahzim. "Take it off so you have more mobility to look around."

Chepe found the release valve on the bubble and pulled it. The bubble deflated, and Chepe returned his normal lifeline to his back. The room beyond was dark and cluttered with floating debris. Chepe floated through the entrance, intensified his helmet lights, and saw--

A dead man's face just inches from his own. Chepe recoiled. The face was gaunt and white in the bright lights, eyes closed, mouth slack, a man in his fifties, an apron around his waist. No mask.

"Push him to the side," said Pitoso, coming in through the hatch. "There's bound to be more like him."

Chepe set his feet against the wall and reluctantly reached out and pushed the man in the chest, sending him back into the darkness to the right.

Pitoso came forward, pushing other debris away. "Looks like a kitchen," he said.

Chepe took in their new surroundings. The room had once been a large kitchen, maybe twenty meters square. But now it barely resembled one. The walls were all slightly bent, twisted to one side in the attack, creating awkward angles and shadows, with the floor sloping up slightly in one place and dipping down in another. Debris was everywhere. Pots, food, appliances, all scattered throughout as if everything had broken free and banged around in the explosion. Structural material stuck out from the walls: conduit, pipes, support beams. They would need to tread carefully in here.

"Come on," said Pitoso. "Let's find another way to the survivors."

They advanced slowly, lightly tapping their propulsion triggers to push themselves forward, brushing aside debris as they went: cutlery, tubs of dry goods, boxes. Another body floated to their right. A woman, wearing an apron.

"I see a hatch," said Pitoso.

Chepe looked where Pitoso was pointing, and his heart sank. A hatch was indeed ahead, but there was no way of reaching it.

Not easily anyway. The whole floor had broken upward right at the hatch, as if pulled apart, bending deck plating and support beams up and onto the bottom half of the hatch. The hatch itself looked undamaged, but getting to it and clearing a path wide enough to open it would take hours at least, even a day maybe. The bigger problem, though, was the wall around the hatch. It was bent and pinched in places.

"We can't get to those people this way," said Chepe. "There's no way we'll get a bubble seal over that hatch, even if we cut all this debris away. Look at the wall."

Pitoso shined his light around the edges of the hatch. "Then we need to find another way."

But there wasn't one. They circled the entire room. They found storage rooms and another hatch, but this led to a corridor where the walls pinched completely closed, and beyond it was space anyway.