Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3)

Ramdakan pushed back the curtain and stepped out of the booth. "I'm sorry I'm the one telling you this, Lem. But you deserve to know the truth. I'll take your idea to the Board. We'll build this shield. Who knows? Maybe that will cause some on the Board to warm to you. But don't hold your breath."

And with that he was gone.

Lem paid for the meal and left the restaurant in a daze. The magnetic sidewalk outside in the French Quarter was as busy as ever: window-shoppers, couples in arms, street performers and vendors; as if nothing were amiss in the world. Everyone's living a lie, Lem thought. Including me.

He breezed by the crowds, took the tube to where his skimmer was docked, and then flew west toward the warehouse.

Everything he knew about Father had been flipped on its head. Was it true? Had Father wanted him to stay on Luna? Lem had always assumed that Father had sent him to the Kuiper Belt because Father had felt threatened by him. It had never occurred to Lem that there were other wolves at play here. And yet hadn't Father spoken to Dublin and Chubs in private and asked them both to protect Lem? Lem had assumed that Father had done so to assert his control over Lem, to diminish Lem in the minds of his crew. But maybe Father had done so because he knew there were those in the company eager to keep the prince from reaching the throne. Maybe he genuinely feared for Lem's safety.

And his current assignment. Had Father actually done him a favor by keeping him outside of headquarters in a newly created position? Was everyone on the Board that vehemently opposed to Lem, that threatened by him?

He found it hard to believe. He knew all the Board members on a superficial level; he had met them all casually at various events. But other than Norja, who Lem had known all his life, most on the Board had joined the company or risen up from the ranks while Lem was off making his fortune elsewhere. Lem knew their resumes, of course, he knew their skills and education and expertise, but he didn't know them personally. He didn't know their hearts. Maybe they were as devious and scheming as Norja had suggested.

But if so, why would Father keep them on? Why tolerate that level of infighting?

Because Father would say a little feverish competition was good for business. He'd say it keeps everyone sharp.

Plus there was the fact that every member of the Board was extremely accomplished and highly valuable. Any CEO would want their counsel. They could have horns and forked tongues and tails out their backsides, and still Lem would be reluctant to let them go. In fact, any one of them could easily be Father's replacement. No one in the business world would bat an eye if the company were to appoint any one of them to that position.

But would the business world react the same way to me? he wondered. Or would they, as Ramdakan suggested, balk and turn up a nose of scorn? Suddenly Lem was unsure.

He arrived at the warehouse to find Dr. Benyawe and the rest of the engineers hard at work on the prototypes. Benyawe still hadn't spoken to him since the drone attack. Lem had been back at the warehouse for a few days now, but she continued to avoid him.

Lem was pleased to see that someone had finally hauled away the leftover space junk that Victor and Imala had left unused, thus removing a visual reminder of the events. Not that anyone was likely to forget, of course. Wherever Lem went in the warehouse these days he could feel workers' eyes boring into him. There goes the man who let Victor and Imala die. There goes the callous snake who cut all communication to the shuttle before the drones attacked.

Lem stepped out onto the warehouse floor and sensed the same scorn from everyone. The room fell quiet, and suddenly the entire staff was intensely focused on their work in front of them.

What do you expect of me? he wanted to ask them. A confession? A mournful cry of regret? You want me to flog myself? Weep and wail and gnash my teeth? Subject myself to sackcloth and ashes? Of course I'm sorry it happened. Of course I hated having to do it. But there was nothing I could do. Not warning them was a kindness, people. A mercy. Can't you see that?

No, they wouldn't see that. They only saw that he had deserted two of their own. And yes, that's how they saw Victor and Imala now. Not as outsiders. But as members of the team. It was ludicrous. Victor and Imala had been among them for only a few days, and yet by the way everyone was acting, you would have thought the two were close personal friends with everyone on staff.

This is how martyrs get their fame, Lem thought. As soon as you die, you're suddenly a hero.

Benyawe called to him from the center worktable. "Mr. Jukes. Could I have a moment of your time, please?"

Mr. Jukes. She was being formal with him. That would only make things more awkward. But he smiled pleasantly and joined her.

On top of the table were two metal cubes, each a meter square on all sides. A narrow cable ran between them, connecting them like giant bolas. In the middle of the cable was a reel with at least fifty additional meters of cable, suggesting that the two cubes could be stretched apart for quite a distance without severing the connection. It was a modified design of an idea that Lem had pitched to Benyawe almost a year ago, a replacement for the glaser; using the same tech, but safer. She called them shatter boxes.

"We conducted the first test today with a prototype," said Benyawe. "I though

t you might want to see it." She made a hand gesture above the worktable, and a holovid appeared. In it, a small mining vessel in space approached a second larger ship that had been stripped of parts so severely that only its skeletal structure remained. Benyawe paused the vid. "We're nowhere near an asteroid big enough to conduct a real test obviously, so we found a decommissioned ship listed for recycling and hauled it a few thousand klicks away from Luna."

She started the vid again. The smaller ship slung two shatter boxes toward the skeleton ship at high speed. As the shatter boxes spun toward their target, the reel between them unspooled more cable and the distance between the boxes grew. Then suddenly the boxes converged on the ship, attaching themselves to opposite ends. An instant later the skeleton ship was ripped apart, not in a single explosion but in a series of lightning-fast explosions in which every piece broke into smaller and smaller constituent pieces again and again until there was nothing left. No ship, no shatter boxes, just fast-moving dust that was gone an instant later, flying off in every direction into the vacuum of space.

"Quite the disappearing act," said Lem. He asked them questions after that. How did the sling mechanism work? How easily could the shatter boxes be aimed? Could they hit a moving target traveling at a high velocity? And what about safety, could these be used in near-Earth orbit without endangering the planet?

Benyawe understood why he was asking. "You want to use these against the Formics."

"You just proved to me what the shatter boxes can do to a ship," said Lem. "This is far more destructive and effective than our lasers, which are the only weapons our ships have and which were never designed as weapons in the first place. I don't want to damage the troop transports, Benyawe. I want to obliterate them."

"Transports?" Benyawe said.

He told her what he had proposed to Ramdakan. The shield. Using Juke ships and crews to stop additional Formic reinforcements. "I want to arm every one of our ships with shatter boxes, Benyawe. I want our crews proficient in their use. That means the sling mechanism must be able to hold several rounds of shatter boxes at once or there must be some system for quickly reloading the sling. I don't want our ships armed with only one shot. I want them picking targets and taking down as many as they see."

"We've only conducted a single test, Lem."

She wasn't calling him "Mr. Jukes" now. That was an improvement. "We don't have time for lengthy field tests, Benyawe. I see that it works. I'm sold. I want this moved into production now, today, as soon as possible."