Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3)

Before she could object, he was out the door and making his way down to his skimmer. The warehouse was in a different dome on the other side of Imbrium, so it took Lem over an hour to get there. He parked on the launch pad beside the warehouse and moon-jumped to the entrance. Once inside, he turned on his magnetic greaves and walked across the warehouse floor, weaving his way through the piles of space junk. A few of the piles were as tall as he was, stacked with busted satellite parts and scraps of salvaged mining vessels. Victor and Imala had left it here unused, and it annoyed Lem that someone hadn't cleaned it up.

He reached the far end of the warehouse and entered the conference room, surprised to find the overhead lights off. Dr. Benyawe was at the holotable, a half dozen screens floating in front of her, her face illuminated by their bluish glow. She was thin and lithe, even for a Nigerian, and although she was approaching her sixties, the years had been kind. Her hair was gray, but her skin was smooth and youthful. Dr. Dublin was asleep on a cot in the corner, still wearing his company jumpsuit, hair unkempt and mouth half open. He probably hadn't showered in days. He and Benyawe had been taking shifts ever since Victor and Imala left.

Lem approached her and kept his voice just above a whisper. "Please tell me they're not dead."

She smiled, and in that single expression, all of Lem's anxiety melted away. "I thought you would call first," she said.

"I wanted to see for myself." He turned to the screens in front of her. The largest showed the Formic ship, a giant red teardrop in geosynchronous orbit, silent and lethal and still. Another screen showed a three-dimensional rendering of Victor's and Imala's shuttle, with its current operations and functionality.

The plan had sounded brilliant when Lem had first heard it. Victor and Imala would camouflage a small shuttle, covering every inch of it with scraps of space junk to make it look like a useless piece of wreckage. Then they would drift toward the Formic ship and hope the Formics dismissed them as debris. If so, Victor and Imala could reach the ship without being vaporized by the Formics' defenses and then enter the ship and sabotage the helm.

Lem had financed the whole thing, but now that Victor and Imala were underway and the money was all spent, the entire enterprise seemed ludicrous.

"Their shuttle reached the Formic ship an hour ago," Benyawe said. "Victor has left the shuttle and flown untethered to the hull. He found a recessed area in the side of the ship where a cannon is normally stored, and he's going to attempt to cut his way inside." She moved her stylus through the holoscreens and brought one forward. It showed a rendering of Victor's spacesuit. All of the data was at zero.

"Why aren't we getting his biometrics?" Lem asked.

"We got some interference when he went into the ship. Imala still has contact with him. She's recording everything on her end."

"Can we see his helmetcam?"

"That's an enormous amount of data to send. We're keeping our contact with them to a minimum. If the Formics can detect communications, we don't want to draw attention to the shuttle."

"What's Imala's status?"

"She's still in the shuttle, holding its position. She's a better pilot than I thought."

"They drifted like a hunk of debris, Benyawe. Anyone can fly a shuttle that slowly."

"Drifting is the easy part. Keeping the shuttle close enough to the Formic ship that Victor can leap to it, and yet not so close that the shuttle threatens to touch the ship and alert the Formics, that's hard."

Lem turned to the screen showing Victor's suit. "Can they hear us?" he asked. "Are we transmitting audio to them?"

She pocketed her stylus. "No. Why?"

He hesitated. It would be better to discuss this outside, alone. "Wake Dublin. Have him relieve you. Then meet me out in the warehouse."

He walked out and stood by a pile of circuits and waited.

The warehouse was quiet and cool and smelled of rust and oil and old scraps of metal. All of the workers were elsewhere--probably making repairs to the structure and getting it back up to code. The warehouse manager had assured Lem when they moved into the building that it was safe to use for the time being, but he recommended they make drastic improvements as soon as possible.

That had been the first clear sign that Father had screwed Lem with this assignment.

At first Lem had been flattered by the position. "Executive Director of Mining Innovation, Kuiper Belt Division" was a lengthy title and--more importantly--had a ring of authority to it. It sounded like a hop, skip, and a jump away from a seat at the Board of Directors. And it seemed like a natural fit for Lem, who had just experienced firsthand all the challenges and opportunities of the Kuiper Belt.

But it had quickly become apparent that the position was worthless. The company had no plans to push into the Kuiper Belt. It took Lem all of twenty minutes to discover that. There were no plans to establish supply routes that far out, no plans to build more mining vessels that could endure those conditions and distances, no plans for establishing an economic infrastructure whatsoever. If anything, there was deep-seated resistance to the idea, especially from the finance division.

The final nail in the coffin came when Lem received a list of engineers assigned to his team: Benyawe, Dublin, everyone who had accompanied him to the Kuiper Belt, and not a soul more.

No doubt Father would argue that this was smart management--everyone on the team already knew each other and could therefore get to work immediately.

But Lem knew the truth of it. Father was clearly isolating him. He was keeping Lem as an employee as the media expected but not allowing Lem to interact with any executives and build any alliances. Even the warehouse Father had given him was isolated, far from the underground tunnels that were the bulk of corporate headquarters.

Father's true intentions were made particularly plain when Lem realized how low his security clearance was. Most of the doors in the company's tunnels would not open when he approached. When he removed the proximity chip from his wristpad that the company had issued him and compared its code with others, he learned that his clearance level was no better than the lowliest of employees.

Not very subtle, Father. You're not even trying to conceal your contempt.

Benyawe came out of the conference room, squinting at the overhead lights. She saw his humorless expression and said, "Why do I have a feeling I'm not going to like what you have to say?"