Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

by Card, Orson Scott

  “Spread out,” said Bahzím. “Be back on the line in twelve minutes.”

  Segundo was on his hands and knees, crawling forward, keeping his body low, getting as far away from everyone else as he could. The idea was to disperse and set the explosives far apart to create a wide circle of damage. Segundo’s knee and hand magnets held him securely to the hull, but they were cumbersome and difficult to move. He had to pull hard on each leg to momentarily break the attraction and lift the magnet enough to move it forward. It was agonizing and far more difficult than their rehearsals. After twenty meters, his thighs were burning, and his breathing was heavy.

  He could see now that the surface of the ship wasn’t as smooth as it had appeared at a distance. There were thousands of closed apertures in rows running the length of the ship, like planted fields of crop. Each aperture was as big around as Segundo’s helmet, and he knew that if any of them opened it would be to unleash their weapon. He tried not putting any weight on the apertures for fear that the magnet might trigger something and open them. It was like crawling across a minefield.

  Finally he stopped and looked around him. The men from both ships were spread all over the surface. Some were laying explosives; others were still crawling forward; several explosives were already set, each with a small blinking green light, indicating the explosive was live. Segundo removed his first explosive from his pouch and set it gently on the surface. He inserted the blasting disc into the slot then set the timer to detonate three hours from now.

  They had agreed to radio silence during this phase of the operation so that they could all concentrate on setting the charges without interruptions. But suddenly everyone was yelling. Segundo lifted his head and saw that one of the explosives had gone off prematurely, ripping through the hull and throwing up debris. The voices in his helmet were fast and frantic.

  “What happened?”

  “Pitoso’s dead!”

  “It blew up right under him!”

  “What do we do?”

  “Get back to the cable. Set your explosives and get back to the line. Move!”

  Segundo’s explosive was blinking green, set. He left it and turned toward the mooring cable at least thirty meters away, a good five-minute crawl. They weren’t going to make it, he realized. Even if they got back to the line and up to the ship, they couldn’t fly El Cavador away fast enough. The whole operation relied on them getting in and out and then a safe distance away without being detected, before the Formics could respond. That wasn’t going to happen now. The Formics knew they were here.

  Segundo crawled faster, not bothering to avoid the apertures this time. His thighs burned. His arms ached. Sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. The blast site was in front of him, between him and the cable—he would have to go around it. As he drew closer, up the curvature of the ship, the hole from the explosion came into view. It was a meter wide and stretched between two rows of apertures. Segundo looked down inside but saw nothing but darkness and shadows.

  “Let’s go,” Bahzím was shouting. “Move!”

  Segundo pulled out his last two explosives, set them on the ship’s surface beside one another, and quickly slid in the discs. Before setting the timers, he glanced up. Two men had made it to the line. Segundo couldn’t see who they were. He watched as they clipped their D-rings onto the line and launched upward, soaring away from the ship toward El Cavador.

  Segundo returned his attention back to the explosives and began setting the timers. A moment later Chepe was shouting over the radio. “There’s movement here. Something’s coming up out of the hole.”

  Segundo looked up. Chepe had come to the edge of the hole but was now retreating back from it as shapes emerged from the darkness. Two Formics in spacesuits, carrying equipment, crawled out onto the surface quick and insectlike with the patter of many legs. Two more followed them. Then three after that. A few of the Formics carried thick plates. Others had oddly shaped tools and machines.

  They’re a repair crew, Segundo realized. They think something struck their ship and they’ve come out to fix it. They had no idea we were here.

  The Formics stood still and kept their distance, regarding the men on the ship in a rather unemotional, calculating way, as if they were more intrigued by the humans’ presence than threatened. Then one of the Formics looked directly at Segundo, and the demeanor of all of them changed in an instant. In unison, they all turned their heads toward Segundo, and their flat, yet frightening expressions became even darker and more menacing. It was as if they recognized Segundo.

  Two of the Formics released their tools and charged him. Segundo couldn’t retreat. There was nowhere to go. He gripped his hand magnets tightly, pulled his knees up away from the surface, twisted his body, and kicked out with his legs as hard as he could when the first Formic lunged. The creature wasn’t expecting it, and Segundo felt his boots break bone as they drove into the Formic’s chest. Its mouth opened in agony, and its hold on the ship broke. It flew off the ship in the direction it had been kicked.

  “Help him!” someone was yelling.

  The second Formic lunged. Segundo didn’t have time to get his feet back under him. A kick struck him in the abdomen, then another. Pain shot through him. The Formics were small, but they had the strength of something three times their size. He swung out with the hand magnet, connecting with the Formic’s helmet. The creature retreated a few steps, spread its lower legs apart in a fighting stance, and opened its mouth, bearing its mucus-laced maw and teeth. Segundo could almost hear it hissing.

  Behind him he could see other men engaged with Formics. Two men flew away from the ship, Formics clinging to them. Lost. Segundo heard their screams but could do nothing to help them.

  The Formic lunged again, but now Segundo was ready. He swept with his legs, surprising the Formic and causing it to stumble. Then he swung out with his hand magnet, connecting again and cracking the Formic’s helmet. The Formic panicked, scrambling for purchase, and Segundo seized the moment to rotate his legs and lock them around the Formic’s waist. The Formic kicked out, but its body was turned the wrong way. Segundo came down with the hand magnet again and again, striking the helmet visor with all of his strength. The Formic thrashed and bucked, but then the visor shattered under repeated blows. Segundo kicked the creature away from him, and the Formic flew upward, flailing its arms and legs. Its air hose stretched out until it snapped taut, but the creature continued to thrash about.

  Segundo rotated, getting his legs back under him, and made for the cable. All over the surface of the ship, men were fighting off Formic attacks and hurrying to their respective cables. Two Juke men fell away from the ship. Then another. Then someone from El Cavador—Segundo couldn’t see whom.

  A Formic to his left was bent over one of the explosives, poking at it quizzically. The explosive detonated, vaporizing the creature and tearing another hole in the hull, momentarily blinding Segundo with the blast.

  Instantly the Formics changed their tactics, abandoning those they were fighting and hurrying to the explosives nearest them, pulling the explosives away and throwing them out to space.

  “They’re peeling off the charges,” said Bahzím.

  A Formic near Segundo was trying to pry one of his explosives free. Segundo hurried toward him, but the Formic was faster, throwing the explosive clear of the ship. Segundo didn’t stop. He swung with the hand magnet and connected with the creature. The Formic took the blow, but then, instead of fighting back, it reached for and pulled on Segundo’s magnets, desperately trying to break Segundo’s hold on the ship.

  More hands were suddenly grabbing Segundo, pulling at him, punching him, yanking on the magnets that held him to the surface. Three Formics, then four, all of them swarming all around him. These new ones weren’t wearing suits, he realized. They wore shoes on their feet that gripped to the hull and small, tightly sealed masks over their insect mouths, but otherwise they were unprotected, as if they hadn’t taken the time to suit up before
rushing outside.

  They attacked Segundo with an unrelenting ferocity, pulling at his hand magnets, pulling at his knees. He kicked and shook and fought, but it was no use. One hand magnet came loose. Then the other one. Then the last knee magnet was disconnected, and Segundo was suddenly floating just above the surface of the ship. The Formics attacking him didn’t let go to save themselves, but instead continued clinging to him, poking, stabbing, striking out. One of the creatures anchored to the surface pushed Segundo away, and that was all it took. He drifted away from the ship, swinging, punching, furiously trying to break the hold the Formics had on him.

  Pain exploded in his leg. He looked down. One of the Formics without a helmet had pulled away its own mask and bit through Segundo’s suit and into the meat of his calf. Foam inside the suit inflated around the puncture, sealing off the leak, but Segundo barely felt it over the hot, stabbing agony of the bite. He screamed, half in pain, half in fury, but if anyone could hear him, they didn’t respond.

  * * *

  Lem clung to the side of the cargo bay and watched in horror as his men on the surface of the Formic ship scrambled for the cable. Chubs was beside him at the winch, waiting for the order to pull up the line. Lem zoomed in with his visor. Formics without spacesuits were pouring out of the breached holes and rushing to the men. When they reached someone, they pulled the man’s magnets free and tumbled with him out into space.

  “They’re not even bothering with suits,” said Lem. “They’re killing themselves to peel us off the ship. They’re dying and they don’t even care.”

  Lem shifted his view to the base of the cable and watched as one of the Juke men clipped his harness onto the line. Just as the man was about to launch away from the ship toward Lem and the safety of the cargo bay, two Formics seized him from behind by the waist and wrestled him down. The man twisted and struggled and fought, but the Formics showed incredible strength and seemed unfazed by the man’s attacks.

  Lem extended a hand. “Chubs, give me your gun.”

  “You can’t hit anything at this range.”

  “Give me your gun.”

  Chubs handed it over. It was a small and seemingly insignificant weapon, with its short barrel and tiny dart cartridges. Lem handled it carefully, having seen how lethal it could be back at Weigh Station Four. Tightening his grip around the gun, Lem widened his stance with his boot magnets and extended his arm, aiming at the two Formics struggling with the man at the end of the cable. The fight was fast and violent, however, and Lem quickly saw how dangerous it would be to fire into the melee. Even at close range he wasn’t certain he could hit the Formics and not the man. Lem cursed under his breath and shifted his aim to one of the two holes where Formics continued to emerge in a steady stream. It stunned him to see so many of the creatures rush out into the vacuum of space with a feeble mask as protection—or in the case of a few, with no protection at all. It was suicide. Nothing could survive for more than—how long?—twenty seconds? Maybe not even that long. Didn’t they know they were killing themselves? And if so, what kind of leader demanded and received that degree of loyalty?

  Lem squeezed the trigger. A dart discharged. It flew toward the hole but then disappeared from view at a distance when it became too small to track. Lem lowered the gun. Chubs was right; it was pointless.

  He returned his attention back to the base of the cable. The two Formics were gone, and the man who had clipped onto the cable looked dead. His body hung limp by the harness, floating in space, bent in an awkward position.

  Two more Juke men reached the line. One of them unsnapped the dead man and pushed his corpse away, sending it out into space. As they attached their harnesses onto the line, two more crewmen arrived and buckled on as well. Rather than moving orderly up the cable, the men momentarily fought for position, struggling to be the first up the line. Their infighting would be their undoing, Lem realized, as he spotted three Formics racing toward them and moving fast.

  “Pull up the line,” said Lem. Saving four men was better than saving none at all.

  Chubs turned off the magnet anchor and switched on the winch. The cable began to move away from the Formic ship, but not before three Formics grabbed at the men’s feet and climbed upward. Now there were seven bodies at the end of the line, all of them lashing out, fighting, kicking, and spinning.

  The winch continued to reel in the cable, moving faster now. One of the Formics scrambled past the twisting mass of bodies and was now climbing up the cable directly toward Lem.

  Lem fired the gun, but he must have missed as the Formic kept coming, unharmed and unhindered.

  “I’m cutting the cable,” said Chubs.

  “No,” Lem shouted. “We have men on that line.”

  The Formic was moving faster now, scurrying up the cable, eyes locked with Lem’s. Forty meters away. Then thirty.

  “It’ll get on the ship,” Chubs said.

  “Pull in the line,” Lem said. “That is an order.”

  Lem could see the Formic’s mouth now, clenched tight to keep it alive in the vacuum as long as possible. Fall off, Lem thought. Come on. Open your mouth and die.

  He fired another dart, and this time the creature was close enough that Lem saw the dart miss. The men on the line were still fighting off the other two Formics, screaming and begging for Lem to pull the line in faster.

  The climbing Formic had almost reached Lem. Ten meters. Five.

  The cable snapped free from the winch, severed by Chubs, and the cargo bay door swished closed. Lem watched through the glass in the bay door as the Formic’s momentum carried him to the ship. The creature bounced against the closed door and ricocheted away, its hands scratching at the ship for a moment, struggling to find purchase. The men on the cable cried out, begging not to be left behind. Chubs hit the command on his wrist pad to sever the men from the radio frequency.

  Lem grabbed him by the front of the suit and slammed him back against the wall. “I gave you an order!”

  “And your father gave me another order. Protect you at all costs. His word trumps yours.”

  Chubs opened a frequency to the helm. “Get us as far away from the Formic ship as possible. Now!”

  “We can’t leave El Cavador,” said Lem.

  “If the Formics are willing to send out men without air, they’ll be willing to roast them with lasers if it means taking us down.”

  Lem’s expression was hard. “You killed our own men.”

  “I saved your life, Lem. That’s two you owe me.”

  * * *

  Mono floated at the crow’s nest window, his face pressed against the glass, his lip trembling. From here he could see everything: men peeling away from the Formic ship; Formics pulling off the explosives; a swarm of Formics coming out of the holes to fight, kick, bite, and attack. They were worse than any monster Mono had imagined, made all the more horrible by the sounds coming from the radio frequency, which Mono had opened on Edimar’s terminal. Frantic shouts. Men screaming. The sounds of a struggle. Concepción telling everyone to hurry back to the cable. Mono wanted to go to the radio and turn it off, but he was too afraid to move.

  He shouldn’t have left Mother. That had been a stupid mistake. This was grown-up business. He shouldn’t be here. He had helped, yes, and played an important part, but right now he didn’t care. He would go back and not play an important part if it meant he could be on the WU-HU ship with Mother.

  Why had he lied to her? He loved Mother, and now his last act to her would be a lie. And yes, it would be his last act. He was going to die. He knew that. He had heard everything the men had said over the past few days, even when they thought they were talking quietly enough for him not to hear. If the Formics discovered them, they had no chance.

  I’m sorry, Mother.

  He felt doubly ashamed because he knew Vico wouldn’t be afraid. Vico wouldn’t flinch at this. He would be down there with the others, fighting. And yet, even the mere thought of Vico gave Mono a touch of courage. He la
unched across the room to the radio and clicked it off. The room went silent. Mono took a deep breath. He could feel it calm him, so he took another one, a deep calming breath like Mother had taught him to take whenever he had cried so much that his breathing became rapid. “Easy now,” Mother would say, gently taking him into her arms. “You’re going to make yourself sick, Monito. Deep breaths.” And then she would brush her fingers through his hair and hum into his ear until he got himself under control again.

  It worked now, here in the crow’s nest. Mono’s lips stopped trembling, and his muscles relaxed. Outside the struggle continued, but inside, here in the crow’s nest, Mono felt almost at ease.

  A door opened on the side of the Formic ship, and a large mechanism extended. Mono couldn’t begin to guess what it was for or how it operated. Vico would probably know. Vico could look at anything and know exactly how to fix it or what it was good for.

  The mechanism rotated and pointed its many shafts at El Cavador. There was a flash of light, and then a wall of hot glowing globules of radiant plasma shot forth from the shafts, rocketing toward Mono like ten thousand balls of light.

  * * *

  Segundo tumbled through space, struggling desperately, fighting off the last two Formics clinging to his body. One of them crawled onto his back, opened its maw, and reared back its head, ready to bite and tear and puncture his suit. Segundo thumbed the propulsion trigger and hit the Formic with a blast of compressed air, startling it and knocking it away.

  The last Formic was kicking at him, swatting, biting. Segundo spun it around, grabbed it below the jaw, and twisted its head until he heard things break inside. The Formic thrashed and kicked and then went still. Segundo released it and hit his thumb trigger, shooting away from it. His breathing was labored. He had little air. He was bleeding. There were holes in his suit. Several alarms were going off on his HUD. One showed a silhouette of his suit dotted with flashing lights, indicating where there was a rip or tear. The worst was on his leg where the Formic had bitten through. The emergency system had cinched his leg’s strap tight, sealing off the escape of air in the tear, but it wouldn’t hold for long. He fumbled for the emergency tape in his pouch. He pulled a strip free and placed it across a hissing puncture on his arm. He tapped the tape mechanism to release another strip. Then another. His gloved fingers were big and cumbersome and kept sticking to the corners of the tape strips before he could apply them. Twice he had to throw bent, twisted strips to the side, which was maddening since he knew he would need every strip. He covered as many holes as he could, but then the tape ran out. There were still a few torn seams, nothing big, tiny holes, but his HUD continued to sound its alarm.