only world she knew, was gone.
Why hadn’t Concepcion come with her? Rena had insisted that she join them on the WU-HU ship, arguing that by Concepcion’s own orders, all women and children were to leave El Cavador. But Concepcion had laughed this off. “Old, stubborn women are the exception,” she had said.
Now she was gone. They were all gone. Bahzim, Chepe, Pitoso, Mono: cousins, brothers, nephews, uncles. Half of everyone she knew and loved in the world. As well as the man she loved more than them all.
The vids ended. She knew everything she needed to know. Her back was straight. Her eyes were dry. “Come, Captain. You and I have work to do.”
Captain Doashang stayed at Rena’s side as she met with every woman from El Cavador. Doashang promised each of them protection and safe passage to the Asteroid Belt. The ship would have to ration its food supply- corporate hadn’t planned for this many passengers-but neither Doashang nor his crew would get an ounce more food than anyone else. The children would not go hungry. The women wept in sorrow and gratitude, and one even kissed his hand as she cried.
In the corridor afterward, he faced Rena. “My senior officers and I will vacate our quarters for those families who do not yet have a room.”
“That’s not necessary, Captain.”
“I have children of my own, Mrs. Delgado. We have quite a trip to the Asteroid Belt ahead of us. The more comfortable the children are, the more pleasant the flight will be for all of us.”
She nodded. “True. I’ll see to it. Thank you. Also, with your permission, I would like to organize a work detail. Those of us from El Cavador don’t want to be a burden. We would appreciate being allowed to help maintain the ship however we can.”
“Permission granted. Work out the particulars with one of my officers.” His wrist pad vibrated. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Doashang hurried to the helm. His first officer, Wenchin, was waiting for him at the monitors. “We found a Formic drifting in space,” said Wenchin. “It’s dead. Or at least we think so. It wasn’t wearing a suit. It must have fallen from the ship. I have a team outside checking it now.”
On the monitors, five spacewalkers in WU-HU suits surrounded the Formic. They had attached various instruments to its body, but the men were keeping their distance.
“It couldn’t have survived in a vacuum this long,” said Doashang. “Restrain its limbs and bag it. Use every precaution. Treat it as if it were the most lethal of biohazards. Have the men outside decontaminate their suits. Then get the Formic to Dr. Ji to examine. The more information we can send to Earth about these creatures the better.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Doashang moved to the communications officer. “Any luck contacting Lem Jukes?”
“No, sir. The Formic ship is putting off all kinds of interference. It’s causing a perturbation that randomizes the digital information. I’m getting transmissions, but at a much slower rate. A bit per second instead of a trillion bits per second. Which means what I am getting is basically nothing. It’s not enough information to decipher anything. We can’t send or receive long-range messages at all. Not as focused laserlines or as blanket spreads.”
“That’s unacceptable. I need to send a warning to the Asteroid Belt.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, sir. The only radio communication that works is short-range. And we’ve deviated from the main thoroughfare to follow the Formic ship, so no other ship is going to come even remotely close to this position. We could accelerate back to the major flight paths and wait until a ship comes close enough to hear our transmission. But that could be a long wait, sir. And there’s no way to determine if the interference is still affecting that quadrant. If it is, whomever we contact won’t be able to send long transmissions either. The most reliable way to get word to the Belt, sir, may be to go there ourselves.”
“That’s several months away.”
The officer looked helpless. “It’s not ideal, sir. But we’re short on options.”
“Is the Formic ship sending radio? How are their messages getting through?”
“Near as we can tell, the Formics are silent, sir. Even when we were close, I didn’t pick up so much as a squawk.”
Captain Doashang turned to Wenchin. “Set a course to the nearest station in the Asteroid Belt, moving as fast as our fuel supply will allow.”
“What about Lem Jukes?” asked Wenchin.
“He’s out of range, and I doubt he cares what happened to us anyway. He abandoned his own men. He won’t concern himself with us. He’s probably heading for the Belt as well.”
Wenchin relayed the order, and the ship quickly accelerated.
Doashang stayed on the helm until Dr. Ji called him to the medical offices several hours later. Ji appeared pale and shaken when Doashang arrived.
“Not the most pleasant postmortem examination you’ve performed, I’m guessing,” said Doashang.
“That’s putting it lightly,” said Ji.
The two stood at a large window outside a room where a team of technicians was examining and videoing the dissected Formic.
“What are they?” asked Doashang.
“They’re semivertebrate,” said Ji, “in that they have a single neural column, but clearly they evolved from exoskeletal hexiforms.”
“What does that mean?”
“They evolved from creatures very much like ants, but they left ant-hood far behind.”
“So they’re not insects?”
“ Descended from insectlike creatures. Certain evolutionary changes have occurred. They’re warm blooded, for instance. They insulate and perspire to regulate body temperature in much the same way we do. They have an endoskeleton covered with muscles and skin and fur. Most of their organs are a mystery to me, although we’ve documented everything. They have six legs obviously. The middle pair has musculature that suggests they can bear weight, though perhaps not as much as hips or thighs. The joint socket is extraordinarily flexible, even more so than human shoulders. Plus they have highly developed back muscles, which suggests they have enormous strength.”
“We’ve already seen evidence of that. What I want to know is how do we kill them.”
“They’re not indestructible. They’re tough and resilient, but they can be broken. What frightens me more than their physicality, though, is what we saw them do on the vids. They were immediately willing to give their lives to thwart any attack. No hesitation. No attempt to protect themselves. Just unbridled animal ferocity and completely unyielding devotion. These aren’t just technologically superior creatures, Captain. This is a species that will never, ever give up until every last one of them is destroyed.”
“On that point, Doctor, we will gladly oblige them.”
Lem stood in the engineering room, which had been converted into a war room of sorts, and looked at all of the notes on the wall-screens around him. There were anatomical diagrams of a Formic; sketches of the Formic ship with various engineering theories on how the ship operated; photos and analysis of the weapon that had destroyed El Cavador; a systems chart showing the Formic ship’s trajectory; as well as numerous other scribbles, lists, ideas, and theories. “We have all this intel,” said Lem. “All this critical information that Earth desperately needs, and we can’t do a damn thing with any of it.” He turned and faced Chubs, Benyawe, and Dr. Dublin, whose hands were still in casts. “Unless we relay this to Earth, it’s worthless,” said Lem.
“We’re at the mercy of our radio,” said Chubs. “Until we get through the interference there’s not much we can do.”
In the weeks since the attack, the interference from the Formic ship had rendered long-range communication impossible. Lem had ordered the radio officers to continually broadcast a looped transmission about the Formics- detailing the ship’s coordinates, flight path, dimensions, and speed-but as far as the radio officers could tell, nothing was getting through. Every day hundreds of the transmissions went out and zero transmissions came in. The Makarhu was screaming a warning, but nobody could hear a word.
