Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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