Orson Card - Earth unavare

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 Bahzim.

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.