Orson Card - Earth unavare

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. Concepcion 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 launched 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.

Segundo blinked a command to shut off the alarm. The computer asked if he was sure since life-threatening damage to his suit was still unrepaired. He blinked the affirmative, and the alarm went silent.

His oxygen tank was nearly empty. He was desperate for air. He had a spare tank in his pouch with fifteen more minutes of oxygen, but he knew it probably wouldn’t last him five. He ditched the spent tank and screwed in the spare. Cool oxygen came into his helmet. He’d enjoy it while it lasted.