Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) Read Free Page A

around his back and pulled out the bubble, an inflatable dome designed to form an airtight seal on the side of the ship. With Victor inside the bubble, he could cut a hole into the ship without exposing it to the vacuum of space.
    Victor pulled the ripcord, and the bubble filled with air and assumed its domed shape. He climbed under the dome with his duffel bag of tools and sealed the bubble to the wall. “Whatever happens, Imala, don’t stop recording.”
    They had agreed that Imala would record everything Victor captured with his helmetcam. If he didn’t make it back, they needed to share what they had found with whoever would listen. “Don’t just give it to Lem,” Victor had said. “Upload it on the nets. Broadcast it to the world. If enough people know what’s inside that ship, maybe someone will see a way to end this war.”
    He unzipped the duffel bag and dug around the tools, looking for the laser cutter. His gloved hand found it and pulled it out. Victor set it to a low setting, pressed it against the wall, and waited for the beam to punch through. Father had taught him this technique years ago. The two of them out in the Kuiper Belt had cut into a dozen derelict ships over the years. Most had been grisly scenes: free miners hit by pirates; ships with mechanical failures that had stranded the crew and starved them out. Whoever they were, they were almost always dead by the time ElCavador arrived.
    Mother had tried to protect Victor from participating, arguing about it with Father one night when they thought Victor was asleep in his hammock. “Anyone in the family can do that job,” Mother had said in a hushed tone. “It doesn’t have to be Vico.”
    “No one uses these tools as often as he and I do,” Father had said. “I trust him with a cutter more than anyone. I don’t want someone doing this who isn’t experienced with the equipment. Anything could go wrong.”
    “Which is why our son shouldn’t be the one to go.”
    “He’s a member of this family, Rena. Everyone has their duty.”
    “He’s just a boy, mi amor. Un niño. ” A child.
    “ Cierto, ” Father had said, falling into Spanish alongside her, the way he always did whenever a disagreement escalated. “ Un niño que hace su parte en esa familia, tal como tí y tal como yo. ” A child who does his part in this family, just like you and just like me.
    In the end, they had compromised. Victor would help cut, but he wouldn’t go inside the ship and assess the damage. “Leave that to the men of the crew,” Mother had said. Father hadn’t argued, and so Victor had been spared the worst of it. But not seeing what was inside the ships was perhaps worse than actually seeing them since Victor’s mind always painted the worst possible picture.
    He wondered then, as he often did, where Mother was now. Lem had said that the women and children on El Cavador had left the ship and boarded a WU-HU vessel, but Lem had no idea where the vessel was or if it had even survived the attack. It had been heading for the Asteroid Belt, so in all likelihood Mother was there now, perhaps at a depot or outpost where other survivors were gathering. She wasn’t dead. Victor refused to even consider it. Losing Father had been grief enough. No, Mother was safe somewhere, tending to the women and children, comforting them, strengthening them, protecting them as she had always done on El Cavador. He had to believe that.
    The laser punched through.
    Victor stopped the beam and checked the readings. “The wall’s only four inches thick, Imala. I can cut through this easily.”
    “Be careful, Vico.”
    He intensified the laser, set it to the proper depth, and quickly cut out a small hole no bigger than his finger. Then he inserted the snake camera through the hole to see what was on the other side. He couldn’t see much. The space was dark and empty, a crawlspace perhaps, or a shaft of some sort. Whatever it was it was clearly big enough for him to climb