Earth Awakens by Orson Scott Card
"What happens after we appease the lawyers?" asked Wit.
The men fell silent. It was down to business now. All eyes were on Lem.
"We'll leave Luna for a cargo freighter called the Valas," said Lem. "It's positioned out in space just beyond Luna's gravity well. It's one of the largest vessels this company has ever built and it will serve as our base of operations. All of our equipment and support team are already there. We'll stay on the Valas for a few days as you learn to move in zero-G. Victor will be your teacher. You'll have very specific duties once you're inside the Formic ship, and you'll train for those as well."
"What duties?" said Wit. "We've chased your dangling carrot, Lem. We're here. Now tell us how we're going to destroy the ship."
"By being plumbers, Captain O'Toole."
"I beg your pardon."
Lem laughed. "Plumbers, Captain. You know, wrenches, elbow grease, exorbitantly high hourly rates. You need not show your butt crack when you bend over, however. Victor will explain everything shortly."
They docked at the warehouse. Ramdakan was waiting inside with a team of lawyers. Tables had been set up. Documents were presented and signed. It was all very quick and orderly, but it dampened the mood considerably. The MOPs never questioned anyone. They read their documents and signed. When it was done, Ramdakan thanked them, wished them luck, gathered his crew, and left.
"It's ironic," said Deen. "Usually lawyers pounce on you after you've destroyed something."
Lem then introduced the MOPs to the various warehouse workers who had come out to meet them and wish them well. The MOPs were kind and gracious. They went around the room thanking everyone for their hard work and contributions. The more Victor watched them, the more convinced he became that Lem had chosen well. They were obviously fine soldiers--their accomplishments in the field were evidence of that. Yet they were also decent human beings, which was just as important, if not more so.
Simona took vids of everything with her holopad.
"Are you recording that for PR or for you?" Lem asked her.
"For you," she said. "You'll want to show your grandkids someday."
Ukko Jukes arrived minutes later, surprising everyone. He went around the room, shaking hands like a politician up for reelection. Victor could tell Lem was annoyed, though Lem was doing his best not to show it. Simona continued with the vid recording.
Victor wanted to approach Ukko and put a boot between his legs. Hello, Mr. Jukes. This is for nearly killing Imala with the drones. Kapow! But he kept quiet and stayed in the back of the room as far from Ukko as possible.
When Ukko was done making the rounds, he spoke loud enough for all to hear. "When I learned that my son was planning this mission, I've never felt prouder as a parent." He paused as if overcome with emotion.
Victor rolled his eyes. Was anyone believing this for an instant? He looked around the room. Everyone was attentive except for Lem, who was picking a piece of invisible lint off his jacket.
"I'm proud that Juke Limited could help in some way," said Ukko. "If there is anything you men need, just say so, and I will see to it personally." He smiled warmly. Then he extended his hands to the side. "I know all of us come from different countries and cultures, but let us link hands for a moment. All of us. Don't be shy. That's it. Everyone take the hand of the person to your right and left. You too, son. You're the leader here. We need you most of all. That's it. Now I want each of you to look around this circle. Look at the faces before you. This is what Earth can be. All of us joined together in purpose, working as one against a common enemy. This is true strength. The talents and skills of all. United."
Ukko scanned the crowd, meeting their eyes. "Now, let us take a moment of silence. And in that silence, pray to whatever god you have. Pray that those who are about to embark on this dangerous effort will return to us whole and sound. Pray for our brothers and sisters in China, and for the soldiers there, too, and their families and loved ones. And most of all, pray that Earth will be ours again, a stronger Earth, a better Earth, an Earth that will never shake again at such evil."
Ukko bowed his head. Everyone in the circle did the same except for Lem, who stared straight ahead at his father, saying his own silent prayer, perhaps.
After a full minute, Ukko lifted his head and thanked them again. Then as quickly as he had come, he waved and departed.
Lem took control of the scene again, and ten minutes later he, Victor, and all the MOPs were loaded into the shuttle and lifting away from Luna.
They docked with the Valas, and everyone undid their harnesses and floated through the hatch. Imala and Dr. Benyawe were there to greet them, having come up earlier. More introductions were made; then they all moved to the helm where the holotable had been prepped. Lem instructed everyone to anchor their feet to the hooks in the floor around the table, and then he turned the time over to Victor.
The Formic ship appeared in the holofield. Victor used his stylus to rotate it 360 degrees so that everyone could see it from all angles. "This ship is still largely a mystery." He pointed to the crown of tubular rods encircling the point of the teardrop. "This apparatus here, for example. We have no idea what this is. Many suspect that it's field-generation equipment, and I tend to agree with them. But how the Formic shields work is still a giant unknown. They block tiny space particles as the ship moves through deep space, and they deflect any projectile fired at the ship. Yet I was able to approach and enter the ship without any resistance. Why? Does the shield require an enormous amount of energy to maintain and thus is only turned on when the Formics are in flight or when they detect a threat? We don't know. All we do know is that this type of tech is priceless." He zoomed in on the field generators. "Humans don't know how to do this. Yet field generation is critical if ever we want to attempt interstellar flight."
He zoomed in to the rear of the ship. "And this is the propulsion system. It's powerful enough to move a ship of this mass up to a significant fraction of the speed of light. We're nowhere close to tech like that."
He zoomed back out. "And what about Formic communications? How does one ship speak to another? We have no idea. I didn't find anything in the ship to answer that question, but the answer must be there somewhere. And whatever it is, it has the potential to revolutionize our own communication infrastructure, both out here in space and down on Earth. I could go on. My point is, there are likely hundreds, if not thousands of innovations inside this ship far beyond anything we've developed or ever could develop. It is a treasure trove of tech that could open new doors and possibilities for all of us. I'm not exaggerating when I say this ship could change the world."
"So this is about seizing tech?" said Shenzu. "I thought we were fighting a war here."
"We are," said Victor. "But this is also about making Earth stronger. We can't simply blow the ship to smithereens."
"Why not?" said Shenzu. "That would certainly swing the war in our favor. Who cares if we get a shield generator? I'm more worried about ending this."
"But that's exactly Victor's point," said Mazer. "Destroying the ship would not be the end. Winning this war may not be the end. This ship came from somewhere. There are more Formics out there. And the reason why they have beat us so far is because their tech is so superior. But if we can learn their tech and reverse engineer it, we can better protect ourselves from future attacks. We would level the playing field. This isn't about creating a tech boom on Earth, it's about winning this war and any future war. It's about strengthening ourselves militarily. If we blow that ship up, we'll have destroyed our best chance at defeating the Formics next time."
"Mazer's right," said Wit. "And even if the Formics never bother us again, there's a chance something else will come along. Something worse. We should always learn everything we can from the enemy and use that to better defend ourselves."
"So we don't blow it up," said Shenzu. "Agreed. But what is the plan? We still have a war to end."
"We kill all the Formics on board," said Maz
"Mazer's right," said Victor. "We don't want the ship running back to wherever it came from and rallying reinforcements. Our primary mission is to make sure it has flown its final flight."
"How?" said Wit.
Victor tapped the ship with his stylus and two dozen cannons appeared on the surface. "The ship has two main defenses. The first is the cannons. Each of them is stored in a recessed hole that closes at the top when not in use. When the ship is threatened, the cannons emerge, unfold, and fire at whatever is approaching the ship. When they're done, they fold back inside, and the aperture over the hole seals shut again. The good news is, many of the cannons were destroyed by Ukko Jukes's drones. So much of the work has already been done. The other good news is, taking out the others will be easy."
He moved to the side and called up another model in the holofield--this one of a large closed aperture. "We know precisely where all of these cannons are located. To take them out of commission, all we need to do is weld the aperture shut so it can't open."
He picked up a sheet of steel that was attached to the side of the table. It was roughly two meters long and one half meter wide. "Each of your cocoons has been designed to carry eight sheets of steel this size. That's more than you'll need, but you'll be carrying extras in case something happens to any one of you en route. To disable the cannons, you and a partner will weld three sheets of steel atop each cannon aperture."
Three sheets of steel appeared atop the closed aperture in the holofield. They were positioned a short distance away from each other near the center and formed a triangular shape. "As you can see, each sheet of steel lies across at least two blades of the aperture, locking it closed. This triangular shape is the strongest. You and your partner will be assigned two cannons. This is your welding tool." He held up the small, handheld device. "You'll lock down each sheet of steel with magnets, then you'll wipe the welder along the edge of the steel. It will melt easily. Apply light pressure and you'll push the melted steel onto the Formic surface. It will feel like spreading icing on a cake. And that's it. Locked with the steel, the apertures can't open. Cannons are inoperative."
"Easy enough," said Cocktail.
"The next part isn't so easy," said Victor. He moved back to the holo of the ship and tapped it with his stylus. The hull vanished, revealing the network of pipes beneath the surface. They numbered in the hundreds, with all of them running parallel to each other from front to back.
"This looks like the skeleton of the ship," said Victor. "Like framing rods. But these lines are actually pipes filled with laserized gamma plasma. Every few meters along these pipes, there are T-shaped nozzles."
He tapped with the stylus again, and hundreds of dots appeared along the pipes. Then he zoomed forward to one of the dots, revealing it to be a nozzle.
"Each of these nozzles is connected to an aperture on the surface of the ship. These are small apertures, no bigger than a dinner plate. When attacked, the Formics open the apertures and nozzles and fire a beam of gamma plasma from the pipes."
A brief animation played, showing what Victor described.
"Our job," said Victor, "is to access the pipes from inside the ship. Once we're done disabling the cannons, we'll gather here at this destroyed cannon. This is where I entered the ship. The hole inside is already cut and ready. There's a shaft there that leads directly to the cargo bay. It's a tight squeeze, but we'll likely go undetected." He zoomed forward into the ship, coming to rest in the cargo bay. "The pipes are behind the inner wall, which is composed of dense metal plates. We'll first cut away a large section of plates and expose the pipes underneath. I'd suggest we remove at least forty square meters of plates."
Victor drew a square on the inner wall.
"That's huge," said Deen. "That's almost half the size of an American football field."
"For us that's big, yes," said Victor. "But remember, this is a big ship." He zoomed back out to see the ship as a whole. Forty square meters suddenly looked demonstrably smaller.
"Removing these plates will be tricky," said Victor. "We have to do so without damaging the pipes underneath. If we sever one, we'll unleash gamma plasma inside the cargo bay and kill us all."
"Let's avoid that," said ZZ.
"You'll be cutting with lasers set to a specific depth," said Victor. "And you'll also have scanners that will let you see the pipes beneath the plates so you can cut between pipes whenever possible. This will be the most time consuming and dangerous part of the operation. Not only because we can't damage the pipes, but also because Formic repair teams will come to fix the plates as soon as we start removing them."
"How many Formics are in a team?" asked Wit.
"The group I saw had four. But that doesn't mean there won't be more."
"So we'll need a cutting team and a defense team," said Mazer. "Where will the Formics be coming from?"
Victor pointed. "Possibly from this large shaft here. But there are dozens of shafts that feed into the cargo bay. Repair crews could come from any one of them. Or from several at once. We have no way of knowing."
"Not a good position to be in," said Mazer. "The cutting team will be very exposed. There's some ship wreckage floating inside the cargo bay that could provide some cover, but the cutting crew will still be susceptible to enemy fire. The Formics, on the other hand, will have plenty of cover at the shaft entrances."
"What do you suggest?" asked Wit.
"We booby-trap the shafts," said Mazer. "It needs to be silent so as not to alert others on the ship. Do you think we could replicate what you did on the goo tower?"
"You mean electrify the shafts?" said Wit.
"Maybe just the last five meters of the shaft," said Mazer. "Maybe we create a mesh netting, like a bag that's open on both ends, and we lay it flat against the inner wall. The Formics come up, they poke their heads out. And we zap them."
"If we had a few weeks to build the nets," said Lem. "But we're at the eleventh hour here."
Benyawe stepped forward to the holofield and started flipping through files. "We may not need weeks. Juke already has nets like this made of thin metal mesh for securing loads on cargo vessels."
A catalog entry of the mesh netting appeared in the field.
"We could have it flown here from Luna," said Benyawe. "The team tapes it down along the inner wall of the shaft, being sure not to obstruct the track in the floor, and we're set. Question is, how to electrify it."
"That would be easy," said Victor. "Couple drive batteries would do it. And a few hundred meters of cable. We set the batteries in the cargo bay rigged to a manual switch."
"There are dozens of shafts," said Lem. "You're talking about a ton of equipment we don't have room for. The cocoons are designed to hold a person, his weapon, his tools, the steel, and that's it. How do we get all of these nets and cables and batteries to the ship?"
"The cocoons are covered in space junk to camouflage them," said Victor. "We remove some of that junk and replace it with batteries and spools of cable. We scuff them up and paint them so they still look like debris. If we need more space, we could attach some of the equipment to some of the small pieces of drift debris. The drone pilots then fly those pieces near to where we enter the ship. Then we recover the equipment and we're set. Or--and this is this least attractive option--we could remove one person from the mission and fill one of the cocoons with the equipment we'll need."
"I'd rather not lose a person," said Wit. "If we can make it work with the cocoons' exteriors and the drift debris, we should."
"We'll make it happen," said Benyawe. "We have members of our engineering team on hand for needs like this. We can get the supplies and start making the modifications to the cocoons immediately. Our drone pilots will use the debris drones to carry anything else that doesn't fit straight to the cannon. Those will arrive before you do. All you'll have to do is recover them."
"Good," said Wit. He turned to Victor. "Walk us throu
"Now we rotate all of the exposed nozzles inward so they point toward the middle of the ship. Once that's done, everyone exits the ship and gathers at this point here."
Victor drew a circle on the hull, a distance from the cargo bay.
"Meanwhile, two people are outside the ship here, directly above the spot where the nozzles have been rotated. Armed with paint guns, they'll paint a giant square on the ship's exterior in phosphorescent paint that matches where the plates have been removed inside the cargo bay. Once the crew inside is clear, the paint sprayers will paint a giant 'X' in the square. Like so."
He demonstrated with his stylus.
"Then the paint sprayers will attach these glow rods near the paint to make it glow and move here to join the others outside the ship a safe distance away."
A small spacecraft appeared in the top left corner of the holofield.
"A pilot will then fly a small fighter directly above the rotated nozzles, aiming for the 'X.' The Formics will see the fighter approach, decide it's a threat, and order one of the cannons to extend. This will obviously fail as we will have already disabled them. The Formics will then fire the gamma plasma, opening the nozzles where the 'X' is located. Those nozzles will be rotated inward, however, so the gamma plasma will blast through the ship and blow a hole out the other side. The radiation from that blast will dissipate throughout the ship and kill most of the Formics inside."
"So we trick them into using their own weapon against themselves," said Deen. "I like that."
"Whoever flies that fighter needs to fly as straight as an arrow toward the 'X,'" said Wit. "The Formics will likely open up other nozzles we haven't rotated. Beams of gamma plasma will encircle the fighter from all sides. He'll essentially be flying inside a tunnel of plasma. If he deviates in any way, he'll fly into the line of fire and be obliterated."