Earth Afire Read online

  "What, you've never seen new clothes before?" said Imala. "Don't just stand there. Get dressed."

  She stepped away from the bed and turned around, putting her back to him.

  "You're breaking me out?" he said.

  "LTD records will show that you were moved to a holding facility for healthy illegals awaiting deportation. The holding facility will have no record of this, so unless Mungwai checks or the two offices compare records, we'll probably go unnoticed for a while."

  "How long is a while?"

  "A few days. Maybe less."

  Victor began to change. "What about the cameras? There are three in this room and more throughout the building."

  "I've taken care of the ones in here and those out in the hall. Once we're outside, it's a different story. Wear the hood."

  There was a hood on the jacket. Victor slid it on over the shirt and hurried into the pants. She had taken care of the cameras. She had thought of everything, handled everything. And in only a few hours, no less. He suddenly felt a sense of awe toward Imala. She was more like a free miner than he had given her credit for.

  "Is this smart?" he asked. "What if STASA comes looking for me for more intel?"

  "I doubt they will," said Imala. "Not before your ship leaves anyway. I checked Mungwai's messages. Her contact at STASA is a low-level associate. No clout. His response to her didn't sound too promising."

  "You hacked her messages?"

  "It's not difficult. Point is, this guy didn't seem like a strong lead. If he passes the evidence along, it'll take time to move up the chain and be verified. But don't sweat it; I've built an alert into our system. If STASA tries to contact you, they'll do it through the LTD, and if that happens, my holopad will let me know. We'll go directly to STASA then."

  "You really have thought of everything," he said, fastening the straps on his shoes. "But why don't we go to STASA now? We've got an in."

  "We don't have an in. We have a halfhearted nobody with job preservation on the brain. I'm not putting the fate of the world in that guy's hands, and I'm not sitting around and waiting for STASA to get their act together. We're following another lead. Maybe a better one."

  "Who?"

  "She's waiting outside."

  "What about Mungwai? If you do this your career is over."

  "The fate of the world trumps any concerns about my career, Victor, though I appreciate the sentiment. Don't worry about Mungwai. She can't pull our vids down, not all of them anyway. They've been copied and reposted far too many times. Two million hits may not seem like a lot on a global scale, but it means the train has left the station. You dressed yet?"

  He snapped the greaves onto his shins. "How do I look?"

  She turned and faced him. "Like a punk teenager. Put your hands behind you."

  She pulled wrist restraints from her pocket and snapped them onto his wrists.

  "I'm assuming this is part of the ruse," he said.

  She took him by the arm and escorted him out into the hall. They moved straight for the exit, not rushing, but not poking along either. No one paid them any attention.

  Victor stopped. "My data cube."

  Imala pulled at his arm and got him moving again, keeping her voice low. "Already got it. Keep moving."

  They were through the doors and outside. The domed canopy high above them was bright and blue like the skies of Earth, or at least like the skies of Earth Victor had seen in films. A car was at the curb. Imala opened the door and helped Victor inside. An Asian woman in her early twenties was waiting for them, sitting opposite, her right arm much smaller than her left. Imala crawled in next to Victor and closed the door. The car slipped onto the track and accelerated. Imala turned Victor's shoulder, reached behind him, and unfastened the restraints. "Victor, this is Yanyu. She contacted me after I left Mungwai's office. She's a grad assistant for an astrophysicist doing research for Juke Limited. She's here to help."

  Yanyu leaned forward, smiling, and offered Victor her left hand, which he shook. "Nice to meet you, Victor. I recognize you from the vids."

  Her English was good, but her accent was thick. "You've seen the vids?"

  Yanyu smiled and nodded. "Many times. And I believe you."

  Victor blinked. Another believer, and a seemingly intelligent, noncrazy one to boot. He felt like leaping across the seat and embracing her.

  "I'm not the only one either," said Yanyu. "In the forums, a lot of researchers are talking about it, though most of them post anonymously so as not to damage their reputation in case the whole thing proves false."

  "It's not false," said Victor.

  "You don't have to convince me," said Yanyu, smiling.

  "Yanyu has been studying the interference," said Imala.

  "The media keeps broadcasting all kinds of theories," said Yanyu. "The prevailing one at the moment is that the interference is caused by CMEs."

  Victor nodded, unsurprised. If he had to invent a theory, he'd probably go there as well. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, were huge magnetized clouds of electrified gas, or plasma, that burst out of the sun's atmosphere and shot across the solar system at millions of miles per hour, oftentimes expanding to ten millions times their original size. They had been known to disrupt power and communication in space before, though never on this scale.

  "It's not CMEs," said Victor.

  "No," said Yanyu. "But the idea is right. The gamma radiation this alien ship is emitting moves much like a CME, constantly expanding as it spreads across the solar system. If I had to guess, I'd say the ship has a ramscoop drive, sucking up hydrogen atoms at near-lightspeed and using the subsequent gamma radiation as a propellant, shooting it out the back to rocket the ship forward. It's brilliant engineering since the ship would have an infinite supply of fuel."

  "If that's true," said Imala, "then why is the radiation coming in our direction, toward Earth? If it's propulsion, shouldn't it be emitting away from us, toward deep space?"

  Yanyu smiled again. "That's just it. It's not accelerating. It's decelerating. It's desperately trying to slow down."

  "It wouldn't emit the radiation from the front," said Victor. "Even to slow down. That would be suicide. It would fly right into its own destructive cloud of plasma."

  "True," said Yanyu. "But the ship might emit the radiation from the sides. It would do so in equal bursts so as not to deviate it from its course, and that would explain why the interference happened so fast and spread so quickly in all directions before anyone knew what was happening."

  Victor considered this. It made sense. He had known superficially that the hormiga ship was causing the radiation, yet until now he hadn't known how.

  "So this ship," said Imala, "is acting like a volatile minisun rocketing toward us."

  "Basically," said Yanyu.

  "That's comforting," said Imala.

  "How did you figure this out?" asked Victor.

  Yanyu pulled a holopad from her bag. "It's the only explanation I could think of for this." She tapped a command and extended two thin poles from opposite corners on the holopad's surface. A moment later, a holo consisting of hundreds of tiny, random dots of light flickered to life above the pad. At first Victor thought he was looking at a star cluster, but as he leaned forward and got a closer look, a sickening feeling tugged at the pit of his stomach. He had seen such a cluster before. Deep in the Kuiper Belt.

  "What is it?" asked Imala.

  "Wreckage," said Victor.

  Yanyu nodded, grave. "I'm still running scans because the readings from the scopes aren't particularly clear, but I think Victor's right. These objects appear to be moving away from each other at a constant speed from a center point. Like ship debris from an explosion."

  "How many ships?" said Victor.

  Yanyu shrugged. "No way to be certain, but probably dozens. If you trace the movement of all of the debris, the point of origin is here in the Asteroid Belt, near an asteroid named Kleopatra. Juke has facilities on the asteroid's surface, so there's a
lways a lot of traffic there. If a burst of radiation from the alien ship took out the mining ships in that vicinity, then we have to assume that it took out all the facilities on Kleopatra as well."

  "How many people are stationed there?" asked Imala.

  "Between seven and eight thousand," said Yanyu.

  Imala swore under her breath.

  "And who knows how many people were on those ships," said Yanyu. "Maybe double that. We have no way of knowing."

  "How old is this data?" said Victor.

  "I got the first scans back this morning," said Yanyu.

  "Who else knows about this?" said Victor.

  "I shared it with my supervisor. He's reviewing the data now. He made me come find you and bring you back to the lab."

  "We need to contact the media," said Imala. "Your supervisor needs to hold a press conference."

  Yanyu frowned and shook her head. "No. I am sorry. That will not happen. We are not independent researchers. We work for Juke Limited. If anyone holds a press conference it has to be corporate."

  "Corporates?" said Victor. "You want to bring in a lying snake like Ukko Jukes? He'll twist this somehow, he'll use it for his own gain. That's the last thing we need."

  "I can't stand the man either, Victor," said Imala. "But these are his employees. He's responsible for these people. Their families on Luna or Earth deserve to know what has happened to them."

  "We don't know what's happened to them, Imala," said Victor. "We're speculating."

  "Ukko can help us, Victor. He has connections throughout the world. He's the most powerful man alive. If he knows the truth, the whole world will know."

  Victor sat back. Ukko Jukes, father of Lem Jukes, the man who had crippled Victor's family's ship and killed his uncle. What had Father said at the time? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree? If Victor couldn't work with Lem, how could he possibly work with the father?

  Yet what choice did Victor have? He was a fugitive, with nowhere to run and no other leads. It was only a matter of time before the LTD found him and Imala and sent them both packing.

  "If we do this, I want to talk to Ukko Jukes myself," said Victor. "I want to tell him to his face that his son is a murdering bastard."

  "Don't bother," said Imala. "Knowing Ukko, he might take that as a compliment."

  CHAPTER 3

  Lem

  Lem Jukes stood before the crew of his asteroid-mining ship with his hands clasped reverently in front of him. He watched as the last people to arrive floated through the entrance and made their way to the back of the room where the rest of the crew was gathered. Each of them wore a blue jumpsuit with the Juke Limited corporate logo embroidered over the left breast. The magnetic greaves on their shins and vambraces on their forearms anchored them to the floor once they were in position. Other than the quiet rustle of fabric as everyone took their places, the helm was completely silent.

  Lem hadn't made the memorial service mandatory, but he knew everyone on board would come, including those who didn't normally work in the helm: the cooks and miners and launderers and engineers. When you lived for nearly two years with people in a cramped environment, you got to know each of them rather well, even if your individual assignments didn't have you working alongside each other. Sooner or later, your paths would cross, and as a result, any loss of life on board was a loss felt by everyone. No one would miss the chance to pay their respects.

  "I called this memorial service to honor those we have lost," said Lem. His voice was loud enough to reach the back of the room, yet calm and solemn enough for the occasion. "I speak not only of the members of our own crew who are gone, but also of the many others in space who have so selflessly fought and died trying to stop the Formics from reaching Earth."

  Formics. The word still felt bitter and foreign in his mouth, like a large chalky tablet that he couldn't force himself to swallow. Dr. Benyawe, the leader of the science team, had suggested the name because of the creatures' antlike appearance, and as far as Lem was concerned it was as good a name as any. But he still hated it. The word gave the creatures legitimacy, an identity. It was a reminder that they were real, that this whole thing was not merely a dream.

  "Nearly two years ago," Lem continued, "we left loved ones on Luna and set out for the Kuiper Belt. Our mission was simple: test the gravity laser. Point it at a few rocks and blow them to dust, prove to headquarters that the glaser can and will revolutionize the mineral-extraction process. Thanks to your diligence and unwavering commitment, we completed that task. It wasn't easy. It wasn't without mistakes and setbacks. But each of you persisted and did your duty. Each of you proved yourself. It has been my highest honor as your captain to serve beside you and watch you perform your tasks with such persistent exactness."

  Lem knew he was laying it on thick, but he also knew that no one would doubt his sincerity. Mother had always said that were he not the heir to the largest asteroid-mining fortune in the solar system, he could have had a career on the stage. Lem had found that amusing; Mother was always thinking so small. The stage was for the pretentious and unattractive, all those who didn't have a face for the vids.

  "But eight months ago our mission changed." Lem tapped his wrist pad, and the system chart behind him winked to life. A holo of the Formic ship appeared large and imposing. "This became our mission. This abomination. No one gave us the order to stop it. We gave that order to ourselves."

  Technically, that was a half truth since it was the captain of the free-miner ship El Cavador who had asked Lem to help them stop the Formics. But what did that matter? Lem had accepted the invitation. No one had forced his hand.

  He tapped his wrist pad again. The Formic ship vanished, and the faces of twenty-five men appeared. "Some of you may think that attacking the Formics was a mistake. We lost twenty-five of our crew, after all. Twenty-five good men. Twenty-five future husbands and fathers."

  A woman near the front wiped at her eyes. A good sign, Lem thought. His real purpose here was not the memorial service, after all. It was to retake command of the ship, true command, not to serve as captain in name only, but to have his orders followed, to hold absolute authority. To achieve that, he needed to stir up their emotions a bit.

  "But I say attacking the Formics was not a mistake," Lem continued. "Sending a message to them that we would rather die than see our world taken from us was not a mistake. Proving to Earth that we would do anything to protect her was not a mistake. Taking steps to save our families back on Luna and Earth was not a mistake."

  He could see he had them now. A few of them were nodding along.

  "But then something changed," said Lem. "We stopped focusing on Earth. After following the Formic ship closely, we pulled back. We retreated way out here to the ecliptic, a great distance from the Formics and thus a great distance from those we could have warned and saved." He paused a moment and lowered his voice, as if it pained him to say the words.

  "We knew more about the Formic ship than anyone. Its weapons capabilities, its speed, its likely destination. We had even calculated when and where it might emit its next burst of radiation. If we had stayed close to it, maybe we could've warned all those ships in its path."

  He tapped his wrist pad. The faces in the holo vanished, and a cloud of debris appeared in the holofield.

  "Like these ships. The ships at Kleopatra, home to a Juke outpost and processing facility. Nearly eight thousand of our own people lived on that rock, plus however many people were in the ships around it. Most of them free-miner families. Women, children, infants, the elderly. We could have warned them. But we didn't."

  More taps. More holos. More wreckage. One by one, Lem displayed scenes of destruction. One by one he recounted the lives lost. Most of the crew had already seen these images; the ship had collected them over the past few months as they tracked the Formic ship by following its path of destruction toward Earth.

  Lem described what it must have been like to be on those ships, explaining how a blast of gamma
plasma at close range would vaporize blood and bone. And how, at longer ranges, flesh burned and cells broke down as a result of radiation poisoning.

  "And while we were hiding in the shadows," he continued, "these people were fighting for Earth. While we retreated and protected ourselves, they faced the enemy, fighting for us, dying for us."

  A few of the crew shifted uncomfortably. He was hitting a nerve.

  A part of Lem felt a touch guilty for manipulating them this way. It was tacky and opportunistic to use a memorial service for personal gain, but then again this was war, not only between humans and Formics but also between Lem and Father, the great and glorious Ukko Jukes.

  It had been Father who had given Chubs the secret orders to monitor everything Lem did as captain and to override Lem's orders should Lem do anything to put himself in danger, which made Chubs, in essence, a secret glorified babysitter.

  Father would no doubt call this good parenting, looking out for his son, protecting him from the dangers of the Kuiper Belt. But Lem knew what was really at play here. Father was doing what he always did: asserting his control, pulling the strings, playing his little game of power, and making Lem look like the fool.

  The whole thing had been especially humiliating since it was a year into the mission before Lem had realized that he wasn't exactly in charge. Chubs had been a stand-up guy about the whole situation. He had meant no hard feelings. He had even gone out of his way to keep Lem from losing face with the crew by keeping the whole thing a secret. But that hadn't taken the sting out of being made to look the fool. For a whole year, Lem had been convinced that Chubs was his most trusted adviser. And then surprise! I'm really working for your father, Lem, and no I won't relay your order to the crew because I can't allow you to make it. Sorry, your dear daddy said so.

  Oh Father, you can't help yourself, can you? You can't stand the idea that I might actually accomplish something on my own without your involvement. You have to secretly insert yourself into my affairs. Sly, Father. Whatever the outcome, you win. If the mission fails, it's all my fault, if it succeeds, it only succeeded because you were there helping me along.

  The thought was like a rod of steel added to Lem's spine. He was all the more convinced that he could never trust anyone on board and that the only way he would be free of Father was to beat Father at his own game, to take the company, to remove Father from his vaulted throne and politely show him the door.