"It looks like a tank," he said.
"We've been running scans through the computers all morning," said Chubs. "I've never seen anything like it, not on a free-miner ship, anyway. They've got armored plates welded all over the surface. Plus I've never seen this much proprietary tech on a single ship. See these protrusions here, here, and here. That's tech."
"What kind of tech?" asked Lem.
"We don't know," said Chubs. "These boxes here could be pebble-killers. Our computers can't make heads or tails of it. Most of it looks like it's built from scrap. The computers keep recognizing individual pieces from machines, but since the pieces are all used together in odd combinations, we have no idea what the tech is really for. Whoever these people are, they're either certifiably insane or genius innovators."
"I'd rather they be insane," said Lem.
"Makes two of us," said Chubs. "I don't like them having machines we can't understand. Makes me nervous. And that's not the worst of it." He glanced uneasily at Benyawe.
"It's okay," said Lem. "She's here at my invitation." Lem smiled to Benyawe, appearing nonchalant, though in truth he felt a little panicked. El Cavador looked tougher than he had anticipated. He shouldn't have brought Benyawe.
Chubs turned to the systems chart and tapped a command. A dozen cables stretching from El Cavador down to the surface of the asteroid suddenly glowed yellow. "Here's the bad news. They have twelve mooring lines anchoring them to the asteroid. That's three times more lines than normal."
"Meaning what?" asked Lem. "They've seen us? They're adding more lines to hunker down?"
"No way," said Chubs. "You don't keep that much cable lying around. This has to be how they anchor all the time."
"Maybe they've been bumped before," said Benyawe. "And now they lay down more lines to discourage anyone from trying again."
"My assumption as well," said Chubs. "From the looks of their ship and the number of anchor lines, I'd say these people have seen their share of pirates and claim jumpers."
"And corporates," said Benyawe.
Lem shot her a look, but she was facing the holo and didn't meet his eye.
"The other thing that bothers me is all the activity we've detected outside their ship," said Chubs.
"What kind of activity?" asked Lem.
"Spacewalks. And lots of them. Some to lay down more hull armor. Some to work on their collision-avoidance system. They've been very, very active. We haven't seen more than three or four guys out at a time. But it's like they know a war is coming."
"They've obviously detected us," said Lem. "They're building defenses for our attack."
"I'm not so sure," said Chubs. "It's only three or four guys out there. If they were in prebattle panic mode, they'd have a whole crew out. They'd put every available man behind an effort like that."
"Maybe that is every available man," said Benyawe. "Maybe only three or four people are left. Maybe they had an outbreak or something. It's happened with free miners before."
"But they do have other people," said Chubs. "We've seen them. While these three guys are strengthening the ship, they've got thirty guys working the mine. It's basically life as usual."
Lem shrugged. "It's not that strange if you think about it. They've seen us coming, and they're trying to mine as much as they can before we get there. That's what I would do."
"The other possibility," said Benyawe, "is that they don't know we're coming, and strengthening the ship is simply what these three or four guys do. That's their job. They're simply going about their business. You could argue that the state of the ship substantiates that idea. It's well defended. It doesn't get that way overnight. You can see scorch marks and dents all along their armor, which would suggest that the armor has been there a long time."
"Maybe," said Chubs. "It could also mean the armor plates were scorched when they applied them."
"Not likely," said Benyawe. "Some of these dents and marks stretch across multiple plates. This is a ship that's seen action, which brings up another possibility. Maybe they're not preparing for war with us. Maybe they've got a feud with another family, or there's a ship of thieves in the area."
"There's no one else in the area," said Chubs.
Benyawe shrugged. "So maybe they're prepping to set out on a six-month journey at the end of which is their enemy. Who knows?"
"I've had enough guesswork for one day," said Lem. "I want answers. How does this affect the bump? Are we a go or not?"
"The mooring cables are the biggest problem," said Chubs. "That's a lot of lines. We can't bump the ship unless every one of those lines is severed. We could cut them with the lasers, but it would be tedious work. It would take way too long. Bumps need to happen fast. Two minutes at the most. Gives them less of a chance to retaliate. I suggest cutting the cables a different way."
"How?" Lem asked.
Chubs tapped more commands into the system chart, and the holo of El Cavador winked out. A holo of the asteroid took its place, with El Cavador now a small ship moored to the surface. "We'll land over here," said Chubs. "On the blind side."
Lem watched the holo as the Makarhu approached the opposite side of the asteroid and landed at a spot just below what would be El Cavador's horizon line, hiding the Makarhu from view yet keeping it within striking distance.
"They still haven't seen us at this point," said Chubs. "We wait here until four hours into their sleep schedule, when everyone is good and gone to dreamland. Then we send in twelve breakers."
The breaker bots were small, disc-shaped explosive drones. Corporates used them for mining, sending them down narrow mineshafts to break up large chunks of rock for extraction.
"There's a ridgeline here," said Chubs, highlighting the feature on the asteroid. "It runs from our landing site to within a hundred yards of El Cavador. We can take a shuttle out along the ridgeline without them seeing us. The shuttle stops here at the edge of open ground. We throw the breakers from there. Our pilot steers each one to a different mooring line. The bots attach to the lines, then we detonate them all at once. That's when the attack begins. Once the lines are cut, we come forward with the ship and take out their pebble-killers and their power with our lasers. It's over at that point. We can brush them aside easy as anything. Ninety seconds tops."
Lem stared at the holo a moment. "Throwing the breakers? You can send them that far with that much accuracy?"
"The breakers have mini cams. We have a very good pilot. He can steer them pretty much wherever you want them."
"Won't El Cavador detect the movement?" asked Lem. "Won't they see the breakers coming?"
"Their collision-avoidance system doesn't monitor the surface of the asteroid. It can't. They've got miners walking around the surface all day. Believe me, it's the last place they would look for an attack."
Lem didn't like it. This was supposed to be a clean operation. They would swoop in, zap a few devices on the hull, push the ship aside, and be done with it. Simple. Nothing with breakers. No explosions. No creeping up in a shuttle. This was far more variables than Lem had intended.
One of the crewmen launched from his workstation and landed near Lem.
"They're rotating away, sir," said the crewman. "We can accelerate as soon as you're ready."
This would be the last push forward. They were close now. They would land on the rock within a few hours. Lem turned to Benyawe. Her face was a mask. She seemed poised, but he knew she was angry. She'd hate this new development more than he did.
"What's the word, Lem?" said Chubs. "We can cut bait now and scoot away if you'd like. Otherwise we need to punch it. We have a brief window here."
Nine days, thought Lem. They had come nine days. The rock was right there in front of them. What would you do, Father? Go off and shoot some more pebbles? Fly eight months to a different asteroid? Or knock these gravel suckers off the rock? Lem could almost feel Father here beside him, looking over his shoulder, shaking his head in disgust, oozing disappointment. "Why do you even hav
e to think this one through, Lem?" Father would say. "Are you a Jukes or are you a child?"
Lem turned to Chubs. "Put us on the rock."
CHAPTER 6
Marco
Victor was on a spacewalk, outside El Cavador, bolting one of the pebble-killers into place with his hand drill. Mono was beside him, his feet anchored to the hull, holding the PK steady with bracing cables. They had removed the laser a few days ago and taken it into the cargo bay to make modifications. Now, with those completed, they were reinstalling it on the side of the ship.
Victor wasn't sure if their efforts would make much difference. If the alien starship proved to be aggressive, Victor probably couldn't do much to stop it. The starship moved at near-lightspeed, which required an almost inconceivable amount of energy and huge leaps in technology, far beyond anything human tech had ever achieved. And if the starship's builders could do that, there was no telling what their weapons could do.
Victor inserted a bolt into his drill and moved to the next hole, noticing that the hole was slightly off its mark. He looked up and saw that Mono had fallen asleep. The bracing cable drifted lazily away from Mono's open hands, and his arms floated limply beside him. If not for Mono's boot magnets, he probably would have drifted away from the ship.
"Mono," Victor said sharply.
Mono jerked awake, suddenly alert, eyes wide. He grabbed the bracing cable and pulled it taut. "Sorry. I'm awake."
"No you're not. You're exhausted. And I don't blame you. I've pushed you way too hard today."
"No, no. I'm fine. Really. I'm good now." Mono blinked his eyes in an exaggerated manner and shook his head to force himself to stay awake.
"Three more bolts," said Victor. "Then we'll go inside. It's already an hour into sleep-shift. You should be zipped up in your hammock."
"I'm fine," Mono said, though Victor could tell from the look on his face that if given five more seconds of silence, the boy would be asleep again.
A message from Mother appeared on Victor's visor. "It's late, Vico. Bring Mono inside. His mother's worried."
Victor and Mono finished the install, collected their things, and hurried to the airlock. Mother greeted them inside with containers of chili and two hot arepas wrapped in a cloth. Victor wiggled out of his pressure suit and sucked the first taste of chili up through the straw. It was hot and spicy with finely minced peppers the way he liked it.
"Perfect as always," he said.
Mother scowled. "You're not winning me over with compliments, Vico. You're in trouble. Mono should have been in a bed an hour ago."
"I'm not tired," said Mono, though he was barely keeping his eyes open.
Mother smiled. "No, you're as perky as a jackrabbit." She frowned at Victor. "You're not resting and eating like I told you to, Vico. You need eight hours of sleep a night. As does Mono. He's nine years old."
"Nine and three quarters," said Mono. "My birthday's coming up."
"You're right, Patita," said Victor. "I'm sorry.
Mother squinted. She always got that suspicious look in her eyes whenever Victor called her by the nickname he had given her as a child, as if he were concealing something. "Did you even go to bed last night, Vico? You weren't in your hammock this morning."
Victor bit into the arepa. It was hot and buttery. "I slept a few hours in the workshop."
Mother sighed and looked at Mono. "And what about you, Monito? Are you learning anything from my son besides rebellion and disobedience?"
Mono's mouth was full of arepa. He said something, but it was unintelligible.
"He says he sleeps like a baby," said Victor. "Eight hours a night."
Mono smiled and nodded to show Mother that the translation had been correct.
"At least one of you minds," said Mother.
Victor kept quiet. He knew Mother wasn't really angry. She knew the work they were doing needed to be done. She just didn't like it.
"Father should be the one getting the tongue lashing," said Victor. "He's sleeping less than I am."
"Oh don't you worry," said Mother. "He's heard plenty from me today already."
All of them had been working feverishly since the Council meeting, Father more than anyone.
"The Italians should be getting the laserline about now," said Mother.
Victor nodded. "Still no word from the Juke ship?"
Mother shook her head. "We should have gotten a response by now, at least an acknowledgment of message received. But so far, nothing. Selmo thinks they pulled out before they got the message. They're not showing up on our scans anymore."
"Or maybe they got the message and shot back to Luna, fleeing for their lives," said Mono.
"Then at least we got the message to someone," Mother said.
"We should have told everyone," said Victor. "We should have told the whole world ten days ago."
She nodded and put a hand on his arm. "Just promise me you'll sleep more."
"Only if you promise to make this chili more often."
"Yeah," said Mono, smacking his lips. "Sabroso." Delicious.
Victor's handheld beeped, and Father's voice came through. "Marco and I could use your help out here, Vico. If you're done with that pebble-killer, send Mono on to bed and come give us a hand."
When not working in the mine, Marco had been helping Father in recent days, joining him outside to build the ship's defenses.
"I'm here with Mother," said Victor. "She can hear you. She's giving me the skunk eye."
"I don't want to leave this thing half installed overnight," said Father, "and these new parts of yours are being a little finicky. Tell your mother I need you."
"Tell your father he's in big trouble," said Mother.
"She says she loves you dearly," said Victor.
Mother rolled her eyes, and Victor knew then that she wasn't going to argue.
"I'm on my way out," said Victor.
"Can I come?" said Mono.
"Absolutely not," said Mother. "I told your mom I'd have you go straight to your hammock, and that's exactly where you're going."
Mono looked ready to object, but a quick look and stern finger from Mother made Mono think better of it. He let his shoulders sag and launched up toward the hatch. When he was gone, Mother put a hand on Victor's shoulder. "Please be careful, Vico. When we're tired, we make mistakes. And you can't make mistakes outside. Even little ones."
"I'll be careful."
Five minutes later he was outside with Father and Marco, his lifeline stretching out behind him to the cargo bay.
"We rebooted," said Father, gesturing to the newly installed PK. "But it's still not coming online."
Using his heads-up display--or HUD--Victor blinked his way into the ship's computer to pinpoint the problem. He wasn't a coder, but he had learned enough code to manipulate it when he needed to accommodate modifications. By the time he had uncovered the glitch, tweaked the code, and brought the PK to life, another hour had passed. Marco and Father were nearby, bolting one of the new armored plates onto the hull. The metal had come directly from the dig site, where the smelting machines had been modified to make them. There had been a lot of discussion on the ship about using the metal, with some people insisting that they send the metal directly to Luna with the rest of the minerals to build up more income. In the end, however, Concepcion had sided with Father, and the smelters had been making additional plates ever since.
Victor joined Father and Marco and began helping them secure plates to the hull. He couldn't hear the drill in his hand, but he knew the vibrations would be making noise inside the ship. Most people were sleeping, so if the sound was loud enough to wake them, Victor was sure he'd get a message in his helmet telling them to stop. After several more hours of work, no message came. Initially, Marco made the time pass quickly by telling old mining stories, some of which were so hilarious that Victor and Father had laughed until their stomachs hurt. It was the first time Victor had felt any sense of normalcy with an adult--other than Mother and Fat
her--since Janda's departure.
Eventually the stories dried up, however, and the three of them fell into a silence as they worked. They could stop at any moment, of course; Father and Marco had only started installing plates to keep busy while Victor worked on the PK. With that done, there was really no reason for them to be out this late. Victor stood up to suggest that they call it a night, when something in the distance, down on the surface of the asteroid, caught his attention. A flicker of movement, a streak of something out of the corner of his eye. Victor squinted into the darkness, straining to see. He blinked up the magnification feature on his helmet and zoomed his view down to where one of the mooring lines was anchored to the asteroid. It was hard to see much detail in the blackness, but it looked as if something was on the line.
"Father?"
"Yeah?"
"I think there's something on the--"
There were twelve simultaneous, blinding flashes of light down near the asteroid. Victor instinctively clenched his eyes shut, feeling the ship shift slightly beneath his feet.
"What was that?" asked Marco.
Victor opened his eyes and saw among the dots of brightness still burned into his vision that all twelve mooring lines had been cut. The ship was adrift. Someone had blown the lines.
"It's an attack!" Father shouted. "Hold on to something!"
The first laser hit the PK not two meters from where Victor was standing, slicing it from its base. A mechanism inside the PK exploded outward, causing the PK to shoot back like a rocket in zero gravity. It struck Marco in the side of the head just as he was bending down, tearing him away from the ship and sending him spinning out into space.
"Victor, get down!" Father cried.
Victor initiated the magnets in his hands and waist belt and quickly lowered himself to the hull on his stomach. The alarm in his HUD was beeping. Father must have initiated it. Everywhere on the ship, the siren would be wailing now, waking everyone.
Two laser blasts hit the hull near where Victor and Father lay, slicing off more sensors and instruments. Another laser cut wide to Victor's left, and Victor turned his head and watched in horror as the laserline transmitter was hit. In one swift slice, the laser cut away the entire mechanism, leaving only the mounting plate and a few scorched circuits. The severed piece floated there in space, drifting slowly away. The ship's primary source of long-range communication was gone.