Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) by Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston Page B

weightless again. The gravity weapons were destroyed.”
    “Where did these ships come from? Who has a fleet that large?”
    “They weren’t ships, Vico. These things were too small to be ships. They were drones.”
    “Drones? If Earth had drones, why did we launch manned fighters? Why risk pilots’ lives if you didn’t have to?”
    “Because these drones aren’t from Earth,” said Imala. “I just backtracked their flight path. They came from Luna.”
    “Luna?”
    “And that’s not the worst of it. All of our com lines with Luna went dark right before the attack.”
    It all became clear to Victor in an instant. “Lem. That bastard sent a drone fleet to kill us.”
    “But why?” said Imala. “He financed our attack, Vico. He gave us the shuttle, our gear.”
    “Of course he did,” said Victor. “This was his golden opportunity. We put our heads on the chopping block and placed an ax in his hands. Don’t you see? We went to him for help, and he saw it as an opportunity to silence us. Think, Imala. Lem and Ukko both want us gone. You’re a whistleblower, I’m a witness to a crime Lem committed. What better way to make those two problems go away than to erase us.”
    “It doesn’t make sense, Vico. You’re suggesting Lem invested all this money into this operation just to bump us off? There are far less expensive ways to kill people. If he had wanted to silence us he could’ve done that on Luna.”
    “Then why did we lose contact with Luna right before the attack?” said Victor. “And no, Lem couldn’t have dealt with us on Luna. There was too much attention on him. He was dogged by the paparazzi. And Ukko wouldn’t take that risk anyway. A scandal like that would topple the company. This is cleaner. No witnesses. No one knows we’re even out here. No one would connect us with Lem.”
    “Benyawe could,” said Imala. “She was helping us, Vico. I can’t imagine she would be a part of this.”
    “Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she thought Lem was legitimate.”
    “But then she and Dublin and the others at the warehouse who all saw us preparing for this would be loose ends. Are you suggesting Lem would silence them as well?”
    “I’m suggesting they’re all corporates, Imala, and they’ll do whatever is necessary to protect the corporation.”
    “I can’t believe that, Vico. Benyawe and Dublin are good people. They worked hard to help us.”
    “Who else would send drones from Luna, Imala? Who else has the capability to build a fleet like this?”
    “I’m not saying these aren’t Juke made, Vico. I’m saying we don’t know the circumstances. Maybe Juke sold the drones to the Americans. Or to China, or to NATO.”
    “Even if that’s the case, Imala, Lem could’ve told the buyer, ‘Oh, by the way, we have a strike team at the ship at the moment. Be a lamb and don’t blast it to hell just yet, if you don’t mind.’”
    Imala said nothing.
    “They cut all communication, Imala. They cut us loose. If it wasn’t Jukes, why didn’t they send a warning? The drones came from Luna. They would have seen them long before we did.”
    Imala said nothing.
    “They knew we were here, Imala. They knew I was inside. So they attacked the ship to destroy it and counted our corpses as a consolation prize. Then they become world heroes, and all their problems go adios. The money Lem put into this is nothing to them, Imala. They were willing to pay twice that just to dump me out in the Belt, remember?”
    “But Benyawe—”
    “Is one of them,” Victor interrupted. “They may have kept her out of the loop, but you can be sure she’s toeing the line now.”
    Imala was silent a moment. “So what do we do now?”
    “When we’re done here we go back to Luna and jettison Lem Jukes into space without a helmet. That’s what we do.”
    “What do you mean, when we’re done here. We are done here, Vico. We lost the duffel bag. It’s under a mountain of debris. And even if you could reach it, the