Read Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) Online
Authors: Orson Scott Card,Aaron Johnston
Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) (54 page)
The message ended. Lem’s head winked out. Victor stared at the empty holofield for a long moment. Then he looked up at Imala and began to laugh.
Epilogue
Edimar sat at the bay window of the Gagak and went over the data a final time. She checked and rechecked, calculated and recalculated. Then, when she was certain there were no errors, she went to the helm to find Rena.
The past several weeks had been hectic. Now that the war was over, pirates that had gone dormant were now out in full force. Or maybe they never had gone dormant. Maybe they had continued to raid ships all this time, and it was only because of the interference that nothing had been reported. Either way, a day didn’t go by without another report or two coming in. Families killed, ships stripped and gutted. The most notorious of these was a vulture named Khalid. He was a Somali, like Arjuna, and the two of them had some history, though Edimar had never been brave enough to ask what.
Rena had implored Arjuna to increase the ship’s shielding, and the two of them had had a rather heated discussion on the subject in the corridor. Rena had suggested adding more metal plates to the hull.
“And where am I to find these plates, Lady?” Arjuna had said.
“Wherever you can,” Rena had said. “You could start with the walls between cabins.”
“You want me to rip out walls? Take rooms away from my crew?”
“You’d be making one big room out of two rooms. They would still have the same amount of space.”
“Yes. And zero privacy. How are my men and women to love each other if they share a room with twenty people?”
“Well, Arjuna, let’s prioritize here. What’s more important to you? The safety of this crew or having everyone gratify their sexual desires?”
“That is easy for you to say,” he had said. “You are a woman without a husband.”
“And therefore I have no desires? For a man who has three wives, Arjuna, you know next to nothing about women.”
In the end Arjuna had closed himself in his room and roared in frustration so loudly that Edimar had heard him all the way back in the cargo bay. That’s where she had been spending much of her days recently, holopad in hand, combing the archives of the Parallax Nexus. Now she had the answers, and she was desperate to show Rena.
She found her in the helm at the nav charts. “I need to speak with you. Immediately.”
Rena followed her out into the corridor. “You look upset. What’s wrong?”
“The Formic mothership. The one Victor destroyed. It wasn’t a mothership at all.”
“What do you mean?” said Rena. “Of course it was.”
“I’ve been digging through the archives at Parallax. When you look outward, Ukko could have found the ship years ago. If the satellites had been programmed to identify movement like that, we would have had years to prepare.”
“We wouldn’t have known what it was,” said Rena.
“We would’ve known it was extraterrestrial. We could’ve prepared for the worst. That would have been better than getting caught with our pants down.”
“Don’t use that phrase,” said Rena. “It sounds vulgar. Why does this upset you?”
“Because when you look out even farther, you can see when the ship separates from something much, much bigger. This mothership that Victor destroyed, it was a scout ship, Rena. The
real
mothership is still out there.”
Rena stared at her. “How certain are you?”
“A hundred percent. The data’s irrefutable. Eight years ago the scout ship broke away from the mothership. But we saw it four years ago when the light reached us. The scout ship continued its speed at roughly half the speed of light while the mothership began to decelerate. The scout ship eventually decelerated also, but not until much later. So it reached us first. The mothership is now coming at about ten percent of the speed of light, but it is coming, Rena. I played with the data a hundred times. I tested myself. I looked at this from every angle, and I’m telling you, I know I’m right.”
Rena said nothing for a long moment. “How much time do we have?”
“Five years. But that’s not what scares me the most. This mothership is changing.”
“Changing? How?”
“At first I thought it was breaking apart or something, but the pieces don’t move like wreckage. They have order. They move like ships.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The mothership is cannibalizing itself, Rena. It’s taking itself apart to create lots and lots of smaller ships. It’s transforming itself into a fleet. An army. And I think it’s safe to say they’re not intending to apologize. I’m glad we stopped this war. I’m glad it’s over. But we have a much bigger problem coming.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are two names on the cover of this book, but a small army of people made it possible. Thanks to Kathleen Bellamy for all her careful assistance. Thanks also to everyone at Tor for their encouragement and skill and expertise, particularly our editor, Beth Meacham, whose input is always wise and inspired. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Phillip Absher, for his careful reading of the manuscript and for catching mistakes you will thankfully never see. Thanks also to Amy Saxon, Jordan D. White, Aisha Cloud, Andy Mendelsohn, and Jeanine Plummer. You all know how you helped, and we love you for it. We owe a big muchas gracias to Jorge Guillen, who gave advice on some of the Spanish phrases used in the previous two volumes and whom we failed to mention last time. Adelante, amigo.
Lastly, we thank our wives, Kristine Card and Lauren Johnston, the captains of our two ships. They are our first readers and our truest friends, and without their encouragement and counsel and good humor, this book would not exist. Marry well, dear reader, and your
mana
will never drain.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
O
RSON
S
COTT
C
ARD
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Ender’s Game.
He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine, and their youngest child.
A
ARON
J
OHNSTON
is a
New York Times
bestselling author, comic book writer, and screenwriter. He is the coauthor, with Orson Scott Card, of
Earth Unaware, Earth Afire,
and
Invasive Procedures.
He and his wife are the parents of four children.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
EARTH AWAKENS
Copyright © 2014 by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston
All rights reserved.
Cover art by John Harris
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Card, Orson Scott.
Earth awakens / Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston.—First Edition.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-2906-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4881-4 (e-book)
1. Space warfare—Fiction. I. Johnston, Aaron. II. Title.
PS3553.A655E36 2014
813'.54—dc23
2013033239
e-ISBN 9781429948814
First Edition: June 2014
Tor Books by Orson Scott Card
Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.
ENDER UNIVERSE
Ender Series
Ender Wiggin: The finest general the world could hope to find or breed.
Ender’s Shadow Series
Parallel storylines to
Ender’s Game
from Bean: Ender’s right hand, his strategist, and his friend.
The First Formic War Series
One hundred years before
Ender’s Game,
the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death.
These are the stories of the First Formic War.
Ender novellas
The Authorized Ender Companion
by Jake Black
A complete and in-depth encyclopedia of all the persons, places, things, and events in Orson Scott Card’s Ender Universe.
THE MITHER MAGES SERIES
Danny North is different from his magical family. And when he discovers his gift, it is greater than he ever imagined—which could earn him a death sentence.
THE TALES OF ALVIN MAKER SERIES
Visit the magical America that might have been, marvel as the tale of Alvin Maker unfolds.
HOMECOMING SERIES
Earth has been rendered uninhabitable. But it is still vital.
WOMEN OF GENESIS SERIES
Fiction exploring the human side of Biblical women.
THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF ORSON SCOTT CARD
Experience Card’s full versatility, from science fiction to fantasy, from traditional narrative poetry to modern experimental fiction.
STAND-ALONE FICTION
Hart’s Hope
: Dark and powerful fantasy.
Lovelock
(with Kathryn Kidd): A startling look at the ethics of bioengineering.
Pastwatch
: In this novel of time travel, can the past be changed?
Saints
: A novel of the early days of the Mormon Church.
Songmaster
: An SF classic and a haunting story of power and love.
The Worthing Saga
: The tale of a seed ship sent out to save the human race.
Wyrms
: The story of a young woman’s journey to confront her destiny, and her world’s.
The Folk of the Fringe
: When America is destroyed, it’s up to those on the fringes to rebuild.
.