Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

miners would last without supplies? If Earth loses, my family loses.”
    “The landers are only in China, Vico. Earth is a big planet. It doesn’t hang in the balance just yet. We don’t even know what the aliens want.”
    “The report said the aliens were dropping bacteria into the sea, right?”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “Why would they do that?”
    “Kill marine life? I don’t know.”
    “Terraforming, Imala. They’re seeding bacteria in the oceans for the same reason they’re using defoliants to kill all plants and animals. They want the planet. They want Earth. But they can’t have it in its current state. It has to be a planet that conforms to their biology, not ours. All existing life in the sea, all biology on land, evolved here without them. That makes it hazardous to them. They don’t have natural defenses against our biota. Our strains of bacteria are different from theirs. So they’re going to change Earth to be more like the world they do know. They’re going to burn it down and start all over. If we were going to seize a planet, we would do the same thing. We’d drop stuff in the atmosphere, wipe out all existing biological life, seed Earth-born plants and animals, make the new planet as much like Earth as we could. It’s the ecosystem we were engineered for. Why else would they have come, Imala? Why else would they be acting the way they are? They don’t want to communicate with us. They don’t want to negotiate. They’re not going to ask us for Earth. They’re already taking it. And I’ve seen these creatures, Imala. I’ve seen how they attack and how they think, how relentless they are. If they can land on Earth, if missiles and weapons can’t hurt them, they won’t quit until Earth is theirs.”
    The waitress floated back over. She wasn’t carrying any food. She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask both of you to leave.”
    “Why?” said Imala.
    “Someone is renting out the entire depot. They want everyone else off.”
    “We paid a docking fee,” said Victor. “We just got here.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. We’ll refund the fee.”
    “Why does someone need the entire depot?” asked Imala. “Do they have that many people in their party?”
    “No,” said the waitress. “There are just the two of them. They docked a few minutes ago. They said they needed their privacy. I guess when you have that kind of money, you can do whatever you please.”
    “Who is it?” asked Imala.
    “Lem Jukes,” said the waitress.

CHAPTER 17
     
    Transmissions
     
    The supply depot was exactly what Lem had expected it to be: a dump. A sad excuse for an outpost that didn’t appear to have been renovated since the first days of space commerce. The whole structure looked like it might break apart at any moment. There were metal plates crudely welded at random spots all along the inner walls, supposedly sealing off leaks or breaches that had occurred over the years. There were lines of grime where all the walls met, as if the mops they used to clean the place didn’t reach the corners. There were several old neon signs for brands of alcohol or travel food that Lem had never heard of and that probably didn’t exist anymore. None of the signs were turned on. Lem doubted any of them could.
    All this gave the lobby a scarred, postapocalyptic vibe and made Lem more than a little uneasy. He was suddenly wishing he had come in a spacesuit just in case the whole thing split apart and dumped him and Chubs out into the black.
    “Mr. Jukes. A pleasure to have you. Welcome. Welcome.”
    A thin, balding man was floating toward them from across the room. The proprietor. Lem disliked him immediately. He was the kind of person you could read in a blink. False expression, false demeanor, false cadence in his voice. Everything about him said dishonest.
    The man’s clothes weren’t helping either. They had been fashionable at one point, years ago, but never together. The pants and shirt screamed at each other, fighting for attention, one fluffy and exploding outward with fabric, the other tight and form fitting. It was like he had won both in two different poker games and had convinced himself they were a matching set.
    The man caught a handhold nearby and righted himself so that he had the same orientation as Lem and Chubs.
    “Felix Montroose, Mr. Jukes. At your service. Welcome to Last Chance.”
    “The price we settled on over laserline will have to be renegotiated,”