Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

even in the remote chance that someone does open the message, they might dismiss what little evidence they look at as either a hoax or simply a mistake of our equipment. And if they think that, they’ll do more than not pass it on, they’ll delete it.”
    “You make it sound hopeless,” said Mother.
    “I’m being realistic,” said Dreo. “I’m telling you how the system works.”
    “We’ll get other clans and families involved,” said Father. “We’ll tell them where to look in deep space, something we should have done a long time ago. We’ll turn everyone’s attention out here to the alien ship. Whoever has a sky scanner as good as our Eye would detect the ship and send a warning message to Earth. Maybe if we build a swell of warnings, if we make enough noise, something will get through.”
    “Maybe,” said Dreo. “Probably. But how much time do we have here before it reaches the Kuiper Belt? Six months? A year?”
    “I’ve asked Edimar to give us a status,” said Concepción. “She’ll update us on the ship’s trajectory and position. Edimar?”
    The crowd parted, and Edimar stepped forward. It was the first time Victor had seen her since Toron’s death. She looked exhausted and small. Victor’s heart went out to her. She had lost her father and sister in a few short weeks. And now, with Toron gone, she had the overwhelming responsibility of being the family’s only sky scanner. Her face was expressionless, and Victor knew that Edimar was doing what she always did: burying her pain, holding everything in, closing everyone else out.
    “As has been mentioned,” she said, “we now know with some degree of certainty that the ship is on a trajectory with Earth. It could change its speed at any moment, but based on its current rate of deceleration, it will arrive at Earth in little over a year.”
    There was a murmur of concern among the Council.
    “As for when it will reach the Kuiper Belt,” said Edimar, “we obviously have much less time. I’ve run through the data over and over again now and it looks as if the ship will be relatively close to us in less than four months.”
    Everyone started talking at once, alarmed. It was loud and chaotic and Concepción called for order. “Please. Quiet. Let Edimar finish.”
    The talking subsided.
    “We can’t even reach Weigh Station Four in that time,” said someone in the back.
    “You’re probably right,” said Edimar. “I’ve done the math. The starship will likely pass by Weigh Station Four before we get there.”
    “Pass by?” said Dreo. “You mean the two will be close?”
    “They won’t collide,” said Edimar. “There’s little chance of that. Weigh Station Four will be a hundred thousand kilometers away from the ship’s trajectory. That should be a safe distance.”
    “In relative space terms, that’s not all that far,” said Mother. “That’s only a quarter of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. That’s too close for comfort. We have to move now. Immediately. We need to warn the weigh station as soon as possible.”
    “We need to be clear about our warning, though,” said Dreo. “We know plenty about the pod, but less about the ship. Such as its size. Do we even know how big it is?”
    “Not precisely,” said Edimar. “It’s heading toward us, so we don’t know its length. We can only detect the front of it. But even that is big. At least a kilometer across.”
    This time the reaction in the room was a stunned silence.
    Victor thought Edimar had misspoken. A kilometer? And that was the ship’s width, not its length. That couldn’t be right. What could possibly be that big?
    “Any of you are welcome to check my calculations,” said Edimar. “I hope you can prove me wrong. But you won’t. I didn’t believe it myself until I rechecked it the fifth time. This ship is big.”
    And filled with creatures like those that killed Janda and Toron and the Italians, thought Victor. How many could fit in a ship that size? Thousands? Tens of thousands? And what about pods and other weaponized ships? How many pods could squeeze into a ship a kilometer across?
    Sending a laserline wasn’t enough, he realized. Dreo was right. A warning might get through, but not as quickly as it needed to, if at all. Any number of things could go wrong, and then Earth would be caught off guard. We need a contingency plan, he told himself. We need a way to get the evidence to Earth and in the right hands as soon as possible.