Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

designed for spacewalks at this speed. They’ll protect you from collisions with space dust, but anything bigger will rip through you like shrapnel. So the less time you spend outside the better. Bottom line, move fast. Set the explosives, click back on the cable, and I’ll reel you back in. Nothing to it.”
    Right, thought Segundo. Nothing to it. Just perform a spacewalk at an insane speed, cling to magnets for dear life, and take down an alien ship fifty times our size. Easy.
    He turned on his HUD, and windows of data popped up on his visor. He blinked through a few file folders until he found the family photo he was looking for. A candid shot of him, Rena, and Vico at some family gathering a few years ago. He smiled to see how small Vico was then, still a boy. He had grown to his man height so quickly. Segundo’s smile faded. He wondered where Victor was at the moment, rocketing toward Luna all these months, his health slowly deteriorating.
    Video taken from inside Lem Jukes’s helmet popped up on Segundo’s HUD. “We’re in position,” said Lem. “Give the word.”
    The Makarhu was approaching the Formic ship on the opposite side, and Lem, like Concepción, was manning the winch on his ship. The plan was for Lem to fire his cable onto the hull at the same instant El Cavador fired hers. Then both ships would send out their men.
    “We’re opening our doors,” said Concepción.
    The large airlock doors opened wide, and Segundo stared in wonder and horror at the size of the ship before them. El Cavador was over a hundred meters from the ship, yet the view of the ship filled the entire airlock doorway. Segundo had seen renderings and models of the ship, but until now he hadn’t grasped the sheer immensity of it. It was larger than any structure he had ever seen, and yet it was so smooth and uniform and singular in its design that it didn’t seem like a structure at all. It didn’t seem like something made . It seemed like a giant drop of red paint falling from heaven to Earth. The color surprised Segundo, though he wasn’t sure why. What had he expected? A menacing black?
    These are not ignorant monsters, he realized. They are every child’s worst nightmare. The monster that thinks. The monster that can build and move fast and defy every defense. I’ve been in denial, he realized. He had seen the pod, he had seen their tech, but the obstinate, dominant-species part of his brain had refused to believe that a face so horrific and antlike could be more innovative or intelligent than human beings. Yet here was the proof. Here was a whole kilometer of proof.
    “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” asked Lem. “Are you seeing what we’re seeing?”
    “We see it,” said Concepción. “And I’m more convinced than ever. We cannot let this reach Earth.”
    “You’re right,” said Lem. “But I don’t like it.”
    Segundo agreed. He wasn’t convinced that they’d be the ones to stop it, but it had to stop.
    “Makarhu, are you ready to fire your cable?” asked Concepción.
    “Makarhu ready,” said a man’s voice.
    “On my mark,” said Concepción. “Four. Three. Two. One. Cable away.”
    The mooring cable shot forward with a large round magnet at its end. Segundo watched the cable uncoil as it flew toward the ship. It seemed to go forever, and then it struck the surface, holding firm. Concepción gunned the winch, and pulled in the slack. The cable was taut. Bahzím was shouting, “Go, go, go!”
    Segundo launched himself out and thumbed the trigger on his propulsion pack. He shot forward toward the ship, keenly aware that he was also moving in the direction of the ship at one hundred and ten thousand kilometers per hour. The smallest rock chunk would kill him, and the thought prompted him to press the thumb trigger harder. The Formic ship was coming up fast. A beeping message in Segundo’s HUD warned him of an impending collision and urged him to reduce his speed. Segundo ignored it. He needed to get down fast or he’d slow down the line. Thirty meters. Twenty. He hit the second thumb trigger, and retro boosters on his thighs and chest quickly slowed his descent. Two seconds later he was bringing his feet up in front of him.
    Touchdown. His boot magnets—thankfully—held to the surface. A disc magnet with a handgrip was already in his left hand. He reached down to the surface and anchored his upper body with the magnet while his right hand released the D-ring from the