Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

a room where a team of technicians was examining and videoing the dissected Formic.
    “What are they?” asked Doashang.
    “They’re semivertebrate,” said Ji, “in that they have a single neural column, but clearly they evolved from exoskeletal hexiforms.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “They evolved from creatures very much like ants, but they left ant-hood far behind.”
    “So they’re not insects?”
    “ Descended from insectlike creatures. Certain evolutionary changes have occurred. They’re warm blooded, for instance. They insulate and perspire to regulate body temperature in much the same way we do. They have an endoskeleton covered with muscles and skin and fur. Most of their organs are a mystery to me, although we’ve documented everything. They have six legs obviously. The middle pair has musculature that suggests they can bear weight, though perhaps not as much as hips or thighs. The joint socket is extraordinarily flexible, even more so than human shoulders. Plus they have highly developed back muscles, which suggests they have enormous strength.”
    “We’ve already seen evidence of that. What I want to know is how do we kill them.”
    “They’re not indestructible. They’re tough and resilient, but they can be broken. What frightens me more than their physicality, though, is what we saw them do on the vids. They were immediately willing to give their lives to thwart any attack. No hesitation. No attempt to protect themselves. Just unbridled animal ferocity and completely unyielding devotion. These aren’t just technologically superior creatures, Captain. This is a species that will never, ever give up until every last one of them is destroyed.”
    “On that point, Doctor, we will gladly oblige them.”
    *   *   *
    Lem stood in the engineering room, which had been converted into a war room of sorts, and looked at all of the notes on the wall-screens around him. There were anatomical diagrams of a Formic; sketches of the Formic ship with various engineering theories on how the ship operated; photos and analysis of the weapon that had destroyed El Cavador; a systems chart showing the Formic ship’s trajectory; as well as numerous other scribbles, lists, ideas, and theories. “We have all this intel,” said Lem. “All this critical information that Earth desperately needs, and we can’t do a damn thing with any of it.” He turned and faced Chubs, Benyawe, and Dr. Dublin, whose hands were still in casts. “Unless we relay this to Earth, it’s worthless,” said Lem.
    “We’re at the mercy of our radio,” said Chubs. “Until we get through the interference there’s not much we can do.”
    In the weeks since the attack, the interference from the Formic ship had rendered long-range communication impossible. Lem had ordered the radio officers to continually broadcast a looped transmission about the Formics—detailing the ship’s coordinates, flight path, dimensions, and speed—but as far as the radio officers could tell, nothing was getting through. Every day hundreds of the transmissions went out and zero transmissions came in. The Makarhu was screaming a warning, but nobody could hear a word.
    “Then how do we get around the interference?” asked Lem.
    “We don’t know the limits of it,” said Chubs. “Right now we’re four million kilometers away from the Formic ship’s trajectory. We could go farther out, but there’s no telling how far we would need to go. Ten million? Twenty? A hundred? Also, if we distance ourselves any more from the ship, we won’t be able to track it. It’s so far ahead of us already that it disappears from our scanners for days at a time. We’re out of range of its weapons, which is good, but if we deviate any more from our current course or speed, we’ll get so far behind the ship that we’ll lose it completely. We could do that, but it’s a risk. We may not reach the end of the interference before the ship reaches Earth.”
    “I don’t want to lose sight of the ship,” said Lem. “But unless we do something to counter this interference, Earth isn’t going to get much of a warning, if any at all. They’ll be completely unprepared for an attack.”
    “We don’t actually know if the Formics intend to attack,” said Dublin. “We strongly suspect that, but we can’t be definitive about what they’ll do once they reach Earth.”
    “They’re not coming to borrow a cup of sugar,” said Chubs. “You saw what they did to