Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

away as gentle as a kitten. They’d be completely defenseless at that point. The real danger is their pebble-killers.”
    Pebble-killers, slang for “collision-avoidance lasers.”
    “We wouldn’t move on them until we took out their power,” said Chubs. “Otherwise they could hit us with their lasers.”
    “Wouldn’t that kill them?” asked Lem. “If we cut their power we’d cut their life support.”
    “They’ll have auxiliary power for life support,” said Chubs. “That’s not a concern. The real issue is getting close enough to strike them. They might already know we’re here. They’ve got a sky scanner. If we move toward them now, even four days out, they’ll know it. Especially if we rush them. They’ll pick that movement up immediately and still have plenty of time to build a possible defense.”
    “You’ve done this before, Chubs. Surely there are tactics for sneaking up on an asteroid.”
    Chubs sighed. “There is one approach that usually works if done right. We call it ‘Red Light Green Light.’ You’re familiar with the playground game?”
    Lem knew the one, and he could guess at what the name implied. “We sneak up on them when they’re not looking.”
    “When they can’t look,” said Chubs. “Remember, they’re moored to the asteroid. So they’re rotating with it. We only advance toward them when they’re on the opposite side of the asteroid from our position. When they rotate toward us, we become still as a statue before we get in their line of sight, with all of our lights off. A dead stop. Totally invisible. Then, as soon as they rotate around the asteroid, as soon as their back is to us, so to speak, we punch it and shoot forward. It takes a lot of stopping and starting with the thrusters and retros, and uses up way too much fuel, but it’s doable. Though it will take a lot longer to get there.”
    “Set the course,” said Lem. “And prepare everything we need for the bump. If they detect us sooner than we would like, I want to be ready to surge forward and take them.”
    Chubs smiled, shaking his head, already tapping commands into his wrist pad. “You surprise me, Lem. I took you for someone who held the moral high ground. Going to war doesn’t seem your style.”
    “We’re businessmen, Chubs. The moral high ground is wherever we set it.”

 
    CHAPTER 3
    Wit
    Captain Wit O’Toole rode up to the front gate at Papakura Military Camp in South Auckland, New Zealand, and presented his American passport to the soldier at the gatehouse. Papakura was home to the New Zealand Special Air Service, or the NZSAS, the kiwi version of the Special Forces. Wit had come to recruit some of the men. As an officer of the Mobile Operations Police—or MOPs, a small, elite international peacekeeping force—Wit was always on the lookout for qualified soldiers to add to his team. If the prospects he had identified here at Papakura were as smart and as skilled as he hoped they were, if they could pass Wit’s unique little test, he would gladly welcome them aboard.
    A light rain was falling, misting the windshield. The soldier examining Wit’s passport stood in the rain, tapping at the sheets, clicking through all the data. He found the photo of Wit and compared it to Wit’s likeness. Wit gave the man his friendliest smile. A second soldier with a leashed German shepherd did a loop around the vehicle, letting the dog sniff the vehicle’s trunk and underside.
    The men were stalling. Wit had noticed the security cameras mounted above the gatehouse when he had pulled up. The computers were no doubt running their facial-recognition software to determine if Wit was in fact who he said he was. Wit only hoped the cameras had gotten a clear enough shot through the rain-splattered windshield or this could take a while.
    The passport showed his full name: DeWitt Clinton O’Toole, named for the governor of New York who was the driving force behind the actual building of the Erie Canal, a distant ancestor of his mother. There were stamps and visas from a dozen countries, though these were by no means a complete record of Wit’s travels. Those represented his “official” visits to foreign soil. Far more numerous were his undocumented insertions into countries all over the world as he and his team struck hard and fast at whomever was harming civilians. The Middle East, Indonesia, Micronesia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Central and South America.
    The soldier with the passport touched