Earth Unaware (First Formic War)

humidity, and the vitals of everyone else in the group. A note from Mother also popped up: CHILI WAITING WHEN YOU GET BACK. BE SAFE. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR FATHER. LOVE, PATITA .
    Father led the group outside, moving slowly in their boot magnets as they stepped beyond the airlock and out onto the hull. The miners pulled the weightless PKs along like floats at a parade. Once everyone was outside and clear, Father led them to a spot where one of the PKs had been sliced away. Victor had made new network and power sockets to replace those that had been cut, and he spliced in the new socket while the miners applied the new mounting plates. Victor then drilled in new holes for the bolts and stepped clear. Father and the miners moved the PK into position, and Victor bolted it in and plugged in the new socket. When done, Victor blinked out the necessary commands to reboot the laser and restore it to the collision-avoidance system.
    Two hours later, after they had finished installing the last of the three lasers without any problems, Father asked them all to gather in a circle. Victor had known this moment was coming, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it. Gabi, Marco’s wife, had asked Father to release Marco’s ashes, as was the custom, and Father had agreed.
    Victor and the ten miners silently formed a circle around Father, their boot magnets clinging to the hull, their hands folded reverently in front of them. Father pulled a canister from his hip pouch and spoke into his helmet comm. “We’re ready,” he said.
    There was a moment’s pause, then Concepción’s voice answered on the line, “We’re here, Segundo. Gabi and Lizbét and the girls and I. We’re all here on the line.”
    Victor pictured Marco’s family gathered around one of the terminals at the helm. The crew would be giving the family space, standing off to the side, silent, with heads bowed.
    Father crossed himself, placed a hand on the canister lid, and said, “Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo más allá de este.” Go to God, our brother, and to the heaven beyond this one. Father unscrewed the cap and gently shook the canister upward. The ashes left the canister in a clouded clump and moved away from the ship without dispersing. The men in the circle slowly dropped to one knee, crossed themselves, and repeated the words. “Vaya a Dios, nuestro hermano, y al cielo más allá de este.” The men then held their position in silence while the family on the bridge bid their farewells.
    “Vaya a Dios, Papito,” said eleven-year-old Daniella.
    “Vaya a Dios, Papá,” said sixteen-year-old Chencha.
    Their voices cracked and trembled with emotion, and Victor couldn’t bear it. He blinked out a command and muted the audio in his helmet. He didn’t want to hear Gabi say good-bye to her husband, or hear four-year-old Alexándria bid farewell to a father she would not likely remember a year from now. Marco deserved to raise his daughters. And Gabi, widowed and broken, deserved to grow old with such a man. Now, however, none of that would happen. Thanks to Lem Jukes all of it was lost.
    Victor watched the ashes drift away, surprised that so great a man could be diminished to so little.
    *   *   *
    Victor and Father fixed the radio that evening in the workshop, though they had to dismantle a few holodisplays to get the parts they needed. When they were certain it was fixed, they took it directly to Concepción’s quarters, which she shared with three other widows on the ship. Concepción had insisted that they wake her the moment it was ready, and the three of them took the radio into one of the more spacious storage rooms and sealed the hatch.
    “Have you checked all the frequencies?” asked Concepción.
    “Only two,” said Father. “Just enough to know it’s working.”
    Concepción took her handheld and called Selmo to the room. When he arrived, still drowsy from sleep, he began working with the radio. The four of them sat in silence while Selmo checked every frequency, searching for chatter. Once, they caught a few faint clicks and snippets of speech, but it was so fragmented and the moments of sound so brief and so sparse that they couldn’t make out anything.
    “The Italians?” asked Concepción.
    “Maybe,” said Selmo. “Hard to say. I thought we’d get a better transmission as close as we are. If I had to guess, I’d say this was probably just rubbish from somewhere far away.”
    “So the Italians are silent?”