Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

outside,” said Victor. “I see all these people doing nothing, fearing nothing, preparing for nothing, and I think I’ve failed them. Their lives are in my hands, Imala, and I’m failing. I’m letting them die.”
    “You’re doing everything you can, Victor.”
    “No I’m not. I’m not doing anything. I’m a prisoner in a recovery hospital. You’re the one doing all the work. You’re the one going to the press.”
    “And mostly getting ignored.”
    “Yes, but at least you’re engaged. At least you’re doing something. I’ve done nada.”
    “You’ve done plenty. You crossed the solar system in a tiny cargo rocket and nearly killed yourself in the process. You let yourself waste away to nothing to get here. You left your family and loved ones. You brought us critical evidence. I say that counts for something.”
    “I mean I’m not doing anything now . If no one pays attention, if no one takes us seriously, what I’ve done doesn’t matter.”
    “Which is why we’re going to the Lunar Trade Department and getting you released. You’re healthy enough to walk now. Your strength is back. The adjudicator for your case has agreed to see you early. If we play this right, she’ll throw out the charges against you, and you’ll be a free man. Then you can help me. We have a few good leads, and if you’re with me, if we can get you in front of the right audience, maybe we can get to someone with real authority.”
    “Who’s the person we’re seeing? What are our chances?” asked Victor.
    “Her name’s Mungwai. She’s the department’s chief adjudicator. I tried to get someone else, but she reviewed your file and insisted on seeing us both.”
    “Why did you want someone else?”
    “Mungwai is a hard-liner. She’s from West Africa. Don’t speak unless she asks you a direct question, and keep your answers brief and factual. She’s not a prosecutor, but she ought to be. She despises rule breakers.”
    “Wonderful,” said Victor.
    Three minutes later they reached the LTD, and Imala quickly led Victor through security and up a floor to Customs. They waited another ten minutes in the lobby before a young receptionist called them back and ushered them into Mungwai’s office.
    Mungwai was tall and slender with her hair braided tightly to her head in narrow rows. She stood at her desk, feet anchored to the floor, tapping her way through a series of holoscreens hovering at eye level. She didn’t look up.
    “Mr. Victor Delgado,” she said. “You sure know how to make an entrance. In your first five minutes on Luna, you managed to commit one count of entering Luna airspace without a license, one count of improper flight entry, one count of failing to provide entry authorizations, one count of interrupting a government-restricted radio frequency, and one count of trespassing.” She made a hand movement above the holofield, and all the windows of data vanished. Victor was still wearing the cotton scrubs the recovery hospital had supplied him, and when Mungwai looked him up and down disapprovingly, Victor felt self-conscious.
    “The ‘improper flight entry’ is the most serious charge,” Mungwai continued, “since failure to comply with Luna traffic controllers poses a safety risk to other vessels on approach and the fine upstanding citizens of Luna. People around here get quite upset when you drop ships on their heads.”
    “It wasn’t a ship,” said Victor. “At least not a passenger ship. It was a quickship, a cargo rocket, a lugger. As soon as I approached Luna, your lunar guidance system took over. It was on autopilot when it entered the warehouse. That’s why the trespassing charge strikes me as unjust. I couldn’t have stopped the ship if I had wanted to.”
    “Yes, but you piloted the quickship to Luna,” said Mungwai. “You brought it here. That makes you responsible.”
    “It would have come here anyway,” said Victor. “That’s what luggers are programmed to do. They carry cylinders of mined minerals from the Kuiper Belt and Asteroid Belt on preprogrammed flight paths.” Victor had actually changed the flight parameters by hacking the ship’s system, but he wasn’t about to point out that fact now. “The quickship would have acted exactly the same once it reached Luna airspace with or without me on board. The only difference is that I was the cargo instead of cylinders. Surely you wouldn’t have arrested cylinders for trespassing.”
    Mungwai raised an eyebrow,