Earth Afire (The First Formic War) (40 page)

Wit closed off the part of him that allowed him to mourn. There was no time. He spoke fast into his headset.

“Calinga, we need to get these people out of here. The Formics collect their dead. More might be here at any moment. I want this highway cleared, the bodies buried, and the people on the road immediately.”

Everyone moved quickly. The civilians were in a state. Confused, terrified, panicked. Seven more civilians had died in the attack. Others had run off into the forests and not come back. Calinga found the ones who were coherent and could take orders and put them to work, gathering and calming the others. MOPs fired up the Rhinos and moved the vehicles blocking the road. Other MOPs pulled the bodies into the grave and pushed in the dirt. The most recent deaths were lowered in, some of them piece by piece. It was crude and fast and no way to handle fallen soldiers, but it was better than leaving them out on the road.

Calinga and his team gathered the surviving civilians and put those who didn’t have vehicles with those who did. Once everyone was loaded up, the MOPs directed the traffic and got everyone moving north.

Wit and his team didn’t pause to mourn those they had lost. There was no time. They drove the Rhinos farther off the road, concealing them in the nearest trees. Then they hiked back to the downed troop transport and waited.

Their containment suits were a bright yellow, probably made for field research, certainly not for combat. But they were tight fitting without being uncomfortable and offered plenty of mobility—perfect for the job at hand, really, except in terms of camouflage, and that could be easily remedied. Yet even with non-chameleonic suits, the MOPs were still able to hide themselves. In moments all of them were invisible, even to Wit. Trees, brush, abandoned vehicles. They melded with the landscape.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. The transports were silent, so Wit watched the sky. Finally he saw them. Two transports, flying low on approach, moving fast. At first Wit thought they wouldn’t stop—they showed no sign of slowing. Then they descended quickly to the right and left of the downed transport.

Doors opened. Formics emerged. Alien hands picked up the fallen Formics.

Then Wit gave the order and all hell broke loose. He had been clear in his instructions. Do not let the transports in the air. That’s where the firepower was. Take out the pilot first. Cripple the ship. Then mop up the others.

The men moved fast and efficiently. The transports remained grounded. Formics fell. It was over in less than ten seconds.

When the smoked cleared, Wit stepped up into the transport. There were dead Formics at his feet, their blood on the floor of the ship thick like syrup. Wit took video of everything. The flight controls, the switches and levers. He had no idea what anything did, and he did not experiment. He did the same outside. Every inch of the machine.

His preference was to get the aircraft into human hands for examination, but that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, once they documented as much as they could, they fired two incendiary grenades and burned the vehicles.

Then they headed south, sticking to secondary roads and avoiding people as much as possible. As they went, Wit updated their site. He explained the new “kill, bait, and ambush” strategy: Take out a few infantry Formics, then lie in wait for the transport to collect them, and hit the corpse-recovery team. He stressed the importance of hitting the pilot first and avoiding the transport fire. He uploaded video, photos, and directions of attack—it was best to rush the transport from behind and slightly to the left or right, giving you a clear shot of the cockpit where the pilot was positioned as soon as possible. Attacking from the front was suicide.

Wit then checked the site’s forum. He already had five different media requests for interviews. They all wanted the same thing: the face behind MOPs, the human-interest story, the juicy details that would set the ratings on fire.

Wit’s typed response was the same for all. “Who we are is irrelevant. Help the effort by broadcasting what we’ve learned. Show the vids. Share the tactics. Invite others in the fight to share their tactics, too. Focus on saving lives instead of offering useless entertainment.”

Some would honor his request. Most wouldn’t. What did they gain by playing the same vids as everyone else? They wanted
exclusive
content. They wanted exposés on MOPs, bios of its members, photos of loved ones back home.

Wit programmed the forum to filter any future media request and reply with his rote response.

Soon there were other posts as well. Anonymous messages from Chinese soldiers. Some expressed gratitude. Others shared information they had gleaned.

THE FORMICS DON’T SEEM TO USE RADIO. WE CAN’T DETECT ANYTHING. THEY DON’T SEEM TO RECOGNIZE OUR RADIO EITHER. OR IF THEY DO, THEY DON’T SEEM TO CARE.

THE FORMICS HEARING IS ODD. IT’S NOT ACUTE LIKE OURS. IT SEEMS TO BE BASED MORE ON PERTURBATIONS IN THE AIR, WHICH THEY CAN DETECT. LIKE BATS.

THE MIST IS LETHAL WITH ANY CONTACT. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BREATHE IT IN. WE’VE LOST MEN IN GAS MASKS. BUT THEIR WRISTS WERE EXPOSED, OR THEIR NECKS. THAT’S ALL IT TOOK.

Wit posted every tip onto the main site to give it more visibility.

Then he read the last forum entry. It was a spam post, offering life insurance. There were misspelled words and bad punctuation. It was not unlike the millions of other spam posts out there clogging the nets. Except … it
was
different. Subtly so. It took Wit a few minutes to decipher the code. He then entered the code into his browser and waited. The screen went white. Then a command appeared:
READ THE POEM ALOUD.
A Shakespearean sonnet materialized on screen.

Voice recognition, Wit figured.

He began to read the text aloud. He hadn’t finished the first stanza, when the poem disappeared and a vid began. Colonel Turley of the U.S. Delta Force—and current member of Strategos—faced the camera. It was a prerecorded message.

“Since you’ve cut off all communications with us, Captain, we have no choice but to reach you by other, less-secure means. You should know that a majority of Strategos is calling for your court-martial. Some are calling for your head. You’ve illegally used MOPs funds. And you’ve forced our hand. If we admit to the Chinese that we sanctioned your insertion, we’ll take a serious beating in the Security Council for ordering an unauthorized, unlawful military act. If we
deny
that we sanctioned your insertion, then we look dangerously inept and incapable of controlling rogue operatives. We order you to turn yourself in and allow the Chinese to extradite you. Your heart is in the right place, Captain. But your behavior is not conducive to the policies and procedures of the Mobile Operations Police. Please act accordingly.”

The vid winked out. Turley had been reading the statement, Wit noticed. Wit had seen how the man’s eyes scrolled right to left. His heart wasn’t in it either. A majority of Strategos might be calling for Wit’s court-martial, but Turley almost certainly wasn’t one of them. He was a hawk if there ever was one.

What surprised Wit most was that Strategos hadn’t figured out the solution. He opened the site’s e-mail and sent an encrypted message directly to Turley.

COLONEL, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, I CANNOT IN GOOD CONSCIENCE ABANDON THIS EFFORT. TODAY WE WERE ABLE TO HELP HUNDREDS OF CIVILIANS AND DEVELOP A TACTICAL MANEUVER THAT INFLICTS HEAVY ENEMY CASUALTIES. YOU CAN SEE EVIDENCE OF EFFORTS AT OUR SITE. TO LEAVE NOW WOULD BE TO ABANDON THE THOUSANDS AND TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS WE INTEND TO HELP AND PROTECT IN THE FUTURE. FOR THEIR SAKE, I MUST REFUSE YOUR DIRECT ORDER AND SUFFER THE PERSONAL CONSEQUENCES.

IN THE MEANTIME, MAY I MAKE A SUGGESTION THAT MIGHT SOLVE YOUR DILEMMA? LIE TO THE WORLD. LIE TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL. TELL THEM CHINA REQUESTED OUR INSERTION. TELL THEM THEY ASKED FOR OUR HELP. PRAISE THE CHINESE FOR TAKING SUCH SWIFT ACTION IN THE DEFENSE OF THEIR CITIZENRY. HONOR THEM. SHOWER THEM WITH COMPLIMENTS. USE OUR VIDS AS EVIDENCE. GIVE THE CHINESE BRASS ALL THE CREDIT. THE CHINESE WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO VALIDATE THE CLAIM. TO DENY IT IS TO TURN THEIR BACK ON THEIR PEOPLE AND CONDEMN WHAT HAPPENED TODAY.

He didn’t sign it. He didn’t want to use his name in any communications.

*   *   *

They found an abandoned hotel that night north of Chenzhou. Looters had ransacked the lobby. Wit took keys from behind the front desk and divvied them up among the men.

It was a nice hotel. There was hot water and soft beds. The air checked out. Calinga and a few others went out and returned with several cans of spray paint. Greens and browns and black and grays. Wit didn’t ask where they had gotten them. They all met in the courtyard and camouflaged their containment suits. Then they returned to their rooms, hung their suits, and allowed them to dry.

Wit checked the news. Strategos had made a public statement praising the Chinese for requesting assistance from MOP troops. The press was directed to the footage of the transport ambush and rescue of Chinese civilians. It wasn’t Wit’s e-mail exactly, but it was close. The Chinese had wasted no time in responding. They praised MOPs’ actions and promised that the government would continue to pursue all avenues to protect its people. It wasn’t exactly a corroborative response but, more important, it wasn’t a denial either.

Wit shut down his holopad and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had lost four men today, a tenth of his army on his first day of war. He couldn’t sustain those losses. His whole unit would be wiped out in a little over a week at that rate. No, likely sooner. The fighting would get worse and more intense the closer they came to the lander. Plus the Formics would wise up to whatever tactics Wit and his men implemented. The enemy would adapt, reevaluate, change their MO. They would come at Wit in ways he hadn’t considered.

Wit pushed all thought of the Formics aside.

He exhaled deep.

He let his muscles relax.

Then he allowed himself to think of those he had lost. He opened that part of him. He pulled from his memories. He brought to mind all the ridiculous moments they had shared. The pratfalls and dumb mistakes. The pranks and slips of the tongue. The dares given and the dares performed. All the moments that only he and they would find remotely amusing.

He had thought perhaps that such memories would make him laugh all over again, that he could stir up a cheerful mourning.

But no laughter came.

And when sleep finally took him and the Formics came in his dreams, the only laughter he heard was theirs.

CHAPTER 20

Post-Op

Mazer’s eyelids slowly opened and he squinted at the light. Colors appeared in his vision, dark at first, blurred and melted together like soup—browns and blacks with speckles of white. Then the colors slowly took shape, solidified, and came into focus. They were timbers, Mazer realized, structural braces, trusses seen from below. He was lying on his back, looking up at a ceiling. Holes in the roof let in thin shafts of piercing sunlight. He heard voices. Hushed and to his right. He turned his head. The grandfather and Bingwen were ten meters away, sitting on the floor, eating rice with their fingers, using wide jungle leaves as bowls. Their bodies were turned slightly away from him. They didn’t see him. Mazer knew this building, he realized. He had been in here before. Twice. It was the farmhouse.

Mazer opened his mouth to speak, but it took a moment to find his voice. When it came, it was raspy and quiet and weak. “How did I get here?”

The old man and the boy turned, startled. Then they smiled.

The old man spoke in Chinese, “Well, look who’s returned to the land of the living.”

They came over and knelt beside him. The old man lifted a cup to Mazer’s mouth. “Drink this. Slow sips.”

Mazer drank. The water was room temperature and had a tinny taste to it.

“You’ve been asleep for four days,” said the old man, putting the cup aside. “Five, if you count the day you spent out by the crash. You’re lucky to be alive.”

Crash, Mazer thought. Yes, there had been a crash.

“My unit,” he said in Chinese.

The old man’s face became grave. “Your friends did not survive the accident. I am sorry. You would have died as well if not for Bingwen.” He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He brought you back here. Then he and a few others brought you back from the grave.”

There was a blanket draped across Mazer. The old man pulled it aside and revealed heavy bandages wrapped around Mazer’s midsection. The bottom layer was gauze, but the additional layers were strips of fabric of various colors. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“They operated on you,” said the old man. “A midwife and Bingwen here.”

“It was mostly the midwife,” Bingwen said. “I just held things open and translated. She did all the cutting and stitching.”

Mazer’s hand carefully went to the bandage. There was a dull ache in his abdomen he hadn’t noticed until now. A tightness.

“Your insides were damaged,” said the grandfather. “The machine said we had to fix it or you’d die.”

“What machine?” Mazer asked.

Bingwen reached to his side and held up the Med-Assist. “The batteries died three days ago.”

“It dictated the surgery to you?”

“In English,” said the old man. “Lucky for you Bingwen speaks good English.”

“Lucky for me,” said Mazer. “How did the surgery go?”

The old man shrugged. “It took a long time. Mingzhu, the midwife, did not want to do it. She cried and refused and said it was a waste of time. Bingwen and I and your friend made her finish.”

“My friend?”