Earth Afire (The First Formic War) (27 page)

“China won’t see it that way. If anything, they’ll see this as an opportunity to assert their strength. If they rid the world of invading aliens, suddenly they’re the strongest nation on Earth. Everyone would think twice before crossing them.”

“Who’s stupid enough to mess with China anyway?” said Calinga.

“The U.S. would have done the same thing,” said Wit. “They don’t want foreign troops on U.S. soil. It feels like a loss of sovereignty. It spooks the civilians and it implies that the nation helping you is stronger than you are. It’s selfish and asinine, but that’s national pride for you. A month from now, after a few million Chinese civilians have died, China may reconsider.”

“You think it will get that bad?” asked Lobo.

“Probably worse,” said Wit. “Think about our approach to alien combat.”

Calinga said, “Analyze before we act and presume hostile intent.”

“Right,” said Wit. “And hostile intent is now a foregone conclusion. They wiped out a few thousand space miners and they turned a U.N. secretary and a few shuttles of reporters into space dust. We can safely assume they’re not carrying gift baskets in those landers.”

“So why did you cut communications with Strategos?” asked Calinga.

“Because I don’t want to disobey a direct order,” said Wit. “I’m going into China. If I never get the order to stay put, then I’m not disobeying it.”

“You’re obviously not going alone,” said Deen. “We’re coming with you.”

“I can’t order any of you to do that,” said Wit. “I can only ask for volunteers. Getting across the border will be difficult. Relations between India and China aren’t rosy. The borders are tight. We won’t be able to take weapons. The Chinese would never let us in. We have to cross as civilians. We can acquire new weapons and gear once we’re in the country.”

“And do what exactly?” asked Deen.

“What we’ve trained to do,” said Wit. “We’ll be fighting an asymmetrical war. Instead of us being the high-tech masters of the battlefield, we will be the low-tech guerrillas trying to sabotage, interfere, strike at key points. We’ll demoralize the enemy so badly, they’ll want to quit. Like the Viet Cong against the U.S., or Castro against Batista, or the Fedayeen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It will require a much different approach to combat than what we’re used to waging. And we’ll have to make it up and improvise as we go along. We still have no idea what the aliens’ capabilities are.”

“So forty guys against an alien army?” said Deen. “Don’t get me wrong, I like a good fight, but those aren’t promising odds.”

“We won’t be alone,” said Wit. “Everything we learn about the enemy, every effective combat tactic we develop, we’ll share with the Chinese military. If they’re smart, they’ll implement them. And we’ll be watching the Chinese as well. If they do something that works, we’ll implement it. The more we help each other, the more effective we both can be.”

“I thought they didn’t want help,” said Lobo.

“They can’t
ask
for help,” said Wit. “They don’t
officially
want help. But the individual squadrons in the thick of things will be grateful to have us. I hope.”

“Where will we get supplies?” asked Calinga.

“Does this mean you’re volunteering?” asked Wit.

“Hell yes,” said Calinga. He turned to the others, “Anyone here
not
volunteering?”

No one raised their hand.

Calinga turned back and smiled. “Seems unanimous to me. I say we get moving.”

“Not yet,” said Wit. “I need to be clear about what the consequences of this will be. If we trudge off into China, we’ll likely be labeled deserters and court-martialed.”

“The consequences of us
not
going might be the end of the world,” said Lobo.

“He’s right, Captain,” said Mabuzza. “We go where you go.”

“So what if they court-martial us,” said Deen. “Beats turning our backs on the people in China. I’d rather have a clear conscience as a deserter than a lifelong guilt trip as a soldier in good standing.”

The men murmured their consent.

“All right,” said Wit. “I see you’re all as bullheaded as I am. You’ve got ten minutes to strike camp. Move!”

They moved.

Nine minutes later, the vehicles were pulling out, heading down the mountain pass toward Srinagar. Wit and Calinga sat in the cab of the lead truck, with Calinga at the wheel and Wit watching the sat feeds from China on the dashboard monitor. On screen the landers had spun into the ground, digging in. An aircraft was on site, recording it from every angle. Wit opened his holopad. A map of northern India appeared in the air in front of him, a small pin marking their current location.

“I think our chances are better if we cross into China from Pakistan in the Karakoram Mountains,” said Wit. “Here at Khunjerab Pass.”

“Pakistan?” said Calinga. “Now we have to cross two borders?”

“Getting into Pakistan won’t be a problem. It’s still the Kashmir region. And the borders between Pakistan and China are far more lax than those between India and China. Plus Khunjerab Pass is a cargo hub. Lots of commercial traffic. Big trucks. Freight loads. There will be cargo planes on the China side carrying freight east. Short runways. Dangerous flights. We’ll hitch a ride.”

“What about the vehicles?” asked Calinga.

“We’ll ditch them in Srinagar,” said Wit. “Roads are bad and fuel is scarce in that part of western China. We’d be abandoning them anyway. Plus it’s hard to pass as civilians when you’re driving military trucks.”

“What’s the elevation there?”

“Close to five thousand meters.”

“You’ve got to be an insane pilot to take a job like that,” said Calinga. “Winds in the mountains. The constant threat of storms. Big cargo planes. That’s asking for a nosedive into a mountainside.”

“That will work to our advantage,” said Wit.

Calinga made a face. “How you figure?”

“A pilot who takes a job like that is interested in one thing only. Money. And money we have.”

They drove into Srinagar and found a warehouse where they could store their trucks and supplies. Wit had the men lock up everything tight, though he doubted he would ever see any of the equipment again. His men were all in fatigues, which pegged them as soldiers. The trucks were clearly military as well. Which meant they were probably filled with valuable tech. Guns almost certainly. And military weapons on the black market would catch a very good price in Srinagar. Pakistan was only a hop, skip, and a jump away. Afghanistan wasn’t much farther. Ten to one, thought Wit, the owner of this warehouse will have a burglary in the next few days, a burglary he secretly arranges himself for a decent cut of the profits.

But what could Wit do? If they approached the border as soldiers, they had zero chance of getting through.

They left the warehouse carrying only personal items in their pockets: holopads, passports, radio communicators, sat receivers. Small items. Inconspicuous.

They walked to a street market nearby and looked for clothes. Merchants shouted to them, offering their wares and promising incredible prices. Fruit, fish, jewelry, pirated music. Wit walked on, ignoring them.

They found a merchant selling men’s clothing, but the designs were all wrong. Too small and too festive. The merchant held up a bright, shimmering pair of pants and a multicolored kurta. Wit forced a smile. If he and his men showed up at a Chinese border wearing that, they’d be mistaken for a troupe of acrobats.

“We need plain clothes,” said Wit.

The merchant smiled and held up a finger. “Ah. Plain. These are too flashy for you, yes? Perhaps this is more to your liking.” He pulled down a bright yellow kurta that hung down to Wit’s knees and hurt his eyes.

“Not my style,” said Wit. “Is there a dry cleaners near here?”

The merchant’s smile vanished—Wit was no longer a potential sale. The merchant cocked a thumb down the street then turned his attention to someone else. Wit and his men pushed on. As they left the market, people began to stare. Mothers grabbed their children and pulled them out of the street. Pedestrians stopped and watched them with narrow eyes. Old men scowled.

“Not the friendliest of neighborhoods,” said Calinga.

“We look like soldiers,” said Wit. “Merchants love us because soldiers have money. Civilians like soldiers as much as they like a hole in the head, which is what soldiers in this region of the world sometimes give.”

“Why a dry cleaners?” asked Calinga.

“Clothes obviously,” said Wit. “And more importantly used clothes.”

“We can’t buy other people’s clothes,” said Calinga.

“You can buy anything if you’ve got the money for it,” said Wit. “But we might not have to buy other people’s clothes. Cleaners have unclaimed stuff, too. Shirts and pants people forgot they sent there or didn’t pick up. And we’re close to the university. So we’ve got a better chance of finding something functional.”

They found the dry cleaners two blocks later. The owner was a small man sitting behind the counter, watching a sat feed of the landers in China. He heard the door ring as Wit and the men entered, but he didn’t look up from the monitor. He was riveted.

Wit waited a moment, then cleared his throat. The man looked up at them, took in their number and size, and his eyes widened in surprise.

“We need clothes,” said Wit. “For forty men. Mostly big sizes. Warm and comfortable. With lots of pockets, preferably. We’ll pay well and we’ll throw in the uniforms we’re wearing. A nice trade. Probably the best sale you’ll make this year. You could probably shut the place down for a week after we leave and still come out ahead. That is, assuming you have what we need.”

The man had plenty. A whole storage room full. There were unclaimed items, yes, but new items as well. Smuggled stuff. A lot of Chinese knockoffs. Thick cargo pants with plenty of pockets, cotton undershirts, socks, heavy wool shirts, knit caps. Wit even found a baseball cap for a Major League team back in the States. Wit hated baseball—one guy throws a ball, one guy swings, and twenty other guys stand around watching and spitting—but the cap was precisely the type of thing a civilian would wear.

They were careful to mix up the wardrobe. Matching civilian clothes could look like uniforms too. So not everyone wore cargo pants, and those who did wore different colors, black or khaki or navy. Their shirts were different too. Similar, but not identical.

Wit paid the man in full and threw in a healthy tip. He and the men then changed and left their uniforms in a pile back in the storage room. Wit then split the men into ten groups of four and had them take different routes to the rail station. He had no worries about being seen in India—he had every authorization to be here. But now everyone around them was a potential fellow traveler to Pakistan, and suspicious passengers were likely to alert authorities, which Wit wanted to avoid at all costs.

They set out. Wit left with Calinga, Deen, and Lobo, and they got no suspicious looks whatsoever on the way.

They bought their tickets in their small groups and took the first train heading west into Pakistan, all ten of the four-men groups taking separate cars on the train. No one paid them any attention. Everyone on the train was watching news feeds from China on their holopads.

Wit pulled out his own holopad and dug around on the net until he found recent footage from China. It was more video from the first aircraft on the scene.

Wit watched. The constantly moving camera from the underside of the aircraft was a little nauseating, however, and Wit was about to abandon it and look for other footage from another source, when something on screen caught his eye. He tapped the screen and rewound the video. The aircraft was setting down and attempting a rescue. A soldier was out, pulling someone from the mudslide. A small child, a boy perhaps. The soldier had him in his arms and was moving back toward the aircraft. For only a few seconds, the soldier’s face came into view. Wit froze the video and showed the image to Calinga, seated beside him. “Look familiar?”

“That’s the Maori,” said Calinga. “The one we tested.”

“Mazer Rackham,” said Wit.

“How did he get into China that fast?”

“He must have been there already.”

“He’s working with the Chinese?”

“Not when this was recorded,” said Wit. “He can’t be. The Chinese would never allow a New Zealander to make a rescue like that. Not with the whole world watching. Saving a child from disaster? That’s the holy grail of PR. If Mazer were flying with the Chinese, it would be a Chinese soldier saving that kid. Mazer is spoiling their moment in the sun.”

“So who’s in the aircraft with him?”

“No idea,” said Wit. “But it’s not the Chinese.”

CHAPTER 15

Formics

Mazer leaned out of the HERC and looked back one last time at the farmhouse, getting smaller behind them in the distance. The boy, Bingwen, had been lucky. Another meter or two to the right or left underneath that tree, and the dirt would have buried him alive. How many like him were stuck in those fields, Mazer wondered, trapped in some pocket of air, waiting for rescue that probably wasn’t coming?

Mazer leaned back inside and flipped on his HUD. Patu was sending him several feeds, each positioned at one of the corners of his field of vision. They were all satellite feeds, taken from above, giving him a clear view of the top of the lander, which had opened. A large dark circle was now in the center, like the hole of a doughnut, exposing a vast space inside mostly hidden in shadow.

“What are we looking at?” said Mazer. “Can we see what’s inside?”

“Negative,” said Patu. “I’ve tried various spectrums. The sun’s too low. Not enough light is getting in.”

They crested the final hill and the lander came into view. There was a cluster of aircraft gathered around it now, the medevacs as well as a few other military birds. All with Chinese markings. A few of them hovered over the hole.

“Patu,” said Mazer. “Are there any feeds coming from the aircraft over the lander?”

“Negative. If they’re filming anything, they’re not broadcasting it.”