Earth Afire (The First Formic War) (28 page)

Shenzu, the Chinese liaison, appeared in the holofield. “We’ll take it from here, Captain Rackham. China appreciates your assistance. Please keep your distance.”

“There may be other survivors,” said Mazer.

“We will see to them,” said Shenzu. His voice was firm, unquestioning.

He winked out.

“What do we do now?” said Reinhardt.

“We obey,” said Mazer. “We hang back. We let them do their job. Fatani, patch us in to their radio chatter. I want to know what they’re saying to each other. Reinhardt, take us back to where we dropped off the first of the wounded. We can carry them up to where the hospital will be set up.”

A beam of light shot out of the center of the lander from deep inside the hole and hit one of the helicopters above it. The laser punched through as if the helicopter weren’t even there, slicing off the spinning rotor blades in an instant. The helicopter dropped like a stone, smoking and burning, twisting, careening. It bounced off the side of the lander and spiraled to the ground where it crashed in a heap and burst into flames.

The other helicopters near the hole began to retreat. They didn’t move fast enough. Three more lasers shot up, slicing the aircraft in half. They each fell from the sky, burning. One of them was a medevac, a big bird. A crew of ten at least. Doctors and nurses. The aircraft exploded before it hit the ground.

Fatani found the radio frequency. Frantic shouts and screams assaulted Mazer’s ears. The Chinese were in a panic.

The last of the helicopters above the lander fell away. It crashed on the top of the lander near the open hole on a flat surface and stayed there, churning out so much black smoke that the helicopter was no longer visible.

Then they came.

At first there were so many of them that Mazer didn’t realize what he was looking at. They were like a colony of bats shooting up out of a cave. Or a swarm of insects erupting upward from their hive in a single column of twisting movement, packed close together and yet not touching one another. They were aircraft, Mazer realized, shooting up from the hole in the lander. A column of fast-moving metal, sharp and dark and frightening, rising quickly, moving as one.

There were two kinds, Mazer realized. One small, the other large, maybe three times the size of the HERC. There were hundreds of them, rising up like water in a straw. Then at an altitude high above the lander they split up, like the roots of an upside-down tree, shooting off in every direction, creating a canopy across the entire landscape that covered the valley with shadows.

One flew directly above the HERC. Mazer craned his neck to watch it pass. It was silent, he realized. They all were silent. No engine noise. No rotors. No sound whatsoever. Like ghosts.

Gunfire erupted from one of the Chinese aircraft to Mazer’s right—an arc of tracer fire that twisted, readjusted, then found its mark. One of the larger retreating alien aircraft took the fire. Bullets pinged off the hull in a shower of sparks, knocking the aircraft out of its flight path and sending it spinning toward the ground. It hit the surface then bounced up momentarily, spinning end over end, reeling, completely out of control. Then it landed again and slid to a stop, leaving a trench behind it where it had dug into the earth.

At once, as if moving as one, seven alien aircraft changed course and descended on the Chinese helicopter that had fired. The Chinese gunner rotated and spewed his tracer fire upward at his attackers, but the aliens maneuvered swiftly to avoid it, juking right and left. Then they opened their own guns: brief bursts of laserized material hit the Chinese aircraft from all sides at once. The helicopter twisted and ripped apart like a crushed can, sending debris and shrapnel and fire in every direction. The burning heap plunged to the ground and slammed onto a hillside, where gravity continued to pull it downward. It rolled end over end and crashed into a tree, scattering ashes and more debris.

“Get us to the ground!” Mazer shouted. “Now!”

Reinhardt slammed the stick to the side, turning them away, dropping them fast.

Ahead of them, the downed alien aircraft smoldered in the grass.

Mazer pointed. “There! Put us down by their wrecked aircraft!”

Reinhardt shot Mazer a look. “You want me to land near that thing?”

“Do it!” shouted Mazer.

Reinhardt obeyed, cutting right and setting them down close to the wreckage. Mazer hopped out, and looked up, unholstering his sidearm and aiming above him. A weapon that small would do nothing against a big aircraft, but it felt better in his hand. The alien crafts that were behind them pushed on, ignoring them, soaring overhead, heading north.

Mazer watched them go and exhaled, his shoulders relaxing. There was a brief explosion of gunfire to the south, and he spun around in that direction. He saw nothing; the mountain south of his position blocked his view of the lander and other aircraft. He listened. After a brief silence, more gunfire, followed by a deep explosion—a ripping, booming sound that seemed to echo off the sky. Metal twisting, engines dying, the brief clatter of loosed parts colliding in the air and tinkling downward like a burning wind chime.

Mazer looked east and west. There were alien crafts heading in both directions, some moving fast, others proceeding slowly as if patrolling or scanning the ground below them. None of them was dangerously close or seemed to be paying him any attention. The frantic chatter on the radio continued, although now there was clearly less of it. Mazer strained to make it out, but the shouting was fast and frantic and all in Chinese, with only bits and pieces coming through, all jumbled on top of each other.

Another explosion boomed from the south.

The radio chatter went silent. A dull static took its place.

Mazer stood there a moment, listening, willing more voices to return to the frequency and check in. None did. He slowly did a 360, taking in the landscape, searching the sky for Chinese aircraft, seeing none.

He spoke into his comlink. “Red Dragon, this is Captain Mazer Rackham, do you read, over?”

No response.

“Red Dragon, do you copy?”

Nothing.

Mazer turned to his left. The downed alien aircraft lay on its side twenty meters away. Mazer had expected it to be a bent and twisted wreck bearing little resemblance to its original shape. But the aircraft appeared intact and undamaged, as if constructed by some impenetrable material. The only sign of duress was a thin line of smoke slowly seeping from a vent in the back.

He turned to Reinhardt. “Keep the HERC running. Be ready to take off in an instant. Fatani, Patu, helmetcams on, weapons up. Record everything. Reinhardt, watch the skies. Warn us if anything comes our direction.”

Mazer cautiously moved toward the downed aircraft, his weapon up, safety off, finger by the trigger, ready.

“You sure about this, Mazer?” said Reinhardt. “We don’t know what that thing is or what it’s capable of.”

“Nor does anyone else,” said Mazer, “which is exactly why we have to find out.”

Cautiously he stepped forward. Patu appeared at his side, her assault rifle up to one shoulder, ready to fire. Fatani came around the HERC and joined then, his sidearm in hand, aiming forward.

All of them wore their helmets, recording the scene.

“Spread out,” said Mazer.

They parted, Mazer going to the left, Fatani going wide to the right, Patu continuing forward.

“Are we broadcasting, Patu?” asked Mazer.

“All three feeds are live.”

“Good.”

They drew closer to the aircraft. It was clear that the same engineers who had built the lander had built this. The metal hull was dark maroon, almost a rusty color, unpolished and spotted with patches of corrosion. The lines and corners were rough as well, as if no consideration had been given to aerodynamics or style. It was like a boxcar, ugly and bulky and strictly utilitarian.

The aircraft lay on its side so that the top of it faced Mazer. It was taller than he was. He approached it and kicked the metal with his boot. It gave a light, hollow
clang
. He moved around it to the opposite side. Fatani was there, standing on a slight rise in the earth, affording him a better view of the aircraft’s side, now its top. Mazer climbed up beside him and saw where the bullets from the Chinese helicopter had hit it. Nothing had penetrated the hull, but the bullets had left small, near-imperceptible depressions in the metal. It struck Mazer as strange.

Fatani must have been thinking the same. “This doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The bullets didn’t break through. There’s no leaking fluid. No visible damage at all from the gunfire. Why did it go down?”

“Maybe the sheer force of the impact knocked it out of whack. Like a punch to the side of the head. The pilot wasn’t expecting it. Or maybe the aircraft is difficult to realign once shaken. Any number of reasons.”

The craft moved: A large piece of metal on the top, like a bay door, rose up twenty centimeters.

Mazer stumbled backward, startled, nearly tripping over himself. Patu and Fatani stumbled back as well, guns up and tight in their hands.

“What’s it doing?” said Fatani.

The door was a wide, flat section of hull nearly as tall as the aircraft. Another grinding noise sounded, and the door—now the roof—slid backward, revealing a deep empty space inside.

“I don’t like this,” said Patu.

The door slid all the way to the back and stopped. The interior was wide like a cargo bay. Mazer couldn’t see far enough inside to see the bottom. He stepped toward it.

“Easy,” said Fatani. “That door’s not opening on its own.”

Mazer drew closer. One meter, then two. His gun up and aimed. He was right at the side of the thing. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to see inside.

A red hand to his right reached up out of the space and grabbed the edge.

Fatani swore. Mazer stumbled back again. Patu stepped forward, ready to fire.

Mazer threw up a hand. “Wait! Don’t shoot.” He backed up, getting his feet back under him, his heart racing.

The red hand was muscled and hard, with fine wisps of short hair. It was maybe two-thirds the size of Mazer’s hand and was a claw as much as anything. Mazer watched it and heard a sound inside. A hiss. Not a mechanical sound, but a biological one. Breaths. Shallow and raspy. The sound an animal makes when it’s in pain.

“Back up,” said Mazer.

They retreated a few steps.

The red hand clinging to the edge strained again, tightening, clutching, pulling. The breathing was heavier, more labored. The animal was trying to lift itself.

A second, smaller hand appeared near the first.

Then the creature’s leg came over the edge, and the body quickly followed. Now Mazer could see that the smaller arm and hand wasn’t an opposing limb, but a second, smaller arm on the same side beneath the first. Or perhaps the middle appendages were an extra set of legs. It was difficult to say; there didn’t appear to be much anatomical difference between the two.

The creature lay there on the narrow edge, catching its breath, rasping, like a tightrope walker taking a break mid performance. It wore no clothing. Strapped to its back was a large semitransparent canister filled with fluid that sloshed around inside. Its head was turned away from them. It looked to be about four feet tall. It’s skin was covered in a short, fuzzy fur, yet the hair was thin, like the hair on a man’s arm, affording Mazer a clear view of the creature’s skin, which was earth tones, mostly deep reds with splotches of orange and yellow and green. Like an insect.

“Let me shoot it,” said Patu.

“Wait,” said Mazer. “Let’s see what it does.”

After a moment the creature seemed to compose itself and gather strength. It tried to maneuver its hands in such a way to lower itself to the ground, but when it shifted its weight, it tumbled over the side and fell hard to the ground. The creature inhaled sharply as if stabbed with pain but made no other sound. It lay still for a moment, breathing. Then slowly, with great effort, it tried to get to its feet. At first it failed. The arms on its left side were limp and apparently broken. The left leg was twisted slightly, bent at an angle that didn’t match the right leg it was using. It must have been thrown around violently during the wreck.

Mazer could now see that a tube extended from the bottom of the canister on the creature’s back. At the end of the tube was a short wand, not unlike the pack a pest-control worker might wear.

The creature got its good leg under it. Then, pushing upward with that leg, putting its back against the aircraft as support, it slowly got to its feet. Mazer almost pitied it then. It was such a short, broken thing. But the feeling lasted only an instant. He tightened his grip on his gun, aiming at the creature’s head.

The creature hobbled forward, still oblivious to their presence. One painful step after another it put weight on its bad leg as it shuffled along. It reached the end of the lander and continued moving forward in the grass.

“Where’s it going?” said Fatani.

“Don’t know,” said Mazer. “Keep on eye on the aircraft in case another one comes out.”

He stepped toward the alien walking away from them, his gun still up, following it. The creature was moving slow. It couldn’t go far. Mazer knew he needed to kill it. But what then? Should they try to recover the body? Surely China would want to study it. And if not the alien then at least whatever the alien was carrying in its container.

The creature reached behind it with its good, smaller hand and found the tube from the canister. It passed the tube up to its larger hand. The two hands worked in tandem, sliding down the tube until they found the wand, which the creature grabbed and pointed at the grass in front of it. A yellow mist emanated. The grass immediately wilted and turned black, dying.

Alarms started going off in Mazer’s helmet. A biohazard alert.

“Masks!” shouted Mazer, retreating a few steps. He blinked the command, and the oxygen mask inside his helmet pressed against his face, covering his mouth and nose. He felt the suction of it and knew the seal was tight. Fresh oxygen poured in.