Earth Afire (The First Formic War) (30 page)

The boy Bingwen surprised Mazer by speaking up. “This man pulled me from the mud,” he said, gesturing to Mazer. “I was trapped under the dirt, and he pulled me out. He risked his life for me and my grandfather. He told us he would come back, and he did. He keeps his word, a man of honor. He and his team are trained. We should listen to them and trust them.”

The young father turned on Bingwen, furious. “What do you know of anything? You, a boy. Do you have little mouths to feed? A wife to tend to? No. You speak of honor, and yet you show none to your elders, speaking out of turn, giving me orders as if I were a child. Were I your father I would lash you for your loose tongue.”

“You are not his father,” said Bingwen’s grandfather, rising to his feet and putting a protective hand around the boy. “And you speak out of turn, sir. Be grateful your wife is alive. Be grateful you have three of your children. The rest of us don’t know what has become of our loved ones. These men are willing to help us, to reunite us all. We will listen to them.”

The father’s face was twisted with anger. He regarded the grandfather and Bingwen with contempt. Then he turned to the others, gesturing to Mazer. “These men are foreigners. We know nothing about them. They are not like us. We do not have to take orders from them.”

“We’re not giving you orders,” said Mazer.

“You are making promises you can’t keep. Just like all foreigners do. Talk and more talk. Can you command our military? Can you make them come? No. Can you make food and water appear? No.” He turned back to the others. “I am not staying here. How are we better off here in this dump of a farmhouse than we were back in our village?”

“We’re farther from the invaders,” said Ping.

The young father scoffed. “Farther? Are you such a fool that you think this is far enough? We are a few kilometers away at most. That is nothing to a skimmer. They can reach us in a second. The big disc is right over those mountains. Is that far enough for you?”

No one answered.

“We need to keep moving,” said the man, “get as far away from here as possible. On foot if we have to. We need to find military of our kind. My family and I are pushing on. Any of you are welcome to join us, but don’t expect us to slow down for you.”

He waited. No one moved.

The man’s mouth tightened in a hard line. “Fine. If you want to stay here and die, that is your choice.” He moved to the container of water bottles. “But we are taking our fair share of supplies with us.” He grabbed several bottles of water—far more than was their share—and put them in his sack, which he looped over his shoulder. Then he picked up one of the toddlers and took the hand of the other. He moved toward the door without looking back at his wife. “Come, Daiyu.”

The wife was still holding the infant in her arms, rocking it gently. It had stopped crying. The woman looked torn, afraid. She clearly didn’t want to go.

Her husband’s voice was like a whip. “Come, Daiyu!”

The woman hesitated. She looked into the faces of the people in the room as if they might have an answer for her, a way out, a way to stay and go at the same time.

“You dishonor me, wife. Come! For the sake of our children.”

She looked at her husband. His stare was like a knife. She cowed, pulled the baby tight to her chest, bowed her head, and shuffled toward the door. As she passed Mazer she lifted her eyes and met his. She stopped. Mazer could see she was on the verge of tears. She looked down at her infant, then back up at Mazer, as if considering leaving the child with him, as if she knew she would not live out in the open and wanted at least one member of their family to survive.

Mazer couldn’t bear it. It was a breach of a protocol, perhaps even a cultural offense, but he said it anyway. “You don’t have to go. You can stay here with your children.”

The young father exploded with fury. “How dare you! How dare you speak to my wife, to separate us.” He spat at Mazer, grabbed his wife’s wrist, and pulled her toward the door. “You see?” he said to the others. “You see what foreigners will get us? They cannot be trusted.” He spat again at Mazer.

The two toddlers stood framed in the doorway, confused and frightened. They had started to cry.

“Quiet!” said the father. He grabbed one by the hand, a boy, and pulled him out into the sunlight. The wife followed reluctantly, pulling the second toddler behind her. The father led them toward a trail that curved down the terraced fields. He moved quickly, not looking back, dragging the toddler along, who stumbled and hurried to keep up. Just before they were out of sight, the wife looked back. Mazer thought she would cry out then, ask to be rescued. If she did, he would go to her. He would scoop up her children and bring them inside. All she had to do was say the word.

Then the trail descended, and the woman and her children disappeared from view and were gone.

The villagers in the house all looked at Mazer, waiting for him to respond.

“You don’t have to stay,” said Mazer. “Any of you. You’re free to go at any moment. But staying together and helping each other will improve all of our chances. My team and I will keep our word. We’ll be back with others as soon as we can.”

“Wait.”

Mazer turned. It was the old woman with the bag. She had it open and was digging through it. She pulled out a shirt. “Here. You are not covered as well as you should be. An undershirt and shorts will not protect you from the mist.” She gave the shirt to Mazer then turned to Patu. “And for you, too. A woman needs better covering.” She snapped at her husband. “Huang Fu. Help me find clothes for these half-naked soldiers.”

The old man, who had been sitting on his bag, catching his breath, slowly got to his feet and opened the bag, searching.

“Here you are,” said the old woman, giving Patu a simple cotton shirt with a floral print. It was worn and heavily faded from the sun, all of its brilliance and color nothing but a memory. “I have picked more seasons of rice in that shirt than there are years in your life,” said the old woman.

Patu nodded, accepting it. “Thank you.”

“And here,” said the old woman. “Pants. As much as my husband would like to see those legs of yours, you had better cover up before his heart fails him.”

Patu took them. They were loose and wide with a drawstring at the waist. “Again I thank you.”

The old woman stepped to Fatani, took one look at his broad shoulders and thick neck, and shook her head. “How can I dress a water buffalo? What do you eat for breakfast? Your wife and children? Huang Fu, how do we dress this man?”

“I have nothing that will fit him,” said the old man.

She turned on him, annoyed. “Of course you don’t, mud brain. None of us do. Give me your blanket.” She snapped her fingers, impatient.

The man hurried over, carrying a thin blanket.

“You need not give me that,” said Fatani. “You’ll need it to—”

“Shut up, water buffalo,” the old woman said. She opened the blanket onto the floor then produced a knife from her pocket. She snapped open the blade. It had been sharpened so many times over the years that the blade looked half the size it had probably originally been. Her cuts were swift and sure. She ripped off long strips. She cut a hole in the middle for his head. She then gave him the poncho and tied one of the straps around his waist. Then she tore strips of fabric from a sheet and tied them around his arms. The old man gave her another two pair of loose pants for Mazer and Fatani, and the old woman nodded her approval. “There. Now you don’t look like foreigners at all.”

Mazer and the others nodded their thanks and rushed to the HERC, eager to get airborne again. As Mazer climbed up into the cockpit and took his helmet from the seat, he saw that the boy Bingwen had followed him out.

“What should we do if you don’t come back?” Bingwen said in English. “If something happens to you, I mean?”

“We’ll be back,” said Mazer.

“You’ll
try
to come back. I don’t doubt that. But that’s not the same thing. These people need direction. They need a leader.”

“Ping will know what to do,” said Mazer.

“No, he won’t,” said Bingwen. “I know him. He’s from my village. He’s strong and willing, but he’s not very smart.”

“And you are?”

“I’m not asking to be the leader,” said Bingwen. “I’m asking for a contingency plan. I’m asking for your expertise in dealing with frightened civilians in a hostile environment. If you don’t come back, if help doesn’t come, I want to know what we should do.”

Mazer smiled. He liked this kid. “Stay here. Help will come.” He brought the helmet down over his head and gave Bingwen a thumbs-up.

The HERC flew away, turning to the south. Mazer looked back and saw that Bingwen was still there on the hilltop, standing on the access road, watching them go.

He wants answers I can’t give, Mazer thought. He wants something definitive to fall back on. He doesn’t know I don’t have answers, that there is no contingency plan, that I’m making this up as I go along.

Maybe Shenzu was right, Mazer told himself. What were he and his team accomplishing out here? Saving a few people who very well might have saved themselves? A fully loaded HERC with a combat crew could protect whole villages or cities. Yet here Mazer was, using it as a bus, shuffling people around.

He wasn’t thinking big picture. He wasn’t thinking about maximizing the resource and saving the greatest number of people. Logic told him to think statistically, to be objective, to abandon this current course and get the HERC back to the Chinese as quickly as possible where they could put it to better use. Yet even as he considered it, he knew he couldn’t do it. There was Bingwen. That was one life that hadn’t ended because Mazer had been here. Statistics couldn’t argue with that.

The lander was in sight now, the top of it still open. A few more Chinese aircraft were circling it. The skimmers and troop carriers had pushed on to places unknown. Mazer looked below them, searching for survivors.

Reinhardt swore.

Mazer looked up. A second column of alien aircraft was shooting up out of the lander, moving as one, twisting and climbing like a swarm. Troop carriers, skimmers. Hundreds of them. A second wave.

“Get us to the ground!”

But even as Mazer gave the order, he knew they wouldn’t make it. They were too high, and already the skimmers at the front of the column had reached the column’s zenith and were shooting off in every direction, a cluster of them heading straight for the HERC.

The HERC dropped. Alarms sounded as Reinhardt put them into a fast descent.

The skimmers didn’t hesitate this time. They opened fire. The HERC should have been obliterated, but somehow, Reinhardt altered their descent at just the right moment to avoid the blasts, which zipped by and exploded somewhere below. Fatani was at the guns, screaming, opening up. One skimmer took a direct hit, spun off, and slammed into another. The two bounced off each other, damaged, broken out of control. Patu was firing as well. Mazer fumbled with the front guns and fired, missing wide as the HERC spun and dropped. The skimmers were on them now. There was a flash, they were hit. The front windshield exploded, heat and shrapnel rushed into the cockpit. Reinhardt slumped forward. The gravlens was out. They were in a dead drop. Wind, fire, alarms. Mazer reached for the stick, his body was weightless, his helmet visor cracked. He was dazed, disoriented—a ringing in his ear. There was a scream of metal and the fire of an engine. A
chop chop chop
. The emergency rotor blades were up and going. They continued to fall, spinning, twisting, the blades wouldn’t stop them.

Mazer saw a flash of treetops, heard limbs snapping, felt the heat of fire. Then impact, a violent jolt shook the world apart and left only blackness.

*   *   *

Mazer coughed, a deep painful cough that squeezed his lungs so tight it felt as if they had shriveled like raisins. He was engulfed in black smoke. He couldn’t see. He had passed out. He was pressed in tight from all sides, squeezed in a world of balloons. Then the pain hit him, a searing, white hot explosion of pain in his lower abdomen. He cried out, coughed again. He was blind in the smoke.

“Reinhardt!”

No answer.

“Patu! Fatani!”

He heard the crackle and spark of flames, felt the heat of it near him, all around him. He fumbled with his hands, found his harness, unlatched it, coughing, hacking, desperate for clean air. He pushed at the balloons. They gave a little, deflating slightly. Airbags, he realized. He pushed at them again, scrabbling for the door. He couldn’t find it. The smoke was suffocating. His lungs were on fire.

The door came free. He tumbled out, falling to the ground. The pain shot through him like a knife, cutting him in half. He put his hand to his abdomen. It came away red, soaked in blood. He was bleeding in other places, too. No time to see where. He had to get the others out. He pressed a hand to the abdominal wound, and the pain was like a thunderclap. He held it there, his world spinning. He steadied, got one foot underneath him, pushing the pain to some other place, some place deep inside. It felt like a charcoal fire had been built inside his stomach. He fought it, focused his mind.

He got the other foot under him. He could barely stand. He saw Patu. She was slumped in her chair, head to the side. He knew at once that she was dead. There was blood and injuries. Her face was lifeless. He staggered to her, wincing, gritting his teeth, putting one foot in front of the other. The flames were growing. The heat was intense. Mazer ignored them. He grabbed the med kit from under Patu’s seat and tossed it out. Then he reached up and unfastened the latch on Patu’s harness. She fell forward into him. He wasn’t ready for it, didn’t have the strength for it. They both fell to the ground.

Mazer came to. He had blacked out again, only for an instant, but he had no time to spare and willed himself to wake. It was the pain. It teetered on the point where it was so unbearable that the body shuts down, like a switch has been flipped. Mazer pushed himself up into a sitting position. He grabbed the fabric of Patu’s shirt and dragged her toward him, scooting backward on his buttocks, pulling her away from the flames. She was dead weight, her limbs limp, her head lolled to the side, a trail of blood behind her.