Earth Unaware (The First Formic War 1)

The following morning, Wit gathered all of the MOPs in Indonesia. Many were in the camp in Sulawesi and joined him in the mess hall. The others stationed in nearby villages or in New Guinea joined him via holo.

Wit stood in the holospace facing them. "I have some vids I want you to see," he said. He played them a few of the alien vids from the nets. Their reaction was not unlike the comments online. They laughed. They scoffed. They mocked. They applauded and whistled at the realistic endeavors.

"Hey Deen, is that your girlfriend?" someone shouted when a particularly nasty alien roared on-screen.

"Couldn't be Deen's girl," someone else shouted, "she's much uglier."

More laughter.

"I'm surrounded by comic geniuses," Deen deadpanned.

When the vids finished, Wit stepped back into the holospace.

"What gives, Captain?" Lobo asked. "We gearing up for some aliens?"

"Maybe," said Wit.

The room laughed, but when Wit's expression stayed flat, the laughter quickly died and a confused awkwardness took its place.

"You can't be serious, Cap," said Deen. "I've seen a hundred of those vids. They're all bogus."

"Is that what you do with your free time, Deen?" said Chi-won.

"Hey, what is this? Pick on Deen Day?" said Deen.

"Seriously, Captain," said Mabuzza. "Haven't we been seeing alien invasions since, like, the nineteen hundreds?"

"But that doesn't mean it won't happen," said Wit, "and that it won't be terrible when it does." He paused and scanned the crowd. "Situation. A hundred aliens drop into this camp and start killing everyone. What do you do?"

There was a silence, then someone said, "Run like hell."

The men chuckled.

"All right," said Wit. "New situation. A hundred Remeseh charge into camp and begin killing everyone. What do you do?"

"Send them to hell," said Deen, to another round of laughter.

Wit smiled. "I'm glad to see we have a plan for the Remeseh." He paused again, then in a louder voice asked, "What do we train for?"

The man answered in unison. "Every contingency!"

Wit doubled his volume. "What do we train for?"

"EVERY CONTINGENCY!"

"A contingency is a possible event that cannot be predicted with certainty," said Wit. "And we cannot with one hundred percent certainty dismiss the validity of this idea. Is it likely? No. It is possible? Yes. Is it absurd? You may think so, but I would rather be trained for the absurd than dead."

The men said nothing. He had their attention.

"Which militaries in the world are preparing for such an event?" asked Wit. "Answe

r: none. Which militaries are prepared for tech weapons far beyond our own? Answer: none. Which militaries would be caught with their pants down and completely unprepared for this? Answer: all of them. But not us. What do we train for?"

"EVERY CONTINGENCY!"

"So how do we prepare?" asked Wit.

They answered him with silence.