Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3)

Anything official, any orders from central command, would be encoded. Anything not encoded was likely to be of the "What's happening? Who set off that explosion? Was it nuclear?" variety--questions to which MOPs already knew the answers.

But Bingwen was deft at finding his way into computer networks that didn't want to admit him. The computer he was using was in the office where official communiques would have been received. The computer had been wiped before being abandoned, but it wasn't a real wipe, it was just a superficial erasure. They had left in a hurry and who did they expect to come in after them? Formics--and Formics completely ignored human computers and other communications, that was well known. So the computer wipe had been cursory, and it had taken Bingwen only a few minutes to unwipe everything.

That meant that while Bingwen couldn't possibly decode anything himself, the decoding software was in place, and after several false starts and reboots he had managed to get in using the password of a junior officer.

Unfortunately, the junior officer had been s

o junior that he was only able to decode fairly routine messages, which meant that Bingwen had to labor under the same restrictions. Routine encoded messages were still a huge step up from panicked queries and radio rumors, so while Bingwen continued to listen to the radio chatter that the MOPs operatives were locating for him, he opened message after message as each emerged from the decoding software.

Finally he found something useful. "Deen!" he called out.

Deen, an Englishman, was acting CO in O'Toole's absence. Everyone knew Bingwen would not have called out to him for anything less than definitive information. So it wasn't just Deen who came, it was everyone who was not actively engaged in an assignment at the moment.

Naturally, the computer message was in Chinese, so nobody could read over Bingwen's shoulder. Still, he ran his fingers along the Pinyin text as he interpreted on the fly. "Two soldiers in MOPs uniforms," said Bingwen. "Held at General Sima's headquarters."

"So the Chinese are taking them seriously," said Lobo. "Sima's the big guy."

"Sima's the guy who had absolutely no interest in cooperating with MOPs," pointed out Cocktail.

"So they're alive," said Bolshakov, "but they've been taken to the guy who is most likely to resent their presence here."

"Two soldiers," said Deen. "Not three."

They all knew that meant that either one of the team had been a casualty during the operation, or three had made it out alive but only two had been taken by the Chinese.

By now the decoder had spat out two more messages, and one of them was a follow-up that contained names. "Prisoners identified as O'Toole and Rackham," said Bingwen.

"Have they contacted our people at all?" asked Deen. "Are there negotiations going on for release?"

Bingwen scanned the message. "No. Sima's people are reporting that they have them, but nothing else. They're not asking what to do with them, and they're not reporting what they plan to do."

"Sima wouldn't ask anybody, and nobody would have the gall to make suggestions," said Bolshakov. "Even at the highest levels of the civilian government, they tread lightly when they're dealing with Sima."

Silence for a few moments.

"Extraction would be a bad idea," said Deen. "But all the other ideas I can think of are worse."

"Even if we can figure out exactly where Sima's base is, we won't know how to get in," said ZZ. "Or out again."

"I just love winging it in the middle of foreign military bases," said Lobo.

"And when we succeed in getting them out," said Deen, "we will have alienated one of the most powerful men in the Chinese military, right when we ought to be getting credit for saving millions of Chinese lives."

"I have an idea," said Bingwen.

He waited for them to dismiss him, to tell him to be quiet, to remind him that he was a child. He expected this because it's what adults always did. But they were MOPs. They listened to anybody who might have useful intelligence or offer alternative plans.

Bingwen began to type into a message window. He was writing in Pinyin, because that was his native language, but he translated as he went. "MOPs team headed by Captain Wit O'Toole gives all honor and thanks to glorious General Sima for providing MOPs with drilling sledges to carry MOPs nuclear device under Formic defenses."

"We didn't get the sledges from Sima," said Cocktail.

"We got them in spite of his opposition, didn't we?" said Bolshakov.

"Let the kid write in peace," said Deen.

Bingwen was still typing, interpreting into English as he went. "All credit to glorious General Sima of People's Liberation Army for coming up with plan to destroy Formic lander from inside. All thanks to him for allowing MOPs soldiers to have great honor of carrying out his plan using nuclear device General Sima requested. Proud to report complete success of nuclear venture. Surviving MOPs soldiers have returned to General Sima to report complete success of his brilliant and daring plan."

"What a pack of crap," said Bungy.