Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

They drove for a hundred kilometers without any problems. Traffic on the northbound lanes became increasingly more congested. Soon the cars and trucks were moving over into the southbound lanes and driving in the wrong direction in an effort to scoot the traffic. Calinga kept laying on the horn and flashing his lights to prevent a head-on collision. Most of the cars swerved, but soon the traffic took on a fast and frantic pace.

"Pull over," said Wit.

Calinga took them off the road, and by the time the other Rhinos in the convoy had followed, the oncoming traffic was in a frenzy. Two trucks collided, blocking the road. The car behind them rammed them, trying to push its way through, getting stuck in the process. A pileup resulted. Four cars. Five. Seven. Horns blared. People screamed at each other. The congestion spilled over into the roadsides, where more cars got stuck in the mud and blocked any further passage. Drivers then abandoned their vehicles and ran north on foot.

Wit then saw why. A line of six Formics with mist sprayers was walking up the grass median of the highway, spraying the vegetation and anything that moved. The mist was coming out strong in thick, steady streams, rolling across the ground at waist height like a

dense fog just above the surface.

Wit spoke into his radio, addressing the convoy. "Helmets on. We're in a hot zone. Stay put until I verify that these suits work."

He slid the helmet over his head, and it sealed itself to his containment suit. The oxygen valve initiated, and cool air filled the helmet. Wit dropped down from the cab onto the blacktop and closed the door behind him. Crowds of people ran past him, heading straight up the highway in a panic. A few of them were staggering, coughing, wheezing, dying from the mist. A woman collapsed into his arms, eyes rolling back in her head. Wit felt helpless. He had nothing to offer her. He laid her gently on the ground away from the rushing crowd so she wouldn't get trampled. Then he turned and pushed his way through the crowd toward the Formics. The pieces of his rifle were strapped to his hip. He snapped them together as he pushed his way forward, then he extended the barrel and popped in the magazine.

"Calinga, get on the radio. See if you can find any EMTs in the area. We need medics here immediately."

"On it," said Calinga.

Wit forced his way through the crowd, which was in chaos now, the people pushing and screaming and knocking others aside in a mad panic. Some of the fallen got back to their feet. Others were stepped on, kicked, and trampled. Wit helped one woman up, but he nearly got knocked down in the process.

He pushed on. The targeting system on his HUD told him the Formics were eighty-two yards away and closing the distance, coming toward him shoulder to shoulder, casually spraying the mist, as if treating the ground for weeds. It was the first time Wit had seen one in person, and the sight of them was like cold water down his spine.

He raised his rifle, but the civilians kept running into his line of fire. No good. He ran to his left and climbed up onto the hood of one of the wrecked trucks. Now, with some elevation, he had a clear shot. He put the stock to his shoulder, and all kinds of thoughts ran through his head. He didn't like using a weapon he had never fired before. Maybe Shoshang had acquired these guns because they were DOA, duds, Chinese rejects. Maybe the sight was a foot off target. Maybe the barrel was bent. Maybe the thing would blow up in his hands.

He zoomed in with his sight, aimed at the head of the Formic on the far right, and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle fired and recoiled. The back of the Formic's head exploded in a gray mist. Its legs buckled, and it dropped from Wit's sight.

Field test was over. Rifle passed. Time to get to work. Wit squeezed off five more quick headshots, one after another, straight down the line, right to left, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam.

The five remaining Formics dropped one after the other, their wands falling from their hands, their bodies crumpling. Wit watched the wand tips. A moment later, the mist stopped spraying.

The misty fog was thick around him now. Wit blinked a command to test his suit for leaks. The sensors beeped and indicated the all-clear; the suit was airtight apparently. Shoshang hadn't skimped them. His goods were legit. Miracle of miracles.

Wit hopped down from the truck and ran ahead through the mist to where the Formics lay. He stood over them, weapon up, ready to plug them with more rounds if they so much as twitched. None of them did.

Calinga's voice sounded in Wit's helmet. "Emergency personnel aren't coming. We're too far from an urban area. They say they don't have a treatment for the mist anyway, and they're short on people. They've got more calls like ours than they know what to do with."

"Move the people several hundred meters upwind," said Wit. "Get them away from mist until the air clears."

Wit squatted down and examined the Formics as Calinga relayed the order and mobilized the men. The Formics weren't wearing any clothing. Nor were they carrying any equipment other than the mist sprayers. No radio transmitters, no receivers, no comms equipment of any kind. Wit turned one over with his boot to be sure he wasn't missing anything. He hated touching the things, even with his boot--he disliked feeling the weight and thickness of them--but he couldn't afford to have any such reservations.

He noticed slight differences in their insectlike faces. Subtle things. A wider mouth here, larger eyes there. Darker fur on one than the other. At first glance they had all looked exactly alike, but now Wit could see that they were as different from each other as any group of humans.

He couldn't tell if these were male or female. They had no visible sexual organs. Maybe they were asexual, like parasites.

Wit snapped several photos with his HUD, first of the whole group, then of an individual headshot wound. Then he blinked a command to take down his dictation. He spoke for five minutes into his helmet microphone, describing the weapon he had used and where he had hit each of the Formics. They had all been headshots, yes, but he was specific about where each bullet had entered. He used medical terminology for the human head as a context, like a doctor describing an ER gunshot victim. Then he stated his conclusions. The Formics could be killed. Their landers were shielded, but their infantry was not. Headshots did the job nicely. He would try other ways in the future.

Wit then uploaded all the text, photos, and geotags to the nets. He created his own site using a minimalist theme design and the URL StopTheFormics.net and signed it "The Mobile Operations Police." He then ordered the site to translate this entry and all future entries into Chinese, and to place the Chinese text first in the post, followed by the original English. Then he used push software to send the same information to hundreds of social platforms and media venues across the world, including all the forums and sites used by servicemen in the Chinese military.

The military no doubt already knew that a headshot was fatal, but Wit wasn't going to assume anything. If he had information, he would share it, regardless of how obvious it might seem.

Wit returned to the Rhinos. Calinga and the rest of the men had moved the crowd upwind. The panic had subsided. Now the people were mourning. Fifty-four people were dead, most of them had been killed by the mist, though a few had died in the rush of the crowd.

"Now what do we do?" said Calinga. "These people are asking for a ride north to the nearest city. Some of their cars can't be driven anymore. We obviously can't give everyone a lift. The moment we start carrying people north, every other car we passed on the way down here is going to stop us and ask that we do the same for them. And we can't fit all these people anyway, not unless we're going to pile them on top of the Rhinos and take five trips."

"Tell the crowd everything you've told me," said Wit. "Explain that we're moving south, not north. We're going toward the Formics, not away from them. Tell them they'll move much faster if they help each other. We'll use the Rhinos to clear the wrecked vehicles and open up the highway. Those who have a functioning vehicle should make room for those who don't."

"What about the bodies?" asked Calinga.