Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

Five minutes later Wit and his men were walking east into China. They stayed on the shoulder of the road in a long line as cargo trucks streamed past, heading toward the airfield. Wit stuck out his thumb, and it didn't take long before a truck picked them up and gave them a lift.

*

They slept on the plane, squeezed between crates and boxes. The pilot had accepted their offer without a second thought and promised to take them only as far as Hotan. From there they caught a flight to Jiuquan, and then to Zhengzhou. They ate when they were hungry and slept when they were tired.

Through it all Wit tracked the progress of the war. The Chinese were touting great successes and victories but supplying no evidence for either, which suggested it was all bogus, or at least highly exaggerated. The Russian army had offered to enter China and assist in the war, but China had refused. Probably because the Chinese worried that the Russians might not leave when the war was over. Kick out one invading army only to have another one to deal with.

The nets were flooded with vids. The Formics were relentless. Their skimmers were fast and lethal. Their troops were calm and methodical. They burned the countryside wherever they went, spraying their defoliants like farmers. The Chinese tried to take down the vids and paint a different picture, but you couldn't stop the floodgates of information.

Wit searched for more vids from Mazer Rackham but found none, which concerned him. It had been days now. There was no official word from New Zealand or the Chinese that Wit could find, which either meant that Mazer had been discreetly pulled back from the frontlines, or that he was MIA.

On their third day in the country they landed in Changsha. It was the last flight they were going to get. Commercial flights were grounded now, and no pilot would fly any farther south no matter how much money Wit offered.

Wit made a few calls from the airport. He needed all-terrain vehicles, and the black market in Changsha seemed like as good a place as any to find them. His contacts in Hunan province put him in touch with some shady people, who put him in contact with some even worse people, who suggested Wit go to a used truck lot in the southern, industrial part of the city called Winjia Alley. Wit took Calinga and Lobo with him and left the rest of the men at the airport.

The old man who greeted them at the lot was in his eighties maybe, with a slightly hunched back and a broad sun cap and a pair of exoskeleton braces on his legs to assist him with walking. He introduced himself as Shoshang.

"I'm Captain O'Toole of the Mobile Operations Police. These are two of my companions Calinga and Lobo."

Shoshang smiled. "Soldiers, eh? Come to fight the Formics."

"We've come to help as much as we can," said Wit.

"You think China needs help? You think China isn't strong enough?"

"From what I've seen, no country is strong enough. Not the U.S., not any nation in Europe, not Russia, no one. We all must help."

"Help is what I do best," said Shoshang. "What are you looking for?"

"Armored transports. Off-roaders. All-terrain. Enough to carry forty men and supplies. And they need to be airtight."

>

"War machines?" Shoshang frowned and shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint you, Captain, but I'm not licensed to sell that kind of vehicle. What you see on my lot is all I have." He gestured to the vehicles behind him. "Big utility trucks and dozers for commercial contractors. Perhaps you would like to test-drive one of those?"

Wit wasn't buying the innocent-civilian act or the weak-old-man act either. He had busted enough drug lords and gunrunners to know that it was normally the ones who didn't look the part who were the nastiest.

"Perhaps this will remind you of some inventory that may have slipped your mind," said Wit, tapping his wrist pad to the old man's.

Shoshang read the amount on his wrist, then smiled. "Ah yes. Now that I think about it, I might have what you're looking for."

He escorted them to a tall, rusted metal wall that encircled a junkyard at the back of the lot. The wall was topped with concertina wire and looked like it could withstand a small army. Shoshang waved his hand through the holobox beside the gate, and from somewhere on the other side a crank turned, and a chain pulled, and the heavy metal door swung open.

"A lot of security for a pile of junk," said Wit.

Shoshang smiled.

They walked through the junkyard--weaving through a labyrinth of scrap iron, crushed cars, and long-dead industrial equipment. When they reached a warehouse at the center of the maze, Shoshang stopped and faced them. Wit saw several armed men perched atop the warehouse roof and a few others among the piles of junk around them. Wit wasn't impressed. The men weren't professionally trained. They were all carrying themselves the wrong way, standing in the wrong places, brandishing their weapons like amateurs. Wit was beginning to think this had been a waste of time.

Then Shoshang ordered one of the thugs to open the warehouse, and Wit saw that the trip wasn't a total loss after all. There were five armored Rhinos inside--which were big, six-wheeled ATVs built for the Chinese military. They were much faster than light tanks and ideal for quick strikes and maneuvering. Shoshang had painted them a deep green to cover the army's insignia, and welders had attached additional armored plates and modifications to make them look like original vehicles instead of stolen government property, which is what they obviously were.

"If I drive those through a military checkpoint," said Wit, "I'm liable to get arrested. The army doesn't take kindly to thieves."

Shoshang looked offended. "These aren't stolen, Captain O'Toole. They were surplus, purchased legally on the open market. I have all the papers in order."

"Falsified papers," said Wit. "There was no surplus of Rhinos. The manufacturer was bought out by Juke Limited before production of the initial fleet was complete. Then Juke renegotiated with the Chinese and changed the design."

Shoshang smiled. "I see you are a student of military commerce, Captain O'Toole."