Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

"You heard the colonel," said Fatani. "We have our orders. We return to base."

"Yes," said Mazer. "But the colonel was a little unclear on when to return to base. Did anyone else catch that?"

Reinhardt smiled. "I don't recall a time. Surely an order like that can wait sixteen minutes, give or take."

Mazer looked at the others. They nodded.

"All right," said Mazer. "Buckle up. Patu get that news feed back on the sat uplink. Reinhardt, take us up. Way up. A few thousand feet. I want us in a position to see anything. Seal the windows. Pressurize us."

"Hold on to something," said Reinhardt. He engaged the gravlens, and the HERC shot straight up as if yanked upward on a string. It climbed higher and higher, the altimeter numbers clicking through fast. Two thousand meters. Three thousand. Six. Seven. In a minute they were higher than they had ever taken the aircraft. Mazer's stomach churned. His ears popped. His head swam. He blinked, kept himself focused, and ignored the queasy feeling.

Below them, the landscape was green and lush, filled with tiny, watery squares of rice paddies like a green tiled mosaic laid across the Earth.

"Computer," said Mazer. "Follow the projectiles. Monitor their speed. Then update the landfall radius in real time as they approach. Tighten that circle as much as you can."

"Understood," said the computer.

They hovered there, waiting, watching the landfall radius on the map, watching the sky.

The sat feed in Mazer's HUD showed the first projectile hit the atmosphere, a glow of orange heat encircling the front. The speed of the lander immediately slowed, and the computer instantly made modifications to the map. The giant red circle that was the landfall radius suddenly jumped inward, becoming a smaller circle, a third of its original size. The circle no longer included the Philippines or Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos. Only southeast China remained.

"Mazer," said Reinhardt.

"I see it," said Mazer looking at the map.

"No, not there," said Reinhardt. "There." He pointed east out the windshield.

Mazer looked. A distance away, almost to the edge of the horizon, a long white contrail stretched behind the alien lander, the front of it a bright hot wall of heat.

CHAPTER 12

Mud

"We're nearly there, Grandfather. We shouldn't rest now. Look, you can see the village stairs from here. A kilometer at the most. Here, I'll help you." Bingwen extended his hand.

Grandfather swatted it away. "Did your parents teach you nothing, boy? Do your elders mean so little to you? If I say I need a rest, I will take one, and no boy, however closely related, will command me not to." He muttered something under his breath, a curse perhaps, then leaned heavily on his staff, groaning and wincing and scowling as he lowered himself toward the ground. His strength failed him just before he reached it, and he fell with a thud onto his backside. Another wince. Another curse. Then he exhaled deeply, as if the air he had been carrying in his lungs had only added to his burden and he was glad to be rid of it.

After the chaos of the night, the morning seemed strangely normal. The sun had been up for only half an hour at the most, but already there were small groups of people in the rice fields all along the valley, bent over the shoots, working, chatting, going about their labor as if the previous night had been a dream. There were fewer people than usual though, Bingwen noticed. And those who were close enough for him to see their faces were all elders, hunched and wrinkled like Grandfather with their coned straw hats and sun-fa

ded garments.

"You told him not to let you rest, Ye Ye Danwen," said Hopper. "You've been saying it for hours. It's not fair of you to scold him for doing exactly what you commanded."

Grandfather swung his cane out, not hard, not intending to hit Hopper, but fast enough and with enough force behind it to scare Hopper and send him shuffling backward. Hopper's bad foot tripped him up, and he fell back onto the dirt, nearly tumbling into the nearest rice paddy.

"Enough from you," said Grandfather. "You've been chattering all night and I'm done with it. Home with you."

He waved his hand wide, as if sending Hopper away.

Hopper rolled his eyes when Grandfather wasn't looking, dusted himself off, and went back to sit by Meilin, who was squatting on an embankment nearby, poking at the nearest rice shoots with a stick.

Hopper was right of course. Grandfather had told Bingwen on multiple occasions throughout the night that he was not to let Grandfather sit down again. "Keep me moving, Bingwen," he had said. "It hurts too much to get back up again."

And so Bingwen had tried: rushing over whenever Grandfather made a move to sit down, urging Grandfather on, pleading, pulling, reminding Grandfather of the pain that awaited him when he got up again. But on every occasion Grandfather had only grunted and resisted and cursed and scolded and sat down anyway.

And an hour or so later--because Grandfather would always take that long, regardless of how many times Bingwen urged him up again--Grandfather would struggle upward, his bones creaking and paining him so deeply that he'd apologize to Bingwen for being old and foolish and "Please please please, don't let me sit down again."

It was maddening. Stop me, Bingwen. Don't stop me, Bingwen. Do as I say, Bingwen. Don't do as I say. Bingwen would give anything for a truck or a skimmer.