Earth Afire

by Orson Scott Card

  Wit said, "I'm sure the United States would be thrilled to know you're invading the privacy of its citizens."

  The lieutenant looked up from the passport, his lips pressed tight together. "The information is public record, Mr. O'Toole. Anyone with access to the nets can acquire it. You are requesting permission to enter my country. I have every right to know whatever I want to know about you. Your privacy laws don't apply here." He closed the passport, placed it on his desk, and steepled his fingers. "Why do you want to study the Formics?"

  "Because we want to stop them," said Wit. "Which will probably involve killing them or driving them back into space. But between you and me, I'd rather kill them. It's easier that way. You don't have to worry about them coming back with their friends."

  The lieutenant blinked, surprised by Wit's candor.

  "My companions and I are soldiers," said Wit. "As you likely have already deduced. We're MOPs. Mobile Operations Police. We're here, dressed as civilians and passing through your gate as a courtesy to you. We don't have to come through this way. There are hundreds of ways to get into China. I would prefer to do it legally, as I'm attempting to do now. But should you deny us entrance, we'll get in the other way. Easy."

  The lieutenant smiled, as if he found Wit's confidence amusing. "You think you can sneak by me and my men, Mr. O'Toole?"

  "In my sleep," said Wit. "And if you deny us entrance here and force us to enter the country illegally, it will reflect very poorly on you, Lieutenant. You can be sure of that. Because once we're in the country we'll tell the Chinese military how we crossed right here, right under your noses. We'll tell them how lax your security is. We'll tell them how a whole fleet of foreign vehicles honking their horns and shooting off fireworks could pass through the gaping holes in the border here without any detection whatsoever. We'll tell them it was easy. We'll tell them all sorts of things. We'll be very thorough and very convincing. It will paint you, I'm afraid, in a rather negative light."

  The lieutenant looked angry, but Wit was far from finished.

  "And you and I both know that the blame won't stop there," said Wit. "Whoever helped you get this position will be culpable, too. He'll be tainted for putting an incompetent in charge here. He'll take the fall. It will annihilate any chance either of you have of ever getting promoted again. If you can't maintain a border crossing in the middle of nowhere, they'll say, then you can't do much of anything.

  "However, if you do let us cross, you now have a story to tell. They passed as civilians, you'll say. They weren't carrying weapons. Their passports checked out. I had no reason to deny them access. In fact, I was doing my duty correctly by letting them in. And if the Chinese military asks me and my men why we would pretend to be civilians and cross over this way, we'll tell them that we had no other choice. We'll tell them the borders are so tight up there under that lieutenant that we had no choice but to abandon our weapons and go right through the gate. We'll tell them how the level of security here made us uneasy, how a mountain crossing was out of the question because the men at the border are too well trained and too savvy and too watchful of the passes. They'd catch us for sure. We'll tell them all sorts of things, Lieutenant. And it will reflect very well on you. They might even give you a shiny medal."

  The lieutenant was quiet a moment. "I could arrest you right now," he said finally. "That would get me a medal, too."

  "See? Now you're being stupid," said Wit. "You have no right to arrest us. We've committed no crime. We're not even on Chinese soil yet. This office is neutral territory."

  "I could arrest you as soon as I let you in. Right over the border."

  Wit shook his head, as if feeling sorry for the kid.

  "Your stupid meter keeps going up. Think. If you arrest us right after we're through, then it's obvious you let us in only for that purpose. Again, we'll have committed no crime. My men and I represent thirty different countries. Do you really want the embassies of thirty different countries calling your superior officers and asking why China arrested citizens who legally crossed its borders?"

  "You're soldiers. Your very presence in China is illegal."

  "You're missing the point," said Wit. "Everything you're suggesting puts a target on your head. When this becomes an international incident, who do you think the Chinese are going to blame to pacify all parties involved? Us? The people who valiantly crossed into China to help its citizens and save lives? No. It will be you. You will take the hit. You'll be stripped of rank, honor, and any affiliation with the military. You'll have to get a blue-collar job. Maybe loading boxes somewhere. Or chopping the heads off fishes in some rancid-smelling market. You won't meet and marry that daughter of a party official. You won't rise to a position of station. You'll waste away in a one-room apartment with a bad back and no pension. Those are the facts, Lieutenant. You can let us in or you can send us away. The choice is yours."

  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."

  "I'm a student of a lot of things."

  Shoshang scratched at his cheek then sighed. "Very well. I'm willing to drop the price because of the legality issue." He said the word like it annoyed him.

  "What about fuel?"

  "I am feeling generous today," said Shoshang. "I will give you all five vehicles and enough batteries and fuel cells for a year of constant use."

  "For how much?"

  Shoshang told him. It was ten times what the vehicles were worth, even on the black market.

  "We'll take them," said Wit.

  Shoshang looked surprised. He had expected a brutal negotiation, an argument even. But Wit had neither the time nor the inclination. Strategos auditors would likely sniff out Shoshang and seize the money back anyway. It wasn't Wit's concern.

  "We also need supplies," said Wit. "I'm told you're a man who can acquire anything."

  "I'm a man of many talents, yes. What else do you need?"

  "Containment suits, for starters. With HUDs, targeting capabilities, and plenty of oxygen."

  "I take it you've seen the mist the Formics spray."

  "We'd rather not breathe it," said Wit. "We also need weapons. Small arms. Antiaircraft. Smart grenade launchers."

  "What type of grenade munitions?"

  "Whatever we can get. HEABs, flechette-laden, thermobaric. Low-velocity, twenty-by-forty millimeters."

  HEABs, or high-explosive air-bursting grenades, would be ideal. It was easier to program the munitions, and air detonations usually had the greatest kill count. But Wit wasn't getting his hopes up.

  "I'll need to make a few calls," said Shoshang. "It will take a few hours. It's not every day I'm asked to outfit a miniarmy. But don't worry, Captain, I will get you what you need." Shoshang removed his hat, dabbed at his forehead with a cloth, and smiled. "I can't help but wonder, however, why your own agency isn't supplying you. Not that it's any of my business."

  "You're right," said Wit. "It's not your business."

  *

  Four hours later a convoy of five Rhinos and forty MOPs were heading south out of Changsha on secondary highways. Wit and Calinga were up in the cab of the lead vehicle. The northbound lanes were packed, but the southbound lanes were wide open.

  Calinga gestured to the containment suit he was wearing and the rifle in the seat beside them. "Dare I ask where you got the money to buy all this?"

  "MOPs has emergency accounts all over Europe," said Wit. "I emptied a few of them. If we help win the war, the expense may be forgiven. If we die in the process or if the Formics seize Earth, it won't much matter anyway."

  "Such confidence," said Calinga.

  "This won't be an easy fight. No reason to avoid that fact."

  "So what's the plan? You said we'll strike key targets and sabotage. What are our targets exactly? The landers? They're shielded. Missiles can't touch them. The air force is hitting them with everything they've got and not putting a scratch on them."

  "Then we'll have to find a way inside one."

  "How?"

  "No idea. If we can reach one, we can do some recon and investigate." He brought up a map of southeast China on his holopad. "We'll hit the second lander first. The one in the middle. The northernmost lander near Guilin is where the highest casualties are, but it's also where the military is concentrating. I'd rather avoid direct contact with the army right now. Let's accomplish something first. Let's prove our worth to the Chinese. Then they'll ask us to stay."

  "Why not go for the southernmost lander, where the flyers are seeding bacteria into the sea? That's serious ecological damage. The faster we stop that the better."

  "That lander is more isolated," said Wit. "It's at a higher elevation and harder to reach. That's better left to the air force. Plus the casualties there are in the hundreds, whereas they're reaching the thousands and tens of thousands at the other two. The second lander is the best strategic position as well. We can easily get to either of the other two if we suddenly have to."

  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.