Earth Awakens (The First Formic War)

by Orson Scott Card

  A part of him had worried that once he reached the helm his courage would fail him, that he would freeze again like he had done the first time he saw a Formic. But now that he was here, now that his hand was on his sidearm and the opportunity was before him, the doubt was replaced with a surprisingly steady calm. He was ready to die, he realized. They had killed Alejandra and Concepción and Toron and Father. They had destroyed his ship, his only home, everything he had ever owned and cared about. Maybe Mother as well.

  Yes, he could kill. And gladly.

  But as he watched those on the helm, it quickly became apparent that no one was in charge. No one relayed any orders, no one shared any intel, no one sought instructions from a superior. Nor were there any written messages being shared, or gestures, or communication of any kind.

  It all became clear to Victor then.

  He removed his helmetcam and positioned it up in the corner near the ceiling, giving him a clear view of the console and main instrument panel. Then he backed out of the helm and hid himself in the shaft. “Have you ever been inside the helm of a big ship, Imala? Especially when there’s a threat nearby?”

  “No.”

  “It’s chaos. People yelling across the room, passing intel, sharing computer readouts. It’s loud, fast-paced, and highly collaborative. Everyone is making sure everyone else has all the information they need to do their jobs right.”

  “And yet the Formics at the helm act like the others don’t even exist,” said Imala.

  “None of them talk at all,” said Victor. “It’s completely silent. We knew the soldier Formics on Earth were silent, but I had always assumed that was because they were so focused on the business of killing. But these Formics here, they should be in crisis mode. They were just attacked. They would be on high alert. And did you watch them? Did you notice how they did things simultaneously, even when they weren’t looking at one another?”

  “It was almost as if they were speaking to each other,” said Imala.

  “Exactly. In fact, I think they are speaking to each other. Only they do it in a way we can’t see. Mind to mind.”

  “You mean telepathy?”

  “I know it sounds absurd, Imala, but they respond instantly to stimuli that they can’t possibly have known about unless someone told them. And yet no one tells them anything.” He crawled out of his hiding place. “I left my helmetcam in the helm. Keep recording everything. I’m coming back your way. We’re returning to Luna. I’ve learned everything I can here.”

  “Hallelujah. Be careful.”

  He made his way back, retracing his route, staying in the shadows and avoiding being seen. The wide shaft by the garden went directly to the cargo bay as he had hoped. The flotsam from the human ships had drifted back up into the center of the room. The repair crew was nowhere in sight. Victor made his way to the shaft he had first used and followed it back to where he had cut his way into the ship. He crawled outside, sealed the hole, removed the bubble, and flew back up to where the Formic cannon lay crushed against the side of the hull. There was a hole among the wreckage large enough for him to crawl through, and he wiggled out, free of the ship.

  He spotted the shuttle, aimed his body, and pushed off lightly, exerting just enough force to move at a slow drift. It took him over an hour to reach the shuttle at that pace. When he crawled back into the cockpit, he was so happy to see Imala that he extended his arms to embrace her. She made a face and held up a hand, stopping him. “You’ve got Formic dung and glow-bug juice all over your suit. Don’t even think about touching me.”

  Victor wiped a speck of gunk off his chest and wiggled the soiled finger in front of her.

  Imala was not amused. “Any closer and I will break that finger.”

  He smiled, grabbed the wipes from their compartment, and began cleaning himself. “I’m alive, Imala. I didn’t think I would be, but here I am, kicking and breathing. It’s going to take more than your sour grumpiness to dampen this mood.”

  “We’ve made a video, Vico. That’s it. We haven’t ended the war.”

  “Focus too closely on the goal you haven’t accomplished, and you’ll fail to notice the victories you achieve along the way.”

  “Who said that?” Imala asked. “Churchill? Sun Tzu?”

  “No,” said Victor. “My father.”

  Imala looked up from the console, smiling. “You’re right. This is a victory, isn’t it? A big one. Maybe someone will see this vid and know how to destroy the ship.”

  A wide grin broke across Victor’s face. “But Imala, my sweet, that someone is me. I know precisely how to destroy this ship.”

  She stared at him. “Then why are we leaving?”

  “Because we can’t do it alone. We need the right crew. When we have them, we’ll come back and finish this.”

  “We’re coming back?”

  Victor pulled himself into his seat and began buckling up. “Never leave a job unfinished, Imala.”

  She turned back to the flight controls. “More quotes from your father?”

  “No. That one is all me.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Dozers

  A pounding on the door woke Mazer with a start. He sat up in bed in the dark, remembering where he was. The hotel room. Lianzhou. A safe place. He checked the time on the wrist pad Shenzu had given him the night before. It was just past three in the morning.

  He threw back the sheet and swung out of bed, the images of his dream slowly fading like vapor. He had been with Kim at the salt marshes of Manukau Harbor. They had come to watch the godwits wade in the marshes and jab their long needlelike beaks into the mud searching for food. There had been tens of thousands of the birds, all squawking and chirping and taking to flight like a swarm, moving as one.

  Only, the godwits had changed. One moment they were fat, long-beaked birds, the next they were Formics, miniature in size, scuttling through the water on all six appendages, scampering across the mud and then onto dry land, rushing toward Mazer and Kim like a wave, thousands of them, each growing larger with every step until the Formics were actual size and then twice their size. And Kim had grabbed Mazer’s arm and screamed, and an instant later her scream was a high-pitched clicking noise, and she was wasn’t Kim after all, she was a Formic, with her maw wide open, ready to envelop him.

  Three more knocks on the door. Hard and insistent.

  Mazer found his pants, dressed, and made his way through the dark to the door. Two Chinese soldiers with flashlights were standing in the hall. One was a lie bing, the other a zhongzhi, or the Chinese equivalent of a private and a sergeant.

  “Please come with us,” said the zhongzhi in Chinese. “You and Captain O’Toole are wanted downstairs immediately.”

  Mazer finished dressing and grabbed what little gear he had. They stopped at Wit’s room on the way and roused him. “What’s this about?” Wit asked.

  The Chinese soldiers didn’t answer.

  “I don’t think they speak English,” said Mazer. He translated Wit’s question into Chinese, and the soldiers responded.

  “Captain Shenzu will explain,” said the zhongzhi.

  They reached the lobby and found Shenzu conferring with a young officer in a biosuit. Shenzu motioned them over and gestured to the man opposite. “Captain Rackham, Captain O’Toole, this is Lieutenant Hunyan. He’ll be leading the convoy to Dragon’s Den. We’ve had a slight change of plans.”

  Hunyan held up his wrist pad and projected a map in the air in front of them. “This is the route the convoy will take. Most of it is a straight shot west across this state highway here. We sent out dozer crews two days ago to clear the road, and they’ve been pushing aside abandoned cars and obstructions ever since. That is, until four hours ago. We lost contact with them here.” Hunyan tapped a spot on the route about sixty klicks out. “They were hit by a swarm of Formic skimmers. We have satellite images of the aftermath.”

  Hunyan brought up one of the infrared images. The devastation was obvious. Three dozers lay
in ruins. They were massive, bulky vehicles, not street dozers or landscapers, but the large industrial breed, with impenetrable cabs and wheels three meters high. Each dozer had a long, V-shaped blade that jutted out from the front like a spearhead. The blades were almost twice as wide as the vehicle and nearly as long—giving the dozer a threatening aspect, like a giant iron arrow. One of the dozers was burning, smoke billowing up from its cabin, obscuring the image somewhat. Another dozer lay on its side, the left half of it crunched inward. A third had a gaping hole in the center where a blast of plasma had seared straight through.

  “Any survivors?” asked Wit.

  “One of the drivers,” said Hunyan. “This dozer here, the one turned on its side. The driver’s stuck in the cab. We sent an armored vehicle to rescue him.”

  “Judging by the look on your face and the fact that you pulled us out of bed,” said Wit, “I’m guessing your armored vehicle never reached its destination.”

  “Sadly no,” said Hunyan. He swiped through the holofield and a new sat image appeared. It showed a different stretch of road, the features all outlined in a varying shades of gray. An armored vehicle lay in two pieces on the asphalt, the edges jagged and twisted as if it had been ripped in half. A tire engulfed in flames was burning in the grass nearby. A Chinese soldier lay on his back in the middle of the road, a pool of blood beneath him. Two shapes that appeared to be Formics were standing beside the man’s body, hovering over him.

  Wit reached into the holofield and spread his thumb and index finger apart, zooming in on the Formics. The move didn’t help; the image was still fuzzy. “What are the Formics doing to him?”

  “They pulled him from the wreckage,” said Hunyan. He made another gesture in the field, and a vid began. It was the driver’s helmet feed, from immediately after the crash. The video was dark and green, with lines of interference and static dancing across the screen. The man was on his side. His biometrics in the corner of the vid suggested serious injury. His blood pressure was dropping. His breathing was labored.

  Dark shapes appeared, pulling the metal of the cabin back. Two Formics, bug-eyed and calm, equipment in their hands. The soldier gave a weak protestation. His heart rate accelerated. He tried backing away, but there was nowhere to go. Hands reached in and lifted him out. The man cried out in pain. A small silhouette of the soldier’s body in the upper right corner of the feed began flashing red over the leg. There was serious trauma to the man’s femur.

  The image shook as the Formics carried the man out and laid him on the asphalt. One of the Formics reached in and removed the helmet. The world spun. The helmet was set on the ground, pointing away from the man now, back at the wreckage.

  “There’s a full minute of silence here,” said Hunyan. “We don’t know what transpires. The driver’s blood pressure continues to drop until he flatlines. We think he bled out. We don’t know if the Formics did anything to him.” Hunyan reached in and switched off the vid. “After that the Formics left.”

  “What do you want us to do?” said Wit.

  “The driver of the overturned dozer at the site of the first attack is still stuck in his cab, alive,” said Hunyan. “And we still have five kilometers of road to clear. I need you and Captain Rackham to free the driver. Then you’ll provide cover while the driver clears the rest of the road. Otherwise, our convoy can’t get through.”

  “The dozers are all damaged,” said Wit. “Unless you have another one, no one’s clearing anything.”

  Hunyan turned to Mazer. “I’m told you’re a HERC pilot.”

  “He’s the best HERC pilot,” said Wit. “What you are thinking? Flying a dozer out there?”

  “It’s faster than driving one,” said Hunyan. Then to Mazer, “Have you ever carried a load that heavy?”

  “Weight isn’t an issue,” said Mazer. “The grav lenses deflect gravity waves from Earth, sending them around the aircraft. All I need to do is adjust the lenses to perfectly balance with the landforms and maintain a constant distance.”

  “What if the driver is too injured to finish the job?” said Wit.

  “Then I’ll drive the dozer,” said Shenzu. “I’m coming with you. You just make sure a skimmer doesn’t drop a plasma slug in my lap.”

  “Dragon’s Den is much closer to the damaged dozers than we are,” said Mazer. “Why not send a rescue team from their end?”

  “They can’t reach our man,” said Hunyan. “They don’t have dozers to get through the obstructions.”

  “So much for a full night’s sleep,” said Mazer. “Where’s the airfield?”

  Hunyan led them outside where a truck was waiting. Shenzu, Wit, and Mazer climbed up into the bed, and Hunyan got behind the wheel. They drove west through the city, the truck’s headlights cutting through the darkness. The night air was cool and damp, and Mazer pulled his jacket tight around him. They saw no one and heard nothing. The buildings stood like giant hovering shadows, dark and vacant and eerily quiet. A stale, rotting smell permeated the streets: uncollected trash, perhaps, or the stagnant water of the sewer lines, kept still because the power was out.

  On the outskirts of town, the buildings gave way to large industrial complexes, with their oddly shaped pipes, towers, and silos. Next came the flat rice fields, which to Mazer’s surprise were still alive, the tall grass swaying in the dark like the surface of the sea.

  Hunyan turned onto a service road, passed through an open security fence, and drove up onto the tarmac at a small airfield. A HERC sat parked outside a hangar, where a team of technicians with lights on their helmets were giving it a once-over. Beside the HERC was an armored spearhead dozer, its massive blade extending outward like a wedge. The satellite image hadn’t done the spearhead justice. It was twice as large as Mazer thought it would be. Each wheel was taller than the truck.

  “You sure that little aircraft can pick up that thing?” said Wit. “That’s like an orange lifting a pineapple.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Mazer. “Science is on our side.”

  Hunyan parked the truck inside the hangar beside three large crates. He hopped out, opened the crates, and began distributing the gear. “You’ll wear these biosuits at all times. Each can carry four mini tanks of O2. There’s extra oxygen in the HERC. I’d advise you to keep at least two cans on your person at all times.” He handed Wit an assault rifle. “It has built-in smart targeting. Pick your Formic with your HUD, and the smart munitions do the rest. If the target’s within a thousand meters, it’s a near guaranteed kill. Snap on this secondary barrel here for the grenade launcher.”

  Wit snapped on the barrel and removed it, getting a feel for the mechanism. Mazer took a rifle and a box of grenade rounds then unwrapped the biosuit and pulled it on over his clothing.

  “We’ll be tracking your progress from here,” said Hunyan. “Good luck.”

  Shenzu, Wit, and Mazer zipped up their biosuits, donned their helmets, and loaded into the HERC. Shenzu sat in the copilot’s seat while Wit buckled into a jump seat back in the main cabin.

  “You give the word to go, Shenzu,” said Wit. “This is your op.”

  “I’m just the liaison officer,” said Shenzu. “You’re the experienced field commander. I say you’re in charge.”

  “Very well,” said Wit. “Mazer, take us up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mazer lifted off, maneuvered the HERC over the dozer, and turned on the talons, which unfolded from the side of the HERC and descended to the dozer like giant spider legs. Four of the talons gripped the dozer’s side and lifted it off the ground to allow the last two talons to extend underneath and lock in place beneath it. Mazer ran a few tests to ensure the load was secure, then he adjusted the lenses and slowly lifted off.

  They picked up the highway south of Lianzhou and flew straight up the center of the road, low and fast, the bottom of the dozer just a few meters off the ground.

  “Watch the skies,” said Wit. “With a load like this, we’re easy targets. We’ll have very li
ttle maneuverability.”

  “If something zeroes in on us,” said Mazer, “we should set the dozer down, land fast, abandon the HERC, and make for cover.”

  “Why not drop the dozer and fight?” asked Shenzu.

  “Because dying doesn’t accomplish anything,” said Mazer. “This isn’t a combat aircraft. It’s a load carrier. It’s not nimble. The Formics can dance around us. I learned that the hard way. Plus we’re not armed for a fight. We’ve got a few rockets and a laser. That hardly makes us battle-ready. If we fight, we lose.”

  “He’s right,” said Wit. “If the bugs close in, we bail or we fail.”

  They flew in silence, Mazer watching the radar screen for Formics. It felt strange to fly without Patu, Fatani, and Reinhardt beside him. They had been with him through thousands of flight hours, every takeoff, every maneuver.

  And now they were gone.

  Mazer had played the crash over and over again in his mind. The HERC had fallen in a dead drop from a low altitude. The chutes had failed, and the rotor blades hadn’t deployed fast enough. All things considered, Mazer should have died also, and yet somehow here he was, saved by airbags and luck with nothing more than an ugly gut wound to show for it.

  It was the angle at which the HERC had landed that had saved him. Fatani was heavy and sitting on the opposite side and in the rear, and perhaps that was what had tipped the HERC just enough to have it land the way it did, with Mazer farther from the ground than the others at the moment of impact, giving his airbags a microsecond more time to deploy.

  He never saw what punctured his lower abdomen. A torn section from the front console perhaps. Or a flying piece of shrapnel. Whatever it was, he was lucky it hadn’t torn him in half. Perhaps he had removed it immediately after the crash, yanking it out in some survival reflex. He couldn’t remember. Everything was hazy at that point, a murky blur of noise and heat and pain.