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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.
