Wit closed off the part of him that allowed him to mourn. There was no time. He spoke fast into his headset.
“Calinga, we need to get these people out of here. The Formics collect their dead. More might be here at any moment. I want this highway cleared, the bodies buried, and the people on the road immediately.”
Everyone moved quickly. The civilians were in a state. Confused, terrified, panicked. Seven more civilians had died in the attack. Others had run off into the forests and not come back. Calinga found the ones who were coherent and could take orders and put them to work, gathering and calming the others. MOPs fired up the Rhinos and moved the vehicles blocking the road. Other MOPs pulled the bodies into the grave and pushed in the dirt. The most recent deaths were lowered in, some of them piece by piece. It was crude and fast and no way to handle fallen soldiers, but it was better than leaving them out on the road.
Calinga and his team gathered the surviving civilians and put those who didn’t have vehicles with those who did. Once everyone was loaded up, the MOPs directed the traffic and got everyone moving north.
Wit and his team didn’t pause to mourn those they had lost. There was no time. They drove the Rhinos farther off the road, concealing them in the nearest trees. Then they hiked back to the downed troop transport and waited.
Their containment suits were a bright yellow, probably made for field research, certainly not for combat. But they were tight fitting without being uncomfortable and offered plenty of mobility—perfect for the job at hand, really, except in terms of camouflage, and that could be easily remedied. Yet even with non-chameleonic suits, the MOPs were still able to hide themselves. In moments all of them were invisible, even to Wit. Trees, brush, abandoned vehicles. They melded with the landscape.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. The transports were silent, so Wit watched the sky. Finally he saw them. Two transports, flying low on approach, moving fast. At first Wit thought they wouldn’t stop—they showed no sign of slowing. Then they descended quickly to the right and left of the downed transport.
Doors opened. Formics emerged. Alien hands picked up the fallen Formics.
Then Wit gave the order and all hell broke loose. He had been clear in his instructions. Do not let the transports in the air. That’s where the firepower was. Take out the pilot first. Cripple the ship. Then mop up the others.
The men moved fast and efficiently. The transports remained grounded. Formics fell. It was over in less than ten seconds.
When the smoked cleared, Wit stepped up into the transport. There were dead Formics at his feet, their blood on the floor of the ship thick like syrup. Wit took video of everything. The flight controls, the switches and levers. He had no idea what anything did, and he did not experiment. He did the same outside. Every inch of the machine.
His preference was to get the aircraft into human hands for examination, but that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, once they documented as much as they could, they fired two incendiary grenades and burned the vehicles.
Then they headed south, sticking to secondary roads and avoiding people as much as possible. As they went, Wit updated their site. He explained the new “kill, bait, and ambush” strategy: Take out a few infantry Formics, then lie in wait for the transport to collect them, and hit the corpse-recovery team. He stressed the importance of hitting the pilot first and avoiding the transport fire. He uploaded video, photos, and directions of attack—it was best to rush the transport from behind and slightly to the left or right, giving you a clear shot of the cockpit where the pilot was positioned as soon as possible. Attacking from the front was suicide.
Wit then checked the site’s forum. He already had five different media requests for interviews. They all wanted the same thing: the face behind MOPs, the human-interest story, the juicy details that would set the ratings on fire.
Wit’s typed response was the same for all. “Who we are is irrelevant. Help the effort by broadcasting what we’ve learned. Show the vids. Share the tactics. Invite others in the fight to share their tactics, too. Focus on saving lives instead of offering useless entertainment.”
Some would honor his request. Most wouldn’t. What did they gain by playing the same vids as everyone else? They wanted exclusive content. They wanted exposés on MOPs, bios of its members, photos of loved ones back home.
Wit programmed the forum to filter any future media request and reply with his rote response.
Soon there were other posts as well. Anonymous messages from Chinese soldiers. Some expressed gratitude. Others shared information they had gleaned.
THE FORMICS DON’T SEEM TO USE RADIO. WE CAN’T DETECT ANYTHING. THEY DON’T SEEM TO RECOGNIZE OUR RADIO EITHER. OR IF THEY DO, THEY DON’T SEEM TO CARE.
THE FORMICS HEARING IS ODD. IT’S NOT ACUTE LIKE OURS. IT SEEMS TO BE BASED MORE ON PERTURBATIONS IN THE AIR, WHICH THEY CAN DETECT. LIKE BATS.