The HERC was moving fast, flying at an altitude of four thousand meters toward a billowing cloud of dust far ahead of it in the distance. Mazer zoomed in as far as his HUD would allow, but he still couldn’t see the downed lander from here. It was hidden behind several crests of mountains. “Patu, talk to me. What’s going on? I need a sat feed on that lander. I need video.”
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” said Patu. “The whole network is going berserk. Everyone in the world is piggybacking on all the satellites pointed at southern China. I’m only picking up bits of intel here and there. All three landers are down. I know that much. They’re roughly three hundred klicks apart and form a line that starts in the southeast corner of Guangdong province and crosses up to the northeast corner of Guangxi province. We’re heading toward the second lander. The first one set down east of the Nangao Reservoir in Luhe County, about sixty klicks north of the coast.”
“Populated area?”
“Not at the point of impact, no. It’s mostly forested mountains. There are several villages nearby. A few towns. But nothing densely populated. We lucked out on that one.”
“What’s the lander doing?”
“Right now, near as I can tell, it’s not doing anything. It’s just sitting there.”
“What about the second lander?”
“Impact site is in a valley south of a town called Dawanzhen. Mostly rice lands. Several villages are clustered in that area. Again, not densely populated, but certainly more people than where the first lander put down. Casualties are likely.”
Mazer turned to the pilot’s seat. “Reinhardt, what’s our ETA?”
“We’ll be on top of that thing in under three minutes,” said Reinhardt. “What I want to know is: What do we plan on doing once we get there? We’re not packing a lot of heat, Mazer. This thing is a training aircraft, remember? We’re not carrying any rockets. We got a few slicers and that’s it, no heavy air support. If we get in a fight, we could be in trouble.”
“We’re not looking for a fight,” said Mazer. “Our job is recon and rescue. We help people on the ground and learn as much as we can about the lander. We’ll send live feeds back to Auckland and to the Chinese. The more they know, the better they can prepare. Patu, what about the third lander?”
“Not good. It set down right outside a city named Guilin on the west bank of the Li River. Population two-point-seven million.”
Mazer winced. A dense population compounded their problems a hundredfold. It had landed outside the city, though; that was some comfort. At least the lander hadn’t parked downtown. “Fatani, find every emergency and news feed you can coming out of that city and relay it to Auckland and to base command. Also see if you can patch in to any seismographic feeds. My guess is that thing felt like an earthquake when it hit. There may be buildings down, utilities disabled.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” said Fatani. “But don’t hold your breath. It won’t be easy to breach their system in under three minutes. And don’t forget it’s all in Chinese.”
“Do the best you can,” said Mazer. He clicked over to the radio. “Red Dragon, Red Dragon, this is Captain Rackham, do you read, over?”
Shenzu’s head appeared in the holofield. He looked furious. “Captain Rackham, turn your aircraft around immediately. Do not approach the alien landers. I repeat, change your course at once and return to base. The landers are on Chinese soil. That makes them our concern, not yours.”
“They’re on Earth,” said Mazer. “That makes them everyone’s concern.”
Shenzu said, “Captain, you are flying in a stolen aircraft. You have zero authorization to be in Chinese airspace. You are violating international law. Your commanding officer in Auckland has conveyed to us that he has ordered you to return to base. We have given you the same order. Unless you comply immediately we will have no choice but to shoot you down. We will not allow you to provoke the landers and endanger our citizens.”
“We’re trying to help your citizens,” said Mazer. “The second lander is right in front of us. There might be casualties. We can be there in under two minutes and provide immediate medical assistance. There are no airfields or bases remotely close to here. It will take medevacs a while to reach that position. We’re the best you’ve got for emergency air support.”
“That is not your concern.”
“You want us to abandon these people?”