Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

into the first hole, went underground for about four meters, and then came up through the second hole and moved on toward the lander. That’s strange, isn’t it? If he was heading for the lander, why not walk straight to it? Why bother going underground?”
    “Unless he can’t walk straight to it,” Mazer said.
    “Exactly. There must be something there in his way, something invisible, which forces him to crawl under it to get through.”
    “A shield.” Mazer gestured for the binocs, and Bingwen passed them to him. Mazer focused the lenses and looked where Bingwen was pointing.
    “You see that big red metal thing that looks like a water tower?” said Bingwen. “There’s a pipe at its base. Follow that west for about fifty meters, and there’s the hole.”
    “I see it.” Mazer watched the hole. In time, a pair of Formics came carrying a beam of metal between them. They crawled into the hole, dragging the pipe behind them, and disappeared. A moment later, they emerged through the second hole. Once on their feet, they shouldered the beam and moved on toward the lander.
    “You know what this means, don’t you?” said Bingwen. “It means the shield doesn’t go underground. It’s only covering what’s above the surface.”
    “Did you see any other holes?”
    “No, but it can’t be the only one. There are hundreds of workers down there. If they sleep in the lander, that one hole would bottleneck at the beginning and end of every shift. There have to be others.”
    Mazer scanned for several minutes. “I’ve counted three other sets of holes, all of them like the set you found. One hole outside the shield, one inside.”
    “And those are just the ones we can see from here,” said Bingwen. “There are probably dozens of these holes all around the lander. This is it. This is the answer. We have to tell the army. They can send in soldiers through the holes to take the lander.”
    “No,” said Mazer. “We’re not going in through the holes. The holes aren’t the answer.”
    “But…” Bingwen’s voice broke off suddenly, and Mazer saw a look of horror on the boy’s face. He was staring at something over Mazer’s head, behind him. Mazer spun onto his back and saw that a troop transport had landed on the hilltop. Formics poured out of it, running in their direction, riflelike weapons in their top sets of arms.
    Mazer was on his feet in an instant, lifting Bingwen and pushing him back the way they had come. “Run!”
    Bingwen ran.
    Mazer rushed forward, dropped to one knee, his gun in his hand, the wrist brace snapping into place with a click-click-click . The Formics were sprinting toward him, thirty meters away. Mazer fired a dozen shots, and five Formics dropped. Seven more kept coming. Mazer turned and was on his feet again, sprinting. He scooped up the pack as he ran past it, throwing it over one shoulder, then another. He dropped the clip from the gun and snapped in the second magazine. He fired a four-round burst behind him as he ran. Another Formic fell.
    Bingwen was ahead of him, running along the ridge of the hill as fast as his legs would carry him, which wasn’t nearly fast enough. Mazer caught up to him almost immediately. To their left was the lander and hundreds of Formics. To their right was the steep muddy slope they had so painstakingly ascended. There was only one thing to do, Mazer realized. They had no cover up here, nowhere to dig in and fight. They couldn’t make a stand. They were completely exposed.
    Mazer scooped up Bingwen into his arms. “Hold on tight!”
    Bingwen wrapped his arms around Mazer’s neck and buried his face into Mazer’s shoulder. No hesitation. Immediate obedience.
    Then Mazer cut hard to the right where an outcrop of rock extended beyond the edge of the hill.
    He ran to the end of it at a full sprint.
    And jumped out into space.
    The hill was steep, and Mazer and Bingwen dropped ten meters before hitting the slope and shooting down the mud on Mazer’s back, using the pack like a luge sled. The ground gave way all around them, sliding off the slope like a sheet pulled from a bed. Mazer could feel the mud gathering around them like a wave, threatening to consume them, swallow them, bury them alive. Mazer kept his legs stiff out in front of him, toes pointed, clinging to Bingwen, trying to maintain as much speed as possible.
    They would have to hit the ground running, he knew. They couldn’t be caught at the base of the hill on Mazer’s back.