Earth Afire (The First Formic War)

performance. It wore no clothing. Strapped to its back was a large semitransparent canister filled with fluid that sloshed around inside. Its head was turned away from them. It looked to be about four feet tall. It’s skin was covered in a short, fuzzy fur, yet the hair was thin, like the hair on a man’s arm, affording Mazer a clear view of the creature’s skin, which was earth tones, mostly deep reds with splotches of orange and yellow and green. Like an insect.
    “Let me shoot it,” said Patu.
    “Wait,” said Mazer. “Let’s see what it does.”
    After a moment the creature seemed to compose itself and gather strength. It tried to maneuver its hands in such a way to lower itself to the ground, but when it shifted its weight, it tumbled over the side and fell hard to the ground. The creature inhaled sharply as if stabbed with pain but made no other sound. It lay still for a moment, breathing. Then slowly, with great effort, it tried to get to its feet. At first it failed. The arms on its left side were limp and apparently broken. The left leg was twisted slightly, bent at an angle that didn’t match the right leg it was using. It must have been thrown around violently during the wreck.
    Mazer could now see that a tube extended from the bottom of the canister on the creature’s back. At the end of the tube was a short wand, not unlike the pack a pest-control worker might wear.
    The creature got its good leg under it. Then, pushing upward with that leg, putting its back against the aircraft as support, it slowly got to its feet. Mazer almost pitied it then. It was such a short, broken thing. But the feeling lasted only an instant. He tightened his grip on his gun, aiming at the creature’s head.
    The creature hobbled forward, still oblivious to their presence. One painful step after another it put weight on its bad leg as it shuffled along. It reached the end of the lander and continued moving forward in the grass.
    “Where’s it going?” said Fatani.
    “Don’t know,” said Mazer. “Keep on eye on the aircraft in case another one comes out.”
    He stepped toward the alien walking away from them, his gun still up, following it. The creature was moving slow. It couldn’t go far. Mazer knew he needed to kill it. But what then? Should they try to recover the body? Surely China would want to study it. And if not the alien then at least whatever the alien was carrying in its container.
    The creature reached behind it with its good, smaller hand and found the tube from the canister. It passed the tube up to its larger hand. The two hands worked in tandem, sliding down the tube until they found the wand, which the creature grabbed and pointed at the grass in front of it. A yellow mist emanated. The grass immediately wilted and turned black, dying.
    Alarms started going off in Mazer’s helmet. A biohazard alert.
    “Masks!” shouted Mazer, retreating a few steps. He blinked the command, and the oxygen mask inside his helmet pressed against his face, covering his mouth and nose. He felt the suction of it and knew the seal was tight. Fresh oxygen poured in.
    “Back off,” he said. “It’s spraying some kind of defoliant.”
    “It’s in the air,” said Fatani. “My helmet’s going berserk.”
    The creature continued spraying. Wide swaths of grass around it died. The mist swirled and grew, carried away from them by the wind.
    “We’ve got to do something,” said Patu.
    Mazer hesitated a moment longer then pulled the trigger. His gun discharged. The creature took the round to the head and dropped. The wand stopped spraying.
    “It’s the defoliant,” said Mazer. “There are traces of it in the air. Get back to the HERC. Reinhardt, move the HERC upwind.”
    The HERC lifted slightly into the air and moved thirty meters north before it set down again.
    “What if that thing isn’t dead?” said Fatani.
    “I got it,” said Mazer. “Get back inside. Touch nothing. Don’t sit down. Whatever it was spraying may be on your clothes.”
    They moved. Mazer blinked a command and turned on the thermal imaging. The creature on the ground showed a slight heat signature. Faint but it was clearly warm-blooded. Mazer squeezed off four more rounds, just to be sure. The creature took each in the back, jerking slightly as if kicked. Otherwise it didn’t move. The head wound was bleeding out in the grass.
    Mazer turned to the alien aircraft and climbed up on top of it. He stood at the edge of the door and