Earth unaware

CHAPTER 22

MOPs

Wit O’Toole sat in the passenger seat of the Air Shark attack helicopter as it flew south from the village of Pakuli in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Below him, dense lowland tropical forests began to mix with shorter, montane trees as the chopper left the river valley and moved up into the foothills. Breaks in the trees revealed small, isolated family farms with simple wooden homes built amid fields of maize or coffee. As the chopper rose in elevation, terraced rice fields came into view, clinging to the slopes of the highlands like a staircase of green climbing up the landscape. If not for the burning villages and corpses rotting in the sun, Wit might think this a paradise.

Indonesia was having two civil wars at once. The government of Sulawesi was fighting an Islamist extremist group known as the Remeseh here in the mountains, while the government of New Guinea was fighting native insurgents on that island. Civilians were stuck in the crosshairs, and the situation was getting bloody enough that the developed world was almost beginning to care. News of the burning church might be exactly the sort of human-interest story to make the media take notice. People’s eyes glazed over headlines about mountain farmers murdered in Indonesia. But tell them that Islamist militants had locked a congregation of Christians in their small mountain chapel and burned the building to the ground with the people inside, and suddenly you’ve got news people care about.

Wit hoped that was true. The people of Indonesia needed help-more help than the MOPs could provide. And if the church incident would turn the world’s eyes to the plight of Sulawesi then perhaps the people burned alive hadn’t died in vain.

Wit turned to Calinga sitting in the pilot’s seat. “Take vids of everything. But be discreet about it, don’t let the people see that we’re taking vids.”

Calinga nodded. He understood.

The cameras on the helmets and suits were small enough and concealed enough that Wit wasn’t too concerned about the villagers taking notice-most of them had probably never seen tech like that anyway. He was more concerned about him and Calinga getting the right kind of shots. The smoldering bodies. The blackened, charred remains of a child’s toy or doll. The weeping women of the village mourning the loss of loved ones. The media was starving for that type of horror, and if Wit could give it to them, then he might be able to begin the sequence of events that might eventually result in aid for the people of Indonesia.

That effort would take months, though. The war on apathy moved much slower than real wars fought on the ground. Enough citizens and human rights groups would have to see the vids and get angry enough and complain to legislators enough that eventually someone with authority would actually take action. It wouldn’t be easy. If the economy took another dive or if some politician or celebrity was caught in a sex scandal, the media would go back to ignoring Indonesia and no aid or protection would come.

Wit wasn’t on a mission to turn public opinion, though. Getting the vids was a tertiary objective. His first order of business was to recover the body of one of his men who had died in the attack. Then he would deal with the Remeseh who had burned the church, either taking them into custody-which was never ideal-or taking them down-which was never pretty.

Wit saw the pillars of smoke long before they reached the village of Toro. The chapel would be little more than a smoldering heap by now, but the terrorists had set other fires, and the wind had likely blown some of the flames into the grasslands.

Calinga set the helicopter down in the village a block south of where the church had burned. Hundreds of villagers were gathered, but they gave the helicopter a wide berth and turned their heads away from the wind of the rotor blades. Wit and Calinga climbed down in full combat gear, and Wit could see the villagers’ faces change from fear to relief. They knew who MOPs were and the protection they provided. Some cheered. Some wept openly, clasping their hands in front of them. Others, especially children, crowded around Wit and Calinga, motioning them to follow them up to the chapel. Everyone was speaking Indonesian at once, and Wit could only pick up bits and pieces. They were telling him his man was dead.

They meant Bogdanovich, one of the MOPs from Wit’s most recent round of recruits. Wit had sent the Russian to the village weeks ago with Averbach, a more senior MOP, to protect the village from strikes the Remeseh were conducting all across the highlands. When a firefight to the south had broken out between the Remeseh and a group of farmers, Wit had ordered Bogdanovich and Averbach to go and offer support.

Bogdanovich, however, had refused to leave the village, fearing the firefight was a distraction for a coordinated strike on the village. Averbach ended up going south alone. When he had returned, the chapel was burning, and Bogdanovich was dead in the street.

Wit arrived at the chapel and found Averbach carrying out bodies. Several of the corpses already lay in the street covered with sheets, and villagers were wailing and crying and raising their arms heavenward as they identified the dead.

There were other bodies, too. About ten men. All riddled with bullets or other wounds, lying in circles of their own blood. Several women and children were throwing rocks at these corpses, spitting and shouting curses and screaming through their tears. Bogdanovich hadn’t gone down without a fight apparently.

An elderly woman was kneeling beside another body, this one wrapped in bloody sheets and sprinkled with flower petals. The villagers and children pointed at the body and told Wit what he already suspected. It was Bogdanovich.

Wit nodded and thanked them, then went directly to Averbach, whose face was covered in soot and sweat, and who had gone back into the chapel to retrieve more of the dead. Wit and Calinga pulled on their latex gloves and fell into step beside him. Without speaking they delicately helped Averbach lift another body from the ashes and onto a sheet, which they then used as a stretcher to carry the body out into the street. It was gruesome, horrific work. The air was thick with the scent of charred human remains, and the timbers and ashes continued to smolder, burning Wit’s eyes with the smoke. It took a great deal of concentration for Wit to control his gag reflex and maintain a reverent composure.

When they finished, twenty-six charred bodies lay in a line, some of them burned beyond recognition. Many of them were children. A block away another fire was burning in the street. Some of the villagers had dragged the dead Remeseh militants into a heap and set the bodies on fire. Bogdanovich remained untouched, and now more of the village’s elderly women kneeled beside him, offering their respect and prayers.

Wit spoke in his broken Indonesian to one of the men, asking if anyone in the village had seen in which direction the surviving Remeseh had fled. As he suspected, no shortage of people came forward. They all pointed to the south.

“I will leave one of my men here with you,” Wit told them in Indonesian. “He will protect you. He is as good a soldier as Bogdanovich, if not better.”

“No one is better,” the crowd cried. “No one is braver. More would have died if not for him.”

Wit got the stretcher down from the chopper, then he and Calinga delicately lifted Bogdanovich into a body bag. They kept him wrapped in the sheets, then loaded the body into the Air Shark. Calinga stayed behind. Wit took the pilot’s seat, and Averbach sat shotgun.

When they were up in the air, Averbach said, “This is my fault. Bog had gone local. He had fallen in love with one of the women in the village. Nothing ever happened between them. They were never alone. But I noticed the furtive looks she gave him. And I noticed that he noticed and didn’t seem to mind. He never said anything to me, but I should have told you. We should have pulled him out. It clouded his judgment.”

“I figured as much,” said Wit. “It wasn’t like Bog to disobey an order.”

“The villagers said Bog would have taken down all the Remeseh if not for the chapel. The woman was inside. When the Remeseh set it on fire and padlocked the door, Bog went for it. He tried to give himself enough cover to reach the door, but it was a trap. They had three snipers waiting. They burned the church, not to kill the people inside but to flush Bog out.” Averbach shook his head. “I should have been with him. I could have taken the snipers.”

“I sent you south,” said Wit. “You obeyed orders. That’s what you should have done.”

They flew south, but saw little through the jungle canopy. After an hour of searching they headed back to Pakuli and delivered Bogdanovich’s body to the medical team who would prepare it for shipment back to Russia.

Another one lost, thought Wit. That was four in Indonesia. Four too many.

He had hoped that the Indians would join in the fight. He could use the PCs; they were excellent trackers. But the Indians were being skittish. The PCs were willing, but the powers that be didn’t want to commit troops.

I need more men, thought Wit. I should have taken that Maori bastard, Mazer Rackham. I could use him about now.

He sent a squad up into the jungle south of Toro village, but he didn’t expect them to find much. The Remeseh were long gone by now-they had likely been long gone before Wit had even reached the village.

He returned to his tent and set up his terminal. Calinga had collected all the video he had taken at the village and sent it to Wit’s inbox. Wit reviewed the footage along with his own and edited a three-minute piece that showed the horror and suffering in Toro. He didn’t censor himself. He showed everything. The bodies. The mourning. The ashes. He added no music. He didn’t need to sensationalize it. The raw video would speak for itself. He titled the file “Victims of the Remeseh,” then added the date and location. He then uploaded it to the nets and waited. The following morning several news organizations had picked up the video, though even these had buried it.

The story getting the most attention on the nets was an unexplained interference of space communications. Scientists on Earth and Luna said it was an increase in cosmic radiation, although no one could determine a source. In fact, the interference seemed to be coming from all directions at once, raising background noise to a shout and making it impossible to communicate in space. A reputable astronomer was doing the rounds on the talk-show circuit prattling on about unexplained gamma bursts, but he offered up no explanation. Many commercial and passenger flights to and from Luna were temporarily suspended, and representatives from the space-mining industry were making official statements to the press, assuring the families of corporate miners that the companies were doing all they could to ensure the safety of their employees and to determine the source of the problem.

Wit’s first thought was terrorists. It was a brilliant way to cripple commerce and devastate the economy, particularly in those countries that had become so dependent on the space trade. But he eventually dismissed this idea. He couldn’t imagine a terrorist group with enough scientific talent and resources to construct a device powerful enough to pull off this level of interference, to say nothing of getting the thing in space.

What’s more, the inference was gradually getting louder: The background noise was increasing in volume, suggesting that the device in space was either increasing in power, or whatever was causing it was getting closer to Earth.

A news site had a related headline stating: NUTTY NETTERS PEG INTERFERENCE ON ALIENS.

Wit selected the link and read the article. The reporter was having a laugh at the hundred or so vids that had popped up on the nets recently, claiming that the interference was caused by aliens. Wit followed the links and watched a number of the vids. Many were talking heads: mostly conspiracy theorists rattling off quasi-science and making vague references to government cover-ups. (Nutty indeed.) Others were quite entertaining. They ranged from the ridiculous to the comical to the sadly pathetic. Poems, songs, even a puppet show, which Wit couldn’t help but laugh at. Most of them had zero production value, but several had been made using every device of movie magic to create creatures and environments so lifelike and so believable that Wit had to watch them two or three times to find the imperfections that disproved their authenticity.

The comments for most of the vids were what he would expect. Hate, mockery, cruel personal attacks. But occasionally, particularly on those vids that had re-created aliens with striking realism, the comments were more congratulatory: Well done! Looked real. You almost had me. Peed my pants!

Wit knew the vids were fake. But he couldn’t help but wonder: What if the radio interference is aliens? What if the conspiracy theorists were right? What if an alien army was approaching Earth at this very moment? It was a far-fetched idea, yes, but it was possible. And if it were true, his troops would be completely unprepared. He couldn’t allow that. He had to train them for such a contingency. They would scoff, yes, laugh at him even, but he had his duty. And yet, how do you train soldiers for an enemy you don’t understand? How do you prepare them for a completely unpredictable situation? Would the aliens be hostile? There was no way to tell for certain until it was too late. No, the only training I can give my men is to analyze before they act in a strange situation, and to presume hostile intent in all cases.

The following morning, Wit gathered all of the MOPs in Indonesia. Many were in the camp in Sulawesi and joined him in the mess hall. The others stationed in nearby villages or in New Guinea joined him via holo.

Wit stood in the holospace facing them. “I have some vids I want you to see,” he said. He played them a few of the alien vids from the nets. Their reaction was not unlike the comments online. They laughed. They scoffed. They mocked. They applauded and whistled at the realistic endeavors.

“Hey Deen, is that your girlfriend?” someone shouted when a particularly nasty alien roared on-screen.

“Couldn’t be Deen’s girl,” someone else shouted, “she’s much uglier.”

More laughter.

“I’m surrounded by comic geniuses,” Deen deadpanned.

When the vids finished, Wit stepped back into the holospace.

“What gives, Captain?” Lobo asked. “We gearing up for some aliens?”

“Maybe,” said Wit.

The room laughed, but when Wit’s expression stayed flat, the laughter quickly died and a confused awkwardness took its place.

“You can’t be serious, Cap,” said Deen. “I’ve seen a hundred of those vids. They’re all bogus.”

“Is that what you do with your free time, Deen?” said Chi-won.

“Hey, what is this? Pick on Deen Day?” said Deen.

“Seriously, Captain,” said Mabuzza. “Haven’t we been seeing alien invasions since, like, the nineteen hundreds?”

“But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” said Wit, “and that it won’t be terrible when it does.” He paused and scanned the crowd. “Situation. A hundred aliens drop into this camp and start killing everyone. What do you do?”

There was a silence, then someone said, “Run like hell.”

The men chuckled.

“All right,” said Wit. “New situation. A hundred Remeseh charge into camp and begin killing everyone. What do you do?”

“ Send them to hell,” said Deen, to another round of laughter.

Wit smiled. “I’m glad to see we have a plan for the Remeseh.” He paused again, then in a louder voice asked, “What do we train for?”

The man answered in unison. “Every contingency!”

Wit doubled his volume. “What do we train for?”

“EVERY CONTINGENCY!”

“A contingency is a possible event that cannot be predicted with certainty,” said Wit. “And we cannot with one hundred percent certainty dismiss the validity of this idea. Is it likely? No. It is possible? Yes. Is it absurd? You may think so, but I would rather be trained for the absurd than dead.”

The men said nothing. He had their attention.

“Which militaries in the world are preparing for such an event?” asked Wit. “Answer: none. Which militaries are prepared for tech weapons far beyond our own? Answer: none. Which militaries would be caught with their pants down and completely unprepared for this? Answer: all of them. But not us. What do we train for?”

“EVERY CONTINGENCY!”

“So how do we prepare?” asked Wit.

They answered him with silence.

“You analyze before you act,” said Wit. “You have no idea what you’re up against. Your previous training and tactics may get you killed the instant you attempt them. You can’t assume this enemy will think or fight or react like a human. A terrified human will flee. A terrified pit bull will jump for your jugular. How will an alien respond to fear? Does it experience fear at all? Analyze before you act. Take note of everything. Their movement, weapons, group behavior, anatomy, reactions to the environment, speed, equipment. Even the smallest detail is valuable new intelligence. Analyze before you act.” A few of the men were nodding. “And in all cases,” said Wit, “without exception, you always presume hostile intent. You must presume they want to kill you. That doesn’t mean you shoot first, it just means you never, never, never trust. And when they do show hostility, you do not hesitate to take them down.”

He looked at each of the men in turn. “Situation. A hundred aliens drop into camp. What do we do? Deen?”

“Analyze before we act, sir. Presume hostile intent.”

“Correct. And what do we do if they prove to be hostile?”

“We send them to hell, sir.”

“You bet your ass,” said Wit.