Sima raised a disapproving eyebrow. "You've been fighting Formics with an eight-year-old child?"
"He's safer with us than he would be on his own, sir," said Mazer. "We don't involve him in the fighting directly. We've done our best to protect him."
"My army is not a daycare," said Sima. "He has no place here. Nor can I afford to send a transport. The best I can do is find a place for him at Dragon's Den, which may be safer than going north anyway."
"Dragon's Den?" asked Mazer.
"An underground facility a hundred klicks from here. It was originally designed as a safe house for senior Party officials and their families in the event of a global war. Several thousand refugees have already gathered there. Local villagers mostly. The facility is well beyond capacity, but we'll find your orphan boy a cot to sleep on and food to eat."
Mazer nodded. A wave of relief swelled inside him. They were going to get Bingwen to a safe place. "Thank you, sir," he said.
"I'm sending you there as well," said Sima. "Both of you." He looked to Wit and then back to Mazer. "If you're truly under my command now, as you say, you will follow my orders to the letter. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"We have a team of bioengineers here in Lianzhou developing a counteragent for the Formic gas. The CMC is of the opinion that the team is too exposed here. Their lab isn't designed to withstand a direct attack. If the Formics learned of their intentions and swarmed the facility, Beijing doubts we could adequately defend them. I have therefore been ordered to move our bioengineers, their equipment, and all hazardous material to a lab at Dragon's Den. The bioengineers will continue their work there, underground."
"You said there were civilians there," said Wit. "Is it wise to bring a lethal substance inside an enclosed space where civilians are being housed?"
"The tunnels are vast," said General Sima. "Civilians are kept in an area apart from the military and far from the lab. In the event of an emergency, the various wings can be sealed off from one another. It's not an ideal situation, I agree, but this is hardly an ideal existence we're living. You and Captain Rackham will join the armed escort taking the bioengineers to Dragon's Den. The convoy leaves tomorrow morning at 0600. You will rendezvous with the other MOPs at Dragon's Den and await further orders. Captain Shenzu, you will accompany the escort as well. Isn't that what a MOPs liaison would do?"
"Yes, sir," said Shenzu.
"In the meantime, escort these men to the hotel where the other officers are staying. Give them each a vacant room and a fresh uniform." General Sima turned to Mazer and Wit. "The hotel has hot water. It's fresh and uncontaminated. I suspect you haven't had a shower and a good night's sleep in quite some time. I suggest you take advantage."
He crossed to the glass window and stood there, hands clasped behind him, looking west toward the river and the camp beyond it. Mazer was beginning to think they had been dismissed when Sima said, "Have you ever lost soldiers under your command, Captain O'Toole?"
"Yes, sir," said Wit. "More than I care to admit."
"And what about you, Captain Rackham?" asked Sima. "You're young. Perhaps fate has been kinder to you."
Mazer's thoughts went to Patu, Fatani, and Reinhardt. Somehow he got the words out. "I have lost soldiers as well, sir."
Sima nodded. "To lose a soldier is a type of death. A lesser death than the one that will take us all, but a death nonetheless. If we did not feel so, I suppose we would be unfit for command." He turned and faced them. "I have lost upwards of ten thousand since this war began. All of them sons and daughters to me. If we do not stop this gas, this weapon of the enemy, I will lose them all. See to it that I don't."
CHAPTER 6
Reinforcements
When Victor awoke in the cargo bay he was weightless again, his arms floating out beside him in the air, his feet anchored firmly to the wall.
"Victor, can you hear me?"
A voice in his ear, over the radio. He blinked again, his mind still in a fog. "Imala?"
"You blacked out. Are you hurt?"
She was out in the shuttle. He remembered now. He had fallen from the cart, and his boot magnets had saved him. He had initiated them as he was falling, and he had kicked out frantically toward the wall until one of the boot soles had snapped against the surface and held. Gravity had swung the rest of his body downward like a pendulum, and he had slammed into the side of the wall with such force that he was certain he had broken something.
"Answer me, Vico. Are you hurt?"
"My ankle," he said. "I think I sprained it." The pain was throbbing and hot.
"Yes, it's starting to swell," said Imala. "I have your biometrics here in front of me. I'll inflate and cool the area."
Victor winced as the suit around his ankle filled with air and dropped in temperature.
"You're in the open, Vico. You need to move. There's a shaft near you. Can you reach it?"