A Fighting Chance (28 page)

“It was supposed to be nine or ten thousand,” Foley said bleakly. “And I lost 423 people.”

“That’s a lot,” Chien-Chu admitted. “But, cold as it may sound, that’s something like fourteen of them for every one of us. Had we always done so well, the war would have been over a month ago.”

“Maybe,” Foley allowed, as his eyes drifted away. “But more than a hundred of the casualties were the direct result of my stupidity. I should have evacuated the mine
before
the attack. Or, failing that, left a significant force behind to protect it. I did neither. And lots of people died as a result.”

“That’s true,” Chien-Chu conceded. “You made a mistake. One born of hubris and overconfidence.”

“So you’re here to relieve me of my command,” Foley said dully, as his eyes swung back. “And you’re correct to do so.”

“Nice try,” Chien-Chu replied dryly. “But you aren’t getting off that easily. If we were to cashier every officer who made a mistake, sergeants would be in charge. Nope, your punishment is to stay right where you are and hatch more plans like Operation Cockroach. You really put the hurts on them with that one, son. Keep it up.”

It was strange to have what looked like a younger man call him “son.” “Yes, sir,” Foley replied, even though he didn’t have the foggiest idea of what to do next.

“Good,” Chien-Chu replied. “Nothing attracts resources like success. If you need something, let me know. You have a hypercom. Use it sparingly—but use it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Commander . . .”

“Sir?”

“Go get something to eat. You look like a skeleton.”

The so called Dead Bug Lab was a step up from the grubby room that Margaret and her scientists had been forced to share deep in the bowels of the Lucky Fool mine. According to signs neatly stenciled onto duracrete walls, the large, rectangular space had once been the home of the 321
^st
Aerospace Fighter squadron’s in-service training facility. And, thanks to the fact that the team was already present when Foley and the rest of the survivors of Operation Cockroach arrived, they had been able to hang on to the precious square footage. Power was flowing from a portable reactor, running water had been restored, and there was little to no chance of a cave-in. The bugs could attack, of course—but that was true anywhere.

So Margaret was sitting in her tiny office when Dr. Howard Lothar stomped in and dropped a head onto the surface of her metal desk. “There it is,” he said triumphantly. “Just like I said.”

“There
what
is?” Margaret wanted to know, as the dead Ramanthian glared at her. “And how many times have I told you? Put something
under
body parts. They leak.”

Lothar continued as if Margaret hadn’t spoken. “See the growth on the back of this specimen’s head? That’s called a stroma—or a fruiting body.”

One of the problems associated with supervising scientists, but not being one herself, was that there were frequent occasions when Margaret didn’t have a clue as to what they were talking about. “I’m sorry, Howard,” she said. “Please go back and lay the necessary groundwork, so I’ll know what you’re talking about.”

Lothar sighed. Then, in the manner of an adult instructing a child, he gave a minilecture. “We know that some Ramanthians are dying from the equivalent of a human skin disease. For a host of reasons I won’t bore you with, it’s my hypothesis that after arriving on Earth in large numbers and spreading out across the globe, they came into contact with a fungus called
Ophiocordyceps unilateris
. Probably in the equatorial jungles where our friend
Ophio
finds its way into carpenter ants and forces them to leave the forest canopy for the vegetation lower down. Then, having taken control, it compels its victim to bite onto a leaf.

“The ant dies,” Lothar added, “but continues to hang there, as the fungus grows inside of it. Eventually, a stroma like this one breaks through the anterior surface of the ant’s head. A couple of weeks later, spores begin to fall—each one of which can infect a new host. And that’s what happened to Marvin,” Lothar added, as he patted the head. “Although it’s my guess that the Ramanthians unknowingly made
Ophio
’s task easier by flying their troops hither and yon all over the world. Who knows? Marvin could have been infected right here rather than down south somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” Margaret said doubtfully. “I’m not a scientist—but don’t parasites and their hosts coevolve? Plus, the Ramanthians just arrived.”

“You’ve been listening to Woo,” Lothar said accusingly. “She thinks the bugs brought the parasite with them. But that, like most of the stuff she says, is pure bullshit. I admit that the odds are stacked against an Earth parasite having the capacity to exploit an off-planet host, but it appears that
Ophio
is very resourceful. And I can prove it.”

“Really? How?”

“I took spores from a stroma produced by a specimen named Larry and used them to infect Marvin. He did everything a carpenter ant would do except clamp onto a leaf. He is, or was, a sentient with a very complex nervous system. So the course of the disease was different. Marvin experienced some pretty bad seizures before he died. I enjoyed that.”

Margaret was horrified. She knew her team had requested and been given control of Ramanthian POWs for study—along with the bodies of dead bugs found here and there. But the methods Lothar had been using were way over the moral/ ethical line. And she was responsible for allowing it to happen. “I hope you’re joking.”

“Hell no, I’m not joking,” the scientist replied defiantly. “
What?
You’re feeling all gooey about the scum who took our planet, killed my wife and millions of your fellow citizens? Have you forgotten what they did to your daughter on Jericho?”

Margaret hadn’t forgotten. And she wondered where her daughter was. “I understand, Howard. I really do. But if we aren’t careful, we’ll wind up just as bad as they are.”

“So, shoot me,” Lothar said tightly, as tears began to stream down his cheeks. “I would do it myself if I had the guts.”

Margaret got up, circled the desk, and put an arm around Lothar’s shoulders. “What you need is some rest. Come on . . . I’m giving you the day off.”

“What about the fungus?” Lothar demanded stubbornly as he wiped the tears away. “We can weaponize it. I know we can. All we need is a large supply of
Ophio
.”

“I’ll work on it,” Margaret promised.

“And Woo? Will you tell her to shut the hell up?”

Margaret remembered the way Woo occasionally sobbed in the middle of the night. “No, Howard. I won’t tell Woo to shut the hell up. Actually, I think you two have a lot in common. But I will instruct the entire staff to follow up on your research.”

That seemed to do the trick as the tension went out of the scientist’s shoulders, and he allowed himself to be led away. The head, which was leaking goo onto the surface of Margaret’s otherwise-clean desk, was understandably mute.

As usual, there was a line out of Foley’s door, down a hall, and around a corner as Margaret barged into his office. The officer in command of the brigade’s nonexistent air force was seated in the guest chair. Margaret nodded to him and smiled pleasantly before dropping Ralph’s head onto the desk with a muted
thump
. The increasingly smelly object was sealed inside a bag and stared out through foggy plastic. “Sorry to interrupt,” Margaret said, “but I need to speak with you before Ralph here begins to rot.”

The pilot looked appalled—and Foley was annoyed. Because even though it wasn’t perfect, the line outside his office was part of an effort to make himself accessible. Something that was very important in an organization that was quasi-military at best. So line jumpers were a problem. Yet the head, combined with the fact that it was Margaret who had been toting it around, was an irresistible draw. Foley made eye contact with the pilot. “Would you excuse us, Major? If you would be so kind as to wait outside, we’ll resume our conversation in a few minutes.”

The pilot left, Margaret took his seat, and Foley frowned at her. “This had better be good, Margaret . . . Especially after the way you lied to the guards as you and your team left the mine. I didn’t order you to set up shop at this location, and you know it.”

“No, you didn’t,” Margaret agreed unapologetically. “But what if we had remained there? Where would we be now?”

The challenge was obvious. As was her meaning. Margaret and her scientists would have been dead had they remained in the mine. Foley winced. “That hurts.”

“Sorry,” Margaret replied. “It wasn’t my intention to be judgmental. But I felt compelled to defend my actions.”

“And you did,” Foley observed ruefully. “So what’s with the head?”

“The head is part of an experiment,” Margaret replied. “A morally questionable experiment. But important nevertheless.”

Having said that much, Margaret went on to repeat what Lothar had told her. She finished by saying, “So, here’s where the matter stands now. We have a weapon. One the planet gave us. All we have to do is use it. And if we do so quickly enough, it’s possible that the Ramanthians will be forced to withdraw. But odds are that they’re working on a defense. So we’ve got to hurry.”

Foley looked at the head and the space black eyes that seemed to bore into him. His thoughts were churning—and he felt a growing sense of excitement. What if Margaret was correct? What if they
could
force the bugs to withdraw from Earth? That would be a victory so important it could change the course of the war. “But
how
?” Foley wanted to know.

“We need a large supply of
Ophiocordyceps unilateris
,” Margaret answered matter-of-factly. “And since we don’t have the time or means to grow the fungus in a lab, we’ll have to get spores from donors like Marvin here.”

Foley frowned. “Okay . . . But how the heck would we do that?”

Margaret smiled sweetly. “That, Commander Foley, is
your
problem.”

Two days had passed since Margaret had entered Foley’s office and placed the Ramanthian head on his desk. Since that time, Foley had requested all of the information that his Intel people could provide on Ramanthian health problems, the status of their medical-support system, and an estimate of how many troopers were dying of natural causes versus combat-related trauma.

Hard data was difficult to come by. But some operatives believed that the Ramanthian mortality rate had increased even though they had a firm grip on the planet and combat-related casualties should have been down. So if the anecdotal evidence was true, there was a very real possibility that the bugs were losing a significant number of personnel to the fungus that Margaret and her team referred to as “Ophi.” But what if such reports had been exaggerated by amateur operatives who were eager to believe the worst?

That was a significant danger. Foley was determined to go out and get a firsthand look at what was taking place. So he was following a local named Pete Sawyer along a drainage channel in almost complete darkness. It was dry and would remain that way until spring, when the rains might or might not fall. In the meantime the floodway functioned as a nocturnal highway for rodents, coyotes, and the occasional human. Although, except for a few hardy souls like Sawyer, there weren’t many people who were brave or foolish enough to venture near the enemy-occupied town of California City. Prior to the war, it had been a bedroom community for nearby military bases. Now the bugs lived there.

With no moonlight to go by, Sawyer was forced to use occasional blips from a handheld torch to confirm their position. And when one such check revealed the wreckage of a human shuttle lying crosswise over the channel, he held up his hand. “This is where we go up and over,” Sawyer whispered. “The best vantage point is the old water tower. The bugs left it intact. Probably on purpose. So we put a hole in it about three weeks after the city was overrun. Now they store their water underground. The point is that they don’t care about it. So there aren’t any guards. Bit of a climb, though . . . Have you got a head for heights?”

Now you ask me,
Foley thought to himself. “I’ll be fine,” he lied. “Lead the way.”

So Sawyer led the way up the concrete slope to the point where a ragged hole had been cut in the security fence. After crawling through on hands and knees, Foley followed Sawyer on a zigzag path that took them between abandoned houses, through a much-looted minimall, and up to the base of a duracrete tower. Foley assumed there was a globular tank higher up. But he couldn’t see it. Sawyer said, “Wait here,” and vanished into the night.

Foley’s hand rested on the silenced pistol that rode under his left arm until Sawyer returned carrying an aluminum ladder over his shoulder. “I keep it hidden,” he explained. “No point in letting the bugs know what I’ve been up to.”

Then, with the ease of someone who had plenty of practice, Sawyer put the ladder up against the support tower and checked to make sure that it was solid. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “Follow me up. The rungs start about ten feet off the ground. After that, it’s a climb of 130 feet or so. Oh, and one more thing. If you fall, try not to scream. That could attract the wrong sort of attention.” And with that, Sawyer disappeared into the gloom.

Foley looked up, swore softly, and followed. It was easy at first, and because Foley couldn’t see much, the height didn’t bother him. But his legs weren’t used to that kind of exercise, and it wasn’t long before he began to feel the burn. Then he saw the scattering of lights that represented the Ramanthian base and realized that he was at least fifty feet off the ground. That triggered fear—and it took all of his willpower to keep climbing.

Don’t look down,
Foley told himself.
Look up.
And it worked. To some extent at least, as the resistance leader forced himself to reach, pull, and push. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a strong hand took hold of his wrist and pulled him up onto a circular walkway. “There you are,” Sawyer said. “What took so long?”