"We've run the projections a hundred times, and the conclusions remain the same – the Federation is losing this war. In the time it takes us to train a platoon, the Arachnids can hatch a hundred Warriors. In the time it takes us to construct a starship, the Bugs can colonize an entire moon. The disaster of the John Warden notwithstanding, current projections are that unless the trend reverses course, the Arachnids will be walking on Earth by the end of the decade. How to change this, I cannot say, but until someone comes up with a solution, the best I can recommend is that we milk every victory to its full effect. Give the people hope, even if I have none."
General Dix Hauser, Federal Council meeting, 2311
Starship Troopers: Miner Disruption
Chapter 8: Ants Come Marching
Homecoming had a 22 hour day, and given its lack of an axis, the length of that day was fairly constant regardless of which hemisphere you were in, and the time of year.
Even so, despite being 15:11, the sun seemed unusually low. And red. Benito vaguely remembered a poem about red sky at night and morning having relevance to the fortunes of sailors, but like so many Earth customs, it was academic here. Homecoming's largest bodies of water were a scattering of inland seas, fed mainly by its two poles. It was no coincidence that most of its settlements had been formed along those rivers and seas, and the exceptions like Hampstead built above aquifers.
But there were some Earth customs that did have relevance. Among them being the existence of standing armies, and those armies doing what they'd always done – protect those who needed it on good days, act as the jackboot of the state on bad ones. And as he, Matthews, and Mugabe rolled up in a jeep, deep in the pit of Site 51, Benito took some comfort in knowing that the proverbial boot had crushed the not-so-proverbial bug.
Or at least it had according to Sadiq Hassan. The man who was standing there waiting for them. Wearing a suit and tie that were entirely inappropriate for the environment he'd found himself in.
He waited for the trio to get out of the jeep before speaking.
"You're late."
"And you're dressed for the prom," Matthews retorted.
Hassan sniffed. "Have you been drinking?"
Matthews hiccupped. For a moment, Hassan looked ready to slap him. But taking a look at Benito and Mugabe, he appeared to have second thoughts.
"Could have been our last drink," Benito said.
He'd tried to come to his friend's defence, but instead he only made things worse.
"The Federation are here, we have a Bug infestation, and you went boozing?!"
"Had," Benito corrected.
"I'm sorry?"
"Had a Bug infestation. Or at least, that's what your message said." Benito looked around the mine site – bereft of anyone bar Hassan, and the scattering of miners and security teams who'd come back into the pit. "So where are the troopers?"
Fortune favoured the bold, or rather, those who asked the right questions at the right times. Because as if on cue, out of the shafts, the men and women of the Mobile Infantry came marching out.
"Smile for the cameras," Hassan whispered.
"What?" Matthews asked.
Benito didn't need to ask, because he could see them. Troopers with bulky cameras resting on their shoulders. All of them wearing a PRESS tag, and a suit of body armour that looked like it provided more protection than the standard BDU. Local news stations were spread across Homecoming, along with the state-run service based in the planetary capital of Neos Aquas, but there was no mistaking that the show being put on was more for the people of the Federation than those on its peripheries.
Nevertheless, he stood straight, and watched the troopers as they returned to the surface. They'd gone marching into the mines like ants, and were exiting them much the same – marching in lines, legs in. Yet here, this close to them, he could see the differences. A slip in their step. A sag in their shoulders. The blood that drenched so many, though thankfully, most of it green.
But even then, he could see those with blood the colour of the sun. Those who came hobbling out, or were being carried on stretchers.
The dead. The wounded.
Not as many as he'd expected, but they were still there. Treated by medics, their moans silenced by all manner of medicines. He winced, and tried not to look aside. He'd seen what the Arachnids could do to people. What they'd done to the site's own security personnel. But to see the wounded troopers here…
"Mobile Infantry," Matthews slurred. "Don't seem that mobile."
"Shush, Matthews," Hassan hissed.
"Just saying, where's the pretty armour? And the jump jets?" He hiccupped. "Don't seem no more mobile than the rest of us."
"Matthews, so help me, if you don't shut up I'll…Captain Liang! Welcome!"
Hassan might have been just a lowly gov-rep, but he knew how to play the game, Benito reflected. Liang came marching at the head of her company, accompanied by Master Sergeant Craddock. Both of them had splatterings of blood on them – some green, some red, but from the looks of things, none of it their own.
To his relief, Benito silently admitted.
Hassan extended a hand. For a moment, Liang looked perturbed – as if so used to saluting and receiving them, the thought of shaking a hand was alien to her. But the moment after that, she took the rep's hand and shook it.
Hassan winced, and Benito wondered if it was due to her grip, or the blood that was on it.
"You're back," Hassan said.
"We are." Liang glanced at one of the stretchers, carrying a brown-skinned, black-haired woman bearing a lieutenant's insignia. "One way or the other…"
Benito watched Liang's left eye twitch, and with it, the scarred tissue on her left cheek. The stretcher wasn't the only one being taken out of the shaft, but it was the one that Liang seemed fixated upon.
Why her, he wondered?
"Sacrifices made, then," Hassan whispered. "But sacrifices we appreciate." He paused, before adding, "so the mine's clear?"
Liang waited until one of the Press Corps troopers got close enough to answer. She didn't smile for the camera, but she talked.
"Yes," she said. "The operation was a success. Every Arachnid invader of Wallach Two has been wiped out." She lowered her voice. "But with heavy cost…"
If Benito remembered correctly, the Arachnids hadn't invaded. Nor did the cost seem that heavy. But it didn't matter what he thought. The Bugs were gone. All he had to worry about was getting the mine operating again.
"So it's done," Hassan said.
"Yes." Liang took a step forward, her gaze going past Hassan, lingering on Benito and Matthews, before turning it to the security officers and miners that had gathered behind them. "People of Wallach Two, know this. Today, the Federation has achieved a great victory against the Arachnid menace! Today, by blood and bullet, we have made this world safe, as part of our great war to ensure the safety, and supremacy, of the United Citizens Federation, and of all mankind!"
Silence filled the air, only broken by one of Matthews's hiccups. At least at first. But then Hassan began to clap, and after him, Benito. Who in turn was followed by Mugabe, and after her, her security teams, and then, the miners. Clapping that steadily got louder, but judging from the look on Liang's face, not loud enough. It wasn't exactly the Karalat Games.
And of all the hands hitting each other, Matthews's wasn't among them. He had his folded, his eyes locked on the troopers, before returning them to the Verhoeven. The frigate hanging there in the sky. An aegis to some, a sword of Damocles to others.
The clapping eventually died down, with Hassan being the last to stop. For a moment, Benito felt some pity for the man – someone had to play the political game, after all.
"The people of Homecoming owe you a great debt, Captain Liang," he said. "If there's anything we can do for you…anything at all…"
The sergeant beside her grunted. "Might want to get the mine operating again. The titanium isn't going to-"
"The safety of Federation citizens is of the utmost importance," Liang interrupted – her voice loud, her eye lingering on one of the camera. "Ours is a war of human destiny. And under the Eagle, under God, only together can we drive the Bug menace back to the Hell that spawned it." She extended a hand. "Together, Representative Hassan. Let us walk together."
Hassan, quickly…too quickly, for Benito…took her hand, and shook it.
"Together," Hassan declared.
Pity for Hassan gone, Benito looked at Mugabe, fingering her cross, and then Matthews, his bloodshot eyes wide, and fearful.
He didn't blame him.
Because as Sadiq Hassan kept talking, his eyes on the camera, the senior site officer of Site 51 had begun to suspect that he wasn't the only one playing politics.