tunnels and then leave him there, giving him nothing but a few cans of supplemental oxygen, with instructions to find his way out in the dark. It was near impossible to do, but that was mostly the point. It was a test of mental endurance more than anything.
Bingwen twisted and turned and moved randomly, not thinking about where he was going. His wrist pad was tracking his movements, but he tried not to look at it. Occasionally he reached a dug-out space as big as a room that even adults could stand up in. Perhaps the Formics had congregated in these chambers for some reason. Why, Bingwen could only guess. To breed? To eat? To sleep? There was nothing here to give any hint of its purpose.
He stopped in one of the larger rooms and punched in the code to initiate the simulation. Four thin projection tubes running along the tunnel walls above and to either side of him turned on, filling the room with a faint holofield. The projection tubes continued uninterrupted throughout the tunnel system, so that now a single holofield filled every passageway. Since Bingwen was standing in the field, the sim knew exactly where he was located.
Bingwen crouched down in the center of the tunnelâs chamber and waited, keeping the various tunnel entrances in his peripheral vision so he could see the attack before it came.
The first Formic appeared a moment later, bounding down the tunnel directly in front of him, its six limbs launching it forward with the power of a jungle cat springing on its prey.
Bingwenâs slaser was on the forearm of his battle suit, but he didnât raise his arm to fire. He wanted to witness the creatureâs every movement, even up to the moment when it delivered the death stroke. Bingwen noted every placement of its arms, forelegs, and hind legs; the way it dipped and bobbed its head to maintain its balance as it scurried forward; the way it had banked up the side wall when the tunnel had turned sharply; the way it breathed, accelerated, fixed its empty eyes upon him; the way it leaped at the last moment, to grab the head and snap the neck.
The creature struck him and exploded into a shower of pixels.
This was Bingwenâs custom: to let the first one get him, to face death and welcome it, to show the enemy that he would not cower. And with that done, he dropped to his knees and scurried away, taking note of how the creatures chased him, caught him, worked in pairs or small groups to cut off his exit or guide him into a dead end. He used his slaser to kill the ones he could. Others reached him and exploded when they touched him.
All of the creaturesâ movements were based on actual vids taken from soldiers in the war. Some had even come from soldiers brave enough to enter these tunnels, though those vids were all recovered after the fact, once the Chinese had cleared the tunnels and found their corpses.
After half an hour, Bingwenâs knees were sore and he was sweating profusely. He turned off the sim and sank to the tunnel floor, catching his breath. If it comes to tunnel warfare, we lose, he thought. We would never win here. The enemy would have every advantage.
Bingwen removed his helmet momentarily to drink from his canteen, then he put his helmet back on and took his writing tablet out of his pack. He ran a cable from the tablet to the projection tube and turned on the tube. It had taken him a few weeks to figure out how to get on the nets. His access on base was restricted to sites that Captain Li and the military approved of, which were mostly the militaryâs intranet. He could get the news and world events, but always through the militaryâs filter, which would have the reader believe that China was the most advanced nation on Earth and the envy of everyone. Bingwen knew better. To get unrestricted access he had to use the few resources at his disposal, namely the tunnels and their equipment. The winch tower outside served as a crude transmitter and receiver after Bingwen
Back in the Saddle (v5.0)