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Kaufman. “The IF can’t spin this one. Taking out the assassin doesn’t change the fact that the king is still dead. And in terms of technology, that satellite was our king.”
    â€œSo we’re pretty much screwed,” said Shambhani.
    â€œUkko Jukes and the big brass don’t seem to think so,” said Rimas. “Everybody in that press conference acted like we had scored a major victory.”
    â€œâ€˜Act’ is the appropriate word here,” said Mazer. “That press conference was a performance. Ukko and the admirals understand the situation. They’re just trying to paper over how badly screwed we are.”

 
    CHAPTER 2
    Bingwen
    To: ukko.jukes%[email protected]
    From: robinov%[email protected]/centcom
    Subject: Sanction the Chinese
----
    Dear Ukko,
    The public needs a show of strength. With Copernicus down, the IF’s detractors are out in force. I have politicians from every country in the Crescent—Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan—calling for my resignation and threatening to ignore Hegemony taxation if I am not removed. Never mind that losing Copernicus was the Polemarch’s fault and not my own. Swift action must be taken to calm the panic and silence the naysayers. I implore you to approve and fund new weapons, give us more troops, and demonstrate the Hegemony’s commitment to a strong defense.

    You know as well as I do where those troops can come from. Nearly every military on Earth has committed soldiers to the IF except the Chinese. I recognize that their military feels thin after its devastating losses, but who better understands the need for a space-based defense than the very nation that suffered the most during the war? Now is the time for you to use your incomparable negotiating skills to bring Beijing around. To give you credible leverage, some level of economic sanctions would surely get international support, especially from the other nations of the Warsaw Pact. My contacts in Russia assure me that their ambassadors would endorse the move. If raising public alarm would help you, I could inform the media that we cannot defend our military assets or our citizens if the Chinese leave us woefully understaffed. You and I are taking heat we do not deserve. Wound the Chinese with words, and hit them in their purses, and they will have no choice but to concede.

    Respectfully,
Yulian
    Strategos
    â€”Office of the Hegemony Sealed Archives, Imbrium, Luna, May 12, 2118
    Bingwen went alone to the Formic tunnels that night, wearing his black battle suit and a climbing harness. He left the officers’ barracks at midnight and mounted his skim cycle under the cover of darkness. No guards were on duty. All was quiet. He slid on his helmet, switched on its night vision, and flew west, soaring across a shallow valley in the northeast corner of Guangxi province.
    Three years ago, before all of southeast China burned, the valley here had been green with rice. Families from nearby villages had worked the fields, with their straw hats and sun-bleached clothes, while laughing children played and sang and worked alongside their parents. Then the Formics had gassed everything and peeled back the landscape, leaving the valley black and smoking and littered with corpses. It gladdened Bingwen to see the grasses returning now, creating a sea of green just visible in the moonlight, like a biological show of defiance, a refusal to be defeated. Burn us out, you furry bastards, and we will only grow back again.
    No villagers would ever see this land again, however. The military owned it now. It was one of the many new bases that had sprung up since the war. Here soldiers trained and learned how to defend China should the Formics ever reach this soil again.
    Bingwen flew with all of his lights off, pushing the skim cycle as fast as it would take him, the valley floor a blur beneath him. It felt like an escape, as if he were actually doing it this time, as if