Pest Control

Shyang Chan wondered what would be said in decades to come. That China had stood firm against the invaders. That its people had fought valiantly. That the fate of Earth was decided here and now. He wondered, assuming that there'd be an Earth left to wonder about that at all, what they'd say about the more specific aspects of that conflict. Because looking at Shanghai, safe in the comfort of the observation post, he found himself at a loss for words.

"Fuck me."

Liu Fengshi, his spotter, swore. It wasn't an eloquent description of what was going on in the city, and indeed, all down the east coast of China. Decades from now, assuming there were historians left, Chan hoped that they'd find a more eloquent description of the horrors of tens of millions of human beings being killed by alien invaders. But he couldn't fault the man. They'd trained for a conflict involving other humans. Not one that amounted to genocide.

And all the while, Shanghai loomed there. Its skyscrapers barely visible through the cloud of the agent the formics were using all over the country. An agent that would kill any living thing it came into contact with, human or otherwise.

This city was bombed once.

Chan knew his history. Centuries ago, Shanghai had been bombed by the Japanese. A decade or so later, the People's Liberation Army had taken control of the city from the Nationalists. And now, the city was just…standing there. Like a necropolis.

How many people? the sniper wondered. How many people were still in the city when the formics arrived?

He couldn't say. There was no sight of any of the aliens. Only the city engulfed in a deadly fog.

"Why are we here?"

He glanced at Fengshi.

"Why?" he repeated. "You think the Politburo doesn't know that the city's fallen? Shanghai, Hong Kong, Nanjing…you think a sniper team is going to make a difference?"

Chan remained silent.

"Well?" he asked. "Is there even an army to report to?"

"We do our job," Chan said.

"Don't give me a platitude, just-"

"Don't," Chan said. "Don't start."

The pair of them looked over from the shelter. Camouflaged, designed for a human war. Not against an enemy whose tactics were mass extermination using mass infantry (assuming the formics even had a concept of infantry), and technology light years beyond anything on Earth. They were just sitting there. Staring. In a position where if they were attacked by the invaders, the best tactic was to keep shooting, never mind accuracy, or the idea of using incapacitating shots to distract enemy troopers.

"It's like War of the Worlds."

Chan glanced at his spotter again. "What?"

"A Western book, forget the author," he said. He lowered his binoculars – Chan decided not to reprimand him. He was tired of seeing the sight of China's most populace city being overrun. And of what his mind's eye saw as he processed that fact. "Aliens invade. They use a black gas. Kills anything it comes into contact with."

Chan closed his eyes. Black gas. Mass extermination. He hadn't been able to read until he'd joined the PLA Ground Forces. Growing up in Qinghai, there'd been little use for it, let alone novels translated from English.

"They used walkers," Fengshi continued. "Shields too. Nothing the humans could do would work. The people were-"

"This story," Chan interrupted. "How did it end?"

"Oh, happily," Fengshi said. "Aliens were killed by our own atmosphere. Or bugs. It's been awhile. It was when I was doing my Arts degree in Beijing."

Chan decided not to get Fengshi's life story as to why he wasn't on the other side of the world right now, why he was in the muck with someone who couldn't even read until a few years ago. Why he was watching genocide unfold before him.

And the story wasn't that comforting anyway. Dying because of exposure to air…ridiculous. Or maybe not, he wasn't a biologist. But he'd seen formics. Even killed formics. And while bullets could do a good job of that, there was no indication that they couldn't function in the planet's atmosphere.

"The novel was interesting, actually," Fengshi said. "It was written as an allegory for imperialism. The idea that the invaders weren't even waging a war at all, but were simply clearing out a less advanced species. Same as what humans have done as long as we've been around."

Chan winced – he'd heard the theories. The way the formics operated, how their aircraft would only engage the Chinese if they were attacked first. How the use of their sprayers had been against the landscape as a whole. How nothing they'd done followed any kind of strategy – if they'd considered humanity a threat, they'd have started by knocking out the cities first.

"Pest control," Chan murmured.

Fengshi glanced at him.

"They're not waging war," he whispered. "They're waging pest control." He lowered his gaze from his rifle, wiping his eyes. Sweat, dirt, and tears ended up on his hand. "Your book," he said. "Why's it called that? These Martians…if they weren't at war…"

"And are we at war?" Fengshi asked. "Or are we just surviving?"

Chan wanted to say, "of course we are." But he couldn't. The formic mothership was still in orbit. China was being overrun, its government not even letting foreign fighters enter the country. Every space fleet the planet possessed had been blown apart in that botched attack. And all the while, the formics were going about their business. As if humanity wasn't even there. As if it wasn't even relevant.

And we're not.

Aliens had travelled light years to reach them. Aliens had decimated the largest army in the world in a matter of days. Aliens were colonizing a planet, and hadn't even been bothered to do anything that might constitute a military action unless the military of a country provoked them. Like a human swatting at a fly.

They weren't at war, Chan reflected.

And if they ever had been…it had been lost long ago.

A/N

So I finished Earth Awakens recently, and by proxy, the First Formic War trilogy. Good overall, but it's wearing its influences on its sleeve, including parallels to War of the Worlds, including the shared use of gas as a weapon by both the formics and Martians, and similar results. Anyway, came up with this as a result.