At first he had believed these wild tales to be mere fabricated excuses from the comrades of AWOL soldiers who held as much loathing and fear of the jungle as he did—only they had dredged up the nerve to defect his unit at the risk of a firing squad if caught traipsing back for the comfort and safety of Yangon. However, only after witnessing a rhino charging then knocking one of his transport trucks onto its side before the animal was shot down in a hail of bullets had he begun to allow silent credence to an ominous notion.
The jungle was alive with an animal evil. Wildlife had seemingly gone berserk, the creatures of the forest having evidently evolved to some vicious counterattack mode on humans, nature tired from fear of being the hunted. Mother Nature, he believed, was in revolt against man. No nature lover, no tree hugger—since he was the chief architect for the slash-and-burn of countless acres in the region to make room for more poppy fields—he entertained a fleeting wonder. How would he feel if he was destined for slaughter, his hide providing a coat or rug for some rich man’s mistress, perhaps his penis used, much like the tiger’s, as an aphrodisiac, maybe his head mounted on the wall for the hunter’s admiration? As if the grinding fear of animal attack wasn’t enough, there were the various and sundry rebel groups lurking the Kachin, all of them trigger-happy when it came to blowing away any uniform marched out there by Yangon. By day, the jungle frayed his nerves badly enough, rebel phantoms hidden in the lush vegetation, framing a uniform pasted to flesh drenched in sweat from steaming heat through the crosshairs of a high-powered scope. At night, with all the caws and chittering and howling in the dark, he found himself unable to sleep, unless his HQ was ringed by sentries and he drifted off with a brain floating on brandy.
As a top-ranking officer of the State Law and Order Restoration Council—SLORC—he knew there was no room, however, for any voicing of the slightest anxiety, much less complaint about one’s duty for the ruling military junta of Myanmar. Still, he was city-born and raised in Yangon, accustomed to the best food, clothing, housing that a man of his stature deserved. This stint, he thought, swatting at a mosquito the size of a mango, was little more than some supervisory outing better suited for a subordinate, some gung-ho underling eager to prove himself to the other twenty-one members of the SLORC. If he thought about his present assignment long enough, he knew protracted bitterness and resentment might distract him from meeting next week’s deadline.
Still, despite the encroaching deadline and possible reprimand from Yangon if the shipment fell short, he remained holed up for the most part in his bamboo-and-thatch-hut quarters, brooding in isolation instead of being out there in the refinery, barking orders or pacing among the peasants in the poppy fields, cracking the bullwhip over the backs of the workers if they didn’t meet the day’s quota: two burlap sacks of milky juice per head. And if he failed to ship out the requisite ten metric tons of heroin, divvied up between their wholesale distributors in Laos and Thailand, his gut warned him Yangon would make this foreboding stretch of impenetrable jungle in the Kachin State his indefinite HQ.
Or worse.
Lingpau eased back in his leopard-skin recliner, one of several creature comforts he had managed to smuggle out of the city in his personal French Aérospatiale helicopter. There was a fully stocked wet bar in one corner, with enough brandy and whiskey to get him through six months of this drudgery. He had three giant-screen TVs, and his attention was torn between the satellite piped-in news from al-Jazeera and CNN and the latest porn flick he’d just slipped into the VCR.
Perhaps life among the savages wasn’t that bad, after all. Naturally, with rank, certain perks and privileges were expected, even necessary since an unhappy commander could become apathetic, simply killing time, shirking duty if his own needs weren’t met. And he was in charge, no mistake, lord and master of this jungle domain, surrounded by tough, seasoned soldiers who could claim plenty of rebel blood on their hands. What was to fear?
Lingpau was pouring another brandy when he heard the sudden outburst of voices raised in panic outside his hut. He pivoted, heart lurching, brandy sloshing on his medallioned blouse. Then he froze, staring at the bright shimmer of light dancing over the bamboo shutters, certain they were under attack by rebels. The shouting of men, the pounding of feet beyond his quarters leaped in decibels, his mind swarming with fear-laden questions as he picked up his Chinese AK. How many attackers? Did he have enough soldiers, firepower to repulse even the largest army the Karens or Kachins could field?
As he burst into the living room, Lingpau found three of his soldiers piling onto the upraised porch beyond the front door, skidding to a halt as their stares fixed on their commander. The mere notion they could be under a full-scale assault by a guerrilla force sent another shiver down his spine. The Kachin State, he knew, was home to some of the most vicious and largest rebel armies in Myanmar. With a hundred-plus-strong army, with antiaircraft batteries, scads of rocket launchers, with tanks and helicopter gunships, he couldn’t imagine any rebel band, no matter how large or well-armed the force, would be brazen, or foolish enough, to attack a SLORC compound. But what rational mind could possibly fathom the desperate motives of a people on the verge of extinction? In his experience, the question of living or dying meant next to nothing to desperate men—and women—who knew they were just this side of the walking dead.
But there were stories, however, some of which he knew were based on truth. It boggled his mind, galled his ego, stung his soldier’s pride, just the same, that he might be under attack by the rebel leader the Karens called the Warrior Princess. If they were being attacked by guerrillas, though, where was the gunfire, the crunch of explosions that, he had been warned, signaled a rebel onslaught? What was this weird halo of light shining beyond the shadows of his men on the porch?
They were pointing skyward, their babble rife with fear and confusion.
“Stop yammering!” Lingpau shouted at the trio, searching the grounds for armed invaders but finding only his soldiers scurrying about the poppy fields with the night workforce, other gaggles of troops frozen near the transport trucks parked in front of the massive tent refinery.
“Rebels? Are we under attack?” Lingpau saw them shake their heads, mouths open, his sentries clearly left speechless over whatever they’d seen. “Then what? Answer me!”
“The sky, Colonel, it is falling!”
“The heavens are on fire!”
“It is going to crash right on top of us!”
Teeth gnashed, cursing the fool bleating something about a craft plunging in flames from outer space, Lingpau hit the ground, whirling, shouting orders, calling out the names of his captain and lieutenant. His voice sounding shrill in his ears, eyes darting everywhere, he ordered the perimeter sealed, the workforce detained in their tents, full alert and double the guard around the refinery. He was forced to repeat the orders, uncertain of his own voice, limbs hardening like drying concrete as he realized he was looking skyward.
“What…”
Lingpau’s first conclusion was that the descending fireball was the result of a rocket attack. Only the massive size of the unidentified object, the white sheen that seemed to spew tentacles of luminous blue fire for miles in all directions and, finally, the trajectory of its fall, told him it was something other than a missile. But what? he wondered, squinting against the harsh glare illuminating the heavens, hurtling night into day, the mushroom-capped jungle canopy rippling against the blinding light as if the inanimate threatened to come alive.
Yes, he had seen meteor showers, shooting stars, and what little he knew about comets no giant rock from outer space could slow its own descent, appear to hover, change directions. There were other stories he had heard, though, fantastic tales from the jungle he had dismissed without a second thought, told around campfires, no doubt, by bored peasants with too much time to waste and too much imagination perhaps inflamed by opium. Tales told of alien spacecraft that flew at impossible