The Amazon - Part 2
Amazon Rainforest, Brazil
August 26, 2032
“The fire break is holding for now, but I don’t think it will for much longer,” Lieutenant Lacey said, hunched over and huffing for breath as sweat dripped from her face. “Not with these winds increasing.”
“I don’t think this new fire was the winds fault,” Captain Alveraz said stoically, eyeing the approaching wall of smoke three miles to the east of her squadron’s position. Hands on her hips, her right leg set atop the tread of their team’s white and blue bulldozer, Alveraz sighed deeply. “When we got called out here yesterday we had this thing under control within seven hours. We water bombed the hell out of it. Now, it’s like we did nothing… And it jumped five miles in one fell swoop,” she looked over at the lieutenant with a suspicious gaze, “against the wind.”
“You think that confirms someone is intentionally lighting these things?” Lacey asked, picking herself up.
“I think it most certainly does,” Alveraz replied. “We’re not alone in this rainforest. We aren’t fighting a fire anymore, we’re fighting man.”
“Captain Alveraz!” shouted one of her squadron members as he ran towards her through the long, twenty foot wide clearing their bulldozer had just made.
“What is it, Reed?” Alveraz asked as the man came to a stop in front of her.
“Major Defoe wants you at his position, ASAP. His team found something he wants you to see,” he informed.
Thirty minutes later Captain Alveraz reached her fellow squadron’s position near where the previous day’s fire had first been reported. Before getting out of her vehicle, she saw Major Defoe and his team all standing around something, set in amongst a grouping of barren, burnt out, and still smoking tree trunks.
“Captain!” Defoe shouted, waving her over. “This way. Look.”
Alveraz joined the huddled team with a jog from her vehicle. “What is it, sir?” she asked, parting her way into the group.
“We found this,” Defoe said, kneeling to pick up the remains of an orange flare gun in his gloved hand. “Unless the natives around here figured out how to turn wood into metal I don’t think this thing should be here. We’re at least 400 miles from any modern civilization. There isn’t even a dirt road out here, besides the ones we've built to get to and from our camp of course, but... Finding this, and knowing there were no storms in the area yesterday, leads to only one fact. These fires are deliberate.”
“Just as I thought,” Alveraz squinted, examining the blackened gun closely.
“I’ve got some serious security concerns now, Alveraz,” the major sighed. “This flare gun was pretty exposed where we found it. I don’t think its owner cares to much about secrecy. A hostile encounter could be inevitable. We may have to pull out and fight these fires using only airdrops. You remember what happened in these woods three years ago, don’t you?”
“I do,” Alveraz nodded gravely. “But with all due respect, sir, we can’t leave,” she said adamantly. “These fires are spreading too quickly. We need people on the ground, holding the line. We need men to cut out fire breaks - ”
“I don’t want to lose anyone again,” Defoe said, raising his hand up. “These people are hunters, Alveraz, and we’re nothing but their prey.”
“Only if we act like we are, sir,” Alveraz said, staring unwaveringly into her superior officer’s eyes. “Prey runs…”
Defoe did not listen. “I’m calling Concord,” he said, “get their opinion on the situation. I’ll suggest UNIRO Security but if they recall us out of here – which I think they will – we’ve got to go. We will maintain the fight from the air.” The major handed the gun to one of his squadron members and spoke up. “I want everyone back at camp within the next hour! Safety in numbers. I don’t want to take any chances, at least not until we hear back from base.”
“I’ll alert the other squadrons, sir,” said one of Defoe’s rescue officers keenly. “And I'll let base camp know we're heading their way soon.”
“Very good, Verrillo,” Defoe nodded approvingly, just about to give the order himself. “Go ahead and contact Base Concord as well. Apprise them of our findings and thoughts, but have them keep sending those tankers no matter what instructions they give to us. We stop those, we lose any hope of containment. I still want them coming every fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll look like we’re running, sir,” Alveraz said angrily as the rescue officer ran off and the surrounding squadron dispersed. “UNIRO doesn’t run. Do you know how many corrupt shit heads we have helped to expose and put behind bars - ”
Defoe looked down at the captain with irritated eyes and put his hands on his hips. “I don’t care what it will look like, captain. It’s the safe thing to do. We are not equipped to engage these barbarians. We have - ” Defoe stopped himself, looked around briefly, and lowered his voice. “Look, you were in this bush three years ago. You remember what those few nights were like, how terrifying for all of us they were… Those men we lost were mine. They were your fellow squadron members, damn it. I didn’t make the right call when the situation deteriorated and the next thing I know we start getting body parts left outside the main gate of our camp. I failed everyone. I’m not making the same mistake again with these people, and I won’t let you with your own squadron.”
“Bullshit, sir!” Alveraz gritted, ignoring the choice of her words against the major’s rank. “Don’t play the scared victim card with me. They executed my father in our village square for his crusade against them in front of my own eyes. They made me watch. Then they raped my mother and burned our home as a message to never mess with them again…” Alveraz took a step closer to Defoe. “I’m not going to run. I’ve already done that. You’ll have to drag me from this forest.”
Defoe shook his head. “I’m the incident commander of this operation. I’ll do what I must to keep you safe, even if it means dragging you out by your stubborn ass boots. I just hope you’re still alive when I do, captain. Don’t let the emotion of the past get the better of you, no matter how much it hurts. You may never get to carry on the fight you want if you do.”
The major walked past Alveraz and began shouting other orders to his squadron. Alone, she peered out into the smoking death all around her. It reminded her of the day that changed her life. The invaders had never left it seemed, their conquest invoking a scorched earth policy, despite whatever lay in their path. To them the forest was nothing more than a consumable resource, not a treasure.
Through the fallen logs, piles of thick brown and black bushes, and singed vines that now barely held themselves up off the ground, Alveraz tried to remember what it all used to look like just twenty-four hours ago. But a frightening thought occurred to her; she couldn’t. She realized she could hardly remember what a pristine Amazon looked like, one that did not have burn scars, paved roads, cattle ranches, plastic debris, and clear cutting. The grotesque pillages of man loomed heavy over these withering lands. It sickened her to the bone. The destruction came from seemingly every direction. If nothing changed in this forest one of Mother Earth’s most vital organs would fail, adding to the slow and painful demise of the only home the human race knew. It was death by a thousand cuts.
Something snapped about fifty yards in front of her, a tree branch perhaps. Alveraz could not be certain. She scanned the patch of forest she had just been thinking over, this time with complete focus and the attention of all her senses. Sweat across her body felt as if it had frozen over, stiffening her muscles below. After a few seconds she realized an area of the destroyed brush directly in front of her that she remembered being shadowed and black was now empty, sunlight blaring through in the darkness’s stead. Someone had been standing there all along, watching her.
Cover Photo Credit: Wikipedia