Death to the Insects

Chapter 1: Gladiator Games

Chapter 1: Gladiator Games

Humanity had let down its guard, and paid a terrible price.

After decades of war, a conflict-weary population was eager for peace. So when the Insects offered an armistice, the civilian leadership of the Alliance jumped at the chance to reach a final end to this bloody war.

The rest was history. The Insects ambushed the Alliance fleet at Vitalics, killing thousands of sailors and destroying the bulk of the fleet. After that, there was nothing to stop them, nothing left to protect Alliance worlds. Both League and Directorate planets, which made up the Alliance, were conquered. The Insects landed on Alliance planets at will, killing those who resisted, and enslaving the rest.

The destruction of the fleet at Vitalics was almost total--but not all the fleet was actually there. A small force under the command of the legendary War Admiral Norman North escaped an ambush and rallied the surviving forces. "Escape from the Insects" described their flight from known space as they desperately searched for new technology they could use to take back their worlds. But the Insects weren't content to leave them to their search, and made many attempts to eliminate them. Finally, after nearly twenty years of being chased, when the War Admiral's fleet was about to be destroyed, they were saved by a mysterious allied force, which was led by an old friend long thought to be long dead.

During these nearly 20 years of occupation on Alliance worlds, there was scattered resistance against the Insects. Small bands of resistance fighters took the battle to the Insects, but at first their numbers were few and they were relentlessly hunted down. One of the most famous resistance leaders, former Column operative Clifford Croft, led one of the most successful teams to hamper the occupation force. But now the Insects struck back hard, killing some of his friends, and capturing others.

********************

The Date: One year, 11 months, and one day after the invasion of August

The Insects had just raided their hideout. They had barely gotten out with their lives. Super spy Clifford Croft studied the burning wreckage of his former hideout on the video monitor as he heard a clap behind him, then another, then another. Without turning, he said, "Thanks for the applause."

The Clapper continued to clap. He had some sort of mental illness that caused him to clap when he was nervous, or bored, or agitated, or for any other number of reasons. The deadly Graftonite killer known as the Silencer had managed to curb the Clapper's urge to clap by sheer force of intimidation, but now-

Croft suddenly turned around, a look of annoyance in his eyes. The Clapper froze, in midclap. He was a powerful telekinetic, but was too timid to use his powers against allies. The same, however, could not be said of his companions.

"Where's Red?" said Croft, looking around. The only one in the small room besides them was Sashay, who was keeping an eye on the door.

"She went out," said Sashay. Sashay was the cook. And the painter. And their interior decorator. "She thought she heard something in the corridor."

"When was this?" said Croft. He elbowed Sashay away from the door.

"A few minutes ago," said Sashay.

And she wasn't back yet? Croft bit his lip as he looked down the gloomy corridor. Despite his bravado, he realized they were being chased and hunted down by an enemy who outnumbered and outgunned them in every department. The shock of the loss of his friends Preston and the Silencer was still sinking in. All he had left now was the Clapper and Sashay, also known as the Paperweight.

He couldn't just abandon Red Sally. "Stay here," said Croft. "If I don't return in ten minutes, you're on your own."

Sashay grew wide-eyed, and the Clapper's hands fluttered nervously. Croft didn't stay to look for any further reactions before heading out the door, his blaster drawn.

If he ran into an Insect patrol he could take out two, maybe three of them before they got him. If only he had the Silencer with him! But the Silencer was dead. Or was he? Croft had seen him shot, but he didn't know for sure whether his wound was fatal. Maybe....

Croft inched down the corridor for several hundred feet. Suddenly, he thought he saw a flash of orange light from a side corridor. He turned down that corridor and started to hear the faint noise of battle.

The scene, when he reached it, was truly stunning; Red Sally and two men were trapped in a dead end. Red was shooting sheets of flames at the Insects while the men fired blasters. Some of the Insects were firing back, but others were on fire themselves, shrieked in pain, running around blindly.

Croft, coming up behind the Insects, didn't hesitate, opening fire with his blaster. After a second, one fell, and the others turned to face this new threat. He saw a beam whiz by his right eye, and he instinctively crouched down, still firing. The Insects were falling rapidly, but there were still so many of them!

Red Sally and the others were taking advantage of this crossfire to cut down the Insects from their side. In a moment, the last Insect was shot, and all was suddenly silent, except for the crackle of Insect body parts on fire.

Croft stood up. He saw now that one of the two men with Red Sally was bleeding, and there were bodies of two other men on the ground beside them.

"Come on," said Croft hoarsely. "We're pushing our luck by just standing around."

Sally and the other two men gingerly picked their way over the charred Insect bodies to reach Croft. As they sprinted back to the hideout, Croft could see Sally's red hair, glistening with sweat, starting to turn blonde again.

They reached their hiding place without incident. The Clapper gave a muted squeal of joy when he saw Red Sally. They all sat on the floor, gasping to recover their breath, while Sashay continued to watch the door for any signs of pursuit.

"This hideout isn't safe," said Sally. "It's too close to a main corridor and too near our last encounter with the bugs. We should go to the other one that we set up."

Months earlier Croft's group had been forced to evacuate one of their previous hideouts during a particularly hurried retreat, leaving them with no secure base to go to. That taught him a valuable lesson. He had decreed that in the future they would always have a backup hideout. But, oddly enough, Croft had had his team split up into two groups, each setting up their own backup hideout, without telling the other group where theirs would be. Red Sally, the Silencer, and Preston had set one up, and he, Mongo, and the Clapper had set up this one, and each group hadn't told the other where their backup was located. At the time they had wondered why Croft required this duplication and secrecy.

Croft shook his head. "Your backup hideout is a deathtrap."

"How do you know?" said Sally. "You don't even know where it is."

"But the Insects do," said Croft. "How do you think they found out the location of our primary hideout?"

Sally frowned. With all their running around, she hadn't given it much thought. "They may have stumbled upon it during a patrol-"

"No, it was too well hidden," said Croft. "Unless you believe the Insects have a policy of breaking into every generator they see, on the off-chance that it's been hollowed out and used as a hideout. They knew what they were going to find before they attacked. They set up specifically to attack this location; it was obvious from the monitor."

"Then how did they know?"

"They got to the Silencer, or Preston," said Croft. "It's the only answer."

"They're dead," said Sally.

"They may indeed be dead now, but not before one of them talked," said Croft.

"The Silencer would never give away our location."

"It may not have been his idea," said Croft. "Either way, one or both of them were captured, and lived long enough to tell them about our primary base. Now, both of them also knew about your secondary base. Do you want to bet that the Insects haven't staked that out as well?"

"Why don't we just check out-"

"If we check in, we won't check out," said Croft bluntly.

"As my dear departed wife used to say, it's better to be safe than sorry," said Sashay.

"How do you know it wasn't Mongo who was tortured for information?" said Sally. "He's unaccounted for."

"Possibly," said Croft. "But he deserted us before everything came apart. I'm guessing he saw far enough into the future to protect himself. We should leave now."

"Leave?" said Sashay. "But we're already at the hideout that your own group built. Where else shall we go?"

"To the other, other hideout I created on my own," said Croft.

*****************

Clifford Croft was not an especially trusting fellow. Working for decades as a spy hadn't sharpened his instinct to trust or rely on others, but even without his training, trust didn't come naturally to him. And so while he had gone through the motions of setting up an auxiliary hideout with Sashay and Mongo, he had, bit by bit, on his own time, set up a real backup hideout just for himself. And it was there that he took Sashay, the Clapper, Red Sally, and the two resistance fighters she had rescued. Only Croft insisted on a blindfold for the resistance fighters. There was no need to trust more people than necessary.

Nearly two years earlier, a light cruiser in the defense of August had been shot down during the initial invasion. The pilot had managed to make a controlled crash, landing on one of the few large open plazas in the heart of the capital city surrounding Sarney Sarittenden. The ship had broken apart, but the main body of the craft remained intact, allowing the two thirds of the crew who survived to escape. The Insect ground troopers, after checking out the wreckage during the ground invasion, now didn't give it a second thought.

But Clifford Croft did. The impact had collapsed into the underground walkways underneath the crash site, reducing the amount of tunneling Croft needed to do to get there. After some excavation, he had an ideal hiding place--in plain view of two Insect security checkpoints, on either end of a large plaza. The Insects would never, ever think to look there, and Croft had a secure method of ingress and egress--from the underground.

It was there that he took his allies. He had refurbished two of the crew quarters, which made a tight squeeze for six, but light and sound there couldn't be seen or heard on the plaza above them. If the Insects ever became curious and investigated the wreck again, they'd have to dig their way to the two compartments, giving Croft plenty of warning.

***************

The Insect Czzz idly sat back in her chair. She was bored, and showed it. Now that they had conquered the humans, there was no fun, no excitement anymore! Czzz was a high-ranking Insect, a direct deputy to the Governor-General of August, who had grown fat and lazy during the consolidation period. Perhaps the latest round of executions would add a bit of excitement to her day.

The prisoners shuffled into the execution chamber, herded by guards carrying long blades. Their faces were down, and their body language showed they were defeated. How boring.

All except for one human. He moved slowly like the rest, shuffling along, and then, in the blink of an eye, he somehow grabbed the giant four foot blade weapon from one of the guards, skewered it, and turned on the next one in line behind it.

An alarm sounded, and Insect guards rushed into the execution chamber. They attempted to disarm the creature, but it was too quick, even using the blade which was obviously too long and heavy for it. Four guards were down before the rest pulled back, drawing their lasers for the inevitable putdown.

"Wait!" said Czzz, standing up suddenly. Everything stopped; the guards, the prisoner, even the one with the long blade who moved much too quickly. Czzz looked down at the execution chamber. "You! Human! How do you move so fast?" Looking more closely, Czzz noticed that the human was wounded, its right arm hanging loosely from it. It was even more remarkable that it could fight like that while wounded!

The being looked up at Czzz and said nothing. Czzz wondered if her translator was functioning properly. "Human! How do you move so quickly?" Czzz said again.

The being spoke in a flat voice. "I don't; you just move so slowly."

"Do you have a name?" Czzz asked.

The being nodded.

Czzz waited. Then, seeing no response. "What is your name?"

"I'm called the Silencer."

The Silencer! The being responsible for the death of so many Insect troopers, the being who moved faster than a bee wing, the being who had raided Sarney Sarittenden itself. Now that was excitement!

"I think I have a use for you," said Czzz.

********

"We have captured or killed all the ringleaders in the raid on their place of hiding," said the officer. She was a junior Queen, her name was Tsur, and she was in charge of internal security on August.

"All the ringleaders?" said Queen Zsst. "And what of the one called Clifford Croft?"

"He is presumed dead," said the officer.

"When is he presumed to have died?" said the Queen. "Before or after the explosive trap which decimated your platoon?"

So the Queen knew about that. She must have her own sources within the military, Tsur realized.

"That could have been an automated defense mechanism," said Tsur. "All evidence suggests the Croft pest was killed along with the rest of General Markov's men-"

"All evidence suggests that you are trying to hide your failure," said Queen Zsst. "This Clifford Croft pest is one of the few senior agency humans still at large, one of their legendary Column Eight. He is skilled in sabotage and guerrilla warfare. Find this human, or I will find you."

"Yes, Queen," said Tsur, bowing as she exited.

Zsst turned to another aide. "Continue the report."

"We have broken the back of the resistance," the aide reported. "The raids in the capital area have virtually ceased."

"But only in the area around the capital," said Queen Zsst, noting the distinction. "That is not sufficient." She sat at ease in her throne room in the heart of Sarney Sarittenden. To her side stood a hooded figure. "Why are we not breeding additional troopers at full capacity?"

"We have the capacity to breed more, but not the foodstuffs to support them," said the aide. "We are working on increasing grubfruit production at the farms."

"See that you do," said Zsst. "We will only wipe out the human pest entirely when we have total numerical superiority."

"The goal is not to wipe them out," said the hooded figure. "I thought we were clear on that."

"To wipe out their resistance, I meant," said the Queen. "Of course, they can perform some minor manual labor as well."

"And other purposes," said the hooded figure. "We did not assist you in this invasion merely to provide you with cheap labor. The humans have other uses, ones which you have not been using them for."

"Other uses, Baraki?" The Queen almost seemed to snort in derision.

The hooded figure shook its head sadly. "The humans can be used for skilled labor-"

"Skilled? For what?"

"Sophisticated product production. Driving. Piloting. You have a very educated worker base that you are squandering."

Zsst made a derisive noise.

"Do you not have a human in your employ?"

"The cook?" said Zsst. "It is a cook!"

"A sophisticated biochemist who is able to come up with dishes that your own cooks cannot," said Baraki. "I expect that you will make better use of the humans." The menace in his tone was clear.

The tension was palpable.

Zsst said, "Perhaps there are some minor tasks that they can be put to."

"Good. Also, you have ignored their industrial base. You simply destroy whatever they already have in place in order to build your own factories."

"Their factories are not equipped to produce our munitions or other goods."

"Some of them can be retooled," said Baraki. "You might also learn something from their manufacturing techniques."

"Their primitive techniques?" Zsst said incredulously.

"You don't even make use of their own power supplies," said Baraki. "Your race knows how to conquer, but doesn't know how to exploit. We invested a lot of time and effort in helping you with this invasion. You must profit fully from what you have conquered, so that you can build up as rapidly as possible and be ready for the next step."

"Very well," said Zsst reluctantly. "We will see what can be done."

*************

The Sarney Sarittenden Stadium was the largest event arena on the planet, with ample seating for 50,000 on-site spectators. Used in the past for sporting, artistic, or cultural events, the Insects had found a more practical use for it: gladiator games. Over the past two years over a thousand human prisoners had met their end providing the Insects with entertainment.

But attendance at the games had been declining. The audience, all Insects, was starting to find them boring. Thus it was with great pleasure that Czzz had located a new source of entertainment.

The Silencer stood in the arena, blinking in the morning sun as he raised his left hand over his eyes. His injured right arm hung loosely. On the ground in front of him something gleamed in the bright sunlight. Coming closer, he saw it was a smaller version of the sticks with the curved blades that the Insects used. He picked it up with his good left arm.

Over the announcement system, words blared out in the clicks and buzzes of the Insect native language. "Announcing a new target... one of the most fearsome human opponents... a Graftonite... the one known as the Silencer!"

A buzzing went up in the audience. Obviously, they had heard of him.

A seven foot tall Insect wearing the traditional red shoulder patch of a gladiator emerged into the arena. It carried a giant stick with a curved blade on the end, a larger version of what the Silencer now carried.

Normally, one of her top gladiators would take on several humans at once. The weak, underfed, and poorly trained humans were seldom any challenge. But Czzz, sensing that the Silencer would be something different, had arranged for a one-on-one contest. She sat on comfortable pillows, watching the battle that was about to begin. She hoped the Silencer would provide some quality entertainment.

The gladiator approached the Silencer. The Silencer didn't move, glaring at the Insect. He hefted the weapon in his good arm, as if feeling the weight.

The gladiator stopped several feet short of the Silencer. "Are you ready to die, human?" it said through its translation device. "I have killed 40 of your kind in the arena. I only need one more kill to move up to fifth place in the gladiator rankings."

The Silencer said nothing, but continued to glare coldly. The Insect, seeing it wasn't getting the reaction it expected, raised its weapon and cautiously started to circle the Silencer. The Silencer took a step as if to move in the opposite direction and to circle the Insect. The Insect took another step forward, and-

no one in the arena could see it, because it was so fast, but the Silencer doubled back, lunged and stabbed the Insect deeply in the thorax, before anyone, including the Insect, could even blink.

The gladiator gave a hoarse scream as the Silencer pulled the stick sideways, causing the curved blade to sink deeper into the gladiator, pulling it down to the ground.

The green blood of the gladiator ran freely on the sands of the arena.

The crowd roared in anger. But Czzz was ecstatic. This wasn't the result she had been expecting; but it appeared this human would have some staying power. She wondered how it would perform against two gladiators....

********

"So as I see it, we've got to leave," said Croft. He looked around at their little group--Red Sally, Sashay, the Clapper, and the two soldiers they had picked up, Lintro and Yaney. It had been a week now since they had escaped from their last encounter with the Insects.