Death to the Insects

Chapter 4: Lightning Raid in Sarney Sarittenden

Chapter 4: Lightning Raid in Sarney Sarittenden

He didn't give up.

He persevered.

It wasn't about profits any more.

It was about pride, and anger.

He was tired, but he rarely slept.

He was hungry, but he rarely stopped to eat.

He was one of the best Graftonite trackers, and he always got his man.

And his name was Angry Red.

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

Angry Red surveyed the makeshift detection device in his hands. The indicator said he was close now, quite close. Mongo was still wearing the collar.

Red was in an enormous junkyard. There were millions of places to hide. The problem with this makeshift detector was that within a certain range it didn't indicate precise locations. At this point all he knew was that Mongo was somewhere within a hundred feet of him.

"Give yourself up," said Red, in a booming voice, as he suddenly turned a corner. The goal was to keep moving, looking for a sight, listening for a sound that might reveal where he was hiding.

"Surrender now," said Red, yelling.

There was no response, but he was sure that his former slave was here. He turned around another corner, but saw nothing. He could be anywhere. It was time for more aggressive tactics to flush Mongo out.

"If you don't surrender in the next ten seconds," said Red, "I will detonate." He turned around another corner, but only saw another pile of junk.

"Ten.... nine... eight..."

Mongo's heart nearly leapt out of his body. What should he do? What should he do?

"Seven... six... five..."

The thought of returning to Red was terrible. But the thought of having his head blown off was even worse. At least there was a chance that Red wouldn't kill him, if he surrendered.

Angry Red kept walking, scanning the area around him.

"Five... four..."

And then Mongo got a fast forward vision, and another, and another. All showed him successfully staying in hiding and escaping from Red. How could this be? Mongo searched frantically for futures where he got his head blown off.

"Three... two...."

Mongo couldn't find any futures where he got his head blown off. Does that mean they didn't exist?

"One...."

Mongo jerked up, causing a pile of debris to go scattering. He was on a wall of debris at the edge of the junkyard. Angry Red, fifty feet away, swiveled and saw him.

"Surrender!" said Red triumphantly.

Mongo stared at Red, concentrating hard on possible futures. In that one extra second he came to an undeniable conclusion.

Red couldn't detonate his explosives. His new tracking device was just that; a tracking device.

Mongo turned to leap off the wall and run away.

"If you do that, I'll detonate!" said Angry Red, his finger on the button.

Mongo took a deep breath and jumped.

He landed, but the only sound he heard was the heavy footsteps of Angry Red racing to find the nearest way out of the junkyard.

It had all been a bluff. Angry Red couldn't detonate the charges.

Mongo scampered to the relative safety of a nearby building with an entrance to the undercity, before Angry Red managed to find his own way out of the junkyard.

********

An idea came to Croft one day, about a month after their raid on the level 242 force bridge, when he was watching a holovid. The three dimensional image showed the Silencer, fighting a wild beast in the arena. The crowds were roaring, the beast was attacking, the Silencer, looking bloody and bruised, was doing his best despite the fact that he had only one good arm, and then-

the camera momentarily panned to the open sky over the arena.

And then Croft realized something he already knew. Now that they had gravitators, for the first time they had a realistic chance to rescue the Silencer!

He told the others his plan. Sashay was worried, the Clapper clapped, and Red Sally pointedly asked if this rescue operation would give her the opportunity to torch some bugs. With such predictable responses, why had he bothered to ask?

He had little difficulty securing the gravitators. They had recovered 15 from the Insects. General Clay had gone back north, taking 10 of the gravitators and a number of recruits with him. That left five here. Croft used his influence to requisition all five. He promised to return them in good working order. He would take Red Sally, the Clapper, and two other soldiers. They would have to ferry the gravitators by night, going at low altitudes, as they headed back to the east coast, and that would be tricky. Croft estimated it would take three or four steady nights of flying to get there. But it was worth it, if they could rescue the Silencer.

He started to make plans. They would leave in two days.

*********

Wheezing and breathing heavily, Mongo lay down in his latest hiding place. Angry Red was still chasing him. What profit was there in that? So Mongo had arranged for him to be shot. But he was taking it very personally. Maybe he had never been shot before.

If he wanted to escape Angry Red, he needed to get rid of the collar. Would the collar really explode if he tried to remove it? Maybe it had all been a lie. If there were no explosives, he could get a rock, or something sharp, and break the collar off himself.

Mongo fished the primary tracker he had taken from Red out of his pocket. The screen was dark. There was a series of slim buttons on it, but no way to tell if any of them could be used to detonate the collar.

No, there was no way he was going to take a gamble with this device. If he wanted to be safe he needed... he needed....

Mongo needed help. He didn't like to admit it, but he did. And how would he get help? Who would help Mongo? Everyone Mongo encountered wanted to enslave him, to lock him up. Everyone except... Croft.

Sure, Croft had used his ability, and had been unkind to Mongo at times. In fact, many times. But he had never held Mongo captive, or forced him to risk his life; at least, not more than the others in his command, and Croft had treated Mongo equally, as least, as equally as Croft was capable of treating anyone else.

Croft could safely remove the collar, Mongo felt sure.

But where was Croft now? Was he even alive?

Think, Mongo, he told himself. The only way he was going to get out of this was to think, and think hard.

Squeezing his eyes tightly, willing himself to focus, he waited as one vision after another unfolded in his mind....

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

The Silencer stood in the arena, his arms at his side. "I won't fight," he said bluntly, dropping the double-edged pike.

Facing him were three of his fellow prisoners. All had survived previous battles in the arena, though not nearly as many as the Silencer.

"You WILL fight," said Czzz, speaking through a loudspeaker.

"I won't kill innocent people," said the Silencer.

"Then YOU will die!" said Czzz. He addressed the three other prisoners. "PRISONERS! Only one of you will be allowed to walk out of the arena. Fight!"

The prisoners looked at each other with hesitancy in their eyes.

"Guards!" said Czzz. "If fighting does not begin in 20 seconds, kill everyone in the arena!"

The Insect guards raised their rifles in anticipation.

The Silencer sat down on the ground.

At that moment, something snapped and the prisoners, fearing for their lives, attacked. Two attacked each other while a third came for the Silencer

He stared calmly at the man approaching him, who was obviously terrified. But the man charged the Silencer with his pike, and still the Silencer simply sat there.

It was one of those instant replay moments that were so common of the Silencer. Everything proceeded in a blur, but in the slow replay they could see the Silencer grabbing his discarded pike while ducking to the side of the extended pike that was thrust at him, and then whacking his attacker across the legs with the handle portion of his pike.

His attacker went down, clutching his legs in agony, and the Silencer was on his feet, looking calmly at his attacker.

The attacker painfully got to his feet, grabbing his weapon as the Silencer politely watched. "I have no choice, Silencer."

"I understand," said the Silencer coldly. And he ducked in around the attacker's guard and landed an open palm attack against his opponent's forehead.

His opponent fell to the ground again and did not move.

The Silencer turned to the two who were still fighting each other and quickly knocked them out with open palm attacks as well, dropping them as easily as one might cut a clump of bananas from a tree.

"Kill them!" Czzz boomed.

"No," said the Silencer. "According to your own rules, only one of us could walk out of the arena. Well, the others can't walk."

The crowd roared and buzzed wildly. Czzz, in a rage, nonetheless ordered the prisoners removed. The Silencer had been an irritant for a long time, but that was now about to change.

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

The Silencer was bound in shackles and brought to Czzz's office.

"You have become more and more rebellious, Silencer," said Czzz. "I admit, we have never ordered you to kill your own kind before. But you have generally become less cooperative."

The Silencer said nothing.

"Even when you kill, it is all mechanical now. There is no showmanship, no flair to keep us entertained."

The Silencer didn't respond.

"But I think now, finally, we have found something that will break your silence, your monotony. Something that will energize you. Something that will make you positively talkative.

"That's unlikely," said the Silencer grimly, speaking for the first time.

"Why?" Czzz asked.

"You killed everything that I loved. Everything is meaningless now."

"Aaaah," said Czzz. "But we haven't killed everything you loved, not if you mean your wife... An-nee?"

The Silencer's face came alive, in a way Czzz had never seen.

"Ah, so I see we do have the right Silencer, then. You were under the perception that your wife was dead, yes?"

"She isn't dead?" said the Silencer sharply.

"We intercepted a cargo ship carrying her to your homeworld," said Czzz. "We destroyed the cargo ship, but not before boarding to take prisoners."

"Annie is alive?"

"She fought hard, and we were forced to use gas to take her. We quickly realized that we had a fellow Graftonite in our possession."

"Where is she?" said the Silencer.

"She is right here," said Czzz. He pressed a button, and an image came onto the screen. Annie was nude, unmoving, inside some sort of chamber.

"What have you done to her!" the Silencer growled, rattling his restraints. The guards involuntarily took a step back.

"She is unharmed, in cryogenic suspension," said Czzz. "But our veterinarian experimentation division would like to use her in several promising tests-"

"No!" the Silencer yelled, straining at his restraints. Two Insect claw arms pushed down on his shoulders, to prevent him from leaping for Czzz's throat.

"But I could use my influence to keep her safe," said Czzz. "That is, if you ask me to. All you would have to do is to ask me to."

"Keep her safe," said the Silencer.

"What was that. what did you say?" Czzz suddenly seemed to be hard of hearing.

The Silencer glared at Czzz. "Please keep her safe."

"Please? I didn't know you had that word in your vocabulary, Silencer," said Czzz. "In fact, I think this is the longest conversation we have ever had."

"What do you want?" said the Silencer, his shoulders slumping.

"Not much," said Czzz. "For now, merely to be more entertaining in the arena."

"All right," said the Silencer. "But I still won't kill innocent people."

"For now, that's acceptable," said Czzz. "You've already made good progress. We'll talk more."

"Wait! I want to see her!" said the Silencer, as he was dragged off.

"If you cooperate, all may be possible," said Czzz.

********

Croft was taking one of his nocturnal walks to clear his head. It should be reasonably safe; the Insects hadn't sent a patrol into this area in days. Instead they had reinforced their existing positions, only sending out fewer but larger patrols during the day. For once they were the ones reacting.

Croft walked around on the streets. As he walked, he heard a patter of feet behind him. The odd thing was, it didn't sound like the sound of human feet, or the heavier clomping of Insect troopers.

Croft stopped near a pillar, to provide cover for most of his body. The sounds behind him stopped

Croft looked over his shoulder. He could see nothing in the gloom. He peered into the distance for a long moment.

All was quiet.

Croft started walking again.

The patter of feet quietly followed.

Could it be some kind of animal? There were no free roaming animals in this part of August that Croft was aware of.

A likelier explanation was that this was some new kind of hunting beast that the Insects were using, some kind of bloodhound.

But why didn't it overtake and attack him?

Maybe it wasn't a predator. Maybe it was following him so it could locate his hideout.

In which case going back to base for help would be the worst possible thing he could do.

Having considered the possibilities, and settled on a course of action, Croft quickly rounded a corner, ducked behind another pillar, and drew his blaster.

The thing that pitter pattered around the corner stopped, and started sniffing. It didn't need to know that Croft had stopped again, it could actually smell it.

Croft waited, sweat starting to form on his brow as he aimed his gun into the blackness. Could this thing be invisible? Well, at least he could hear it coming.

"I say, were you going to shoot me with that?" said a very cultured voice.

"What? Who's there?" said Croft, spinning around. He couldn't see anything or anyone in the blackness of the night.

"Perhaps a form will make you more comfortable," said the voice, which was starting to sound familiar. A shimmering white sheet appeared in front of Croft.

"How can this bright sheet appear in front of me without casting off light in any direction?" Croft said.

"Oh, you are really on top of your game, most impressive, for an inferior species," said the voice jovially. "I always knew you had potential. You see, this is all in your mind."

"You're communicating telepathically?"

"At the moment," came the voice.

"Would you mind identifying yourself?" Croft said, still rotating slowly, his gun in hand.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I would," said the voice.

"There's something... something familiar about your voice," said Croft.

"How about this one?" said the voice, lowering several octaves.

"No, that's not familiar at all," said Croft.

"Good," the voice continued.

"I know you," said Croft.

"Actually, we've never met," said the voice. "But I've heard nothing but good things about you, Clifford Croft."

"From whom?" said Croft, lowering his weapon. Whatever was going to happen, he already had a sense that he was in no imminent danger; if this was an enemy, the danger would be more subtle, more long-term.

"Good, good," said the voice, noticing he had become more relaxed. "I'm here to help."

"That's kind of hard to believe when you won't even show yourself or tell me who you are."

"That's not permitted," said the voice. "Oh, there's nothing technically wrong in revealing myself to you-"

"So do so-"

"But if the others found out, there would be nothing but trouble. You understand, don't you?"

"No, I don't," said Croft.

"Good," said the voice. "I need your help."

"I thought you just said you wanted to help me," said Croft.

"I do," said the voice earnestly. "But by helping me you'll be helping yourself."

"How stupid do you think I am?"

"For your race, you are reputed to be quite intelligent," said the voice. "Now, on to business. After years of research, the Insects have constructed a new version of the shield generators on their ships, and have started production. I need you to get me the technical schematics for this shield generator."

"I see," said Croft. "And where might they be obtained, Mr. Towel?"

"Mr. Towel?"

"If you won't reveal yourself, all I have to work with is this glowing flapping thing. It looks a little like a towel."

"I was trying for a sheet."

"Show yourself or tell me your real name and I'll call you anything you like."

"Mr. Towel is acceptable for now," said the voice.

"Now, how can I possibly get access to this information? It must tightly guarded, and available only in a very limited number of places," said Croft.

"True, I suppose, but the computers on the flagship in orbit will certainly have them, I'm sure."

"I'm sure," Croft agreed. "So all I have to do is to get across the continent to Sarney Sarittenden undetected, steal a shuttle undetected, get aboard the mothership undetected, and break into the database, also undetected, even though I don't know a word of Insect?"

"Precisely," said Mr. Towel.

"Ouch!" said Croft, suddenly grabbing his head, which throbbed in pain. "What was that?"

"Recognition of the basic 200 words of the Insect written language you'll need to access their database, plus basic computer operation. You had better use it soon, it will wear off in a week or two."

"I'm not doing anything until I know more about who you are and what you're going to do with this information," said Croft, feeling the throbbing in his head start to subside. "How do I know that you're not another alien race that simply wants to use me to steal the technology? Or how do I know this isn't a trap just to capture me?"

"Clifford," said Mr. Towel. "If I wanted to capture you, the task would already be done. Isn't it obvious that I can incapacitate you at any time?"

"Oh. True."

"As for being another race wanting to use the technology for my own end, well, that's hard to comment on. You'll just have to learn to trust me in time."

"No thanks," said Croft. "There's no way that I'm going to risk my life just on your say-so."

"And yet you are about to risk your life heading to Sarney Sarittenden for a totally different reason, are you not?"

"What do you mean?" said Croft, his stomach tightening.

"To rescue your friend, the Silencer."

"Can you read my thoughts?" said Croft. Another thought quickly occurred to him. "Are you Gaboath?"

"Who?"

"Well, I suppose that answers one question," said Croft. Gaboath wouldn't hide like this anyway, even if he were still alive. "Yes, since you seem to know, I am going to rescue the Silencer."

"What if I help you?" said Mr. Towel.

"I don't need your help," said Croft suspiciously.

"You think you can just plunk down your gravitators into Sarney Sarittenden Stadium, grab the Silencer, and head back up again?" Mr. Towel chuckled. "Clifford, oh, Clifford."

"What, what? It's a good plan!" said Croft defensively.

"It's only good in comparison to your previous efforts to rescue your Silencer," said Mr. Towel. "As you see, I do know quite a lot about you. Now, if I agree to help you, will you help me?"

"Specifically how will you help me?"

"I'll tell you why your attempt to save your Silencer can't possibly work; in return, for saving your life, you'll go on my mission instead."

Croft was about to respond when he suddenly heard a sound; then another, then another. It was the sound of repeated claps.

His weapon drawn, he watched as the Clapper came out of the gloom.

"Croft! Clap! Croft! Clap!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Sally sent me looking for you," said the Clapper. "You've been gone a while."

"I'm fine," said Croft.

"She didn't ask if you were fine," said the Clapper, standing right in front of the white, wavey sheet.

"Thanks," said Croft. He looked at the bright, white wavey sheet. "You don't see anything here, do you?"

"See what?"

"Oh, I don't know, a bright wavy towel, maybe?"

The Clapper looked around, and right through it. "No."