Revenge of the Insects! Ch. 01-02 by Rando_guy

Revenge of the Insects!

(Also known as "Nightfall on August")

Prologue: The Destruction of August

The enormous Monumental ship streaked towards August, intent on its total destruction.

Queen Zsst looked with great joy at the viewscreen as she eyed the rapidly expanding image of the planet August. She noticed theGlorylimping to intercept her. She made a slight course adjustment so she wouldn't run into theGlory. She didn't want to risk killing the War Admiral before he got to see his precious planet destroyed.

She checked the status of the superweapon. It was powering up, and almost ready to fire again.

And then she heard a horrible hiss, and then someone talking, "What are you doing?"

Zsst was alone on the ship. She turned around to see the holographic image of Baraki.

"I am destroying the humans," said Zsst.

"This is not what we loaned you this technology for," said Baraki, bristling with anger. "We also did not give you this technology to cripple their worlds!"

"You helped us so we could destroy them!" said Zsst.

"Even now, at the end, you still do not understand!" said Baraki. "We never wanted them destroyed. We wanted you to use them to help build yourself up. But all you are doing now is committing senseless destruction. I order you to turn back!"

"You don't frighten me anymore," said Zsst. "You are far away and I am here. Nothing will prevent me from having my revenge."

The image of Baraki faded. There! For the first time she had faced him down.

Zsst checked the status of the weapon. It was seconds away from being ready to fire. She also noticed theGlory, almost in interception range. She hoped the War Admiral would be in a good position to see her ship as she blasted August to pieces.

"Stand away from the controls," said Baraki's voice.

Zsst didn't even turn around.

But then she felt a scaly hand on her torso, throwing her to the ground.

Baraki looked down at her, hissing menacingly. "You have destroyed everything we have painstakingly built up. You have committed the ultimate crime, wasting our time and effort. My only regret is that I cannot give you the kind of death you so richly deserve."

And he raised his palms, and a bolts of lightning shot out of his hands, starting in Zsst's legs, going up her torso. She screamed a shrilling buzzing sound as the extreme pain moved up her lower limbs, then her torso, and finally her head.

Baraki didn't even bother to glance at the smoking corpse on the deck as he calmly changed course and turned the ship around.

Part I: Roughing it on August

Chapter 1: The March Across Concord

They had won a victory, but at a terrible cost.

For nearly 20 years the Insects had occupied Alliance planets, enslaving the human race. It was only after years of resistance, and the return of a rebuilt fleet led by War Admiral Norman North, that they were able to finally liberate their home worlds.

But their victory had come at a terrible cost. As a parting act of spite, the Insects had used an ancient weapon to disrupt all power systems on nearly all Alliance worlds. The Queen leading the invasion, Zsst herself, came to August, the capital of the Alliance, in a mighty Monumental ship, intent not only on disrupting the power on the planet but also destroying it utterly with a Monumental superweapon.

Zsst used an energy dampener to disrupt the power on August, as she had on most major Alliance worlds. But then, just as she was about to destroy August with the superweapon, the Monumental ship turned around, and simply disappeared from known space. No one knew why.

But the damage Zsst had done was significant enough. Most Alliance worlds were without power. That would be a disaster on any world.

On August, it was worse than a disaster.

Imagine a city so large that it spanned an entire continent, and you imagine August. Everything from transportation to food to medicine to industry relied on power. Even at the height of the Insect occupation, the generators kept running, supplying the resistance with the power they needed to run their underground electrofarms. There were some conventional farms on the periphery of the continent, but they only produced a small fraction of the food needed to support the population.

And now, suddenly, the lights went out. Everything stopped working. The power generators shut down. The hot lamps which powered the underground went dark. The entire planet was cut off, surrounded by a sparkling field of particles that prevented any ship from safely landing, and even prevented communications from coming in and out. August was one, big, prehistoric prison, and everyone on the planet was trapped there.

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

The power to all electrical devices had been cut off right after the energy suppression field hit. Unfortunately, one of those "electrical devices" was a small fighter, just in the process of taking off when power was lost.

The wreckage from the long range Trobadore B two seater fighter littered the street, burning everywhere. A bloody hand reached up unsteadily to push some of the debris away.

A person attached to the hand struggled to free himself from the debris as well as the parachute attached to the chair ejection mechanism. The figure stood up, revealing the equally bloody but grim face of Clifford Croft, resistance leader and super spy, one of the Column's Eight.

Croft wiped the blood off his forehead as he looked around. He felt fuzzy and lightheaded. It must be the concussion, he thought dimly.

Croft tried to look around, but despite the small fires burning around him, a glittering haze was filling the air, preventing him from seeing more than a few feet in any direction. Had his eyes been injured in the crash?

Croft felt unsteady, like he had trouble standing; he fell back to the ground, and tried to cut through the buzz in his head and concentrate.

He had been in the back seat of the Trobadore B. The pilot had tried to eject, but when power was lost, the automatic eject system went out with it. His last memory was of the pilot pulling the manual eject lever....

Aeronautical engineers knew, of course, that pilots would have to eject under a variety of circumstances, including when they had lost power, and had provided a manual release mechanism. But the extra seconds that the pilot had taken to move from the automatic to the manual ejection button had nearly been fatal.

Perhaps fatally so, for the pilot. Croft and the pilot of the Trobadore had ejected separately. He tried to look around, to see if he could see any signs of him. But that dim, glittering haze was blocking his vision. Croft felt the painful spot on his head. Had he suffered brain damage that impaired his vision?

Croft stiffened as he heard crackling sounds, as if someone was moving through the wreckage. Could it be the pilot? No, not from the sound of it, unless the pilot had brought several friends with him.

He was reaching for his blaster when he slumped over and blacked out.

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

Croft slowly awoke to find himself lying on a table in an underground room. The room was illuminated by a small flame driven torch on the wall. The room was covered in that sparkling mist, making it difficult to see. Croft closed his eyes hard, and reopened them. He saw people moving in the mist. Croft groaned, and started to sit up. His head was throbbing, and he felt a sharp pain in his side.

Someone came over to him out of the mist. "You're very lucky," said the figure.

"I'm not so sure," said Croft, guessing that this must be a member of the resistance. He felt his body. It was painful on his right side and right leg, like he had twisted something, but at least nothing seemed broken. Maybe he was lucky. He tried looking around, but his vision was still blurry. "There's something wrong with my vision," he said.

"If you mean the mist, there's nothing wrong," said the man. "At least, not with your vision. It's from that bug weapon they used on us."

Bug weapon.

It all came back to Croft. The Insects had used some kind of weapon to dampen power on the entire planet. That's what the sparkling particles were.

"What about the pilot?" said Croft, standing up painfully. He checked his blaster; it was still in its holster. Good. Or was that now irrelevant?

"There was no sign of him," said the man.

Another shape moved in the blur.

"He's conscious, sir," said the man.

"Thank you, Corporal, you're dismissed," said the second man. He turned to Croft, stared at his face, and look startled. He said, "I think I recognize you, from the broadcast at the victory celebration. Are you..."

Croft looked up expectantly.

"Clifford Croft?" said the man, looking uncertain.

"In the flesh," said Croft, groaning as he felt a pain in his back. "Barely. What's the situation?"

"Lieutenant Pomiter, sir, resistance group 7-2," said the officer, saluting. "All power has been cut."

"Planetwide?" said Croft.

"There's no way to tell," said Pomiter. "We don't have power for the comm system. The situation is already starting to get chaotic on the surface."

"I can imagine," said Croft. He considered the possibilities. "The fleet must know what's happened to us... if the fleet survived."

"Can we count on their help, sir?" Pomiter asked.

"It depends how high in the atmosphere this disturbance goes," said Croft. "My guess is that we'll have to rely on ourselves, for the time being. "

"Yes sir," said Pomiter. "We're cut off from other resistance groups, except those closest to us. Our most immediate problem is the food situation."

"The food situation?"

"The power cut out to the heat lamps for our underground farms.."

Croft immediately understood the implications. Without light, the farms would die. "Can you move the farms to the surface?"

"Even if we could, there's no light out there."

"No light?" said Croft, stunned.

"Sir, you crashed in broad daylight, two hours ago, but right now there's only a dim light outside. Most of it is being jammed by those particles," said Pomiter.

"I think we're in trouble," said Croft.

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

They took stock of their situation. There had been nearly 50 men under Lieutenant Pomiter's command; but after the victory celebration, many had dispersed or gone their own separate ways; only 32 remained. There was enough stored food to feed those 32 for perhaps fifteen days. And there was no way to grow any additional food.

"Show me a map," said Croft automatically.

"I can't, sir," said Pomiter, pointing to the holodisplay. "No power."

"Then draw me one," Croft snarled.

"Sir, I can't draw an exact map-"

"A general map of our location on August will do," said Croft.

It took several minutes for Pomiter to find a writing implement. He drew a rough map of August, and their location.

From Pomiter's drawing, it appeared that they were a somewhat east of the center of the western continent, Concord.

Croft stared at the picture and thought to himself for a moment. "How long would you estimate it would take us to get to Sarney?"

"Sarney, on the east coast?" said Pomiter.

"Is there any other Sarney Sarittenden?" said Croft.

"On foot?" said Pomiter. He frowned, concentrating. "I don't know. Maybe 25 or 30 days."

"Then that's where we have to go."

"Sir, we don't have enough food to get there," said Pomiter.

"If we have enough food for fifteen days, we'll make it if we go on half rations, if we cover, oh, maybe 20 miles a day," Croft figured.

"Half rations? How can we march 20 miles a day on half rations?"

"We don't have much choice," said Croft grimly.

"What can we hope to accomplish even if we get to Sarney Sarittenden?" said Pomiter. "Is there any food stored there?"

"No more than anywhere else," said Croft grimly. "But that's just a stone's throw from Mohonk."

"Mohonk?"

"Think, Pomiter. What's just about the only place on this planet where vegetation grows naturally?"

"The eastern continent," said Pomiter. "But we can't eat vegetation."

"We most certainly can, if it's a choice between that and starvation," said Croft. "And I see no alternative by staying here. We can't eat technosteel buildings. It's either go to Mohonk, or stay here and starve."

"Sir, shouldn't we think about this?"

"Every minute we spend thinking about this is one more minute we give hunger a chance to build, and one less minute that we spend starting our walk to Mohonk," said Croft. "And with each minute that passes, the chaos on the planet surface will only increase. How long do you think it will be before wild gangs kill anything that moves on the surface, hoping to get a scrap of food?"

"We're disciplined soldiers, sir," said Pomiter. "We'll get you to Sarney."

"That's great," said Croft. "But discipline won't be enough." In a swift motion he drew his blaster and fired at the opposite wall. Nothing. "How will we even be able to defend ourselves?"

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

The troopers gathered up their remaining food and a few blankets and were ready to go an hour later, which was fifty minutes too long for Croft's tastes. To Croft's satisfaction, Pomiter set up the column in a staggered formation, designating advance scouts to go ahead of the main force. Perhaps this Pomiter was actually competent.

It was broad daylight outside, but the particles were so thick that they blotted out the light. They could barely see where they were going. And yet, these sparkly particles couldn't be touched, or felt. Only seen. What exactly had the bugs hit them with?

They marched with only two short breaks until nightfall, when travel was impossible. As they rested in an abandoned lobby, Croft groaned as he lay down. The throbbing in his head had subsided, but the pain in his leg had increased. He gingerly felt his leg. It was sore, but it functioned. That was good. A broken leg could be a death sentence right now.

It was pitch black outside. With the power out and the particles blotting out the light of the stars, nothing could be seen.

The morning came dimly. When it was bright enough to see a few feet ahead, they started marching again. The particles were so thick that psychologically it made them feel like they had trouble breathing, even though they couldn't actually feel the particles. Well, some of them claimed they could feel the particles, that it made their hair stand on end. Croft didn't speculate, but just kept walking.

From time to time they encountered other people, scavengers. A few stopped to beg for food, but they had none to spare. Croft's stomach rumbled most of the time after the two short meals they permitted themselves. Existing on half-rations was bad enough; but existing on half rations while marching miles every day was even worse.

And Croft knew there was no way they were covering 20 miles a day. They would undoubtedly run out of food long before they reached Mohonk. Once the food was gone, it would be a race against time to get over to the Eastern continent before they starved to death.

Well, at least they were going in the right general direction, east. Croft hoped that once they got close to Sarney he would recognize landmarks that would enable him to plot a more direct route. They had many opportunities to climb up tall buildings to check for landmarks, but none of the troopers, Croft included, had the energy to climb after marching for miles every day.

The pain in Croft's right leg gradually faded, but was replaced by another kind of wearying pain in both legs.

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

"I wonder how far we've come?" said Pomiter, on the seventh night. He was sitting near Croft in the darkness, though neither could see the other.

"It's hard to say," said Croft slowly. "My guess is that we're doing about 15 miles a day."

"A quarter of our food is gone already, even at half rations," said Pomiter. "Do you think we're going to make it?"

"I think we don't have much choice," said Croft grimly.

"I feel exhausted," said Pomiter. "I wonder if there's something in this mist that's killing us."

"I think that's just fatigue," said Croft. "This mist only seems to have knocked out the power."

"How do you know?" Pomiter asked.

"I don't," said Croft. "But we just have to continue on and hope for the best."

The trouble didn't really start until the eighth day.

They were marching on the morning of the eighth day, and they were so weary that they nearly didn't see trouble coming. The mist also didn't help. It was thick, not enabling them to see more than a few feet ahead. Croft thought that the mist was starting to thin a bit--or was it his imagination?

He was still considering this when suddenly a gang of scavengers appeared, blocking the way forward; and then, turning around, Croft saw their exit blocked as well.

"Just give us your food and none of you will get hurt," said their leader, holding a metal pipe.

Croft said nothing as the leader took a step towards him. The scavenger took Croft's silence for fear. "Let's have it," said the bandit.

"Whatever you say," said Croft, stepping forward swiftly, despite the pain in his legs.

The ruffian swung at him but Croft was already spinning to the side, and chopped down hard on the ruffian's neck. He dropped to the ground like a sack of 30 day potatoes.

In an instant, the other scavengers fled.

"All right, everybody, pick up a stick," said Croft, painfully bending down to get the metal pipe. He swung it experimentally. It had a nice solid feel to it.

"A stick?" said one of the men.

"A club, a stick, anything long and hard," said Croft. "We're going back to the stone age, gang."

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

After that they had several more encounters with gangs, and each time they had to fight harder and harder to get through them. It was as if the word had spread that Croft and his team had food, and everyone, desperate to survive, was coming after them. They faced an increasing number of bruising conflicts.

It was with a wary eye, then, on the tenth day, that Croft eyed a single scavenger in the street ahead of them. The lone scavenger didn't seem frightened, as loners often did; he just stood there, and stared at Croft and his men.

"Do you think it's a trap?" Pomiter asked.

"Quite possibly," said Croft. "Let's switch to another street."

They crisscrossed through several short avenues before setting out on a parallel street a few blocks down.

But standing there, waiting for them, was the same scavenger.

At least, it looked like the same one.

"All right," said Croft, motioning with his hands for the platoon to assume a classic box position. "Be ready for anything, men."

They gripped their weapons more tightly, as if expecting a trap. But as they got closer, the man said, "Hi there," in a friendly tone.

This only made Croft more suspicious. They were on a ruined planet, in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden a friendly person had appeared.

Croft stopped several feet away from the person, but in the mist had trouble making out the man's face.

"What do you want?" said Croft, getting to the point. He held his metal pipe in his right hand, looking left and right for the ambush.

"I recognize that voice," said the man. "What are the odds of that?"

And then Croft recognized not so much the other man's voice, but something about what he said about odds.

The man slowly stepped forward out of the gloom, his hands up, so Croft and the others could see that he wasn't armed.

"Well well well," said Clifford Croft. "Yosemite Catchbill. What are the odds of meeting you here?"

"I was asking myself the same thing," said Catchbill.

Revenge of the Insects! Ch. 01-02

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