The Alien Invasion

Chapter 5: Fire & Applause

Chapter 5: Fire & Applause

From the personal log of Clifford Croft, five months after the invasion:

We acted more cautiously after that, deciding to slow the pace of our attacks for a while. But it isn't easy to do nothing; just sitting around, totally inactive, drives all of us stir crazy. Even the Silencer. I could see it in his eyes. He just sat there, quickdrawing, and reholstering, quickdrawing and reholstering, over and over again.

It must have irritated Jenkins, one of our surviving Operatives, for he looked at the Silencer and opened his mouth, as if to ask him to stop. But the Silencer gave him a cold stare, and Jenkins simply closed his mouth and looked away.

After a few days we had to emerge from out base, if only to go shopping. Our food supplies were limited, and we had to periodically raid storage centers for more. The storage centers and the routes leading to them were often guarded by the Insects, of course.

We sneaked across one of the underground stripways. August had as many as 50 interior levels in some areas, and each level stretched for miles, much to our advantage. The Insects didn't have the trooper force to station soldiers on all levels. But they did have frequent patrols; it wasn't often we could sneak from one area to another without at least seeing a patrol. I tried to crack into the city's internal security system to see where the patrols were, but while I could break into the system, I couldn't figure out how to access and target the scanners. The system had been designed to be used by police bureaucrats, and so far I had been unable to crack the very unfriendly user interface.

I thought I had the route to the nearest food storage area memorized, but we must have turned a wrong corner, because suddenly we were in unfamiliar territory. Keep in mind that it was very easy to get lost in an underground this size; but at least, in earlier times, there would be people traveling through that one could get directions from, or electronic wall panels to consult. Now the underground was virtually empty, as most people had been rounded up and the few that hadn't been were in hiding. The only one to ask directions of were the patrols, and somehow I didn't think they'd be very forthcoming.

We heard a patrol coming our way and we quickly went into a side passage.

It was a wrong turn. A dead end.

We heard the clop clop of the Insect feet coming our way. It sounded like a LOT of them. Some of their patrols had only two or three of them, but this sounded like at least a dozen. And in seconds they would turn the corner and see us.

We all had our weapons out, even the Silencer. I suppose with the Silencer with us we shouldn't have worried, but we were boxed in a narrow corridor, and it would be difficult for the Insects to miss us when the shooting started. Unless the Silencer could get them all first. Could he?

We never found out because the Insects stopped, just short of turning the corner. I heard them buzzing to each other in their own language, but had no idea what they were saying. Then, one of them made a loud buzzing sound, a warning sound, and I heard sudden movement, and then the corridor lit up. That's right, it lit up, as if there were a fire in it. But we heard no explosion, we just saw the illumination of a fire, and heard the screams of the Insects. One of them, screaming rapidly, turned the corner and ran towards us. We could see it was on fire and desperately trying to rub against the wall to put the flames out. It came close to us and fell to the ground just feet from the Silencer, who still hadn't fired a shot. I think, for once, that he had been as surprised as we were.

Then there was silence, and the fires died down.

"They really lit up well, didn't they?" I heard a high pitched, almost little-girl voice say.

And then I heard a clapping sound, also around the corner, as if someone had offered applause.

My people gripped their guns more tightly. But for me, fear evolved into cautious recognition. "Stay here," I hissed. I didn't want any misunderstandings.

I slowly edged my way around the corner, to see charred bodies under a low flame, and an expressionless young woman with reddish hair looking at me. Even as she stared, I noticed her hair turning back to blonde.

"Sally?" I said.

"Who are you?" she said, peering in the gloom. "Come forward slowly, or I'll turn you into a candle."

"No need," I said quickly, stepping forward so she could see me.

"Oh," said Sally, when I came closer. "It's you," she said, sounding disappointed.

"Croft!" Clap! "Croft!" Clap!

I turned around and knew who I would see before I saw him. The Clapper. A powerful telekinetic.

"It's all right," I called out, raising my voice slightly.

My people came around the corner, gripping their guns. Preston knew who they were, but Gentry and Jenkins probably didn't. The Silencer, oddly enough, had met both Operatives before, on a mission on Grafton II where, as I'm sure no one remembered now, I had saved the galaxy from an invasion of the Graftonites.

"People, meet Sally Ravanal, aka Red Sally, and Robert Clerk, aka the Clapper."

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Gentry and Jenkins looked at me quizzically, as if more explanation was needed.

"They're high level Operatives from Gamma Section," I said. "Sally's a top level fire starter, and the Clapper is a middling range telekinetic."

"Telekinetic!" Clap! "Telekinetic!" Clap!

"Who has a tendency to clap," I added. "What are you two doing here? I thought the Column shipped you people out just before the invasion began."

The Gamma Section contained all the Column's mentalics; a hasty, but correct decision had been made to ship them out just before the bugs had landed; they were too valuable to waste in street fighting. I had guessed that most had escaped in time. What were these two still doing here?

"I decided to stay and fight," said the Clapper nervously. He clapped twice.

Red Sally gave him a look.

"We decided to stay," the Clapper corrected himself.

Red Sally gave him another look, a more dangerous one.

The Clapper gulped. "She decided to stay, and made me," he said, in a small voice.

"Why?" I asked. "You were ordered-"

"I'm not going to let myself get kicked off my home planet because of a bunch of giant mosquitoes," said Red Sally. "I decided to stay and fight."

"And you?" I said, turning to the Clapper.

"Sally... Sally told me to stay," he said, looking at her fearfully.

"I see," I said.

"I hate to interrupt this reunion, but we're asking for trouble if we stay here in this open corridor," said Preston.

He was right. We made a hasty retreat back to our base.

It was really good to have some of the Gammas on our side. But the downside is that they were undisciplined, especially Red Sally. The first night we had problems falling asleep, due to the Clapper's near-constant clapping, and we were all rudely awoken early in the morning, because of Red Sally's antics.

It all started after dinner, when we were getting ready for bed. The Clapper, eyeing the synthetic packaging we had laid out for him as bedding, started to clap nervously, slowly. It was a clap every twenty seconds or so, but it was still frequent enough to get our attention.

"Doesn't he have any way of turning that off?" Preston asked.

Red Sally said, "Believe me, I've been resisting burning his hands off for ages."

I said, "He only claps when he's nervous, or upset, or fearful, or...."

"Or what?"

"Or if he's bored, or if the weather isn't right," I added. I went to the Clapper. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, vigorously nodding his head.

"C'mon, I see you're clapping... tell Clifford what's bothering you...."

"Bedding..." he said, nodding his head slowly as he studiously avoided eye contact.

"What about it? You have to realize we don't have real beds here-"

"Bedding!" he shrieked.

Everyone looked up for a moment.

"Lower your voice," I said. "Do you want to attract a patrol?" Our little hideaway, formerly a spacious utility closet, was fairly remote from the major passageways, but loud voices could still be heard from it.

"Bedding," he said, softly. "Bedding in the corner of the room, I'm used to my bedding in the corner of the room."

"Your bedding is in the corner of the room."

".... the corner of the room closest to the door, closest to the door, it has to be in the corner closest to the door..."

I looked around. The Silencer was lying on a pile of bedding in the corner closest to the door. He couldn't possibly be asleep so soon, but I wasn't quite ready to test that theory so quickly. I didn't think he'd appreciate doing a public service for the rest of us by moving to make the Clapper happy.

"What difference does it make? A corner's a corner," I said. Then I remembered how he didn't like the shape of our drinking glasses at dinner, and had spent most of the dinner slowly clapping about that. I shuddered; was he going to do this all night?

"Corner closest to door," he said dully, slowly clapping in pace.

I sighed and went over to the Silencer. His eyes were closed, but he couldn't be sleeping with all this talking and clapping going on, could he? When I crouched down by him, his eyes immediately flew open, and I saw the muscles in his right arm jump minutely. He looked at me with irritation, as if weighing whether I'd be worth a blaster bolt.

I cleared my throat. "Um, John, I was wondering if I could ask you a small favor."

The Silencer continued to look irritated. He wasn't going to make this easy for me.

"The Clapper... he's used to sleeping in this corner."

The Silencer glared at me.

"I mean no, obviously, he's never slept in this corner before, but in his previous hideout, he always slept in the corner closest to the door. It's a nervous habit, see? So I was wondering if you'd mind trading places with him."

The Silencer said nothing.

"John? Would you be willing to move? To help the group?"

The Silencer considered for a moment. Then he spoke a word, the only word he would say that night. "No," he said, closing his eyes.

"John? John?" I said. I decided against shaking him. Obviously, this discussion was over.

"Sorry, I tried," I said, seeing the disappointment in the Clapper's face.

We settled down for the night. I tried to ignore the periodic clapping sound. One could even count numbers to it. 1... 2... 3.. 4... 5... 6... 7.. 8... 9... 10... Clap. 1... 2... 3.. 4... 5... 6... 7.. 8... 9... 10... Clap.

This went on for several minutes. Then I heard a sudden rustling around me, and a startled squeal. Instantly I opened my eyes, instinctively grabbing my gun.

The Silencer was bent over the Clapper, but before I could investigate, the Silencer had already returned to his bedding, and I could see the Clapper's hands, bound securely together in several loops with a sturdy piece of rubber wire insulation. The Clapper looked astonished, as if no one had ever done this to him before.

I turned back to the Silencer to say something, but he was already on his back, his eyes closed.

********

We were awakened early the next morning by a pungent smell; no, actually, it was a burning smell. My eyelids slowly fluttered open to find Red Sally, her blonde hair now a reddish brown, slowly burning one of the legs of our dining table. A stream of smoking was rising out of the foot of the table as it slowly burned under her constant attention. A flame came out of one of her fingers, pointed at the leg, burning the wood, but somehow not her fingers.

"Hey, what're you doing?" I asked getting up. "Stop that."

"Some hideout this is," said Red Sally. "You've got nothing to burn."

"We need that table," I said, stamping out the flames with my boot.

"I was only going to burn a few inches. It's like a muscle; I need to keep practicing it, or I lose it," Sally said.

By now everyone was up. We had a quick breakfast (after putting a bit of synthetic packaging under the burned table leg so it would be about the same height as the other legs), but not before Gantry untied the Clapper.

"My hands hurt!" he said, looking accusingly at the Silencer as he massaged his hands, which had red lines on them from where they were tied. He clapped once, experimentally, perhaps to see if he could still do it.

"I'm relieved to see you haven't lost your touch," said the Silencer dryly.

**********

After breakfast we spun the wheel again, to see what we would do that day.

"It's a lousy idea, to let random chance decide what to do," the Silencer remarked.

"What do you care?" I countered, sensitive to criticism of the wheel. "Whatever option it settles on, it will almost certainly involve killing Insects."

Clap! "Let me do it! Can I turn the wheel? Can I? Can I?" the Clapper asked.

"All right," I said, glad that at least someone had some interest. I stepped aside so the Clapper could turn the pointer.

The Clapper didn't step forward, and he didn't touch the pointer. He concentrated, staring at it, and the pointer started turning on its own. It spun, around and around, around and around, every few revolutions getting another mental push to keep it going.

"Robert, the purpose of the pointer is defeated if it doesn't stop somewhere," I told the Clapper.

"Oh." Immediately, the pointer came to a dead stop, then moved two sections forward, then one section backwards, and then stopped permanently.

"Somehow I don't think this was exactly a random selection," I said, looking at the pointer. It was pointing to "SABOTAGE".

"Sabotage!" Clap clap clap! "Sabotage!" Clap clap clap!

**********

I used a pointer to indicate sections of a three dimensional holoschematic of the warehouse grounds. "This is one of the Insect's main ammo dumps in the city. We could go in shooting again, as I'm sure is popular in some circles, but that could set off the dump prematurely."

"Not if I do all the firing," said the Silencer.

"Even if you do all the firing," I said. "There are Insects barracks here, here, and.... here. If the alert is raised and they start firing, the Insects may ignite the ammo dump by accident on their own. No, this requires a bit of sneakiness. There's an underground service crawl way that leads into the warehouse here. I say we go in through there, plant a few of our homemade bombs, crawl out, and boom! We detonate. Any questions?"

The Silencer raised a hand.

"Do we get to kill anyone?"

"I presume all three barracks of troopers will be wiped out in the explosion," I said. "Any other questions?"

The Silencer raised a hand again. "Let me rephrase my question; do we get to shoot anyone?"

"There's always that chance," I said. "Other questions?"

"Do I get to light anything on fire?" said Red Sally.

"Absolutely not! Not in the warehouse," I said. "If you do, that will be the last fire you ever light."

"What about this crawl space?" Preston asked. "Do they know about it? Isn't it sure to be guarded, or boobytrapped?"

"It most certainly is boobytrapped," I said, having done the preliminary survey myself. "That's where my hero comes in," I put an arm around the Clapper.

"Not to touch!" he squealed, moving away.

Clap, clap.

********

We crawled through the access tunnel. It was a five man job--myself, the Silencer, Red Sally, the Clapper, and Gantry. We sent Preston and Jenkins out on a shopping trip, to get some more food.

We moved through the narrow space on our elbows and knees. I moved silently, as did Gantry and the Silencer. But Red Sally and the Clapper were as loud as a drumset as they banged their elbows and knees against the floor.

"Quiet!" I hissed. "We're coming up to a guard post ahead. There's a grill in the floor of the corridor above us that connects directly to this tunnel. If they hear us, these thin walls won't protect us from laser fire."

We continued at a slower pace to permit Red Sally and the Clapper to move more quietly. First I passed above the grill; looking up for a moment, I saw a shadow above, and heard buzz buzz sounds. If they looked down...

Gantry followed next, then Red Sally, followed by the Clapper and then the Silencer.

When the Clapper went under the grill he froze, trembled, and stopped moving. I could see his two shaking hands moving closer together... and if he clapped, we were dead. I maneuvered past Gantry and Red Sally to try to motion him forward, but he ignored me, staring at his shaking hands, moving closer... and closer....

The Silencer chose that moment to spin around silently in the tunnel, and he gave the Clapper a great kick in the buttocks, silently sliding him several feet down the passage. I barely had the sense of mind to put my hand over the Clapper's mouth as he tumbled into me.

The buzzing sound stopped, and we could see the shadows above us shifting. We kept dead silent for a moment. Had we been discovered?

We stayed as still as stone for a moment. The Insects seemed to be silent as well. Perhaps they were being silent because they thought they had heard something, but were not sure and were trying to listen more closely.

There was another moment of silence. And then, the shadows shifted again, and the buzzing sound resumed.

I exhaled silently, unaware I had been holding my breath.

We proceeded without incident down another hundred yards of passageway, where a field of glowing blue bars blocked our way.

"Alarm beams," I whispered.

"Do you have equipment to neutralize it?" Gantry whispered.

"Yes," I said, pointing to the Clapper.

"Me?" said the Clapper.

"See that button in the wall, behind the blue bars?"

The Clapper squinted. "No."

"Look more closely."

"I don't see anything in front of the blue bars."

"Look behind the blue bars."

"Oh.." Pause. "I don't see anything, except for that button."

"Press it," I said.

The Clapper concentrated, and I saw the button push inwards. The blue bars barring our way disappeared. "Very good. Take two claps out of petty cash."

The Clapper moved to clap, but I was quicker, grabbing his hands first and holding them immobile. "Not until after the mission is over. This warehouse is teaming with Insects and is a clapping-free zone, understand?"

The Clapper nodded.

I opened the grate leading to the surface, my gun drawn as I pulled myself up and out of the tunnel. I looked around. We were surrounded by crates of munitions. Good. I cautiously slunk around, noticing the guard positions. There were Insects posted on the northern and eastern exits to the room, but they were in fixed posts. They shouldn't bother us. Of more serious concern were the warehouse workers, loading, unloading, and moving about. If one of them should come our way...

I set the Silencer to guard us while Gantry planted the bombs. It would only take two or three to ignite the explosives here and blow up the entire city block. Meanwhile I was quietly opening up containers, taking out things that looked useful, and handing them to the Clapper, who held a sack which I quickly thrust into his hands. It turned out to be a strategic move, because putting things in his hands also inhibited his urge to clap.

Gantry, being the consummate professional he was, finished placing the explosives in under a minute, hiding them underneath items so they wouldn't be discovered until it was too late. I, however, was still picking out useful items from this demolitions supermarket.

"Croft," he hissed, hearing footsteps.

I stopped what I was doing and ducked down, but it was too late. An Insect worker, wearing a hardhat of some sort, came around the corner, staring at a datapad. It looked up, was about to buzz-

And a bolt from the Silencer's blaster caught it in the mouth; it dropped wordlessly.