Mr. T crumpled to the ground like a rag doll, his face buried in his hands. Not even Para could have survived that. END TIMELINE DROP. +
***
Roll ported to the living room, rifle at the ready. He still had 16 rounds in his magazine. The monsters were in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, out of site. Roll crept forward, rifle at the ready, when the floor creaked. He froze. There was the glimpse of a shadow on the wall. A claw holding a blaster. It was moving so fast.
Roll pulled the trigger on impulse resulting in an eerie wail as the blaster clattered across the floor. The bug sprang at Roll screaming through all of its spiracles, wrapping him up with its legs, stinger at the ready. Roll ported across the room, squeezed the trigger twice. Gore splattered across the wall.
He sensed movement as the remaining bug changed its point of aim from Para’s head toward him. It felt like someone opened the door of an oven as the couch erupted in flames.
“Get back here, monster,” screamed Para as she pulled on the bugs leg.
Time seemed to slow down. The bug slipped free and turned the blaster on Para to finish its original task. Then the 6.8 rang out.
Para glared at Roll as she wiped a glob of yellowish filth from her cheek. “You couldn’t have aimed a little more to the right?”
Roll took a quick look around, then closed his eyes and listened carefully. He could discern no other threats. To be on the safe side, he ran to Para and ported them to a secluded area in Donkey Stream Park. Roll checked on Para to make sure she was okay. She was fine. Just immobilized. The harder she tried to break out of the amber stuff, the more she seemed to get stuck. Now, both of her hands were hopelessly encased. Roll was careful to not come in contact with the goo.
Roll said he would be right back. He had to be sure the threat at the house was truly neutralized. The last thing he wanted was the rest of the team walking into a trap. He ported to the shop area behind Mr. T’s house and took a step, tripping on some debris. There was a gaping hole where the house once stood. And there was Mr. T on his knees, on the ground, with Rock and Viz standing vigil. Viz was sobbing. Rock didn’t look so good either.
He walked up to them. “Are you guys okay?”
Their heads turned at exactly the same time, like their necks were attached to a gear on a machine. Every face was lined with tears. Oh, they must have thought he and Para had bought it in the explosion ... implosion. Yeah, looking at the house, they would have been goners. He’d have to find a timestamp of the event. They must have made it out by only seconds. Wow.
Mr. T starred. “Are WE okay? Where’s Para? Are YOU okay? What happened?”
Roll started to explain the whole thing. Roll hadn’t gotten far in the explanation when Mr. T stopped him. Para and Roll were okay. But Mr. T kept looking up at the sky. They might be under observation at that very moment.
Mr. T jumped up. “We need to port to Para and move to someplace safe, someplace inside.”
First responders were just pulling up out front. They would check on the neighbors.
The team ported to Para in the park. Mr. T called the general. There was a warehouse at Joint Base Lewis McChord that was completely empty. Mr. T received the location pin on his phone. We would port there immediately and figure it out from there. The general made sure we would receive V.I.P. accommodations. Even as the team arrived, troops were bringing cots and all the necessities. Nothing like a cold cot and an MRE to make a soldier feel at home. We would have been happy to sleep on the floor. It was past time to interrogate the two captured queen bugs.
***
+ BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. Drop by Viz.
I was bored one evening and decided to put together some definitions to help with Journal words and concepts. You can find it in the Journal Aid Section. Then I got busy on something else. But there are quite a few definitions. END TIMELINE DROP. +
CHAPTER FIVE
BY THE DARKSIDE OF THE MOON. MOONSTRUCK.
September 9 th We slept in until almost 9:00, 09:00, whatever. Noon would have been better. But we have a tight deadline. And the Moon operation is going to be ... complicated. There is no rover on the Moon to help us locate the bug base. We are blind and need to get some good intel from the two queen bugs captured during Operation BrightLight. Mr. T called upon our general yet again. The conversation developed like this.
Mr. T: “Hello general. We need to talk to the two bug queens we recently captured, in order to develop a plan of action for the Moon.”
General: “Shockwave can speak to the bugs?”
Mr. T: “We have to try.”
General: “I’ll make arrangements. Let’s say, tomorrow 09:00. I’ll upload the coordinates to your device.”
Mr. T: “Thank you general.”
The general must not know about the delving. Rock did a quick reconnoiter of the area where the queens were being held. He picked out a nice untangle spot for our team. At 08:58 on September 10th , Shockwave arrived at the location where the NSA, National Security Agency, was keeping the queens. If a ship in orbit could pick us out by thermal imaging or something more exotic, we would have been dead by now. Still, we were careful to stay out of direct view.
***
A PAIR OF QUEENS
Well before the interview time, Mr. T was starting to look a little sick. He hates delving into the mind of a queen bug. I’m not sure if these guys, military types attached somehow to the NSA, knew we were the team that captured the queens. Probably not. They certainly seemed dismissive.
We were introduced to the commander in charge as a special group attached to signal intelligence. They allowed us in to see the queens. It went the same way with each of the bugs, though Mr. T spent more time with the second interview.
He and Para acted like they were being nice to them. Para held the head of the queen bug close and stroked it. Of course, she was actually immobilizing the bug. Mr. T gave a nice long pat too. He pulled out a pad and played a tape of some harmonic buzzing sounds. I suppose those watching might think it was some odd level of bug talk.
It was actually his attempt to play some relaxing sounds for the queens. Extrapolating from his first queen delve, he had worked with Communal to make the recording. He really did want to start out with a relaxing atmosphere. If the officials thought it was an attempt at communication, that would be fine too. Yeah, Mr. T was walking a thin line over the pit of deception. And I know it bothered him.
The first queen did not struggle. Her mind was damaged in some way. Being captured may have broken her, or perhaps the continual interrogation. Mr. T found it interesting that she was aware of the attack on Shockwave that had occurred just yesterday. That meant queens either had a telepathic ability of some sort or they had subcutaneous communication links. He was betting on a comms link.
This broken queen didn’t know much about Shockwave other than some incidental information that including the attack at Mr. T’s house. She had been informed only after the destruction of the house, a general broadcast of some sort. It was difficult for her to focus. This queen didn’t recognize the team. He hoped the other queen didn’t recognize us by sight; otherwise this installation could be in immediate peril. The broken queen wasn’t going to contact anyone.
Before he delved the other queen, he would need to disable her comms. He did get an important impression from the broken queen. The comms links, there were two of them, were located just below the knee on each of the frontmost legs.
Why would a communication rig be located in their knees? Mr. T took out his s-loop and sent a text to Communal. The response was immediate. Earth ants don’t have ears, not exactly. They hear mostly through vibrations from the ground that are transferred to a subgenual organ below their knee. Communal had reviewed a good deal of invader bug data. The invader bugs might have a similar auditory system. They suspected the subgenual organs on these bugs would be specialized and capable of hearing sound waves in the air as well as vibrations from the ground.
Mr. T wa
lked over to Roll, had a short conversation, and slipped a key fob into his hand. He needed the miniaturized EMP they had used in Russia when they had ported over to collect the bomb used on Mars. Thankfully, the device was sitting in his Command Car rather than blasted into a million pieces in his lab.
Roll smiled as though Mr. T had told him a joke. He walked over to one of the on-looking officers and asked where he might find a restroom. He entered the restroom and did a fast porting round trip. Mr. T continued to “talk” to the damaged queen. Roll reentered the room and discharged the EMP generator. The room went dark. Emergency lighting came on almost immediately. That surprised Mr. T. The officer in charge walked over to Mr. T and started asked questions. Another officer quick stepped over to Roll with a hand on his sidearm.
The next voice startled me. At some point our general had arrived, and he now intervened. “At ease. The kid uses the restroom, the lights go out for a second, and everyone gets jumpy? Continue with your interview Tee.” Mr. T would be allowed to “talk” with the second queen.
The second queen was agitated and kept lifting her leg and touching the knee joint with a feeler-hand. Her comms were out. The EMP had worked. Mr. T and Para moved in for the interview.
The thoughts of this queen were as evil and disgusting as those of that first queen Para had smashed. Yet this Queen’s mind was more orderly. Her delving skills were even more significant. Something akin to an actual conversation was possible. Mr. T decided to be cautious in the interview. He had the sense that his delving power was stronger than that of the queen. It would be prudent to work slowly and tentatively. He would make a final push for truthful answers toward the end of the interview. And try not to get sick.
The queen was nervous. She actually started the conversation, wanting to bargain information for creature comforts. Comfortable pillows would be a requirement. The hard, cold concrete floor would not do at all. And the food was terrible.
Mr. T was jotting some notes using his memo app. He wasn’t paying much attention to the queen’s list of demands. But he did send a text to Rock and Roll. He wanted them to find a store and buy at least 5 large doggy beds and 20 pounds of ground beef. They had a quick sidebar with the general and the officer in charge. A comfy bed and some beef would go a long way with the interview. The officers both shrugged.
Mr. T dismissed Rock and Roll to get the supplies. The officer in charge told them to be snappy about it. Mr. T continued with the interview. As the queen concentrated on her demands Mr. T carefully poked around in her mind. He stopped his secretive side-delving when she stopped with her demands and had what seemed a puzzled side-thought.
The quizzical thought showed up as a puzzled expression on her face. Bugs have those expressive patches of hair (actually the patches are made of chitin rather than keratin as is the case with real hair) above their eyes. Their eyebrow expressions are similar to those of a human. I know, it’s easy to anthropomorphize, but that does seem to be the way of it.
She ended up just giving a bug-shrug, and started up again with her demands. It was quite a list. Then she moved on to another subject, the other queen sitting next to her. That one should be killed. Her mind was broken. She was worthless and should be sent to the re-processor.
Mr. T moved on to his real topic of interest, the base on the Moon. She didn’t have much knowledge of that. He asked about the High Queen. She began a long history of bloodlines, actually egg-lines. From the telling of that history he learned quite a bit about bug royal society and culture. It was appropriately disgusting (even for a bug queen tale) with a good deal of intrigue and treachery. That short history alone was much worse than anything he could recall in all of humanity’s not-so-stellar past.
Rock and Roll were back. They had found a large cart and hauled in 5 king-size doggie beds and an aluminum roaster full of raw ground beef.
Mr. T stepped aside so the queen could get a good look and smell. Her feeler hands were in the air, feeler sensor filaments moving back and forth. There were evidently olfactory senses in those filaments. She was anxious for her goodies. She touched both of her front knees, looked around a little nervously, and decided to volunteer some information about the base on the Moon.
The bugs were erecting a portal gate system that would connect the Solar System with the Empire. Humanity would soon embrace a new life among the stars. It would be a wonderful life for humanity. She was lying of course. At least she was lying about the wonderful life part. We found it interesting that she could lie. Her method was not the same process used by Mr. T in delving then. He could not outright lie in a delve. At that point he decided to make his push.
Mr. T explained with absolute certainty; Earth will soon defeat the invasion forces. The bugs have already lost, the rest of it was just going through the motions. Evidently Mr. T believed it to be true. The queen did not think defeat was likely. Mr. T asked about the High Queen again. Where was the High Queen? He knew this queen’s comms had been working fine until the EMP discharge. She was likely getting regular updates. Selective, no doubt, but regular. The queen tried to ignore him.
He told her he knew all about her communication updates. The queen would have no information that would be of tactical use, the bugs weren’t stupid. She was in captivity after all. But she was getting some general updates. He had gathered as much from the broken queen.
How to get her to talk when Mr. T could not outright lie within a delve? Mr. T smacked her in the middle of her forehead to get her attention. It was he that had turned off her comms. He concentrated on the memory of what Para had done to that first queen and shared the information. Yes, that is the very same girl holding you now, in a grip so powerful you are not able to move without her allowance. Some answers had better start flowing. If not, there is always the re-processor. The captive queen had a shocked look on her face. Her mind registered fear.
She admitted the High Queen had fled to the base on the Moon. A different word seeped through. The High Queen had not used the word flee. No, she had retired to the base on the Moon. Soon, the remaining ships would move into a defensive position, a blockade between Earth and the Moon. The High Queen would likely be on one of those ships directly overseeing the operation.
The invasion forces would remain on high alert until the Empire fleet came through the portal gate. This queen now admitted Invasion High Command was amazed at the resilience of humanity. There was a grudging concern that humanity might prevail. This queen then suggested she would be happy to serve humanity rather than the Empire. There would need to be a guarantee that her status as queen be reestablished. She suggested a level of High Queen would more suit her lineage.
Mr. T sensed his hosts were getting antsy... it was time to finalize the interview. He delved deeply to be sure he got to the truth.
This queen did not actually believe humanity would prevail against the entrenched bugs on the Moon. They had better spacecraft and weapons technology. Humans did not have the means to reach out in strength, not even across the miniscule distance to the Moon. Pitiful beings. Effective on their own planet, that was true. But not when it involved crossing any distance in space. She must not have received an update on the Mars base situation.
The teleportation gate would soon be operational. After that, the unstoppable forces of the Empire would subjugate humanity with no effort at all. Even though this queen assumed the Empire would prevail, the royal court was surprised at the sheer will of humanity. Instead of collapsing in fear, the soft Earthlings had taken advantage of the drug-enraged soldiers of the invasion. Over and again the humans kept their calm and systematically fought back. They didn’t break and run. Mr. T also confirmed there was a battle rage compound used on bug soldiers by the queens.
Yet, this queen emoted a feeling of disgust with all the errors and placed the blame squarely at the feet of the drug addicted High Queen. The invasion forces should have lifted off and blasted the soft human creatures to a pulp. Destroyed more cities. If they had maintained
even a rudimentary tactical strategy humanity would have been subjugated in days. Even at that, she was certain there would be no further tactical errors. The High Queen would protect her own shell.
Mr. T took on a friendlier tone and pushed the subject of the High Queen and her tactical errors. This queen was willing to share. The High Queen’s mistakes were apparently a product of her own battle rage. She was a known abuser of the battle rage inoculant. The High Queen’s own drug induced fury and stupor had destroyed most of this expeditionary force. But she could not hide the thought. This queen was certain the High Queen had finally wakened to the threat. Humanity would be subjugated. No matter, the High Queen would still be unseated by the Empire.
That was of particular interest to this queen. The High Queen would soon be undone. She had made too many errors and proved herself unworthy of her position. The Empire overlords would soon come through the portal gate. Even now, this queen had weaved an intricate plan with all sorts of plots and accusations designed to depose the High Queen and assume her position.
By her way of thinking, the human-wrought carnage was an embarrassment, but also an opportunity. The pool of eligible queens available to fill the soon to be vacant spot of High Queen of the Invasion had been greatly reduced. As the new High Queen, she could stay on as an ambassador of sorts. It would be a means to escape the tedium and dreamless hibernation of yet another interstellar expedition.
She was telling the truth. The current High Queen had retreated to the Moon. She would take no more chances with humanity. She would defend the base on the Moon with her remaining forces until the portal gate was completed and opened. That was good to know. At least Shockwave would be spared further commando raids or implosion bombing from space.
As he continued pushing into the dark recesses of her mind the queen finally started to resist. The officer in charge was clearing his throat, obviously implying the interview should be wrapped up.
One of the agency guys in attendance, special agent something or other, held out his hand. “We’ll take the pad sir. We will be sure to supply you with a copy.”
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