Steve Gordon - Insectoids 02 - Escape From The Insectoids.pdf - Steve Gordon - widez2

Escape From The Insectoids – Insectoids 02

Steve Gordon

Escape From The Insectoids

Forward

North, 3 months after Vitalics:

We were caught with our guard down, and humanity paid a terrible price for

it. We had battled the Insectoids, a race of sentient seven foot tall

insects, to a standstill in twenty years of terrible combat. We had taken

losses, but our worlds were secure, and most of our people were safe.

And then the politicians, lured by a gullible desire to believe the

overtures of chief negotiator with the Insectoids, the traitor Mitterand,

agreed to an armistice at Vitalics. There they ambushed and destroyed

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almost all of our entire fleet.

Almost all. The small fleet under my command, combined with a task force

from our juniorAlliancepartner, the June Directorate, survived, but was

forced to flee vastly superior numbers of Insectoid battlecruisers and

battleships. Nothing stopped the Insectoids from moving in, occupying all

our worlds and enslaving our people, putting them to work producing

material for their war machine.

But the Insectoids were smart enough to realize that as long as any of us

were free that we were still a threat to them, that someday we would come

back and reclaim what was rightfully ours. They sent many fleets to hunt

us down, even as we've fledAlliancespace into the unknown. We've had two

brief battles since we left Orotis, on the edge ofAlliancespace, and

those two battles have cost us three warships (and a badly damaged fourth

that had to be scuttled), as well as two of our precious merchantmen.

Our efforts to escape are not merely a mindless route; we are moving with

a purpose, even if our crews do not fully understand or agree with it. For

we are going to search out the technology of the Chent, the ancient

civilization who may hold the key to helping us defeat the Insectoids. But

the Insectoids are bent on making sure we don't survive long enough to

make any discoveries, and our most immediate task right now is simple:

escape from the Insectoids.

Chapter 1: The Insectoids Make A Dangerous Enemy

"David!" said a pleasing but insistent voice.

A serious looking dark haired man continued to hack away at the soil with

a hoe, listening to the birds chirp on... what was the name of the planet?

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Just beyond the edges ofAlliancespace, it only had a numerical

designation, but the man had been giving some thought to giving it a name.

All in good time; with Amy, there was always time.

"David!" came Amy's voice, from the house he had built.

The man dropped the hoe, sighing. He really didn't like leaving things

undone. But he never had been able to resist that voice.

He made his way back to the house, admiring the trees as he listened to

the birdsong. This planet was almost perfect, and probably, given it's

location just a dozen lightyears out from the frontier world of Orotis,

would eventually start to attract settlers in 20 or 30 years. Well, 20 or

30 years was a long time, and even then it was a big planet; He and Amy

would have it to themselves for a long, long time.

She leaned against one of the supports on the porch, squinting at him in

the late afternoon light. He stared back at her, realizing he could never

wish for a better sight.

"David, it's happened!" she said, pulling him by the arm and taking him

inside to the interstellar radio. The man listened to the babble of

reports. The Insectoids had destroyed the fleet. The Insectoids were

taking over. The Insectoids were landing on habitable worlds.

The man said nothing. In another time, another place, his first impulse

would be to hop into his fighter and blast off. But he had Amy, and Amy

had him, and they were alone, together, and what else really mattered? He

said as much.

She looked at him oddly. "Aren't you worried that they'll come here?"

"This is an empty world," he said. "And it's a big galaxy. I'm sure

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they'll have much better things to do with their time."

"But David, what if they come?" she said, pressing against him.

"Don't worry," the man said, wrapping his arm around her. "Probably

nothing will happen, not for years."

They came almost ten weeks later. The first inkling he had of it was when

he heard the roar of the Insectoid scoutship touching down near the house.

He was hunting in the forest when he saw it, and he started back to the

house on a run, his blaster drawn.

He heard the screams just as he reached the clearing, and saw Amy lifted

up by the neck by one of the Insectoid troopers. There were four of them,

and the other three quickly pointed their weapons at the man.

"Wait!' said the man, approaching slowly. "There's no need for this!"

"Surrender," said one of the Insectoids through its harsh translation

device. Amy struggled to breathe in its grasp

The man lowered but didn't drop his weapon. "We're not a threat to you."

"Drop your weapon," came the modulated voice. "Surrender."

Amy, screaming, continued to struggle, flailing her feet; and one of her

random kicks caught the Insectoid holding by one if its legs. The

Insectoid, perhaps annoyed, but not really hurt, twisted its grip; and

there was a crack, and then Amy's lifeless body was tossed to the ground.

"NO!" the man screamed, and he fired his blaster; and even though three of

the four Insectoids had their weapons aimed at him, and his was lowered,

he managed to kill all four of them with a single shot to each of their

foreheads before any could fire back.

The man ran over to Amy, and felt a long moment for a pulse. Sobbing, he

cradled her head in his hands and cried hysterically.

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Later, much later, the man found himself standing over a freshly dug

grave; the tombstone had been carved out of rock by a blaster, and the

flowers on the grave were fresh, though the man had no memory of how

either got there.

He stood at that spot a long time, and as the sun sank low, he muttered,

"They took the only thing that ever meant anything to me...." Then he

paused, for a long time, and said, every so softly, while staring after

the setting sun, "This isn't over...."

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

War Admiral Norman North eyed the status reports. They had managed to save

64 active warships and 24 merchant/civilian vessels. The foremost and

proudest of them was, of course, the Glory, his combined command

carrier/battleship. Unfortunately, they didn't have any other battleships

or dreadnaughts in the fleet; they had all been lost at Vitalics.

But he did have a number of smaller capital ships at his command. There

was the Amory Til, a converted heavy cruiser/half carrier that was jammed

packed with three squadrons (it was rated for two). There was the Blue

Luna, a pocket battleship which didn't quite have the punch of a true

battleship but was almost as heavily armored and shielded as one. There

were eight battlecruisers in the fleet, four of them the newest

Tiger-class ships.

But the bulk of the fleet were cruisers--12 light, 11 regular (7 of those

being deep space cruisers), and 7 heavies. The rest of the fleet was a mix

of destroyers (including seven of the newest fast attack destroyers) and

frigates as well as one minesweeper/layer.

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Steve Gordon - Insectoids 02 - Escape From The Insectoids.pdf

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