Steve Gordon - Insectoids 04 - Nightfall On August

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Nightfall On August – Insectoids 04

Steve Gordon

Nightfall on August

Part I: Roughing it on August

Chapter 1: The March Across August

It had been victory, but at a terrible cost.

For nearly 20 years the Insectoids had occupiedAllianceplanets,

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 homeworlds.

But their victory had come at a terrible cost. As a parting act of spite,

the Insectoids had used some sort of weapon to disrupt all power systems

on nearly allAllianceworlds. The Queen leading the invasion, Zsst

herself, came to August, the capital of theAlliance, in a mighty Chent

ship, intent not only on disrupting the power on the planet but also

destroying it utterly with a Chent superweapon.

Zsst used an energy dampener to disrupt the power on August, as she had on

most majorAllianceworlds. But then, just as she was about to destroy

August with the superweapon, the Chent ship turned around, and simply

disappeared from known space. No one knew why.

But the damage Zsst had done was significant enough. MostAllianceworlds

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 Insectoid 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 cut out. The hot lamps which powered the underground

farms cut out. The entire planet was cut off, surrounded by a sparkling

field of particles that prevented any ship from safely landing, that 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 Agency'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 vision been impaired?

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 backseat 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 fatal, 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 the pilot. But that dim, glittering haze was blocking his vision.

Croft felt the painful spot on his head. Had he suffered brain damage that

injured 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 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 Insectoids 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. Could you

really be..."

Croft looked up expectantly.

"Clifford Croft?" said the man.

"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 bit east of the

center of the western continent, Concord.

Croft stared at the picture and hmm'ed 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?" 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 Aridor."

"Aridor?"

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

vegetation is growing 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 for Aridor, 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 to build, one less minute that we spend getting to Aridor," said

Croft. "And each minute that passes the chaos on the 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 were 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 before they reached Aridor. 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 third 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 out.

They were marching on the morning of the eighth day, and they were so

weary that they nearly didn’t see it coming. The mist also didn't help. It

was thick, not enabling them to see more than a few feet ahead. Croft,

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摘要：

NightfallOnAugust–Insectoids04 SteveGordon NightfallonAugust PartI:RoughingitonAugust Chapter1:TheMarchAcrossAugust Ithadbeenvictory,butataterriblecost. Fornearly20yearstheInsectoidshadoccupiedAllianceplanets, enslavingthehumanrace.Itwasonl...

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Steve Gordon - Insectoids 04 - Nightfall On August

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