How could they move billions of people from one planet to another? That would involve the use of some sort of teleportation gate. This bug infestation was getting ever the more worrisome. Mr. T also found out the queens maintain control of the bugs using a pheromone and other substances. Para said that made sense. Pheromone control would be normal for any nesting insect culture.
Mr. T added, “I had the distinct impression the natural biological pheromones had been augmented to allow enhanced queen control over the subject bugs. What was absolutely clear, there is a special chemical used when bugs go to battle. It may be similar to a pheromone but it is not natural at all. Evidently Empire Labs or someplace like that mixed it up just for bugs going into combat. It turns the bugs into berserkers. The bugs might not have much control over the ensuing battle rage.”
That would explain some things. There are actually two major bug bases, on the Moon and Mars. And there is a High Queen of the invasion. She spends time at both bases. For what it’s worth, even the filthy bug queen that Mr. T interviewed was terrified of her. He was able to verify there had been no call requesting backup.
The nest queen was determined to handle the threat herself though she had a downsized crew. Most of the bugs were out rounding up humans. This queen was more concerned over appearing weak to the High Queen, than facing down some mere humans. Well, that was the case until we busted into her lair. Evidently the EMP killed her comms.
He understood from his interview that the High Queen had become somewhat unstable of late. Drug use. She was making mistakes, becoming more and more unpredictable. A drug induced haze would explain the poor tactical planning.
They could have bombed us into submission from space or shut us down with a few EMP bursts. Taking control of our interconnected smart grids would cripple us. The bugs mostly left the satellites alone, other than some military birds. Regular satellites would be helpful at some point to them. But they should have destroyed all the military satellites on day one. It was as though the High Queen was only going through the motions of an invasion. She seems to have little regard for her troops.
***
+ BEGIN TIMELINE DROP.
NOTE: This information gives a hint as to why the High Queen had become a drugged-up mess, other than her generally bad character. It may help by way of reminder, that Scotty is our special bug friend. He continues to provide extensive help in the war effort.
As Scotty said, “Command was clear in sayin, when they caught up to her, the High Queen herself would be fed to the spice flies of Aarodan. I am of the thinkin, that message did no help with her drug dosages, if ya catch me drift.”
I’m not sure if the message from “Command” had a measure of hyperbole or not. Being fed to the spice flies of Aarodan doesn’t sound so good.
END TIMELINE DROP. +
***
Mr. T told us some of the atrocities the bugs had committed on other worlds. All that just adds to what we’ve seen them do right here on Earth. They are evil. At least that is true of the queens. The regular bugs may not have a choice. I’m not sure yet. Anyway, we were lucky, blessed, in taking the ship so easily. It was as we suspected. Most of the bugs from the ship were outside capturing humans. As I mentioned, the arrogant queen had not sent a distress call, preferring to handle our attack internally. When she finally changed her mind, it was too late.
Moving the ship is certainly a time sensitive project. A fly could return to the nest at any time. Or the lack of communications from the ship could lead to an investigation. It was only a matter of time before the bug high command knew something was wrong. The military would then lose the opportunity to take control of the ship. That brought an oppressive air of emergency over the moving operation.
Within minutes of the all clear signal, the combat engineers were marking the area that needed clearing downslope. Precise grid-maps came out showing placement locations for the explosives. Scanning showed no one loitering in the area. As the engineers made preparations to set up their munitions, we cleared each section of the ship one last time to be sure there were no bugs left on board. They can be sneaky. Besides, we wanted the opportunity to take one more walk through, to memorize the layout of the ship.
Most of us didn’t want to miss the bug ship start its journey to a new home. Mr. T said he needed to get back to the command center (in his basement). Rock did a quick porting round trip. He wasn’t about to miss this show! The engineers must have thought we were nuts when Para called out: Be careful with our baby! No one shooed us off though.
The charges went off starting near the water. Boom, boom, boom. The trail looked good. Water started flowing downslope from hoses hooked to fire hydrants in the area. As a finale, a series of smaller precise charges detonated, undermining the bedrock on the down slope side of the ship. It started to creep downhill, gathering speed and momentum, splash. They had already attached some cleats to the bug ship. The tugs had come in along different routes and moved into place just as the bug ship hit the water. They had the enemy vessel
