When the raid failed, the High Queen gave an order to nuke the house. She deemed it an appropriate time to remind the humans that their insolence would inevitably bring a retaliatory response. Multiple thousands would have died.
The bug gunner dropped a small implosion bomb instead of a nuke. As a result, no one was hurt. When the High Queen found out, she was furious with the insolent bug that had botched her command. She was so focused on his punishment, she forgot all about the house and Shockwave, and even retaliation against the humans in general.
The normal course of action would have been to insist the initial command be completed. In her rage and focus on the poor bug that had shown such mercy, she forgot to reorder the nuke. I don’t think we will ever know how much we were helped throughout this invasion by honorable bugs. Or, how many mistakes the drug addicted High Queen made throughout the invasion.
***
+ BEGIN TIMELINE DROP.
NOTE: This information was obtained from our Kreahaam (AKA a bug) friend, Scotty.
Bugs have their own gossip mills. Scotty had a chem-lab friend at the Moon base, whom he considered a reliable source. He found out from his friend, in the early stages of the invasion, the High Queen had been using stim-chemicals and mixing in small doses of the berserker modifiers.
She had ordered a small team of chemists, one of them being Scotty’s friend, to sequence the berserker compound formula. That command alone would be a capital offense. It was a complex formula. It took a few days to develop the information required by the High Queen.
Scotty’s friend confessed he was terrified. Would she have the chemists killed to hide her crime? With the sequencing formula as developed, it turned out the drug was fairly simple to distil. It would be possible for the High Queen to order a close confidant, with minimal skills in chemistry, to make large quantities of the berserker drug.
It was not long before there was a tragic lab ... accident. The small chem-lab team that had been so helpful with sequencing the berserker compound was found dead. Scotty, of course, was enraged. From the very start of the invasion the High Queen was agitated with the humans. She said as much when they managed to destroy the first inbound invasion ship. From there it seemed to get worse.
The humans were not cooperating at all with the invasion. And they were causing a good deal of damage. Oddly, she mostly blamed her own troops, dressing them down constantly for their weakness in the face of such a soft enemy. She kept the troops dosed with the battle rage drug, full dosage, sometimes for days. She even resorted, at times, to overdosing the troops. Some bugs had gone insane from the overdone doping. Some had died.
The High Queen herself was often in a state of rage. At other times she was in a drug induced haze. That led to costly mistakes. At the time, Scotty felt genuinely sorry for the humans. This was his first expedition and he didn’t like the process at all. There was nothing he could do about it as far as he could see. It would be best to keep his head down and stay out of the reprocessing unit.
At least he wasn’t required to engage in military action. Still, if an opportunity arose to show a kindness to humans, or to bring hurt to the High Queen...
END TIMELINE DROP. +
***
September 26th. It looks like everything is going according to schedule. DDT day is set for September 29th. DDT stands for Darkside Decontamination Task. I guess it’s as good a name as any. It helps a little to know that there was once a powerful bug killer used extensively on Earth, an insecticide, called DDT. So, a clever op name.
Mr. T has promised the nerve agent in the special bug insecticide will not be lethal. The mission is nearly ready for implementation. But first we need to take out the blockade fleet. Well, Rock and Roll need to do that. It’s planned for tomorrow, the 27th. Then we take Darkside. I hope.
***
WHAT A BLAST
We are in the War Room of the Earth Defense Force. September 27th. Shockwave has a side room, windows opaque to anyone outside. The general is here. Those special beacon transponders have been teleported to the bug blockade ships near the Moon. Goldilocks bombs have been pre-positioned at Shockwave’s desert munitions depot. Rock and Roll are about to port to the depot site and begin the operation.
All of the bug ships are stationary. They repositioned after the Nemesis 12 Operation and haven’t moved since. The twins have the coordinates for each ship on their s-loops. Earth Defense Intelligence Control, EDIC, will immediately inform them of any ship movement. Well, almost immediately. The satellite repeater system will detect any movement within about one second and relay the information to EDIC, which will then provide position information for each ship, 1- 9.
The twins are going to work from the inside out, going with Roll’s suspicion that the High Queen is hiding in the middle of the blockade. I think she’s at Darkside. No matter. We need to destroy all the ships. Rock and Roll have ported. Nine ships.
*EDIC: “Transponders are all reading in the green, telemetry data systems are optimal, tracking all ships, one through nine. No movement. Alert. Nuclear detonation ship four; detonation ship five. Waiting on confirmation. Ship four and ship five have been destroyed, spectral confirmation, debris pattern confirmation. New picture. Remaining ships are in motion.”
Viz: “Are Rock and Roll okay?”
*EDIC: “Tracking positions of blockade ships one, two, three, seven, eight, and nine. They’re scattering. Ships three and seven have slowed, holding line of site to Darkside Base. Coordinates have been received
