26 )
.
The ants invaded the space station. They were semi intelligent and had an attitude. Their favorite hiding place was to get into the back of a file cabinet. They built a lattice of their bodies that made opening the drawer they set up their nest into, difficult.
When someone would pull on a nested drawer, it would resist strongly. With enough of a pull, the bodies of the binding ants would break and the drawer would release violently. The ants, by that time, would be at the front of the drawer and would rush onto the person and bit them until he was dead. In no case did anybody involved in this ever escaped alive. the ants would then leave the location within an hour, usually long before the pest control ever arrived.
Duchamp worked in an office. Someone asked him to get some information he barely ever used. he went to a drawer and pulled. It would not move. He pulled harder and the cabinet moved slightly. It then dawned on him that he might have some bug problem.
He told his co-worker that he would have to dig into the archives to find the information. He would do that tomorrow. He immediately started researching the ant. There he saw where the ants would save themselves by plugging aerosol nozzles, destroying remote control devices and would lay in wait for the pest control people to come back.
Duchamp kept having to minimize his screen when someone walked through his office, a favorite short cut that people used to avoid walking a couple dozen feet around.
In his searches, he found the most effective method of taking out the ant colonies. During his lunch hour, he went and purchased everything he needed. He went far above what was done to make sure it would all work.
When quitting time came, he said he needed to finish a piece of work. He then went to the facilities and was bypassed by security to close down the place.
About an hour later, he came out and had the whole building alone. As long as he did not leave the place, he was not going to be found out until morning.
He set up remote control toys in place in the office, two on the ground, one on a wire near the ceiling. He glued a mirror on the wall so his toys could see where they were going by looking backwards. getting away from the cannister were the best plan.
He drilled a couple holes and filled the spaces of the wall at the corners with a foam the blocked off the escape routes of the ants for a short time.
His office had one door that opened and closed to keep out noise from that section, and the other side had no door so people could see in and out. On the door side, he put up plastic sealer and taped it in place all the way around from the outside, and then closed the door onto it to seal it. He put in several screws on the inside before he placed another sheet of plastic to seal it from the inside. He drove screws outside the door too.
He then set foggers of different kinds in the room. Each gas can kill them, all three kinds will guarantee that the bugs die.
He put plastic on the inside of the exit with it loose on the bottom. He made sure the toy controllers were outside. He set off the cannister, squeezed out of the plastic and pulled it as tight as he could from the outside. He then put up another sheet, and then crossed it with sticks in several places to protect the plastic from people trying to walk in.
He no had to wait as the cannister took time to start out-gassing. He sat down in a chair and napped.
He woke before people would be coming. He changed some of his clothing for the new day, freshened up and hid. He had his controllers with him. The gas was filling the room nicely and the ants were exploring where the smell came from. It took a high concentration to kill the bugs. The gas combination caused a reaction in the bugs and they would pop open when they died.
The people flowed into the office. Knocking on the door was fairly common. The ants figured out the fumigators so they attacked the cannister. The exposed bugs would die after a short time around the cannister and they would link bodies with another and pop. They were building a ramp up to the nozzle. At the time to start work, the ants plugged the nozzles. it was time for his toys.
Duchamp started a construction toy that had a clam bucket at the end of an arm. using the mirror to see where he was going in the camera, he backed the machine to the back wall and then came forward, grabbing the dead bugs and pulling them away from the cannister. the fumes started coming out again. When he was done, he parked the toy next to the mirror and watched. The ants went on the suicide mission to plug the nozzles again. Other ands crawled around the machine.
Duchamp could hear a drill pulling screws out of the door. He was glad he put screws in from the inside. A while later, a "goon" came around "did you know that door to your office is screwed shut"
"Have you considered there might be a reason for that?
"But we need to get between the offices."
"How did you get here?
"Around the end."
"I guess your guys will have to do that for now.
"What is that awful smell?
"That is the reason the office is closed up."
The goon looked in through the foggy plastic. "Hey, there are ants in there!"
"And I am in the process of killing them, so stay out and go around." The goon started leaving. "And put those screws back in place."
It was time to clear the nozzles again. He started the toy and it would not move. He used the toy on the wire to look at the toy below. it was covered with ants. He started his second toy and cleared the nozzles. The ants enveloped it as it moved but could not lock it until he finished clearing the nozzles.
the bugs were dying quickly now. He finally used his high wire toy to clear the nozzles The cameras showed the ants trying to get up high, but they could not survive the gas long enough. The bug people arrived and he showed the documentation he accumulated to show what he was doing was going to work. There was so much of it and it was complicated so the bug people had to sit down and study it carefully.
Near lunch time, a rapid popping came out of the office. It was rapid. the cameras showed the drawer force open and the whitish balls that was their bodies billow out. about that time, the bug people finished their study of his information and now knew what they would have to do. The popping died down to individual pops. air tests showed the gasses were dissipating reaching a reaction level where they were nearly harmless.
When it was time for the office to close, the bug people opened Duchamp's office. He went to the drawer the bugs were in and got the document he was after. He made sure it was cleaned of any bugs and gave it to his co=worker and then he went home. Everything was taken out of the office and thoroughly cleaned during the night.
The office was just finished being put back together when Duchamp arrived in the morning. Having found the dead queen ant, they knew that the nest was gone. No other ant nests were ever detected again.
Duchamp then got a big bonus for saving everybody from the ants. He also was allowed to keep his door screwed shut so the goons had to go around.

27 )
.
They had a hill top fortress as their entire nation. There was at best fifty thousand people living there. The happened to had been started by several martial arts schools and they practiced military and combat theory as they grew up.
A small empire encroached the apron of the fortress and attacked several times. A few times, the hill top soldiers went out and laid waste to the imperial forces. The empire knew they were against a serious force, so they decided to prove they were a real empire. they came forward with their siege weapons, only to find that the defenders knew all the secrets to disabling the siege systems. One way was to go onto attack and clear the area outside the walls.
The archers were extremely deadly, able to get shots into nearly impossible places.
The empire finally got their best warriors into armor that protected them from head to toe. their only vulnerability was the eyes. The warriors marched forward.
The defenders rained down very accurate arrows to no effect. AS they were going to the gates, everybody knew that the empire would attack as soon as they were in position. The defenders did not know what to do.
One warrior made a bet with the officer that he could drop a soldier. He took aim with his arrow. He let loose. The arrow caught an armored soldier right in the eye and stuck. the soldier dropped. Then dropped another.
Other archers started taking aim and firing, placing their bets on whether they could do it. Soon they were calling the eye they would get.
When a quarter of the soldiers had dropped, they started backing up. They had a problem with their armor in that it was not as complete protection from behind. They had to back up for protection.
By the time they were out of range, which turned out to be far longer than even the archers expected, only a few of them were left.
The empire withdrew and left the mountain alone, isolated, but left them alone.

28 )
.
The hill top site was a high wind area. Ridges funnels the winds right into the hilltop. When a cyclone comes, it is amplified dramatically, even though it loses most of the power by the time it gets to the hill. Because of this, the winds regularly flew up the hillside with great force. Buildings were constructed there over the decades using standard designs and they worked well.
An engineer had a new design for buildings and wanted to build a community on top the hill. Officials were reluctant to accept his design, but finally agreed to let him build them.
The buildings were built in warehouses, complete down to the wall treatments. the foundations were constructed to decimal inch specifications, with a large threaded rod sticking into the air.
When all foundations were ready, the building floors were flown in. With special care, the rods were lined up with a pipe running from floor to ceiling and the floor was lowered into place on the foundation. Then each subsequent floor was flown in and carefully placed on top the one below, all with the rods running through the pipe.
The roof was finally flown in and lined up. The rod went through the roof and into the utility unit on the roof. Once settled in place, the top plate of the utility unit was removed and a large washer and nut was screwed down onto the threaded bolt until very tight. the building was ready for people to move in.
In the period of a week, a hundred buildings were in place and ready for the people to move in.
Two weeks later, a high magnitude wind hit and there was no movement whatsoever in the buildings, proving the construction was good.
Years pass and a crew has to work on the utility units. they find they have to change out several pieces of equipment. They find the only way to do so was to remove the nut. Once it was removed, they changed out the equipment. Their boss looked at how well the stands were that held the equipment to the roof and decide that the bolt is not needed to hold the equipment down on the roof.
Over the period of a few months, they work on half the buildings and then go on to other projects.
A strong wind hits People notice movement in their buildings rocking a little. The wind catches one of the roofs and it lifts. The lack of the nut allows it to come right off the bolt. Lower floors are exposed and the wind rips out interior walls and blows out side walls. those floors become kits and lift off. The rod is pulled on an angle which allows the floors to tip up into the wind.
Debris flies, entire floors plow into other buildings and the wind rips them open. the individual debris punctures walls and breaks windows and the wind does the rest. that debris joins that which is already flying around to hit the next buildings in line.
Officials arrive at the site, not one survivor anywhere. half the foundations were scoured bare, the other half has little in the way of materials. Most of the debris is found on the back side of the building.
The designer and builders are immediately charged because of their designs. They come with investigators to see the site and figure out what had happened. They look over the site, The designer kept saying that his designs were sound. An investigator notices that one of the rods still had the nut on it and another did not. When they look closer, the rod without the nut has good quality threads on it. they find several with stripped threads, but most without the nuts are clean.
They check to see what could cause a nut to spin off. No reason. They check records for any reason the nuts could not have been installed. they all were. They did notice that there was work on the units. Checking the records, they find that every good thread rod was worked on by the utility contractor.
They locate him and he is interrogated. they find out that he had not put the nuts on because the equipment was well bound down and there was no need for that extra hold. It is only then that he learns that the nuts were holding the building together.
It is determined that while the utility contractor was at fault for not re-installing the nuts, there was no way he could know what the nuts were for. Having to remove the nut to work on the utility unit was the problem with the design. The utility unit should have been separate from the binding system.

29 )
.
The Sezkins were an elite group of warriors. The leader was so confident of their skills that he made them march in sort of a dance, and sing a special song whenever they traveled in public.
People were impressed and always cleared the way for them, which they often did not for other forces. Many a riot broke up simply by the arrival of the group.
One day, The Sezkins were sent out of to take out a wayward community. Commanders familiar with the territory took over The Sezkins. They knew more about the reputation than the facts of the group. They marched into the wilderness under competent but non-understanding commanders.
With their full packs, their marching dance was out of the question. The officers were a little ticked about it until The Sezkins forced them to do the march too. they learned that with the packs, it was utterly impossible. The commanders, though, required them to sing their song. There was no chance of sneaking up on anybody that way.
Their singing brought the full enemy force. After several skirmishes, the enemy learned that they were no match for The Sezkins, even though they outnumbered them a thousand to one. When the battles were over, they outnumbered them only fifty to one.
The defenders realized they were no match for The Sezkins so they changed tactics. They avoided the force, doing their best to take out the supply lines.
The Sezkins started adding five soldiers to each supply train and that was enough to make the supplies arrive safely. the defenders had to come up with a different tactic.
One guy came back with a deer he killed. He was not supposed to be in the discussion but he heard the officers discussing the problem. He piped up saying "I bet I can sneak in and kill one of them. How many times would we have to do that to stop them?"
The Sezkins were very easy to find. their singing rang out for miles in the quiet forests. The defenders snuck close, and waited for the right moment. They chose points where they could escape easily and The Sezkins would have to work to get to them. A rise was good enough most of the time.
The Sezkins marched right into their trap. Each person fired off an arrow into one of the warriors, and then run. A few would fire two, some even escaped. Half a dozen Sezkins died each time, a few more were wounded.
The defenders even chose spots where the side scouts had to go past them on the other side of them. They fired their arrows and ran behind the side guard and escaped, a few would even take out the side guards.
The Sezkins were fully decimated by the time the officers realized that the singing is only to impress people in formal situations. They were supposed to go silently.
Walking silently, with guards all around, they walked into an area that seemed safe. Thousands of soldiers flowed down onto them on three sides. they had nowhere to go. Flying arrows and spears rained down on them, disrupting their lines just before they were inundated by a mass of sharp blades.
The supply trains were ambushed soon after, A young man in the last one near the border was allowed to run back to tell the leaders that The Sezkins had ceased to exist. The same would happen to any other force that would show up.
It would be generations before the forest was bothered again.

30 )
.
Viceroy was a bit strange. He worked well in the office, but he was not one to make friends with anybody. Others were bothered by him and would avoid him for the most part. They never stopped their conversations when he came by, but he never joined in either, as if he had different interests.
The cleaning crew had one little problem with him. He would spread a little bit of pink powder on the floor each day. They would see it in the normal dust and dirt they swept up. Other workers had seen him sprinkle a pinch of the dust every now and then.
Viceroy's two week vacation came up and he took everything out of his office, but accidentally left the pink dust on a ledge. No one touched it, no one looked to see what the dust was.
After a week, people were working. The lights dimmed suddenly, The outer doors slammed shut and locked, one guy nearly had his fingers cut off, he just barely got his hand out of the way. An hour later, little critters appear, sort of coming in the doors. They bit and stung people, and would fall off when the people moved fast to escape. They developed welts where they were hurt.
The people were herded closer and closer to the center of the building. the critters were not harmed by water, by being swept or hit. They went through barriers that people put across doors.
The people found themselves in the general area of Viceroy's office. A woman saw his powder and on a lark, picked it up. She opened the jar and sprinkled a bit of dust on the floor. The critters suddenly launch in a full run past the people and dive onto the dust. Each time they caught one, they would roll and blink out. The woman sprinkled more and more and the dust was picked up and the critters were gone.
Finally, the last of the critters were gone some dust remained on the floor, the lights came on and the doors suddenly became operable. The people still had the welts on their legs and hands. The woman put the lid on the jar and kissed it.

31 )
.
My brother gave me this idea. It is not quite what he pictured.
Sparzak was a wimp. He was scrawny, and in spite vast medical correction capabilities, he wore glasses. He dressed totally out of style, half business and half second hand. His clothing never really fit because of his gawky shape.
The "space cadets," under the leadership of Jass, picked on him all the time, pushing him around, taking his things, even rifling through his pockets for credits. Whenever he showed up for physical fitness training, they made his life hell by adding weights he had to lift, or forcing him to work longer than he should due to his physical abilities and then make fun of him when he crawled away, too exhausted to stand.
After a while, he ignored requirements to show up for physical training. He did spend a lot of time on a treadmill, practicing running long distances. He ran a lot to his destinations since he could not afford to own a car and could not really afford a cab. the Space cadets would see him on the road, running and would threaten to run him down. He had learned all the streets and pathways and was able to elude them most of the time. He would later be teased about being a chicken.
He concentrated on running the systems of space stations and star ships. He was learning how to repair just about anything. Even there, he had problems with the brawny mechanics. He would use machines and devices to lift things rather than muscle something into place. he got them back when they were struggling with a lifting machine for something that weighed several tons. They were not totally familiar with how to work the machines. He stood back, next to the instructor, and berated the classmates about their being wimps. Why not lift it, you got the muscles. He used every insult they ever used against him to humiliate them. They got the piece in place without damage but it sure took them a long time.
Later, He found himself against a similar part. The guys made sure they were not around. Using the machines, he was able to get the part in place in less time, all by himself. They were well humiliated by that.
He completed his training. Demerits based on his not being able to get along with other students so he never got his diplomats.
He quickly found he could not get a job. The space cadets had their revenge on him. He got a job at a packing house that processed livestock for food. He learned the gasses to use, how to use them, he learned how to move animals bigger than he was. He also learned to handle animals that were trying to escape and fight back. He did well, but his lack of strength and bulk was a problem. He was good with the systems though.
After a year, he got word his uncle died and he was the only one they could contact with the family. He had inherited a very small space station. He got a small trading ship to take him there and gave some stuff there as payment. he now had a space station all to himself. He went over the systems and got them up to top quality operations. He got himself nice and comfortable.
Listing to the news, he learned that a bunch of space cadets had taken stolen a battle ship and were now using the ship like pirates. Federal soldiers arrived at his station. He gave them the outer rings to operate in while he stayed in the area where the control equipment was. He refused to let any of them in his section. He never even went out to meet them, but instead just unlocked the sections to them.
After about a month, the space cadets arrived to take over the station. They met the soldiers and fought, slowly pushing their way in. They were in better physical condition and had better weapons.
The space cadets and surviving federal soldiers entered the last section that he had left them.
Jass, was the head of the pirates. He trapped the federal soldiers in room and they were fighting hand to hand, not having any ammo to fire on each other. He realized that he now had the upper hand.
He woke up, his head a little stuffed. He tried to get up and found he was tied up. He looked around and found that even the federal soldiers were tied up. Looking around, he saw an image. His ship was spinning like a top at least a hundred RPM, which must be about a hundred GEEs at the end. He knew his crew on board was dead or dying. Soon, all the combatants were awake.
A face appeared on screen. He instantly recognized it as Sparzak.
"Hey Jass, Good to see you." Sparzak said. "I could not tell the difference between the feds and you guys, though I know most of you. I decided to tie all of you up."
"How did you do that?"
"Oh, while you guys were out doing physical exercises and being big and tough, I learned how to use the space station systems. From here, I control the environmental system of the whole space station. I just added a few things to the atmosphere and knocked you guys out. I learned that at a slaughter house since you guys made sure I would not get my diploma."
"What, what about our ship?"
"Oh, I sent it a virus. It will be spinning there for a few more centuries. Since I could not tell you guys apart, I had a federal star squadron on its way. they will figure out who is who and what happens to you. Until then, make yourself comfortable."