My name's Mortimer. Silas Mortimer. Blame it on my parents; they were the ones who insisted on giving me this archaic name. "One of my ancestors from the days when humans still lived on Earth", they said. Phah, as if such a name was commonplace even then.

But I'm ranting. Truth to tell, I've kind of grown to like my name, for what it's worth. It's one of those things that tend to grow on ya, 'til the day you stop thinking twice about it. I know, I know. You're not here to hear an old fart make sour comments on the evolution of names. No, I can guess why you're here... you want to know what I've been doing with my life, right? But, I guess, if you are to really understand what my life is, you need to be given a quick lowdown on history... and I might as well start with my profession. I'm a Freeman.

A Freeman's not a bad thing to be, actually. It's not just a profession, it's proof that you are of pure Earth descent, without a single ancestor from any of the old colonies. We Freemen, well, Freewomen too, to avoid any sexist accusations, we belong to no colony, we have no homeworld, all we have and all we are can be summed up in three words. Spaceship. Cargo. Inheritance...

It all began over a thousand years ago, in the days when Earth was preparing for the dawn of the Third Millennium. Most of the celebrations had taken place almost a year earlier, at the change from year 1999 to year 2000, but a relatively small elite of purists were determined to make a millennial celebration that would be remembered on New Year's Eve, year 2000.

And remembered it would be. By some odd coincidence, a young scientist managed to build the first prototype Star Drive during that year, and he made the first test run on that New Year's Eve. The next morning, newspapers worldwide had similar headlines: "Mankind reaches for the stars at the dawn of a new millennium!", or maybe "The Earth can end as much as it likes, we're leaving!", and several other equally jubilant ones.

Within a hundred years, some of the most skilled engineers on the planet had designed and built the first colony ship. By the year 2350, mankind had colonized a hundred stars, encountering alien life forms, often as not, hostile, as often as friendly, but no life forms had been encountered to show any signs of intelligence.

Then... the day when the Earth died... family-sized starships had been commonplace for over a hundred years already, and almost everyone escaped the cataclysm. What cauused it, nobody knows, though historians have speculated that it could be faulty circuitry in the old nuclear defenses of what was once the USA and the USSR. The best guess is that one of the missiles was somehow malfunctioning, and launched itself against the other side of the planet.

Response was immediate... most people had their starcruisers prepared to leave Earth on a moments notice - it was approaching the Great Gathering, an event taking place every fifty years, when humans from all the worlds gather in one place to trade, eat, drink and be merry.

As billions of people fled the planet, Earth was reduced to a radioactive heap of rock instead of the fertile homeworld it had once been. Quickly, the Council of Humanity declared Earth as uninhabitable, and all Earth-registered humans were given status of Freemen and Freewomen, paying no taxes to any colony, nor being required to attend any mandatory military service arrangements for any colony.

Sure, the drawbacks were as plentiful as the advantages, I'll not deny that fact. For instance, as we pay no tax, neither are we communally insured against anything, we can only buy our insurance policies through the Galactic SecuriCorp, which deals in insurance, security controls, rent-a-cop arrangements, and much more in that line of work.

Freemen are bound by no local laws, only the Council's Galactic Paragraphs, a simple handbook that is a common birthday present for newborn Freemen. The Freemen are the traders of the universe, always the ones knowing the fastest transportation channels, often equipping their starships with some heavy weaponry to defend themselves from pirates, wich is still a common problem.

But I'm moving too fast again. The reduction of Earth from a fertile planet with a population of about 11 billion people to an unfit, radioactive hulk took precisely eight hours and fourty-seven minutes. Then, Earth held no more human life. Few lifeforms remained, mostly the ones of the deep seas. No other mammals than the aquatic ones remained, and all the birds were gone from the skies. What was incorrectly assumed at the time, was that all landbased life forms were obliterated. That assumption has proved quite fatal...

Three hundred years ago, an advanced recon probe was launched into the Earth atmosphere, equipped with state-of-the-art sensory equipment. The information that it sent back was scarce, but what little there was, was nothing but terrible...

In the late twentieth century, a common insect was reckoned the world's most popular annoyance, and appeared in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. The reason for its success was undoubtedly its ability to survive almost anything short of decapitation... the cockroach. Even today, it is as much a part of any household as anything you can think of. However, their presence on Earth is so limitlessly more unnerving.

Over the two-and-a-half centuries that had passed from the days of the End of Earth and to the probe was launched, the earthly cockroaches had evolved, and rapidly... now, they are an amphibious species, measuring about two feet in size... and they have developed intelligence.

The few images sent by the probe revealed giant insects operating tools... and examining artifacts of the past. The last transmission from the probe revealed a cockroach holding some sort of laser cutter approaching... obviously, these insects cannot possibly have developed such technology by themselves... we left it there for them...

What little information we have gathered from surveillance satellites and similar means has revealed these insects to have developed some sort of society, but the type of government is still uncertain. Their society is of minor importance, however.

In the Earth-year 2892, reconaissance satellites revealed a primitive spaceship being built.

In the Earth-year 2917, the cockroaches launched their first fully functional manned, or rather, bugged spaceship, capable of exploring Mars.

In the Earth-year 2976, the cockroaches had finally reverse-engineered the Star Drive technology, and explored Alpha Centauri.

In the Earth-year 2977, the cockroaches sent out armed warships and attacked the undefended human colony there, wiping out all the civilians and claiming it for their own.

In the Earth-year 2977, Mankind was finally united against a common foe, and the Freemen became more than rogue traders and hobos... We took it on ourselves to be the front line against the invasion.

It is the Earth-year 3002, and the war is raging...

Chief Engineer Tikixcek pressed the button once more, and the holographic recording started from the beginning again.

Even thirteen centuries after the defeat of the ancients, their technology held secrets which had yet to be learned... Tikixcek sighed and pulled out his toolbox. It seemed that after discovering this old wreck in the remains of those old battlefields, there was an increasing amount of work.

And more interesting than this... storage unit for audiovisual messages... was that large container they recovered from the crash. It seemed to hold a constant temperature of about, oh, twenty-five degrees, if he had understood that Kelvin scale thingie correctly. Tikixcek examined the container once more. There was a small button concealed near the base of it; he just found it by mere coincidence.

Pressing it made the container hum softly. The front opened... and an Ancient was revealed in a block of ice. A red light flared through the ice, and the Ancient was released and dropped to the floor. He looked around.

"Wh... where am I? Did we win?"

Tikixcek looked down at him, and activated a small device on his forehead.

"Greetings, Ancient. As the Chief Engineer of this hive, I greet you, sole survivor of your species."

The ancient paled beyond his disgusting pinkish shade.

"Humanity... lost?"

"You Ancients were annihilated over thirteen centuries ago. You were obviously cryogenically stored before then, and have by chance been awakened today."

The Ancient sat down on the floor.

"Then all is lost. And you roaches have won..."

Tikixcek pushed a button.

"Indeed we did. And now, please follow these two guards."

"Silas Mortimer, Last known surviving Ancient."

Silas looked at the sign outside his cage. God had a twisted sense of humor at times. Not only had these bugs taken over the planet, they had also taken over everything else. Language. Technology. Sciences. Just about everything aside from religion...

"God, let me die, rather than suffer in this... zoo."

The stars gazed coldly down at Silas Mortimer, the Freeman...

The End

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