Eric Flint - The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

Surely no more could happen today?

This phone call had knocked her back in her tracks. Not even being shot at had done that. They hadn't yet been able to find Talbot Cartup. But he'd found her.

He didn't beat about the bush. "I've got access to Connolly, Shaw. If you want him that badly, I'll arrange it. But the price is going to be very high."

Virginia sat down, hard. "All right. I'll pay. What do you want and when?"

"Oh, not money, Shaw. I have plenty of that. A number of other things. The first one is for you to drop all the charges against me. The second one is to stop your rabble-rousing among the Vats-I don't need any extra trouble from them. The third one is that a motion will be put forward in the Shareholders Council to reaffirm the Council's confidence in Special Branch and with me as the holder of the colony's Security portfolio. You'll vote for that."

"I can't. Not until probate is granted on the will. Council objected."

"Hmm." There came a heavy chuckle. "I have made things rather difficult for myself, haven't I?"

There was a brief pause. Then: "Well, I gather you are a convincing speaker. You'll make another speech saying that in the light of new evidence you want me back heading the portfolio. You can arrange the checks and balances… I'll provide you with names of suitable candidates."

"Very well."

"And then I will want a number of shares as a deed of gift. I'll leave you with one percent of the stock. More generous than a dummy deserves, and I'll keep silent about your uplift status. That would cost you all of them."

"You can have anything you want," said Virginia. "But first I want proof that Chip is fine. When he is free and well, you will have all the things you want."

"You'll just have to trust me, Shaw. He's fine."

"Cartup, I have no reason to ever trust you. You provide me with proof. Let me talk to him, and I'll start doing things. Until then, Talbot Cartup, we're hunting you. And trust me on this: if Chip Connolly doesn't get back safely, I'm going to cut you in half, personally, with a chainsaw."

For five minutes after she put the phone down she sat there, shaking.

Melene came in to the room. She took one look at Ginny, and handed her a small bottle from her rat-pack, without a word said.

Ginny drank from it, glass clattering against her teeth. She stood up. "Take me to the Ratafia. Take me now. I need to start fighting and I need people who won't just talk."

"Is simple the problem, as I see it," said Darleth. "Openly attack the Korozhet, the rats cannot. At the idea, even you wince. Even if we could, the weaponry on the ship is fierce. Force fields they have. When in place these are, the Korozhet only can use the heavy laser. What they do is to raise these for very little time, and then launch missiles from the targeting spines on the top of the ship. There are two force fields-like airlock, not one like Magh'. Many thousands of the people, the Jampad, with heavy lasers we force our way in. And then the ship was exploded, with most of the slaves and attackers killed, when the Korozhet fled in their lifecraft."

"I don't think we can take them on frontally-even if the soft-cyber would let us. But we can raid…" said Meilin.

Virginia had been less than surprised to see the Vat organizer there. Too many ends in this tied together. Somebody, somewhere, was pulling strings, she'd slowly come to realize. She had no idea who it was, although it was clearly someone who-for whatever reasons of their own-seemed determined to shatter the existing political setup on Harmony and Reason.

At the moment, that was good enough. One day she'd track them down. Right now she had other priorities.

The Jampad nodded. Virginia had learned that meant no. "To gain entry means the double-front portal. No other ingress have the Korozhet ships. The last reports from our attackers before the ship was destroyed they said there was a force field inside the entry port. We believe, but not know, that the inner portal is a fire chamber that is triggered if anything other than Korozhet or an implanted slave goes into it."

Ginny frowned thoughtfully. "They must bring things in. I mean we've been paying them for the soft-cyber and slowshield units. We could hide in that."

The Jampad nodded furiously. "It is irradiated. Only through the double portal do live things pass. And, from what my people could establish, only implanted victims or Korozhet themselves."

Ginny sighed. "So what you are saying is that we can't attack them."

The Jampad shook his head. "We can. The Korozhet, my people attacked, and their client species very successfully when they come out of the ship. Their slaves they use as soldiers, and some, like the Nerba, are very good. But while inside the ship they are hidden, they can only be attacked with great force. I prepare for the guerrilla fight."

Ariel wrinkled her ratty snout. "Methinks I'll talk to Fitz, Ginny. Strategy and tactics are his thing. I'm going there later tonight and he goes to court tomorrow. He needs something else to think about."

"I'm sure he has enough on his mind," said Ginny, wanly.

Ariel patted her hand. "He has a very wide mind. It encompasses everything from chocolate to war."

Virginia sighed. "I'm still due to see Liepsich tonight. I'm not sure when he sleeps. I'll talk to him about the problem. But I still want to hire the Ratafia. I want Talbot Cartup found. He's trying to blackmail me with Chip's freedom. If I could trust him, I'd gladly give all he asks. But if I catch him before the police do… I'll get real cooperation. Even if I have to get Fat Fal to 'circumspect' him."

"Methinks the rats will be a bit worried," said Gobbo doubtfully, "with this move into formal employment."

Meilin laughed. "You'll have to shift from burglary to other enterprises soon anyway. The humans are going to catch on. And once they do that, it could just become easier to work than steal."

"Steal! Steal?" said Gobbo. "A fico for the phrase. Convey, the wise call it."

"Call it what you like, they'll stop your conveying too. But there is work you can do."

"I know," agreed Gobbo. "But work… it hath such an ill ring to it."

"Regard it as I do," said Pooh-Bah. "As something one of the other seven do while I am not around."

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

The office of Dr. Len Liepsich.

A place in which you might find anything from a book on Egyptology to a treatise on the molecular structure of fullerene complexes.

And last month's lunch, with green fur on it.

And an espresso machine, too well used.

It was approaching midnight and the physicist was showing no signs of slowing down. The only real clue to just how little sleep he'd had in the last few days was that his eyes looked like roadmaps. And he was talking a little too fast. Virginia suspected there was something other than the ever-present cup of coffee affecting his mind. She ran the information she'd gotten from Darleth about the Crotchet's defense system over his hairy ears. You could tell he was interested because he scarcely bothered to insult her.

"For a blonde, you provide rare insights. And not just of a view of vacuum by peering into your ears. We'd figured the missiles. We've got some plans in place to try to deal with that. We'd figured heavy laser fire. There is some stuff still mounted on the slowship. I've got somebody organizing those. What we hadn't got is this business of double force fields."

"I'm fascinated by what you've figured out," she said dryly. Liepsich grinned. She continued. "What I am interested in, is what we need to do to get in there?"

He scratched his stubbly chin. "You know, there is always more than one way to skin a cat, especially if you know a lot about cats. Now, I figure that there are two ways-at least-that we can get at the ship. Their fields must be down for missile launch, as you said. We can hit them just then. It's a small window, but a window. That's the best solution a military man will evolve."