Eric Flint: The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

"Ah," said General Cartup-Kreutzler, seeing the alien. "Advisor Tirritit. What brings you here?"

"Good day, General." The Korozhet military attache dipped his spines respectfully. "I have been dispatched by my commander to ask a favor of you. We would find it of great value to go and inspect this front your bold troops have opened up. A daring initiative! I gather you have captured some enemy territory. I should like to take a party of military advisors from my strategy group into the area."

Cartup-Kreutzler was somewhat taken aback at this request. "Well, I suppose so, Tirritit. But what you'd want to see there I don't know. Battlefields have very little to do with military strategy. And you chaps know everything there is to know about the Magh'."

Advisor Tirritit hissed a naphthalene reek at them. "True. But we'd like to gather fresh material. And to confirm certain things. I hadn't wanted to broach this with you yet, General, but, strategically speaking, this attack could have catastrophic side effects on the whole war effort. Really, you should not undertake such exercises without first consulting us."

"It wasn't exactly our plan, Tirritit," said Brigadier Charlesworth sourly. "And we didn't know about it until it had happened."

The Korozhet advisor gave a sort of hissing sigh. "You are Brigadier Charlesworth? This did happen in the sector of the front under your control, where, if I remember correctly, a planned strategic retreat was in progress. Most unwise!"

Charlesworth looked sullen. "I told you. This wasn't our idea. Some blasted intelligence major did it off his own bat. We were just discussing how best to deal with him."

The Korozhet military advisor spined forward into the ornately wood-panelled room. "Perhaps you should tell us more. This sort of individual could prevent you from winning the war if he continues this sort of interference. By the way, the request we put in for this… Private Charles Connolly. How is that proceeding?"

"Ah. I am happy to say that he appears to be dead," said General Visse. "Our records show this clearly."

Tirritit clacked his spines. "Most satisfactory. I mean, we did want to debrief him and question him about the death of the Korozhet tutor assigned to Virginia Shaw. But his death removes the necessity."

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

A grim and debatable land: a captured Magh' scorpiary, newly conquered and still smoldering.

"What in hell are we going to do with them, Fitzy?" asked Parachute Major Van Klomp, looking down over the red spiral walls of the Magh' scorpiary. His paratroopers had blown a hole in the roof to gain access to the brood-heart. Now Van Klomp had come up here to escape the chaos within. What was happening down there wasn't fighting. Not really. More like the butchery of rather nasty but stupid insects. The Magh' brains seemed to have died with their brood-heart. "We can't talk to the befokte things to persuade them to surrender, and we may just die of exhaustion killing them. I'm sick of it. I am almost missing parades by now."

Major Conrad Fitzhugh, head of HAR Army Intelligence-at least until the MPs caught up with him-grinned tiredly. "You've always got something to bitch about, Bobby. Last time you wanted action, not display jumps. I get you action, now you want back to display jumps. There's no pleasing you!"

Van Klomp exhaled gustily. "It's because you cheated me, boykie. You promised we could rescue some commando-heroes from certain death. And what do I find when we get in there? A bunch of drunken rats and bats having a Maggot barbeque. And a solitary troepie making whoopee with Shaw's bloody daughter."

A sleek rat with ragged ears and a few new scars stuck her head out of the capacious magazine pocket of Fitz's BDUs. "You might have scrounged some of their drink, Van Klomp. Do you know how dry I am, and how irritable I get when I'm dry?"

Van Klomp blew the most dangerous she-rat in the army a raspberry. But, to prove that, despite being big, he wasn't entirely stupid, he also produced a hip-flask. "You and Fitzy stole all my port. You stole my Christmas bottle. You even drank the cooking sherry. But Meilin got me some rum from somewhere. You don't like rum, do you, Ariel?"

"It's at the bottom of my list of human drinks," said the rat, reaching for it. "As for your sack, 'twas terrible stuff. I was doing you a favor drinking it." Because Ariel had spent so much time in human company, her speech was less Shakespearean than that of most rats. But every now and then bits slipped out, especially when she was thirsty.

Van Klomp poured some of the contents of the hip flask into the small silver lid-cup. "Here. And be happy. The stuff those rats were drinking made rum look like cola. A mouthful of the stuff nearly killed me."

"And you let them take it away!" said Ariel, downing the small cup and shaking her head.

Van Klomp shrugged. "I'd have liked to keep them all here so Fitzy could debrief them when he got through with playing chase-the-Maggot. But I wanted our late Chairman's daughter out of danger. Shaw wasn't going anywhere without them. And they weren't going anywhere without that grog of theirs. They'd kept her alive right through attacking this patch of hell with a fire bucket, so I reckon they must make a fairly good bodyguard. I'd have choppered them out except for this weather." The cold front was lifting now, but rain and mist had followed the army into the area. Not that it had made much difference. Most of the fighting had been in the labyrinthine tunnels of the scorpiary.

Fitz stood up and yawned. "Well, aside from missing out on their booze, I'd have liked to talk to them myself. They know more first hand about Magh' than anyone else. And we owe our victory here to their efforts. I'd have liked an explanation of all of it-that dead Korozhet, and that other alien critter, to say nothing of all the dead Magh'-those huge bloated ones they said were the brains behind the whole nest. But realistically speaking, I won't be dealing with that intelligence. I've got to go back and face the music. I just came looking for you, to say goodbye."

Van Klomp sighed. "I know you too damn well to think I'm going to change your mind, Fitzy. So." He reached out a large hand and took the cup from Ariel's paws. Topped it up. Handed it to the scar-faced intelligence major. "A last drink together, boykie. Bottoms up."

Fitz took it. "To the living and the dead," he said, and drained it. "Pfeh. That's vile stuff. My God… it's strong… Ariel…"

Van Klomp caught him as he fell, and lowered him gently to the ground. The silver cup was less lucky. It bounced and clattered away, rolling down the seven hundred foot slope of the scorpiary arms. "Sorry, boykie," said Van Klomp, quietly. "But you won't look after yourself, so your mates have to. Here, Ariel. Loosen his collar. And then go and give Cunningham and Garcia a call. They're waiting just inside the first gallery with the ropes and stuff."

Ariel was already at her major's throat. "You're sure he'll be all right, Van Klomp? I'll kill you if he isn't." There was no hyperbole at all in that statement.

"You can kill me right after I kill that damned doctor, if he isn't," said Van Klomp, heavily. "I never thought he'd swallow that bit about me drinking rum."

"And I thought he'd notice for sure that I hadn't actually drunk any of it," said Ariel, feeling for the carotid pulse. "That's steady enough, anyway. You go and call your goons. I'll stay with him."

Van Klomp shook his head. "If he stirs you won't be able to stop him rolling. I'll take care of him, Ariel." He gave the unconscious man a wry look. "I always have," he said quietly, "since we were kids."

With no more than a disapproving sniff, Ariel left and ran to the hole that the attacking paratroopers had left in the Magh' adobe dome. In a few minutes she was back with two paratroopers, ropes, a field stretcher and the doctor. The doctor checked Fitz's breathing and pulse hastily. "I don't approve of this, Major," he said stiffly.