Eric Flint: The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

"Put the device on your face into the hopper."

Obediently, she moved towards the hopper. "I cannot see without them, master."

"Keep it, then. We normally eliminate damaged slaves but we need some for putting down these rebels."

The inner iris opened.

"There are many more implanted ones detected. Thousands come," said a Korozhet inside. "We cannot bring all into the ship. They must be deployed to deal with the humans. These too."

Chip applied something only a Vat would know. If you are carrying a bucket, even an alien bucket, full of something smelly, very few people will assume you have no reason to carry it. Or to take it anywhere.

Even here, a slop bucket was an amazing disguise. The slaves moved pretty well anywhere, anyway. There were always trivial manual tasks to be done, and the ship was in something of an uproar. Thinking careful thoughts about his most distracting subject-Ginny-Chip moved inwards, to the very center of the ship's power plant.

At last he was next to what he was sure was the force-field generator.

There was quite a complex control panel. A Korozhet operator was moving his spikes over it. He had parted with some of the indigestible remains of his last victim onto the floor. Chip humbly began to clean up, studying the works, steeling himself.

If his plan failed, he was going to be killed. If it didn't fail… he'd probably be killed anyway. It was no use just switching it off temporarily.

The Korozhet got onto its spikes and ambulated across to some instruments. Chip braced himself. Trying his utmost, he managed to move toward the panel. But he felt like someone stuck in jelly.

Just inside the inner iris, Virginia adjusted her glasses.

Suddenly, Chip could move freely again. He ripped the cover off the control panel and emptied the bucket's contents onto the works. Then he hit it with the bucket for good measure. The shock arced him backwards.

But it must have done him the world of good. He had absolutely no trouble at all hitting the Korozhet with the five-sided bucket.

He started with the deadly spines, shattering them. Then, almost gleefully, he hammered the alien into a pulp. In fact, he made a dance out of the murderous business, swinging his pelvis with every blow of the bucket.

He also had no trouble picking up the laser gun from the smashed remains of the Korozhet, and, using a broken spine from the dead Third-instar to trigger it, expend a lot of its charge on several of the power cables.

In three shots. One for the money, two for the show-

A part of his mind-small part-was a little puzzled that he was still shaking his pelvis while he destroyed the control panel. Maybe it was because he hadn't seen Ginny in so long.

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

Eric Flint

The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

In the corridors of the Korozhet ship: alien, metal, and remarkably like corridors anywhere.

Watching from the vehicles under their earth-coated tinfoil and stuck-on shrubbery, Fitz had the pre-strike tension all over again. The waiting was always the worst. Once you got going and the adrenaline kicked in…

Of course, the assault might not happen at all. If the sacrifice of those rats and bats and the girl and her galago had been in vain-they'd pull back just as quietly as they came. Fitz peered at the tiny candy-striped vehicle standing in the ship's lightpool, again. Courage came in all shapes and sizes. But his task was to win this war. If this bold stroke failed, they'd reorganize and go on. And on, if need be.

Liepsich had provided a diffraction meter that indicated force-field states. Fitz watched it with one eye and the ship through the camouflage crack with the other. His driver sat with his finger on the keys. He hoped the vehicle started well from cold. They'd slowly pushed the vehicles forward from where they'd been towed to, with the pushers hiding themselves behind foil and earth shields. No fast moves, hopefully no infrared…

Seventy yards to cover. The young reporter he had for a driver claimed his car could do zero to sixty in 4.2 seconds. If that was too slow, the lasers would take them out before they reached safety under the belly of the ship. There might be weapons there, of course. If one of the shields came back on they'd splatter. And then they'd have to stop, and not be hit by the other vehicles. Then there was the question of the doorway. One of the paratroopers behind him had the triggers to the bat-mines that would hopefully be placed on the door's works. After that… well.

No one knew. Not even Darleth, sitting behind him.

Why was it getting darker?

"It's a GO!"

Fuentes had been watching the diffraction meter, too. The sports car snarled into life. He floored it. The camouflage leapt away from the car as they hurtled toward the ship. Behind him, someone hit the bat-mine triggers.

It was a skidding halt… against candy-striped armor. But the one advantage of the convertible was that it had no roof in the way. The five of them bailed out over the top.

Even at a full sprint, Fitz could not keep up with the blue furred one. Or the shower of bats dropping in with folded wings.

"Begorra! I'd be thinkin' you timed this with military precision," said one huge bat, who nearly knocked him flailing off the ramp. "Come on, up the ramp, primate! Faster! Kill Korozhet!"

The air was almost solid with bats, now. "They're allies!" yelled Fitz, back at his squads, arriving with squealing tires and bumps. "Up!"

But the bat-mines that Bronstein and O'Niel had placed had not been effective enough. The iris door was still closed.

"Shamus Plekhanov!" bellowed the bat. "This needs you."

A bat with two bandoliers flapped out of the mass. "Eamon, now. You'd not be implyin' I'm a better sapper than you?"

"I'm saying that Longfang O'Niel said that you were the best in the Red Wing, and he places his shots better than I do. Besides, it's shaped charges we'll be needing and the Battybund don't use them as much as you do. 'Tis a bit sissy, we think."

The bat snorted, but went to work, motioning them all back.

Meanwhile, inside the ship:

The first reaction that Virginia got to "adjusting" her glasses, was that the huge Nerba guard dropped his weapon.

"Pick up!" snapped the Korozhet.

But the huge horned creature did not pick up the weapon. Instead, it lowered its head and backed off. Ginny noted that the other Nerba was looking at its weapon. The huge creature seemed puzzled, although it was hard to tell.

"I ordered you to pick it up."

Ginny had spent time with the rats. She could see lips sliding back over those red-tipped teeth. Not that those teeth, so deadly against Magh' or humans, would be adequate dealing with spiny-armored Korozhet. The creatures were fragile, true, when struck with heavy blunt objects-but rat-fangs were stilettos, not broadswords.

The creatures had toxic darts and secreted nitrous oxide, too. Back in the hopper, Ginny had a gas mask. It was at least thirty yards away.

The Nerba retreated again, until it was against the wall of the passage. It made an odd mooing sound.

The Korozhet shot it. Casually, it seemed to Ginny. Apparently, that was standard procedure with a disobedient slave.

Then the lights went out, just as the second Nerba lowered its head and charged the Korozhet.

What were obviously smaller emergency lights came on. A sound like a mixture between a rattle and a severe case of gas erupted from speakers.

The Nerba hadn't survived his impact with the Korozhet. But the Korozhet hadn't survived either.

"Get our kit and let's move in!"