Eric Flint: The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly

The bats were already swooping on the hopper, snatching bat-mines. Ginny grabbed for the chainsaw first. Then clothes. The skirt she just stepped into, and she decided that the blouse buttons could wait. A girl had to dress slightly for success, even if a chainsaw was the finest in fashion accessories.

Behind her she heard a dull thump.

"Bat-mines. Too early, methinks. Let's move out, Ginny."

"Ay, senorita. Let's she roll and rock!" Fluff was back on his habitual post on her shoulder.

They headed into the unknown.

But they hadn't got more than five hundred yards into the ship, when the strains of "The Rifles of the BRA" overtook them. Bats flooded overhead in an almost solid stream, singing.

"I think we have air superiority," said Doc.

"If they've all been at the sauerkraut, we'll have wind superiority, too," said Melene, twitching her nose.

"Well, I think their singing needs the right instrumental accompaniment." Ginny gunned her chainsaw.

Fal took a swig from his bottle. "And get to some of these fretful porpentines, before the bats kill them all."

Down in the energy section, with an enemy laser gun and heavy alien bucket, Chip Connolly prepared to go down fighting. Or at least breaking things.

And then he heard it. A far-away sound. And never was bad singing so sweet.

"Charlie Connolly goes to die on the bridge o' toon today…"

If that wasn't tuneless O'Niel leading that singing, then he was Henri-Pierre's mustachioed mummy. Grinning like a madman, swinging his bucket, Chip advanced towards the noise.

"Oh I've been a wild rover for many's the year… and I've spent all me money on whiskey and beer…"

Bats swept in, in a triumphal flutter. "Connolly, you inartistic dog! You've ruined O'Niel's song by not being dead," said Bronstein, her claws digging into his shoulder.

Then, panting, Ginny ran in. The chainsaw fell to the floor, as did the bucket.

" 'Tis quick work," said Pistol. "Undressed already, and Ginny half so, you puffed and reckless libertines."

"I've got a chainsaw," said Ginny, picking it up, but keeping one hand on Chip. "No one tells a lady she is undressed while she still has her chainsaw."

"And I have a bucket. No man is undressed with a bucket." Chip brushed away Ginny's tears with a caressing hand. "I don't even have a handkerchief…" He touched his temple. "But I do have a soft-cyber implant, Ginny. They made me a slave, and I betrayed all of you. But I did manage to break their force field."

"Begorra!" said O'Niel in a fine imitation of disgust. "Why did I bother to come? No job to do, no drink, no strawberry yogurt-and me fine lyrics are purely ruin't."

"Just burning love," said Pistol. "Thank you very much."

Fitz, Van Klomp and the rest of his force were beginning to feel like spare parts. The bats were going through the ship like a flying tide. Even the various aliens they encountered were too busy trying to kill Korozhet to pay much attention to the newcomers.

Then it started becoming apparent that some of the Korozhet were releasing their nitrous oxide. Sheer speed and unexpectedness, particularly of the bats, had ensured that many of the Korozhet had died first. So had thousands of the slaves turning on the Korozhet-a totally unexpected thing. But, in the upper parts of the great globular ship, there were a few Korozhet who had had enough time to try and fight back. And nitrous oxide had incapacitated enough of their prey in the past.

So, now, human soldiers with gas masks from the local chemical plant finally had a job to do. Part of that job was getting the alien ex-slaves out of the ship. Now that the ship was at least partially disabled, Fitz had sent a radio op back to the entry portal calling hundreds more human soldiers in, along with medical teams. Troops without slowshields-but with shotguns-soon began proving that human buckshot was superior to harpoons.

Fitz met a recognizable alien in the upper passages. It was the blue furred one, Darleth. She'd said that she could hold her breath for up to twenty minutes, as an aquatic species. The Jampad's homeworld was apparently vastly tidal, and thus Jampad needed to be able to both swim and climb with equal facility.

Only this wasn't her. It wasn't the same blue, and it was wider.

"High-spine chamber up here." It pointed with one of its arms. "Have many lasers inside."

The gas got to it finally, and it staggered.

"Abbas. Simmons. Carry it out and get it to the medical teams."

The Jampad had known about the gas. It had made a deliberate decision to tell them about the danger ahead. Fitz had already come to trust one Jampad; he decided to trust another.

They'd worked out how to work the spiral iris doors by now. Opening it slightly, while lying on the floor, Fitz gave the occupants inside a grenade. With the hiss of laser fire coming through the door, his soldiers followed it up with two more. And then another two for luck.

The High-spines inside the chamber would never see another instar. The paratroopers opened the iris further, and filled the room with buckshot.

After that it was little more than mopping up.

Half an hour later Fitz came out of the ship. Van Klomp was already there, using his loud voice in lieu of translation skills. So far there were just car-lights lighting up the scene, but someone was stringing wire and setting up spotlights. He saw Fitz on the ramp.

"Ja, boykie. We're moving them back into town. Away from the ship, with a bat to each squad of ten as a translator." He pointed to the alien forms and oxygen tanks. "Just as soon as the medics say they're okay. You should hear the band-aid mechanics bitch about alien physiology, and trying to stop those dumb big things with the horns from going back into the ship as soon as they can stand. We thought we'd have to shoot them to stop them until one of the teams brought a bunch of cute fluffy puppy things out of the ship. You've never seen such a fuss."

He took a deep breath. "Fitzy, that blue furred fellow. The one Sergeant Abbas says you found and told you there was some sort of ambush waiting. He showed us something."

Conrad Fitzhugh was uneasy. Van Klomp did not speak quietly unless he was deadly earnest. "Tell me, Bobby."

"Ariel's body. He was told to dump it in the incinerator. He didn't. I've got it over behind the aid station."

Tears had already started in Fitz's eyes. But his voice remained steady. "Take me to it, Bobby. I need to see her. I need… to pay my last respects. I never got that chance."

Van Klomp put a large hand on Fitz's shoulder. "Better not, Fitzy. She's been badly mutilated. Her head… down to about mid-chest has been split. Yetteth, that's the Jampad-fellow, says they do that to take out the soft-cyber. We'll bury her with honor. But best you remember her as she once was."

Fitz shook his head. "No," he croaked. "I need to see her. To tell her I loved her. No matter what she looks like."

So Van Klomp took him to where he'd laid the little body. And, at Fitz's request, left him to his grief.

Robert Van Klomp walked back over to the ramp, and got back into organizing mode. Someone had to do it, although he noted that Ogata made an even better field officer than he did lawyer. Mike Capra came up to him. "Guess what I just carried out of that ship in an interesting state of undress?"

"What?"

"Major Tana Gainor. The stitcher, in person. She probably thought she could screw her way out of trouble with the Pricklepusses, but this time she got screwed. They've mindwiped her and put an implant into her head. We found her in solitary, in the ship. All the other slaves were in dormitories, but Tana Gainor was in well-sealed solitary. Maybe the Korozhet were brighter than we gave them credit for."