Eric Flint: Rats, Bats and Vats

The landspeeder was designed for off-road work. The motorcycles weren't. Within two minutes, the motorcycles were no longer in sight. Within five, even the sound of the shrieking sirens had faded away.

The fear and excitement were making Virginia feel awfully strange. She was reminded suddenly of the nightmarish trips to the ship's surgery, back in that horrible fuzzy time before her soft-cyber implant. She felt… giddy. Very weak. Very confused.

Had she been shot? She couldn't feel any pain, but she had read that wounds could be unnoticed at the time they were received. Shock, or something.

Her head lolled on the seat rest. Her eyes fell on the rear window but, this time, she was not peering intently at the motorcycles on the ground. Just gazing vacantly.

As consciousness slipped away, she caught sight of a tiny, furry face, too full of big eyes. Clinging under the back sunshade of the landspeeder, Fluff looked utterly terrified.

She awoke in darkness. The bed she lay on was extremely hard. Gradually her mind assimilated that it was no bed. A hard surface, slightly gritty in texture. They must have crashed!

Her first thought was for the Professor. Virginia began scrambling to her feet. But, instantly, her head crashed into an unseen surface above. Wincing from the pain, she collapsed back onto her knees.

After a moment, she began feeling around with her hands. The space she was in-whatever it was-seemed very small and cramped. Even in the darkness, she rapidly established there was no ball of prickles in here with her. There was just no room for anyone else.

Reaching up and probing the-ceiling? it seemed too gritty for a ceiling-she rapidly established that there was no room for the Professor to be hanging from the ceiling either.

Sighing heavily, she lay down on her back. Where am I? she wondered. Suddenly her thoughts turned to the last thing she'd seen. Fluff. "Oh, Fluff! My poor baby!"

"I'm here," said a sleepy voice near her ear.

"Oh, Fluff!" she squealed. An instant later, her hands were groping for the galago. But she couldn't feel him anywhere.

"What is happening?" she demanded, fighting to control her rising hysteria. "Where are we? And where are you?"

"I'm here." The galago's voice was alert, now. "There is a sort of air hole here. Hang on, I'll be back with you in a minute."

Virginia heard a scrabbling noise. A moment later, the galago landed on her shoulder and nuzzled her ear.

"Oh, Fluff!" She stroked his furry-velvety little body.

"It's all right, Virginia. I, Fluff, will look after you. Have no fear. Fluff is here!"

"Where are we, Fluff?"

The galago seemed to hesitate. Then: "We appear to be inside the tunnels of a Magh' scorpiary."

Eric Flint

Rats, Bats amp; Vats

Chapter 5:

Way behind enemy lines.

CHIP STOOD AT THE head-end of the old quarry, in plain view of the advancing Maggots. There were more this time. At least there were no diggers. Most of the pursuit seemed to be the long-legged sun-spidery ones. If Chip remembered his sketchy boot camp training correctly, those were the ones called Magh'urz. According to the Korozhet who had brought the warning of the oncoming Magh' invasion, each variant and subspecies of the quasi-arthropods had a different suffix to delineate them.

But Chip hadn't paid much attention at the time, and had never had occasion to regret the loss. As far as he and every other grunt was concerned-Vat, rat and bat alike-Magh' were Maggots and they only came in two varieties: dangerous ones and all the rest. The dangerous ones always attacked and the others never did.

These, as it happened, were dangerous. Which, under the circumstances, was exactly what Chip wanted. But Damn! The stupid bastards!

The things had somehow not spotted him. They were veering away from the rocks, following the route the rats had taken. Chip cursed under his breath. He didn't enjoy being bait, but if he was going to play worm on a hook, the least they could do was notice him.

He took a deep breath and bellowed. "HEY! MOTHER-FUCKERS!"

One of the Maggots paused, as if considering the statement. At face value, of course, the accusation was absurd. As far as human xenobiologists knew, fighter Magh' had no sex life at all.

Chip blew it a raspberry. Now, it was obvious that all the Maggots had heard him. They had all stopped, skittered around, and were staring up at him.

Dammit, do they think this is one of Doc's philosophical discussions?

The last thing Chip wanted was to set the Maggots thinking. They might realize that the bait was bait. But how did he stir them into action? How did he taunt a Maggot?

When in doubt…

The old ways are always best.

Chip turned around, dropped his pants, and mooned them. The Maggots stormed forward, stridulating loudly. Plainly he had at last bridged the Maggot-human communication gap. It didn't sound like it was going to lead to an instant outbreak of peace…

The Maggots were just beneath the shaky cliff-corner. The bats reckoned that one well placed satchel-charge would bring it all down. If it didn't, he was going to have to "please explain" that last gesture to the Maggots.

"Now!"

The explosion sounded tiny. For a moment it looked as if it would be totally ineffective. Chip's legs tensed and his heart sank. Damn those know-it-all bats! Then, with a tiny spurt of dust from the cracks, the entire cornice quivered. And fell.

Even where he stood, three hundred yards off, the ground shook and rocks tumbled all over the quarry.

Bats fluttered up, peering down into the dust. Several of the rats were leaping down already. Only three maggot-survivors had escaped the rockfall. In vain-the bats were swooping upon them.

"Heh. Got nearly every last one of the whoreson achitophel!" Fal rubbed his ratty paws. "Those flyboys know how to use their powder! Got that rockpile right on the G-spot. Did you see how it quivered!"

"Did the earth move for you too, Fal?"

The rat chuckled. Licked his lips. "Well, I must go down and grab a haunch or two before the others snaffle it all. Most of the meat is buried."

Chip shuddered as the plump rat showed what a turn of speed he could display for food. The Company biochemists had said that the Maggots were nontoxic, except for their poison sacs. The rats and bats came from insectivore lines. Even so, eating their enemy…

Chip decided he'd wait until his bellybutton was closer to his backbone.

Ten minutes later, they were legging away across country, the rats showing that table manners were not part of their download.

Chip flopped down. They were now miles further in between the high red walls of the Maggot tunnel-mounds. There was no doubt about it: away from the trench-and-heavy-shelling warfare of the front, the combined skills of the human, rats and bats could lick five times their number of Maggots. Maggots were so goddamn stupid. Well, so was frontal slugging away at each other in trenches. That kind of warfare suited Maggots. There it was numbers and sheer blind determination and ferocity. Out here, in the broken country, even right inside their own backyard, Maggots were getting their asses whipped. But they just kept on coming. That was Maggots for you. They didn't run.

"I've found another fine site for an ambush, indade. Another quarry. Fair number of quarries hereabouts. The Maggots're about an hour off." Eamon was flourishing on this diet of mayhem.

Chip staggered to his feet. "Jesus, Eamon. We can't go on like this. That cliff section you dropped on the last party was brilliant, and we nailed every single survivor. But they're back onto us again. Twice as fast, I'll swear. I've got to get some sleep. You and the rats can manage on half an hour snatches, but I'm running out of steam."