"There. To the left." The tailless rat with the mismatched fur patches and the missing ear pointed imperiously. The Earth-built satellite cameras had been intended for precision surveying. The resolution was excellent. The rat's eyesight was marvelous too.
"Zoom in on that point," said the major.
The technician did. There was a pinpoint of light in the darkness of the screen. Conclusive proof that tractors need strong drink to give them the will to live, though the two men and the rat staring at the screen did not know it.
"A flare!" Fitz smiled. "That's when it started. Match those coordinates with a daytime pic of the area."
The technician obeyed, willingly enough. Curiosity was now driving him as much as the rat's threat. An aerial picture of the road from the ruined winefarm appeared on the screen. Unbidden, the tech followed the road to the buildings and gave them max zoom. He looked at the text scrolling onto the screen.
"Clos Verde. It was a wine farm before the war. I went there once."
"Methinks I'm right. 'Tis a bunch of rats," said Ariel.
Fitz snorted. "Goddamn likely considering the choice of hideout. But the explosion is more like bats. One of them could have survived by being aloft when an assault started." He sighed. "Looks like they blew themselves sky high a few minutes later. Okay. Let's go on with the time series."
The explosion came up on screen. Fitz could see that even the sullen technician's interest was caught by now. "Do you think they committed-what-do-you-callit-hari-kiri, sir?"
Ariel goggled. "Rats? Are you crazy?"
Corporal Simms looked at the explosion's print carefully. Prewar he'd been a clerk for a demolitions company. He was a bright man, and the company had ended up getting him to cross-check all the calculations. He'd made it his business to learn as much as possible about explosives. In the natural fashion of military organizations, after drafting him the army had put him as far from the sappers as humanly possible. "If they did," he said slowly, "I reckon they might have taken a lot of Magh' along. That was a huge explosion. In the five or six tons of TNT bracket."
Fitz nodded. "That flare beforehand-away from the explosion-makes the whole thing look planned to me. Let's continue with the time series. Just zoom out."
They did. And once again it was Ariel's eyes that picked up the light trace. "It's moving at… what would you say, Johnny?"
Corporal Simms studied it. "Too fast for too long and too steady for a running man. Besides, too much light. It must be a Magh' vehicle."
The technician's hands flickered across the keyboard. He squinted at the display. "It's moving between seventeen and thirty-two miles an hour. Averaging twenty-eight. It slowed right down and stopped here. .."
"Steep hill?" Fitz asked.
The technician checked. "Yep."
"And they veer here and disappear. Let's just backtrack the time on that place where they disappeared." Fitz tapped the big screen with his bangstick.
The bats knew how to place their shots. It was a small flare, but now they were looking for it.
There was silence as they stared at the screen. Then the major whistled.
The technician could no longer restrain his curiosity. "What does this all mean, sir?"
"It means that those aren't Maggots," said Major Conrad Fitzhugh, slipping back into grunt slang. His voice approached reverence. "Maggots don't blow holes in their own damned nests. Those are some of our lads there. And they're heading straight into the nest."
Even the technician was caught up by it now. "You mean they're a sort of special services raid? Right inside the enemy's force shield?" His eyes shone. Clearly enough, he'd quite forgotten the cut on his neck.
Fitz blinked. "No. I wish like hell they were," he said quietly, regretfully. "Most likely they're just a bunch of grunts on the run. Not a clue what they're doing."
Corporal Simms looked at the second explosion. "A bunch of grunts heading straight into the Magh' spiral. Brave, whoever they are."
"Not rats," said Ariel quietly. "They're not that stupid." She also sounded regretful.
"But… what are they trying to do?" The technician pointed to the screen. "I mean, you said yourself it all looked planned. Look at the way that wall blew up just before they got there. That's really skilled timing! `Synchronize your watches' sort of stuff. Like in old DVDs!"
Ariel shook her ratty head. "That stuff always goes wrong."
"It looked like it worked to me," said Fitz, slowly.
"So what do you think they're trying to do?" the technician persisted.
Fitz shook his head. "That's anyone's guess. What they are doing is pulling tens of thousands of Maggots off the front. We'd already noticed that. What I wish they would do is destroy a force field generator. We could take the offensive then."
The technician, Henry M'Batha, turned out to be a decent sort of fellow. Ariel was even beginning to regret having chewed on his neck.
Like most skilled technicians, Henry was the holder of a solitary share. Boredom and frustration had made him a touch officious and petty. But this made him feel as if his work had real purpose at last. That can change attitudes dramatically, so he persisted some more. "So what do you think they're trying to do?"
Fitz looked at the screen. "At a coarse guess, die young. You're looking at the evidence of some very brave soldiers."
"Can't we do anything to help them?"
The major ground his teeth audibly. Then he shrugged. "We'd have to move fast. But unless the force field goes down… nothing. Except salute them." He did.
The technician noticed that the rat and the corporal did the same. He found himself imitating them. "You wanted max-res infrared tracking," he said.
"Yes. We might pick up something," said Simms quietly.
"I'm supposed to get signed authorization from the satellite monitoring manager." M'Batha waved a piece of paper at them. "But if you wake her up now…" He drew a finger across his throat. "The hell with her. Those guys in there are risking their lives. I'll risk a reprimand from a sarcastic old bitch who can't replace me anyway." Decisively: "I'll set it up for you."
Simms smiled slightly. "Good for you. But I'll give you a signed order if you've got a blank form." On the blotter, the corporal neatly produced the head of satellite monitoring's signature. "Would that do?"
The major and the technician stared at the corporal. Simms held up his hands defensively. "My boss had to countersign the demolition orders. But he was always drunk by ten. Um. So I learned to do it for him."
Fitz eyed him speculatively. "Let's see you do my signature, Johnny."
The corporal blushed, but signed a sprawling scrawl. "I only used it when you were too busy, sir."
"He used it to requisition me chocolates," said Ariel reprovingly. "Which proves you could have done it yourself." Sniffle. "If you still loved me."
The major put his face in his hands. "Argh. I'll be locked away for chocolate black marketeering. Give him your form, tech. And thank you."
He gazed reprovingly at the rat. "Sorry about that little nick she gave you. On a sugar high, she's practically a homicidal maniac. That's why I ration her chocolate."
Ariel sniffed. Henry smiled. "It's nothing, sir. Given myself worse cuts shaving. If there is anything else, you just have to ask. Shall I call you, or send the printouts to Military Headquarters?"
"You can get me on my beeper." Fitz scrawled the number hastily on the blotter. "Or Johnny back at HQ. I'm going to go and wake up a general."
"Do you think they might have a chance, sir?"
Fitz was silent for a moment before he spoke. Then, his voice a little husky, he said: "None."
He gathered himself. "But still, they've hurt the Magh'. They're doing a thoroughly professional job of it. We owe it to them to follow up as professionally as we can too. And I'm going to see it happens."
There was iron determination in that voice. The major left the satellite tracking station like a shark leaves a lagoon. Heading for deep waters, where bigger prey could be found.
Eric Flint
Rats, Bats amp; Vats
Chapter 27:
Blow-by-blow.
METAL SCREAMED. A glass reflector shattered. And, worst of all, they stalled. The silence was sudden to ears accustomed to the over-revving-in-too-low-a-gear of a learner driver.
"That we should be cursed with a bedamned amateur driver!" said O'Niel. That bat was becoming very fond of mechanical transport. It beat flying, he said.
"Oh, shut up," muttered Chip. "It was your idea to turn down here."
The little tractor was wedged. Jammed good and solid. Maggots didn't build in straight lines. This cross tunnel was no exception.
"Let me out of the net," said the Korozhet. "We must flee on foot. The machine has ceased to function."
"Don't be stupid, Crotchet," said Chip, his heart in his mouth. How would they ever get the tractor out of this jam and then push start it down here…?
He twitched the key, just knowing it was not going to work. She started perfectly.
As usual, Bronstein took charge. "Fly ahead and see if it gets any wider," she commanded O'Niel. "Behan, you and Siobhan go back to the main tunnel and scout ahead. Eamon, let's you and me take those spray cans and see if that'll slow them- What are you doing?"
Eamon was attempting to wrap a piece of white rag with a red splotch on it around his head. "Indade. Just something I have a fancy to," the big bat said sullenly. "Here, you-Don Whatsisname-tie this around my head."
"Of a certainty!" cried the galago. Despite the apparent enthusiasm of the words, Fluff seemed doubtful of the project.
"Stop wasting time, Eamon!" snapped Bronstein. "Chip. You're to go on if that's possible. Otherwise try and reverse."
Chip looked appropriately nervous at the thought of reversing fifteen yards. "Hope like hell we can go on."
Even as Bronstein and Eamon flew off, cans of spraypaint clutched in their feet, O'Niel returned.
"Begorra, 'tis narrower ahead!"
Eamon turned and shouted: "Join us then, O'Niel! Time we'll need to buy for them!"
The plump bat looked startled. Eamon's somewhat skew white headband with a red paint spot in the center looked bizarre on his evil blackface. "Are you injured, then, boyo?"
"No. 'Tis my new image," came the proud reply.
O'Niel clucked. "'Tis right daft you look."
Chip peered at the gear lever to work out-again-where reverse was located. He thought "Hang on, Chip," said Fal. "Methinks we'll go and set some snares. Come on, you swashers!" said Fal. The rats baled off.
"Hey, don't leave me alone," whined Chip.
Pistol stopped and grinned back at him. "Tradition! Rats are deserting a stinking ship!"
Chip grit his teeth. "Here goes nothing."
He was dead right. They were stuck fast. All that moved was a little wisp of steam that curled up from the engine. He tried; stalled again. "Where the hell are the rats and bats when I need them?"
"I will do my best, senor!" piped the tiny galago. "How may I help?"
Chip shook his head. "Can you dig through Magh' adobe or blow it aside? No. I need rats and bats…"
"I'll run and fetch them," said Ginny eagerly.
"No, stay. Let's try it with the blade," he said.
"Yes, Virginia," said the Korozhet. "Stay. You must stay near me."
Ginny looked affronted. "You don't have to be so protective, Professor. I'm a big girl now."
"You tell him, girl. And get that chainsaw of yours going in case." Chip's tone was deeply approving.
He started the tractor again. With care, accompanied by the smell of a burning clutch and various wild efforts with the hydraulics-the tractor came free.
Of course, the trailer started scraping along the wall. But at least it couldn't jackknife.
They scraped through a trail of fertilizer from a torn bag. Back out into the main passage, where terrible war raged.
The rats were sitting back, against the wall, watching it. Placing bets.
"Three to one on the greens," said Pistol, pushing forward a small pile of money.
"Pass the bottle. I'll take you up on that!" Melene's voice was cheerful. "Methinks the oranges have the edge in skill if not the numbers."
Fal was in the act of putting a suggestive tail around Doll's waist. "Hey Doll, we have time, doth want to slip away for spot of tail-twisting?"
"With you, Fal? But where are my flowers and candy?" Coyly, Doll pushed his tail away.
Fal's jaw dropped. "Flowers? Candy? Candy? I offered you a drink!"
The plump rat's tone was shocked, shocked. He caught sight of Ginny and the galago and began shaking his fist. " 'Tis your fault! Yours, say I!"
Chip, Ginny and Fluff stared at the bizarre scene. Some seventy yards away the tunnel seethed with Maggots. Some of them were rather decoratively spray painted… particularly across the eyes. And Maggots were shredding Maggots. The blinded ones blundered into the rest. Contact initiated attack; attack spawned counterattack.
Siobhan fluttered in. "Ah, you're out. The next passage is wider. Behan's gone on to be checking it out further up the main passage."
Chip thumped the horn, which brayed obligingly. "All aboard! All aboard. Settle your bets, Gentlerats and Ladies. Let's go!"
Indeed, it was a good time for it. The group-mind had obviously figured out what was happening, and the painted-eyed Maggots were lying down, allowing the others to come through. Chip already had the tractor in first gear, and Virginia was off, chainsaw in hand, chivvying the rats from their argument about who'd won.
It was just as well she'd taken the chainsaw, and that she'd already pull-started it. One of the Magh' was a sprinting type. While all around its companions staggered and ripped off legs in the rows of snares the rats had set up, this one came through. It was lightly armored, but fast.
Virginia barely had time to shove the chainsaw in the Maggot's face and squeeze the trigger. The chainsaw was either inside the Maggot's slowshield or it didn't have one. The creature grabbed at it with its long chelicerae. The blade screamed through pincers and the biting mouthparts and on into the creature's head, spraying the three set-on-rescue rats with Maggot juice.
The Maggot fell, losing control over its legs, nearly dragging the racing saw out of Virginia's hands. It ripped through the carapace instead. Virginia managed to stay erect-barely-panting, a dead Maggot at her feet.
"Come on, Ginny!" Melene, Nym and Doc dragged at her.
She stood frozen in shock.
Chip had leapt off the tractor along with Fluff. The tractor was left to decide on its own course, guided by nothing but a net full of squalling, protesting Korozhet. Truth to tell, the mindless machine was actually doing better without Chip interfering with its steering.
He grabbed Ginny, and pressed the chainsaw cutoff. The next thing Virginia knew she was over Chip's shoulder, still clutching her chainsaw, as he staggered off after the tractor. Fluff clung to her shoulder and chittered anxiously into her face.
"Put me down!" she shouted. "They're coming!" But Chip just staggered determinedly on.
Claws reached for her…
… and Ginny got a near-face education into why the rats were this war's equivalent of natural-born samurai. Fal and Pistol took the first one, tag style, with that apparent lack of effort which sets the masters apart from the tyros. Then the bats joined the attack. Between aerial mastery and rat fangs the far bigger Maggots were outclassed.
Chip had seen Nym sprint for the tractor. The mechanically-inclined rat must have gotten it out of gear. It had only been puttering along anyway, but it slowed now. A few more steps and he'd be there.
Next thing, Nym appeared on the top of the trailer and flung a Molotov over their heads. Ginny's clamor for Chip to put her down finally got through to him. He did and dived for the tractor. "Come on! Up everybody, up!" He scrambled into getting it going again.
With a jerk they were moving forward. He risked a glance back, nearly hitting the wall. "All on?"
He caught sight of Ginny wacking at a Maggot with the shovel he'd put on the trailer. He should have thought of that earlier, when they were stuck.
"Yes! Let's GO!" someone yelled.
"Okay! Second gear! Let's go go go!" And they surged away.
"Next left, Chip," shouted Siobhan. "And be watching where you're driving!"
"You're getting as bad as Bronstein," he grated, over-revving and, by way of a grating venture into first, changing into third.
They did the corner very well. On two wheels-well, three, if you counted the trailer. There was an annoying lot of screaming.
"Stop!" shouted Bronstein.
"All right. All right. I'll take it slower!"
"No, you fool! I mean 'stop.' Barbed wire must be deployed, and then we'll blow this entry down. Use up the rest of that leaking bag."
"I hope like hell we don't have to come back!" said Chip, thrusting the tractor into neutral and putting the blade down with almost-skill.
Eamon fluttered up. "Here, take this damned thing. Indade, it was near the death of me." Eamon thrust his makeshift headband at Ginny.
She took it. "Uh. Why?"
"It slipped over my eyes when I was dive-bombing them," the bat said angrily. "To the very divil with fashion and image! It could have killed me! Pure suicide wearing that thing."
"I mean why did you wish to wear it in the first place?" she asked, staring at the red splotch.
The bat scatched his head and nearly fell out of the air. He corrected and explained. "I saw a picture of this dive-bomber, from human history somewhere. It struck me as remarkably stylish. I've had a fancy to try it for some time. And this may be my last flight…"
"I'll try it instead." She smiled at him. "I thought I was going to lose my glasses back there."
"And welcome!" said the bat fervently. "Now, let's have that barrel of diesel up there."
"Chip! Come and knock us a few holes with the four-pound," shouted Bronstein. "And let's set a few expedient mines on this side."
"You all right?" asked Chip, with unprecedented solicitude, when he got back to the idling tractor. Virginia was staring at the chainsaw.
"Yes," she said quietly. "I've just never killed anything before. Not on purpose."
She didn't know how she was cutting him to the quick right then. How he'd comforted Dermott after the first bloody fight, when that big tough farmgirl had started quietly weeping. "Get used to it," he said, shortly. "It's them or us."
Less than two minutes later, the first two runner-Maggots charged into the barbed wire… as the tractor drove away. The explosion behind them was a sweet, sweet sound.
Some time later, they slithered to a hasty halt against the inner wall of the spiral arm of the tunnel. Naturally, Chip miscalculated. There was a crunch.
Bronstein immediately began giving orders. "Right! I'll need shot holes…"
"Er, Bronstein." interrupted Chip. "I can see darkness though that wall. We hit it quite hard."
Bronstein looked. "So reverse off and hit it again."
"Indade, 'tis a black shame not to blow it to glory," groused O'Niel.
Fal snorted. "Methinks it is not as much of a shame as that, that
… otter, telling our women that we should give them… candy, when we wants a bit of slipping of the muddy conger."
"Otter? Which otter?" The bat looked puzzled.
"Her." The rat pointed with an elbow to Virginia, as he dug for his bottle. "Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her. Want a drink?"
"She looks fairly human," said the bat, half-uncertainly. He was speaking about the affronted Virginia as if she weren't there. "To be sure, 'tis always hard to tell by looking. I could have a feel, I suppose. As for the drink, well-after last time, begorra, Bronstein gave me hell. She said I could choose between drinking or flying. So I decided to give it up."
Fal took a deep pull from the bottle. "Rather you than me. It's a rat's life, and then you die. Alcohol simply makes the getting to be dead a bit more lubricated."
O'Niel shook his head. "No, I meant the flying. I far prefer this mechanical transportation to the hardworkin' flapping o' the wings. Pass the bottle, then."
Behan stared at him in horror. "You're not fit to be a Batty!"
"Ah, the divil take you and your politics," said O'Niel, wiping his lips and passing the bottle back, as Chip attempted to cautiously reverse. The trailer made it a nightmare.
Siobhan fluttered up. "You've got to move faster, Chip. They'll be through here any minute."
"I can't!" said Chip through clenched teeth. "She jackknifes."
"I have an idea," said Nym. "Switch her off."
Without thinking, Chip complied. Then he realized who was giving orders. "Nym! What the hell are you doing?" The rat was fiddling with the ropes tying the drive shaft in place.
"Come and cut the drive shaft loose, Connolly. Methinks, it'll not jackknife so easily if it is hooked up."
Chip concluded that he was probably right, and jumped down to help. Of course he was damned if he was going to say so to Nym. The rat was bigheaded enough about his mechanical genius.
It proved correct, too. The trailer was still tempted to go where its own inclination took it, but to a far lesser degree.
Three thumps, and a large section of the wall fell in. Most of the big bits missed them.
It was bliss to drive out into the open night air again, as the bats and rats set booby traps behind them. They'd moved a great deal farther into the spiral. The gap between arms was smaller, a mere thirty yards wide. Bats flew ahead to locate the next cross passage, as the tractor chewed along the muddy strip toward it. The bats set charges and they were in. Unopposed.
"Begorra. This is the way to fight a war, boyos!" said O'Niel, from where he reclined on the top of the trailer.
"I wish you hadn't said that," Chip muttered gloomily.
"Sometimes things must go right," opined Ginny. But she didn't sound very convinced.
"It is my contention," Doc speculated, "that the Magh' have never come across the military philosophy entrained in the word, `Blitzkrieg.' " He peered through his pince-nez at the empty passage ahead.
Chip snorted. "I dunno what that means, but if it means `things only go right so that they can get worse later,' or `if one thing is going right, it's only because another is going wrong'-then you've got it in…"
The rest of his statement was lost in a shrieking mechanical wail-gurgle. The noise could be described as a teething baby being drowned in shallow engine oil.
O'Niel proved it was possible to launch from flat on your back into powered flight in three microseconds. The shrieking came from inside his backrest. And then it stopped.
They were all silent. Edgy. Ready to jump. Then Ginny started to giggle. "This time it didn't go wrong! It's the pressure valve, on the trailer. Look at it! When you guys hooked the drive shaft up you must have started the pump running. You're ready to start spraying your crops."
"Dunno about crops, but there's a cropper coming!" Chip pointed ahead. The group-mind had had its construction teams building earthworks. They'd arrived while the builders were still on the job. Chip lowered the blade to just above ground level and dropped the tractor into low gear. The 'dobe was still wet. They plowed through it like… like a small vineyard tractor through sticky mud-with much slithering and near sticking.
Meanwhile, Ginny had clambered across to look at the pump. There was a galvanized pipe with a red valve handle. She moved the lever across, into line with the pipe, more to see what would happen than anything else. A thirty-five foot mist-wall of seventy-four percent alcohol is what happened, before she hastily turned it off. The Maggot-soldiers who had been waiting in the side passages charged straight into the mist. The tractor blundered on through the earthworks, speeding up now as Chip determinedly thrust it through gears. And then Behan took it into his head to fly back and fry a few more Maggots.
He never even dropped the Molotov, before the atomized alcohol in the air ignited.