The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly trtbav-2

by Eric Flint

  ***

  "This media circus certainly hasn't been helped by your making an idiot of yourself on TV, Talbot," said General Cartup-Kreutzler. "Now you've got to keep your hands off."

  "It's the kind of dirty trick I'm not going to forget and forgive in a hurry," snapped Talbot. He did not need his idiot brother-in-law telling him he'd botched it. He was painfully aware of the fact.

  "She's put the brakes, temporarily, on direct action. I'll get my men to work on the indirect harassment. Bug their phones, slow their mail, break into their apartments and cars and see what we can find. We'll plant something if we need to. But we're still going to get at her advertisers. The new upstart money may stick to her, here and there, but I wield a lot of influence with shareholders in a lot of the larger traditional companies. INB is pretty fragile, financially. And yes, HBC is going back to covering the sector, but I had a long and fruitful discussion with their editors. The public needs some kind of hero figure to lionize. So we agreed to have them shift attention to the parachute major who led his troops into the middle of the scorpiary. "

  "Van Klomp?" inquired the general.

  Talbot nodded. "I think that was the name, yes."

  "He's the man who got Lieutenant Colonel Jeebol out of trouble, and I believe he arranged for the MPs to actually capture that son of a bitch Fitzhugh."

  "Sounds like a good man," said Talbot, approvingly. "I think the army should make a fuss of him. Promotion. Medals. And then he can go back to doing display jumps at parades. Heaven knows how he got involved in the first place."

  "Fitzhugh called the paratroopers in," said General Cartup-Kreutzler. "I have no idea why. Probably just because the man's an idiot romantic. The paratroopers are purely a ceremonial unit. A volunteer unit. No conscripts. They've never been used in combat before, as they're mostly the sons of Shareholders. Some of the first families have kids in that unit. It's glamorous, without being dangerous."

  Talbot Cartup leaned back in the very comfortable armchair, trying to keep from sneering openly. His brother-in-law was about as dense as a man could get and still be a basically functional adult.

  "For Chr- Um. That's the reason right there. Romanticism had nothing to do with it. Fitzhugh's an anarchist. Vicious. He called them in thinking they'd mostly be killed."

  Talbot rose to his feet. "I'll get my staff onto drafting the paperwork. And let Van Klomp have some conscripts, enough to make into a second unit that can actually do some fighting. If we're going to build up his reputation, we'll have to keep some paratroopers in the fighting."

  "That should do," agreed Cartup-Kreutzler. "Seeing as it looks as if we'll only get our hands on Fitzhugh when he comes out of the hospital. That means he'll be a facing general court-martial, which will be open to the public. But if we've built up another hero by then… The public's attention span isn't very long anyway."

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 10

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  George Bernard Shaw City, HAR Institute of Technology, in the skeletal remains of the great slowship that brought humans to Harmony and Reason.

  There was a realistic possibility that if someone stood behind this human, to provide the extra pair of hands, and it had slightly longer fur, and dyed it blue, that it could pass for a giant Jampad. Darleth found that faintly reassuring.

  Or, perhaps not. She'd been away from the People too long, when one these aliens started looking comforting! She knew that by the standards of his people, she was already insane. That was all right. Madness helped her cope with the aching pain of losing her clan-sibs. Jampad were not solitary creatures and kin-bonds were life-bonds. By her talk to the Korozhet-speaking aliens, it was not so with the little sharpnosed ones, or to a great degree with the ones like this two-legged tailless hairy one. The little fliers seemed to have some measure of it.

  But they were all alien… and she was alone on an alien world, twenty-eight light years from home, with the only interstellar FTL craft here belonging to the murderers of her kin.

  She had been a captive, live-food-to-be for the Magh' young. She'd been given a weapon by the alien enemies of the Korozhet, and had helped the small party gain its freedom by killing one of her clan-sibs' murderers. She was at least not live food any more, but she was still unsure as to what her status actually was. None of the species that called itself, if she had the pronunciation right, "Human," spoke any Korozhet. They certainly didn't speak Jampad!

  The room she'd been taken to was palatial, compared to the bare Magh' adobe feeding cell she'd been rescued from. It had running water. Their faucet concept, though rather different from Jampad systems, was ingenious. There was a soft covering on the floor. There were soft things which she assumed were for night nests… standing on the floor! It was, of course, too warm, but the furry alien had taken a long look at her and had adjusted a device on the wall that sent a delicious stream of cold air spilling into the room.

  But the entry portal was undoubtedly sealed. She was still a prisoner. A prisoner on a world where her people's most deadly foe roamed free, believed to be allies.

  True, it was a feeble prison for an arboreal species. The skylight was only fifteen feet up. Hardly a hop.

  Still…

  The hairy one and several assistants were plainly trying to establish her diet and initiate communication. And if she got out, she had nowhere to go. The purpose of the Jampad expedition had been to alert this species to the danger of the species that farmed the Magh'. She might as well try to do that.

  Besides, she had not eaten for nearly two weeks. She was going to have to try alien food or die, soon. None of it smelled quite right, though.

  ***

  "The protein analysis we've done from tissue off the wound covering suggests it has a very similar biochemistry to mammals. But it won't eat what we are certain are safe compounds like glucose. We're offering it exotic things now, to see if it'll give us some behavioral cue as to diet. If we can't feed it, it'll die."

  Dr. Liepsich shook his head at Mary-Lou Evans. "I do love your habit of stating the obvious, Mary-Lou. So Shakespearian." He drank more of his ubiquitous coffee. Liepsich's one human frailty was his addiction to caffeine.

  Mary-Lou didn't rise to the bait. If you worked with Len Liepsich, you had to get used to ignoring the physicist's gratuitous insults. That was just the way he was. He preferred it, of course, if you fought back, like Sanjay did. But that wasn't her nature.

  She also knew that he'd not slept for the last two days. It showed in his overbright eyes and even-more-abrasive-than-usual manner. "I'm worried, Len."

  "That is fairly obvious. So am I, but for an entirely different reason. I've had more alien technology to examine in the last two days than I have got my greasy little paws on in the last two years. It's giving me enough headaches, without worrying whether a potentially inimical alien eats din-dins."

  She knew him well enough to know that he certainly didn't mind having several tons of alien technology to examine. "So what is wrong with it?"

  "You're too clever for a biologist," he muttered. "It's wrong. It's… it's not alien enough. Same booby traps. Same metallurgical analyses."

  "It was looted from a captured Magh' scorpiary."

  "You know, you have a real gift for stating the obvious," he said, with a feigned look of amazement. "And that means it shouldn't be what it is. I wish I could talk to this alien, or examine some of its technology as well, to get a handle on all of this."

  "Well, according to this report-I must say this Van Klomp is very efficient for a soldier-the alien speaks Korozhet. We could ask them to translate. Or at least what it eats."

  "That's precisely what I don't want to do. Not in light of the technology of all this equipment that Van Klomp has sent us. I'm stashing a lot of bits where the prickles and the army won't find it, hopefully."

  It was fairly plain that he wasn't planning to expla
in why.

  ***

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  In the bowels of the Korozhet ship, in the slave quarters.

  Yetteth huddled on the metal rack that was his assigned sleeping nest in the slave quarters. It was at least high up, even if it had none of the other features that made a good nest. Right now he hugged himself in a vain quest for comfort. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine himself in the tall-tree swamps of the Norheth clans. But there was no escaping from the smells.

  To a lifeform with as keen a sense of smell as the Jampad had, this was close to hell. He could close his nose but not cover the scent tendrils. And right now he needed to imagine the tall-tree swamps and their green-blue water. The Overphyle had confirmed that another Jampad was out there, on this, their latest farm. He had overheard them planning to kill it.

  The Overphyle liked having one of the Jampad as a slave, feeding them, cleaning their fecal pools. It ministered to their vanity. That was one of the reasons they'd not mindscrubbed him before the implant. The Overphyle felt that it asserted their dominance over the one species that had successfully resisted. Mind you, not all the slaves were mindscrubbed before being implanted. It was a good way of questioning them. And once they were implanted, the information could not be withheld.

  The siren clanged. Food ration. A slave was always hungry, and he dared not miss the revolting block of decaying slush that they gave him. He was weak enough as it was. And he would need every last bit of strength he could muster if he was to find any way to escape, although the thing they had put in his head said that that was impossible and wrong. But he couldn't stand by when the Overphyle were planning to murder one of the People.

  He climbed down the bunk stack. On the bottom tier a human female moaned weakly.

  "What is wrong?" he asked, in the language of the masters.

  The other woman, who sat stroking the moaning one's head, answered. "She was given the nerve-lash for making errors in the production line. She was going to spawn, and now the offspring is dead. It is poisoning her."

  Yetteth knew that "spawn" was the wrong word. The humans were live-bearers, as the People were. But Overphyle had no words for the biology of lesser creatures. And slaves were forbidden to speak other languages. "Is there anything I can do?"

  The human female who had been moaning began tossing about frantically, her alien eyes wide, seeing nothing, totally unaware of the other human's efforts to calm her. Her helper shook her head, a gesture that Yetteth had learned-oddly enough-that this species used to indicate the negative.

  Yetteth left. The door to the narrow chamber had opened and the meal-slot would disgorge his food soon. If he didn't collect it, it would be trodden underfoot by others fetching theirs. There seemed to be nothing else he could do for the woman, anyway. She was dying, if he was any judge of alien physiology. The Overphyle did not medicate or assist sick slaves. They either lived or died. If the disease appeared infectious, they just killed and burned the slave, and dumped the ash.

  It was the only way out of this huge metal prison, with the bars they had put into the prisoner's minds. You couldn't even think… easily, how much you hated them. Creatures of a low-order intelligence before they were implanted didn't appear to be able to think around it at all. The Nerba, for example, fawned on the Overphyle.

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 11

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  General Cartup-Kreutzler's horsily decorated office,

  Military Headquarters.

  Considering that Major Tana Gainor was a mere lowly major in the presence of the colony's Security Chief and a general, you would have thought she'd look at least slightly ill at ease. But despite the non-regulation purplish lipstick, she remained perfectly poised. General Cartup-Kreutzler found that disturbing.

  She was a remarkably beautiful woman, even in uniform. The general might have been more interested, except for that poise. Self-confident, self-assured women made Cartup-Kreutzler uneasy.

  "Most of these charges are very close to the laugh-out-loud level, General."

  "I was told you could make anything stick, Major Gainor."

  She looked coolly at him. "For a fee, General, things can usually be arranged." She looked at the charge list again. "And it's going to be a high fee, General." She lowered her sooty eyelashes and looked at him speculatively. "Very high, indeed."

  "Cut the sales pitch, Tana," said Talbot. "And forget using him. He's my brother-in-law, and you don't want to get on the wrong side of me."

  "I've done my homework too, Talbot," she sniffed. "The general likes dim-witted and buxom blondes, of which I am the second and third but not the first."

  Talbot ignored his brother-in-law's squawk of outrage. "Let's talk business, Tana. How much do you need for a war chest? Fitzhugh is to go down like a lead brick. You dot every 'i' and cross every 't' on this one."

  "For this, I'll need plenty," she said. "Call it half a million up front and the same again when he's sentenced. And I might need the services of a few of your operatives, Talbot."

  General Cartup-Kreutzler choked. But Talbot took it in his stride. "Done. The money will be in your usual account."

  "Before I start working," she said, coolly. "I won't lift a finger otherwise."

  "Let's not forget who holds the whip hand here, Tana," said Talbot Cartup, heavily. "I've got you. I've got you pinned like a butterfly."

  She smiled. "But you need me for this. And you'll need me again. The JAG's department is getting more and more sticky by the day. But I can still work the system."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "If you must know, manipulate the roster of military judges and defense attorneys. I have… leverage. I'll handle the prosecution myself."

  ***

  When the heavy outer door had swung shut behind the major, General Cartup-Kreutzler exhaled in a long shudder. "Just what have you got on her, Talbot?"

  His brother-in-law laughed. "You name it. She's pretty and comes from a wealthy family. You'd think we'd struggle to pin anything on her. But right from cheating on her bar exams, by sleeping with several of her oral examiners, to dealing in drugs… she's been there. And stay away from that body of hers. She uses it well, but never for nothing. You know the old chestnut about the whore with the soul of a high-born lady and a heart of gold? Well, this is high-born lady who is a hooker at heart, and would sell her soul for the gold. I nicked through Thom. She was one of his prime dealers. That woman is pure poison."

  "So long as she poisons Fitzhugh," said the general vindictively.

  "Oh, she will. Literally, if need be."

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 12

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Camp Marmian, some thirty miles from GBS City: a small and choice piece of barb-wire fenced hell, otherwise known as a transit camp.

  The camp's commanding officer looked at Chip; blinked. "But, according the records, Private Connolly, you are dead."

  "Does that mean I get to go home, sir?" Chip paused. "Or just that I can't collect my pay?"

  "I don't need your insolence, Connolly! Any more and I'll put you on a charge. I'm trying to work out what to do with you. The remainder of your unit has been disbanded and reassigned. You should have been reassigned with them, but you're listed as dead." The colonel looked most affronted at this. "If you're not dead, then you've been AWOL for more than a week."

  "I was trapped behind enemy lines when the enemy advance came through, sir. Myself and a handful of rats and bats were the only survivors in our bunker."

  The colonel snorted. "A likely story. And you fought your way out, and then found your way back here."

  Chip could see where this was heading. So he thought he might as well do it properly. "Yes, sir. That's right, sir. B
ut to get out we had to destroy the Magh' force-field generator. So we did. We killed a couple of hundred thousand Maggots, rescued Ms. Virginia Shaw, liberated a scorpiary for the army, and here I am. I knew you'd be pleased to see me here at good ol' Camp Marmian again, sir."

  The company clerk poured her coffee onto her keyboard. Chip nearly killed his first officer by giving him apoplexy. It was fascinating. To get a lobster to go that color you had to boil them.

  The colonel, it appeared, was too incoherent to talk properly. But he did have Private Chip Connolly dragged off to the stockade in record time.

  ***

  An hour later the company clerk came over to the cells. "Private, I need some details for the charge sheets. The computer system has locked up most of your data as you're still being captured as dead."

  "Best time to capture someone, when they're dead," said Chip cheerfully. He was still lost in that heady area of lightheartedness which comes out of not being dead, when you expected to be. Somehow, being listed as dead brought it all back.

  She was not amused. "The colonel is already going to throw the book at you at the court-martial, Connolly. Don't make things worse for yourself."

  "Oh, good. I've always wanted a book," said Chip giggling. "I could use something to read in here." He went and sat down on the bunk, still laughing.

  "This isn't a laughing matter," she snapped. "Be afraid, Private Connolly. You're in dire shit!"

  Chip got up and walked over to the bars. "Listen, Corp. I've been in dire shit for so long that I've kind of run out of 'being afraid.' I've survived nearly six months as a front-line soldier. I've seen Maggots kill most of my squad. My girlfriend bought it in that attack. We got buried alive and over-run. We dug ourselves out inside the frigging scorpiary. We spent days on the run from the Maggots. At one stage I had a choice of starving to death or being eaten by the rats. We decided that as we going to die there, we were gonna take a lot of Maggots along with us. And in the end of it, me and a handful of crazy bats and drunken rats blew the crap out of the whole scorpiary. We took on ten-million-to-one odds, on a junky old tractor without any brakes. And some of us died, Corp. But I didn't. Between us we cracked the force field and killed the Maggot colony's brains. When the paratroopers got there, I was getting lucky with a really fantastic girl, who also happens to be rich and beautiful. My mates were getting drunk and having Maggot barbeque. Major Van Klomp told us that we're an invaluable military asset, and a bunch of useless drunks."