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  ***

  The others were moving in on the Magh'mmm, intent on the slaughter, when Chip caught sight of the Korozhet spining forward. Whatever that device of rods and odd metal was, it said gun to Chip. He dived at Ginny, knocking her down and sending Fluff flying, somersaulting butt over teakettle. The bolt seared through Chip's shoulder.

  ***

  "Help!" shrieked Ginny.

  The rats and bats turned to aid her…

  And could not.

  ***

  The Expediter spined forward, focusing spine-tip ocelli on the prey. She was quite safe. The human soldier was down. The others all had soft-cyber implants. The soft-cyber slaves could not possibly override the most basic programming logic in their implants: You will not attack a Korozhet.

  The Expediter took careful aim at Virginia.

  And a tiny bellowing creature leapt at the gun.

  "GALAGO DE LA MANCHA!"

  ***

  Fluff could not attack the Korozhet. Not even though he wanted to, to the absolute core of his small being. Not even if it was going to kill Virginia. But the gun was a different matter. And arboreal primates are strong. Those tiny almost human hands have a very, very powerful grip.

  ***

  The Expediter threshed and struggled in real fear, trying to pull the gun free. How could the slave? How could it! The laser pistol fired in a continuous stream of light… far above its target. Striking, without provocation, the wall. A wall laced with thick cables.

  The fourth of July on Old Earth had never produced such fireworks. Fragments of Magh' adobe shrapnel splattered around the chamber. Everyone, even the surviving Magh'mmm, dived for cover.

  Everyone but the Korozhet. She had always feared Chip's four-pound hammer. She should have made sure he still had it. The Jampad had no Korozhet conditioning either. The Jampad flung the hammer with such force that it shattered the Korozhet's testa explosively. Fragments of hard shell, red spines, and sticky greenish ichor puddled onto the floor.

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 46:

  Tan-tarah-tarah!

  "UM." THE COMMUNICATION officer looked very nervous at having to face Fitz. "Sir. I just received a strange radio message in from HQ, sir. Um. They're ordering your immediate arrest. Sir."

  Fitz took a deep breath. Well. It had been inevitable.

  Then his bangstick… fell over.

  A laser beam had just cut a vital cable some twenty-seven miles away.

  "It's a GO! GO! GO!" Fitz shouted, picking up the bangstick on the run.

  The mousy lieutenant was carried along with the storming tide of three thousand men and seven thousand rats. The bats overhead didn't push.

  When the initial unresisted charge was deep into Magh' territory, Fitz smiled at the panting lieutenant. "When this is over, you can find me and arrest me."

  "If the stupid bastard is still alive," said Ariel.

  The lieutenant started to say something, but Fitz had already turned away and was yelling orders.

  ***

  Henry M'Batha had never hit anyone in his life before. He studied his split knuckles. That hand was damn sore. And the radio operator was squalling for security. It felt like he might have dislocated something.

  He shook his head. There was no time for worrying about pain now. That's why he'd pulled that stupid officious by-the-rule-book son-of-a-bitch radio operator out of his chair and flattened his face. He had to raise the paratroop major now. The Magh' force field always reflected light on certain frequencies.

  Right now it wasn't.

  He could work radio comms as well as that idiot in the corner.

  "Major."

  "Yah, boykie?

  "The force field is down, Major!"

  Van Klomp nearly deafened him. "YES!" Then he said, "Try and get hold of Fitz. Tell him we're on our way. And keep me posted on any new developments. We should jump in about half an hour."

  "Uh. Major. I think I may be just about to get hauled away by security. The radio op didn't want to let me call you. Things… got a bit physical."

  Van Klomp gave a volcanic amused snort. "Let me talk to him, boykie."

  The radio operator could hardly not have heard. Van Klomp made radio redundant. "The major wants to talk to you," repeated Henry.

  "You're for it, M'Batha," snarled the radio-op, holding his nose gingerly. "They'll confiscate your share for this."

  But he took the headset. Van Klomp boomed at him. "What's the name, Sonny?"

  "Operator Chirik."

  "Well, Shirk, you know who I am." It was not a voice you made a mistake about. Everybody in the colony knew the larger-than-life Van Klomp. "Henry is just doing his job. You make trouble for him and I'll come and pay you a visit."

  "He hit me!" protested Chirik.

  "Yah. The boykie was ordered to call the moment he had the news. You stopped him. If it had been me… I'd have killed you, boeta. Over and out." And the booming voice was gone.

  The radio-op sat feeling his nose. Finally he said, in a more reasonable tone of voice, "What the hell is going on?"

  M'Batha eyed him speculatively. "Sorry about the nose. I think I've dislocated my thumb, if it is any comfort to you. Listen, is that cousin of yours still with the newspaper? How would you like to give her the biggest story of her life?"

  The radio-op grunted. "That's not what I'd like to give her, but. .."

  "Well, maybe you'll get lucky after this story," offered Henry.

  The radio-op gave a smile. "Tell. But let me pull that thumb of yours first."

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 47:

  All is lost.

  CHIP'S SLOWSHIELD would have killed her if he hadn't somehow managed to roll clear, trying to reach the Korozhet.

  Instead Ginny had been hit by a piece of falling Magh' adobe, just as she'd tried to stand up. He too was showered with fragments which, of course, just hit his shield.

  But Ginny swayed and crumpled. Her glasses, caught by a shard of Magh' adobe, flew off her head. And Chip, helpless in his hardened slowshield, had to watch her fall. He saw another piece of adobe-twice the size of her head-miss her and smash her glasses to glass-dust.

  The moment he could move, he dived across to her, oblivious to the agony from his own shoulder. He tried to lift her. His arm failed him, and his hand was wet with blood.

  "DOC!" he screamed. But Doc was deep in the butchery of the Magh'mmm. The pure ones did not defile themselves with slowshields. The pseudo-chitin of their carapaces was soft. The shrapnel from the laser disaster had reduced their number still further. And not for countless millennia had Magh'mmm had to fight for themselves. It was pure carnage. Rat and bat heaven.

  Chip was left with poor Ginny's bleeding head on his lap. He didn't dare to try pressure to stop the bleeding. Her skull might be fractured. Oh God, how it bled!

  He was supremely unaware of the tears streaming down his face. Then her eyes opened. "Lie still. Lie still, love. Don't try to move." His voice cracked.

  ***

  Ginny just remembered something hitting her head. The hammer-blow and the pain. Opening her eyes was involuntary. Chip, above her, was merely a blur. But his voice was recognizable… he'd called her his love. Her head was chaos and confusion. She closed her eyes again. Pain. Pain-and worse.

  A terrible, terrifying woolliness enveloped her. Her mind was cotton, hay… and rags, rags of memory. Precious, precious memories. She opened her eyes. The blurring, if anything, was worse. She strained to focus. His face swam briefly into view. Dirty, covered in dark stubble, and tear tracked. Homely as hell. She loved him so much she thought her heart would burst. He blurred away again, into pain…

  She tried desperately to think, and slipped away into a feathery limbo that she strained furiously against.

  This time wakefulness was just as blurred and confused. Well, maybe a fraction less so. Because now she knew what was wrong. A tentative han
d went up and touched her head… and confirmed her worst nightmare.

  The warm wetness seeped from her left upper temple, just inside her hairline.

  She'd touched the scar so often. The tiny cut that had given her back her life… Where they'd inserted her soft-cyber chip.

  "Don't touch it, Ginny. You might make it worse." Chip's voice was overflowing with care.

  She started to cry.

  "Don't cry, my love. Don't cry. It'll be all right."

  "It's not all right!" she said, shaking her head in anguish.

  "Lie still, Ginny. Please. It'll be fine. I promise."

  "No, it won't! You don't understand! I'm going to be stupid, stupid, stupid," she blurted out desperately.

  "You'll be fine," insisted Chip. "You're three times as bright as me. Take more than a little knock on the head to spoil that."

  "Yes, I will. I will! It hit me on my implant. My soft-cyber. Oh God, I didn't want to tell you about my implant. I'm going all stupid again. I can't think! You'll hate me now," she cried hysterically. "You hate implants!"

  Everything blurred once more. His voice came from far off, and didn't make any kind of sense.

  When the fuzziness receded again, she'd decided what to say. "Chip. I love you. I'll always love you. I'll always love you even after I go back to being a brain-damaged little girl again. I'm just so scared I won't remember you. I might end up just a cabbage. Please, kiss me again while I can still think. Oh God, I want to remember you. You won't love me any more now. I'm only a mechanical doll and now I won't even be that."

  ***

  Chip found speaking virtually impossible. His "Ginny" came out as a croak. But he did manage to kiss her. As gently as he might a flower.

  "Kiss me hard!" she insisted. "Please. Nobody ever kissed me until you did."

  He tried to oblige. "Ginny. No matter what, I'll love you forever."

  "Kiss me again, Chip," she said faintly. "When I'm stupid you must go away. I don't want you to see me like that."

  "No way am I leaving you, kid. No matter what." He bent and kissed her again.

  "Yet lecherous as a monkey and the whores called him mandrake," said Fal. "Too busy to even lend us a hand, eh, Chip?"

  "Get me Doc-quick!" The terrible urgency in Chip's voice had fat Fal leaving at a belly-wobbling run, and bellowing for the medic.

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 48:

  Or maybe not.

  DOC CAME AT a dogtrot. Well, a rat-trot. And he was carrying his pack, which he'd found. He took one look at Chip's pale face and said: "And which one is the patient, Fal?"

  Chip was in no mood for funnies.

  "She got hit on head by one of those fragments. Right on her soft-cyber implant. Help her, Doc! Please! She's bleeding something terrible."

  The rat looked at Chip very strangely. Very strangely indeed. But, for a miracle, he didn't actually say anything. He just began examining Ginny's head, gently and carefully. He reached into his pack and produced a scalpel. Chip's eyes widened in horror. "Please, God. .."

  "I thought you were an agnostic," said the rat-medic. "Relax. I just need to remove some hair."

  "You're… you're not going to operate?"

  Doc snuffled with what might have been laughter. "Chip, I'm a field medic and a rat. What do think I'm going to do? Open brain surgery? I'd get you to do it except your hands are shaking too much."

  The rat shaved the patch. "Get Bronstein for me," he said.

  "I'm here. Above you," Bronstein replied.

  "How is your infrasound examination of bones?" Doc asked. "In theory you should be able to do it."

  Bronstein looked doubtful. "To be sure, if I have wet contact.. ."

  "You can `trink her bludd,' " said Doc dryly.

  Bronstein put her ugly crumpled leaf nose against Ginny's bloody head.

  The bat pulled it away. "This is giving me a headache."

  "No holes?" asked the rat.

  "Not even a crack, that I can find." Bronstein wiped her nose with a wing. Then sneezed.

  The medic nodded thoughtfully. "Very well. Open your eyes, Ginny."

  She did. "Everything is all blurry, Doc."

  "That's because you've lost your glasses." The rat's tone was bone dry.

  "Oh. I… I didn't realize." She felt her head vaguely.

  Chip pulled her hand away gently and kissed her. "Your face is just as beautiful without them."

  "Get your big head out of the way. I need to check pupil dilation." Doc pushed him aside.

  "Well?" asked Chip anxiously.

  "Well, what? Hold this pad on the wound, Ginny. I don't think it is even going to need stitching. That bandana of yours saved you a bit."

  "Well, is she going to be all right?" demanded Chip, on the verge of grabbing Doc and shaking him… like a terrier shakes rats.

  "Medically, there appears to be no obvious fracture. I suppose we can't rule out the chance of a hairline crack. She may have had a slight concussion but she's got nice even pupil dilation." Doc continued packing away his tools.

  "But why all the blood?" Chip demanded.

  "Head wounds bleed, Chip," replied Doc evenly. "Even minor ones like this."

  Chip swallowed. In a small voice he said, "But what about her soft-cyber chip. Is that all right? Is there anything we can do for it?

  Doc shook his head and looked quizzically at Chip. "So you are now entirely in favor of soft-cyber chips? So! A new record for thesis becoming antithesis!"

  Chip took Doc gently by the throat.

  "He's just giving you a hard time, Chip," said Bronstein. "They showed us in basic training. Soft-cybers are tough. You can drive a ten ton truck over one. Now, let him examine your shoulder and then he can come and sew Eamon's wing up."

  "Besides," chuckled Doc, "they are embedded between the parietal lobes. You'd have to turn the brain to jelly first."

  ***

  Chip had a neat bandage on his shoulder. The Jampad was speaking to the others in Korozhet. Fal was making a fire for a Magh'mmm barbecue. Chip put his uninjured arm around Ginny. "Dearest, you and I have to have a deep, serious talk."

  "Only talk?" she said provocatively, from under her lashes. She giggled. As good as a rat-girl's repartee!

  Chip blushed. "Well… all right. Soon." He hooked a thumb at the Jampad. "What's he saying?"

  "He says he wants to go home," she translated.

  "Tell him we'll get him a new ship," said Chip savagely. "From the Crotchets."

  Then Chip turned to Bronstein. "And you, Bronstein? Why do you look like you just found out you chose your honeymoon for that time of month?"

  Bronstein tried to smile. "Because we bats take a long view. We've won. Humans can win. We've just proved it. And without the war there will be no more cyber-uplifted bats. Especially now that we have found out that the soft-cyber implants contain a fatal flaw. We cannot breed on our own, and without cybernetics… we are dumb. It doesn't worry the rats much, but we bats have always dreamed of freedom."

  Ginny stopped talking to the Jampad. She turned to face Bronstein. "No. This is not the end of the road for that dream, Bronstein. Not while there is breath in my body."

  Bronstein shrugged. "To be sure, that's nice of you, Ginny. But what can one human do? You understand, because of your own implant. But who else ever will?"

  Chip stuck his hand up. "I do. And so will a lot of Vat soldiers who fought alongside you bats." He grinned. "So let's start a revolution. The Rat, Bat and Vat Liberation Movement. I'll be the chef. Work out new recipes for Shareholder supreme." He squeezed Ginny's shoulder. She smiled at him.

  Fluff's eyes brightened. He pounded his chest. "Viva! Will there be gorilla warfare, senor? I always wanted to be a gorilla!"

  Fal wandered up, trying to unscrew a bottle. "Doth beg the real vital question. Will there be strong drink?" He handed the bottle to Chip. "Do what humans do best," he commanded imperiously.

  While Chip obedientl
y opened the bottle, Ginny smiled at Bronstein. "Michaela, I think the Crotchet wanted me-and killed my parents-because I am heir to thirty-four percent of the shares in the HAR colony. Things are going to change. It may not be easy, but we will overcome."

  ***

  "Why didn't you tell me, Ginny?"

  "Because I was scared you'd despise me. Think I was just a doll. A wind-up Cathy Earnshaw. I'm not. I'm me."

  Chip smiled and hugged her, one armed. "Cathy Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights? That wet-lettuce! Hah! You, Ginny, are worth fifty of her. You're the most fantastically wonderful person in my whole world. And…"

  "And…?" she asked, shyly, wanting him to continue.

  "And I think we should go and find a quiet corner. I want to take all your clothes off and make passionate love to you." His hands were doing most distracting things.

  She kissed him. "You're an absolute genius."

  Eric Flint

  Rats, Bats amp; Vats

  Chapter 49:

  Finale.

  THE MPS PUSHED into the deserted trenches with no small amount of trepidation. They'd had to leave their vehicle more than a mile away. This place was as frightening as hell…

  For starters, why was it deserted? Were they going to meet Magh'?

  For a second, dealing with drunken Vat-troops on leave in the city was one thing. Here in the front lines, they had a private suspicion that Magh' might be safer to meet than front-line soldiers. Still, they had their orders.