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Rats, Bats and Vats

by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely

coincidental.

thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-31940-X

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

Interior maps by Randy Asplund

First printing, September 2000

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freer, Dave.

Rats, bats & vats / by Dave Freer & Eric Flint.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-671-31940-X

1. Human-animal relationships -- Fiction. 2. Revolutionaries -- Fiction.

I. Title: Rats, bats, and vats. II. Flint, Eric. III. Title.

PS3556.R3935 R37 2000

813'.54 -- dc21 00-040370

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

To the world's grunts

Also by Dave Freer:

The Forlorn

Also by Eric Flint:

Mother of Demons

1632

The Belisarius series, with David Drake:

An Oblique Approach

In the Heart of Darkness

Destiny's Shield

Fortune's Stroke

The Federation of the Hub series,

by James H. Schmitz

edited by Eric Flint:

Telzey Amberdon

T'NT: Telzey & Trigger

Trigger & Friends

(forthcoming)

Acknowledgments

by Dave Freer

This book owes a great deal to the advice of several people: Conrad Chu, for

his tolerant explanations of technical aspects, our fellow author John Ringo

for his input on military matters, and Aubrey Rautenbach for his patient

advice on tractors and cropsprayers. I must also thank my longsuffering

biologist/scientist peers, Drs. Ware, Wolber, Baker, Collins and Hawkes, for

their help in solving the biological conundrums involved in building alien

biosystems. Any errors are ours, not theirs. In addition to this, many of the

great crowd at Baen's Bar (http://www.baen.com) helped with suggestions and

snippets of information.

Two other people need especial thanks: my wife Barbara, and Kathy Holton, my

proofreader. Between the two of them they turn my English into something

readable, before I turn my pages over to Eric. Barbs also exercises enormous

restraint and tolerance with a husband who lives in an alien world half the

time.

Finally, I'd like to thank my friend and writing mentor, Eric (the Bear)

Flint. Countless e-mail discussions, the chapters being passed to-and-fro, and

not a few international calls, made this book -- and also made it great fun to

write. The constant sparking off each other produced a book I could never have

written alone.

Dave Freer

Eshowe

KwaZulu-Natal

South Africa

November 11, 1999

Dramatis Personae

Hominidae

CHIP, A Vat-grown conscript. A thing of rags and tatters.

GINNY, A damsel of high degree; and a secret.

FITZHUGH, The very model of a modern major.

Rattae

FAL, Great of appetite. Small of martial rigor.

DOLL, A rattess of negotiable virtue.

PHYLLA, A rattess. Though cattish of tongue.

MELENE, A rat-damsel of acumen, and a very attractive tail.

PISTOL, A rat-at-arms. One-eyed.

NYM, A giant among rats; and mechanically bent.

"DOC," A ratly philosopher and medic.

ARIEL, A rattess of fell repute. Fond of model majors.

Battae

BRONSTEIN, She-bat who must be obeyed.

SIOBHAN, A fussy mother-bat.

O'NIEL, A plump bat; but a true soul.

BEHAN, A loyal batty.

EAMON, A large and dangerous bat. And disgruntled.

Et Alia

PROF, Tutor to Ginny; remarkably like a sea urchin.

FLUFF, A galago, confused with Don Quixote.

And a supporting cast of: one Jampad, various stalwarts, innumerable fools,

and several million villainous Magh'.

[[Insert 2 maps here]]

Prologue:

A successful experiment.

THE EXPEDITER LISTENED in silence. With difficulty, it managed to remain

motionless. The Expediter was in the middle of its sex-interphase and the

hormonal changes always made it irritable. That irritability interfered with

its logical thought processes. The Expediter did not want to act out of simple

aggravation.

Should it continue to prevaricate?

Lying was possible, of course, especially to such as these. Primitive

creatures, really, the female as much as the male. But the Expediter thought

that it would still be very difficult. Any explanation as to why the starship

had left so hastily would seem contrived -- even to the two stupid beings who

were bombarding the Expediter with their clamor.

The Expediter pondered the matter for some time before coming to its

conclusion.

No. Further prevarication would hardly be worth the effort. Besides, the

Expediter thought that it was time to discover how well the protease haemato-

toxin affected this species.

The dart-spines targeted, ocelli orientating them to center on the soft,

bulging midriff-masses. The two beings in the room made no attempt to escape.

They simply continued their babble. Apparently, they did not recognize the

purpose of the spines. An interesting datum.

Razor-tipped, barbed harpoon-darts streaked out, each trailing their

protoplasm hose. The skewering force of the darts cut into the gold head-

filamented female in mid-shrill. Her bleat became a scream as the Expediter's

internal myomeres pumped the massive dose of digestive-toxin into the soft-

bodies.

The creatures threshed. The Expediter studied the ensuing process with

interest.

Cell-lysis caused the circulatory fluids to pour out of the eating and scent-

detection orifices. The soft, pallid epidermis ulcerated and erupted, spraying

liquefied flesh. The bipedal beings were now twisting and writhing in bizarre

contortions.

Another interesting datum. The Expediter had not realized that their vertebral

columns could bend as far as that. Endoskeletons were strange biological

adaptations. It made a note of that flexibility.

The Expediter watched as lysis continued. A full two minutes passed before the

bodies finally lay still. Also worth noting. The digestive-toxin was not

rapid, but it was effective. That, of course, was to be expected. The

Overphyle had yet to discover a sentient species immune to it.

The Expediter disengaged the barbs of its harpoon darts, pulled them out and

winched them back into itself. Then, after a moment's hesitation, decided not

to feed. It was not particularly hungry, and there was always a slight risk

with ingesting untested alien protein.

Multiple ocelli checked the room. Other than the two sprawled, bloody, ruined

bodies there were no signs of the Expediter's passage.

Calmly, it left, locking the door behind it. In the silent and luxuriously

appointed room, the only trace that remained of the murderer's identity was a

faint camphor-naphthalene scent. That would dissipate within a few minutes.

The Expediter itself was quite oblivious to the smell, but it hardly mattered.

By the time the servants found the bodies, the odor would be indistinguishable

from the general reek.

Chapter 1:

Under Enemy Attack.

DOWN IN THE BUNKER the music issuing from Chip Connolly's small portable radio

stopped. "We interrupt this broadcast of Forces-Favorite Radio with a

newsflash. The bodies of the Chairman of the Board, Aloysius Shaw, and his

wife, Gina, were found by household staff in an advanced state of

decomposition. Despite this, servants claim that the Chief Executive

Shareholder had been alive five hours previously. Foul play is suspected.

Police are following definite leads and several suspects are being held for

questioning."

Chip sat up. "I'll be damned," he muttered. There was no noticeable chagrin in

his voice. "Somebody up and killed the rotten -- "

He broke off, feeling the ground shake. A moment later, the bunker rumbled

with thunder. Dust and dirt showered down from the roof. Chip sighed. Clearly,

the lull in the bombardment was over.

Another shake and rumble, and dirt showered down on them again. Some sifted

onto Chip's face. One of the other soldiers in the bunker sneezed in the

darkness. They were being softened up for an advance. For the three hours

prior to that brief lull, he hadn't heard anything much except for the endless

pounding thunder of Magh' artillery.

Silence.

Shit! That meant -- Chip flicked the infrared headlight on, just in time to

see the whole wall behind Lieutenant Rosetski, Dermott and Mack cave in on top

of them.

Out of the billowing dust stormed the stuff of nightmares: Magh'.

They were a variety of creatures designed to shred soft bodies. Their white

pseudo-chitin armor gleamed and their chelicerae snapped angrily. Then the air

was full of shouting and squeaking. In the wild, confused melee, headlight

beams danced in the dusty air, as more and more of the invaders piled in.

The Maggot arrowscorp nearly got him. Chip rolled frantically, barely getting

clear, thrusting his blade out sideways. The stupid scorp slid straight onto

the Solingen steel. It wasn't standard issue, that knife. It was a real

twenty-first-century chef's knife from Old Earth, which Chip had stolen from

his employer's kitchen the day before he had reported to boot camp.

Good thing he had, too. The official crap the soldiers were issued wouldn't

even have penetrated. The colony's steel plant would have been at home in

1870. With a standard-issue blade he'd have been dead already. Instead, Chip

was able to enjoy the experience of having an arrowscorp slowly pressing down

onto him, snapping its jaws eight inches from his face, about to kill him in,

oh, maybe ten seconds or so.

The spine-tail streaked forward, barely missing his twisting shoulder with its

venomous barb. Chip managed to grab it, just behind the stinger, and cling to

the slippery, leathery pseudo-chitin. Corrosive venom dripped, inches from his

arm. The Solingen steel slid slowly through some more Maggot, then stopped

against a joint ridge-thickening. The Maggot's ichor dribbled off his wrist

and into the dust as the creature pressed down onto him.

The back-edged jaws were only inches off his face now. The creature writhed,

jaws snapping air just in front of him. Chip couldn't let go, and he couldn't

win. In the clatter-clatter and effort-grunts of hand, claw and tooth combat,

somebody screamed in a terrible, tearing agony. A scorp sting had obviously

gone home.

"Help me!" another shrill voice shrieked above the tumult.

It sounded like a rat. Hell and buggery! He couldn't even help himself! Sweat

was lubricating the hand that clung to the scorp's tail. Any moment now and

he'd be screaming too . . .

Suddenly, his headlight silhouetted a batwing flutter, then highlighted a

clash of inch-long white-white fangs in an evil, black squashed-pigsnout face.

The scorp went limp, its ganglion-ladder severed.

Chip shoved it away, gasping. "Thanks, Michaela!"

"Moronic, useless, be-damned Primate!" Michaela Bronstein fluttered off,

dodging other reaching and snapping claws with ease.

"Get it offa me!" groaned a smothered voice from the dusty darkness. Chip's

searching headlight showed a long tail protruding from under a St. Bernard-

sized armored burrower. The stocky soldier heaved the dead Maggot aside by the

telson. A long-snouted plump rat-shape, as big as a small siamese cat,

scrambled hastily out from under, with its red-tipped fangs exposed in a

wicked, lean-jawed grin.

The rat leaped at Chip's throat, moving in a twisting maelstrom of teeth and

raking claws. Sudden shreds flew . . . from the joint of the saw-edged

pedipalp that had been about to take Chip's head off. The rat had disabled one

claw, but the other claw would soon snap the rat. Chip's Solingen steel proved

its quality again, slicing an exact "X" into the double ventral ganglion knot

of the attacking Maggot. A quick, neat, precise job, like carving tomato

roses.

"Shee . . . yit! That was nearly my head," panted Chip. He and the rat both

scrambled clear of the falling Maggot.

Long insectivore teeth gleamed. "You owe me a beer, Connolly. Make it two.

I've got a nice bit of tail I'd like to share it with."

"Bullshit! You owe me, Fal -- "

The air boomed and fragments ricocheted off Chip's slowshield. Great! thought

Chip, with relief. One of the bat-bombardiers must have blown the Maggot

access tunnel. Now at least they only had to deal with what was already inside

the bunker. Chip stumbled over something in the dust and darkness. Fell.

Landed hard.

"Get your sorry whoreson ass offa my tail," chittered a feminine voice in the

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