The bat’s huge leaf-ears twitched. She rumpled her gargoyle face at him, flashing white fangs. “If you were any more microcephalic we could use your head for a pin, Connolly. On the other side of that wall I can hear outside noises. Is it a lack of interest that you have in going there?”
For an answer the rats began digging. Digging like fury. Even the tubby Fal moved with the startling speed that made the rats such powerful, if reluctant, allies in this war.
“Be using your tiny heads,” snapped one of the other bats. Behan, surly as always. “We need a shot pattern, not a rabbit warren.”
On the other side of the fallen archway, Chip could hear the Maggots starting to dig too.
* * *
When they broke through and spilled into the sunlight, Chip practically whooped from sheer delight. Ha! Not even a whining Shareholder could moan about how wonderful the sun looked today. A beautiful blue pinpoint in the sky! Still, he was careful not to look at it directly.
There’d been a time, not ten minutes back, when Chip had thought he’d never see daylight again. The first Maggot claws had been pushing through the debris when the bats had pronounced the shot holes deep enough.
Now, they were out and running. Maggot-scorps and diggers were child’s play to avoid out here in this rough and blasted terrain. Quickly, Chip examined the area.
Once this must have been prime farmland. The war had shattered and torn it. No blade of green life showed in the pockmarked and cratered landscape. The Maggots were steadily turning it into Maggot-tunnel land. Chip and his twelve companions had broken out between the walls of two of the massive red tunnel-mounds which the Maggots erected everywhere in conquered territory.
“Can’t we take a breather?” panted fat Fal. “Methinks we’ve got to have at least half a mile’s start on ’em.”
“To be sure. Rest and die, you fat slacker,” said Eamon. He wrinkled the folds of his ugly face in that inimitable bat manner of sneering. “You do know you’re going the wrong way?”
“Hell’s teeth, maltworm!” snarled Fal. “You flutter-fellows can try going the other way. Half the Maggots in Maggotdom are back there. Besides, look.” The fat rat pointed. His stubby little “forefinger” was a blunt digit. Rats could manipulate things with their “hands,” but despite the best efforts of the genetic engineers their forepaws were still much less adept than human hands.
The horizon, beyond the walls of the tunnel-mounds, flickered. “We’re inside the Maggot force field,” hissed Fal. “You know what happens when your slowshield intersects that.”
Indeed, they did. You fried. It was the Magh’s inviolate defense against human-allied attacks. Every time the Magh’ pushed forward, they’d seal their gains like this. For minutes the screen would be down while the Magh’ pushed forward. Then the Magh’ would be safe again.
Humans and their genetically engineered allies had been forced into World-War-I-style trench warfare by this. Worse, it was just defensive warfare. And for all their efforts, they had never succeeded in doing more than slowing the pace of the Magh’ advance.
Still, it could have been worse, Chip admitted. The alien Korozhet had brought the human colonists advance warning of the impending Magh’ invasion. And they’d helped defend the capital city of George Bernard Shaw against the first Maggot probes. Even if their FTL ship could not help the humans further—due, according to the Korozhet, to malfunctioning engines—at least they’d brought warning to the colony.
More than that, actually. The Korozhet also had slowshields, and the wondrous soft-cyber implants which had uplifted the rats and bats. The genetic engineers of the colony had “built” the rats and latterly the bats, to flesh out the ranks of the pitifully small human army. Instant genetic uplift was beyond them—but the implants solved that. Yes, the Korozhet had been glad to provide that advanced technology to the colonists—for a price.
And the price was steep, too. The Korozhet had no interest in anything humans had—except a few rare minerals, specialized agricultural products and some small animals which they said were useful medicinal products. It had meant removing precious farmland from food production. Which, in turn, had meant a leaner and even less savory diet for the colony’s Vats. Needless to say, in his remaining time as a sous-chef, before he was conscripted, Chip had not noticed any decline in the quality of the Shareholders’ cuisine at Chez Henri-Pierre.