The rats had come hurtling down the two abseil ropes. While they’d been rappelling down, the bats had flung Molotovs at the Magh’mmm. In the burning chaos, only sixty or so Magh’mmm and a few of their tiny body-tenders remained alive.
And the Korozhet. The body-tenders had died like flies trying to help the burning Magh’mmm. They simply weren’t big enough to make any headway against Chip and Ginny and their rat and bat allies.
O’Niel, a broken bottle in foot, shouted from on high. “Well, me foine boyos! We outnumber them one to five! Let’s slaughter the salpeens, begorra!”
The rats found nothing wrong with O’Niel’s mathematics. The pure ones, the Magh’ caste of castes, the group-mind which ruled with an absolute and total power over several million of their own kind . . . were pitifully soft. And as they were repositories for all the genomes of the variants of Magh’, they were of no warrior type. They did have stingers and claws, just as they had digging palps—but small and ineffectual ones. To boot, they were bloated virtually to the point of immobility. It was like kindergarten children against battle-hardened warriors. The Magh’mmm were plainly terrified, and had no idea how to fight.
But then, there was the Korozhet. The Korozhet and her equalizer. If a laser beam intersects a slowshield there will be a cataclysmic thermonuclear reaction, the Korozhet had told the Military Procurement Council. That, of course, had been another lie. Maybe the council should have checked it, but the colony didn’t have many portable lasers anyway, and did not have the technology to make them.
The Korozhet’s slaves built FTL for them. They were also capable of making laser pistols.
* * *
The Expediter slid her testa-plate aside and drew out the laser pistol. First she would kill that faulty slave. Virginia was a danger to the Overphyle. Firstly, she was a rebel slave who had somehow completely overcome the mental conditioning of the soft-cyber. And, secondly, she was a person of potential influence and financial power in her society. The others were mere cogs. Lowly soldiers. The human military commanders had shown a remarkable stupidity in not learning from their front-line troops. The rest of these were of lesser importance. The Expediter did not just decide to kill her first from mere malice. The hated Jampad would get the next shot. At all costs it must be silenced. She raised the pistol with careful spines.
* * *
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.