Van Klomp, of course, was in the lead. The huge chamber was smoky and dim. A fire burned on the far side. He dropped a rope down and rappelled in. And then stopped, bangstick in hand. He was ready for anything . . .
No. He wasn’t. Not for this. With difficulty, he wrenched his eyes from the naked breasts of the girl sitting up on the makeshift bed in the corner. Not very big breasts, but beautifully formed. He did eventually manage to shift his gaze higher. He dropped his bangstick. Virginia Shaw’s face, even without the glasses, was fairly unmistakable. But the pictures hadn’t been adorned by an indecently large, happy smile.
“Who is it, Chip?” she asked, blinking at them.
A stocky, scarred, spiky-haired, unshaven, and very tough-looking little man sat up. He had a bandaged shoulder, but otherwise seemed as naked as the woman next to him. “It’s some kind of Orificer, Ginny. A major. Parachute brigade, I think. I thought all they did was formation jumps at parades. And if he doesn’t stop staring at your tits, I’m going to escalope his private parts.”
Van Klomp was a good judge of men. His balls were at real risk. He hastily tried to concentrate on faces.
Virginia Shaw put an arm around her man and kissed him. Then she turned to blink at Van Klomp again, who had been joined by almost the whole squad. She smiled sweetly. “Why don’t you come back later, Major? Much later.”
For the first time in his life, Van Klomp, the loudest man on Harmony And Reason, was utterly silenced. He watched as she pulled the stocky dark-haired soldier down onto the bed again, and threw one long, slim leg over him.
* * *
The paratrooper corporal at Van Klomp’s side turned hastily towards the fire, brandishing his bangstick. There was something blue, hairy and totally alien standing there. And—
A one-eyed rat, a slightly plump bat, and a tiny, big-eyed, delicate little creature staggered their way around bloated Maggot bodies toward them. Arm-in-arm. Or arm on wing, anyway. The rat held out a bottle.
The unsuspecting Van Klomp took it, and took a swig. While he was still gasping, the small fluffy-toy cute creature, swaying a little, gestured at the large, hairy-armed, two-hundred-ten-pound Godzilla-in-human-form corporal next to him.
“How much, señor,” asked the soup-mug sized creature, “for your sister?”
* * *
THE END
APPENDIX
Slowshields: A Korozhet device implanted subcutaneously, just above the breastbone of a mammal user. The device remains inactive, except for maintaining an ovoid spherical perimeter field—just outside of the reach of the user—for which it draws energy from the body heat of the user. If an object moving at greater than 22.8 mph impinges on the perimeter field, the slowshield device strips all the kinetic energy from this object. Effectively, the projectile will simply fall. The energy absorbed cannot be contained by the slowshield device. The device wastes the energy by projecting a hardshield (a force field). The time the hardshield is active for depends on the amount of kinetic energy absorbed. The slowshield device has a particle-size acceptor program. Should two slowshields intersect, a twin focus develops, making a larger perimeter than both combatants.
The shield is ineffective against laser or gas. However, the Magh’ are not immediately affected by gas, as they stop active “breathing” (and use stored oxygen) while in combat. Contact of a perimeter field with a force field results in enormous energy influx into the slowshield device. Should this be a full-sized force field, the slowshield device is unable to cope. Attempts to take slowshield devices apart have ended catastrophically. X-ray and ultrasonic examination reveal little, except that the device is a complex one containing solid-state nano-circuitry within an artificial crystal matrix.
Weaponry: When small arms proved ineffectual against slowshielded Magh’ and it appeared that hand-to-hand combat weapons were required, human troops were issued with three basic weapons:
1) The trench knife: a twelve-inch broad-bladed weapon with one serrated edge. Relatively ineffectual except for opening cans and breaking locks.
2) The ice pick: a good weapon against the Magh’ pseudo-chitin—except that a swing was required to wield it effectively, which made it unreliable against slowshielded Magh’ warriors.