by Eric Flint
"Tough."
The little milk-float trundled onward. They could hear the wheels crunching on the gravel of the long drive. Eventually it stopped. The bats, rats and Fluff tensed.
"Help me carry this crate," said the one voice.
"Not a chance, Milky. I don't get much chance to sit on my butt. It's your job."
"Blast you, you lazy son of a bitch! Ow!"
"Now," said Bronstein, peering cautiously from under the chill-chamber lid. "Go. Go. Go."
Nym and Falstaff lifted the lid, properly. The milkman was backing away and holding his face with one hand, while balancing a crate against his side. "You didn't have to hit me," he complained. It was still misty and half-dark out there, and the imposing bulk of Shaw House loomed above them.
The young security guard was turning back to the seat of the milk-float, strutting a bit. "Shut up and get on with it." Fortunately, the trainee-bully had chosen to turn so that he did not see the struggling rats or the galago.
He didn't see O'Niel flutter above him and drop an open pint carton of strawberry yogurt onto his head either. The milkman did. Openmouthed, he dropped his crate. And then reached down and grabbed several cartons to fling at the livid yogurt-faced security officer who was chasing him with a nightstick. The rats and Fluff had ample time to move themselves and the two ice-cream boxes of fireworks across to the flowerbeds and in behind a convenient azalea.
The rats and bats split off to their various tasks. The bats concentrated on laying out an independence day's display of fireworks and trip wires just ready to be hooked up. Because it was Eamon's baby, they found a potting shed with suitable nails, wire and other implements: enough to start a new war in the bat's hands. But he barely had sufficient time for setting a few, when they got the low-pitched whistle.
The telephones were out. So was the flight detector on this side of the building. Super-Glue had been added to the workings of all the downstairs doors, bar the kitchen one which they intended to leave by. All of this was done before the cook had poured a bucket of soapy water over the milkman and the security guard.
Fluff and the rats set off up the ivy, the bats fluttering close by. The ivy wouldn't have supported a child-burglar, but even under the stress produced by Fal's waistline the climbing plant stayed attached to the wall.
They didn't head for Ginny's window. Instead, Fluff led them to the room that served as the security monitoring center. It only had one occupant at six-thirty on a winter morning. He was playing a computer game instead of watching the screens.
It was a good game. He didn't even hear the rats and bats enter. The first he knew of the attack was a wire around his neck, a rag in his mouth, a bat fluttering in front of his face with bared fangs.
"If you would be going on with living, be keeping dead still," said Bronstein evenly.
He should have listened. Instead he lunged for her in a clumsy half-dive. It might possibly have been a graceful dive, if Melene hadn't already tied his bootlaces to the chairlegs, and Doc his neck to the backrest height adjustor.
He fell hard, nearly crushing Bronstein. She had her teeth through his nose, and it was only his fall that saved his jugular veins from her claws.
Bronstein let go and fluttered clear. "Stupid bedamned primate." The others were on him now . . . including Fluff, who had seized a set of brass knuckles from the desktop and was two-handedly belaboring the back of the guard's head with them. The man's initial instinctive fight reaction was gone. Now he was a terrified fetal ball, still with a turpentine scented rag from the garden shed in his mouth.
"Stop hitting him and bind him fast, Fluff," said Pistol. "Here. He hath handcuffs. Come. Let us drag him to yon radiator."
Eamon, Bronstein and Doc took up station at the door in case someone had heard. It was bolted. And, fortunately, there were castors on the chair which they were able to roll him onto, and the radiator was close. Melene had hit on Super-Glue as the ultimate restraint. Glueing his testicles to the floor was singularly effective.
O'Niel was already placing a strategic bat-mine on Shaw House's central electrical trip switches. Using a pair of insulated pliers, Nym was effectively disabling all the electronic surveillance equipment, all the alarms, and switching off the electric fence controls.
Someone kicked the door. "Hey, Stett, open up. I've got the coffee."
Fluff, and the rats and bats left, quietly, by the window. A dazed and bloody-nosed Stett watched them leave.
* * *
To Fluff and the bats the climb to Ginny's window was a cakewalk. To Fluff, that was because he was a galago. To the bats, it was because they could fly.
To the rats, it was one overhang too many.
"Methinks we'll go around," said Falstaff. "I sweat to death and lard the lean earth as it is."
So the rats took a nearby window, and Fluff and the bats went on. They looked in at the skylight window and there was a sleeper in the bed. The bathroom window was closed.
So Fluff broke it. He rather liked those brass knuckles.
Then he nearly fell four stories. There was Virginia. Up. Dressed in her most outdoor clothes, with a bandanna around her blond hair. It was more of a rag than a bandanna, now. It had once been white, with a red splotch on it. Now it was dirty-white and peppered with old bloodstains. She'd worn it through the Magh' tunnels. This was her equivalent of dressing for action. That and the chainsaw.
"Mi Virginia!" he said shakily, leaping to hug her. "Who is that in the bed?"
"A few pillows, Fluff," she said, grinning so widely it looked as if her ears were in danger. "And Bronstein! Eamon! O'Niel!" Then she hastily put her finger to her lips.
"The listening post she is down," said Fluff from her shoulder. "But how did you know we were coming, Virginia?"
She reached up and stroked him, gently. "I didn't, Fluff. I . . . I thought you might be dead. And the blood tests come back this morning. I had to try now. I was going to try for a hostage and the golf cart. I didn't know if it would have worked, but I had to try. Oh, it's so good to see you all!" Behind her glasses a small tear blinked and there was a crack in her voice.
"Enough talking already," said Eamon gruffly. "Let's move out. Be starting that infernal machine."
"The noise?"
"There'll be a-plenty in a minute or two, anyway," said O'Niel. "Once they get into the control room."
Ginny pulled the chainsaw. Shaw House equipment was, naturally, the best—and well-maintained to boot. It growled cheerfully to life. Dead on cue, there was a small bang and the lights went out. Eamon fluttered up to the window, and O'Niel out of it.
"I can't go that way!" said Ginny hastily.
"Be easy," said Eamon with an evil batgrin of mayhem-delight. "I've just activated the fireworks-mine with the remote. And O'Niel is going to set the trip-wire hookups. Sure, it is a pity not to watch, but we have other business. The first thing they'll do, is come for you. They'll not be expecting us to be in here with you."
* * *
That, thought Virginia, was true. And it was the best thing that had happened—except possibly seeing Chip—since she'd been trapped in here. The last two days, wholly alone, had been horrid. Now . . . well, she felt stronger already.
Someone was fiddling with the outer door-lock already. "Miss Shaw?" It was Jailor Juliet.
"Yes," said Virginia.
"What's that noise?" demanded the woman, suspiciously.
"The mini-generator for when the power goes off," replied Ginny, proud of the prevarication.
"Stay put, Miss Virginia. We're under attack."
"I think there is someone in my bathroom," she said, with a good nervous quaver.
"Keep down! I'm coming in!"
The lock clicked open. Juliet, a torch in one hand and a workmanlike automatic in the other, stepped cautiously into the curtained room.
A torch is a useful thing. Only it doesn't help much when a bat puts its wings over your eyes. The bats had been bred with Magh' killing in mind. Their
canines were more than an inch long, sharp as a needle with a cutting inner edge, and capable of penetrating Magh's exoskeletons. The gun dropped from a nerveless slashed hand and fell to the floor. The woman screamed and ran, flailing wildly and shrieking.
Outside in the garden, the air was full of screaming also. It sounded like a war out there. Ginny scooped up the gun, put it into her pocket, and then followed the bats into the dim corridor.
"All right, Ms. Shaw. Hold it right there," said a guard, shining his torch at her. For a moment Ginny froze. Then she gunned the chainsaw and began walking forward.
"Stop right there or I'll shoot!" warned the guard.
"I'm too valuable for to you shoot me," said Virginia calmly. "Drop it or I'll cut you in half."
"I'm not kidding, Ms. Shaw! You can't get out of here—there are thirty of us. I'll shoot you in the leg if you take another—agh!"
The firearm went off. The bat dropped like a stone. Furiously, Ginny ran at the guard. Clutching at his Eamon-ripped throat, the man fled.
Ginny dropped to her knees next to the fallen Bronstein . . . Who sat up.
"Indade, they've never heard of slowshields. Come on, Ginny. Let's go."
"But not so fast," panted O'Niel, rejoining them. " 'Tis a powerful amount o' flying you ask for a bat of my rotundity, Eamon."
"How goes it out there?"
"Two groups of them are shooting at each other," said O'Niel cheerfully, as they hastened down the wide staircase to the mezzanine. "T'ose screaming rockets are great!"
* * *
And there, in the gray predawn, at the foot of the stairs, Ginny came face-to-face with her nemesis. Smiling at her was Dr. Thom and some five of the security detail. He had a syringe in his hand, and a little Korozhet-made device pinned on his chest.
"Well, well, Miss Virginia. What have we here?"
Ginny gunned the chainsaw. But, quite involuntarily, she took a step backwards.
"What? Running away? We can't have that, Miss Virginia," he said with a toothy smile. He clicked the button on the Korozhet device. "Come to me, now," came the command.
Virginia had been steeling herself to resist the Korozhet-spoken orders ever since she had realized what had been done to her. Now, suddenly, she realized that she didn't have to. She squeezed the chainsaw trigger hard and obeyed at a run.
Too late, the doctor realized just what he'd said . . . and what was heading toward him. Obediently.
His martial-arts training took over. The kick might have disarmed Virginia if Melene hadn't quietly Super-Glued one shoe to the floor. She was still busy with the other one. His foot came up in a wild arc, instead of a carefully controlled one. And hit the chainsaw blade, instead of the arm he'd been aiming for.
His expensive calf-leather loafers proved exactly why lumberjacks wear safety boots. He fell with an awkward snap, screaming.
The chainsaw followed him down. The tip came closer to his chest as he tried to squirm into the marble floor.
He whimpered in pain and terror.
She lowered the blade, slowly.
And tore away the piece of Korozhet circuitry he had pinned to his lapel.
Only then did Ginny have eyes for the rest of the scene. The rats coming up from behind as silently as only they could had wreaked havoc on a party who had waited, eyes focused on a chainsaw coming down the staircase towards them. Super-Glued boots all round hadn't made for great mobility against highly mobile enemies. Several of them would be needing the doctor when he'd finished attending to himself. They were all down, torn boots and broken ankles bearing ample testimony to the quality of the Super-Glue. The guard who had been standing next to Dr. Thom was the only one who wasn't worried any more. The syringe intended for Ginny still quivered in his shoulder. Empty.
She swung the chainsaw over them. They stayed down. Thom had plainly told them to keep their weapons in their holsters, and now Nym and Doc were busy confiscating guns. Falstaff had found someone's hip-flask and was standing on the unfortunate's chest, drinking from it.
"Right. You four rogues in buckram," said Doll, nastily. "Drop your breeks and smalls. Or Ginny will treat you as the auctioneer and land agent treated the ladybird—she will rend you asunder."
They left them, glued by their hands and butts to the cold marble. Doc even took the time to put a pressure bandage on Thom's foot.
Ginny had to intervene to stop them glueing all the mouths shut. But a piece of Doc's surgical tape was adequate enough. Eamon set up—with the assistance of a little glue, some fishing line and two firearms—a neat trip-wire arrangement on the stairs. Melene glued a few doors, just on general principle.
" 'Tis the kitchen we seek, Ginny," explained Bronstein. "We planned to leave that way, and then head for the pontoon bridge."
"It's back there. Where Melene is glueing doors."
"Whoreson! Is there any other way out? We glued doors all around, except that."
"The garages. Did you glue those, too?"
"Nay," said Nym, brightly. "We could take a vehicle!"
"You can't drive," snapped Bronstein, hastily.
"I can drive a golf cart," volunteered Ginny brightly. "If we sabotaged the others . . ."
Bronstein nodded. "Right. Move out to it." And then to Ginny as they legged it down the passage, "What's a golf cart?"
"Er. Well, you said you came in the milk-float? Like that, but smaller. An electric motor, and can do about fifteen miles an hour. We can go across the golf course to the pontoon bridge. I know the way. They don't."
* * *
The large underground garage was still full of her father's collection of vehicles. It was dark here except for the light seeping from a small row of high windows—which Ginny knew were at ground level outside. Fortunately, Ginny knew exactly where the little candy-striped golf cart was parked.
"Right," she said. "Pull the keys from the ignitions of the cars and squeeze some Super-Glue into the works. There are spare keys, but they're in the safe-room."
She settled herself onto the familiar seat of the golf cart, put the chainsaw beside her, then reached down and snatched up Nym, who was stunned by such magnificence.
"Can I drive? Please? Just a few yards?" pleaded the big rat, wringing his paws earnestly. "Methinks 'tis the vehicle of which the stuff of my dreams are made of."
"If we get out of here and to Chip, you can have it. For your very own. Until then I drive," said Ginny firmly. Nym appeared to find that an almost paralyzing vision. He sat on the bench seat making no moves towards his usual mechanical fiddling, except for occasional small and ecstatic Brmm! Brmm! noises.
The other rats piled on. The bats clung to the awning and they set off up the ramp to the doors. Ginny was glad that the golf cart had lights.
She pressed the garage-door remote.
Nothing happened.
Belatedly it occurred to her: There was no power. And a golf cart—even a candy-striped one—wasn't going to bust through the doors.
"What's wrong?" demanded Doc
"They're electric doors."
Eamon, O'Niel and Bronstein were already looking. At least they weren't hampered by darkness. "There's a space here between the frame and door. Three mines will do the job, indade!" said Eamon expertly.
There were voices coming down the passage, as the bats worked hurriedly and Ginny tried to roll the little cart back down the ramp.
"Heads!" said O'Niel.
The explosions echoed through the garage, and a sheered bolt whanged through the darkness. Hanging drunkenly, the door was now open. Well, there was a gap, anyway. Too small for a car, but just about possible for a golf cart. Ginny eased forward, and, with one wheel virtually over the edge of the ramp, scraped out into the dark.
"Careful with my paintwork!" said Nym crossly.
Outside there was serious gunfire. There was also thick mist. Someone had plainly just triggered one of the trip-mines and piles of Wen Pei's fireworks stock had gone into action.
There was no n
eed for lights any more, though. Ginny turned straight off the driveway and drove through a flowerbed. It was her flowerbed. She'd drive through them if she liked. She headed away from the gunfire, away from the gates. But Cartup's security had been just behind them in the garage, and would be following. It wasn't the longest head start in the world.
On the other hand, most of the security staff didn't ever go out for a round of golf. There was some interesting rough, and sand and water features on the route she had planned.
The golf cart was at least quiet. And the misty morning provided some cover. But she did wish that it wasn't candy striped.
Behind them, she could hear some of the searchers. And barking. Someone had let the Dobermans loose.
Ginny couldn't help laughing. The idea was to let the dogs loose if you weren't running around the premises. Some of Cartup's security service were going to get bitten.
They rode on. Ginny had the advantage of knowing just where she was going: to the pontoon bridge.
With the little cart firmly parked on the bridge, Ginny got off it and took the chainsaw to the thick polyprop ropes. She cut the downstream two first, studiously ignoring the yelling, the baying of the dogs chasing security guards, shots, and the sound of a motor vehicle getting closer. The pursuit would hear the chainsaw, but there was no help for that. She cut the first upstream rope. The lurch, when it parted, was nearly enough to heave her into the river.
Then the final rope, and the small raft spiraled free and began drifting gently and silently down the river. Ginny knew that the river wasn't particularly deep or fast, and was rather full of golf balls. She hit the kill-switch on the chainsaw and looked back. She could dimly make out the lights of the vehicle. It must be heading for the bridge.
A gust of breeze brought the voices to her.
"She's cut the bridge. You bastards will have to swim across. At least there won't be any dogs on that side."
And then they drifted out of earshot and out through the pillars that marked the edge of Shaw House land.
Freedom was sweet, even when they bumped across a rock, and Ginny realized that she had a raft full of non-swimming rats—on a vessel she had no way of steering, heading down the Tiber River toward the distant sea.