He found himself hoping the rats would escape but before they reached the polythene-wrapped straw bales, it had the slowest of them, caught it, crunched it, then like some horrible gun dog took it to the compost heap. However unpleasant the thing might look, Mason decided, it was damned efficient.
The men from Traptech came the following day to take down the TT6s. When they had finished, their foreman came to see Mason.
“Says here you had eight TT6s, mate.”
“That’s right. The rats scrapped four of them though.”
“We know about that. We’ve got those four. Just that one of the good one’s gone missin’. I’ll have to report it, mate.”
For the rest of the day, while he baled straw in the fields, Mason wondered confusedly where the missing TT6 could have gone. By evening he had figured it out and in a strange way was quite glad. As soon as he got back to the farmyard, he fetched his shotgun and went with it into the barns.
It had been one hell of a fight in G1. The rats had swivel-mounted the TT6, using a couple of old bearing and a universal joint, on one of the grain handlers, and powered it from the handler’s battery. Mason was impressed but realised the rats had not taken into account the reflective surface of the TT15. They had obviously fired the laser many times, enough to have drained the handler’s battery, but the TT15, though damaged, had not been immobilised. A battle with crossbow bolts and hand weapons had then ensued. The floor was littered with dead and dismembered rats, weapons, and silvery pieces of the TT15. Finally, the rats had managed to shut the doors into G2 on it, trapping it, and there it remained, its motor whining periodically.
Mason walked over to the doors, opened them then hit the lights for G2. The TT15 scuttled on into the barn, immediately zeroing in on movement at the further edge of the floor. Mason gazed across and saw a group of rats. Many of them were injured. Many of them were applying dressings and tying on splints. They all looked up at him, glittery eyed. He raised his shotgun and saw what could only be described as a look of fatalism come onto their ratty faces. He fired both barrels of the shotgun and blew the TT15 to scrap.
As he turned and left the barn shortly after, on his way to cancel the cheque he had sent to Traptech, Mason felt extremely pleased with himself, in fact, the happiest he had felt in days. The kind of rats he really hated wore suits and cost a damned sight more than a few handfuls of alpha-wheat.
IN VAULTED HALLS ENTOMBED
Alan Baxter
The high, dim caves continued on into blackness.
Sergeant Coulthard paused, shook his heavy, grizzled head. “We’re going to lose comms soon. Have you mapped this far?” he asked Dillman.
“Yes, Sarge.”
Coulthard looked back the way they had come, where daylight still leaked through to weakly illuminate the squad. “Radio it in, Spencer. See what they say.”
“Yes, Sarge.” Corporal Spencer shucked his pack and set an antenna, pointing back towards the cave entrance. “Base, this is Team Epsilon. Base, Team Epsilon.”
The radio crackled and hissed, then, “Go ahead, Epsilon.”
“We’ve followed the insurgents across open ground to foothills about eighty clicks north-north-east of Kandahar, to a cave system at… Hang on.” Spencer pulled out a map and read aloud a set of co-ordinates. “They’ve gone to ground, about eighty minutes ahead of us. We’ll lose comms if we head deeper in. Orders?”
“Stand by.”
The radio crackled again.
“They’ll tell us to go in,” Sergeant Coulthard said.
Lance Corporal Paul Brown watched from one side, nerves tickling the back of his neck. They were working by the book, but this showed every sign of a trap, perfect for an ambush. It would be dark soon, and was already cold. It would only get colder. Though perhaps the temperature farther in remained pretty constant.
He stepped forward. “Sarge, maybe we should set camp here and wait ‘til morning.”
“Always night in a fucking cave, Brown,” Coulthard said without looking at him.
“You tired, possum?” Private Sam Gladstone asked with a sneer.
The new boy, Beaumont, grinned.
“You always a dick?” Brown said.
“Can it!” Coulthard barked. “We wait for orders.”
“I just think everyone’s tired,” Brown said. He shifted one shoulder to flash the red cross on the side of his pack. “Your welfare is my job after all.”
“Noted,” Coulthard said.
Silence descended on the six of them. They’d followed this band of extremists for three days, picking up and losing their trail half a dozen times. He was tired even if the others were too hardass to admit it. Young Beaumont was like a puppy, on his first tour and desperate for a fight, but the others should know better. They’d all seen action to some degree. Coulthard more than most; the kind of guy who seemed like he’d been born in the middle of a firefight and come out carrying a weapon.
“Epsilon, this is Base. You’re sure this is where the insurgents went?”
“Affirmative. Dillman had them on long range scope. Trying to shake us off, I guess, going to ground.”
“Received. Proceed on your own initiative. Take ‘em if you can. They’ve got a lot of our blood on their hands. Can you confirm their numbers?”
“Eight of them, Base.”
“Received. Good luck.”
Spencer winked at the squad. “Received, Base. Over and out.” He unhooked his antenna and slung his pack.
“Okay, then,” Dillman said. He shifted grip on his rifle and dug around in his webbing, came up with a night sight and fitted it.
Brown sighed. No one was as good a shot as Dillman, even when he was tired and in the dark. But it didn’t give much comfort. “We’re not going to wait, are we?” he said.
Coulthard ignored him. “Pick it up, children. As there are no tracks in here,” he kicked at the hard stone floor, “we move slow and silent. Spencer, you’re mapping. I want markers deployed along the way.”
“Sarge.”
“Let’s go. Beaumont, you’re on point.”
“Yes, Sarge!”
“Slow and steady, Beaumont. And lower that weapon. No firing until I say so unless you’re fired on first.”
“Yes, Sarge.”
The kid sounded a little deflated and Brown was glad. Youth needed deflating. They fell into order and moved forward. Spencer placed an electronic marker and tapped the tablet he carried. It began to ping a location to help them find their way back.
It became cooler, the darkness almost absolute. The light that leaked through from outside couldn’t reach and blackness wrapped them up like an over-zealous lover.
“Night vision will be useless down here,” Coulthard said. “We’re going to have to risk torchlight. One beam, from point. Dillman, go infrared.”
“Way ahead of you,” Dillman said, and tapped his goggles. He moved up to stand almost beside Beaumont.
The young private clicked on his helmet lamp and light swept the space as he looked around. The passage was about five metres in an irregular diameter and as dry and cold as everything else they’d seen over the last few days. Dust motes danced in the torch beam, the scuff and crunch of their boots strangely loud in the confined space.