Rat City
"I am the Law. Shut up
or I'll shoot you!"
Sledge Nutter - NL Policewoman - 3594
He lay slumped beside Seyka’s tomb. Looking down he could see her ashen grey face unchanged for over a hundred years.
He had often come here in the depths of the under ground city to seek peace and quiet. Now he was here to hide.
They had found the world riddled with holes filled with the mutated race of men calling themselves the Karkehan. Literally the "Rat men" in the harsh Imperial Martian dialect.
So the New Londoners had started a war to cleanse the area of vermin
around their mighty ship. They had found
The crew of the Rattan had been
busy in the hundred years since their arrival. With limited power, resources and
people, beleaguered by the harsh world, they had built a crude generator in the
heart of a gargantuan lump of ferrous rock they called
With its power they made cloning vats; they bred a race of humans both tough and simple. With their workers and own offspring they built first towns and then cities connected by tunnels - all underground for protection.
As Morgan had once said, this world was trouble. The Terriforming process had gone horribly wrong. There was something in the soil, the air and the sea that mutated everything.
Creatures, which were normally placid and simple, were psychotic beyond belief. With no reason they would batter themselves to death to try and get to the humans. It was both senseless and horrific to watch.
It was as if they had all been programmed that way.
Himmelman had disagreed with the Commander on many things, especially the cloning. Sure he donated some genetic material. He had no choice.
He would have preferred to have donated it the old fashioned way, but he was waiting for the right girl to stumble along. His sex drive had never been a problem, it was one of the downfalls of being a Frontier pilot. They took it away from you as soon as you joined up.
So he had decided to slip away in his own battered ship.
Hidden deep within the rock he had slept for a hundred years, until the time when he knew the New Londoners would come. And when the proverbial shit would hit the fan.
In the last years he had kept a low profile, not knowing many people, feeling more alien than ever. The only friends he had were the Commander and Tan as he called 'her', and of course the revered Seyka.
"Well, you might as well tell me the worst of it," he addressed the ceiling," Where are they now?"
A smooth toned female voice answered. "The New Londoners are in the upper levels still, engaged with Karkehan soldiers."
There was a nervous pause in her breath. "Would you like me to join you? I am not needed up here, the Commander has it pretty much in hand. Anyway I'm not good at military matters."
"Sure," answered Himmelman lowering his eyes back to Seyka's Med-Droid tomb. "I haven't actually seen you since my return. It would be good to see you - er - in the flesh again"
A shudder shook the room, startling Himmelman. He looked quizzically at the rough-cut rock walls and then towards the door. Floating at the top of the corridor, emanating from a roving light globe, shone a sharp beam of yellow light. He could imagine the hiss and roar of Quo light coalescing before his eyes.
She came. Not as he would have imagined. A bright beautiful woman drifting down from the ceiling to stand timidly before him.
"Nice entrance," grinned Himmelman. "Although I'm not sure the wings were necessary!"
They both laughed.
"You know me - always like to be dramatic," she said pacing the floor in mock flamboyance.
"Funny time to be playing games," he said, raising an eyebrow at her.
"As some one once said," she replied with a mischievous grin. "You might as well enjoy life while you have it."
"Uh, hate to disappoint you Tan but you're not…" interjected Himmelman.
"On the contrary, I'm as alive, solid and real as any human. Look, I can prove it. Go ahead and touch me."
He reached for her arm, brushed her smooth naked skin.
"What the… you never told me this before, and we've been friends for…"
"Hundreds of years? Funny how time flies isn't it?" She smiled. "There's something I have to tell you Himmelman, dear friend, before we both die." She waved her hands in the direction of where she guessed the fighting would be above.
The Commander checked his forces.
All the exits were in
They were dressed in the heavy ferrous armour so typical of their breed. The thick, spiked plates blackened with blood showed how battle worn they already were.
Suddenly, and silently, they disappeared.
Fools, thought the Commander, Agkir shields are too dangerous for hand to hand combat with the New Londoners. They were using Syth shields, if the two types of shields collided, catastrophe would ensue.
"Group 42, fall back. Do not use Agkir shields except in dire need. Repeat, DO NOT use Agkir shields…" he shouted into the communicator.
It was no good, his communications were being jammed.
All he could do was watch in horror as the blurred shapes advanced. They rounded a corner and walked straight into an advanced patrol of Myoplex armoured New Londoners.
The haze of Syth shielding around the New Londoners was obvious to the Commander. It rendered the crude Rail guns of the Karkehan useless, no projectile weapon would get through them.
He wished he could close his eyes to the scene that followed.
The Karkehan drew their Vibro-swords for close combat, which on reflection they would not have done, if they had know the repercussions. The New Londoners, oblivious to the invisible Karkehans, proceeded towards them.
The first Karkehan elite reached the first
The chaos that ensued was more than the Commander could bear. There was nothing left. Just a molten mass of sparking fields, and a slowly whirling vortex.
Himmelman lay relaxed and at peace next to Tan'.
"Can't say I've ever made love to a… what do they call someone like you anyway?" he said, trying to be tactful.
"A Quolloid I think," she dreamily answered. "Not that I can tell you why, or even who made it up."
"Hmm… sounds decidedly wishy washy to me. As far as I'm concerned you're more human than those idiots upstairs." He replied gazing angrily at the ceiling.
"I don't want to die now. Stuff living a few hundred years, to be killed by war mongering morons." He stood up, taking the hand of Tan to help her up. Not that she needed it.
"I have a few secrets of my own," he said. "Follow me." And lead her away. Down into the underground. Back to his old ship, back to sanctity.