CHAPTER 26

     The rats swarmed to the attack again, driven by hunger and a raging desire for revenge. They were just intelligent enough to know they had been thwarted right on the verge of victory and now they came back with a vengeance. Jamie had set his spare power packs and ammunition clips beside him in easy reach. Now, as the rats attacked again, he fired in a sweeping arc, using only the laserbeam of his gun for the most part. Where he saw a concentration of rats, he pulled the trigger all the way back to send exploding slugs into their midst.

     Jeannie's hysteria had passed by now, calmed by the presence of Kristi and Jamie and their pets. The rats still horrified and disgusted her, but she had seen that they could be easily killed and went about the task industrially, wasting power but causing destruction in the pack of attacking rats. She caught a momentary glimpse of the dogs as they fought. They never stopped in one place long enough for the rats to overwhelm and hamstring them.

     The cats were out of sight. They were too small and too intelligent to jump into the middle of the fray. Instead, they ranged the periphery, contributing more to the defense with their yowling voices than with the number of their kills. The shrill wailing snarls made the rats shudder with a hereditary fear of their chief predators. It made them crouch and shiver, despite their intelligence, hitting them below the level of consciousness and holding them in place until they could shake off the paralysis.

     Kristi was as busy as a woman trying to nurse quadruplets. She directed her fire to where she thought it would do the most good, helped Jeannie to reload, shouted encouragement to them both and all the while tried to spot the rat leaders and pick them off. As the fight went on, she saw that it was not going well. There were simply too many rats, and they were pressing the humans with a ferocity born of imminent starvation and a frustration at being twice denied their prey.

     "I think we're going to have to run for it!" Kristi yelled over the fray. "Get ready, I'll point the way when it's time!" She began concentrating her fire in the direction of the fewest rats, trying to clear an escape route. She was just gathering her breath to call for the cats and dogs to break off and follow her lead when Wolfgang burst into sight, scattering rats in all directions, growling in delight at a chance to fight.

     Masters was panting hard by the time he spotted the first rats, but he didn't stop; the firing was still coming from in front of him. He waded through the disorganized pack, sweeping a path before him with laserbeams and slugs. Seconds later he broke into the swath of mangled brush where the floater had come down and spotted the three besieged humans. He shouted in triumph at seeing them alive, even though they were still being sorely pressed by the attacking hordes. He shouted, "Kristi! Take the other side. We're coming!" Even as he yelled, Judy and the other rangers burst onto the scene, adding their firepower to the carnage.

     It was too much for the rats. For the third time, they had been denied, and now they had had enough. With squeaks and squeals, they began to retreat.

     Kristi and Jamie jumped down from the wrecked floater, leaving Jeannie safely within it. "My God, we're glad to see you!" Kristi breathed, reloading her weapon.

     "Are the rats gone for good now," Jeannie asked from her perch, looking around anxiously.

     "I think so," Masters said, still gasping for breath. "You can come down now, Jeannie. It is you, isn't it?" He had only met her briefly, back on the morning the Expedition had left the Enclave. "Whitmire told me you were coming out with Nhu. Where is he?"

     Jeannie pointed silently to the covered bodies as she climbed down into Jamie's arms. Masters grimaced. More casualties, and yet, here was Da Cruz, apparently unharmed, though he looked a little white around the gills.

     "Damn, I didn't know there were that many rats in the whole world," Jamie said, trying to still his shaking hands. Adrenalin was still coursing through his body, even though the battle was over.

     "Rats are the least of our problems right now," Masters said, looking around at the heaps of gray bodies. They lay everywhere. The pets moved among them, dispatching the wounded. The dogs killed in the typical canine manner, grasping a rat and shaking it in their jaws with sufficient force to break it's neck or back. The cats made more of a sport of it, tossing the squeaking rodents into the air, then batting them away. They were having great fun until Masters called them back to the group.

     Several small fires ignited by laser beams were burning, creating columns of dense smoke. Masters glanced anxiously at the sky, looking for enemy floaters. He hoped the smoke wouldn't be seen, but was almost certain that it would. "Folks, we've left too much evidence here to stick around. Let's get a move on before we're spotted. Is everyone able to travel? Jeannie?" He eyed her in particular, noting the mangled remains of the floater. She had been very lucky to survive the crash.

     "I'm fine, Captain. Thank-you. You sure picked the right time to show up."

     Masters allowed a small smile for her. "We rangers specialize in that sort of thing, but let's not push our luck. Let's move out."

     "Which way?" Kristi asked.

     "We'll head east and southeast until we get clear of the city, then try to find some cover where we can cross that old highway. Once we're back in that jungle between there and those old ruins of Carthage, I doubt that any floater can spot us from the air. The dogs can scout around and watch our flanks. If we're lucky, we'll be fairly safe by tomorrow. Now let's move."

     Masters assigned Kristi and Judy both to walk with Jamie and guard him from harm. If he could get him safely back to the Enclave, his mission would be a success, regardless of the many casualties he had suffered.

     Jeannie walked beside Jamie. She stumbled repeatedly the first few yards, unable to keep her eyes off him. It still seemed like a miracle to her, going from the nightmarish interval spent with the bodies of the pilots, then to almost being eaten alive by rats, and now trudging peacefully along beside the man she loved. And his pets! They were safe, too, moving right along with them. Fuzzy Britches was trying to keep up and rub against her ankles at the same time, causing her to miss a step occasionally, but she didn't mind at all.

     Fuzzy Britches and Woggly were quite intelligent enough to know how close they had come to losing their humans, and perhaps their own lives as well, but in typical animal fashion they were able to put it out of their minds and concentrate on the present. Fuzzy Britches liked the present. Princess walked sedately by his side and he was again in the presence of Jeannie, whom he had decided was the right mate for his master. And there was Kristi, too. He ran ahead a few paces and tangled himself in her legs, long enough to let her know that she was included in his plans, although he didn't say so. He didn't think it was really necessary, and she would find out soon enough, in any case.

     "Are your bites feeling better?" Jamie asked Jeannie.

     "They don't hurt any more. My ribs are still bothering me, though. I broke some of them when we crashed." She rubbed her side reflexively.

     "Jeannie, why did you insist on coming out here? You know I wanted you to stay in the Enclave until I got back.  Now look at the fix you're in." Jamie tried to look stern, but wasn't noticeably successful. Regardless of the near disaster of her flight out, and the horror of the attack by the rats, he admitted to himself that he was glad to see her. He just hoped nothing else happened on the way back.

     Jeannie took his hand in hers. "At least I'm with you. I just couldn't stand it back at the Enclave. It was so lonely, and then Cadena--did you hear about him?"

     "Yeah. Maybe I should have brought you with me to start with. It looks as if you can't stay out of trouble regardless of where you are. What else happened while I was gone?"

     Jamie noticed a reddening of her face as she answered. "Um, just some other things. I'll tell you about them when we get back. I wasn't in any danger, though."

     He saw her shift her glance to Kristi and smiled to himself, suspecting what the "other things" had been. Perhaps there wouldn't be any problem with Kristi when they got back. If they got back, that is. That was still problematical.

 ***

     "There!" Randall pointed over the shoulder of his pilot to plumes of smoke rising from the forest. "Circle around slow and let's see what it is. Be careful, I don't want to run into an ambush."

     The pilot swung the floater in a wide circle, then dropped cautiously lower. Randall put Field glasses to his eyes and the scene leaped out at him. It could only be the Houston Enclave's floater which they had downed, but the heaps of dead rats and smoking vegetation told of a recent fight. There must have been survivors.

     "Take us down," Randall said. The floater dropped gently to the earth, settling down near the wreck. Troopers deployed over the side, weapons ready. Randall hopped down behind them and examined the scene. Soon, satisfied that the decomposing bodies of the pilots could not possibly have been involved in the carnage, he ordered the floater into the air again. Somewhere near, there must be at least several survivors from the battle along the river, perhaps even Da Cruz himself. Optimism surged through him as he ordered the floater into the air again.

     "All right, now. Use the IR. Take it in slow circles and let's see what we pick up."

     The pilot complied while Randall watched the screen. "Contact, by damn!" He said loudly a few minutes later. The computer identified the images on the screen as human within seconds.

     "Call in the other floaters," Randall ordered. "Let's bracket these sons-of-bitches before they get away!" His spirits rose as if suddenly freed from earth's dragging gravity. Now if that was only Da Cruz down there. By God, I might get home yet!

***

     "Floaters!" Judy exclaimed. "Floaters overhead!"

     Jamie looked up but saw nothing through the thick overhead branches. Masters came up at a run. "How many?"

     "I saw two, at least," Judy said. "They were cruising slow."

     "All right, let's not panic. We've got good cover here. Keep moving and maybe they won't spot us. We got away yesterday, we can do it again. Kristi, you stick with Jamie. If they do spot us, you get him away, understand?"

     "Right."

     Jamie was acutely uncomfortable at being the object of so much protectiveness, but there wasn't anything he knew to do about it. He followed along with Kristi and tried to keep Jeannie close.

     It soon became apparent that the enemy floaters were marking their progress regardless of cover. Masters directed them off at different angles, but at least one floater could always be spotted, hovering above them, just out of range of their laser guns.

     "Damn it, they must have some type of detection gear. Hold up for a minute and let me think." Masters didn't like his thoughts, but search his mind as he would, he could devise no other alternative.

     Kristi said it for him. "We're going to have to split up."

     "Yeah, I don't see anything else to do. Maybe they can't follow us all. I'll take Costa and the men. Kristi, you and Judy go with Jamie and Jeannie. We'll all head southwest, but at an angle from each other. Let's go!"

     The two groups divided. Kristi led her command away, still trying to remain hidden under the trees. At least they prevented the floaters from landing easily. Soon though, the vegetation began to thin out. The trees became smaller and it became harder and harder to remain concealed, then finally almost impossible. A hovering floater continued to dog them, searching for a decent landing spot. Kristi finally halted them at the edge of some low bushes. From there, she spied an overpass of the old highway only fifty yards away, with thick forest on the other side. Unfortunately, a scattering of weeds and stunted bushes was all that had managed to take root on what had once been a huge parking lot of some kind, stretching off in both directions.

     "Damn!" Kristi exclaimed. "I was afraid of this. Well, we can't just sit here until they decide to land. We'll have to try to make it to that overpass then into the woods. This isn't going to be fun, folks."

     "What if they shoot at us while we're getting there?" Jeannie asked. She began trembling.

     "No help for it. When I give the word, go. Don't bunch up. We'll meet under the overpass and try to get some shots in if they land. All we need is just a few minutes, then maybe we can get into the woods on the other side. Ready?"

     "I guess," Jamie said. He eyed the stretch of open ground apprehensively.

     Kristi squeezed each of their hands. "Good luck. Now go!" They began to run.