SEA RATS

[vigneashley]

Across the Equitorial Wastes, there is only one name that incites panic true.

Only one name that can drive the hearts of sailor rats to despair.

Ruddigh!

Ruddigh the pirate! Ruddigh of the Tungsten Arm!

Ruddigh—whose mechanical claw can squeeze an animal in two—the infamous one whose dreams are black and dead, whose domain extends where Corpos no longer dare to stray!

Ruddigh of the Wastes! Maddened badger, predator king—who massacres crews and paints their lost ships with blood!

 

[vigneashley]

Three ships was enough.

They told him again and again.

Not enough money for four. And not enough cargo for five. All excuses by corpos, doomed forever to lose life and money because a damn robot recommended it. No sir, there's no purpose in listening to an experienced sailor rabbit and his crew, the very ones doing the sailing, the very ones who would die if that monster were to encroach.

The captain of the Harbor's Edge balanced at the very top of the lookout, leaning out of the basket with one paw clinging to the cable that led to the very tip of the mast. His rough gray ears flapped heavily in the gale-like wind. He squinted through his monocular to the horizon behind their wake.

Eight dark silhouettes. Some with sails. All still pointed directly toward his little convoy, no matter the change in direction. There was a time, long ago, when this would have meant nothing.

But these days, it could only mean one thing.

Though sometimes, ships clustered up and happened to be on the same equatorial tangent as them. The abandoned continent was still so full of the automated Factoria, and they still shipped product and resource in and out, so why was it so difficult to believe that these haulers might be going the same way?

Except that his turns were compensated for.

Eight ships on the horizon all compensating at the same time? To starboard and larboard both? All day, they remained silent in response to the Harbor's Edge's attempts at radio. They were catching up. Just that morning the silhouettes were dots, and now that it was at the edge of sunset, he could see the clear and blocky shadows that told him that the ships coming straight for the convoy were precisely once cargo vessels like his.

He hoped against hope that he was wrong about who it might be. He could still be mistaken.

But the ships glowed with an unmistakable bloody red.

Their wakes were larger now, too. They'd sped up dramatically, their bows dipping into the surf and sending great wings of spray upward. Their titanic ships were empty of cargo and knifed through the water without resistance. They didn't hulk through the surf, dragged down by grain and rolls of steel. They'd be on them in mere moments.

He wiped his eyes of the windy grit. After coming to terms with what was about to happen, he attached his mechanical clip to the cable and then stepped off the lookout, hanging from it with both paws clutched tight. The clip whirred, and with the help of gravity and a set of resistance pulleys, it lowered him to the deck through the dust of the Equatorial wind. On landing, a mouse with a blooming scar around his nose and mouth took the clip, grimly saluted, and zoomed back up to his station in the lookout. The scoped rifle dangled from the crook of the mouse's arm. The tiny thing rode up like a speck. When it finally reached the lookout basket, it disappeared into it. The barrel of the rifle stuck out like a splinter.

Willard, who was a sooty black mole missing his left arm, took his place at the captain's side as they silently entered the bridge. The mole seemed perfectly relaxed as he waddled behind him. Chin up. Voice low, slow, and polite as if he were asking about a morning tea. "Is it who we think it is, sir?"

The rest of the officers on the bridge were staring intently, watching with eyes wide like lambs.

"They're his ships, that's for certain."

"Ah." Willard stood at the captain's right and put his good arm behind himself. "You should be informed, sir. The crew seemed to know already. No visual and they know. Not a good sign as far as the mystics might say, but I've got a feeling we'll get out of this fine."

Stay calm, the mole's face seemed to urge with a subtle smile and relaxed eyes.

With what's coming can't let them be afraid.

"All's we have to do," the mole said slowly, "is kill enough to make them leave. Simple as, sir."

"Quite right."

The captain pressed a large red button on the control. As he'd done many times before. Though not with his jaw clenching this hard.

A klaxon alarm ripped through the air, deafening even inside. Stations that had previously flared with orange lights now circled with red. Through the window of the bridge, the captain could see animals stopping their work to listen. Some were looking in the direction of their wake. He picked up the com and spoke into it slowly and deliberately.

"This is a convoy-wide alert. Engagement with previously sighted ships is imminent. All sailors report to battlestations."

"There it is, then."

The mole left the captain's side and started digging through a crate next to his chair. He pulled something heavy from it, and then waddled over. He lifted a metallic device that looked slightly like a gun, except that the barrel was large enough to fit a balled paw inside.

"I bought it for you at the last port, sir. Figured you would want something handy for this precise situation, if it ever came to pass, sir. And—all's I'd like to say, sir," The First Mate started to speak with difficulty. He wiped his snout on the shoulder of his armless sleeve. "Is that working with you and this ship has been the… great joy… of what was once a very difficult life, sir, if you don't mind my saying so. I'm just… I'm very sorry to see it go."

"Agreed," the captain said grimly. He tried to shut out Willard's faithful smile. The heartache was going to slow him and get him killed. "But it's not done yet."

"No, sir." The mole snorted and his bubbling, rising tears subsided. He stood straight. "It's not. And that's what where for with the gun. I thought it should be you to kill that monster and find some way to make a trophy mount of it. If there is anything left afterward. Here you go. Careful, sir."

The gun was so heavy that it almost sent him to the floor from the weight. It was thick-barreled, with a second handle welded to the end to compensate for recoil, presumably, but the captain suspected that it was because the gun itself more resembled, and acted like, a cannon. A primitive, lock backed, Goodness-praying when one pulls the trigger, belongs bolted to a steel beam, sort of cannon. Casualties guaranteed.

He held it up, one arm extended. He imagined himself holding up a great spear.

Then Willard handed him the bullet.

It was larger than a fist, or a grenade. The point of the bullet, or perhaps hammerhead, split like a star. When the trigger was pulled, four separate tungsten-alloyed projectiles would leave the muzzle with enough force to powder steel and evaporate anything organic. Surely it'd be enough to kill a badger. A badger was just flesh and blood.

Willard pulled further gear from a crate on the other side and dispersed it to the rest of the bridge crew. Flak jackets with long sleeves. Knives covered with plastic sheathes. Pistols, long rifles, more pistols. Helmets with claw-thick, bulletproof glass face guards. All sizes. Throughout the rest of the convoy, every animal armed simultaneously. Some prayed. The sun was dropping further, and the light was starting to go. The deck transformed into a fortress. Bright beam lights chunked on and swiveled toward their wake. Within a minute, all the sailors lined the decks and squinted into the remnant of a full and red sunset.

The swivel cannon duo at the fore turned to face the rear. The rear guns lifted after with a groan that reverberated through the whole ship. The captain watched, sick, as the decks suddenly lost the light of the sunset, and the sky started to visibly fade.

"Permission to fire?"

"Granted."

First, there was a series of booms, bright at the fore, and then the ship shuddered, and the deck seemed to sink and then rise under the captain's feet.

The swivels at fore and aft fired again, lobbing shells that needled out of sight, toward the fading sliver of sun. The ship rocked, sending the mast swaying in a tall arc. The captain watched the mouse in the basket cling to it defiantly. Its scope still glittered in the sun.

Just a single bullet in the right place is all we need, the captain thought to himself hopefully. One little piece of metal lodged in the right skull.

The first incoming volley hit.

The sound seemed to delay until after the ship shuddered again, and then the floor seemed to jerk under the captain's paws with a squeal. Animals on the decks crowded the rails and clung to them, shields clacking, fearful looks growing more fearful as the enemy closed the distance and their ships loomed just as high, and closer. Then a volley hit the deck.

An explosion ripped through the floor of the boat. The captain could see the space that a cluster of animals once took up against the rails, but the rails were gone. The fireball bloomed hot and flared through the glass of the bridge until it flexed and made crackling sounds. Wounded and dead animals formed a scattered ring far outside of the gaping hole at the edge of the deck. Within the hole, and close to it, he could see shields melting, stuck to walls or floors, and the internals of the ship crawling with wounded sailor animals like ants.

The ships traded fire until they got close. And then the gunfire started. By that point, the attacking ships pushed through the surf until they scraped hard against the slowest ship, and pushed it off course. Their pursuers were cargo ships, that much became even clearer—hulking, steel plated, scarred by similar tactics, and now covered in a bloody, dripping red, from the decks to the hull to the equipment, splashed and smeared with more crimson than a city of animals had blood.

Then he saw the enemy crews.

Even from the bridge, he could see animals in a black mill, charging up from below the enemy decks until they were crowded at the edge, a hive, glinting with blades and bayonet-tipped guns, cheering and shouting as they clustered closer to the walls. He could see their gaunt faces, their patchy, malnourished fur, the chaotic assortment of weapons raised and swinging over the rails as they closed distance on the captain's ship.

The regular tactics weren't working. The desperate fire from his troops did nothing to slow their emergence, and enemy fire was forcing them to keep their heads down while the brave ones, exposed even a little, dropped fast. The enemy took advantage of their relative cover. Cables with harpoons and hooks flew overhead and gripped corners and rails and beams, rattling as they tightened.

Holes popped through the glass of the bridge. Bullets tore apart panels—one of the navigators, a squirrel with an over-sized helmet, fell onto his station clutching at his throat while blood poured into the electronics.

"Get down, sir!"

The captain threw himself down and out of sight. Willard scooted close, shouting over the bullets whistling through the bridge. "It's not looking good! What's the plan, sir?"

More holes sprouted over them and puffed with sparks and insulation. Gunfire smashed against the captain's eardrums from just outside. He managed to peek his head just high enough to catch a glimpse. The foremost enemy ship was now alongside.

The harpoons started to draw—the enemy ship was close enough now for the captain to see rolls of cable, turning tighter, drawing the harpoons back when they'd clawed onto parts of the ship, and pulling them closer. He could hear their machines groaning, like agonized slaves. He could feel the momentum of his craft slowing. It was like vertigo, tipping him sideways. He regained control of himself and shouted into his com so that his voice bellowed across the sound systems. "They're about to board! We need every sailor on hand to stop them before they can so much as take a plank of this boat!"

It was a good thing that his sailors had every instinct to obey orders. He knew this was it.

He climbed up, and the bridge crew followed immediately after. Sailors from down below abandoned their maintenance posts and sprinted up through hatches of their own to scatter across the deck, guns drawn. He could hear everyone's charging footsteps, their brave screaming as he ran out of the bridge, hoping to Goodness the bullets wouldn't shred them all up just yet. Willard was just behind him. The mole had only one weapon—a shining square-bladed hatchet, and it shone in the captain's peripheral as they sprinted down the stairwell and onto the deck.
The cables were drawn taut, scraping over rails and bending them down as hitches groaned audibly from the enemy craft. The ships pulled closer, the deck tipping to the side. He watched one of his mouse soldiers suddenly topple screaming through the railing and disappear into the narrowing shadow between the two boats.

If he were lucky, Gods above if he were just a fraction lucky the monster would show itself—

He clutched the gun Willard gave him like it were the very bedrock of life itself and braced himself an instant too late.

The decks came together.

Like a duo of great bells, the ships rang. The captain found himself thrown forward onto the floor, with a great many of his marines. He could hardly understand what he saw even though he saw it happen—the decks crunched together, the ships skidded and rubbed as the cables drew tight, and then, it was as if a wave of animals poured off of the crimson decks and onto his. Hundreds, climbing over rails, leaping down in cohorts.

From the ground, he drew his pistol and fired wildly into the masses of pirates. He could feel the wind ripping around him as bullets flew. He could see machetes. An arrow sped across the deck a hair's breadth from his paw, sending him jumping as he charged. They were up close and in front of his very face. He could see snarling fangs and eyes yellow with jaundice and he could see teeth, saliva, blood spattering like mist into the air, hear pistons hammering, automatic fire. Smoke choked his lungs. When the pistol clicked with nothing inside, he chucked it, and then heaved Willard's gun like a club. He felt it connecting with flesh and bone and wondered at how slowly it seemed to move even through the storm of screaming and fire, and how he could feel bones breaking through his grip. The smell of burning flesh and epoxy turned his stomach. He could see Willard, desperately hacking at a steel cable as the harpoon pulled out the edge of a smashed-out window— He could see his animals swinging their shields, shoving knives forward, guns flaring, blades—

Then he heard the roar.

And felt it.

A deep bellow, monstrous and resonant, over the sound of gunfire. Over the sound of the ships grinding together. Over the screams, over the cannon reverberating through his chest and rattling his head.

It was as if the fight drew a gasp. The gunfire ceased from both sides. The enemy regrouped into a shuddering mass, their weapons bristling.

And then he saw Ruddigh. High above them all.

A shadow in the smoke loomed over the horde of pirates. It was on all fours, topping the scarred bridge of its ship. It was as if a mountain grew from the shadow of the carnage, sending pitch dark shade from the flames of the lost ships. The captain tried to fathom Ruddigh's size. If a mouse were up to his hip and a mole up to his shoulder, and if an otter stood nearly twice him, and a badger just a head taller…

Oh Gods.

This wasn't a badger at all. It was a creature of hell. Greater in every way.

A mechanical arm, grinding with servos, clacked a three-pronged claw high above the rest. Its form hulked over the masses of soldiers, seeming as if it could tread the animals like a tank. It stood on top of the bridge of the enemy ship, looking down over the chaos. The captain could see its mouth open, panting with madness, its jaws lined with teeth of metal and bone. He could see the scarring all over its right side, a border accepting its cybernetic arm with tissue and mottled skin. That arm was a monster all its own. He could see the weight of it, the size, hear it scraping over steel.

He could see Ruddigh's red eye.

Through the smoke, through the chaos, a single glowing eye pierced through and seemed to look directly into his trembling body. It seemed to know that his heart was failing—

He felt himself moving slowly and automatically. Something tiny in him knew paradoxically that now, right now, he had the faintest chance. The weapon Willard gave him lifted, one paw gripping the forward handle, the other knocking the chamber open. Everything was shaking.

"Gather close!" Willard screamed, bloody faced, his hatchet dripping with gore. "Everyone together!" Enough sailors were dead. There were only now a few dozen on the deck with him, the captain saw. The enemy weren't charging anymore. They closed in slow, everything pointing toward the little round of warriors left. He pulled the bullet from his pocket. It slid into the chamber. He flexed it closed with a grunt as Ruddigh's crew surrounded them completely. Everything seemed clear—the wind, the scent of smoke and charred acrylic, the decks, awash with blood and dead. Searchlights from the enemy ships centered on everyone left.

The ships were now bound so tight that the enemy deck crushed over the rails of the Harbor's Edge. Ruddigh dismounted the bridge with a leap. The metal arm clanged against the deck. The horde parted for him, shrank from him.

The captain stared with horror. Ruddigh's cybernetic eye sat in a swollen, inflamed socket, a dizzily spinning eye that flared with a light powerful enough to be a blinding laser.

"So little left," the rumble seemed to shake through the captain's chest. "And only these few. But how brave are they! It seems they are begging to die." Its jaws opened up in an open-mouthed grin.

The captain felt Willard's elbow give him a subtle push.

"Three seconds," Willard whispered, "We'll make a distraction. Then it's on you. One lucky shot and the whole thing ends."

The captain wanted to tell his animals that they were all truly brave. He wanted to tell them to hold hope and stand strong. There just wasn't time.

The monster lifted its metal arm.

The claw started to drop from the wrist. A length of rumbling, heavy chain, opalescent in its polish, unwound from the monster's shoulder, feeding through the arm. The curled tungsten of each claw turned about and locked into place as a triple pronged hook. Each chain link, the captain realized, was the size of his head.

The hook started to swing.

"Three," the captain heard Willard breathe. He watched a rabbit and three mice tense themselves toward the front of their cluster, shields rising.

"Two."

He braced himself and thanked the Gods that even as he raised the gun that it was hidden by the bodies of his sailors.

Ruddigh took a single step back. He seemed to hunch toward his cybernetic arm and turned partially away.

"One."

The red eye flashed. Like a beam, it blinded the captain and made him blink, and in the space of that blink, the chain and hook suddenly whipped out in a wide arc that whistled—and then struck the survivors.

The captain watched as the chain and hook smashed through them all, him included. His ribs were suddenly splintering all through his body. The sound of the chain hitting all those animals was like fireworks, a unified crackle. Their bodies scattered. He skidded across the deck, pain all through his core and guts and his vision flickering.

He could see Willard's broken form slumped against the rail stairs to the bridge. He could hear the wounded just starting to scream, and gurgling coming from the dying ones too broken to even express their pain. He couldn't feel his legs. He could feel the deck underneath his cheek. He could feel the cannon, nestled as if it were a baby in his arms. It rolled off his shoulder and clattered against the deck.

Ruddigh noticed.

"What's this? This one had a plan."

The captain struggled to breathe as it lumbered closer. The metal arm scraped across the deck, the chain retreating and rolling back up into its shoulder coil. Every step rumbled under him. The captain tried desperately to push himself up with his paws so his back could prop against a ventilation unit.

"It isn't right, that the brave die so terribly," Ruddigh conceded, the tone dangerously gentle, even as the maw stretched. "And you're the one leading them, aren't you? An old one, who's lived this long, all your experience amounting to nothing. All that bravery, all these lives, for nothing. What is it like? Tell me, captain, what does it feel like to see your brave die in vain?" Ruddigh's eye flared, fixed upon the dying rabbit.

The captain choked with a snarl. "B—bitter—"

Ruddigh grinned at that answer.

He struggled to breathe. He was sitting up. His paw grabbed at the fore-handle of the gun and he struggled to pull it toward him. Ruddigh seemed to relax, and watched him struggle.

"Even for all this," the monster leaned closer, ignoring the moans of the dying and his horde, watching silently behind him. "It is not as bitter as the things I've seen. The brave simply love to die. What is more bitter—is watching cowards starve. A great many cowards. I hope the Gods will show you. Then you will see this in a different light. You will know that I am right."

The captain could smell Ruddigh's rotten breath. He could see Ruddigh's real eye, its proud gloat.

He could see his own paws failing to grasp the trigger handle, and Ruddigh's cybernetic eye tracking the gun.

"Have you ever seen a city starve, rabbit? I know you have."

The captain's mind flashed with a bad question.

Where did Ruddigh come from? The question came unbidden. From what cursed place in the wastes? From what city on the abandoned continent?

"These trade lanes carry food," coughed the captain. He could taste blood. He could feel it dripping down the sides of his mouth and the collar of his uniform soaking it in, warm around his collarbone. "You're—you're going to make others starve—you—you're making it all worse—"

"For who?"

The badger's teeth were in his face.

"For us?"

The captain choked on a throatful of blood and then swallowed it down. His eyes were growing heavy and everything was cold. Everything hurt.

He saw Willard.

Willard was sitting up, only marginally less injured. He had a radio in his clubby paw. He started to shout into it, cringing with pain and fighting with every word—

"Shoot—you have to—to shoot now—"

Ruddigh's face turned slowly from the captain toward the mole.

Willard struggled. His dark eyes were locked on the badger. Every shout sounded like crying. "Damn you! Damn you, you damn coward mouse, shoot him now!"

Suddenly there was a loud pop. A spark sheared off of Ruddigh's shoulder. The beast cursed and wheeled to see. The captain squinted into the dark and saw a splinter poking out of the lookout nest.

Another pop, and this time, Ruddigh snarled when a round hit him around the neck and his fur bloomed with blood. "Get that!" He screamed. "Kill it dead!"

Spotlights swung up from the enemy ship. Several made contact with the basket and clung to it. The mouse at the top appeared like a spot of brown, ducking back before recommitting once more. Its rifle pointed downward again and flashed with another shot, sending another scatter of sparks off of Ruddigh's arm. The horde responded with a flurry of shots from dozens of angles. Gunfire sent paint chips flying off the nest—no more shots came from it. Instead the wave of fire darkened the nest with holes and the brown form disappeared, shrinking, breaking down under all those bullets.

The rifle, in a tangled piece, fell from the sky.

It crashed onto the deck with a clatter. Blood darkened in a dripping run down the mast. Willard moaned from his place and then fell unconscious. The radio dropped from his paw and made a final knock.

Ruddigh drew his real paw away from the wound in his neck. "Is this all? You'd bloody me with a caliber not good enough to execute a rat—"
The cybernetic eye snapped to the captain.

And to the dark opening of the barrel, pointed directly at his pupil.

The captain was laughing. His paw was already squeezing the trigger. His chest and stomach ground with shattered bone but the damn monster didn't see him struggle to lift it and to aim until the firing pin went click.

Even then, Ruddigh was fast.

The claw flew upward as the explosion fired the core of the round and all four of its heads at three hundred animeters per second. As if he had reached out to grab it, the palm of Ruddigh's cybernetic claw whipped in front of the barrel and took the round—the tungsten drove into the soft, steel palm—and then through—crushing rods and gears, current-bearing wire, silicone electronics, daubed with fragile silver lines, every part not made of armored alloy shook loose, crunching together and apart, until the four heads met fellow tungsten and ripped it backward at the tip of the chain. It was a sound so loud and ringing and high that it shone in the captain's head with the brilliance of diamond, even as the explosion crushed him. In the chaos, Ruddigh was screaming. His clawless arm smoked and seized and whipped through the scattering horde.

The captain realized now that he was done.

The recoil broke what was left.

He was now numb and cold against the crumpled vent system, looking listlessly at the sky.

In his peripheral vision, as everything darkened, he saw Ruddigh's arm shudder and then shut down, becoming a dead metallic tentacle that hung uselessly. He found he was laughing.

Even as Ruddigh approached him, dragging the arm behind. It didn't matter that Ruddigh's good hand grabbed him by the neck, claws digging into his throat and spine, lifting him so that his unfeeling legs dangled. It didn't matter that Ruddigh's hand was crushing his throat and that consciousness fled. It didn't matter that Ruddigh was roaring in his face, and that he could feel every break in his body melting into darkness. The stars were out. The North Star shone toward the horizon.

The last thing he saw as he died, was Willard. Carried away. Hauled over shoulders and up onto the enemy deck, doomed to a fate that his soul, as it faded, could not fathom.

 

[vigneashley]

Siddy didn't need an alarm to wake up because he was already awake, and he was awake because he was hungry.

His paw felt above his head in the compressed dark. The stale air was warm. His elbow pushed past his belongings, all in a single bag. When his paw found the lever to open the hatch, he took a deep breath and heaved it as hard as he could, which was hard to do lying down. The door swung upward, helped by large springs, and the light from the hostel's corridor came in, cold and white. Along with the damp cold.

His eyes blinked. His face scrunched. His tail curled around him, along with his arms, and he started shivering. He grabbed his coat which served as a blanket, and swung it around himself.

It was a coat meant for moles. Polyester fleece. Thik-Tex shell. Larger and bulkier than his own little mouse body. Because of his thinness, the coat seemed to wrap around him one and a half times.

He shivered in his coat until he felt marginally warmer, then dropped down from his pod and landed on the floor. The display outside of his pod suddenly lit up with a tired chime. He blinked at it and tried to read it. He could see the numbers; a pair of Zeros on one side and a red number with a dash on the other side.

He tried to ignore it. He stood on tiptoe and reached into the pod for his bag.

"Unfortunately," the display suddenly said with a friendly tone, "due to unpaid balance, we will not be renewing your rental terms for another night. Please pay the full due balance of—63.338—credits—to reserve this pod for your use."

Siddy felt his face go warm with embarrassment. Then cold with fear. "I'm collecting today—I should have enough," he stammered. He stretched out as far as he could, feeling around the pod with his paws until he grabbed his bag.

"Please pay the full due balance before 8 PM tonight," the AI said coolly. "Or we will close out your reservation and refer the past due balance to a collections agency."

"Okay. Yes. I will!" Siddy whispered. "Thank you."

He pulled a pair of over-sized gloves onto his shaking paws. He checked his bag.

Brush. Scraper. Prybar.

Water bottle. Pick set. A hook made out of scrap steel.

The pocket that normally carried a square of Malto was empty.

He shook his head, tried to ignore the sudden grumbling in his stomach, and shouldered his bag. The AI's screen was replaced by a grainy advertisement. A rabbit wearing a seahare's uniform and shouldering a rifle stood at the bow of a battleship.

ADVENTURE AND EXPERIENCE.

5,000 CR BONUS. ROOM+FOOD FREE

NORTH STAR SECURITY.

His eyes snapped to the number. To the words after it.

His stomach growled.

But it'd make no sense to try and sign up. Even for that money. For one, everyone, even him, knew that signing up for a 'Security' job these days meant they'd send you anywhere and make you do anything.

His stomach growled again. He looked at the number.

Then to the gun in the seahare's hand.

What kind of sailor or security animal could he be, really? He could hardly read and never fought. With a weapon at least.

He glanced into the pod. His pillow, the one he owned, was the only thing left. After a final thought, that if he wasn't able to make enough today that the hostel would take his pillow and send it right to the dump where he'd be desperately scrapping anyway, he plucked it from inside and stuffed it down into his bag. He pulled out his water, drank as much as he could, and then filled it from a spigot hanging just off the wall. The water tasted like chlorine and was so cold that it made his head and stomach hurt.

He walked to the hostel's door, waited for the AI to unlock it, and then stepped outside, into an ugly, murky, undercity morning.

The morning was cold, especially in this quarter of Nuu, where the scaffolding rose for hundreds of floors, and the natural light at high noon only made it down in sparkles and glimmers. In the darkness of the morning, however, this part of the city of Nuu was pitch black. His bare footpaws tripped over something warm—another mouse swiped at him from underfoot and mumbled to watch for tails. He fished into his bag, and pulled out a poplight that he unfolded into a lantern. The light spread thin over trash and hollow aluminum poles and the prickly, thorny mess of scaffold connections. The mouse under him shifted beneath a tarp and curled out of sight.
He rose through dozens of levels, and could feel the temperature rise by infantesimal degrees with each floor. Light started to drip through the distant ceiling.

He emerged from the undercity through an exit that opened into an alley behind a towering, cubic medical center. The air was cool and crisp, and there were pink lights filtering through the rising city around him. The walls of Nuu rose high, leaving half the city dark in shadow and the other half in a mellow pink and blue. He went straight toward the main avenue that led to the Eastern exit of the city. The sun was rising somewhere outside of Nuu itself. Its rays started to cook the hotcrete and stone and glass all over Nuu's top layers.

The walking made him warm. He rolled his jacket up and stuffed it away. He hoped his bag wouldn't rupture and his pillow stick out like a puff of popcorn.

When he made it to the Eastern Entrance, the traffic for both paw and vehicle became a melee. There were several modes of transport, fighting to get in and out across entire fronts over several rising levels at once. He took a walkway that shrunk and curled off of a pedestrian level and extended, like a long fibrous peel, into the rocky, dusty outside. The walkway was entirely open on one side. No protection. No windguards. An animal could slip right off and fall to its death, but then again, that was technically the fastest way to the dump.

Once he made it far enough down the path, the natural morning breeze suddenly turned into a gale. It blew him toward the edge of the hotcrete and threatened to spin him around and then to gently tip him over. Even with the dump so far below, the smell was harsh. The dump extended all through the riverbed, creating a half-full trench that ran below Nuu's walls and directly under the East entrance. The garbage, if hauled onto a flat plain, would have formed a mountain. But in the riverbed, it created a river of its own, with slow waves of piles rising and falling over weeks as animals and machines dug through looking for scrap and acrylics.

He stuck to the side of the walkway that had any structure to hold onto. Steel and aluminum reflected the sun off the bridge through dust. He tried not to look down. The drop made him squeak if he looked.

As the walkway curled and steepened, he could see other animals walking off of its base into the refuse. They were the real early animals, Siddy thought jealously and frustratedly to himself. The ones who seemed to leave before the sun could singe them. The ones who continued to sort and collect for weeks when others gave up and left. The ones who had been doing it for generations. They were dressed similarly to him, though, his bag was already full with his belongings while theirs were empty.

He started to wonder how he could even collect anything valuable today.

Eventually, the walkway came to an end across the riverbed. Siddy now could look upward, and see the bridge of the magrail stretching off the top of the walls of Nuu.

The walls rose in cliffs above him and lost its shadows in the day. The dump became a low, suppressed field of heat. Animals in clusters, like working ants, scattered across its prickly and chaotically covered surface. The sun created shimmers. The smell grew worse. He stepped from the last bit of steady hotcrete, onto an alien world made of plastic bags and smelling like poison.

He covered his mouth with a sleeve and tried to breathe.

He looked for a fresh patch, where the garbage had recently been scraped back by an earth mover. More than a dozen animals, mostly mice, filthy and working with their heads bent low, collectively seemed to stiffen as he got close. "Hello," he said, trying to settle in without disturbing them.

"This pile's ours," one of them stood achingly up straight.

She had a scar on her face, where the fur struggled to grow back. Battery acid could do that if one wasn't careful. She had a chisel in her hand that was covered in grime. She stood up as tall as she could and squared off. Siddy could see behind her. There was something big and metal half-buried in the trash.

The scarred mouse noticed him looking. She started toward him.

"I said it was ours! Get out of here!"

The chisel swiped toward Siddy's face. The rest of the mice in her crew started putting their tools down and getting up to face him too. They had lean, thin faces, and their clothes were ruined with grease marks and holes. Siddy could see knives on their belts. A couple mice drew theirs. He knew that one little scratch would put him at the mercy of his hungry, tired immune system, and the thought drew a chill.

"Okay," he said, backing away. "I'm sorry."

The trash sunk under his shoes. He wandered across the sea of plastic and refuse and kicked around, hoping that the sound or feel could clue him into something valuable. After a time, with the hot sun beating down, and his stomach squealing with hunger, there was a clue. Something hard and plasticky, like a tray. Or a box. Most of the time that meant just some piece of garbage long ripped off a droid or something, but large panels clued to large things, and large things sometimes held things inside, like electronics.

He pulled his hook from his bag and started to dig. A layer of plastic shredded back and revealed that the hard tray thing he found was an acrylic panel an entire paw thick. It could have belonged to a droid, it seemed. Heavy, but plastic. He set it to the side. It'd be worth a fraction of a credit if he could haul it all the way to the top…

It was difficult, disgusting work. Time passed slowly. The sun baked overhead. The heat was the worst—it beat down, making him sleepy and sick and slow when he needed to dig faster.

He could hear someone calling close by. He lifted his head from a hole deep enough to fit him halfway, only having found plastic. He saw an elderly squirrel pulling a cart, cobbled together out of plastic panels and a couple of mismatched wheels. He had squares of Malto hanging around his neck, tied together with a plastic string. "Scrap for food," he called, limping. "Metal for Malto, trade up some Malto—"

"Do you take plastic?" Siddy called.

The squirrel grimaced at the tangle of garbage next to Siddy's hole, then limped away toward the site where the dozen-plus animals continued to dig out the machine under them. "Wants to give up a bunch of plastic for this real food, no way, no way. Metal for Malto!" The squirrel hoarsely called. The animals guarding their site waved him over and they began trading.

Hours later, a team of rabbits called from the base of the ramp. He blearily looked up and saw them pulling a sled with a couple of opaque and mismatched barrels of water.

"Trade for water!" One of them shouted out, over and over. "Fresh, clean water! One to one for metal! Five to one for plastic!"

By the time the noon sun was squarely overhead, Siddy was growing dizzy. His arm was tired. His stomach hurt. Everything felt weak. He drank the last of his water. He tried to think. If he could get enough credits tonight for a pod, then there'd be complimentary water too. But if he passed out in the dump, there was no telling whether an earth mover would shove a fresh hill of garbage over him and smother him to death. Or if he'd simply die of heat. It sometimes happened.

Siddy glanced at his pile of mined scrap. It certainly wouldn't fit in his bag. He imagined somehow carrying all of it all the way back up and getting a measly three credits for it. It'd be enough to drink water, but it wouldn't be enough to keep his pod.

When they finished dealing with the group far off, Siddy waved them over. The rabbits pulled the sled with a rope. When they stopped in front of him, one pulled a scale from the top of a pile of metal and plastic parts tucked behind their water barrels. The scale was tossed to the ground, right side up.

"That's all plastic, aye? Five for one. By weight."

Siddy started gathering the plastic in his arms and tried to settle the heavy panel onto the scale.

"Ten for one," another said, scoffing. "We got enough metal. Don't need plastic today, no sirrah." Siddy tried to stay calm. The weight of the panel would make sure there was enough water to fill his bottle, ten to one or not. No use arguing. One never knew if water traders would even be down here later. And ten to one wasn't a bad deal anyway, especially if you were thirsty. They took all his plastic in the end, in exchange for letting him drink as much as he could and then filling his bottle all the way afterward. Then they continued into the dump while Siddy worked the hole and prayed that there'd be something, anything, that would guarantee him a meal.

By the time the sun made it behind the city and the dump was suddenly swallowed up by shadow, Siddy was shaking uncontrollably. He sat at the edge of the hole and tried to rest, despite feeling every panicking impulse in him to get back to work. He'd only found a few copper panels that were once decorations and were now dented and corroded, along with a fistful of wires from a machine that had already had most of its internals removed. And more plastic. It'd barely be enough for a square of Malto, if he was lucky.

The gang of mice finally abandoned their site. Their bags were full, and they tottered off in an unsteady line toward the ramp. After a time, Siddy could see their tiny forms hiking all the way back up toward the city, bent over, bags bursting, covered in rags, but triumphant. And likely to eat well. There was nothing more glorious as a scrapper than to carry a barely managable load of metals all the way back up.
He looked around. If their bags were so full that they were bent town, then there had to be more to scavenge at their site.

Right?

He felt a drop of adrenaline. He grabbed everything and dragged it over. No other animals came by the site, or seemed to notice it being open and available. It was a gaping shadow where they'd dug down to the depth of a mouse and uncovered…

Siddy blinked.

It was a car.

It was a car! Entangled in garbage, hidden for who-knew-how-long. A real, solid, hydrocarbon vehicle, now missing all of its plastic fixtures and electronics on the inside. It had been unburied down from the top of its roof to the windows, which the previous scrappers had knocked out and crawled inside to take everything that could possibly be pried off. He crawled onto all fours and looked inside.

It was scraped clean.

It was as if the car had been dipped in solvent and only the metal that had been cast together remained.

But still. There had to be something left.

He glanced around one more time before activating his poplight. He crawled into the smashed out window. Inside, the roominess of the car allowed him to comfortably stand. This one had to have been made for something large. Larger than rabbits, certainly. Possibly for otters. Or weasels. Or maybe raccoons.

There was nothing left inside. All the electronics were ripped out. Everything plastic was missing. Even with the light, it was clear that nothing had been left un-disturbed.

He waited another moment.

As if he would find something.

He crawled back out slowly.

He heard broken glass tinkling under his gloves.

No food. No shelter.

It was finally dark.

He looked up. It was a long climb up the ramp and back into the city. He could find a corner to bundle up and sleep in, like the mouse he tripped over that morning. Or maybe he could just stay along the dump. There was a ramshackle village on the other side of the depths of the riverbed where most of its inhabitants were scavengers. He could trade this scrap for food there as well. And then… he could live there.

He sniffled. He shut his eyes tight and shook his head. Another moment of silence passed where he thought about the seahare and the gun.
When he opened his eyes, the light from his lantern bounced off of the roof of the car and against the dark mound of garbage behind it.

It was a definite glint.

He tilted his head. His nose twitched. His eyes went wide.

He stepped closer.

He wiped his paw across the flat top of the car. Suspiciously flat. He slid it along the side of the top and realized that there was a large panel on top of the car frame, and while the vehicle's internals had been completely and perfectly and focusedly ripped out, the crew had missed the very top of the car, not realizing that the electronics within had been partially powered by a broad, thick—

"Solar panel," Siddy breathed.

He glanced around quickly and went to work. For a whole hour, he chipped and pried around the panel. It was built tightly into the frame, but peeled upward slowly. Once he heard the sound of some glue layer separating and the whole panel lifted with a gasp, he threw himself onto his crowbar. The sharp lever downward forced the panel upward and bent the frame. Plastic rivets popped in a row. A few more tugs, and the solar panel broke free.

He started giggling. He felt giddy. He could go right up the ramp with it, and if the wind wasn't too strong, he'd stumble alive into a pawn shop and get at least a hundred if it worked and sixty if it didn't. He heaved the panel upward, trying to balance it on his bag. The lantern dangled underneath his arm where it clipped onto a strap.

Lights now danced across the garbage field. It was a black sea covered in dust and, now that the sun stopped baking the garbage, it only smelled like chemicals. He started toward the ramp base, when a collection of lights coming off the ramp suddenly shifted direction and moved quickly closer to him, all at once.

There were about a dozen.

All mouse height.

His heart seized when he realized that the crew from before might be back.

He changed directions, and rushed as fast as he could, but they seemed to notice and were faster. Before he could make it to the ramp, he was surrounded, and the mouse that got close enough to him to shove a lantern in his face was the mouse whose face was scarred by battery acid.
Siddy watched her draw her chisel from her belt.

"What's that you got there, mousey?" She asked. She wiped it on an apron that had once been a shirt. "Is that our panel? From our car? It looks familiar."

Siddy suddenly felt angry. Panicked too, but mostly angry. If there was one thing he was more than angry, it was hungry.

"No!" He yelled. "It's mine!"

The other mouse showed teeth. "Oh, ho, it's not. That was our site. We were coming back."

Siddy stuttered, even as he shouted. "I n—need it! I need to eat!" He fumbled his bag to the ground, and then pulled the hook out from inside. "Stay back!"

"You're not cut out for scrapping, mousey," she taunted, stepping sideways. "Takes more than stealing from others' sites. You get extra hurt doing that." The lights lit up her scars. They were pale. The other mice closed closer to Siddy. He started swinging the hook in fast arcs that made a thin, needly sound through the air. The other mice had their weapons drawn. Scrap knives with an oily sheen. Shivs with chunky plastic handles. They were clutched in tiny paws.

"Give it to us," the scarred leader said, calmly. "We've got some Malto. We'll trade you."

"It's my panel," Siddy said through gritted fangs. He ran the math as a mouse could. He might get overwhelmed by them if they rushed him. He could leave his bag behind, use the solar panel as a shield and charge straight ahead, hope he outran them, and then buy new equipment on the cheap. He could—

There was a fast movement just behind him. His eyes barely picked it up, but his hungry frame, oceanically flooded with adrenaline, solved the whole problem for him by clutching the shield tight from underneath—and charging as fast as he could—straight toward the mouse with the chisel.

"YAAAAAAAAA!" He screamed—the mice collectively cursed and a couple leaped backward, and he found himself running unopposed across the garbage field.

His shoes squeaked on garbage bags and slipped on slimes. He didn't know how fast or how slow he was going. All he had to rely on were the shouts behind him, the fast treading of paws and shoes, too many, too close. Too fast. His lungs hurt, the panel was catching on plastic and he was cracking himself in the face, the ankles with it—

The ramp up to the city became visible, a thin grey line. Then it swelled into a path with lights dotting up and down as animals traversed it, up and down.

How could he possibly make it all the way up to the city without being caught? His body felt trembly and weak and everything was hurting, and they were still chasing him, but when his shoes made contact with the hard roughness of the ramp and the garbage no longer sucked his paws into it, he realized that he might be home free.

"That's our panel!" He heard the leader scream, terrifyingly close behind. "Thief! Thief!!"

The higher he rose, the harder the wind blew. He couldn't see down, it was too dark except for little lights across the dump's surface that clued just how far he'd fall.

Animals and carts and sleds stepped themselves out of the way, and only toward the side of the ramp with support. Siddy ran on the outer edge. He didn't know if his paws would continue hitting hard hotcrete or if he'd find that his next step was just air and he'd find himself falling. He could still hear the animals shouting after him, less close, but also certainly less encumbered. The wind pushed and pulled at the panel. He could see the turn at the very top where the ramp disappeared into the bridge. It glowed with the rapid blink of shadows and the lights of thousands of vehicles, reflecting off of concrete pillars in multicolored blooms.

It was so far. He was hardly a third up the ramp.

A heavy gust gripped the panel like a machine and then ripped it from his paws. The panel flew into the darkness and disappeared immediately.

He was on one paw. Off balance.

His shoe tried to make contact with the ramp.

But it didn't.

 

[vigneashley]

Siddy remembered every instant of the fall.

The first pain was the fear in his chest and in his paws, even as he felt like he floated through nothing. Vertigo and weightlessness and a deafening wind were all he could sense. He caught a single glance at the landscape of the dump as it flew up to meet him, pitch dark and dotted with lights and life, before he hit hard, and everything from his skull to his shoes suddenly went numb and painful at the same time, and then he couldn't see anything anymore.

But he could hear. For one moment, while his lungs tried to take the air back into his windless body, he could hear footpaws as they gathered around him, murmuring, concerned, scared, surprised by the sudden crash when his body hit the garbage hard enough to pop multiple bags and send a gunshot sound across the waste.

"Gods and Goodness—"

"What was that?"

"What happened there?"

"Someone fell!"

"From up there?"

"Who saw what happened?"

"It's a mouse!"

"It's—"

Siddy awoke several hours later.

He didn't get to experience the immediate aftermath of his fall. If he had, he would have seen the worried crowd gathered around him with their lights, some saying to go get help, some worrying about who would pay. A healer passed by during the night. After poking his ribs and legs and paws a little and looking into his pupil with a high beam flashlight, the rag-clothed, squinting, bespectacled squirrel said that he was sleeping and needed to rest and left him laying there. Siddy also didn't see the mice gang gather close by. Not until he woke up in the morning.
He could barely open his mouth. He felt sore all over. He turned, and then the sun shone full through his eyelids and he blinked gingerly.

He lifted his paws toward the sun. He wondered if he was dead.

Then he tried to sit up, but that hurt too much. Something took his shirt by the sleeves and pulled him upright. When he stopped cringing at whoever pulled him up, he saw the mouse with the acid scars. She leaned over him, looked at him concernedly, and waved a paw in front of his face. "Still alive, then. Good. You surprised us, you did."

He glanced behind her and noticed that the rest of her gang was waiting patiently. Even more scrap filled their bags to bursting, this time, a mix of parts, pumps and modules, surgically removed from under the hood. Most of the gang looked at him curiously as they leaned against their haul. Siddy couldn't believe his eyes. He still hadn't gotten away.

Siddy's adrenaline lifted one last time. He tried to get to his feet. Everything hurt to move but he managed to roll forward to get to all fours. He had to get out.

"Woah. No running for you, mousey."

"I'm sorry—" Siddy gasped. He started to stand. "Just take the panel. I'm sorry."

"Well, the panel is ruined enough now," the other mouse said disappointedly. She patted him roughly on the shoulder. "After a fall like that. Sad shame. But that's not the point. We're not going to hurt you," she said.

"What?"

Under the scars, the mouse gave a tentative smile and stayed seated even when Siddy managed himself upright. He tried not to fall back over. His head spun.

"A mouse with that kind of luck is precious. You survived a fall from the ramp. Not a bone broken. You're a lucky mouse, that's what you are, and I think I'd like you along with us."

Siddy's heart slowed. He glanced suspiciously at the scarred mouse.

"I'm Chamomile," she said. She extended a paw.

"Siddy," he said, taking it and giving it a single shake. He stepped to the side and glanced around warily. The ramp rose above them distantly. He looked up in disbelief. "I fell from all the way up there?"

"You did," Chamomile assured him.

In the daylight, Chamomile's scars took on the hue of bleached pink plastic. Her eyes were clear, but the scarring around her face gave her mouth what looked like a permanent frown. Despite that, Siddy could see some form of attempted kindness on Chamomile's face. He tried to apologize.

"I'm sorry for stealing your panel."

"It's okay. You said you were hungry. Are you still hungry?" She dug into the large pocket in her apron and pulled out a shiny foil square of Malto.

Siddy could hardly believe his luck. He ripped it from her paws and tore it open and scarfed it down.

"How long has it been since you last ate?" She asked him disdainfully.

Siddy choked on starch dust. He coughed out that it had been days.

"Well. I won't give you another square. We're all going up to the city now that we're done ripping that car apart, going to take a day of rest and relaxation. We're going to have a real meal, first. You're coming with."

Siddy stopped chewing. He barely managed the word, "With?"

"With us."

Siddy's mouth dropped open. Crumbs tapped onto the garbage bag below.

Then he closed his mouth. He narrowed his eyes. "Why are you being so nice to me?" He asked.

Chamomile rolled her eyes. "Because we almost killed you. So as a favor, you can scrap with us from now on. As long as you work. You been scrapping long?"

"Only a season."

Chamomile wrinkled her scars. "It shows. You haven't learned the lesson. Scrap mice are only strong when there's a lot of us. So you want to be with a lot of us, or do you want to keep trying to haul up scrap by yourself?"

Siddy thought for a moment. He kept shifting from side to side, looking distrustfully at the rest of the gang as a few stood and wandered cautiously closer to greet him.

Chamomile smirked. "Maybe after a wash and a meal you'll figure it out."



***



In addition to Chamomile, there was Bobba, Tisdale, Veg, Runt-Pint who wore an oversized round hat, a very orange Altogustus, Efffour (with all three f's), another Bobba affectionately nicknamed Bobba Two, Pinchtrap, Ingoramus, Silt, Raja, Nexter, Nectarine, and Upsala. Siddy had no idea how to remember all those names. To him, they were all mice with different coats and scrap-woven clothes, and they all looked at him funny, and had nearly killed him already.

Chamomile was their obvious leader. She shouted orders and got everyone in a line with their heavy packs balanced on their backs, with the exception of Siddy, who was allowed to carry his own bag with most of his belongings still inside. After a slow, breezy march up to the very top of the ramp, they reentered Nuu and stopped at the wholesale recycler. Siddy watched jealously as they handed over pumps and rods and pulleys and the rest of their scrap poured onto a scale. The artificial intelligence running the stand brayed the payout.

"Eight-hundred-fifty-three-point-two-one. Credits."

Siddy jumped as the response brought cheers from the gang.

"Do you know what this means, you little rats?" Chamomile shouted at them.

"Soup! Soup! Soup! Soup!"

He suddenly found himself pushed along and half-carried as Chamomile led the way. She directed them down a hatch into the undercity, and after a winding odyssey, Siddy found himself on the last bench of an eatery, with a bowl the size of his head sloshing in front of him. He stuck a fork inside and lifted it out, and gasped at the sheer volume—and quantity—of starchy, savory noodles, chunks of fowl, rehydrated greens, more than he'd seen on his own plates in ages. While the rest of the mice chatted and ate, Siddy stuffed his face until there was only broth, and then, with his eyes closed, tilted the bowl up and drank and drank and drank, until there was nothing left, and his swollen tummy could have worn the bowl as a hat.

And from there, eyes drooping, belly full and body warm, he finally relaxed. He folded his arms and then put his face down and started to fall asleep, but the one next to him, apparently Runt-Pint, gave him a friendly poke on the shoulder.

"And what about you? All we know is your name and that you can't die—so what's the rest of the story?"

A dozen inquisitive mouse faces leaned in the same direction at the eatery's bar down to Siddy. He curled up tighter.

"My amma and appa sewed clothes. That was our jobs. But they died," he said.

As if that explained everything, Chamomile's mice all nodded and chirped understandingly. "We're all orphans too," Runt-Pint said. He was a particularly small spotted white mouse with the broad-brimmed cap. His ears were tucked inside. "Mine died on the dump field, though, a mover drove over when they was in the middle of an excavation."

"My appa died of cut infection," said Altogustus, who was a jowl-cheeked gold and orange mouse with small ears. "Amma went to go find medicine but didn't come back, so…"

"That's enough!" Chamomile gave Altogustus a jostle. "That new mouse is supposed to be luck, but you know what's bad luck? Talking about the dead!"

Altogustus blustered and pushed back. "Come off it, Chamomile. How's we supposed to get to know a mouse if we can't say anything true about ourselves?"

"Save it for a time that we're not celebrating," she said. "You've brought down the whole mood. That's not what luck's about, is it, Siddy?"

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't do anything to be lucky."

"Well if he's an orphan like us, maybe he's not so lucky," joked Runt-Pint.

"Don't let that be true," warned Chamomile. "Your membership with us is all because you're a lucky mouse. You're going to be the one leading us to the next big haul, right?"

Siddy didn't answer.

He looked at Chamomile with a hard stare. She stared back. Her dark eyes went narrow.

Runt-Pint belched out, "biiiig haul!" to an explosion of giggles.



***



"With everything we made, we've got enough for our own sled," Chamomile said, pointing at a rough plastic board scrawled on with wax sticks. She was half-crouched in the middle of the gang's home, a single room at the end of what was once a condominium built in the depths of the undercity. The drywall had long been removed to eke out a fraction more of space, with tables and chairs and boards and planks stacked into a perilous bunk-bunk-bunk bed. Vertical panels divided each bunk into several compartments, and each compartment was now a bed, and there was one mouse in each compartment. The ceiling was low. It had a lot of holes.

They watched her scrawl numbers on the board, though some mice were close-eyed and already trying to sleep. Siddy found that his pillow fit perfectly into his new cubby and that laying curled up on top of it was enough to drop him into just as much drowsiness as the others. He watched Chamomile writing and talking through a foggy layer of warmth and sleepiness.

"We have enough to keep rent for fourteen days," Chamomile wrote more numbers. "And we have enough Malto for the same. If we buy a sled, then we can carry more up the ramp, and we can sell more. Urghit Doublezero says she can give us a sled for five hundred, but Nestico from the village says he can build us a better one for eight hundred, and I know for sure it won't break."

"Not unless we do to it what we did to Siddy!" Upsala squeaked from the other end of the bunk-bunk-bunk. The mice who were awake giggled. Siddy felt his heart spike at the thought of the fall, and then, after a mouse-paw reached around the divide and gave him a friendly bop, he mildly relaxed.

Chamomile frowned and moved on. "What does everyone think?"

"I thought we had more credits," Bobba Two said. "Eight hundred this morning and almost a thousand last night, and we can only get rent for another week?"

Siddy's eyes opened. He leaned forward out of his cubby and looked at the other mice and studied them. They were dressed in similar rags as him, mismatched clothes, different sizes, holes and burn marks and rips and scuffs and grease. Their faces were all thin, like his. He had a sinking feeling.

"This is true. Only another week. But now we have Siddy, and he has his own bag, and once we get that sled—" Chamomile tried to finish, but Bobba Two interjected.

"If we have only two weeks rent, then what's going to happen when we hit another dead streak? Last one was three weeks. I'm just saying, I don't think we're ahead enough to spend on a sled."

"I'm tired of Malto," one of the mice said from the other end of the bunks. "What if we bought a pot and a burner? We can make noodles, right? And then it's our own soup!"

"Water costs too," another mouse reminded that one. "Plus greens and all the other stuff."

"I just wish we could have another thing with some bird in it—"

"I love when we get soup."

"I'm hungry again."

"How we gonna pull a sled if all of us have full bags, huh?"

"And that's if we get full bags, I thinks we was just lucky to find the car."

"Shut up!" Chamomile waved her arms. "Everyone shut up!"

"We keep growing the gang but then it's just more mice to feed, isn't it?"

"I hated how hungry we was during the last dead streak—"

Chamomile shrilly screamed. "Everyone! Shut! Up!"

Siddy shook his head. He crawled out of his cubby. He took his pillow out and put it into his bag.

The other mice quieted down and watched him. Runt-Pint stuck his head out of his cubby. The hat was rumpled from him sleeping with it on. "Oh. You're leaving already?"

Siddy nodded. He zipped everything closed.

"Why?" Runt-Pint asked, innocently. "We have a better chance together, you know."

"I just don't want to be hungry anymore."

Chamomile scoffed in disbelief and matched his tone. "So you eat a big lunch from us, and then you want to go when we start talking about work and surviving together." Her scars reddened. Her expression hardened. "Get gone, then. We don't want no mice like that."

Runt-Pint waved at her to quiet. He turned back to Siddy. "What are you going to do, anyway?"

"I don't know," Siddy said. "North Star. Anything but scrapping."

A few mice made little 'oh' sounds.

"North Star?" Chamomile's voice immediately softened. "Siddy, you don't want to do that."

"Why not?" He asked, impudent. "There's food. That's what matters."

"Siddy, you don't want to do that job, I promise," Chamomile said again, this time slowly. The rest of the mice were silent. A couple nodded. They watched him closely.

"Maybe I do. Maybe I want something more than to scrap and—and dig, and run and—and—and die—just because I'm scared to starve!" Siddy started sniffling. "I just don't want to be hungry anymore. I just don't." He shouldered his bag, and made it to the door. Once his paw found the handle, he turned and faced the mice one last time. He yelled.

"And you know what? You should have let me just take the panel. I worked it off of the car, fair and square, and then you almost killed me dead! I owe you NOTHING!"

He stepped through the door and slammed it shut behind him. He heard Chamomile shout from behind the closed door. "Good riddance! We don't need you! We don't need more mice who—wait—stop—stay inside—"

The door opened and a gaggle of mice wandered through the door. Siddy didn't even make it to the front of the condominium before the other mice took hold of his sleeves and bag and surrounded him while they tried to convince him to stay. Their voices made a cacophony.

"We used to be five a while ago and we was hungry but when we got Altogustus—"

"Come on now, you don't want to go out for a job like that, right? It's dangerous, isn't it?"

"Siddy's gonna be a real proper sea rat!"

"Don't forget about us!"

"We'll pull sleds like a team, see, we can save a lot by—"

"What were you saying? They just give you food?" Bobba, the first one, looked excited. "What do they give you? Fish, because it's a boat?"

"I could eat anything I wanted," Siddy said, feeling marginally silly that he was pretending to know. "There's signup pay. Or something. Five thousand, and I can buy whatever I want."

That made the mouse gang stop trying to convince him of anything.

"Five… thousand?" Bobba gasped.

Siddy felt all the paws trying to pull him back let go. They gathered closely, with the exception of Chamomile and Runt-Pint who hung back, looking worriedly at the rest of the mice from the doorway. Even if they wanted to speak, they couldn't stop the rest of the group as they processed the number.

"Five thousand? Just to sign up?"

"We've never had more than two thousand between all of us—"

"How many mice is us?"

"Five, six, seven, eight—"

"I'd eat an acrylic tile for fifty."

"Do you think they have soup on boats? They might just scoop it outta the water and boil it—"

"Eleven. Twelve. Okay. Now, five thousand plus five thousand… oh, no, that's—"

"We're not twelve now, we was thirteen last month and then we got Silt and—"

"Sixteen times—"

Chamomile gasped in realization.

"Eighty thousand if all of us go."

She covered her paw with her mouth. And then she suddenly looked angry. "No! We're not going to sign up, we're not going!" The rest of the room was tittering. Nobody had listened to her.

"Chamomile," Runt-Pint whispered to her. "That's enough to buy a whole condo unit. A whole one. We'd just have to pay the monthly fees, and we could rent out rooms—"

"No! No!" Chamomile started shouting. "It's dangerous! They do this, every season they do this and tell the animals it's two thousand, now three, now five, and for what? Most of the animals never come back!"

"We can do it, Chamomile," Runt-Pint looked up to her from underneath his hat. It settled backward and exposed his fierce eyes. "If we all pool everything together, we can do it. And then we might not need to scrap. Maybe… maybe we can…"

"I don't want to be hungry anymore either," said Efffour, quietly. It was the first time Siddy had seen her speak. She stepped next to him, faced everyone else, and then folded her arms. "I want soup. I don't care if they just take a scoop from the ocean and boil it. And I want a fresh, real fish once before I get old."

The rest of the mice, excepting Chamomile, gathered by Siddy.

Chamomile looked deeply unhappy. Her scars were dark. "This is a big mistake," she said. "None of us know what kind of things they'll make us do."

"At this point," Altogustus said, eyes closed, looking wise from behind his cheeks, "the things they'll make us do don't seem so bad."

 

[vigneashley]

The recruitment kiosk was inundated with animals. The line extended in a broad swathe that spilled outside, but inside, it was a packed room with only an AI interface behind bulletproof glass. The sixteen crammed inside, Chamomile in the very front. She stared at the AI's analog screen in disbelief.

"We need to bring our own weapons?"

"Thankfully, that is not necessary," the Agent clarified in a croaky, scratchy voice. "But, while all ammunition is covered, a personal arm is required by all recruits according to North Star Policy. You will either need to join our Lease-to-Own Program or return with your own personal arm before six PM."

"Aww!" Altogustus mimed spitting. "It's a scam! This whole thing's just another debt scam!"

"No it's not," Chamomile said, frazzled. "Oh… It's going to cost a lot, looks like…" She looked at the numbers on the screen and tried to make sense of them. "Three hundred base each, probably for junk… at that interest… by the time we'd finish our contract, it would take a full thousand out of each bonus, so that's—"

"Well, it's not a condominium no more," Altogustus grumped and shuffled toward the back of the line. "Sheesh. No use doing it if there's no condominium."

The AI tried to mention that they could sell their guns at the end of their contracts, but it was quickly overpowered by everyone's worried grumbling.

"Can you see if they charge for food too?" Efffour called from somewhere in the middle of the pack. "Maybe they're lying."

Chamomile thought out loud, eyes squinted shut. "I think we have enough, together, to buy five or six weapons. Maybe more if we buy smart. If each weapon saves us six or seven hundred by the time our contract is over, then we should be able to return with enough to figure something out."

"Do you think our landlord would give us any rent back since we're leaving early?" Runt-Pint cut in. A gale of mouse laughter was the only response. Chamomile shut that down quickly.

"If you mice don't shut up I won't be able to concentrate!" She shouted. "Good thing I'm reading this too, otherwise we would have been out a fast thousand, each!"

"It sounds like you're still deciding!" The AI croaked cheerily. "Please exit the kiosk to allow others through the line."

"Fine. We have plenty of time." Chamomile took the first paw she could find and started pulling it toward the exit. The space was so small and so full of other animals that the mice stepped over shoes and between legs to get out. When they were all gathered outside, with Siddy standing just out of their circle, Chamomile started to read a black-and-white pamphlet she'd swiped from the kiosk. "Here are the basic requirements for your personal arm! Let's see… yes, yes, fully functioning… size four animals… size two… size one. Here we go. The following models are approved. From BookerThallas, all arms. From Nerco, the PE-WE1 through 5, PE-WR2AR2… Oh, this is absurd. I'm not going to trust you all to remember these. Listen up!"

She looked over everyone one last time to make sure they were still listening. She pointed at the nearby pawn shop. "I'm going to deal with these merchants and get us the cheapest thing possible. Maybe they have certain models in bulk." She turned to Siddy. "Do you want a gun?"
Siddy didn't look at her. He was turned away from the rest of them, looking into the kiosk.

"Look, you clearly don't want to do this with us," Chamomile accused. Her scars were red. "So if you're keen to go sign up by yourself, do it."
Siddy shrank. He looked at the group and then at Chamomile. "I… I just didn't make any of the money you all have. I should just lease a gun."

Chamomile nodded. "You're right. It's our money. Goodbye." Then she turned to the rest of the animals. "I might only be able to get us pistols. Is that alright?"

Runt-Pint stepped outside of the circle. He was shorter than Siddy. His hat only made it up to Siddy's nose, but he looked up at him with certainty. "If you stuck with us, would you want to join us in our condo?"

"He doesn't want to be with us," Chamomile said, folding her arms. "He just wants to eat. He doesn't care about others."

"That's not true," said Runt-Pint, searching Siddy. "Is it? You do care about others, right? You'd stay with us and help us out, right?"

"No, he won't!" Chamomile shouted. She glared at Siddy and then suddenly pushed him back.

"Look at him! He's on his own for a reason. He doesn't care even if someone feeds him, he'll just turn around and do whatever he wants for his next meal!"

Siddy regained his steadiness and then lifted his chin. He stared at Chamomile and didn't respond.

Runt-Pint tried appealing to everyone else. "We're all here because he thought this was a good idea, and then we thought it was a good idea." He stepped between Chamomile and Siddy. His little arms extended between the two, creating space. "Chamomile, you're here with us too, aren't you? Because it's a good idea?"

But Chamomile lost it. Her scar flared red hot and she shouted loud enough for animals all over the crowded streets to turn and watch. "No! It's not a good idea! It's not a good idea at all!!"

The rest of the mice started to argue all at once.

"It is too!"

"She's right. We should keep scrapping and avoid these scams!"

"Come on Chamomile, we can't do any better."

"I'm only signing up if everyone else does!"

"If we sign up, we're all going to get killed," Chamomile insisted. Her voice was trembling. She was visibly shaking. It seemed to affect everyone else, and they went silent. When she realized they were finally listening, Siddy included, she started on her tirade.

"You mice don't know nothing. Nothing about the world. Most of you have never even left Nuu, and not a single one of you got fed because you decided not to listen to me. Right?"

She glared around at the rest of the mice. Slow nods answered her.

"We got together because of me. And I've made sure we got to eat, most of the time, because I have the smarts, and I have the knowledge, and because we all worked together doing what I said. I want a condominium too. I want to not be hungry too." She started to calm down. Siddy watched most of the mice hang on to her every word. They stared at her with wide, adoring eyes.

"If we do this, you're all going to listen to me. You're going to hear when I'm telling you something because I know, because I want us all to make it. Working for any security company isn't easy. And lots of animals don't come back. Right? So if we all want that condo, we all have to make it to the end of our contract, all together, nobody dead." She glanced at Siddy suspiciously.

Runt-Pint nodded. "Let's all hang together, then!"

The rest cheered.

"Together!"

"Let's do it!"

The mice crunched close and formed a huddle with Chamomile in the center, gathering their assent.

"It's a three-year contract. We might get into fights. Are you all sure?"

"Yes!"

"We're going to be shot at. We're going to go over deep water, probably. There's storms, and waves, and… and probably pirates."

"Phooey on pirates!"

"We'll fight them!"

"If I get a good meal before I'll fight just about anything."

"Three years to our very own Condo? Let's go! Let's go right now!"

Chamomile and Runt-Pint turned to look at Siddy. Then the rest of the mice joined their stare. "Well?" Runt-Pint asked, cheerfully. "You want to join us for real?"

Siddy felt a foreign wash. Something cold and something hurting in his heart. They fell into an ugly pit in his stomach. But above it all, there was this fluttering in his chest. Something was shaking and pulling him forward.

Chamomile was looking at him with an expression that was difficult to read. Her eyes were soft. Her face was hardened. Anxiety and worry covered her as she broke the stare and looked over everyone else, a whole gang of short, thin mice, already starting to drift toward the street. Siddy had a sense that something was slipping out of her paws, something he hadn't even grasped yet. The longing in his chest hurt.

The pain grew to bursting as Runt-Pint took him by the wrist and started pulling him with the rest of the group.

Chamomile shook her head, turned, and led them all.

"No time to waste, then. Sixteen guns, for sixteen mice, and then we'll get signed!"

 

[vigneashley]

Luckily, the pawn shop had several dozen BookerThallas Mk1A's in a bin behind the counter. They were stubby little pistols, built for mice, with a tiny standard magazine that carried five rounds. Their plastic casings were held together by bits of tape and glue. Chamomile made sure to give Siddy the gun that looked like it went through a chipper.

Since they couldn't afford holsters, most of them tucked their guns into their pants or overalls, but a few, like Efffour and Altogustus, held their guns in paw and drew stares as the gang crossed the street and went right back to the kiosk. When it came time, Chamomile had everyone ready. "There, there, there," Chamomile pointed at different sections of the screen to help the mice that couldn't read so they could sign their names. Over half the mice placed X's on each line. When each mouse was done, they would step aside, take off their hat if they had one, and get their picture with the crowded kiosk as the background. With that done, a steel door in the corner would buzz and open to receive them deeper into the building. One by one, the mice signed their contracts, got a bright flash in the face, and then stepped out of sight.

Soon, it was only Chamomile and Siddy. "Do you need me to show you what to do on these docs?" She asked, gesturing at the input screen.

"No," Siddy said. He signed everything quickly. He didn't look at her, but looked the camera in the eye before the flash. It blinded him.

Once upon a time there was a little mouse.

You are good. Be good.

He pushed the thought away.

Then he went through the buzzing door. Inside, everyone was in another line, filing one by one into an exam room. Soon he was in front of a squirrel in scrubs who gave him a look over, tested his arm mobility, then felt all around his skull for soft spots. It felt like the squirrel was trying to squish his head. "Do you still have all your toes and claws?" The squirrel asked, looking dead-eyed and bored. "Just say yes."

"Yes," Siddy said.

"Alright. You're cleared, then." The squirrel opened a final door which opened into the alley behind the building. The group was mostly there, along with an entire throng of recruits in several species. Everyone was chatting excitedly. The sun was still high up. Siddy felt the sun coming through in beams through the skyscrapers. Soon, Chamomile joined them, then the shuttle came and gathered them all up. It drove with overeager speed to get to the port. The city of Nuu passed by the windows quickly. Some of the mice cheered as the shuttle made turns and blazed down throughways and as the opposite traffic whizzed by, but once the vehicle hit a rocking start-stop close to the port, their faces started turning green and miserable.

"Is this what a boat is like?" gasped Efffour. "I'm going to pass out."

"Just think about the condo," someone said as they patted her head.

Soon, the port came into full view. Outside of its walls, Nuu descended as a long slope that fed toward the ocean. The familiar view of the wide-open water and the towering structures of the port shifted as they drove not past or around, but into it. Soon, hotcrete structures and metal frames towered over them, formed loose bridges that the sun shone through. The ships at port formed scattered rows over a marina whose walkways spread like mesh over the water. The shuttle parked at the far end of the port, where the nature of the ships changed. These ships were sleeker, like blades. They loomed far overhead, full of professional looking animals wearing white and blue, or, intimidatingly, black and blue.

The shuttle bore down on a boardwalk gridded with recuits, all facing one direction, their bags at their feet. They were all rags and wondering looks. The shuttle came to a stop. The shuttle doors opened with a hiss, and the smell of chemicals and hotcrete and warm water flooded inside. The shuttle driver turned around, grinning. "Everyone out!"

From the first animal to eke past the shuttle doors, there was shouting outside. Siddy saw the first to dismount running toward the grid of animals, and then the next, and the next, sprinting with their bags toward spots marked with tape.

"Form up! NOW! Pick a tape, drop your bag, and face the ocean! NOW, MAGGOTS!"

The line moved quickly. By the time the first mouse Altogustus made it onto the shuttle stairs, before he could set paw on the plastic of the wharf, there was an otter screaming at them all. Siddy saw Altogustus scurry faster than anyone had moved in his group so far, and then Silt, and then Chamomile, then Bobba Two and Bobba one, and before he knew it, he was hopping down the stairs, and there were fangs gnashing in front of his face.

"HURRY UP! FASTER!"

The otter was vastly taller than him and everyone else. Siddy didn't even think that he was the size of her arm. She wore battle gear. While the sailors on the ships wore stark blue and white, she wore black and blue, covered from neck to boot in slots and pockets and with weapons of all sorts within her reach. A machine gun, complete with jingling bullet belt, was strapped to her back. A duo of hatchets sat on either hip. Knife handles scattered across her. A sleek black submachinegun in a plastic holster jostled on her thigh. She was practically roaring at everyone that dismounted.

As Siddy sprinted toward the open spaces, he saw Chamomile frantically trying to herd everyone onto the same cluster of tapes. "Stick together," she whispered harshly, glancing over to the otter while it forced more newcomers to cower and sprint. "Come on! You! There! You, right there!"

Soon they were all in place, and the otter rounded onto everyone gathered. About a hundred animals in a perfect grid suffered her screaming as she went up and down the rows, denigrating them, calling them names, calling them scum and filth and poor stupid bastards, sometimes to their face, her sharp teeth clicking in front of their snouts.

"Do you know what you've signed?" Siddy tried to keep still straight as the otter thundered behind him. He could feel the air shuddering. Everything she said was with a coarse, hateful tone that ground against his eardrums. He had the sense that it was the only voice he'd be able to hear even if someone were firing a gun by his face. "It's a perfect little doc that makes you OURS. You hear me? Your souls, your guts, they all belong to us, and therefore, you belong to me! When I say run, YOU WILL RUN! When I say jump overboard, you do so! When I tell you to run straight for a gun and to kill the bastard holding it, YOU'LL KILL. Understood?"

A chorus of 'yes sir's and 'yes ma'am's was immediately punished.

"I'm no SIR, I'm no MA'AM," she bellowed. "I am Crew Chief Orida, you will ALWAYS call me Crew Chief, and I'm about to make you remember it forever! Everyone on their hands and knees!"

Siddy collapsed onto his hands and knees along with mostly everyone else. "Yes, Crew Chief!"

"Push ups! Now! One! Two! PUSH MAGGOTS!"

While the new recruits suffered in the sun, a great ship pulled into the wharf. It was a steely gray, with the painted North Star logo emblazoned over the side in stark, razor-sharp white. Siddy, wheezing, arms and little body burning, caught a glance of the hull where the logo sat. It bulged out, and was riveted in place. While from afar the logo would have looked like a convenient point to set one's sights, the truth was that it was a thick shield, plated on top of the hull, and designed to act as a false target. The whole structure hummed with energy. The water churned along its sides and behind as it drifted into place. Steel cable the thickness of pipe dropped and coiled, with sailors using machines to get the cable tied around the anchors. The cables resonated with deep tones as they stretched and cinched.

"What are you looking at, you pathetic excuse for a shrew?" Orida's boot suddenly blocked Siddy's view. He craned his neck upward.
"DON'T YOU STOP!" Her voice thundered over him and he couldn't help but start to shrink, until her boot tapped, or rather, smashed, him in the snout. He went back to pushups, the whole of his snout and farther in feeling like it had popped. Suddenly he felt like he'd made a horrific mistake, but the shouting over him was too fast and too terrifying to allow him to get up. Orida seemed to read his mind.

"In case anyone has any last regrets, there's no way out of your contract, except by finishing it out—or death!"

Her boots made heavy, stomping steps up and down the rows.

"Deserters will be hunted down by collections agents and even legal authorities, if I haven't found you and strangled you first! Remember, every last drop of time you owe us, we'll get it! By the blood of every one I've killed so far, I swear I'll personally rip up the guts of whoever wimps and runs! Understood?"

The shouted reply was unanimous. "Yes, Crew Chief!"

"Get up! Everyone up!"

Siddy managed to get to his feet and saw that the rest of the group was struggling. Efffour was crying, red-eyed and glancing around helplessly. Runt-Pint's hat was on the ground, and his eyes bugged while he wheezed for breath. Altogustus didn't quite make it upright before Orida found him and started pushing him around with her boot. "Everyone up the ramp! Except this one!"

Siddy saw the ramp unfolding at the rear of the ship. The recruits started jogging in a chaotic mass toward it. The mice with him kept glancing back, worried, while Altogustus in a little orange heap tried over and over to get back up while Orida pushed him down, turned him with just the toe of her boot, forced his helplessness to remain.

He didn't want to remain in Orida's sight. He rushed onto the ramp and climbed its steep incline, reaching up to hold the rails. He felt thankful he mostly couldn't see over the edge of the ramp.

The changing height and the slow bobbing flex underfoot made his paws ache as he thought about his earlier fall. As he made it close to the top with everyone else, he looked down to the distant boardwalk and saw Orida lean over, pick up a trembling Altogustus by his scruff, and then push him toward the ship.

Then the otter turned toward Chamomile, who waited at the ramp's base.

Even from way, way up, Siddy could hear Orida's harsh voice.

"This pathetic rat yours, scar-mouth?"

He could see Chamomile straighten and say something back. Her gaze was locked on Orida, tiny chin lifted, her paws balled into fists. But he couldn't watch any longer. A large white paw grabbed his shirt and then pulled him onto the deck of the ship.

 

[vigneashley]

Siddy was lifted off his feet. The white paw gripped him and hauled him over the corner of the rail where it met the ship and he could see a brief glimpse of All The Way Down, where the steep wall of the hull shrunk toward the tiny floor of the wharf. It looked so small, so very much like a plastic panel floating on a drainage pond.

By the time his shoes met the deck, his legs were paralyzed and he collapsed into a slow heap. Siddy felt the painted steel under his palms. It felt solid, not at all like a heaving ship on water. He'd heard about sea legs and found having land legs, even scared ones, seemed to work just fine as he got up. A snowy white rabbit face suddenly took up all his vision and its paws grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a shake.

"Wakey uppa! Ho, this one scared of heights!"

Mercenaries, hundreds of them, circled the recruits. The black of their uniforms was stark against the empty blue sky, and without exception, all these animals looked big and mean. The newcomers found themselves studied and accosted by horrors from worlds away. There were rabbits, like the white one, with rings dangling from the tips of their ears and gold-filled holes drilled into their teeth—squirrels who'd shaved sections of their tails, animals missing eyes and clawdigits. Even the few uniformed mice were stout and had evil, wrinkled smiles on their tattooed faces. The far ones leaned casually on rails and crates and jeered. The close animals started prodding.

"What the hell is this lot?"

"Half em's mice!"

Siddy felt claws from all around poke and jab at him until he heard a voice boom across the polished floor of the ship. It was powerful and sure.

"Form up! Recruits in a line before the bridge!"

Siddy broke free. He sprinted toward the open square before the rail. The bridge sat high above it in a tower whose stairs ringed it. The bridge glass was like an emerald. The sun sent streaks of its color over the gray of the deck.

The captain, a gray rabbit with a creased frown on his face and a boot-length blue coat, looked down at the new animals as they formed a ragged line. One paw held the rail in front of him. Behind him, it was eerily, perfectly silent and his bridge crew was still.

The captain gave them one calculating look before speaking in a nearly conversational tone.

"Welcome. I am Captain Harkiss, and this is the Myrmidon."

He spoke slowly. Not a word was hurried.

"I much prefer hiring at a slower pace, and in treating you all with the necessary time to train and direct you to the fullest of your abilities. But unfortunately, there is no time. Our ship is called on campaign and we will be visiting just one more port before the fighting starts."
Some of the recruits glanced at each other.

"It is possible that you signed on expecting differently, but as stated in your contracts, you are obligated to help us with ours. In this case, we are off to the abandoned continent, and our objective is a pirate, or perhaps warlord, internationally known as Ruddigh the Red. We will achieve this means by invading his port, and then killing him. Our contract is not fulfilled until the monster is dead. I tell you this to prepare you."

The recruits shifted uncomfortably. Siddy suddenly felt small. Even smaller than he'd always been.

"This endeavor, the one we're about to meet, may end in three days. It might end after three years. It's likely we'll see several months of fighting before the end is done. It is entirely possible that many of you will be killed. The rest of your comrades are no stranger to it. Go on. See."

Siddy looked around. Behind them, spaced like the tape markings, there was a grid of animals in uniform. Each animal stood at attention, chests squared, faces lifted.

There were a number of gaps between them all.

"Now, face me."

Like the captain were a god, Siddy turned and looked up at him. The sun was hot. Sweat was dripping into his stinging eyes.

"Here is what I will offer you. I will do what I can to keep you out of unnecessary danger. I will reward you with bonuses and spoil. You will not go hungry under me if I can help it, I swear to it. In exchange, you will follow all my orders regardless of reason or conscience or sense. Finish out your contract, and you will get your bonus as thousands have before you, on top of the excess of every day of pay, on top of your loot, on top of whatever else you've saved. I've seen a great deal of poor rats come out like kings by the end. So do what I say. I shall not lead you astray."

The captain lowered his head suddenly. The brow of his cap covered his eyes. "How shall we keep you alive if you're to fight in mere days?"
His paw went to his chin and he was silent.

Siddy glanced sideways and saw Runt-Pint's hat peeking from behind a mole's dark nose. It was shaking.

The captain scratched at his chin. He turned toward the edge of the deck. "Orida!"

"Aye, captain!"

"We shall need ammunition carriers for the amphibious portion. Turn these beasts into such. I don't care how you abuse them if you make it possible for them to survive." And without so much as dismissing the rest, he disappeared off the deck, deep in thought.

"Yes, captain!"

Siddy let go of the breath he was holding and then half froze as Orida started barking orders once again. Everyone scattered around him. He felt remarkably dizzy. He suddenly wanted to throw up.

"All squad leaders on me! Recruits line up here! Everyone else back to your work, and stay the hell out of these recruits way! Don't want you gumming up this perfect machine with your filth! Get down below, you—"

He managed to stumble into the line as Orida circled up about two dozen leaders and made clear, sweeping chops delineating who joined who's squad.

The brief break allowed a few mice to clam up close. Most of their attention went to Altogustus.

"Altogustus!"

"Altogustus, are you all right?"

"What happened?" Someone asked.

"I just couldn't get up," Altogustus whispered to the side, staring petrified toward Orida. "And she just kept pushing me around—telling me she was going to throw me overboard once we were out of port—then Chamomile—"

There was a wave of gasps.

"Where's Chamomile?"

Siddy spun around to look for her. She wasn't behind Orida. It wasn't until some more mice started to point that he noticed a bobbing plastic pink dot at the edge of the ramp, where Chamomile was struggling, doing push ups, collapsing, then getting up and trying again and again—

"Ohh—"

"Oh no!"

"Guys! She's coming back with them—"

They straightened up, petrified, as Orida's boots thundered closer. Even compared to the mast that rose straight up into the sky, she cast a shadow that blocked out the sun as she got close enough to tower over Altogustus. She put her massive paws on her knees as she leaned in. "It looks like your friend is still pushing."

Altogustus trembled.

"I told her if she stopped, I'd follow through. It looks like she cares about you—why?" Orida's face was no longer drawn with teeth, though she still had the remnants of a snarl. Her eyes were a pearly black.

The mice were silent. Siddy glanced around and saw their mouths clamp shut tight. He figured he should do the same.

Altogustus was vibrating. His eyes were popped wide and he was chattering as he spoke. "I—I—d-d-duh—"

"I order you to tell me, right now," Orida threatened venomously. "Why would she do this for you?"

Altogustus blurted it all out. "Because we—we were all signing up together—and she's—she said she'd—tuh—tuh—"

"Take care of you."

"Y-yes, crew chief!"

Orida nodded while a few squad leaders chuckled. "A rat's nest. I knew it."

She stepped back. "This is good. At least they'll work together." She turned toward the distant ramp. "Hey! Scar-mouth! I'm making you my personal ammo-carrier. Get up and get over here."

Siddy could hear Efffour gasp while the rest straightened in surprise. Orida rounded back on them like a coiling snake and then gave her last orders down the line.

"The rest of you will be split to replenish squads. Your squad leaders will find you in a moment, so listen otherwise. Every time the ship calls eight hour and sixteen hour, you will present yourselves on deck for training. Your meals are at nine, twelve, and eighteen. During the rest of the time, you will be under the direct command of your squad leaders. They'll decide when you sleep and what duties you'll be assigned. You will direct all questions to your squad leaders, and they'll be the ones to report to me. I'll have no nonsense aboard this ship. I've cut off limbs of some early as day one, so you'll watch your paws and pockets. Understood?"

"Yes, crew chief!"

"Squad leaders!" Orida turned toward Chamomile, who was gasping for breath, arms trembling, hunched over. She gave her a callous push with her boot. "Stand up straight. Listen close. You're going to keep up at all times, do you hear?"

A thick white paw clamped Siddy on the shoulder. It was the rabbit from before—with glaring red eyes that looked like they might have been made of fire or a rusty ring of blood palates. He'd suddenly appeared in the midst of the recruits, took hold of Siddy, and then gave him a jostle. "Ey! This one with the heights, eh?"

Siddy ducked out of his grasp. "I—I need to find my squad leader."

"It's me, ya lucky one." The rabbit smiled down with a mouthful of gold and black iron. There were so many rings on the tips of its ears that they jingled when he cocked his head sideways. "Remember? I'm the one pull you on deck since you want to play lookout! Whole company punctual, ya hear? Come on."

Siddy was surprised that the rabbit didn't simply drag him away. Instead, it loped off, trusting him to follow. He glanced around for everyone else and found that they'd already split toward all ends of the ship. He and Runt-Pint met glances from across opposite corners of the deck. Runt-Pint waved before turning away and following a duo of otters that carried long missile tubes around their back. Orida was overlooking them all from the rail, and a very tired, very small looking Chamomile, scar pale, stood in her great shadow.

The rabbit took a stairwell down an open hatch, and the light across the sun-lit deck disappeared and was replaced by dim diodes under opaque refractors. On this side of the ship, Siddy could feel the whole thing rocking in slow ebbs under his shoes. The rabbit's bootsteps rang through the floor, and after going down several more stairwells in a completely straight line following the hull of the ship, they made it to an individual vehicle bay.

It was an open space, just barely. A speeder boat resembling a missile hung on a downward slope toward a closed portal, and behind it, an 'apartment' glowed with bauble lights.

"Ya got just a smidge time afore training, so in the meantime, ya gonna meet me and Tello and the Guppy." The rabbit whirled inside over Siddy's head and slapped at a hot water dispenser. "This for water." He pointed at a rack tray stuffed full of snacks and wrapped with plastic netting. "That for the king Tello, don't eat." He swung down and stood on one hand as he opened the refrigerator, which was the only thing holding up a precarious table. "Lookie. Top shelf king Tello, middle shelf mine, you get the ledge under." He turned into a open limbed star and cartwheeled out into the last remaining vertical space. "And here the bunks."

Just beyond the splintered and sloppily assembled crate that served as a kitchen, there were three berths built into the wall.

"Guess which one is yours. It's the one gone get wet first, aha!"

Siddy dragged his stuff to a stop before it. It was darker and smaller than he expected, about the size of the pod. There was also no rail or ledge. It ran flush to the floor. If he were to roll off the side of his 'bed', he'd simply keep going. And then he'd hit the slope. And then, if the portal was open—

"Oh, this yours too." The rabbit pulled out a flat sleeping mat that had functioned as a curtain for his bunk.

Siddy took it and tucked it inside. "Thanks."

"So no name? No who you is, no care?" The rabbit shrugged. "Aish. Maybe not a great example here, I am—" He took up a stance on one leg and demonstrated the still image of a flying kick. "Coolguy. Potwalker."

"That's not his real name. Don't listen to him." There was a groan from underneath the rocket boat. A billowy scarlet tail appeared and pushed this way and that as a goggled squirrel, striped with coal-colored grease, climbed out of the pit.

"And in case there's any misunderstanding, he's not your squad leader, I'm your squad leader. The name's Tello Lampicus, call sign Guppy. This here is Vex, or—or Vans, or something. But he insists you call him that ridiculous name." He stuffed his claws into a pair of welding gloves as he looked Siddy up and down. "Oh. This isn't ideal, you idiot! What am I supposed to do with one this small? Make him hold my pliers?"

"I didn't pick 'em. Twas Orida." Coolguy sauntered into the kitchen and pulled the crate lid open. He pulled out a fistful of golden foil squares. "You got snacks yet, little mousa? I lift this last season and still gotta so much—"

It suddenly occurred to Siddy that the whole bay must have been the size of the room in the gang's condo. With two larger animals and the rocket inside, the space felt more like a hole.

"Well, if you're what we have, that's what we got, but I'll tell you now this whole damned company's going to hell if this is all we can scrape up. No offense." Tello unfurled his plastic roll to get to one of the snacks inside. It made a deafening crackle. Siddy was suddenly peppered with Malto packets. Coolguy Potwalker then stepped over him, nodded respectfully, and climbed into the middle bunk with the control of a spider.

Tello crunched on chips from a silver bag. "You've joined a very interesting little unit, my mouse friend. What's your name?"

"Siddy," the mouse stammered.

"Siddy? Alright. Good. Siddy." Tello threw up his gloves. "Another one-named mouse. Probably can't even read, can you? How am I supposed to keep everything—" he giggled. "Functional—if they send me illiterates who can't—"

"I can read," Siddy said, face hard.

Tello suddenly dropped his tone and asked, happily, "can you? How well? You can read a manual right? Look at pictures and follow instructions?"

Siddy nodded.

The squirrel rejoiced. "Oh, thank Goodness. And you can probably reach some more of the tighter crannies, can't you? Very well, I suppose we'll welcome you. Welcome to Guppy Squad! And this is the Guppy," he said, slapping the midsection joint with his glove. "Mostly bulletproof plating. All hydrogen. Jets on every possible angle, the kind of thing that can fly for a few glorious moments if I get the proper momentum."

Tello smiled. "And, oh boy, it'll launch you out the top."

"Wh-what?" Siddy gasped.

"How funny. A one-name mousa that reads." Coolguy twisted a long pasta noodle, uncooked, between his teeth. "Oh. Yeh. We in the boardin' business, my little mousa friend. Tello here fly us to some boat or beach or place and toss us aboard. An' we make do. Big bonus for it." He closed his eyes. His earrings glinted as he settled deeper into his bunk and started to snooze.

"Yes. It's definitely one of the more dangerous jobs, but no less rewarding," Tello nodded sagely. "But I of course, can say that from the perspective of an owner-operator. This is my Guppy, you see. And because this Guppy is mine, I reserve the right to pull myself out of any situation according to my own better judgment, if it's to preserve the value of my craft. You'll get there one day. You'll see," Tello balled up his chip bag and tossed it at the closed portal, where a pile of plastic foils and other garbage was accumulating.

Then he thought for a moment, and gave Siddy a pitying look. "You'd better get ready for hell. It's sixteen hour."

Coolguy Potwalker scoffed from behind curtains. "How the hell you know—"

The klaxon sent off a piercing mark through the ship. Siddy raced out the door, faced the stairs, and started the long climb.

 

[vigneashley]

For three hours, Orida made them do shuttle sprints across the deck. Every time someone slowed, she'd charge them and start screaming in their face. Every recruit, from the moles and squirrels and rabbits and hedgehogs to even a bulky sea otter, was smaller than her.

When everyone was thoroughly exhausted and had dropped, she whipped a baton out of a slot on her forearm and started jabbing, telling them they were getting shot, telling them they weren't under cover, telling them that now they were missing hands and limbs and that their livers were mince. "When you're getting shot at, there's no room for exhaustion! Get up!" The ship departed the port during the exercise, and everything took on a rolling heave that dropped unexpectedly and left Siddy feeling weightless and panicked and falling until the bow started to lift all over again. By the end of it, he'd puked several times and contemplated throwing himself overboard.

The port grew further and further away. Nuu, which stood like a great heavy cup over the shale hills, turned to a thimble, and then a speck.

The training wouldn't end. Their evening meal was postponed, by Orida's command. For three more hours afterward they learned to load and reload guns and magazines of every possible kind. The first lesson, explained by Orida, was easy. "If you point one of these guns at one another, accidental or not, loaded or not, I will take it from your hands and beat you to death with it."

While they worked, the sun went down and was replaced by harsh, glaring spotlights. Siddy's stomach churned with seasickness and hunger both. The whole world seemed to be rolling under them.

They went around the ring of crates, stocking mags and emptying them, clipping bullets into belts, unloading and loading scratched up weapons from the armory with dummy rounds, from shotguns to rifles, from belted chain guns to harpoon launchers and drone launchers and rocket propelled grenades. They were instructed, over and over, to keep their claws off the triggers. "The reason you won't fire these weapons is because you have not trained with them," Orida bellowed. "Reloading is not training. Your role in this upcoming fight is as support for our more experienced employees. You are not a hero. Trying to be a hero will get you killed."

Siddy found that the guns, at least, had a consistent sense to them. Pumps and hammers and releases where claws could reach. Every gun had a trigger. Even the guns too big for mice could be handled if one were to prop one end up on something solid.

During the final hour, while Siddy struggled with the bolt of a rusted longrifle, Orida had the spotlights turn off. She turned on a shoulder light that created a solid beam and skulked the circle while the recruits tried to reload in the dark.

When the light was turned on Siddy, Orida gave him a sharp poke in the chest. "You're dead, mouse! Get that breech closed!"

Siddy yanked it up as hard as he could, and the ejection port finally shut. The end of Orida's baton prodded the top of his head.

"When it comes time, mouse," Orida warned, "you'd better deal just like that. You could have had that gun ready minutes ago, but because you played with it for so long, now your squad mates are dead."

"Yes, Crew Chief!" he bleated.

"Get back to it!"

To celebrate the end of their first day, Orida made them run ten more sprints across the deck. Siddy somehow felt clear by the end of it. Not that he felt a sense of clarity, but rather, that his body was now just a splash of water flying through the air and he was about to disappear in a wet splat on the deck. His limbs trembled. His lungs felt too small and hurt too much.

"Get to the mess! Get off my deck and don't let me see you until tomorrow at eight hour!"

"Yes, Crew Chief!" He felt himself stumbling.

The mess? Like a mess hall? For food?

The only lights left on deck were the orange markers spaced on rails, and a distant trio of red stars marking the tips of the mast and topsail rigging. It was cold. There was a wind blowing across the ocean, faster than any wind inside the city, and it was chilling his sweat. He could see an awful lot of boots and shoes but not anyone's faces for some reason.

"Siddy!"

He wearily looked up and saw Runt-Pint waving from over a couple crates. Passing in front of him, a trio of rabbits started placing the training weapons into crates and loaded them onto a rubber-footed walker. Runt-Pint limped over, tunic soaked with sweat. His hat was similarly wet.

"You okay, Siddy?"

Runt-Pint's voice sounded hollow.

"I'm just hungry." Siddy felt like he was talking in slow motion.

"Everyone's over here," Runt-Pint pulled him toward the group. "I could see you while you were training."

"Oh?"

"You looked so serious! Like you were doing a job and not reloading a killing thing. I thought it was cool. Did you see Chamomile?"

"No, I didn't," Siddy couldn't remember much but the crates and weapons. Because the crates were so large and there were a couple of long, dopey hares on either side of him, and everything was moving so fast anyway, he couldn't see anyone or anything.

"She did them all faster than anyone. I think she knows guns."

Like the entry to paradise, a double door under the bridge went down a stairway into a golden-lit hall packed with benches and animals. The mouse gang gathered just outside. Chamomile was checking them over.

"There you are," Chamomile waved Runt-Pint closer. "Are you alright? Was that you I saw on the ground?"

Runt-Pint shrugged. "I think I passed out. But I'm fine now."

Chamomile nodded, gave Siddy a quick up-down, and then took a deep breath.

"If everyone's okay, then we should go in and get some food. Orida warned me that the seniors might want to pick on us, so we're going to go in as a full group. And if there's any trouble…" she wrinkled her scar in a snarl. "We're all going to dogpile and fight. Together. Alright?"
Mostly everyone nodded. Chamomile stared down Siddy. "Well?"

Siddy looked at the group that now, suddenly, seemed like it was encircling him.

He swayed. He could hardly think and he could hardly move. The rest of the mice looked like they might have felt the same, but they had little smiles and looked at him expectantly. He suddenly felt very small and very ashamed.

But before he could open his mouth, Runt-Pint threw an arm over him and started pulling him toward the mess hall. "Come on, Chamomile. He's with us until he says otherwise."

"Let's go get some food!" Silt, the tiniest of the sixteen, pushed her way to the front of the group. Her tiny puffer jacket still had a couple sparkles left, glimmering as she went straight ahead. The rest of the group clustered, Chamomile at the head, Silt circling back after one good glance at the source of the great noise coming from inside.

Siddy went down the steps with Runt-Pint. Every few steps, he could feel Runt-Pint's paw on his shoulder. "Sorry," he heard. "I'm really dizzy."
The mess hall was brightly lit, with golden diodes that shone straight down from the tallest room in the ship. The floor was packed. And the crowd was hooting.

"Here they come!"

"Fresh meats!"

"Hail the conquering heroes!"

Chamomile tensed ahead of the grouping. Everyone else started bristling, as if they were readying themselves to leap off the steps. Siddy's heart started to punch the inside of his chest as some of his senior employees got up from their benches and approached.

"Not another step, you grunts," a rabbit with his flappy sleeves unbuttoned held up both paws. "Goes for ALL you new ones! First thing's first for every fresh fool to join up, is the grog!"

"THE GROG!" Was the great cheer from the entire hall. The sound was so powerful that Siddy and the rest shrank back, falling onto the stairs. Then there was an overwhelming wave of animals, getting up and crowding, pushing dozens of recruits into a ball. They were swept away.

They crowded up to a triple-dispenser and a wall of plastic mugs. Uniformed employees rushed mugs into their paws, full of a sparkling green. It was so full of bubbles—the carbon dioxide started to sting Siddy's nose as soon as the cold, sloshing, overfull cup was placed in his paws.

"Drink! Drink! Drink!"

Siddy tipped his back—all the recruits were bug eyed as they guzzled it—sparkling and spikey and not unlike licking a fresh battery—their ears were deafened with cheers and the lights above them glowed so golden. It was sweet… Sweet and so cold and scratchy and cooling down his throat—and he could immediately feel himself feeling alive again. It tingled even after a swallow, sweet like berry flavor and stevia extract and just a bit of sodium, his guts now burbled and felt warm and he could feel his whole face warming up and then his paws and then his shoes. He tipped the mug right back up and heard the cheering get louder.

Then they pushed him into the food line.

It was chaos. He could reach his tray but he couldn't see what they were putting inside, not exactly—he could see the ladles. Then there was a bowl on his tray. Then also a wad of paper napkins in his paw along with a spork-knife. There was a loaf of something tossed on top of a growing pile—and all these sauces. The tray was full of food, he knew that, but he was being pushed from behind along with everyone else and then he was at a table crammed elbow-to-elbow with Runt-Pint on one side and a loud mole who was swaying and crazy-eyed on the other.

But even the yammering mole didn't matter. Siddy stared for a blissful moment where all sound left, and all he could see or feel was the heat coming off of a steaming pile of cheese pasta, next to which was a crisp green sprouts, a powdered rice cake with peanut sauce—complete with singular peanut, a trio of fist-sized meatballs dressed in red, three-beans soup, and a cube brownie, on top of which was a pinch of multicolored sprinkles. He started to squeak out loud as he pushed at the leafy sprouts and found even more foods underneath.

"That's your electrolytes," the mole shouted over the din of the great hall, jabbing at Siddy's mug. "Several dozen herbs inside too, all kinds of extracts, all your adaptogens, all your vitamin needs! Give it a year, this stuff'll turn you into a real mouse, no offense—you look like you didn't get no zinc nor copper…"

Every bite was different. His spforknife zoomed from end to end. Leaves like ice. Meatballs that burst with juice. The peanut sauce was sweet and salty, and someone shook a container of garlicky red flakes onto his pasta—the thick cheese clung to his spork-knife and he didn't even see the loaf of bread until just then, bigger than everything else and invisible for that reason only.

Bliss.

There came a point where Siddy started to slow down. It was like he could finally tell where he was. He felt his eyelids dropping, but the mice started to talk.

"I feel rather good about this," Altogustus spoke up with his hands on the table. He was looking up and toward nothing in particular. "This is wonderful food. And I don't think Orida's going to throw me overboard anymore. I think I was good at the guns."

"What happened to you, Chamomile?" Someone called from the other side.

"I can't believe you got stuck with Orida," Silt's teeth chattered. "I'd die. One step on me and I'd just die."

"It's okay. She's mean, but my bunk is really nice." Chamomile wiped her mouth with a sleeve, suddenly looking very proud of herself. Her scar was a mellow pink. "She said I have leadership potential."

"Ooh!"

"Crew Chief Chamomile!"

Chamomile's face fell, then. She looked at her food.

Everyone else went quiet too.

Bobba Two said it first. "I don't want to die."

Siddy suddenly felt sick and watched everyone's faces fall.

Runt-Pint exploded. "Me either! All day they kept telling me that I was shot and killed or that my friends were dead."

"Ehhhhhh—"

The mole leaned over several mice. His crazy eye seemed to look at Siddy directly. "None of that talk now. Ya won't die." He hiccuped. "Most of you. Harkiss is a good one, a good captain, probably the best in the company. He'll always treat you fair. I'll also have you know that among the North Star Fleet, Myrmidon's got the lowest casualty rate."

"How do you know that?" Runt-Pint asked.

The mole turned his crazy eye to Runt-Pint, grinned, and ignored the question. "How long's your contract?"

"Three years," Chamomile spoke up.

"Oh, oh ho!" The mole laughed and slapped a club-like paw on the table, popping their trays and mugs upward. "That's far, far longer than I expected! Those terms are for repeats! Now, why would they want as many animals as they can for as long as they can? Unless—" He hiccuped, raised his eyebrows, and made a popping noise loud enough to indicate a medical issue.

Then he got up, and waddled off.

Chamomile stared after him while she ripped apart her loaf of bread, then turned on the gang. "We're not going to die. We're going to live. There's a lot of older animals here, see? See how many of them have been doing this a while? Sure, there's casualties, but—but I think our chances are good. For one, we're small. That makes us harder to shoot, right?"

Someone spoke up from the other end. "And Orida said so herself, that we work together, and that must count for something."

"If you're working with Orida then we can probably learn whatever she teaches you, right? She's going to like, teach you things, right?"

"I don't know," Chamomile said honestly. "She mostly told me to move faster."

"I think it's obvious what we need to do," Runt-Pint said. He leaned over and poked his finger on the only empty space on the table. "We need to promise each other that we're going to look out for each other, like we've always done. We might mostly be in different squads now, but right now we train at the same time, and we eat at the same time. Maybe during the fighting, it's the same, and we'll look out for each other, right?"

Everyone nodded.

Siddy felt a churn of squeamishness as he thought about Tello ejecting him onto some pirate deck by himself.

"Do you think our squad mates would help us too?" Altogustus asked, tips of his paws together. "I mean… if… if we're hurt and none of us are around… what's going to happen to us?"

It was quiet for a long, difficult moment.

Chamomile stood up on the bench. "If that happens, I'll still do everything I can to save you. I promise."

"I promise too!" Yelled Pinchtrap from far down the bench.

"Me too!" Ingoramus, then Silt, then Bobba Two and One, and then everyone else, including Runt-Pint stood up on their benches and put paws toward the center.

"I promise to save all of you."

"I won't need it but I'll save you, sure!"

Siddy saw Chamomile looking at him. Runt-Pint jostled him by the shoulder. "Siddy," Runt-Pint said, "I promise that if things get crazy out there, and you're in danger, and I can help you, I'll do it. I promise."

Siddy felt petrified. He held out his paw. "I promise too," he blurted.

But then there was a dark thought.

That when the bullets started for him, that he would do what his body demanded and run. And if he was faced with the choice, of getting hurt to save any of these mice, even Runt-Pint, he could feel the evil truth gnawing inside that he would run, that he wouldn't stay, that he was a fool for joining this and that he was a coward.

And then there was one more thing. A memory. Black and choked with smoke. A shape real or imagined of a helpless form in the great fire, reaching for him.

Chamomile stared at Siddy's paw as it united with everyone else's. She gave Siddy one last suspicious glance, and then relented. "We're stronger together," she said, turning to everyone else. They huddled in a circle, mice standing on their benches and on the free space of the tables. "In a few days, we'll fight together, and we'll look out for each other. This is the promise we're making. That we're going to walk into our own home someday. Together, no matter how dangerous it gets. I love you all."

On hearing that, Siddy's heart started to race and hurt and everything seemed to go numb and foggy.

There was a fire in his vision.

Crawling up through the scaffolds, until he forced the thought to disappear. Like he were holding back some beast from breaking through the door, he braced himself, and strained, until it disappeared, and he was left in a place that was dark, but quiet.

When everyone got up to go to bed, he left too, not talking, not thinking. Runt-Pint might have said goodnight. He found the hatch that went to the Guppy bay, went downstairs, pushed Coolguy's limbs out of the way as they hung obscuring his bunk, and then settled into the compressed dark. The mat was thinner than the one in the pod. But at least it wasn't cold. Not exactly.

The blanket inside his berth was thin. He reached out for his bag and pulled out his oversized jacket. He wrapped it around himself, one and a half times, and fell into an aching, trembling sleep.

 

[vigneashley]

They trained for three days, most awake time spent on deck under the hot sun. There was no time to mindfully worry—there was only time to train, to guzzle water from great barrels, to stuff one's mouth during timed meals, to collapse in one's bunk, to go back up for training, to do sprints, to crawl exhausted through the wash and dry tube and then to drop in the bunk for the night, to sleep like the dead, and then to do it all again. Even the brief moments where everyone was free to linger in the mess hall were spent with their minds fried and their talk only about the most important things—how to avoid Orida's ire, whether anyone was being singled out by their fellows, and what sort of tough bastards their squad leaders were. And they all sounded tough as nails. Killers all, except, maybe, Siddy's own squad leader.

For Siddy, every spare iota of energy outside of training went to learning about the Guppy, learning about its basic anatomy from the hydrogen tank just behind Tello's seat, to the propulsion jets that studded it like warts, to its twin scout drones on either side of the glass bubbled cockpit, to the swimming fins and to its singular torpedo. Tello demonstrated how Siddy would need to crawl out of his compartment—a literal cubby with a seatbelt—over a dead or incapacitated Potwalker and Tello and assume the controls. If it came to that. Up. Down. Left. Right. Faster. Slow and stop. Try to steer toward our ship, if you can see it. Touch nothing else. Especially the optibauble. Even if it's practically in your nose.

As if he'd blinked, the three days were over, and he woke up early to the klaxon sending chipper bleeps through their compartment. All hands on deck.

The sky was a smothering, opaque black, and the few stars were faint. Siddy could feel the humidity, and that smell in the breeze—what was that? Plants? Dust? Old, ancient plastic? The sea was calmer too, the ship rock small and barely noticeable. When he got up and made it to his formation position on the right side, halfway back and close to the rail, a supply mouse hefted a plastic-wrapped cloth square at him and told him to put it on.

It was his uniform.

The mercenaries gathered. The formation was full. No more gaps. Mostly everyone was quiet in the pitch dark. The recruits finished buttoning and zipping their suits. Jet black. Blue stripes along the collars. The cloth was stiff and cold.

Sleek ships emerged in the dark. As the sky lightened at the farthest edge of the sea, a fleet—an armada of boats, appeared around them, gathering closer, all sailing toward the same inky mass on the horizon. The wind blowing through was dry and cold.

Captain Harkiss emerged from beneath the emerald of the bridge.

He gave them a terse speech from the rail.

"I'm sure not many of you know the legend of Ruddigh the Red. There are a great many things said about him. Some of the worst things are true. And some of the things we have just learned are worse."

"I know our board avoids contracts like these, and for good reason. Fighting in pitched warfare for governments and Sio is costly and benefits no-one, much less our valued employees. But this fight isn't merely employ. We are here to stop a dangerous threat to life and trade, and to enable the free movement of product and food from the Abandoned Continent. He's done enough damage, and killed enough that it is our moral duty to join this fight and to stop his getting any more powerful. This monster has somehow laid claim to this land and the port, even naming it after himself. The ones that fight for him have grown numerous enough to be called an army of their own. Their predation on the trade lanes has given them weapons and supplies. The timeframe of their predation indicates that they are by this point, experienced and more than capable of defeating standard protective measures.

"But all this talk of his army isn't to diminish this Ruddigh. He seems as dangerous as an army himself. He is an augmented creature, from what sort of operation and by what willing souls, I do not know. His arm appears to be of sophisticated technology, and what we've gathered from previous attacks, he uses it to deadly effect. He is, perhaps, the most dangerous single creature I have ever heard of across this earth. This Ruddigh is a demon."

As the color in the sky started to change, he explained their strategy as all the captains across the waters did for their own sailors. In just one hour, this gathered armada would storm the port, destroy Ruddigh's army, and kill the beast dead.

 

[vigneashley]

Siddy only realized now that Potwalker was telling him it was time.

That a rhythmic clicking started playing over the speaker systems of the Myrmidon.

That the last few days were over and he had been awake for hours, that he'd already crammed his breakfast in the form of a gaggy gel square while rushing crates from Supply and shoving them into every iota of the Guppy—

That guns now crackled in the distance. Flashes like gentle glimmers on the horizon if not for the noise. Pops that turned to long blending chains of machinegun fire strafing over the waters, from land and sea both. And then there were heavier things, cannon that went VOK! VOK! VOK! That little boats swept ahead in formations toward the dark strip filling the horizon—

Before, he'd hardly had a chance to say anything to anyone—just a circle-up after the speech and—what had Chamomile said? Now looking fearsome, the scar mottling with white and furrows, her uniform—all their uniforms making them feel so magically strong—

"We're sea rats now, you understand?"

Runt-Pint with his chest and belly out, chin up, hat now tilted, smirking boldly.

Altogustus huffing with eyes wide, his brand-new holster in printed acrylic blue bouncing on his hip—

Efffour was tapping her cheeks, looking up, looking around with rolling, scared eyes—

"What's that sound?"

Drums.

The clicking across the speakers turned into the heavy and relentless drive of drums, deep and thudding through Siddy's chest. The sound of bagpipes started in a wheeze and then blared, rising into a full and deafening chorale.

The first volley fired all at once. The deck of the Myrmidon dropped out from under their feet and rocked and some of them lost their footing—Altogustus rolled past Siddy and scrambled up as the squad leaders returned to gather them—to go—"Let's go! Let's go!"

Siddy saw a glimpse of the mole standing on top of the bridge—the old one, with the crazy eye—the one from their first dinner, the bagpipe clutched under his arms and blowing furiously—microphones in cables flowing off of him like a cape—

And Potwalker was right there in his face, teeth glinting with sunrise—telling him it was time!

"Lessa go, mousa!" Siddy was pushed headlong, scrambling down the stairs and into the bay—somehow just behind Potwalker. "Putta this on—" The com crammed in Siddy's ear and he could hear Orida's voice, fuzzy and loud and overpowering. Even through the cannon volley that cracked his eardrums.

"—our part of the plan is simple! Myrmidon and our sister ships are assaulting the south beach! We are the second wave! Wave one is already ahead! We are the right wing of this operation and will act as such, providing logistical and kinetic support into the port once the beachhead is secure. Get on that beach, and prepare to assault through!"

"Putta this on, mousa!" Potwalker handed him a harness, steel framed, and Siddy climbed into it, even though it dug into his back. The rabbit was wrapping himself in ammunition, jostly bags full of shells and magazines and a bright red medkit strapped to his legs and torso.

Tello's tail was thrashing outside of his cockpit while he stuffed a desperate handful of malto and handgun magazines into the last free cranny. The glass shield bobbed and threatened to close on him if not for his glove punching it back open, but once he saw them, he circled into his seat, started banging on the edge, and shouted—"GET INSIDE! WE'RE GO IN TEN—NINE—"

Siddy leaped inside and curled up inside his cubby with the seatbelt. Potwalker grimaced at the sheer pokiness of the crates magnetically attached to every iota of internal space, and then pulled himself inside like an octopus. He tried closing the door. His shotgun barrel stuck out by a fist-width. He tried tugging it inside, turning it around, pointing the end directly at Siddy as the weapon clattered and banged against all the equipment. He cursed, smashing at the stock with the door while Siddy panicked.

"You stop that right now!" Tello's voice was shrill through the Guppy, which, from the inside, revealed itself to just be a claustrophobic tube with an engine. "Pull it inside, you dolt! THREE! TWO!"

"Aighta kill you—King Tello!" Potwalker snarled and chucked the shotgun behind him—out the open door, just far enough to land on the ledge behind them. He slammed the door shut. The sound of the bagpipes disappeared completely, and all that was left was the sound of scared breathing and the boom of the cannon—

"ONE!"

Tello flipped a switch on the dashboard.

The whole machine suddenly popped awake, and lights strung through the cockpit and cargo and transport niches turned on like stars—the portal ahead of them opened with a groan, heavily ratcheting up for a look straight down into frothing water and waves that lifted all the way up—and all the way down—and there was a fountain of all Tello's garbage dropping from the slope and—

"Aw! Hellas!" Potwalker pointed at his long-barreled shotgun sliding off and immediately disappearing into the depths.

Tello pulled a lever. "Disengage!"

For about a single horrible second, nothing happened. Siddy sputtered. "What does that—"

Then they dropped.

All together.

The nose of the Guppy slid and then angled straight down as they slid off the ramp. Siddy thought that he'd fall onto the seatbelt since gravity was turned that way, but instead, with the drop, he felt himself rising off of it and floating—like off the ramp—floating—

Until they hit the wall of water.

He crashed into the seatbelt and felt it crush at his chest and heard Potwalker smack his head and curse again as they were engulfed in dark ocean and then—

The engine kicked in, and Siddy found himself slammed back into the cubby, and Tello whooping—

They were speeding along a rising sea floor. Underwater. Once the squirrel finished cheering by himself, it was quiet.

Ship hulls descended from the surface like they were mountains growing down instead of up. Submersible craft were dropping into the water beside them and ahead, leaving clouds of bubbles in trails. The Guppy groaned around its seams, and then buoyed up to the surface, and then there were flashes coming from far ahead, and noise! The booming resonated and made more of the craft rattle than Siddy expected—and they were hit by a sudden pop of bullets, like droplets, across the hull. He scrabbled in the cubby, unable to breathe, the steel walls too tight—

Angry chimes and clicks came from Tello's bright interface screen. Though, it was hard to even tell that was happening because of the rattling, the jostling, the bouncing. Siddy felt weightless and then he was slammed into the base of the cubby. Then he was weightless again before squishing and then weightless—they were bouncing across the waves—drones in a thick blocky grid sailed overhead, a cloud of dots against the dark sky.

"There's a support beacon beyond the beach!" Tello screamed. The controls violently spasmed in his gloves as if it were trying to shake him out of the tube. "Big firefight—I'm going to drop you there!"

Siddy saw just a glimpse of the landmass coming up—with the dark of the morning giving way to layers of red over a treeline smoking and splintered. Something hit the glass with a crack so loud he thought it had to be his skull—

"Drop us BEFORE IT!" Potwalker roared back.

"Hold on!"

He could see the land, now, rushing up against him, swallowing up the dark of the night with unknown shapes of rich blue and green. The trees towered far, far overhead, the burned brush like jagged black lightning. The beach was soft pink sand, smoking and cratered, and there were little black forms running up the beach, and—

And little black forms looking red and laying down.

Tello's gloves were battered this way and that as he tried to get a hold of the controls again—

"I bloody mean it now! HOLD ON!"

The Guppy skipped off the surf and onto the sand.

It bounced with a crash against the earth. Siddy banged his head. Tello somehow managed to grab on and heaved the handles back, and the engine spat hard enough to launch them into the air, practically into the sky, over the first layer of treeline toward the little red triangle blaring out of the screen.

Siddy watched the ground fly up at him and he screamed and covered his face—

Tello deftly yanked the controls in a twist. The thrusters surrounding the hull of the Guppy fired in hissing alternation to turn it right side up, and then to plop them down. Siddy found himself trembling uncontrollably as the doors popped open with a puff of vapor.

Gunfire cracked around them. The space where Tello set them down was surrounded by more-or-less undisturbed shrubs. Their leaves blocked out a lightening sky. Tello was motioning in a panic. "Go! Go! Go!"

Siddy leaped out. The air was cool, but bullets were hissing and trees were crackling, loud. The cannon boomed over the beach, just out of sight, and he could hear animals rushing through the brush, yelling, and then jaw-rattling blasts of gunfire. He dropped to a crawl and covered his head.

Potwalker slid out and yanked a couple crates with him. He popped them open, took a peek inside, and then pulled out a short, black shotgun and a double-barreled repeater. Then, head low, he picked up one end of the other crate and gestured at Siddy. "You. Carry." Then, sternly, to Tello. "I want the drones ahead."

"Absolutely not. Hurry it up!" Tello hissed. He kept himself pressed up against his glass as he looked out for anyone coming.

Siddy braced himself as Potwalker, grumbling, brought the small crate close enough for it to magnetically clamp. Each crate hummed with static until the magnets pulled it, sure as strapping, onto his back. Potwalker reached into the Guppy one last time to pull out an especially long crate that he balanced, like the bar of a T, over Siddy's stack of cargo.

Tello hit a button and the doors of the Guppy closed. He gave them both a wave through the glass, wished them luck on the com, and then waved at them to stand clear. Potwalker pulled an unsteady Siddy over into the depths of the bush. From its trunk, and with sand and brush flying at them, they watched the Guppy flop in the dirt until it was vaguely pointed back in the ocean. Then, with a thunderous blast, it lobbed itself back over the treeline and disappeared. It bounded away in fading thumps.

"Friendlies engaged three hundred animeters past the treeline." The crisp voice of Orida sounded over the com. "Charis, Guppy, Needlenose, form up on my marker and assault East-Southeast toward the beacon. Second wave will be right behind you."

Potwalker's right eye suddenly glimmered with blue. Siddy could see the map on his iris, gritty and blinking as the rabbit glanced around getting his bearings. He pointed into the darker wall of the jungle, where the trees were thick. "Les' go." He crouched, and moved forward slowly. He sent off a birdish click with his eyes wide and his head swiveling.

"Wh-what happens when the shooting starts?" Siddy stammered. "I run back, right?"

Potwalker stopped moving.

The rabbit's red eyes turned and raked over him. "You can get down, but no runna. Potwalker need you around. And maybe Potwalker need you use that gun."

Siddy choked. For the last three days, he envisioned himself running ammunition up and down clean lines—not shooting—somehow there was a smaller chance of dying if he wasn't up there shooting—

Hissing all around them. Siddy threw himself down and smashed into the earth. The rabbit smiled with teeth as he clamped against the trunk of the tree. His mouth reflected more light than his fur. There was the THOK!—of something hitting the trunk above them, and a shower of splinters. "As you see!" Potwalker shouted jubilantly. "The shooting's already gone going, mousa! It don't stop till they or you all dead!" Bullets flew by, around, ahead, over them, cutting shreds and holes into leaves and peppering them with chlorophyll snow. "Stay down, mousa!"

Potwalker closed his glowing eye, perhaps winked it, and then scooped around the trunk in a wide curve with his repeater at the end. It rattled with a high pitched ringing and sent bullet casings in a font from both sides, while the brush sprayed apart.

The gun was an inaccurate mess—but the rate of fire tore a cone into the forest. Still firing, Potwalker leaped away, more galloped, and the brush and saplings melted alongstride him until the gun clicked, mid-leap, and he disappeared into a hill of bramble.

Siddy was trembling on the ground. The hissing above him had stopped. It stopped when Potwalker first started firing, and didn't seem to come back. He was huffing with his face in the soil. It was full of sand, full of tangles of acrylic, dried sticks. A lot of it was stuck to his nose.

"Mou-sa!" He heard the call from the brush along with the click of a new magazine. "You alive?"

"Yeah!"

"Stay there, ya lucky one. Gotta checkem."

Potwalker popped out of the brush, straight up, took one quick circular look, and then disappeared down again.

"Yaish." The voice was disappointed. "I wonder where he go. Ugly one."

"You saw him?" Siddy sputtered. Then his eyes boggled. "You missed?"

Potwalker bobbed slowly back up again. He kept scanning the trees. "Our team, Orida has them coming to us. Don't shootem."

The com clicked with new voices, sudden breathing and the external hiss and pop of bullets. As if on cue, there was a flurry of blustering jets—with animals strapped to them—flying as if out of the canopy. And bounding animals on extended exo-legs like stilts, mostly rabbits. Their black uniforms and half-familiar faces filled Siddy with a rush of something like—safety?

It definitely wasn't safety.

"Spread out—" Potwalker hissed at them. "Saw he face, right there."

Needlenose squad was five squirrels and a mink who floated through the air—and out of sight into the brush—with hydrogen rockets blasting white under their raised-up boots.

Charis squad had flexing, long-limbed exo-legs made of railed steel. The motors attached to their backs were mounted on a frame that curled around their bodies like claws, and from which guns and boxes of supplies were mounted. The closest one, a golden-eyed rabbit, brown fur like matte soil, took a glance at Siddy hiding partially behind a tree and scoffed at Potwalker. "Out of all the boarders, you're the only one who gets an ammo carrier?"

Potwalker gave a leering smile. "And how'd you use it huh? You'd have to carry 'em, wouldn't you?" The rabbit shrugged at them as they dispersed sideways through the brush.

"Assaulting through," grunted the com.

"Moving."

"It's not looking good up there," Orida scratched through the com. "Everyone's gone quiet. Assault through and build us that FOB. Good luck." Siddy found himself running after Potwalker and the rest. They slipped easily through the brush while he stumbled over branches, bumping the wide crates against every growth. Soon they were completely out of sight, and he was running wildly, but terrified, at an agonizingly slow pace. The air split and sliced with sound. There were explosions in the distance. He could feel them through his feet and in his chest.
He could hear Potwalker's repeater ringing wildly ahead. Sharp blasts of gunfire told him where to go. As he collapsed and scrambled into the shelter of a large root, someone started to scream across his com. The volume dropped to a tiny percentile automatically.

"I see him!" Someone shouted.

The top of the bark across the root sheared off and went flying over Siddy's head. There was more shooting. The ringing repeater sang and Potwalker started bellowing. A rocket screamed through the air close by.

"Friendlies sighted ahead, watch your fire—"

"I think I got him! I think—"

There was an explosion—a tree trunk blitzed into splinters and the rest of it moaned, crashing through the canopy.

"Hellas!"

Siddy crouched and covered his head as the tree suddenly peeked over the root from his vantage, and then fell over him in a thunderous crash. The dense branches drove into the earth, lifting him, and dirt sprayed up as it narrowly missed his little tail and sealed him into a groaning cave, around which, rained pine needles. He was sputtering for air. The air rang with silence, except for distant booms.

"I think I see wave one. Assaulting through."

"See anything moving?"

Siddy shivered, unwilling to move, unwilling to open his eyes.

"Our camera drones are showing a general retreat into the port," Orida said over the com. "Even across the jungle. Keep your eyes open. We'll be on you shortly."

"One alive."

"Two alive."

"Two dead."

"Where that mouse?" Potwalker wondered across the com. "Mousa! Get up here!"

Siddy trembled and shrank deeper into the enclosure. Perhaps Potwalker wouldn't find him inside. But within seconds, Potwalker leaped over the root and filled up the mouth of the shelter that the fallen tree had created. "Aya. This bit thing almost killa you, huh?"

He waited for Siddy to respond. When he didn't, Potwalker grabbed Siddy by the strap and hauled him out, crates and all. "Come on. Building time."

"Four dead."

"Three dead."

"One alive."

Siddy found himself dragged and occasionally lifted off the ground as he tried to push himself along with his feet. He was eventually deposited on a slight sandy rise, where Charis squad had dropped dozens of crates. One of the rabbits had dismounted from his exo-legs and was ripping the crates open, grabbing fold-out panels and setting them up like ramparts. Potwalker dropped Siddy in the middle of it all and then started yanking the crates off of him, except for the long one, which he stuck back on Siddy's gear like an oversized boxy antenna. Instead of close bullets, the air clacked with guns and erecting tripods, and crates popping open with the gasp of sterilized medical systems and supplies. A couple of the squirrels dragged whimpering, limp bodies, wearing black, out of the brush and toward the hill.

"Nooorth Star!" Someone was calling from the beachside. Strong and booming over the sand.

Potwalker and the matte brown rabbit called back. "Nooorth Star!"

Dark forms emerged from the forest. Orida, the tip of her machinegun dark with soot, led a broad chevron of troops up to the beginnings of the forward base. Chamomile was right behind her, carrying a trio of crates on her back, and a thick roll of glinting brass bullets in her arms. They met eyes. Chamomile lifted her chin at him. He did so back. Siddy could see the shadows of the rest of the mice interspersed among squads.

Their boxy forms appeared and disappeared through the trees. They scattered across a wide line growing wider.

The wounded were finally dragged in.

Siddy gasped. Animals of every kind. A raccoon clutching his wrist and his fingers at bad angles. Mice searching the sky as they twitched. Their boots made lines in the sand. Their uniforms had ragged little punched out holes where the torn cloth wicked blood. Somehow it made the fabric blacker. And sticky. Some were listless. Some were awake and shuddered as they were dropped into cots and their clothes were cut open by troops with white armbands. Siddy tried not to look at the wounds but did. He sicked into the sand.

Potwalker, calling from the high branches of a flowering bush, told him to bury it.

Orida called up the squad leaders, projected a map onto the sand from her shoulder light, and started pointing out positions with the tip of her gun. Through it all, her voice spoke over the com, so everyone could hear. The sun was glowing through the trees horizontally, imprinting Chamomile's shadow over Orida's side. The little mouse studied the map, and Orida, keenly. Gunfire crackled in the distance as Orida laid out the plan.

"We're going to take the wall. There's a series of towers that will give us opportunities to cover the west edge of the Port as we push in. Boarders will ascend the wall and take this entrance of the tower complex—barricade it—to get us a foothold and to draw attention. Everyone else will punch into the wall at ground level, and then take this stairway to join the boarders. I also want explosives set to blow a secondary route into the city. From there, we will push out with wave three and link up with the main force through the port."

Then the squad leaders split. Orida and Chamomile left into the brush. Neither looked back. Animals shouted ready orders. Droids on treads rolled into the camp and hooked stretchers to drag the wrapped-up wounded back toward the beach. Potwalker appeared with another crate. This time, he magnetically locked it to the front of Siddy's harness and opened it up, revealing a glowing hoard of bullets, and a little nook with an orderly stacked pillar of shells. He handed a couple empty double-tubed repeater magazines to Siddy. The clear acrylic was full of looping springs. "Gettem full up again, mousa. I like how this gun feeling today."

Siddy followed and started clicking bullets back into one magazine.

They united with the rest of the boarder squads at the far edge of the forward operating base. Charis and Needlenose stretched in a thin line where trees and bushes grew fewer. The light was filtering stronger through the trees now, and the radiation was warm in stripes and dots across Siddy's uniform.

"Boarder squads. Status." Orida's voice sounded across Siddy's com.

"Up and ready." The golden eyed, brown rabbit's voice was audible. And queasy.

"Ready." The mink from Needlenose spoke with the hoarseness of a wad-a-day-smoker.

Potwalker crouched ahead, just behind the crook of a bush with dried-out, sun-harshed leaves. The trees loomed like skyscrapers. Through the distant brush, Siddy could see a scarred up mass, rising high. They crept forward until its shadow swallowed them up. Potwalker stopped and put his paw behind him in a broad flat barrier to stop Siddy from taking another step. Then he turned around, pulled the long crate off the mouse's back, and unpacked a launcher with a jagged hook at the tip. A coil of steel cabling rolled around the barrel like a drum. Then he took a baleful glance at Siddy, who hadn't even half-filled the magazine yet. "Ready," he huffed anyway, and turned back toward the distant mass.

The sun crested over the edge—of the distant, hulking wall.

Click click click.

Click click click.

"All squads report ready," Orida said, now sounding tense. "Everyone move up. Third wave is right behind you."

Potwalker slinked forward. Siddy crept slowly behind him. The wall grew in his vision and completely blocked out the sun.

 

[vigneashley]

They took up a jog.

The walls grew taller.

Siddy couldn't believe it. The trees and the brush melted away and the wall ahead grew taller, and taller, and taller. It rose into the sky. His chin lifted all the way as he looked at the jagged shadows fluttering over the top. The surface of the wall started to reveal itself. Layers of plastic in faded teals, burnt reds, clear and cloudy white and blue. Black plastic that hulked dully among flecks of scarlet stretched into pink. The whole wall was made of compressed plastic.

In bricks the size of condos, laid out one after the other and stacked to tall points, with buttresses climbing up to towers.

The towers flashed. Sparkles glittered furiously from windows then—

The earth spat dirt around Siddy's feet and a bullet punched the ammunition crate, knocking him sideways. Siddy fell to the earth, gasping and feeling the earth spin.

Keep going! You're dead! Run! Ruuuunn!!

He ran. Sprinted. Jolted forward with the weight of the bullets threatening to send him into a roll. He recovered momentum and ran, like the wind whirling all around the ammo crate and through his ears. It smelled like standing water and the crisp bite of offgas. Gunshots from blurry, jogging figures, close by. Flashes flew up into glowing projectiles that floated into the overhang. It suddenly became quiet.

"One more up top. He's distracted by the port."

Potwalker bolted faster and sped toward the wall, darkening and shrinking with distance. At some point he stopped. He pulled on the end of the jagged harpoon at the end of his gun. It telescoped into a polevaulting spear and clicked secure. He pointed it up. He lowered the gun by limp arms. He swung it back.

Then forward.

Then back. Braced himself with a slight hop.

He swung his barbed gun from below, hard, and the mechanism banged and sent a long spool and the harpoon hook screaming upward. Potwalker watched it settle over the top of the wall. Then he gave the gun a dramatic jerk backward, and watched the cable ripple up. The ripple disappeared.

The line remained.

It slacked, drew slowly in, and as Siddy finally made it up to him, Potwalker wordlessly grabbed him and hooked a clip between Siddy's harness and the cable gun. It drew taut, and then tight, and it started lifting him into the air. Once he started dangling. Potwalker planted his boot squarely on top of the ammunition, and held onto the cable with a plate-gloved hand. The cable rasped through the rabbit's fingers.

The world spun around Siddy.

"He's headed to the edge to look over." Orida sounded so enunciated and calm.

Then Potwalker kicked his harpoon gun to set off the high speed draw.

The harness jerked upward and Siddy couldn't straighten his limbs or breathe, until Potwalker started shooting.

The repeater rang, and hot bullet casings shimmered around them like rain off an umbrella. The wall was passing by, falling down, sinking into the earth. The ramparts came into view and he slowed.

The gun finally reached the end of the spool, and Potwalker climbed and crossed the harpoon using all four limbs before making it on top of the wall.

Siddy hung in midair.

He looked down.

The world was vast. There were so many trees. The ocean spread out and the sun was rising just across the wall. Far off, there were bare, sandy mountains. Green patches. The ruin of hotcrete, hollowed out like disintegrating bone. A dead city.
And down the line of the wall, he could see that the port was spread partially over the waters. Black and gray ships, ships in glaring white, ships streaked with hazard yellows and oranges, in a tight cluster, forced through the middle of the bay. Their guns coughed and the explosions Siddy heard earlier were sharp in his ears. Docked ships, hundreds of civilian and commercial ships, filled the rest of the harbor. The allied ships formed up in lines along a main dock using pontoon bridges and ramps. Their formations spread just outside, some working along the bottom edge of the wall.

The wall was a great monster in and of itself. Even from the very top. Siddy felt himself hovering over nothing. Surprisingly, he didn't feel much scared.

Not until Potwalker pulled the harpoon upward so that Siddy swung nearly upside-down, and landed on the floor of the wall. It clattered under Siddy's box of bullets, which were in danger of spilling out freely.

"You got that magazine, mousa?" Potwalker grinned over him. Siddy staggered to his feet and clung to the rampart, knowing there was a drop just a step over.

The rabbit stared at him for a moment. "I get it."

"Sorry," Siddy tried to say. "I think I dropped it."

"No—I mean I get it from you."

Potwalker took the full magazine from Siddy's numb grip. It glistened end to end with brass bullets. The rabbit gave Siddy a look, a bit like pity. "Thank you, mousa."

Potwalker sobered back up and reloaded. He ducked around the edge where the ramparts widened into a broader walkway. He crouched, sped around the corner, and returned with a body. It was a squirrel wearing rags with a band of ammunition slung around its torso. Siddy looked away. He buried his face in the crate. He found the other magazine, forced down into the pile by Potwalker's boot. He pulled it out and started to fill it.

"Here they come," Potwalker whispered. "Our guy and them." There was a fluttering rumple, falling from the sky. The rocketeers fell under large sail parachutes and fired brief puffs before settling down. Soft tapping over the edge of the wall grew louder. Soon, on harpoon cables of their own, Charis squad swung over the edge and bounded into a loose formation farther away.

"Boarders atop the wall," Orida whispered over the com. "Keep moving."

"Why can't they see us?" Someone asked. "I thought they'd set off an alarm by now."

Potwalker waved Siddy over. The tower they stood under climbed two stories, on top of the wall. It was painted a dense red, with ragged railing around the aluminum sheet resting on top of the complex. Rickety stairs peered like eyes through the windows. Behind it was the Tower. It spread out in a complex, gnawing the port city.

A city that spread out from the port and across the land.

A city of abandoned constructions that rose up like needles in the dust, cleared out like a war camp and with all its brush and piles and vehicles orchestrated into long mounds.

"Looks like they was waiting for us," Potwalker said over the com. "Barricade."

"Not up here."

"Engaging."

The exo-legs leaped up and disappeared into the tower from above. A moment passed. Siddy remained with the rest, huddled against the door with Potwalker pressing the end of his repeater against the door handle.

"Clear."

The door opened for them. They passed through a space that was empty. There were racks and tubs and bunks made of twisted scraprope and panels. There were chairs and tables.

"Where they go?" Potwalker asked, scoffing.

"Maybe up there."

The Tower.

It rose three stories off the ramparts, but extended dozens of floors down into the city, and then bloated out from there. It was dotted with balconies and hanging pagodas. In green. Plants hung with long vines that draped down and met roof by tin roof. Up top, there was a metal sculpture.

The visage of a snarling beast, partially constructed. And partially blown apart. The cannonfire coming still from the bulk of the fleet was now coming from inside the port, just to the right of the Tower. Mock fortifications across the city turned to dust and black rubble. Buildings along with their adobe walls and scrap fuselages blew like wisps into the air.

There was a multicolored tide of figures spreading into the port. Clusters in bright hazard yellow. Neon green striped red ones. White and gold, black and gold, dark blue with white, royal blue with white, silver and black. Broad shields with rickety guns in mismatched plastic. They charged up the empty streets in beetle tight formations that crawled along the streets, passing through barricade gaps in thin lines.

Occasionally, they met squads of red. The lines stopped and crumpled against each other as the general advance went through every side and street.

They made it to the base of the Tower. Siddy crouched behind his crate and looked frantically around. Other than the slowing cannon fire across the port, and the occasional pop of small arms fire from the formations below, the city grew quiet.

The dark rabbit with the golden eyes stepped off his exo legs and pulled a pillow-like daub of clay from his crates. He wiped it on the door and then spread it out with a trowel.

"Hurry it up," someone whispered.

The rabbit placed an electronic ball with a flashing red dot on the clay. It stuck fast. There was a groan in the distance. Like someone wondering out loud where the time went. Only, it reverberated like a vast metal bell.

"Get flat."

Siddy was pulled to the side and placed against the wall of the Tower. He could see the wall split the imminent horizon.

"Hold on," whispered the dark rabbit. He was squinting and the blue light across his eyes was dancing with green. "These aren't combatants."

"We don't know if they've seen us yet," the hoarse voice came through. "Blow it and we'll sort it by who struggles."

"I can see the bars. This is their prison."

"Bars?"

Orida broke in. "Belay that detonation, sailor. Hold your position until we get orders from the top."

"What about at the base? We're ready to break in at the base."

"If it looks clear, do it," she commanded.

"All hands clear, setting off." The growl was immediately followed by a rich thud that shook Siddy through his boots and seemed to send a ripple through the wall ahead of him.

"Get in," Orida whispered.

The groaning across the port grew louder. The whining sound turned into a harsh metallic squeal.

"Something's wrong," Orida said, distracted. "Everyone, hold your positions."

Potwalker took a surprised glance at Siddy.

Siddy looked out toward the port. At the far end, where only a contingent of ships remained clustered, the sea walls framing the open, writhing ocean into a harbor, were moving.

They pulled through the waters and pushed the surf along. The water maintained a low, methodical roll. It swept into the harbor and roiled the armada within it, all full of flags and colors and brand banners in the same schemes as the infantry spreading through the city. The boats rose, and then fell. The smallest ones were carried along, and then washed up, spinning like tops, out of the water and onto the docks.

The dark rabbit ignored it while the other troops started gasping. He folded out a rotary saw and a jagged grinding wheel from the harness on his exo-legs.

"You ready Potwalker? I cut, you cover. This section's thin enough for slugs."

Coolguy gave a few deliberate blinks until his eyes started to flash with neon and scarlet. He hung his repeater on a hook in his belt and drew the short-barreled shotgun from his back. "Go, cutter."

The saw started up with a grinding whine, and immediately started ripping away material in a font of sparks. Potwalker stared at the wall, as if he could see right through it. He kept the gun pointed. His glowing iris scanned the moving figures inside.

"I said hold, boarders," Orida bellowed through the com. "We're about to get the retreat order, and we can't handle prisoners."

"At the least it'll be a distraction. Or, we can get intel from them," the brown rabbit said quickly. He took hold of the rectangle cut out of the wall and peeled it back so that the light flooded in.

"Insubordination, Copperhead." Orida's tone was dour. Then she relented. "If they are prisoners, then get them down the walls as quickly as you can."

The panel ripped away a section of the wall. It was dark inside, but then faces leaned out of the shadow and stared, blinking, chittering and scared. They were filthy. Some had blood, dry and caked, on their faces. The mercenaries murmured.

"What's this?"

"Looks they they really were prisoners."

"How many more are in there?"

"Look."

Siddy stood on tiptoe. Beyond the cage, where the animals inside already climbed out and onto the battlements, there were other enclosures.
Just like—

There was once a little mouse,

There was once a little factory.

He didn't want to remember. The images of bars enclosing dark windows and soft fabric under his paws faded. But he was dropping bullets. They were knocking around the sides of the crate. The magazine he clutched the same practiced way was nearly full and he was almost out of bullets.

"Get these animals out of here!"

Click click click.

Click click click.

The saw ground through bars with sparks flying and scattering all over the walls. Potwalker herded him inside. They stood by a singular gash in the plastic paneled wall that served as a window overlooking the city.

There was a shout. Potwalker was back on one foot down the descending stairs. He sprang back and then kicked forward, exploding against the door at the base so that it ripped off its hinges, and back onto something shouting for guards. Siddy ducked as the rabbit fired his gun, twice, four times. It roared with a flame that brightened the room like a clear squinty day.

"Lots below, Potwalker," shouted the com. The rabbit leaped out of the stairwell and bellowed orders, hardly recognizable from his accent and the roaring quality to it. In an instant, furniture and rails and racks were ripped from the walls and thrown into the only stairwell from below. The dark rabbit with his saw continued around the ring, cutting doors out of their mechanisms and letting shaking, thin animals of every sort onto the open battlement.

"Use the harpoons! Get these animals down!"

Click. The magazine was full. The box, excepting the shells, was empty.

Orida's voice was distraught. "The sea wall. They've closed the sea wall."

Siddy stood back from one of Charis squad slicing another window into the wall with a broad axe. Once it was punched out, everyone could see.

The armada, such as it was, was hemmed in. The sea walls at the edge of the harbor had closed it off from the ocean. Most of the ships were gathered at the last opening. The end of an attack cruiser stuck out where it crushed between the closing walls.

Some ships, including the dark gray of North Star's fleet, were just outside. They were pulling away as a hot red swarm of figures emerged on the sea walls and started to rappel down. The ships, too, the idle ones in the harbor, erupted with red animals like a hive network.

There was a click across the room.

It blended with the sound of breathing.

Siddy froze. Everyone froze as the breathing sound echoed across the city. Speakers on every block, from every building, noise from every room. The sound was ragged. And ancient. It rose in a deep growl, wheezing with cancer and laughter.

"At last, at last. At last they come, with their flags and pennants…"

Potwalker motioned at one of the exo walkers outside. They handed him two crates heavy enough to deform the floor as they dropped. He motioned Siddy over, and magnetized one onto his back. They ran up a set of stairs, Siddy just behind.

"None of you knew, none of you could predict it… I've seen this day. The day where your great brave would emerge and the great gods would kill me… in a—in a trade, yes… I've seen this day, I remember it from my dreams, the day I die… but the day where I get everything I want…" The monster started to laugh. The sound deformed with volume. "So here you all are, blundered right into the midst, right into my trap—where we will kill each other—haaahaaaa—"

They emerged onto a flat balcony space that overlooked the round edge of the Tower and most of the city. Once they were upstairs, Siddy opened the crates and Potwalker set up a heavy repeater on a tripod.

"Did you northerners know? Did you hear the prayers of the starving across the continent? Here I am, I am the Gods' reply…"

Orida took over Siddy's hearing. "Signatures are emerging all over the city. Analysis shows a tunnel network, and—so many figures—watch yourselves, sailors. They're making move to surround us."

"Too late for that!" Someone cried. Gunfire, pulsing from below. The Tower suddenly buzzed like a hornet's nest, just inside. Siddy could hear the movement of hundreds of footsteps through the wall. The white rabbit demanded the bullet belt. Siddy found himself shoving it into place on the gun and Potwalker closing it up and pulling back the action—

Shouting. There was shouting and screaming and a concussion blast on the floor beneath them, Siddy could hear it under the piled furniture blocking the way up—or down. Someone shouted, "deploy!" and autobarricades sprang out of crates and piled themselves against the door connecting the Tower to the prison room. Outside, the city seemed to bloom with red. Hordes piled out of building entrances, from tunnels under the roads. The beetle-like formations, drawing slowly back to the port, were surrounded like clouds of red flies. The air erupted with popping all over the city—and sharp streaks of wind where the bullets cut close.

"I am the one who has come for your boats—I am the one who has come for your lands—I am hunger—I am the hungry masses—I am—I am the god—I am hunger—"

"What is this?" demanded Copperhead, before unloading a clip through the furniture barricade on the stairs. "What the hell is he talking about?"

"Orders from above!" Orida thundered in Siddy's ear. "Thanks to our base demo, we've got the only escape route. North Star will hold this section of the Tower and provide covering fire from the walls while the land force withdraws! We'll be right up there with you, just hold that ground!"

Potwalker hissed, satisfied, to himself. "I knew it."

The machinegun barrel erupted with flame. It chewed up bullets on one side and spat the plastic clips out the other with smoking shells. Siddy leaned in and tugged the belt along, keeping it straight, while Potwalker strafed the roads, and then turned toward the surface of the Tower, where flaps and panels pulled open to reveal fluttering gunner nests. In seconds, bullets started flying over them. They hissed overhead from all corners of the city. The plastic took the bullets with fast flicking noises—the holes had raised, melted edges.

"Here it comes," the roaring returned. "I see it! I see you there now! To the Tower! My fighters to the Tower!"

The broken statue of the beast, all welded panels and bent jagged rust, had a great maw.

From within it, the monster emerged and crawled down the Tower.

It was such a small form, that far away. But the red eye, glaring with power, swept over Siddy and blinded him with a direct flash.

Once upon a time there was a mouse.

Once upon a time there was a factory.

Deep, deep underground.

Siddy panicked.

He threw himself down the stairs. The shells were bouncing freely in the crate strapped to his front. The prison cells were all cut open and empty. The rocketeer squirrels of Needlenose squad lined the gaps of the wall and fired out into the city itself. Siddy skittered to the open door, toward the harpoons. He ducked under their squad leader and hoped he wasn't seen.

The mink stood just off the firing line and shouted into the com. He was already hit. His uniform stuck to his chest and one arm was limply trying to rise. "They're just a few levels below us now! Get the barricades pulled open!" He demanded. Its working claws grabbed Siddy by the frame on his harness and yanked him back. "Where's Potwalker?!"

"Upstairs!" Siddy shouted. He thought he was going to faint. He was a deserter already and the mink would shoot him—

"Get these up to him!" Siddy felt the crate magnetize to his back.

The machinegun fired upstairs without ceasing. Bullet casings tinkled down the stairs. Siddy found himself running back up. And then he was next to Potwalker, crouched into a tiny bolt behind the gun, out in the open. Siddy demagnetized the crate and opened it up, revealing new coils of bullets and a shiny wedge. Potwalker grabbed that first, and whipped it in the air to unfold it into a curved shield.

"Thanks mousa!" Potwalker gave him a friendly kick. Bullets whizzed over them and one struck the shield held over their heads with a loud ping. "Knew I could count on you!"

Siddy felt his heart shuddering as he reloaded the machine gun.

"On second thought—" Potwalker suddenly let go of the triggers. He gathered up his loose tools and his shotgun and looked nervously toward the encroaching form with its chromatic arm. "Maybe we run."

The badger—it surely was one—was a mottled gray in the sun. Its fur was coarse and ancient. It was like a rising mound, a hill, a rock face hanging sideways off of the Tower. It raised its metal arm, and the chain started to lengthen, falling straight down toward the city.

"How long that thing go," Potwalker said, stopping for just an instant. "I wonder."

It whipped its arm forward and Siddy hardly saw the blur of the chain before it struck their position, and split the floor underneath their feet.

 

[vigneashley]

Once, there was a mouse family who lived in a factory. The animals inside had a debt to society. They were privileged to work at the inmate lease program. He was born but they would not let the family out.



The floor cracked in two and Potwalker yowled as they tumbled through the dust. Siddy was blind. Creatures were shouting under the caved-in floor. Siddy felt something hard jabbing into his frame through his uniform. He pushed himself up and slipped on something warm… and red.

"Contact!"

"What was that?!"

"It was him!"

"Kill him!"

Siddy could hear it bellowed from someone close by. He stumbled out of the dust cloud, scrambling up the inclined floor to where the gunner nest used to be. He heard rockets start with a roar and felt the air ripple with heat as they passed. The air shook with gunfire.

"Potwalker!" He screamed. "Potwalker!"



When the child mouse was small, so very small, appa disappeared. Soon after, his amma gave him a piece of cloth with sewn letters. But he could not read it. Amma said it was what she and appa always wanted him to carry and to never lose it. She said he was very good.



He pulled himself up, finding the last horizontal ledge where the remnants of the tripod lay smithereened. There was blood in drips, smeared down the other ramp, and then back up. And then back down.

"Potwalker!"



One day the child's amma was sick. Later she was gone and another inmate took her place on the machines.

"Where did my amma go?" The child asked the red eye.

"Designation error," the red eye said. "Move along, CID. You have not yet met your quota."



"Potwalker!!"

The dust cleared fast. The monster was a blur—it leaped over Siddy and crashed onto the wall, separating everyone in the structure from the harpoons. The chain whipped wildly—It cracked through the air, before ripping a section of wall away revealing the trapped boarders. Siddy lost his grip on the battlement and slid down again, this time, into a gap. Underneath some of the wreckage, all dust-covered and unconscious, was Potwalker.

The rabbit's face was in a sort of repose—but his chest carrier rose and fell with pained breathing. Siddy cried out. He tugged at the plastic and wood and tried desperately to lift them. Their edges were tangled—Potwalker was stuck fast. "Get up!" Siddy cried.



Nobody would teach him to read until the old one, the old rabbit. The one who said he stole, and that was why he was there. It was why they gave him a special cuff attaching him to his machine.

The old one pointed out letters on logos. He read the mouse the warning labels on the machines and tags. The old one asked his name. The mouse could not remember it so he said what the red eye said.

"Siddy?" The old rabbit murmured. "I have never heard that name before."



Siddy strained, begging Potwalker to get up. The monster was screaming just out of sight. The chain whipped through the air with a thunderclap and suddenly the whole structure shifted under his paws all over again—

This time, Potwalker's eyes flew open and he sucked in air with a ragged yelp. The rabbit gripped, upside-down, the remnants of the floor he was trapped under, and then, with impossible geometry, crawled out of it. Soon he was shaking, on all fours, next to Siddy. "Well—what a lucky mousa—" His accent rang with fear. "We alive!"

When the chain whip landed just a leap away and the floor was suddenly lifted from under them, Siddy had the wherewithal to jump. He landed on the other floor while Potwalker rolled off of the flying piece and into the structure. Guns kept up rattling toward Ruddigh, bullet trails unable to follow it as it lashed and swung from one side of the wall to the other. Siddy skittered down, into the building, where the boarders were holed up, desperately firing out every time the monster flashed in their sight.

One of the rocketeers was dead—his caved-in propulsor resting on top of his broken form in the corner.

So were several others. Their silhouettes lumped against the wall and laid down.

Siddy found Potwalker. The rabbit crawled in front of Copperhead's shifting exo-legs and felt around until the repeater was in his grasp. He picked it up, gave the magazine a shake to see the brass glitter inside.



The old rabbit's name was Niah.

CID: 091214



The caved-in floor of the gunner nest covered up the lower stairwell completely. Animals tugged at it in futility. It suddenly rose from its center. There was something huge, charging from underneath it as it bulged upward. Siddy scrambled to the wall—

And Orida, coming from below, pushed the collapsed flooring high enough to expose her stairwell. Her claws and arms were covered with striations visible through her fur—her uniform was covered in bloody spatter. One of her hatchets was missing, as was her machinegun. Her teeth were bared as her growl overpowered even the sound of the cannons—the entire room frame shifted and rose over them all—

Someone screamed. "They made it up! Let's go!"

"Carve a path to the harpoons!"

"Through that thing??"

Orida roared down as she pushed the roof up higher.

Soldiers poured out of the empty path she created. She forced the floor higher still, like a mountain erupting from the crust of the earth, and squads in black pulsed out of the lower structure—a desperate charge of mercenaries running onto the exposed battlements where the creature still stormed. Ruddigh raged outside—his eye glared visible even when his fur—flashing in the sun—was not.

The weight of the structure pressed down over the stairwell. Orida's teeth ground together and her eyes were wild as she braced herself, and the stairs underneath her were crunching apart.

There was a brief instant where Siddy saw Chamomile ascend. She was just a tiny brown ball, brushed with black. Her eyes were wide with shock and fear, clear through the ash that otherwise blackened her snout but left her scar bright where she rubbed it away. She reached back down the stairs and pulled mice past the straining column that was Orida, one at a time.

The gap widened as Orida struggled. The entrance was closing. Before Siddy could get there, Potwalker had grabbed him by the carrier, and was dragging him toward the exit, where the others were gathering. During that time, the mice emerged, one by one, each one slower than the next.

First, there was Altogustus, clutching his empty bright blue holster, passing by Siddy with terrified recognition and his uniform smothered with dirt.

Then Bobba Two, raggedly panting, Pinchtrap sprinting heedlessly and dragging a gun, sans magazine, behind him, Silt in an oversized uniform and an empty crate still stuck to her back and her tiny eyes boggling—

Potwalker hefted his gun. He was looking out onto the battlements with his eyes wide and afraid. The roaring outside did not cease. Neither did the nearby explosions and the gunfire frantically spraying from what was left of the structure. "Ready, mousa?" He asked, shaking.

Efffour passed Siddy, eyes red but no longer crying. Runt-Pint, eyes flaring wide open and his uniform torn down the sleeve. If there was any animal that looked most scared… it was Runt-Pint.

Without confirming anything, Potwalker bolted forward, half dragging Siddy. The rest of the mice, still emerging, disappeared behind him. The rocketeers fanned out over the walk and their guns ran up an down the battlements. Everyone was running, except Potwalker who limped and Siddy with him. The ones at the front had stopped and formed layers of fire toward the silver mountain that was already ragged with blood.

Bullets ricocheted off of the silver arm, which curled in front of Ruddigh like a shield before—

"Oh—Gods!"

Ruddigh whipped the chain through the air and struck a rocket—breaking the mink before he could so much as make a noise. The rocket spun and ignited, and billowed with fire before crashing far into the forest.

Potwalker's leg gave out under him. The rabbit fell to his knees, one foot at an odd angle. He pushed up on the mouse—Siddy bore the rabbit's weight and they kept staggering, trying to follow everyone else—the mouse gang was moving ahead of them—so many moving so quickly like they were water.

And ahead, the soldiers closest to Ruddigh—leaped.

There was a flash of chrome as squirrels and mice, faster than the rest, drew blades and fastened themselves to Ruddigh's limbs. One blade flashed down and came up red—before Ruddigh tucked into a backwards roll—and smashed them all into the battlements. Broken forms fell off the badger and lay still on the plastic floors.

"Kill it! Kill it dead!"

Ruddigh growled as the combined arms of the mercenary company fired and as the projectiles scattered across the arm—now coiled again like a shield. Blood occasionally sprayed off of the beast's peripheral.

"Not yet, not yet!" Ruddigh triumphantly roared. "Not until I see it! Not until I see the one I have dreamed of!"



"Do you ever dream of leaving this place, Siddy?"



Ruddigh barreled forward, displacing the battlement bricks with his arm. The mouse gang turned in front of Siddy and ran the other way, along with everyone else. Siddy tried to turn, but couldn't. Potwalker's grip tightened on Siddy's frame. Siddy found himself held in place and the repeater set directly on his shoulder. The barrel extended as far as his snout. The pile, the thing, the monster coming, Potwalker telling him to brace and then—

The repeater's end lit up like a flare and a continuous, warping field of bullets sprayed out in a wide cone—rattling Siddy's skeleton from end to end—

And the chain—covered in sparks—

Whirled in front of them—

Siddy was caught across the chest and the chain crunched the harness so that it dug tightly into him. He couldn't breathe.

He then realized he was sailing through the air.

He hit the plastic floor of the great wall and scraped for a handhold as he slid toward the edge—

And off—

His claws scraped into the plastic. It hurt until he came to a stop and gripped the plastic edge. He was dangling—every desperate scrape from his boots only seemed to pull him further down and displace his grip off the wall. The city was so far below and his nails was slipping.

"No!" He kicked, he thrashed, knowing he shouldn't, but it was all he could do. "No, no no! Nooo!" The corner rolled underneath the tips of his fingers.

Then he was falling.



When, with help, he read the cloth his amma had given him.

He hoped it would be his name.

Instead, it said,

You are Good.

Be Good.



Chamomile.

Her tiny paws dove down and grabbed Siddy's wrists. He gripped hers with everything he had. He was screaming. Her scarred face was creased with desperation. She was yelling, almost roaring herself as she pulled him up. Siddy kicked and climbed until he was just over the edge, and Chamomile hauled him back, all the way back—even as he felt himself disappearing from consciousness.

The monster was close by.

The monster was surrounded by bodies, flung back or crumpled under his massive steps. He was approaching. The rest of North Star, the ones remaining, hung back as a cluster, afraid of what to do next even as the rest of Ruddigh's horde emerged from every portal and door across the city, and the Tower.

Potwalker was among the survivors, holding one misshapen arm, trying to stand back up against a battlement. His white paw dug into the red medical bag around his thigh and pulled out a delicate weave laced with lights. Around him were the others—maybe a few dozen, gathered and some of them splashed with red—

Ruddigh looked over the bodies underneath him. His eye searched them, the light from the iris creating small glows on the faces of the fallen before turning toward the survivors. He took a step toward the mice.

"Where… where is it?"

The eye swept over Siddy. He was just awake enough to receive patchy sunspots in the center of his fixed vision.

"The brave one. The brave one. Come to kill me… the brave one… this can't be all… I can't have… killed him…"

Siddy's eyes fluttered closed. He was losing consciousness.

The eye settled over Chamomile, who was trying to get up. It bathed her in a soft red glow.

Ruddigh stopped moving.

The eye focused its light on her scar.

"The—" Ruddigh choked. "The brave one. You? You?!"

Chamomile's face was petrified. She crawled backward, as fast as she could.

"You're still alive?!"

The monster howled. It summoned its strength and seemed to rise, to black out all light close by. The chain suddenly flailed up into the air and the light on Ruddigh's eye glared brighter than ever before. Siddy started twitching. Seizing in the midst of a fit. Chamomile staggered into a dead run. Ruddigh's enraged steps were faster. Soon it was over her and cast her in a black shadow. Chamomile tripped—fell with her back against the wall. She frantically tried to pull out her gun. Ruddigh's chain started coiling like a tentacle, and he reached for her with both limbs—

A titan flew through the air. Screaming like a demon.

It collided with Ruddigh hard enough to send him back and toward the edge.

Orida!

She was a sharp, undulating mass of movement. Her size was approximately half that of Ruddigh—so she climbed him in rings, her remaining hatchet flashing and followed by sprays of red as she moved faster than Ruddigh could smash himself with his arm. Soon, his chain tangled around Orida's axe and ripped it from her grasp, and after another roll they were tangled in a grapple. Ruddigh was screaming, snarling. He seemed almost afraid of this beast that pushed back and struck at him in ways that forced him to move. He was fast, and his chain was faster, but it seemed that Orida was even more agile than that. She was a skittering blur, leaping out of reach, and then climbing the outer edge of the walls to reach Ruddigh's vulnerable side.

Ruddigh was turning—spinning—Orida swung around his limbs again, left knife handles studded in his fur like antennae. Her submachine gun flashed with fire as she darted just out of his grasp and emptied the magazine in bright bursts.

Siddy felt something choking at his neck. He could feel the rough plastic underneath him. He could feel Chamomile dragging him by his carrier frame. He could hear Potwalker telling the rest that it was time—to go—now!

Siddy came to consciousness with a full view of the Tower. While North Star had barricaded the only entrance along the wall, Ruddigh's soldiers were building a ramp. An improvised ramp, made of harpoon cables and loose sheets of wood and acrylic, curved around the edge of the Tower and onto the battlements. Animals in red made their way off of it—and toward the remaining troops.

"They coming!" Potwalker was hoarse. "Down the harpoons! We only got one chance before they swarm!" He was pulling his broken arm through the net. The lights were glowing green.

And down below, through smoke and fire, Siddy could see the formations of their allies, splintered and breaking, as they ran toward the base of the wall. They ran through ruined buildings and tangled with fighters in the streets. Wave three—and four, were setting up just inside the city providing cover to the ones that were running.

The troops around Siddy gave their weapons a last check. "Ready?" Copperhead gasped. The rabbit's exo legs stretched and he started to bound.

"Go! Go!"

"Kill him!"

Siddy went with everyone in a group. Orida bellowed afar off—in pain. She was pressed against the battlement with the chain whipping down, close to her face, glancing off the pauldrons on her shoulders, while she gripped Ruddigh by the throat and tried to rip it from him—

The chain beat down, and dust and shards of acrylic flew, covering everything—

The dust swallowed them up as they charged. Blind and terrified.

Within, Orida was laying on the ground, sputtering, her eyes bloody and looking to the sky—

"Get her!" Two rocketeers grabbed Orida under each arm, and applied hooks to her harness. They timed a chant in tandem and leaped from the edge, before drifting down into the jungle and out of sight.

Ruddigh was gone—

"The harpoons! Get to the harpoons!" Copperhead shouted. "Wounded first—get them down first—"

Siddy started helping the more experienced troops as they hauled the wounded up onto the battlement ledge and attached the harpoon gun clips to them. Bullets were rising from the city and snapping over their heads. The first animal in Siddy's grasp stopped just a moment too long at the top. The squirrel was hit, ragged holes blowing through their vest. Siddy was the one to unhook them from the cable draw before it slumped over the edge, and into the forest below.

North Star troops ducked from around the battlements and fired toward the approaching column.

There were hundreds, thousands, of Ruddigh's fighters, close enough to hear them. They charged—and died—with wild warcries, and their weapons shone and glinted in the sun. Bullets flew from the horde down below and on the walls. Siddy kept his head down and helped a few mice, ones he could not recognize. Only a few more of the wounded had made it down the harpoon cables when the screaming started across the com.

"He's got me! He's—" The com lit up with horrible noise.

Siddy saw the harpoon adjacent to him thrashing as the line tugged around. Soon, the harpoon ripped free of the plastic wall. A crashing, tearing sound traveled up the wall below it, until Ruddigh climbed over the side, right over everyone left.

"Where is it?!" The monster screeched. "Come to kill me—come to kill me—where are you?!"

The glowing eye settled on the few that were left.

The remnants sprinted farther down, to the only remaining cable guns.



"Run, mouse!" The old one cried. The fire spread to the towers of cloth. The old rabbit was tugging at the cuff around his ankle, as were the rest.



The rest were there. It was only a few. Only mice.

Siddy helped Runt-Pint onto the battlement and, once the harpoon mechanism was in his paws, he clicked it onto Runt-Pint's harness. Runt-Pint tried to say thanks.



The mouse hid behind one of the washing machines where the flames could not reach him. There was a technician's jacket, fit for a mole, crusty with dried chemical and left in the dust where it had been dropped and forgotten.

When he woke up choking on smoke, so much of the factory was gone.

So much of the structure had been burned away that there was a path through the main wall. The fire still raged, eating through the structure behind him and above. He could hear the structure groaning. He heard it again—someone telling him to run. He covered himself in the jacket and ran through the fire. He could still hear cries as it burned deeper into the complex.

The coals hissed under his ragged shoes and he somehow didn't stop, until the droplets of water hit his head and nose.

There was rain.

It dripped into the structure, redirected by gutters and chance. It hissed and gurgled into the ashes and formed a growing pond over most of the floor. Its currents had cooled just enough of the coals on the floor that Siddy could step onto patches of gritty mud.

A thin beam of warm light radiated from above. The undercity's scaffolds seemed to part along this one section, butted up against the burning foundations. Far, far up, there was a tiny circle of light where the day shone down.

Siddy stared up at the little circle of light. Water filled his cracked, blistered shoes.



Before the other mouse could finish his thanks, Siddy shoved him and watched his friend drop into the forest, and not a second too soon. Bullets flew over his head and ripped a corner off the battlement where Runtpint's face had just been. The adjacent clip zizzed as it returned.

Ruddigh was stomping closer.

There were still several animals left.

Potwalker, closest to Ruddigh, rose from his until-then invisible crouch. He was sitting atop the battlement walls, rubbing his arm, around which the net filled with lights tightened and formed a reinforced frame and joint. His fist closed. The lights glowed brighter this time with a brilliant purple. He turned from his harpoon gun and jeered, flashing his teeth.

"Hey."


The rabbit tilted his neck to the side until it popped. Then he tilted it the other way. The rings on his ears glittered in the sun.

"Look like Orida soften you up for me. Now I kill you. How about that?"

The badger looked disinterestedly at Potwalker as it sorted corpses.

Potwalker stood up straight, heedless of the bullets whizzing around them. He dismounted off the battlement, and then, bracing, pushed his hurt leg down.

Something popped into place. The rabbit suppressed an agonized yelp.

"Not now, rabbit," Ruddigh snarled. The monster tilted until it could see Chamomile, who was dragging another wounded fighter toward the remaining harpoons. "You will die fruitlessly, throwing away your life at the moment of safety."

Nevertheless, the badger, a creature with a maw the size of the rabbit himself, registered something in the rabbit's stare. It justified its confidence.

"I have not seen you in my dreams. I would have seen you if…"

The rabbit bragged back. "I don't dream of you neither. Just reward." He sidestepped toward the edge.

Ruddigh's attention slowly focused on him as the white rabbit swayed from side to side like a pendulum.

"A million to the one who kill you dead," Potwalker grinned. "You hear about that yet?"

Ruddigh's laughter wheezed over the battlements. Blood ran down his fur, in dripping red mats. Behind him, his horde gathered on the walls.

"I think that million be mine," Potwalker said confidently. He didn't stop swaying. He was priming his legs and they shook and tapped as his breath started to speed up. "All mine."

Behind him, the remnants hurried down their cables. Siddy clipped another mechanism to a hedgehog's carrier and then helped lift it, avoiding the quills before giving it a prickled shove off the edge.

"I think I shall tear your ears from your skull and devour you alive," Ruddigh snarled. "I will rip you apart for inconveniencing me, rabbit! Now. Give it to me!" Ruddigh leaped—for two small mice, one with a scar.

The rabbit tapped his heel against the floor of the wall.

And a blade the length of his boot flared from the toe.

And like the concussion of a grenade, he blew forward. Like a cyclone flying sideways, the shining boot blade swinging in circles—

Ruddigh screamed as the blades pierced into him in kick after blinding kick. The rabbit moved fast too—leaping off the battlements, spinning in wild arcs, diving under Ruddigh's chain and leaping higher than its swings—the blade itself was twirling, spinning, locking into different sections of his boot so that the blade was not so much an extension of the boot. Instead, his whole leg had become a stinger.

Chamomile and Siddy dragged an unconscious rabbit from Charis squad out of his exo-legs. They placed him on the ledge and Chamomile used one of the fallen, bent harpoons to draw the cable close—

Potwalker was screaming. So was Ruddigh. The rabbit was a blur, heaving air and dancing in flashing, red-spray circles around the monster, and behind it, the horde was staggering back, unwilling to get close to the flailing chain or to the rabbit whose every flying move left red mist.
Siddy and Chamomile clipped the wounded rabbit in, and heaved forward, and it dropped off the ledge. It fell toward the canopy with a whizzing sound. Multicolored troops ran through the forest below, none red—except with wounds. Below, the FOB was now obvious, spattering with gunfire toward the hole in the wall where Ruddigh's troops were encroaching as a flood. Units in black retreated in clusters, pushing back the wave of animals that didn't stop even as the front lines were mowed down.

Siddy looked toward Potwalker in time to see Ruddigh grab the rabbit out of the air by the boot and blade.

 

[vigneashley]

Potwalker smashed into the floor of the wall and then against the battlements and then a corner.

He was flung far behind Ruddigh.

Who advanced, step by thunderous step.

Siddy glanced at the harpoon cable. The gun hadn't returned. It made no noise, no vibration.

"You—there you are—" Ruddigh advanced in a bear-like lope.

The gun drew from Siddy's belt and he aimed it as true as he understood and squeezed and squeezed the trigger, squeezed down and it didn't budge. The safety was off but it didn't budge.

Then it went off with a flash and he cried out as it jerked his wrists back.

Chamomile ran ahead. She grabbed a sword like a machete from the bloody battlement.

Ruddigh snarled—picked up speed, his arm whipping with each step forward—the bullet had pierced his nose and a fresh font ran down and dripped, flying, off of his teeth. It was almost on them.

The chain whipped through the air to Siddy's left and cracked right over his head. Chamomile leaped into Ruddigh's shadow and seemed to disappear. Siddy stopped in place and squeezed the trigger as hard as Ruddigh spun to find her—

The gun went off in his paws and Ruddigh's organic eye snapped closed.

The beast started to go down.

But it did not stop, even when turning and collapsing. Its charge toward Siddy was pure momentum. The mouse jumped back and was struck hard by the falling body so that his head rang like steel, and for an instant, he felt himself compressed and crushed to nothing before it rolled off of him. He tried to run but found his tail was caught in the palm of Ruddigh's claw as it pushed back up. The metal arm, the chain, was striking, ripping into the floor, tearing up layers trying to gain a handhold.

Siddy yanked his tail free. And tripped back.

He landed just before Ruddigh's soldiers. They moved to surround him. They had their blades out, their thin faces done up with war paint. Their clothes were rags dyed red. They stayed back only because Ruddigh's chain whipped through the air as Ruddigh turned, cybernetic eye flaring and smoking, searching the wall for any sign of the other mouse.

"Here's another!"

"This one's the last one."

"He looks like he know something."

Siddy eventually got to his knees and found that the monster himself stood over him, his head lowering to look Siddy in the eye.
The monster up close was torn. Bullet wounds and lacerations seemed to cover him. Blood infused his fur with thick, damp panels like lamellar. His robotic eye scanned the horizon and the sky. His biological one crawled open and stared Siddy down. It was bloodshot. The yellow of fever colored his cornea.

Ruddigh went to the edge of the battlement, and looked over the edge, into the forest.

"It is gone—you helped it get away."

The chain ceased striking the air and the wall, and instead turned to a winding snake, threatening to coil around Siddy.

He aimed his gun. The chain whipped with precision and struck it out of his hands, shattering it and hurting his wrists.

He ducked down and huddled in a ball.

Ruddigh stalked over him.

"Today was the day. He was supposed to come, and I would be k-killed! Finally, an end to my suffering a—and the gods going afore me… the world… the world would have r—received m—my spirit… today was the day they said I would be a god, a great martyr!"

"But now it is gone! It is gone!" Ruddigh wailed. The chain cracked through the air. "You—you ruined that moment, the moment where it would happen—I saw this moment but it did not happen!"

The monster babbled, insane, and agonized. "The dreams, if their prophecies are not true then they are not true, there is nothing left for me but the pain of this shell—the pain I—I shall inflict it on you—for you have been delivered into my grasp—"

His soldiers stepped back and murmured with confusion. Ruddigh's cries ceased. The creature crouched low and seemed to sink into the earth. An unearthly growl appeared from the depths, as if below and within the wall. It straightened. Ruddigh drew himself… perhaps, itself, to a full height.

It blocked out the sun.

The metallic arm rose. It caught the rays and reflected them onto Siddy.

Then they dimmed, for a brief second, as a shadow climbed across the matted, bloody fur of Ruddigh the Red. The shadow made it to the crest, above the monster's head. Then, standing over its neck, paws red, uniform damp, face smeared with the color of the badger's blood, with her machete pointed down and her grip on the handle as high as she could stretch,

Chamomile

plunged it down.

It pierced into a fresh, badly healed scar, where a bullet struck him just days ago—

It kept driving into the coarse fur and flesh, until it sank out of Chamomile's grip—

Ruddigh did not scream. He gasped in surprise—and shuddered so violently that Chamomile was thrown down. The monster staggered back and choked as blood started a steady drip, then a flow from his shoulder. The monster stepped back—with difficulty. It then stumbled. Toward Chamomile. With the chain pushing it along and whipping out toward their faces as they turned and ran—

Siddy skidded past the last working harpoon. Chamomile was almost there—the bent harpoon was in his hands and then after a throw he had the cable and the clip—



You are good.



"Go!" Chamomile screamed at him. "Go! Go now!" She made it up to him, grabbed at his frame, tried to take the clip from Siddy to attach it to his carrier—



Be good.



He clipped it onto hers.

And with all his strength, he threw her off balance and over the edge.

She wailed out of sight. The cable screamed with vibration as she fell toward the forest floor.

Siddy leaped on to the harpoon. It was coming loose from the plastic brick as the cable shuddered. Ruddigh's fighters closed in. Ruddigh himself had stopped advancing, and was growing slow and stupid from blood loss. The monster finally collapsed, only its metal arm wandering the air. The soldiers gathered to carry it away.

"No…" The creature moaned, piteously. "Today was supposed… let me die… let it end…" The monster was picked up from beneath. Hundreds of soldiers, gathering like ants, pushing the monster along and away. And the rest…

Siddy found himself surrounded.

The fighters on the wall, close to him, crowded him to the back corner of the parapet. Their blades waved in front of their faces—the foremost one pulled the harpoon from the wall and threw it, slack line and all, over the edge. Siddy was trapped. He felt his belt as if there were any weapons. There was nothing.

"This one denied the boss," one of the animals grunted. It poked a kitchen knife toward Siddy's belly.

"He helped our prisoners get away," said another. Tall figures. Gaunt and thin. Mice and rabbits and squirrels and others, all kinds of others, animals of every species and variety with eyes like he had only seen inside the factory. Where the animals learned to do what it took to get food.

Siddy heard their blades swish through the air. He watched a mix of rusted and polished metal gleam and he grew sick.

Thump.

Thump.

"What was that?"

The horde stopped moving. Some of them straightened as tall as they could and looked around.

"Is that the boss?"

"Is he back?"

Thump.

Thump.

THUMP!

Like a clumsy, sneezing angel, the Guppy fell from the sky.

 

[vigneashley]

The ship flapped and flopped in mid-air until it found the center of the wall and smashed into it, narrowly missing what had just been a bunched up crowd of cutthroats. It bounced to a stop and left a wide scrape across the plastic. As the enemy scattered, the Guppy's twin drones launched topside and then buzzed with the fury of hornets, screaming alarms, flaring with lights, and firing in all directions. The doors popped open with a gasp and Tello lifted the glass shield just a hair to plead with Siddy, "GET IN GET IN GET IN GET IN—"

The mouse leaped in and dragged the doors shut. The Guppy's internals were just as bright as when they started, but there were shredded-up Malto wrappers and empty handgun magazines everywhere. Bullet casings rattled around on the floor and several rattled in Siddy's cubby.

"Where's Potwalker?" Tello demanded, flipping switches and wagging the steering wheel up and down to get liftoff.

"Down there," Siddy climbed up to the front, and pointed.

"Oh—oh gods—"

Siddy gripped a handle next to the door until they landed. A bullet struck the side with a crack—then two more, sending him flinching. The side door opened and Tello motioned to Siddy to get Potwalker. Siddy leaped out, and tried vainly to lift the broken rabbit off the ground.

Potwalker was ruined, and unrecognizable.

The squirrel shouted from underneath the glass, mouth up to the opening.

"Get him inside!"

"I can't!"

Tello closed the bubble, screamed a curse word, ducked as a bullet cracked off the bubble, and then climbed out through the back. He picked up Potwalker just under his arms and dragged him into the open compartment, even as the Guppy jostled, and as bullets smacked into the plastic around them.

"Oh, oh no," Tello groaned, trying not to look as he hauled Potwalker onto the Guppy's hard, white floor.

The rabbit's eyes were closed. Mostly. His leg was the worst.

They climbed inside, over now blood-slippery floors, and buckled in. The Guppy's drones returned, playing their alarms like fanfare, and still shooting. After a brief moment hovering over the Guppy, they dropped back into the hull with a pair of clicks. A friendly recharge chime, twice over, played on Tello's dashboard, and in another second, the boat launched into the air and bounced through the atmosphere. Bullets cracked against the Guppy's hull and fins.

"It's a disaster out there!" Tello explained frantically as they left the wall behind. "You have no clue! They were everywhere! These freaks were waiting for us, this Ruddigh fellow knew for certain just how to push our buttons and to poke at every little weak spot we had! I saw it all! Every possible point had contact, logistics was a mess, nobody knew how to deal with it, and let me tell you I was dropping ammunition every other bounce! They should make you be the one to drive this thing if all the good Guppy's for is—is delivery! But the carnage, oh, gods, the carnage, mouse. Most of the fleet is still trapped inside the sea walls, and with all their weapons—who knows what Ruddigh will do with that, and he'll do something with them mark my words… but most of the sailors got out, at least. And all those soldiers! If we hadn't been the ones to create an escape route, then all those animals would be badger bait. Yessir—we had to boat them over once our ships got out of range, can you believe they had cannon? The real kind! With shells! But now, we've got a great many—animals, I mean—on the Myrmidon right now. Thanks to us! What can I say, mouse, you and me, and the rabbit, and everyone else in the North Star uniform, we're all heroes to them!"

Siddy could hardly speak. His ears rang. The thrusters of the Guppy and their shaky, wobbly bounce through the air smothered his senses. The blue sky through the bubble seemed so small and so very far away. Potwalker was nestled in the part of the floor that had just enough junk to keep him comparatively still. He was shivering. He'd spat one of his gold teeth onto the floor.

"Just hold on, friend," Siddy heard Tello murmur. "We're almost there."

There were little boats in the water, all floating out to sea. Myrmidon's star passed in front of the Guppy while they dropped. It was a broad wall in the ocean.

The Guppy splashed down. They settled into the surf. The air was finally quiet and the waves gulped around the hull.