CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE BATTLE

"Shoot it down!" Jenner roared, pointing his sword at the approaching helicopter. "Knock it out of the sky!"

Two rats heaved a massive projectile up to one of the guns and loaded it into the rear end of the cannon's pipelike barrel. As the copter passed overhead, they took aim and fired.

The flying machine's engine burst into flames. Sputtering, the craft spun wildly, quickly losing altitude, and came to a rough landing in the middle of the corn field. Both men within jumped out and got clear of the wreck seconds before flames found the gas tank and the downed helicopter exploded in a fireball, setting most of the field ablaze.

"We did it!" Jenner cried triumphantly. "Go find the human pilots and kill them! They must not be allowed to escape!" Several guards raced toward the burning field to carry out the orders. Jenner faced Ian. "Don't think I'm done with you yet! I'll take care of you after I've finished with your human friends!"

"Good luck," Ian said to him. "Now that you've shot down that copter, you've given away your exact position. The National Guard will be on your doorstep in another minute or so."

"Let them come! We'll be ready for them!" Jenner turned to the other rats. "Move the artillery to the front of the house! Hide it in the shrubbery! We'll ambush them!"

A crew of five rats went to each gun and began pulling the weapons around the side of the house to the front yard. Jenner grimaced at Ian, then hurried into the equipment shed. Justin said, "Is there anything we can do to stop him?"

Ian shrugged. "It's gone too far already. If Jenner doesn't win this battle now, the humans will destroy us to the very last rat. I'm almost hoping he is victorious."

"Then he'll almost surely kill us both."

"Yes, I know." Ian started into the tool shed. "At least the humans don't know where the colony is. If there's any bright spot in all this, that's it."

"Where are you going?"

"I want to keep an eye on Jenner. He may get careless and let me have a chance to get the stone away from him. You coming?"

"Uh … I guess so." Justin ran after Ian.

A large work shelf had been built into the side wall of the shed. A plank, laid at a forty-five degree angle, served as a ramp from the floor to the shelf. Ian and Justin climbed the plank and found Jenner talking into a radio. "Get those gas bombs over here as soon as you can. We need them for the ambush." He glanced up and saw the two of them standing upon the shelf a short distance from him. "Get out of here!"

"Why?" said Ian. "We can't hurt you."

Jenner was in the midst of ordering a nearby guard to throw Ian and Justin out of the shed when the sound of gunfire was heard from the front of the house, followed by an explosion and more shots. Jenner raced down the ramp and outside.

The gun crews were running back toward the shed as fast as their legs could carry them. "What happened?" Jenner yelled.

"They came before we were ready, sir," one out-of-breath rat told him. "They've destroyed the artillery and set fire to the farmhouse!"

"Damn them! What about casualties?"

"At least one dead. I don't know how many injured." An armored tank nosed its way around the corner of the burning house and rumbled toward the equipment shed. The rat from the gun crew took one look at the advancing vehicle and continued his retreat, along with most of his fellows.

Jenner jumped atop a tree stump that lay directly in the tank's path and gripped the amulet."Stop!" he bellowed, as the stone's radiance became blinding. "I order you to stop!"

The tank ground to a halt.

Jenner raised the stone, now glowing like a tiny sun, over his head and focused all his energies upon the tank. Within seconds, steam was rising from the surface of the metal armor. The barrel began to turn red and then sag as the power of the stone heated it.

The crew inside the vehicle emerged through the hatch on top and abandoned it. Jenner's concentration remained fixed on the tank. The whole thing glowed red and began to lose its shape, and a minute later the armored weapon was reduced to an irregular giant lump of melted metal.

Jenner stood still for a moment, awed by what he had done. Then he spun round to address the large group that had gathered at the door of the tool shed. "We can win!" he screamed. "They have no defense against the stone! We will win!"

The tide of battle had turned against the humans. Bearing the amulet before him, Jenner was able to put all the soldiers into a comatose state so that they, like the rest of the town, slept. As they did so, Jenner destroyed every last one of their weapons.

And so it was that, scarcely half an hour after the first tank was destroyed, the commander of the National Guard's forces was brought before Jenner in the shed, his men unconscious and his weapons useless slag heaps of melted steel.

The human was dumbfounded as he knelt before the shelf upon which Jenner stood. "Nod if you can understand me," the triumphant rat ordered.

The man nodded. "Good," Jenner continued. "That will make things much easier, Captain," he read the name tag on the uniform pocket, "Jameson. I want to know exactly what other measures I can expect to be taken against us. Will another force follow yours?" Captain Jameson said nothing. Jenner took the stone in his forepaw. "Tell me, now!"

"If we do not report back," Jameson stuttered, "more will come."

"When?"

"I don't know." Jameson shook his head, staring at Jenner in mortification. "My god, when they said intelligent rats, I never imagined … "

"So you underestimated us," Jenner sneered, "a mistake all the humans will make."

"Whatever you're trying to do, you'll never get away with it. Right now your homes are being destroyed, and soon you will be too."

"The colony?" Jenner's eyes narrowed. "You're bluffing! You can't possibly know where the colony is!"

"But we do!" Jameson said. "It's in the Thorn Valley area of the state park, about ten miles from here!"

The rats in the shed, and there were a lot of them by this time, were shocked into silence. Justin, who had been standing back watching the whole thing, whispered to Ian, "They've discovered where the colony is! What are we going to do?"

Ian bowed his head. "Pray for a miracle."

Jenner couldn't believe his ears. "How could you have … " He turned his eyes on Ian. "You! You told them!" Jenner, sword in paw, leapt at Ian. Justin drew his own sword and stepped between them.

"No, Jenner! Ian didn't tell them!"

"I'll kill you both!" Jenner moved toward Justin, but found that there were suddenly several other rats separating him from his quarry. "What are you doing? Get out of my way!"

"No," one rat in a guard uniform said firmly. "Ian and Justin are our friends. We won't let you kill them."

"They're working with the humans!" Jenner cried. "They're our enemies!"

"Ian saved my daughter's life," said another rat. "He's no enemy … you are!"

Jenner held up the amulet to put the other rats back in line, but the light from the heart of the stone only grew dimmer, not brighter. Jenner's power was mysteriously fading.

"Our homes and our families are being destroyed!" The rats now cried out openly against Jenner. "You've led us to our doom!"

Justin hopped up onto a paint can on the shelf. "Friends, hear me! It may still be possible to save the colony. We must surrender to the humans … let them know we want peace. If we give up now, they may spare the colony."

"Don't listen to him!" Jenner yelled. "If we surrender, they'll kill us all! Or worse yet, they'll send us back to NIMH to put us through more tortures! Our only hope lies in strength!"

"I would gladly go back to NIMH," a rat in the crowd answered, "if that's our only chance to save my wife and children!" A murmur of agreement came from the rest of the rats.

Jenner raised the stone high, and some of its brilliance returned. The rats became silent as he regained some degree of control over their minds. "No!" he commanded. "We will not surrender! I forbid it! We shall fight on until we win!"

The inside of the shed suddenly lit up as if a dozen lights of different colors had been switched on. A twisting spiral of ever-changing hues appeared in mid-air and touched down on the shelf like a miniature tornado made of light. Its coming was accompanied by a deafening whine. The rats on the shelf below dived aside to make way for it.

The sound died away and the spiral disappeared. Where it had been, there stood the strangest creature that any of the rats had ever seen. It was shaped like a mushroom with three legs and five arms. About a foot tall, it didn't seem to have any front or back, since the arms were spaced evenly around the edge of the domelike head, and glowing red eyes were scattered randomly all over the top and sides of the head.

The thing reached out an arm toward Jenner. When it spoke, it was as if many voices were sounding at once. "Jenner," it said, "give me the stone."