The Mischief of Rats: The Effugium, #1

By skribe

Dru is being hunted.  Hunted like a rat through the bowels of the space station.  He needs to find out what Commander Goul has done to all the kids that have gone missing.  Tired, cold and so terribly hungry, the atramentous inside of a decaying hulk is no place for a ten year old.  But he has to go on.  He has to find Gar, his best friend.  Or die trying.

• Language: English
• Publisher: skribe
• Release date: Nov 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497749771

skribe

skribe was born in Fremantle, Western Australia. For fifteen years, he worked as a producer, director and screenwriter before switching to online marketing, acting and writing. When he is not being a dad to his two boys he likes to pretend that he is a capable PC gamer.

Book preview

The Mischief of Rats

The Effugium, Volume 1

skribe

Published by skribe, 2013.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

THE MISCHIEF OF RATS

First edition. November 8, 2013.

Copyright © 2013 skribe.

ISBN: 978-1497749771

Written by skribe.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

The Mischief of Rats (The Effugium, #1)

Also By skribe

About the Author

For my boys

There were no rats. 

If there were any still aboard, they would be here.  They liked to huddle near the warmth of the heat exchangers foraging amongst the cold stores and dry silos.  Gar had shown Dru the way through the maze of ducts and narrow cavities.  It had taken them nearly an hour to reach it, climbing through spaces that would have trapped a Grownup. 

That time, there had been a hoard of rats scurrying along the walls or flinging themselves across the gaps, using their tails as a counter-balance in the microgravity.  Who knew that rats could work out how to fly?  Dru had hovered open-mouthed watching them from behind the safety glass of Brown Sector.  Gar had laughed when he’d seen his reaction and teased him for weeks afterwards.  His mother had been less gentle: the climb left him filthy and she had scolded him before handing him off to his father to administer the corporal reminder of his foolhardiness. 

He’d visited the rats often after that, always in the suit he had pilfered.  The rats were special to him.  He’d watch them for hours and had managed to identify and name twenty of them.  He liked how they functioned in groups - little families - working against the others. Defending and caring, everyone looking out for the members of their clan.  None left behind and all. 

He’d even taken Meri with him once.  It had taken him nearly a week to steal a suit in her size and another day to find something to protect Chocolate.  She refused to leave it behind.

However, she’d screamed and fled as soon as she saw the rats.  He had to give up his last bar of chocolate to calm her down. His younger sister loved chocolate – both kinds.

Even then, she had called the rats horrid and beastly - just like him!  He couldn’t understand her reaction.  Maybe he should have warned her before, but he wanted to surprise her so they could share it together. 

Every time he was down here, he wanted to slip beyond the locked door and touch the rats.  He had even dreamt once that he was their Lord and they would bring him food and huddle next to him at night to keep him warm.  However, Gar had told him it was too dangerous, that the rats would attack him and then gobble up his corpse.  He never got up the courage to open the door by himself.  Until now, and by then the rats were all gone.

There had been rats in places other than the Hub of course.  They were in every Habitat and ship across the system.  There were rumours that the Di Ren had modified the ones aboard their vessels to work for them, cleaning refuse from the gel and even carrying little packages on their backs.  That’s what Gar had told him. There were mice, rats, cockroaches and spiders everywhere, a lasting legacy from the planet-born days.  At least there used to be.  The Grownups had flooded the Rim will gas and purged all the critters.

The rats near the Rim had always been hard to find.  They would constantly move and hide in the darkest places, scampering away as soon as they heard him approach.  Unlike the ones in the Hub, their lives were constantly under threat: lights all over the place and people everywhere.  He understood their fear well.  Now he had become like them: hiding in the shadows and hurrying away as soon as he heard even the hint of someone approaching.

He drifted through the doorway.  Abandoned long ago, the