Chapter 137: Chapter 133

The ‘ratkin’, as they were called, were far from the promising rise of a sapient species. They were dog-sized rodents covered in patches of fur and small tumorous lumps, clumsily draped in hide, and wielding broken human weapons. Initial contact with the sometimes-bipedal creatures was far from ideal considering it was a meeting between primitive sapients with robotic servitors. But the tribe we had contacted were curious enough to approach the Sentinel, chittering skittishly between themselves. 

 

I watched through the screens as one waved a bent machete before the Sentinel and squeaked. On my order, the Sentinel picked up the rusted blade from the rat, who scampered back in fright, and then straightened it before offering it back. That act won over some goodwill, and the other rats approached with excited squeaks to tentatively prod at the Sentinel. A few more Sentinels swam in, scaring them a bit, but after a few seconds of being assured of the robots’ inactivity and non-deadliness, they let the six Sentinels get closer to their tunnel entrance to conduct less…violent investigations.

 

Cabal was the one to break the unfortunate news to me. “Auditory sensors are picking up clear human lifeforms underground.” Then the Sentinels’ mics were put on stream, and after some noise filtering was done, the whimpers and screams of several people were unmistakable.

 

I didn’t outright condemn the primitive race just yet, considering they were…well, a primitive race likely with a different set of sensibilities, but I had the Sentinels dart into the ratkin’s tunnel, ignoring the panicked squeaks from them. Turns out that the tribe had a rather large and twisting warren, and the Sentinels’ optics picked up distinct chambers for sleeping, eating, shitting, and quite disturbingly, fucking.

 

On reviewing the recordings later, there were several chambers where much larger female rats were on either their backs or their bellies as a group of rats were pushing each other away for the right to stick their dick in the larger female. The female rats were covered in scars of varying freshness, some missing digits and chunks of their ears. We even caught one giving birth to a litter of pups, which the males all sniffed over and then carried most of them away. A few of the newborns became snacks to the adult males, especially the last of the litter. That poor thing got yanked out and chomped on before one of the remaining males climbed onto the clearly exhausted female and shoved his cock in her.

 

That didn’t bode well for their sakes.

 

Anyway, the Sentinels eventually found the humans captives, in what was likely the tribe’s larder. The underground chamber was covered in mounds of rotting meat and vegetation, as well as four severely wounded humans. The older adult had his arms gnawed or torn off at the elbow, and his feet missing. A couple of younger adults had chunks bitten off their arms and legs, one missing everything past his elbows and knees, while the other had her cheeks and nose chewed off. The child was the most whole of the lot, which wasn’t saying much. The boy’s chest was a bloody mess, the meat on his thighs sheared off to the point that bone could be seen.

 

All four were covered in blood and shit, the latter particularly smeared around their mouths, which told me how the ratkin were keeping them alive.

 

I got Cabal to begin setting up a new wing in Tleilax and reclassified the ratkin as a harvestable threat. The Sentinels descended on the crater that was Central Park to dive into every warren and clear out every single one of the savage species for further study. After scans showed just how labyrinthine the tunnels were, I ordered the Sentinels to just dig through the blackened soil to speed things up. 

 

Several hundred thousands of the rodents were captured and teleported off into spare underground holding areas for the time being as proper facilities were being constructed. I highly doubt their ratty claws were able to tunnel through steel, Tiberium and tungsten. The scrap-junk artifacts from the nascent civilization were carried back to Ix for studying.

 

About four hundred humans were recovered in total, in various degrees of being eaten alive. Nothing our Broad Spectrum Cures and healing arches couldn’t handle, save for the mental damage. A camp was set up for the liberated wastelanders, and our specialist docs were flown in to give them a look. Clearing Central Park (Dead Zone’s a shit name) was fast enough, and the bots flooded south to claim NYC in no time at all.

 

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Sure, there’s pockets of independent settlements, but that’s standard for the course. So long as they seemed decent enough folk, we’ll leave them alone.

 

With the rest of NYC’s conquest being more or less uneventful, back to the ratkin. Further studies, backed up by local tales, confirmed that the Skaven wannabes were seen as either a nuisance or a threat, depending on how close you lived to one or more of their nests. Smaller, less fortified settlements might get raided, and after chasing off the rodents invariably some of their unfortunate residents would get dragged off into the tunnels to be slowly feasted upon by the rats.

 

There were periodical purges carried out by the bigger settlements, even cooperating with raiders to push the ratkin back to the Dead Zone. The profession of ‘Ratcatcher’ was a big deal around these parts, basically nomads wandering the ruins for rodent hunting. It was a respectable enough job that even the most drugged up raider gangs not only left them alone, but often aided the Ratcatchers with provisions. Shows how much of a problem the rats can be.

 

In the weeks that followed, ratkin physiology and psychology would be very well understood by our scientists. After confirming that they can’t swim, a tribe was let loose on the uninhabited island of Nomans Land (because of course that name fit the bill), and the amount of information we got from our stealthed bots was enough to edit together a documentary (which earned good ratings from our civvy viewers).

 

Theirs was a brutally short life. Only the males were capable of bipedal movement, and though they weren’t outright trying to kill each other, the moment any of them got too injured or sick, his brothers and uncles would tear into him as a snack. The females were stuck underground for their entire lives in their own breeding chambers. Wen they’re not being fucked, they were giving birth, even while they were eating or shitting,. When they couldn’t do either, they’d be cannibalized as well. 

 

As for the infanticide, turns out the ratkins strictly adhere to a gender ratio within their tribe, Eva gave the approximation of twenty to thirty males to one female. Somehow they’re able to keep track of their population (current guess is via hormone concentration), so if there’s too many male or female pups, the unlucky newborns get nommed.

 

All in all, it paints a rather bleach picture of the ratkin. Even the mirelurk colonies were more promising subjects for uplifting - some of them had endured the mirelurk battle royale for long enough that they recognized our troopers approaching their nest to provide food and eggs. Some were also showing signs of tool use, leaving their molted shells out in the tide to act as fish traps.

 

I definitely preferred the brawling crustaceans over the rapey ratties. Still, for the time being observation would be conducted on Nomans Land, and there were plans in the works for limited interference on shaping ratkin culture. If they still prove too rapey and cannibalistic, there’s enough mirelurk queens that we can drop off with their eggs to turn the island into a mirelurk sanctuary.

 

As for the rest of the ratkin being held in captivity, those that weren’t cannibalized out of panic were eventually transferred into gender segregated holding pens. There were enough rodents already to study. If the occult department can figure out a way to convert the ratkin to count as human for ingredients, it’d be a big win for our inventory. It’d give us reason to let them breed in a controlled manner, and would open up a more sustainable form of harvesting.

 

Maybe even sustainable deathclaw food? Hm. Guess we’ll have to pick a few to send over to the ‘claws and see how they like the taste.

 

Come to think of it, we might also be set for fertilizer too. And if ratkin shit can be easily turned into manure, all the better.

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