Posted by Extranjero on April 27, 2007 at 12:12:17:
This is actually Doll Soldiers 2 – but if you haven’t read the first one, I would hope you can enjoy this on its own.
ROSE WARRIORS (Part 1)
Cathy’s courage wavered for a moment. The air was full of screams and rifle fire. Then she gripped her gun and stumbled out onto the porch. The din of battle hit her in the face.
The little town was wreathed in smoke. She glimpsed a building burning. The other girls in her platoon were triggering their guns. Like her, they wore old-fashioned coats and Civil War squashed caps, with nothing but their underwear beneath. They looked like re-enactors who’d been caught while getting dressed; whose lingerie belied their smoke-grimed skin.
The girls who were attacking them wore only paint and panties. Their hissing arrows filled the air like hail.
Cathy ducked as one sped past and whacked into the woodwork. She shrank from thinking what it would have done to her soft flesh. Bringing her Spencer rifle up, she swung in search of targets. Paint-streaked faces screamed at her above unguarded breasts.
She centred on a pair of sweaty tits and squeezed the trigger. The wildcat crumpled with a girlish squawk. Cathy jerked the lever and the spent shell left the chamber. She hadn’t time to notice that the antique gun held modern cartridges.
As she thumbed the hammer back, her comrades blazed away. The charging girls were flipped into the dirt. Cathy gasped, then sighted more attackers. She ran across the street towards the barn.
The town felt artificial, like a TV Western set, but the terrifying fight was all too real. Spears and arrows punctured flesh, and bullets ruptured bodies. The girls who fell did not get up again. Cathy’s heart was pounding like a drum roll in her chest. She didn’t know how she’d got here, but she knew those bitches meant to have her arse.
The coat she wore was coarse grey wool, so prickly-hot that she’d unbuttoned it. Her breasts were bare and panting as she ran. The coattails flapped against her butt and tiny black lace panties. Her brown hair streamed from underneath her cap.
Some of the others wore grey too, or blue – it didn’t matter. The wildcats were the common enemy. One was crouching in the hayloft, notching a fresh arrow to her bow. Cathy fired up at her and saw the girl’s tit bob like a dunked apple. Just like Halloween, she thought, ejecting the spent round. The girl – who looked about eighteen – grimaced beneath her war paint, hands clawing at her bosom as she toppled from the loft. A wagonload of hay was right below her and she landed in it with a muffled thud.
Cathy cocked the Spencer while the body was still falling, her fine-boned features clenched exultantly. She had no memory of being a playful office girl, beguiling colleagues with her impish smile. Now there was just instinct and the thrill of taking lives. She took a bitchy pleasure in each death.
Later would be time enough to wonder what had happened to her clothes.
She sighted on another sporty babe and shot her dead. The dumb blonde gawped as crimson flecked her breasts. Levering her rifle, Cathy ducked out of the yard. The buzz of battle left her short of breath.
The girl who’d fallen from the loft sprawled face-up in the hay, her left breast splashed with red like a rosette. Her fading mind was still a blur: no recollection of her previous life. A week ago she’d been applying makeup, but now her sweet face was a painted snarl. It slackened as she sank into the comfort of the stalks. Her buckskin panties darkened as she died.
Arrows were still streaking through the hazy air outside. Some had blazing rags attached, and set fire to the woodwork that they struck. One bright comet hit a girl dead centre in the navel; she screamed as fire blurted from her belly. Cathy winced and watched her squirm, face twisted in the shadow of her cap. Down she slumped, legs wide apart, her own blood spilling out to quench the flames.
Another girl in Yankee blue was skewered by a lance. She cried out like a child who’d found a bloodless game was being played for real. The girl who’d driven home the shaft died breast to breast with her, as Cathy’s bullet seared into her brain. A second wildcat brought a carbine up and raked the sidewalk, her perky tits pulsating with each shot. The weapon was an old M1 she’d scavenged from another firing range. Its semi-automatic fire outgunned the Colts and Spencers, whose hapless owners squealed as they were shot.
Cathy dived and rolled aside. The air was getting smoky. Girls were fighting hand to hand, like cats with knives and hatchets in the dust. She fetched up in the gap between two hollow-looking houses, and clenched her sweating fingers round her gun. The bitch with the M1 was firing into fallen bodies. Cathy’s girlfriends twitched and bounced, their bosoms jiggling. The wildcat was athletic, slim, her muscled body sheened with grimy sweat. Long blonde hair like dirty straw, and a streak of bone-white paint beneath her eyes. She stalked towards the corner, still intent on her next kill, and Cathy took slow aim towards her heart. Her trigger finger waited till the girl had sensed her presence, then tightened sharply to release the round. A scarlet hole exploded just above the girl’s right breast – and Cathy saw two things that made her freeze.
The first thing was her victim’s shocked expression. The feral look had dropped off like a mask. Cathy glimpsed the startled city girl beneath the war paint. It seemed like a reflection of herself.
The second was the bullet hole. It looked like a carnation. She had a sudden memory of flowers in her hands. A spray of red carnations that had made her heart beat faster. All at once the world was out of joint, and full of doubt.
Cathy stumbled backwards as the stricken blonde collapsed. Her memories were still blanked out, but suddenly she needed to remember. The urge to kill went out of her and left a gutted feeling. Fear rushed in to fill the gap, and she turned and fled along the alleyway.
The screams and shooting carried on, but nobody pursued her. She reached a field of knee-high grass and crossed it in a crouch. A wooded ridge rose up behind the boxy little town, and she plunged into the cover of the trees.
A bird flapped noisily away. She heard the whirr of crickets. The distant gunshots popped like snapping sticks. Cathy found a dry stream bed and followed it uphill. She only knew she had to get away. Even in the shade, the day was stiflingly hot, and she felt the sweat well up beneath her jacket. Panting softly, feeling sick, she didn’t hear the voices till she’d almost reached the clearing at the top.
She glimpsed the first black vehicle and felt her heart leap up. A pair of black-clad girls stood next to it. At first she was convinced they must have seen her. Then she grew as certain that they’d spot her if she tried to slip away. Biting her lip, she eased onto her haunches and peered between the gently rustling leaves.
The vehicles on the ridgeline had a military look. Their dusty bodywork was painted black. One was an estate car with a trailer hitched behind it and a pair of tall antennae at the rear. The other was more ominous: a toad-like armoured jeep. The crews of both were lounging round, some talking carelessly. All of them were girls her age, but dressed in cropped black tee-shirts and tight shorts. Automatic rifles lay beside them in the grass. Some wore military caps and others were bare-headed. One had even taken off her top.
Cathy frowned in puzzlement. Her world was crumbling underneath her feet. The battle had been life or death, but now the whole thing seemed like a charade. One of the girls was studying the town through field glasses. Fragmented cross-talk drifted from the car.
The girl lowered her glasses and turned back towards the radio vehicle. She seemed to be the officer, a pale brunette with cool metallic eyes. Cathy’s hackles rose again, but her presence went unnoticed. She watched the girl walk over to the truck.
* * *
The officer pushed back her cap and hanks of damp hair curled onto her forehead. Her name was Beth, and she was getting bored. The battle-play was winding down, the gunfire more sporadic by the minute. Soon the marshals would move in and harvest the survivors from the field.
Beth’s cell had been tasked to oversee the exercise. As ever, this meant sitting on their arses for three hours. The Dolls down there were well-conditioned, both sides at each other’s throats like cats. No deserters to be shot, and no risk of the battle spilling over. The ones who made it through would soon be doped and hypnotised, all ready to proceed to the next range.
A large-scale map was spread across the hood of the control truck. Her squad leader pored over it with shades pushed up and cigarette in hand. The truck was a Blazer 1009, or Black Fox as the Guard referred to them. The armoured jeep behind it was a sinister Black Boar, with its wide base and distinctive sloping back.
She nodded to her NCO and peered down at the map. Routes and ranges were all marked, though not apparent on the empty landscape. It would take them several hours to reach their base-camp. The Citadel was two days drive away.
Jesus, it was hot. She took a swig from her canteen. “Status?” she asked through the open window. There were two girls sitting in the back, crouched over their equipment. One glanced up from her green screen. “I think we have the core selection, Miss.”
Beth just nodded carelessly, then saw a cloud of dust rise in the distance. A vehicle was jouncing through the scrubby countryside, along the track that led to their position. She brought her glasses up again and saw another Fox. A shadow of bemusement crossed her face.
She studied the approaching truck. “Relief’s a little early ...” Her bored squad leader shrugged and breathed out smoke. The other girls had noticed and began to stir themselves. One tugged her sticky tee-shirt off her tits.
As the Guards climbed to their feet, she heard a sudden whirring, as if a flight of birds had taken wing. Before she could begin to turn, a spray of arrows lashed the startled girls. The barbed points punched through tender flesh with meaty thwacking noises. The hapless victims squealed in agony.
“Fuck!” she gasped and dived aside, her automatic jerking from its holster. She was wearing leather half-gloves which had slicked her palms with sweat, but she had reason to be grateful for them now. The Guards who’d stopped the arrows were grimacing woefully, their bodies flopping down into the grass. The girl who’d just unstuck her tee-shirt wailed as it was pinned back to her chest.
Another wave of arrows swept the clearing like a scythe. A Guard snatched up her M16 and screamed as she was pierced through breast and belly. Others loosed off bursts of shots that splintered through the tree line. Cathy cowered fearfully as bullets hit the trunk she crouched behind.
The wildcats must have followed her. Their lissom shadows seemed to fill the wood. The bows kept twanging steadily. The dozy girls in black were sitting ducks. Their tee-shirts were provocative but offered no protection. They screamed like Cathy’s comrades as the arrows thudded into their soft breasts.
Now the wildcats launched a charge. The wild defensive fire caught some of them. But others carried guns as well, and sprayed the startled Guards at point blank range. Cathy focused on one girl – a slim, large-breasted blonde. Her scarlet coat and tricorne hat were clearly plunder from another fight. Her freckled face had once been sweet, but now a mask of warpaint framed her eyes. She gripped a looted M16 and yelled in fury as she emptied it.
The bullets stitched the backs of two girls running for the Boar. They shook their tits like table dancers, then collapsed face down. Beth had scrambled round the Fox, and fired over the hood. She hit one wildcat in the chest and blew a hole between another’s eyes.
Still cringing in the undergrowth, Cathy glimpsed more figures lurking in the trees. They were backing up the savages – but these girls wore black uniforms as well. Their compact sub-machine guns all had silencers attached. She watched them like a frightened deer, aware that if they saw her, she would die.
The oncoming patrol truck reached the clearing at that point, the dust erupting from beneath its wheels. “Watch yourselves!” Beth shouted, waving frantically at them. The Fox came slewing round; she glimpsed a fat tube at the window. A silenced pistol spattered her with lead.
Beth’s jaw dropped with disbelief, and then her mouth gaped wider as she screamed. Crimson holes appeared in her snug tee-shirt, the bullets ripping through the breasts beneath. She bucked and flopped convulsively, her doomed squad leader squirming next to her. Blood splashed the black bodywork, and smeared as they both slithered to the dirt.
The Black Fox rumbled to a halt. A singing silence pressed on Cathy’s ears. One of the wildcats gave a whoop. She sounded like a gleeful cheerleader. The sweaty girls in panties started rooting through the bodies. The ones in uniform moved out to join them.
Two more girls dismounted from the battered-looking truck. The driver wore the standard shorts and tee-shirt, but her passenger looked stunning in a sleeveless leather catsuit and half-gloves. Ignoring the milling huntresses, they moved to check the radio vehicle. It had taken a few hits, but the equipment looked undamaged. Not so the two operators crumpled in the back, their headphones still strapped over their deaf ears.
The eager wildcats were comparing weapons. The girl in the red jacket smiled and took a fresh clip for her M16. But shooting was still coming from the town below the ridge. These weren’t the girls whom Cathy had been fighting.
“Good kill,” said the girl in the black catsuit. She had a poised, conceited look, with slicked-back hair, pale eyes and pouting lips. She nodded to the redcoat, who was smirking like the student she’d once been. Then she nodded to the other Guards.
The blurt of silenced MP5s made Cathy jump again. The gathered wildcats didn’t have a chance. Now it was their turn to squeal as bullets bit and pummelled into them. Several of them twitched and danced long after they were dead, not falling till the guns were turned elsewhere. The redcoat’s blue eyes widened in her painted-on black mask as the girl in leather brought her pistol up. One shot through the heart would have sufficed at that close range, but the killer riddled both her shapely breasts. The girl’s cry choked as bits of lung exploded through her back. She slumped and sprawled amid her bloodied sisters.
Cathy whimpered faintly, fingers jammed against her mouth. In moments all the naked girls were mixed up with the massacred patrol. The black-clad killers moved apart with brisk deliberation. She realised there were only five of them.
The corpses were hauled out of the communications truck, and the blue-eyed girl’s companion clambered in. She started up and swung the wheel, the vehicle turning back the way they’d come. Cathy watched it speed away, the two-wheeled trailer jouncing in its wake. The blue-eyed girl tossed something through the door of her own truck, then scampered clear along with the three others. The abandoned Blazer burst apart, a gout of orange flame erupting skywards. Oily smoke came rolling towards Cathy like a cloak. She felt a hot smut sting against her cheek.
The choking cloud was all the cover she was going to get. She forced her muscles to unfreeze and ducked into the smoky, murky wood. Feeling weak and queasy now, she moved between the trees, her rifle like a dead weight in her hands.
A gunshot rang out somewhere and she stiffened like a fawn. The leaves were sighing, rippling overhead. Then she heard another crack, and realised what it was. No gunshot but a stepped-on snapping twig.
She turned along the path again, and the blue-eyed girl appeared around a tree. Her glossy, pouting lips were pursed. Her silenced gun was aimed. Cathy gasped and tried to raise her rifle. The dark girl pumped three bullets into her.
The first impact made Cathy grunt and stick her naked boobs out for the next. The second bullet seared into the soft flesh of her breast, and won a girlish sob of agony. The third just nicked the pink disk of a nipple, and Cathy’s head flipped back convulsively. She crumpled like an empty coat, blood spurting from her body. Her face became a sulky mask as urine pulsed into her black lace briefs.
The girl gazed haughtily at her, then slipped away into the smoggy trees.
* * *
The sun beat down against the crumbled courtyard. The tiles and flagstones were too hot to touch. The turquoise pool was motionless, a gulf beneath her body. Leilani’s airbed drifted as she dreamed.
The heat was like a bath of honey, and she basked in it. The pressures of her post seemed worlds away. The slaughter on the Ranges, and the evil in the Tower – they felt like shadows from another life.
In fact she’d had another life, of mundane office work. That was mostly wiped away. Its fragments seemed irrelevant to her. Her nightclub-happy younger self was someone else entirely. She felt much older now, at twenty-two.
Last summer, she’d been snatched and brainwashed, ready to be trained as a Doll Soldier. Instead, after escaping and then leading a revolt, she had ended up in charge of the whole programme. They’d scrubbed some of her memories; her foibles did the rest. She was a clever girl, but vain. The power went quickly to her pretty head.
Leilani ran a hand through her wet hair, her eyes still closed. She was nude apart from soaked bikini briefs. Her voluptuous young body gleamed a perfect golden brown, the water beading on her oiled skin. She owed her sultry beauty to a Filipina mother, and her figure to long hours of exercise.
The sound of clicking boot heels broke the silence. It was Amy’s walk, as brisk and serious as the girl herself. Leilani opened one eye, then the other. Her willowy assistant stood and waited by her towel.
“Hi,” Leilani murmured. “What’s the problem?”
Amy was an earnest girl with watery blue eyes. They blinked uneasily behind her glasses. Her blonde curls were tied back, her skin as pale as fine bone china. She seemed too fragile to wear uniform.
“Sorry to interrupt, Battalion Leader. There’s been an incident on Range 13. A whole cell’s been wiped out. That’s ten Guards down.”
Leilani frowned and raised herself. The airbed floated round. “Jesus, what the hell went wrong?” she asked.
Amy checked the clipboard she’d been hugging to her breasts. “The details are still sketchy. They were in two vehicles. A Boar and an Electric Fox. They were monitoring an exercise out there.”
Leilani slid into the water, wading to the side. “What was it, a fem-on-fem?” she asked. The local term for friendly fire, but Amy shook her head. “We had no other units in the area. It seems a group of Amazons had jumped another range. They hit our girls when they were least expected.”
Leilani climbed out of the pool, her naked bosom dripping. Amy blinked and coloured bashfully. Leilani smiled despite herself and picked her bath sheet up. Her trim assistant still gave her mixed feelings. At times she had an urge to cosset Amy. At others, she just ached to fuck the girl.
She draped the towel around her tits. “So what about the Dolls?”
“A security unit finished them. They’re all accounted for.”
“Shame to waste them, if they were that good – but what the hell. There’s plenty more out there to take their places.” Her doe eyes narrowed. “Is the Fox secure?”
“It was burned out in the fire-fight. There was nothing to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Good,” Leilani murmured, still massaging her wet skin. “Tell Ruthie to investigate. I want a full report.”
“Yes, Battlion Leader.” Amy bobbed her head and minced away again. Leilani eyed her pert behind, then glanced around the courtyard. The battle for the Citadel had left the ancient buildings scarred and gutted. But creepers, vines and ivy had brought life back to the ruins. She found the place romantic in its way.
The pool was like a temple court, hemmed in by broken pillars. Beyond, the landscape slumbered in the haze. She had no reason to believe her world was under threat. She tipped her smiling face towards the sun.
There was one girl who could have told her different. But Cathy’s secrets would remain with her. Out on the range, the cleanup squad had stripped her coat and cap off. A butch girl lugged her over to the Hearse. The back of the container jeep was full of dead Doll Soldiers, all dangling on meat hooks, breast to breast. Cathy’s body slumped and hung suspended with the rest, her punctured bosom thrust out shamelessly. The things she’d stumbled on stayed unreported. The doors were slammed and darkness swallowed her.