Posted by Extranjero on April 27, 2007 at 12:17:31:
ROSE WARRIORS (Part 5)
Amy’s sleeping face was like an angel’s, surrounded by a tumble of blonde curls. The candles gleamed on skin like porcelain. Leilani stood and watched her for a moment, as if reluctant to disturb the spell. Then she leaned over the bed and squeezed the girl’s bare shoulder. Amy stirred, then woke up with a gasp.
“Sorry,” said Leilani in a whisper. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Amy blinked short-sightedly, then raised herself, the sheet clasped to her breasts. The memory of last night’s raid was etched on her pale face. “What’s happened?” she asked nervously. Leilani shook her head. “Don’t worry. It’s all quiet tonight. D’you want to get some air?”
Amy sat up with a shrug, the thin sheet still demurely held in place. The night was warm and sticky, which explained why she’d been sleeping in the nude. Leilani too was naked underneath her black silk robe, a skimpy thing which barely reached her thighs. She’d strapped a gunbelt over it. Her holstered pistol rested on her hip.
Amy took her glasses from the nightstand. Leilani turned away as she got up. The room was dim, but muted candles glimmered in the corners. The carved walls quivered in their dying glow.
She looked around, just glimpsing Amy’s naked shoulder-blades as the girl pulled on her own much longer robe. She belted it and turned, her face still anxious. “Are you sure that you’ll be safe, Battlion Leader?”
Lelani gave the holster a caress. “We’ll both be safe.” She smiled reassuringly, and led the way into the chirping dark.
The Citadel was silent underneath the snowy stars. Most of it was sunk in gloom: the sentinels used night-vision equipment. But here and there a torch still flamed, and the orange flickers helped them find their way. They both wore slip-on sandals which creaked softly on the stones, and Amy’s silk robe swished around her legs. Leilani murmured briefly to a sentry as they passed, then padded down a crumbled flight of steps.
“Where are we going?” Amy asked. The night seemed cooler now. She hugged herself.
“The Judge’s Tower,” Leilani said. She sensed her friend’s unease and turned her head. “They caught those three Assassins there. I can’t stop wondering why.”
“It’s just a ruin, though,” said Amy apprehensively.
Leilani peered into the dark. She didn’t need reminding. In fact she’d helped to ruin it. A fleeting memory slipped through her head. But the Citadel was ancient, built by medieval cultures, and its walls had long since started to decay.
The outer rampart still stood firm, with stumpy watchtowers ranged along its length. Some of these had names attached, though no-one knew the history behind them. Enigmatic names, which cast a shadow of the past. The Witch’s Tower. The Tower of Spikes.
The Tower of the Judge.
They slipped through a grove of orange trees and glimpsed its shattered bulk against the sky. A hint of dawn was glimmering behind it, but the night still clung to every branch and brick. A torch burned in its sconce beside the entrance to the tower. It glinted on dull metal. They could just make out a lumpy, sphinx-like shape.
Leilani felt her hackles rise. She hesitated briefly, then crept forward. The object was a Cromwell tank, half buried under rubble, its boxy turret crumpled like a can. It had sat here for a year at least – ever since the failed rebellion. She guessed its robot brain had driven it obsessively against the tower. Blasting the wall at point blank range, then ramming the foundations, until the structure fell on it and crushed its fury under tons of stone.
A Black Recluse. Leilani skirted round it warily. The old wreck had been left to rust, like the ones out on the ranges, but its very stillness nibbled at her nerves. She took the torch down from its bracket. Amy sidled closer. Leilani looked at her and put a finger to her lips.
“Shh!”
Amy peered back, wide-eyed. Leilani nodded over at the tank. “If you listen carefully, you can hear the crew still trying to get out.”
Amy gasped, then pouted as she saw Leilani’s grin. “I hope that was a joke, Battalion Leader.”
Leilani touched her arm. She felt a girlish sense of mischief. It kept the eerie atmosphere at bay. “Relax. The things are fully automated – and this one’s deader than a piece of scrap.”
She raised the torch, as if to check. The mangled tank was silent. Leilani winked at Amy with a confidence she didn’t entirely feel. She turned towards the broken tower and ventured to the doorway. A cool draught came from somewhere deep. She heard a rat-like movement in the blackness.
Leilani wavered on the threshold, casting light into the dank interior. “What did you come up with in the archive?” she enquired.
Amy was waiting timidly behind her. “I turned up a few clues.” She seemed reluctant to say more.
Leilani glanced at her, then led the way into the tower. She ducked under a sagging beam. Dust crunched beneath her sandals. The torch flame licked the dark away and showed a ruined chamber. She wondered if the rest of it was ready to come down.
The Citadel’s Commander had the Watch Tower as its lair, but she wondered who had used these outer turrets. The Assassins had been killed outside; she’d glimpsed a splash of dark blood near the door. She ventured further in, her heartbeat drumming. Through a horseshoe archway to a back room choked with slabs of tumbled stone. The ghostly draught felt stronger here. The torch lit up a doorway in the dark.
Amy had stuck to her like glue. Leilani felt her shiver. “I’m not sure that we should, Battalion Leader …”
“You’ve got no sense of adventure,” said Leilani through her teeth. She drew her automatic and went forward. The doorway gave onto a narrow stairwell. A flight of steps descended into murk.
Leilani paused to listen. There was silence from below. Gripping her pistol and the torch, she started down the steps. A breath of air went up her robe, like something clammy sniffing for her sex. She pulled a face and wished that she had put her panties on.
Amy spoke behind her, as if trying to displace her own unease.
“That pendant … It looked ancient. Like a carving from Old Sumer.”
“Never heard of it,” Leilani said. “Where’s that?”
“It’s in the eastern zone – or was. Five thousand years ago. The oldest cities in the world were built there. It makes me wonder what was there before ...”
Leilani reached the bottom. She was in some kind of vault. The air was cold and stale. Her nipples swelled. She turned as Amy padded down to join her. The lenses of her glasses caught the light.
“I think that girl was wearing a carved demon. Something to protect her from an evil that was worse.”
Leilani shrugged. “It didn’t help against a nine-mil bullet.”
“Perhaps she was more scared about her soul.”
Amy’s voice was husky now, as if she thought they might be overheard. Leilani watched her breasts bulge as she hugged them. The cold had made her nipples hard as well.
“There are legends that say Sumer was a place of fallen angels. They came to share their secrets – and to take. They screwed the women, who gave birth to monsters. And when the monsters were wiped out, their spirits wouldn’t die.”
Leilani wasn’t sure where this was leading. She went on through another doorway, stooping to get through. The flame licked up again to show a claustrophobic chamber. The walls were glistening with damp, and etched from floor to ceiling. The floor was strewn with rubble, some of which was crudely carved.
A sudden chill came over her. She brought the pistol up instinctively. But the chamber was deserted, like an empty charnel house. Swallowing, she eased the torch along the nearest wall. The carved words weren’t the Cufic script that decorated buildings in the palace. These looked starker: much more primitive. Hieroglyphics, seeping damp like visible black magic. She moved aside as Amy came to look.
“Jesus, this is ancient. Looks like cuneiform or something.”
“How did the monsters get wiped out?” Leilani asked, almost despite herself.
“The world was flooded, in the oldest stories. That myth is so deep-rooted that it’s very likely based on something real.”
They walked the Earth before the Flood … Leilani thought, still studying the carvings.
“Leilani … have you wondered what the Commanders really are?”
… and now they want it back. She looked around.
Amy’s eyes were wide behind her glasses. “They’re don’t like water. Hadn’t you heard that?”
Leilani shook her head, intrigued. She’d thought the things were quite inscrutable. Amy was about to say more when something behind Leilani caught her eye. She gave a squeal of fright and clapped her hand across her mouth. Leilani whirled, her pistol aimed and ready.
A dark shape seemed to watch them from a corner of the room. The torch flame caught a glint of moulded steel. Leilani’s stomach knotted and she almost dropped the pistol. The sight of that black armour made her cringe.
The slumped Commander didn’t stir. She couldn’t feel its stare. There was no sense of presence in the room. After a pause, heart hammering, she took a step towards it. The Greek-style helmet glowered emptily. The battered breastplate hung askew. The arm and leg pieces were out of joint. It seemed that there were only cobwebs binding it together. No creature lurked within the armoured shell.
“Oh my God,” Leilani breathed. Her pistol was still braced. “They must have left this one down here when all the others left.”
“Is it dead?” asked Amy in a whisper.
Swallowing, Leilani held the torch out. There was no trace of bones or rotting flesh. “What was it you said about the monsters?” she asked hoarsely.
“Their souls turned into demons,” Amy said.
Leilani felt an icy dread go creeping down her back. “I don’t think this one’s dead. It’s gone. It’s walking round out there.”
They stared at one another, and a muffled rumble started in the distance. Leilani stiffened, glancing round. She sensed a growing tremor in the walls. All her fine hairs stood on end. “Oh Christ, the tower’s collapsing!” But part of her was thinking that the demon had returned.
The rumbling got louder as they fled towards the steps. Black water oozed between the cellar’s bricks. Leilani pushed Amy ahead and scrambled after her. They reached ground level, and the tower was trembling, but the structure didn’t seem about to fall. The noise was coming from outside: a harsh, metallic thunder. Leilani ducked into the dawn. A helicopter glided overhead.
Its shape was just a silhouette against the brightening sky. It had a long snout like a dog’s, and lines as gaunt and ugly as an insect’s. Its navigation beacons throbbed as it came in to land, settling on a patch of open ground below the ramparts. Leilani recognised it as a Havoc, a gunship favoured by the Field Brigades. But even as it throttled back, the roar was getting louder. Leilani turned in disbelief as four more helicopters clattered in.
These looked even uglier: like bloated, hunchbacked spiders. Leilani guessed they carried troops as well as weaponry. The torch made her too visible. She replaced it in its sconce. “Jesus, what the hell are those?” she said.
“Mil 24s,” said Amy as the giant bugs came down. “I think they used to call them Krokodils.”
“So who sent out an invite to the fucking Field Brigades?” Leilani was annoyed, her fears forgotten. Holstering her gun, she hurried off along the ramparts with Amy trailing in her wake.
The Krokodils were touching down wherever there was space. The racket startled doves and crows, which scattered from their roosts in the old buildings. The night patrols watched warily, their M16s half-raised. Other Guards, who’d been asleep, came out to rub their bleary eyes and stare.
One of the choppers landed on a patch of grass beside the orange grove. A team of female troopers scrambled out. They all wore short-sleeved blouses and snug hotpants, with helmets hanging from their belts and caps perched jauntily. The uniforms were ochre with a dappling of brown, which gave the girls the look of sleek young leopards. They carried AK74s as if they meant to use them right away.
Leilani watched them fanning out, then moved to join a group of her own Guards. They made a forceful showing in their cropped black tees and matching Lycra shorts. The girl called Lena sidled up to keep Leilani covered. She eyed the newcomers suspiciously. Leilani glanced around as Ruthie joined them, resplendent in her catsuit and dark shades. As head of Zone security she had her pick of weapons, and cradled an assault carbine with telescopic sight. Leilani recognised it as an HK33. She met the deadpan shades. “What’s going on?”
Ruthie shrugged. “They gave official codes. They’re authorised. We had ten minutes warning they were going to arrive. I couldn’t find you in your rooms,” she added pointedly.
The leopard girls were prowling through the alleys. They snootily ignored the watching Guards. A team went into one of the old barracks. A group of dopey Doll Soldiers were waiting in the yard.
Regulations said there should be no Dolls in the fortress. After the rebellion, they’d been moved to compounds well outside the walls. But the Guards still used the willing ones as field-whores, and Leilani turned a blind eye to their deals. These girls were dishevelled from a sweaty night of sex, but they clearly had an appetite for more. Their breasts peeked out from under their Napoleonic jackets. Their breeches were as tight as pantyhose.
They smiled coyly at the new arrivals. The troopers squinted back, expressionless. A girl in a black beret touched her headset. She nodded to an unheard voice, then gestured at the Dolls.
“Unauthorised personnel. Deal with them.”
The stutter of Kalashnikovs exploded in the yard. The startled Dolls cried out pain and panic. The bullets all had hollow points which crumpled as they punctured tender flesh. The slugs flipped over, devastating organs, and burst out through their fancy braided coats. The shocking impacts made the Dolls convulse like drunken dancers. Their bodies jerked and flopped against the wall.
“For God’s sake!” said Leilani, horrified. She started running.
One of the whores was squealing “Noooo!” A burst of slugs gyrated through her chest. A girl framed in the doorway grasped her belly and her breast. Her wail of terror peaked in pain, then faded to a gurgle as she slumped.
Leilani pounded down the lane, not caring if her short robe came adrift. The troopers saw her coming and began to turn their guns. In moments, all the watching Guards had levelled their own weapons. “Just you try, you bitches!” Ruthie called.
The troopers looked uncertain now, their fingers twitching in their trigger guards. Leilani panted to a halt and hauled her pistol out. She sensed her own girls squeezing at their triggers. The trooper in the black beret was scowling back at her.
“Who’s in charge?” Leilani snapped.
“I am!” said a new voice breezily.
A girl in a black flying suit was sauntering towards her. Leilani frowned and let her gun hand drop. The newcomer was tall and slim, with girl-next-door good looks, but her shades gave her a thousand-yard black stare. She carried her helmet in one hand. Her curling russet hair spilled down her back.
“And who the hell are you?” Leilani muttered. She guessed this was the pilot of the Havoc.
“Brigade-Major Garleigh,” smirked the girl. “My unit’s been sent down to reinforce you.” She glanced at the dead Dolls and shrugged. “We need to make this Citadel secure.”
“It is secure, you snotty cow. We didn’t send for you!”
Rachel’s smug look didn’t change. “I’ve come here with the Seal of the Commanders. There’s evidence of southern rebels planning an attack, and this place is too important to ignore.” She nodded to her restive troops and looked round at the itchy-fingered Guards. Then the shades turned back to catch Leilani in their lenses. “I think we’d better step inside and talk.”
Leilani curled her lip, but dropped her gun into its holster. “Stand easy, girls,” she called, and led the way across the plaza to her rooms. Lena followed watchfully and waited on the doorstep, a grim expression on her fresh young face. Amy lingered in the plaza, chewing on her thumbnail, while the Guards and troopers stared each other down. Ruthie slung her carbine, looking sulky. Her bare arms bulged with muscle as she massaged her gloved hands.
Rachel strolled into Leilani’s quarters and dumped her helmet on the rosewood desk. “Fuck, it’s hot down here,” she said, unzipping her black suit down to the crotch. She only wore a black lace bra and panties underneath it. Nice figure, thought Leilani grudgingly. Rachel parked her bottom on the desktop, and lit a cigarette as if the office was her own. Blowing out a stream of smoke, she grinned towards Leilani – who briefly had the urge to put a bullet right between those shapely tits.
“Well, that’s five Doll Soldiers who won’t be fighting any wars for the Commanders.”
“We’ve got a war going on right now,” said Rachel evenly. “The whole peninsula could be at stake. Who cares if a few tarts get creamed?” She smiled at her own joke.
Leilani prowled around the room. She wished she was wearing something more substantial. “What’s the situation, then?” she asked resentfully.
“Guerrillas hit a convoy on the coast road. The same night, someone tries to take you out. That’s hardly a coincidence. The rebels are planning something. And they know this is the key to the whole Zone.”
“Everything’s in hand,” Leilani murmured. And I killed seven of them, she thought, but didn’t want to sound like she was boasting.
Rachel’s cigarette end flared. Her bosom swelled, then sank as she exhaled. “My orders are to hold this Citadel against attack. You should be grateful, babes, because my unit is the best.” She beamed and jerked her head towards the window. “Some of them probably came through here, you know?”
Leilani smiled crookedly. “I keep the cream,” she said. “You just get the curdled milk, you little sourpuss.”
Rachel’s smile faded. She took off her shades and fixed Leilani with her cool blue eyes. “Don’t forget whose seal I’m carrying,” she came back softly. “The Northern Watchers sent me here, and they won’t be denied. I hear you got promoted very quickly. Remember, you can come down just as fast.”
Leilani glowered, glanced away. A mocking glint crept into Rachel’s eyes. She sucked her cigarette and smirked. “Now, how about some breakfast and a bed?”
* * *
Amy hugged herself, although the day was getting warmer. She loitered anxiously outside the house. Ruthie swaggered up to join her, glancing round at Rachel’s leopard girls. “Everything okay?” she murmured. Amy nodded glumly.
Ruthie peered over her shades, her baby blue eyes wide. “You and the boss were up early this morning,” she remarked.
Amy shrugged and glanced aside. A rosy blush had crept into her cheeks. Ruthie smiled and jerked her head. “Come on, let’s have some coffee while we’re waiting.”
They crossed the cobbled plaza, Ruthie’s blank shades fending off the troopers’ stares. Amy sidled close behind her, envying her cool. Ruthie led the way into her quarters and put her carbine back into its rack. Taking off her shades, she smiled – and let her fingers comb through Amy’s curls.
Amy’s blush grew deeper as she backed against the wall. “Ruthie, no – we mustn’t.” She glanced quickly at the door.
“Aw,” said Ruthie, “mustn’t we?” Her eyes were heavy-lidded with desire. She toyed with Amy’s bosom through the gossamer silk robe. The blonde girl gave a nervous, needy gasp.
Ruthie smiled haughtily and pulled her zipper down. She wore no underclothes beneath the suit. Amy’s blue eyes widened as her tits bulged into view. Ruthie’s gloved hands cupped them as though offering a gift, the pink tips stiffening as Amy watched.
“Please, Ruthie …” Amy licked her lips. “Leilani might be finished any second …”
“I bet I finish you off first,” breathed Ruthie, and pulled open Amy’s robe.
“Oh, Jesus …” Amy whimpered as the dark girl sucked her breasts. She hauled the leather suit off Ruthie’s shoulders. No-one knew that they were lovers, least of all Leilani. It felt deceitful somehow, though of course they were no less professional.
Ruthie’s wet mouth paused for breath. “I hope you’re not too tired,” she murmured slyly.
“I’m all right,” Amy murmured. “It was just something Leilani had to check …”
Ruthie smiled and nuzzled her. “So tell me about it … afterwards,” she purred.