Posted by Extranjero on May 18, 2007 at 13:08:34:
STORM SISTERS (Part 7)
Leilani woke up with a start. A frosty dawn was seeping through the curtains. She realised that the sleigh had stopped. The silence seemed to whisper in her ears.
She sat up underneath the furs and peered out through the window. The trees were giving way to open snow. The sleigh felt claustrophobic, like a wooden overcoat. She stretched, and slithered over to the door.
Danielle glanced round as she emerged. The rebel was wrapped up in her long cloak. She’d been listening to the stillness with her rifle angled skywards. “I see you got some sleep at last,” she smiled.
Leilani gave a sullen shrug and rubbed her hands together. The wintry landscape seemed devoid of life. One of the horses snorted and she looked towards the sleigh. Debra, the young driver, was attending to the team.
The girl’s coat was too big, giving her a waifish look. She wore a scarf around her head, pushed back to let her amber fringe spill out. Her pretty features had a foxy sharpness. Leilani guessed she was about eighteen.
The girl peered back suspiciously. Perhaps she wanted Danielle to herself. You’re welcome to her, Leilani thought, and yet her heart dissented. She still remembered Danielle’s breasts, resplendent in their gossamer cocoon …
“We’d best push on,” the rebel leader murmured. “Before your girlfriends catch us up again.”
“Those bitches aren’t my friends,” Leilani said.
“No, I don’t suppose they are. Your girlfriend is the one you left behind.”
Leilani’s eyes flashed angrily. “Fuck off, Danielle. You think I can forget?”
“She’s still alive, you know. And now they’ll use her as their bait. So if you want to get her back, you’re going to have to finish the whole troop.”
Leilani stared at her and felt her stomach hollow out. The girl’s eyes were as knowing as a cat’s. Chewing her lip, she turned away, towards the waiting sleigh. And glimpsed a movement at the forest’s edge.
Something grey and ponderous was lurking in the pines: the colour of a wolf, but mammoth-sized. As she stared, it crawled out of the cover of the trees and squatted there, a hundred yards away.
She knew at once it was the Royal Tiger. The monster must have found a forest track. Its sensors had locked onto her way back at the vedette post, and still the thing was following her trail.
The thought of its relentlessness sent tremors through her nerves. There was a dreadful purpose in its bulk. Then it revved its engines with a sudden, bestial roar. The steam rose up in clouds from its exhausts.
The horses shifted with unease. Danielle tugged at Leilani’s sleeve: “Come on!” Debra swung into her seat and looked back anxiously. “They’re tired now. We can’t go very fast.”
As they piled into the back, the turret swung towards them. A machine gun chattered soullessly, and bullets chewed their way along the treeline. Trunks were splintered, snow kicked up, and then the sleigh surged forward. The gunfire tracked across their wake. The massive tank came rumbling in pursuit.
Debra lashed the team and pulled the reins to left and right. They weaved round humps and isolated trees. The Tiger clattered after them with both machine guns firing. The slugs cracked through the frosty air and spouted plumes of snow.
Leilani glimpsed a sign on a dead tree-trunk. A blur of red as they swept past: RANGE 17 it warned. They’d strayed into the winter training area. She braced herself against the wild ride.
Beside her, Danielle leaned across and raised the facing seat. The banquette hinged up with a creak. A pair of MP5s were clipped beneath it. The blonde girl took one of the guns and passed it to Leilani. She cocked and kept the other for herself.
The sleigh bowled on around a rocky outcrop and skidded past an isolated hut. There were other houses up ahead; Leilani gripped her carbine nervously. They came into a village of perhaps a dozen hovels, all with blackened timber walls and tented roofs. The buildings had a gutted look. The single street was empty. The Zone had swallowed this place up and turned the bones into a practice range.
Even as she realised it, Leilani glimpsed the sloped back of a Humvee. It was parked outside the largest house, and its female crew were standing by the hood. She recognised the winter jackets with a sinking feeling. Troopers from the Field Brigades, all gathered round and studying a map.
They looked up in bemusement as the sleigh came pounding in. New recruits, still freshly scrubbed, like students on a bonding exercise. Leilani felt a twinge of scorn. She’d trained as a Doll Soldier. These girls might have the instincts, but they surely lacked the skills.
Then Danielle was firing as the sleigh went sweeping past. Her MP5 cut through the startled group. The bullets hit them at breast height like hammers striking melons, and clean young faces clenched in agony. Leilani saw the crimson roses bloom through wintry coats, and then the girls were tumbling in their wake.
She glimpsed a movement on her side and turned her gun at once. More troopers came careering from a house. Her trigger finger tightened and she felt the gunbutt pound. The rookies squawked and grunted as they died. One girl’s jacket was undone, revealing the silk bodysuit beneath. Leilani sprayed her outlined breasts. She’d never liked the fucking Field Brigades.
Debra urged the horses on as other troopers scurried into view. Leilani heard the stutter of Kalashnikovs behind them, and bullets gouged the woodwork of the sleigh. Danielle squirmed round to fire through the back window. Two of the troopers in the road were shot down where they stood.
Leilani saw a fuel truck parked in front of the next house. She fired a raking burst at it. The truck exploded in a gout of flame. The fireball rose and darkened to a filthy pall of smoke. She sniped the fleeing crew and watched them fall.
Other girls were on the street and firing after them. It sounded like a squall had hit the sleigh. But instead of drumming on the wood, the hailstones splintered through it. And then the Royal Tiger joined the fray.
The troopers must have heard its guns and engine, but assumed it was on exercise elsewhere. The monster clattered into view and caught them with their backs turned. Even as they spun around, the snarling Tiger riddled them with lead. The luckless girls dropped, writhing, as the grey beast clanked towards them. No-one in its line of sight was spared a savaging.
The sleigh veered on between the hovels of the loose-knit village. The Tiger followed it in a straight line. The machine guns kept on blazing, spewing death through every gap. It clipped a building in its path and left the house collapsing in its wake.
Danielle was peering out through the back window, one stockinged leg drawn up to brace herself. She changed her carbine’s magazine, her bosom joggling with every jolt. Leilani moistened her chapped lips and checked the ground ahead. But as they reached the final house, she missed the trooper crouching next to it.
The girl was just a teenager and plainly terrified, but she sprayed the passing sleigh at point-blank range. Debra gave a gasping cry as bullets scalded through her abdomen. One shot pierced her firm left breast, which spurted crimson like a squeezed tomato. Her cry became a sobbing bleat, and then her head lolled and her body drooped.
“Bitch!” Leilani spat, and fired a bosom-ripping burst. The wide-eyed trooper screamed in hurt dismay. Leilani’s bullets sizzled in her succulent young breasts. She was dead before her body hit the snow.
The horses galloped madly on, with Debra slumped head-down over the reins. The track was slippery with ice. The sleigh lurched as they almost lost their footing. Leilani scrambled to the front and reached through for the reins, but Debra’s corpse had flopped aside with the leather straps unravelling from her hands.
“Shit!” Leilani whimpered as she snatched at them in vain. The sleigh was going at full tilt. The Tiger was still grinding in pursuit. Then she heard a jolting bang which echoed round the landscape. A ripping sound from overhead, and then a giant burst of smoke and snow.
Spooked, the horses left the road and floundered into whiteness. The ground ahead was utterly exposed. The sudden drag of snow made Danielle lurch against Leilani. It seemed as if the sleigh would overturn.
Another shell flew past them with a sound like tearing canvas. They felt the shock wave of its blast, and then a pall of snow rained down on them. The horses reared in panic as the sleigh tipped halfway over. Above the whinnies of the team, they heard the roar and rattle of the tank.
Leilani kicked her door open and tumbled from the sleigh. The Tiger was approaching hungrily. Its made ungainly progress as its broad tracks churned the snow. The front machine gun spewed another burst.
Danielle had rolled clear as well. The bullets smashed into the empty sleigh. Leaving the horses struggling, the two girls moved in opposite directions. The Tiger’s massive turret started following Leilani. She’d dared to step into its lair, and now it wouldn’t stop until it caught her.
She peered back in horror, and the big gun boomed at her. Leilani stumbled and dropped flat. The tank shell split the air above her head. It landed just ahead of her, erupting in a mushroom cloud of smoke. The explosion scattered chunks of ice, and dirty water sprayed in all directions.
No wonder that the ground ahead was featureless and flat. There was a frozen lake beneath the snow. Leilani snatched at an idea and clambered to her feet. She turned to fire a burst towards the tank.
The bullets bounced like insects off the heavy frontal armour. Leilani’s heart was slogging in her throat. “Come on and get me, then!” she shouted hoarsely, then stumbled off into the open snow.
The big tank rumbled after her, as if it meant to crush her with its tracks. Leilani zig-zagged clumsily. The clogging whiteness slowed her down like glue. As she stumbled like a foal, the tank’s machine gun rattled. The bullets crunched on buried ice. She’d reached the hidden shore.
Desperately she struggled on. The Tiger was beginning to catch up. She heard the squeaking of its axles and the dreadful clatter of its tracks. Then there was a cracking sound that made her blood run cold. It sounded like the world had split apart.
Swinging round, she slumped into the snow and lay there, panting. The ice beneath the tank had given way. Seventy fucking tons of it, or so Alex had told her. Cracks spread out like zig-zags as the Tiger lurched and started to subside.
The tank’s onboard computer couldn’t comprehend the pitfall. The engine howled furiously, and more ice splintered underneath the tracks. Cold dark water slopped across the front of the grey hull. The Tiger slithered forward. The machine gun in its turret snarled again. Bullets lashed across the ice and gouged towards Leilani’s parted legs. But the monster couldn’t reach her crotch. And then the engine flooded, spouting steam.
The tank went down into the lake. She watched it disappear in seething darkness. The ice was quivering beneath her, ready to break up. She crabbed her way around the hole and scrambled back to safety. The thing was only a machine, and yet she sensed its hatred, even now.
Danielle was waiting on the bank. She gripped Leilani’s hand and pulled her in. “Clever girl,” she breathed, her green eyes sparkling.
Leilani glanced back at the lake. “I’ll bet you that was programmed by a man.”
The blonde girl smiled delightedly. The two of them walked back towards the sleigh. The stranded team were quieter now. The driver’s corpse still dangled from her seat. Danielle’s face grew sombre and she eased the body down. Leilani looked towards the village. No-one had survived to follow them.
Danielle stroked the dead girl’s cheek, her own expression difficult to read. Then she straightened up again. “All right: let’s dig this thing out and push on.”
Leilani soothed one of the nervous horses. Her ears still echoed with the Tiger’s roar. A slideshow of the girls she’d killed kept running through her mind. But her eyes were looking out for Nikola.
* * *
Between the flat white landscape and the leaden winter sky, the black train waited like a grim cortege.
The locomotive hissed, although the cab appeared deserted. A cloud of steam rose into the cold air. The line of horses by the track reacted skittishly. Their riders tried to calm them, but it wasn’t just the noise that had them spooked.
The engine was an armour-plated monster. A heavy plough was mounted on the front. Its lamps were on, although it was still daylight. The coaches that it pulled were sealed and dark.
The boiler wheezed, as if the thing were breathing. It sounded like some ghastly iron lung. The girls on horseback gripped the reins and felt their hackles rising. There were two black coaches with drawn curtains, and an armoured wagon at the rear.
The stub of a cheroot was dropped to sizzle in the snow. No sign of life came from the brooding train. Nikola gave her horse a kick and forced it to move closer. She turned its head along the track and walked it past the row of unlit windows.
As she reached the middle car, a door was slid aside. Nikola flinched despite herself, but kept her pale face calm. She raised her eyes towards the dark interior. A seated shape drew closer to the light.
It wasn’t very often she confronted a Commander. She felt her heartbeat flutter in her breast. The creature was encased in jet-black armour. It wore a Greek-style helmet, and its red eyes glowed like embers in the gloom.
“Report,” the thing demanded in its disembodied voice. She gripped her nervous mount between her thighs. An evil chill was hanging in the air around the train, much colder than the wintry afternoon.
“The rebel stronghold’s been destroyed. One traitor got away ...” Nikola saw those eyes burn bright. “We’ll make sure that she’s caught and killed, my Lord.”
The Winter Warlord sat there like a statue. She felt her confidence begin to ebb. Then its harsh voice came again. “No flesh is to be spared.” The red eyes kept on glaring as the creature’s throne withdrew into the dark. The heavy door slid closed again. The locomotive gave a baleful shriek.
She winced. Natasha’s pony almost bolted. The sound rang out across the empty land. There was a roar of vented steam, and then the steady chomp-chomp-chomp of pistons. The black train pulled away from them, towards the slaty gloom of the horizon.
As the last car rumbled past, she flipped open her silver cigarette case. Pushing a fresh cheroot between her teeth, she struck a match. The flame reflected off her sculpted cheekbones. Her blue eyes glittered at her anxious girls.
“You heard what the Commander said.” She turned her horse and heeled it to a walk. The rope that trailed behind drew taut and tugged at Lena’s wrists. The girl remained unconscious as her body slithered limply through the snow.