Posted by Extranjero on June 14, 2007 at 12:51:02:
WAR WIDOWS (Part 7)
Leilani paused and raised her hand. They listened to the forest. Unseen creatures whooped and rustled in the foliage. But none of the sounds was untoward. Leilani padded onward with the Colt Commando braced against her hip.
She’d stripped down for the damp heat of the jungle. A white cloth was wrapped around her hips to make a short tight skirt. Apart from that, her skin was bare and gleaming. Her lustrous hair was scraped back in a ponytail again. The Colt had a double magazine, but that was all her ammo. A water bottle and machete dangled from a belt around her waist. It felt like she’d reverted to the simple life again; but while she’d been a Doll Soldier, she’d learned the instincts of an Amazon.
Gemma followed cautiously behind her. She’d ditched her leotard, but wasn’t quite so comfortable with nudity. Not that much was left to anyone’s imagination by her bikini briefs and short white sleeveless blouse. The latter had a deep V-neck that framed her ample cleavage. The cotton was translucent, clinging wetly to her skin.
They’d walked for hours, after slipping from the rebel camp at daybreak. The pace was telling on the pilot, and she hadn’t spoken for a while. But Leilani didn’t doubt the other girl’s determination. If she couldn’t rescue Laura, she would die in the attempt.
Gemma had a silenced Sterling slung over her shoulder. Like the blouse and briefs, she’d ‘borrowed’ it from someone at the camp. She carried a small backpack with some rations for the journey, but other than that they were travelling light and moving as quickly as the bush allowed.
Leilani forced the pace through stygian shadow. Where the undergrowth obstructed her, she slashed at it with the machete blade. Her bare breasts quivered with each swing and drops of sweat sprayed off them. She wiped a hank of hair from her damp forehead, and pushed on.
Both of them were soaking wet by the time she called a halt. Gemma shrugged out of her backpack and unslung her gun. Her nipples stood out clearly through her saturated blouse. Leilani felt a throb of lust, but it merged with guilt and left her feeling sour.
Gemma ran her hand back through her mane of damp blonde hair. Leilani took a gulp of tepid water. She wished she had enough to spare to splash over her tits. “I told you it would be a bitch,” she said.
Gemma nodded, taking her own bottle from the pack. “But we’ve made our choice now. There’s no turning back.” She said it firmly, and her glance was level. Leilani screwed her canteen closed. She wished her nipples hadn’t swollen up.
Deliberately she looked away, towards the unseen camp. “I guess you’re a deserter now,” she said.
“If I go back, they’ll shoot me,” murmured Gemma. “The Major might still do it if I make it back with Laura … but I reckon that’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
They pushed on uphill through the sweltering jungle, picking a way between the trees and hacking deep into the greenery. Gemma tired more quickly: she wasn’t used to living wild. Leilani coaxed her further up, then let her get her breath.
The pilot leaned against a tree and swigged from her canteen. “I have to ask …” she said at length. “You think the Am … the Rivermaids will help us?”
“They’re feral girls,” Leilani said. “They only help themselves. But perhaps I can convince them of our common enemy.”
Gemma eyed the Guard tattoo on Leilani’s upper arm. “So that won’t cause a problem then?” she asked.
Leilani barely glanced at it. “We’ll have to see,” she said. The occult cross and lidless eye were part of her, for better or for worse.
“What’s the tattoo above your backside? Sorry, but I’ve been getting a good view.”
Leilani smiled. “The insignia of my old division – Valkyrie. We ran the Doll Soldier programme. It’s girls like me who made you what you are.”
“I won’t hold it against you,” Gemma murmured. “But no one gave me a tattoo,” she added with mock pique.
They worked their way around the lower slopes of a squat hill. The sun seemed welded to the sky and they lost all sense of time, just setting one foot before the other: Gemma’s in sneakers, Leilani’s hard and bare. The water was getting very low, though they both drank sparingly. Leilani’s thoughts grew clogged and slow. Then she heard a splashing through the undergrowth. It was a stream, cascading down towards the distant river. Beyond the canopy of trees, they saw a serpent coil of liquid gold. The sky above was tinged with pink and purple. Evening had crept up on them. “Let’s stop here for the night,” Leilani said.
They slaked their thirst and ate some iron rations. “I’ll take first watch,” Leilani said. Gemma unbuttoned her blouse and peeled it off. “I feel like I could sleep for days,” she mumbled. Leilani ogled her, dry-mouthed. The blonde girl curled up underneath a tree.
Leilani sat down next to her, her gun across her knees. Gemma’s breathing deepened … slowed. The valley darkened as the night flowed in. The bark of the tree felt rough against Leilani’s naked back. She heard the jungle noises change. There was no echo of the distant war.
After a while, Gemma snuggled closer to her. Leilani reached down and stroked her hair as a single tear went rolling down her cheek.
* * *
The Catalina banked like a dark angel in the dawn, contemptuous of the rosy glow, its black wings seeming to absorb the light. “Yeah, they’re Amazons, all right,” the gunner’s voice reported.
“So let’s drop in for breakfast,” Becca said.
She lined the Catalina up and came down on the broad, slow-moving river. The aircraft scudded to a halt, pushing out a V-shaped wash. The Amazons sat watching in their little bark canoes, impassive as the craft bobbed up and down. There were two girls in each boat, equipped with fishing spears and arrows. Whatever nervousness they felt, they kept it carefully veiled.
“Fit-looking fillies,” murmured Frances over Becca’s shoulder. Becca grunted, throttling back, determined to look cool. The pixie-faced Nymph Unit girl was along as an observer, exchanging her black swimsuit for the standard cropped tee-shirt, beret and trunks. Becca had the hots for her already. But the eyes of an outsider made her apprehensive too.
The Cat had shot down one of the Black Widows, which had bought her and the crew some breathing space. But Gemma had escaped again, and Anna wasn’t happy. She’d given them a dressing-down – which had meant parading in the nude, of course. The bitch had emphasised her comments with a riding crop: toying with a girl’s plump tits, or whipping her firm arse.
Becca flushed despite herself. Her buttocks were still smarting. She needed to blot out her shame, and expend her pent-up rage on someone else.
There was an Amazon encampment in the tree line. Bivouacs of leaves and grass. More girls in loincloths watched them from the bank. The Cat dropped anchor. “All right, girls, let’s do a search,” said Becca.
“What are we looking for?” Frances asked.
“An excuse,” said Becca dryly. The Nymph girl snickered like a wanton child.
The crew broke out the dinghy and rowed over to the bank, leaving gunners in the aircraft’s waist and nose. The nose-gunner was new; the turret’s plexi-glass still riddled by the bullets which had killed the previous girl. The damage had been caused by Gemma’s Widow, and that was something else that Becca needed to avenge.
The Amazons made no move to resist them. They had no allegiance in this war, and only hoped to hunt and fish in peace. As the dinghy reached the riverbank, Becca glanced over her shoulder. The bark canoes were moving on, as if this thing was no business of theirs.
“Suspects escaping,” Becca said into her headset mic. The gunner in the waist blister needed no further prompting. Her machine guns gave a rattling burp, kicking spouts up from the water. The girls in the nearest boat convulsed as the bullets hit their backs. The splintered hull rolled over and the gunner switched her aim. The Maids in the next boat turned to plead, and screamed as more shots ruptured their ripe breasts. The third canoe was paddling clear when the bullets found and sank it. An Amazon swam briefly, then went under as the river fountained red.
The Sea Watch girls rushed into the encampment. Some Amazons gawped, stupefied – then jiggled to the death-rattle of Stens. Others fled like deer into the forest. Becca and Frances used their pistols, picking them off as they darted through the trees.
One girl was hit between the shoulder blades and tumbled forward. She landed in a face-down sprawl, just yards from where Leilani crouched with Gemma.
“Shit,” Leilani muttered. More shots cracked between the trees. Birds cried out in panic, but the fleeing Rivermaids died silently.
She and Gemma had been moving before daybreak, following the stream towards the river’s turgid flow. Leilani had smelled a cooking fire as they reached the valley bottom. But then, as they’d eased forward, they had heard the Catalina’s baleful moan.
Gemma’s breast heaved under her damp blouse. She cocked her Sterling, a look of righteous anger on her face. Leilani touched her arm. “Let’s keep our cool, yeah? You go left, I’ll work round from the right.”
Gemma nodded and crawled away, her arse stuck in the air. Leilani couldn’t help but look; then she raised her carbine and tugged back the bolt.
The Sea Watch girls were firing bursts into the makeshift bowers. Rivermaids lay strewn about, their naked bodies oozing vivid red. Frances kicked a dead girl with her sneaker, her Beretta braced to fire again at any twitch of life.
One of the Watch girls saw a splash of scarlet in the grass, and more blood spattering the undergrowth. With a small, unpleasant smile, she started following the trail, her finger on the trigger of her Sten. Prowling through the undergrowth, she felt her heartbeat quicken, anticipating one more kill; then she heard a wary movement to her right. She swung around, glimpsed Gemma’s blouse and mistook it for a tee-shirt, her trigger-finger slackening as the silenced Sterling gave a heavy cough.
The Sea Watch girl had breasts the size of melons. The bullets pierced them audibly, with pulpy thuds. She spun around and dropped. Gemma saw the hits erupt like poppies on her tee-shirt. She waited, gnawing at her lip, but no-one shot at her.
Leilani slunk towards the camp, as lissom as a panther. The gunfire was sporadic now, as the Watch girls fanned out through the foliage. One of them had paused to take a brand out of the campfire and was setting light to the grass bowers. The flames spread through them, crackling hungrily.
Leilaini braced the stock of the short gun against her shoulder. Her finger slid into the trigger guard. Then a cringing Rivermaid erupted out of cover and fled towards her, gasping tearfully. The girl was nineteen at the most, with a mop of sun-bleached hair; it stood out like a candle flame above her bare, bronzed skin. A Watch girl saw the movement and squeezed off a burst at her. The bullets whipped the undergrowth and one flew low over Leilani’s head. The Rivermaid swerved desperately between the mossy tree-trunks, then saw Leilani kneeling in her path. She came up short, her shapely bosom heaving, and grimaced like a girl about to die.
Leilani’s quick reactions would have killed her if her hyped-up brain had not been quicker still. She kept her carbine levelled for a moment, then jerked the barrel downwards urgently. The Rivermaid stared back, wide-eyed, then threw herself full-length. The Watch girl appeared behind her, and Leilani put a bullet through her brow.
The Watch girl’s head snapped back beneath the impact. She arched her spine and stuck out her large breasts. The dry crack of the shot rang through the forest. As her body crumpled bonelessly, her comrades realised that the game had changed.
Leilani swivelled on one knee and thumbed the fire selector, then bloodied a white tee-shirt with a vicious three-round burst. The bullets made neat punctures in the Watch girl’s shapely bosom, then expended all their force on her and sent her somersaulting off her feet.
Becca dropped into a crouch. Adrenaline fizzed through her. The Amazons didn’t use guns. “Suppressing fire!” she called into her mic.
The blister-gunner turned her twin machine guns and fired a raking burst into the trees. Becca, and the others kept their heads down as the bullets splintered bark and shredded leaves. Leilani waited out the squall with her back against a tree trunk. Then she rolled away from it and fetched up by the trembling Rivermaid.
Another long burst ripped above their bodies. Blossom spilled down like confetti, settling in Leilani’s silky hair. Her heartbeat throbbed in her bare breast against the forest floor. She raised her head. “What’s your name, then?”
“I’m Sara,” said the girl in a small voice.
The Catalina gunner finished shooting and waited, braced behind her smoking guns. They were a pair of Vickers-Ks with ammo pans on top. “Stand by…” said Becca’s voice over her earphones. The Watch girls on the riverbank rose warily and started to advance.
On the other side of the moored boat, a Rivermaid broke surface like a seal.
Her long black hair was held back by a thong around her temples, and her sleek skin was a lustrous golden-brown. She waited, treading water for a moment, then hauled herself up by the pilot’s steps. The cockpit canopy had been left open. The aircraft creaked and shifted as the current tugged at it. The Maid’s sweet face was grim, her eyes as dark and hot as tar. It made her look more sensual. A fishing knife was gripped between her teeth.
Leilani flexed her fingers round the carbine’s pistol grip. She touched the blonde Maid’s shoulder. “Trust me, Sara. I’m a friend.” The Sea Watch girls were easing through the foliage. They were a lot more cautious now, but they didn’t realise they had been outflanked.
Gemma’s Sterling coughed again and ruptured one girl’s kidneys. She groaned with pain, but pivoted and brought her Sten to bear. More shots twitched her breasts and tore into her muscled belly, and she limbo-danced convulsively, then went down on her back. Shit, thought Gemma, that was close. She realised she was panting, her damp breasts straining at her blouse. She swung behind a tree.
Frances heard the sounds and recognised a silenced weapon, but couldn’t get a fix on it. She swung her braced Beretta to and fro. Apart from Becca, there was only one more Sea Watch girl in sight. Frances bit her pouting lip. The odds seemed much less favourable now.
The Rivermaid had slipped into the Catalina’s cockpit, her body dripping on the leather seats. Taking the knife out of her mouth, she ducked down through the bulkhead. Then she felt the hull vibrate and heard the angry chatter of the guns.
Frances had called in more fire from the blister. The twin Vickers ripped into the trees. Gemma cowered like a girl caught in a storm. It was one thing being under fire while strapped into an aircraft; quite another to be shot at with just branches in the way.
Then the gunner realised there was someone at her elbow. She turned and her eyes widened as she saw the Amazon. Trapped in her cramped bubble she could only scream in horror; then the fishing knife hacked deep into her breasts. The gunner bucked in agony. Blood spattered on the Perspex. “Don’t cease fire yet,” her headset squawked as she tried in vain to fend the wildcat off. It was no use. Her heart was pierced; it soaked her tee-shirt scarlet. The Watch girl slumped over her guns, and the orders from the bank fell on deaf ears.
The nose gunner thought she heard the screams. She plucked her headset off. But now the Cat was silent; there was just the slap of water on the hull. “Jenny?” the gunner said into her mic. There was no answer. Frowning, she crawled out of the nose and back into the body of the plane.
She met the blood-streaked Rivermaid in the galley, and the knife was in her gut before her gasp became a scream. The blade gave a searing twist and then ripped upward; the gunner wet herself, and then her trunks were soaked with blood. She doubled forward, gurgling, rubbing bosoms with her killer. The Rivermaid embraced her till the girl bled out and slumped.
Becca peered towards the Catalina. “What’s going on out there?” she snapped. But the plane remained as silent as a Sphinx. It had a hostile aura that she’d never felt before – as if it had consumed its crew and taken on a grim life of its own.
Leilani took advantage of the enemy’s distraction to triple-tap a Watch girl in the tits. The target wore no bra beneath her tee-shirt, and her nipples stood out damply, like bull’s eyes. She gave a throaty grunt of shock as the impacts flipped her backwards. Leilani scrambled up and ran towards the burning huts.
Becca saw her and fired snap-shot. Her bullet clipped the Colt and sent the carbine spinning from Leilani’s hands. Leilani swore, dived forward, tumbled over and kept running. Becca moved to cut her off. She jerked her head at Frances. “Cover me!”
Frances hovered nervously, her trigger at first pressure. She wasn’t sure how many targets they were up against. Becca scooped up a fallen Sten in preference to her pistol. She sidled round the nearest huts, squinting through the haze of smoke and rippling heat.
Gemma crept from one tree to another, still glancing nervously towards the sinister black Cat. She didn’t know why its guns had fallen silent, but she didn’t doubt the thing would flay her if she showed herself. Then a twig snapped underneath her sneaker. Frances swung towards the sound and fired rapidly. Gemma dived and rolled and tried to bring her gun to bear, but the shooting stopped, disorientating her.
Frances’s Beretta had locked open. “Fuck,” the Nymph girl spat. Her thumb released the magazine. She fumbled for a spare clip in her belt pouch. Then something hit her in the back, and the impact crushed the breath out of her lungs.
It was a fishing arrow, and it drove through her slim body to emerge above the bulge of her left breast. Frances gave a startled whoop that turned into a whimper. She watched her white tee-shirt turn red, and goggled at the shaft’s protruding point. Then her numb chest filled with pain and she twisted wretchedly, her fingers clutching vainly at her tits as she went down.
Behind her, Sara lowered her bow. Her eyes were wide with horror. She stood there in her tiny loincloth, utterly exposed. Becca wheeled towards her and began to aim her Sten. Then Leilani lunged out of the smoke, like a naked fury charging out of Hell.
Becca turned again, but her attacker was too close. Leilani slashed with her machete, catching the blonde Watch girl in the throat. The blade sliced through her swan-like neck and stuck there, the edge lodged in her vertebrae. Becca made a gurgling sound. Her head flopped as she arched her back, breasts straining at her tee-shirt. Her blood splashed on Leilani as she crumpled like a doll.
Leilani drew a shaky breath. Her nerve-ends were still crackling. But the Sea Watch girls were all down now. She made herself relax. Gemma ventured into view, still eyeing the Catalina. A Rivermaid was in the water, swimming steadily towards the bank.
Leilani glanced at Sara and smiled wryly. “I guess that taught them, hey?” she said. The girl blushed prettily beneath her tan.
The other Maid climbed, glistening, from the river. She was petite and graceful, with a mass of soaking hair and small, pert breasts. Her dark gaze flicked from Gemma to Leilani. She had a feisty look to her, and undisguised suspicion on her face.
“This is Debra,” Sara said. Her tone was hushed, admiring, even awed. The dark Maid looked at her and then, ignoring the two strangers, she went over to her friend and hugged her tight. Sara sniffled into her hair as Debra gentled her. Leilani glanced at Gemma, shrugged, and went to pick her fallen carbine up.
More Maids were emerging from the shadows of the trees. They passed Leilani warily. Some still had arrows nocked and bows half-drawn. Gemma kept her Sterling pointed skyward. Her breasts pulsated nervously against her clinging blouse.
The corpses of the Watch girls were stripped naked: their trunks and tee-shirts peeled off, and their soiled panties stuffed into their mouths. Leilani watched impassively as she checked her carbine over. Then Debra came across to her. “You saved us from them. You may pass in peace.”
“We’re grateful,” said Leilani. “But we’re heading for their base. We mean to save a friend of ours from those bitches. Will you help?”
Debra scowled. “You’re not our sisters. This isn’t our war. We only fight to keep what’s ours.” Her hand flashed out and squeezed Leilani’s arm. “You have their mark on you,” she said. “So why is it you’re fighting your own kind?”
“Long story,” said Leilani. “But I’ll share it, if you let us share a meal.”
“We want to hit them like they hit you,” said Gemma. “Would you rather sit and wait till they come back?”
Debra frowned at her, then looked around at the encampment, taking in the burning huts and the crumpled bodies of her fellow Maids. Gemma’s gaze flicked to the lifeless Watch girls. She sensed the dark girl’s anger. It might yet leap up, like the fires amid the leaves.
Her finger twitched reflexively, but she kept it off the trigger – trying to distract herself by eyeing Debra’s breasts. They were small but sweet, and Leilani’s weren’t much larger. She glanced at them, then caught Leilani’s eye and blushed bright pink.
“Those Sea Witches should pay for this,” said Debra finally. “But their river base is like a rat’s nest. You might crawl in, but how would you get out?”
Leilani chewed that over, staring at the Catalina. It seemed more ominous without its crew. And then the idea dawned on her. She glanced across at Gemma. “You reckon you could fly that thing?”
The blonde girl blinked, then smiled. “Of course,” she said.