by Cary Caffrey
Spent, and breathless, Suko rolled off of her, coming to lie next to her in a sweaty heap. When Sigrid released herself, withdrawing her hands and fingers, it was only so that she could pull Suko on top of her, wrapping her legs around her waist, squeezing tightly to her like a constrictor around its prey. Suko's arms, her legs, even her hair mixed and tangled with Sigrid's, making it difficult to see where one lover began and the other ended.
Closing her eyes, Suko began to slowly and methodically kiss her lips, her neck, her shoulders.
Sigrid was hardly passive. Her pelvis was busy performing a slow and rhythmic grind against Suko's leg.
"Perhaps you are a monster, after all," Suko said as she caressed the nape of Sigrid's neck. "You are a beast, Sigrid Novak. But if you are a monster, then you're my monster."
"Call it a curse," Sigrid said, relishing each and every one of Suko's kisses. "The curse of genetically enhanced lady parts."
Suko's laugh came out as a single, pronounced snort. The respite was short lived, though, and Suko returned to her free-flowing exploration of Sigrid's skin.
"My God," Suko said. "You are beautiful."
"Beautiful?" Then, after some thought, she added, "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you say that before."
"What? Of course I have. I always say it. In fact, just the other day I remember saying, 'Sigrid, you are the most beautiful—'"
"No. You haven't. I've accessed my PCM and all the records in my database concur. You've never once called me beautiful, Suko Tansho."
"Well, you are," Suko said with a frown. "Though, I should suspect you know it too—carrying on like that with a lady's maid. For goodness' sakes, Sigrid."
Sigrid sat up, her mouth hanging open. "What? Suko, you can't be serious. You're not still jealous. There's nothing between us."
"Of course I'm jealous!" Suko pulled her back on top of her, clamping her legs around her waist in an unmovable grip. There was no escape for Sigrid, not that she had any wish to escape—hardly. "She had you all to herself."
"She works for me, Suko."
"She gave you a bath. Probably scrubbing those very same lady parts."
First letting out a gruff growl, Sigrid leaned down to kiss her on the nose and then on her lips. "You know you're the only one I let touch those parts."
"Really? You seemed to be quite free with those parts yourself, and only a moment ago."
Sigrid punched her hard on the shoulder.
Suko snickered, then pulled her down on top of her. "She was with you, Sigrid. I will always envy her for that. And I'll always be jealous. So you best get used to it."
"Well, I suppose it is in your nature. And I do love your nature."
"We are what we are. Nothing more. Nothing less."
"And I'm far less without you."
Suko kissed her, and Sigrid let herself be kissed.
"We really should get some sleep—"
"No," Sigrid said, brushing Suko's hair back with the tip of her finger. "No, my love. There will be time enough for sleep later. I'm afraid my lady parts still need more tending. It is, as you say, in my nature."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Exodus
It was forty minutes before sunrise when Sigrid finally relented and released Suko from her chores. Gathering their clothes, they dressed in glowing silence. Sigrid was beginning to think sleep was overrated. After the hours of lovemaking, she felt a renewed strength growing within her, though, of course she knew this was because of Suko. She was back and she was alive. With Suko at her side, she felt unstoppable.
Working together, they found what looked like the least damaged cargo trailer in the lot. It was a flatbed rig one hundred meters in length. Only two of the tires needed swapping out.
With a loud rumbling of power, Suko brought the rig's reactor back online. She backed the truck expertly, hooking up the trailing rig on her first try. Suko drove the rig back to the camp, following the same maintenance access road Sigrid had found. Despite the many bumps in the cracked tarmac, the creaks and lurches of the antiquated transport, seated next to Suko with her arm looped through hers and her head resting against her shoulder, her lids grew heavy and her chin slumped forward.
She was just nodding off, falling into what promised to be a deep and restful sleep, when she felt Suko tense at her side.
"What is it?"
"Trouble," Suko said. "It's Victoria. She's calling me. She's tracking a new group of signals moving toward the camp."
"The Independents? The ones I spotted?"
"No, it's something else. This group's moving down from the north. Here, look for yourself."
Suko synched her communications module directly with Sigrid's, allowing her to see what Suko was seeing. It was exactly as she said, a small force moving down toward the encampment from the north. Seventeen armed soldiers backed up by what looked like two ground vehicles, possibly APCs.
"Merchantmen," Sigrid cursed.
Sigrid was instantly awake and alert. This was partly through sheer adrenaline, but mostly it was because of the heavy dose of stimulants her PCM had just ordered dumped into her system. Even the billions of nanomites coursing through her body came into play, stimulating her tired, knotted muscles with subtle but steady pulses of electricity.
"Floor it," Sigrid said. "And tell Victoria to start moving the refugees toward the road. We're getting them out of here. Now."
~ - ~
Suko drove the rig hard, bringing it as close to the encampment as she could. The road paralleled a bank of hills, and their encampment was just over the rise, a few hundred meters distant. Through the trees, Sigrid saw the first of the refugees moving their way. She leapt down from the truck, waving them on. Hector came first. He was followed closely by Nuria; she had all seven of the Merchantmen's concubines in tow, urging them along.
"Get them aboard," Sigrid shouted to Nuria, directing the girls onto the flatbed cargo carrier. "Hurry."
Victoria was the last to arrive, with Niklos at her side.
"It's the Merchantmen," Victoria confirmed. "And they've brought friends. Mercenaries, by the looks of them, or freelancers. Hard to tell."
"You can still blow the ship," Niklos offered.
"No. Not without killing us all. We're still too close, and they know it."
"And they don't know you won't either," Suko said. "They don't know your resolve."
"A bluff?" Sigrid said. "It may come down to that. But I have something else in mind."
"Oh? And what exactly is that?"
Ignoring the question, she turned to look at the stream of refugees, counting until she was certain no one was left behind. All forty-one, plus Nuria and Niklos, of course. Good. Everyone was aboard.
"Suko, I need you to do something for me."
"Am I going to like it?"
"No. I doubt that very much. I need you to get these people out of here. Take the transport. Get to the Crossroads. Nuria will show you the way."
"Sigrid, blast it, if you think for one instant I'm leaving you here alone, then you are mad."
"This isn't up for debate! I can handle seventeen Merchantmen, Suko, but I can't fight them and protect these people at the same time."
"We can fight them together—"
"Yes, we can. But how many of these people will die if we do? Suko, you have to get them out of here."
"We'll stand with you, Lady Sigrid," one of the refugees shouted in a booming baritone. He rose defiantly, staring down at her from atop the flatbed carrier. He was a tall man, broad shouldered and strong. Others rose as well, women and men, coming to stand beside him.
"We'll fight," he said. "And we'll die if we have to, but we won't go back."
There was more muttering, murmurs that rose quickly to shouts, even chants of "Night Witch! Night Witch!"
Sigrid turned from him back to Suko. "These people won't last four seconds in a firefight. You have to get them out of here, Suko."
Suko opened her mouth to protest, but
Sigrid silenced her with a kiss that was deep and long and passionate enough to elicit several cheers from the refugees behind them. When she pulled away, Suko could only stare at her breathlessly.
With her eyes locked with Suko's, Sigrid uncoiled her arms from around her waist as she backed away—only to reveal that she now held Suko's 18 mm recoilless in her hand along with the pearl-like string of grenades she'd unclipped and snatched from Suko's belt. Suko's hands flew to the empty holster, and then her eyes shot back to Sigrid in dismay.
"Sigrid—blasted hells! What do you think you're doing?"
"I'll be all right, Suko. It's seventeen men. I took on more than four hundred on Bellatrix."
"Yes," Suko said, watching her go, dashing off and back up the hill and back toward the encampment. "And we all know how that came out."
Only once Sigrid was well and gone, disappearing up and over the rise, did Suko turn to Victoria, where she promptly helped herself to her sidearm, along with a string of grenades to replace the ones Sigrid had nicked from her.
"Hey!"
Suko clipped the recoilless into its magnetic clip at her hip. "I need you to take the transport and get these people to this Crossroads place. Whatever that is."
"You're going after her? I thought she told us to—"
"Victoria, do you see that girl up there? Yes, her, the one barging into battle with only a single sidearm and shoes that are five sizes too large. That, Victoria, is Sigrid Novak. And if you think I trust her not to get herself killed trying to save everyone around her, then you don't know either of us very well at all."
~ - ~
Sigrid turned back one last time to watch as the rusted transport hauler lumbered away, carrying the refugees to safety. Well, that was one less thing to worry about. Now all she had to do was take care of a few Merchantmen and…
Blast it. Tanks.
Her scans confirmed it. The two pursuing vehicles were indeed tanks. They were still more than three kilometers away, though they were closing the distance fast and heading straight for Suko and the fleeing transport. But they weren't here yet. There was still time.
Cresting the rise, she had a perfect view of the valley ahead of her. There wasn't much cover; most of the trees had been clear-cut or washed away during the last of the summer floods. It was perfect terrain for a squadron of tanks, but it wasn't of any use to her, alone and on foot and armed with only a pistol.
She saw them now; they were less than two kilometers distant. The first of the tanks crashed through the brush, entering the valley on the far side and followed closely by its companion. While she'd never tangled with their likes, or even seen them up close, her tactical databases told her everything she needed to know, everything from schematics and armaments to their preferred methods of attack. They were Krait K-17s, ground superiority armor. Antiques, perhaps, but dependable and highly effective. Wide-tracked and low-profiled, they were fast, and their twin eight-point-eight-centimeter guns packed a devastating wallop.
Shucking off her coat and boots—they were far too big for her and only slowing her down—Sigrid wrapped the string of grenades around her waist, tying it off like a belt. At least it kept her blasted nightdress from blowing up over her head.
Scanning the valley, she took note of the streambed they'd so recently made camp by. The ground was sunken here and the stream carved a deep zigzagging course through the muddy terrain. This course led all the way across the valley to the other side. It also cut straight across the path of the oncoming tanks.
Barefoot, with mud splattered up to her thighs, Sigrid ran, heading straight for the streambed and the narrow cut. Walls of loose sand, dead roots and shale rose up on either side of her, perfect cover, especially for one as small as she. In the spring, this cut would be brimming with water, runoff from the surrounding hills. For now, only a few feet of water splashed down its middle—a few feet of water, and Sigrid.
While the tanks might not have noticed her, she was keeping perfect track of them. When she was satisfied she'd run far enough, she left the cover of the cut to scramble up a muddy incline. Loose earth and rocks clattered down the embankment behind her, kicked out by her bare feet. Reaching the top of the bank, she dived down on her stomach, using her elbows and heels to scramble forward as quickly as she could.
From behind the cover of a rotting tree trunk, she peered up and over. Zooming in with her optical module, she saw them. They were less than a kilometer from her, on her flank and about to move quickly past. She counted seventeen soldiers riding on top, twelve of the merchant sailors accompanied by five mercenary marines. All their focus remained to their front as they clung to supports on the sides of the heavy, dual-tracked vehicles.
Blast! She was in the perfect position for a kill shot, yet here she was with no rocket launcher, no mines—not even an incendiary shuriken or a sound blade at her side. The recoilless wasn't of much use either. That armor was too thick, even for the powerful Markov and its 18 mm armor-piercing rounds.
The grenades belted around her waist, on the other hand, might prove quite deadly. Sigrid unclipped one of the tiny incendiary explosives and held it in her palm. Just one of these dropped into a ventilation port would do the trick.
Swallowing hard, Sigrid wondered if she was seriously contemplating the plan that was forming in her mind.
Apparently, she was.
Well, if this was going to work, then she was going to have to get in close, and to do that she would need to get their attention—which was precisely the sort of thing she'd been trained not to do.
The pistol in her hand gave her the answer. It might be useless against the tanks, but as for the men riding on top…
Sigrid rose to her feet.
Taking a moment to compensate for the crosswind that whipped her hair and nightdress into a swirling frenzy, Sigrid raised the weapon and took aim.
At nine hundred and forty-seven meters, the tanks were well past the pistol's effective range—at least according to the documentation issued by the Markov Corporation's diligent team of engineers. But those engineers hadn't factored Sigrid into the mix. Rifles, machine guns, pistols, if it had to do with ballistics, she was your girl.
Sigrid let her finger brush gently against the hair trigger. There was a sudden crack and a loud hiss. Yellow flame exploded from the Markov's louvered side vents, absorbing the full force of the recoil. Her PCM tracked the 18 mm ballistic round the entire way to the target. The tanks were moving at a steady 182.3 kph; the wind gusts peaked at 47.365. Even the unevenness of the terrain was factored into her equations. She'd fired high and well to the right of both tanks, yet this wasn't a miss.
Sigrid waited and watched.
Traveling at more than 760 meters per second, the single ballistic round ripped through three of the unsuspecting sailors. They were dead before they ever heard the shot fired. Sigrid fired again, three more rounds blasting out. All of them fired before the first round landed its killing blow.
By the time the commander of the tanks knew what was happening, all twelve of the merchant sailors were dead, falling from their perches atop the tanks to crumple dead on the ground. The two tanks slowed, spinning on their tracks and spraying up huge pillars of mud. The giant muzzles of the twin eighty-eight millimeter guns swung her way, and Sigrid swallowed.
Wonderful plan you've come up with, Sigrid thought. She had their attention. Now all she had to do was keep it.
It was tempting to cloak or even dive back down the embankment into cover, but Sigrid resisted both options. She needed the tanks to see her—if she was going to get them to follow her.
Which was exactly what they did.
Huge rooster tails of muddy earth sprayed out from behind them as they shot toward her. She had them. All she had to do was lead them. And then kill them.
Turning, Sigrid ran.
Each of her footfalls exerted an incredible force and pressure, more than eight times her own body weight, propelling her to incredible speeds. Sigrid qui
ckly reached and then surpassed her top recorded speed of 67.7 kilometers per hour. It wasn't sustainable, but she didn't need to go far.
Ahead of her, the streambed merged with another, widening into a river and diving sharply down where it flowed into a deep ravine. The rush of water was nearly as loud as the tanks behind her. Large outcroppings of rock offered plenty of cover, while the smooth walls of the ravine presented potential high ground from which to attack. If she could make her way in there, the armored force would have no choice but to follow, but they'd have to follow her on foot. In there, she would have them.
Her PCM sounded the first of its warnings even before she heard the first reports of the eighty-eights firing behind her. The whine of incoming shells screamed toward her. But these weren't warning shots. They were trying to kill her.
This wasn't what she was expecting. She was counting on them taking her alive—or at least trying to. The lure of her technology, the temptation of her planet-sized bounty, was too great a prize for most men to pass up. Yet these Merchantmen appeared to want her dead.
While this didn't exactly change her plans, it did increase her pace.
The shells launched at her were smart weapons, guided by the crews in the tanks behind her. They had her locked and zeroed. But the software and avionics guiding those shells was proving just as antiquated as the tanks that fired them. Not daring to slow, Sigrid engaged her communications module. Half the size of a pea and lodged near the base of her skull, the module was immensely powerful. It only took her a second to link to the Merchantmen's own satellite uplink and, from there, directly to the shells that were screaming towards her.
