Tara thought of Cole in that moment, smiling to herself as she thought of his sexual prowess and how it wonderful it had felt to be fucked by him. She used her fingers to spread herself for the devastator and with her other hand began working the rounded tip of it into her warm wet pussy. The oiled shell was massive, thought now Tara was flowing with desire, and with the Izrid oils she was able to slowly work the devastator back and forth, gradually pushing it deeper and deeper into herself. In the back of her mind she knew that the clock was ticking, though as the shell went deeper and deeper she could feel an orgasm building. Not the induced, almost mechanical orgasm she’d experienced while Cava Rek and his warriors had taken her with their alien cocks and pheromone enhancers, but the warm and soulful orgasm brought on by real desire and honest longing. Cole and the devastator had similar dimensions, even if the shell itself was larger and less adapted to fill her neatly. Tara focused on her last memory of sex with Cole, her imagination returning her mind to the dirty concrete wall, assaulting her senses with the smell of battle and the certainty that she and Cole had shared something wonderful. When she came Tara was silent, biting her lip and breathing in tight gasps as the sensation shuddered through her while she fought to maintain a steady hand and slid the devastator the last inch into her body. After several deep breaths she carefully leaned over to tear off another strip of gun tape, and then sealed the round within her by placed the strip across her womanhood. She stood, adjusting her posture to suit the round now planted inside, and found, as she’d hoped, that once standing she was able to move without disturbing it. Tara picked up her carbine, checked the safety, and left Cava Rek’s chamber.
The resistance fighter did her best to keep focused on her goal, hoping that the difference between human and Izrid brain waves were small enough that the bracelet would lead her to her goal. The bracelet had led her well so far, helping her escape from her original captivity, then navigating down the winding corridors to Cava Rek’s chamber as she sought out weapons, so by that logic she surmised that by seeking out the core power source for the warhive that the bracelet would lead her there. Again, she felt as if the bracelet was feeding information into her subconscious, as she was certain that she was within something called Warhive Gyrax, though at no point had she heard or read of such a thing. She moved as stealthily as she could, her bare feet making barely a sound at all in the empty halls, hiding behind crates, panels, or in dead corners when warriors came into view. Thankfully there were only a handful on routine patrols, which made a kind of sense to her, no doubt due to the bracelet, as it would be inefficient house warriors anywhere except in the barracks of the hive, and a small number of warriors could easily patrol the total area of the inner hive.
Tara could feel the power source looming, and as she rounded a corner she could see a series of doors that led through several adjacent rooms, all made of support beams and transparent glass. As Tara leaned back into cover a klaxon alarm sounded deep within the hive, the sound of it carrying out from the very walls themselves. Her bracelet suddenly started to heat up, within seconds burning and blistering her skin as she struggled to take it off. The palpable emptiness in her mind made it clear to her that the connection had been severed, and that somewhere in the hive an Izrid data controller must have shut off the feed. She heard the heavy footsteps of more warriors coming down the corridor, and wondered if after being discovered as having the bracelet her own thoughts were readable to whatever Izrid was controlling the hive. Knowing that her time was up she pushed the questions and doubts from her mind, resolving to complete the task at hand. Let scientists and historians worry about the how and the why of alien technology, she thought to herself, for her the mission was simple, to kill them all.
Tara took a deep breath and turned the corner as raised her carbine and she crouched low to rush forward. Her bare feet made very little sound and allowed her to close the distance between herself and the three guards before they realized she was on the attack. The resistance fighter let out her breath slow and steady as she squeezed the trigger, firing a three round burst that knocked down the first guard. As the second and third turned towards her Tara squeezed the trigger again, continuing to breathe out as the second guard collapsed clutching its mid-section. The third raised its weapon to fire but was punched backwards by the impact of two bursts of fire from the human attacker. Several rounds had gone wide and struck the glass, causing it to shatter as Tara shouldered her way through the double doors. She leapt to the ground instinctively as a warrior inside the room opened fire at the same time another warrior let loose a salvo when it came around the corner behind Tara’s former hiding spot. She rose to her feet as she fired on the warrior in the room, sending it falling forward with bursts of blood blossoming from its back. Tara spun on her heels and emptied the rest of her magazine at the oncoming warriors behind her, failing to kill any though driving them to seek cover. She was moving faster than she’d ever moved before, and felt somehow stronger, more solid than she had once been. Perhaps it was the alien secretions, she pondered as she worked the action of her firearm, or perhaps this was the heady rush of her last stand.
With practiced efficiency she hit the release on the magazine and caught it with her off hand, keeping the other firmly on the handle, finger on the trigger. She deftly flipped the dual-mag over and slapped in the fresh side, then racked the slide as she stood all the way up and began walking backwards as she laid down suppressing fire. One warrior had tried to rush her while she was reloading and caught the majority of the rounds, jerking violently as blue blood sprayed in multiple directions before it hit the floor. Tara could hear more warriors deeper in the glass room, though could not see them clearly. Not wanting to be shot in the back, Tara continued squeezing the trigger of her carbine in controlled bursts, making the most of her ammunition, as with her off hand she drew her machine pistol. With a reckless grace Tara sprayed bullets in a wide arc behind her with the machine pistol, causing a rain of glass shards, spent brass, and blue blood to cover the floor as she kept her eyes on the warriors she was shooting at in the corridor. When both guns clicked empty Tara spun around and sank to her knees painfully, as the shards of glass sliced open her knees. She holstered the empty pistol and focused on reloading the carbine, then rose into a sprint deeper into the glass chambers. Tara switched the carbine to full-auto and poured withering fire every direction, focusing more on keeping the enemy ducking for cover than killing them, though as she moved through the glass rooms several met their end as her bullets riddled them with holes. The Izrid had not been prepared for such a brutal lighting assault deep within their own hive, and Tara pressed her advantage.
After she had burned through three more magazines Tara dropped the smoking hot carbine and unslung her rifle as she entered the domed room, which contained the warhive’s power source. She was unsure as to what kind of fusion technology made the glowing blue orb in the center of the room power the entire warhive, but she did not care. She recalled the events of the rail-gun ambush on the previous warhive and knew that they had been sickeningly lucky to get a round into the power core now that she was able to see it. The orb was only the size of a basketball, and for their salvo of rounds to have punched through the outer armor and struck such a small target was blind luck. A more religious person than Tara might have called it providence, though in that moment all Tara could think about was how much she missed watching the neighborhood boys play basketball outside her former apartment. She sprinted forward, the shards of glass cutting her bare feet to bloody ribbons, though she fought through the pain and kept going. She was slower with the rifle, especially now that she had a ragged bullet hole through her abdomen and several more grazes across her body. She had not even noticed being shot, she thought idly, and found herself wondering if the round had damaged her womb before shaking her head clear and fighting on.
What she lacked in sheer rate of fire with the carbine she made up for in accuracy with the rifle. There were warriors attemp
ting to protect the power source from inside the room in addition to those security forces sweeping in behind. As Tara ejected and flipped the rifle magazine she knew her assault was losing steam even as her body leaked precious fluids, and that she only had moments before another round, or perhaps several, found their mark. Tara focused her fire on a row of what she thought might be databanks, shooting a non-warrior Izrid that seemed to be working the machine furiously, then driving the other warriors into cover as she emptied the magazine at them before ducking behind the databank’s metal frame. Tara winced at her multiple wounds as she pressed a fresh magazine into her machine pistol and fired it blindly in all directions, then repeated the process with a second magazine, then the third and final before she placed the smoking gun on the floor.
Tara used the sliver of time she’d bought herself to rip away the gun tape, smirking to herself in a brief moment of insane levity that Cava Rek having had her pussy shaved had made it easier for her to hold the devastator round inside herself, as the tape had more bare flesh to cling too. Tara gently reached into the tight folds of her womanhood to grasp the projectile, and then pulled it free of her body. The resistance fighter held the round like a wicked dagger while she gathered her feet beneath her, and then sprung from a crouch into a suicidal sprint towards the orb. The warriors who had been closing in on her position were unprepared for her tactic and though they started firing immediately precious moments were lost as they readjusted their aim, the crossfire taking a bloody toll on their numbers in the tightly packed room. Tara leapt at the orb even as a round tore through her ribcage and shredded her lungs, which brought her leap just short of the crackling energy. Tara spit up a mouthful of bright blood, which sizzled as it burned away in a flash upon the orb, and she grabbed at it with her off hand. The resistance fighter’s hand immediately began to burn away, but it kept her body steady enough for Tara to put the last ounce of her strength into stabbing the devastator round deep into the orb even as more shots pulverized her already broken body.
Tara’s last moment was witnessing the tiny supernova that burst into being deep within the orb as the devastator’s outer casing was stripped away in a swirl of energy that triggered the detonation of the warhead, and she could not help but to weep at its terribly beauty.
EPILOGUE
Fiona MacArthur looked up from stitching the deep shrapnel wound in her thigh as the explosion rocked the entire ruined city. The resistance had been pressed hard by the Izrid troops after the destruction of the first mobile fortress when the second had appeared only minutes after to take revenge. The resistance forces had been scattered, and the situation had looked grim. When the report reached her from the front line that scouts had discovered Cole’s body and evidence of a firefight, there was no sign of Tara or the remaining the devastator rounds. Maybe, she thought, just maybe Tara got through. Maybe there was hope after all. Fiona went back to her stitching and sent orders to recruit another rail-gun team, there was more work yet to be done.
STRIKE BACK
Episode 2
ACT I
Morgan leapt over the smoking heap of flesh that had once been a brave man named Aaron Boudrain, not pausing for a moment as she sprinted towards the shattered skeleton of what had been a building called "Hab-Bloc 262" according to the flaking laminate on the weather-worn wall. She was unaware how many others in her squad had escaped the constant salvos of enemy fire, and also knew that the hesitation caused by such musings would put her dead on the ground alongside them. Hard rounds spanked off the metal chassis of a rusted out car as she sped past it and hurled herself through one of the blast craters in the building. She tucked and rolled as best she could, managing to come up on her feet in a low crouch, though the sharp sting of a sprained ankle threatened to distract her. The young fighter pushed the pain into the locked box in the back of her mind, just like MacArthur had taught her, recalling the commander's words to make the pain serve her, to show her where damage had occurred, not to distract or detract from her combat effectiveness.
Morgan knew Fiona MacArthur lived by that philosophy, as on the day the resistance fist managed to use the devastator guns to bring down the Izrid mobile fortress she'd seen the commander haul a wounded soldier across nearly one hundred yards of war zone despite the fact that MacArthur had an eighteen inch piece of jagged shrapnel jutting from her thigh. We must be like the gods of war, the commander had once said to Morgan, Tara, Cole, and a legion of newly recruited soldiers when MacArthur founded the Chicago Resistance, we must be so fearsome that every one of us accounts for legions of them. That speech had stuck with Morgan, and in the years since she had done her best to live by it, and seen many others die by it. Other resistance forces had sprung up all over the country, and around the world, and though communication was spotty at best, MacArthur had bolstered the human fighter's spirits. She was one part prophet and one part general, thought Morgan as she pushed the pain of her ankle away and slipped her sniper rifle off of her back-strap. In the early stages of the resistance MacArthur had focused on recovering communications equipment, ranging from radio, to satellite, to even old pieces of the Net. Since then she'd been broadcasting her speeches, and most of the time they were picked up by other resistance cells and bounced across the world. The effect was a double-edge sword, in that while it brought hope, discipline, and collective purpose to the global resistance, it made Chicago the center of the Izrid war effort as the invaders sought to break the global spirit by crushing the MacArthur and her local fighters. They can't nuke us, she chuckled to herself, as that would be too easy, they've got to root us out one by one. Fiona MacArthur, the stalwart commander of humanity's last ditch, thought Morgan, it had a kind of poetry to it.
More hard rounds chewed up the concrete of the hab-bloc as several Izrid warriors had been drawn to her position. The sniper knew that she'd only have moments to set up a firing solution before one or more of the warriors blitzed the building. That, in her mind, was the most deadly and frustrating element about fighting the Izrid legions. The alien warriors, according to the latest available intel, were bred en masse inside the alien space frigates that sat in low orbit around the planet. Some strategists even theorized that the Izrid had a sort of hive mind, and it was possible that the memories of the warrior you killed today might be residing in the warrior you face three weeks from now. It didn't help at all that the warriors were prone to charging into hand-to-hand combat, and while a levelheaded shooter could gun down one or two of them before they closed distance, the warriors were hurricanes of battle-axes and multiple arms once they reached you. They were like super cockroaches or ants that happened to resemble yellow and red lizards, thought Morgan as she sprinted up the steps of the building, taking care not to catch a wrong footing on her damaged ankle.
The young sniper skipped the second story and went for the third, even if just to give herself a few more feet of height advantage once she settled in for the fight. All around her she could hear the sounds of pitched battle. The Izrid may have surprised them with the assault, and as with most engagements the Izrid were likely to win, but as always the resistance was making them earn it. Morgan was suddenly and keenly aware of the transmitter nodule buried in her tongue, and licked her teeth as she painfully knelt into a shooter's crouch to take advantage of a blasted piece of wall. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and peered through the scope to assess the situation in the streets below. It was grim, which was to be expected in these dark times, as the Izrid seemed to have dispatched an entire legion just to assault their small outpost. While the sniper only had a one hundred and eighty degree field of fire, that visual in addition to the din of combat painted a vivid picture.
When the Izrid gunships first appeared on the horizon Morgan and the others had been expecting them. It was a brazen tactic to set up a resistance outpost this deep into heavily patrolled Izrid perimeters in the first place, using it as a rest and refit station for the multitude of lone snipers that patrolled the region, harrying
the Izrid when and where they could. Aaron Boudrain, the outpost commander, had recently been tasked with executing a major disruption to the flow of troops and munitions through this sector. To that end the outpost garrison had been bolstered with five rocket crews and a handful of sappers. MacArthur had accompanied the new fighters when they arrived, and conveyed the troop transfer personally with Boudrain along with the new orders. The resistance was going on the offensive. Looking out over the battlefield Morgan could not help but cringe at the steep cost of MacArthur's true plan, the crux of which was embedded in her tongue and for which most of the garrison was doing to die today. The outpost had been hit on all sides by a coordinated Izrid attack, first the gunships used heavy guns and rockets to pound the outpost, driving those who survived out of the compromised safety of the makeshift bunker. A full Izrid legion had been moving over ground towards them, and a furious firefight had broken out as the resistance fighters did their best to shoot their way clear of the swiftly closing trap.
The sniper sighted down her scope and drew a bead on an Izrid warrior that had taken cover behind a concrete road divider. It was laying down suppressing fire against two resistance fighters who were pinned down in a ditch across the street. Morgan squeezed the trigger and the warrior's head burst in a cloud of gore. She let her breath out slow and steady as she racked another round into the chamber and set the sight on another warrior who was moving through the rubble in an attempt to flank the fighters. Another squeeze of the trigger and the warrior fell lifeless to the ground. Morgan had been fighting as a sniper in this region for a long time now, and knew that once she'd fired her first shot she should have moved. It was the sniper's discipline, to move and shoot, never staying in one place for long, never giving the enemy a chance to triangulate the sniper's position. Yet here she was, in a vantage point with an excellent firing solution over a target rich environment. She rasped the transmitter nodule against the top of her mouth and thought of the plan, steeling her frayed nerves for the unknown horrors of what lie ahead as she racked a round and dropped a third warrior.
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