by Jean Kilczer
“This'll make more of an impression. Now move your horse away. We have to spread out.”
“Yeah. Thanks much!”
We rode through the night, and encountered no BEM ground or air craft. I think they were too busy rounding up Denebs who had fled the death camp to bother with the seven of us.
I watched fingers of morning light spread across the dunes and was grateful for the early sun that brought some warmth.
Reika found a small pool that flowed from a fountain of water through a fissure in boulders. With Bat on first watch on a high dune, we watered the horses, then filled our canteens and the sous chef's storage compartment. The water had a slightly bitter taste. We didn't know what plant life it had picked up, so we took digestall pills.
“Huff,” I said and uncapped a pain-healing pill from Doc's container. “Time for our pills.” I swallowed mine.
Huff stopped searching for insects under rocks. “Thank you.” He sat back, fished around in his pouch and took out the container.
Yellow desert birds circled and cawed overhead as we ate a breakfast of ham, eggs, muffins and hot coffee.
I felt sandy and grimy. With warming air, I stripped down, tied my towel around my waist, and washed in the pool. I even shaved and brushed my teeth in cold, running water. Then I scrubbed my clothes with some more of the precious liquid soap, squeezed them out tight, and laid them on boulders. In the desert air, it would only be a matter of hours before they were bone dry.
The others decided it was a good idea and followed suit.
I used my sweater to wash down Asil and hobbled him by a grassy knoll, then scrubbed my sweater and flattened it on a rock.
Reika had two towels wrapped around her body. Sexy, that. The tags, except for Huff, and Joe, who was firmly committed to his wife, Abby, kept glancing her way. I was a bit irritated by all the attention she was getting, especially Chancey, who had turned on the charm like an open faucet. His bulging biceps glistened with water, so black there was a sheen of blue in the highlights. The tight wet towel around his loins did little to hide the shape of his butt. And Reika seemed interested.
Damn him!
I tied the towel tighter around my waist and splashed cold water on my chest and arms for effect, but I shivered as I strolled toward them. Reika was leaning back against the curve of a boulder, her breasts high under the towel.
As I approached, Chancey put an arm out on the boulder in a protective gesture.
“Your clothes are dry, Chancey,” I said. “You must be cold. Why don't you go climb into them like a good tag?”
Reika raked my body with her gaze and smiled demurely.
“Why don't you go pick fleas off the fur ball?” Chancey said.
Reika chuckled.
“Reika,” I said, “how about we go for a stroll in this nice cool morning air?”
She lifted away from the boulder. Chancey backed a step.
“OK, babes,” she said.
Chancey glared at me. As he walked by, he grabbed my chin and shook it hard. “Because you're just so fucking adorable!” he said between teeth.
I was about to knock his hand aside, especially since it hurt my left cheek, but I hesitated. The gesture could have provoked a fight. “That's right,” I said instead. “And don't forget it.”
He mumbled something about white bread as he walked by.
I took Reika's hand and smiled. I knew she liked it when I smiled.
We found a secluded grove where the stream from the overflowing pool was surrounded by weedy grass. I untied my towel and laid it on dry ground, then folded my arms around Reika's back. She lifted to tiptoe as I pulled her closer and kissed her. Her hands moving across my back were arousing. I untied the towel from her breasts and let it drop. I am always surprised at the curves of a woman's naked body. It draws a man in a siren call.
“Did I ever tell you you're beautiful?” I whispered in her ear and nibbled on it. I felt her shiver as I ran my hands across her breasts and over her hips.
“Not enough times,” she said.
“Maybe not. Well, you're beautiful.” I kissed her neck, her shoulders, her breasts.
“Oh, babes. I've had men before, but what you do to me with just a look and a smile is sinful.” She took a handful of my hair and drew my head down to her and kissed my lips hard. “I want to climb inside you.”
I undid the towel around her waist and let it fall. “That's nice, because I'm thinking the same thing.”
She laid down on the spread towels, smiled and lifted her arms to me. Her dark, slanted eyes and full, round cherry lips held the promise of a flight to heaven.
I eased myself down on top of her, my body ready to fill her. “Reika,” I whispered, “I want to lose myself inside you.”
She lifted a leg and rubbed it against my hip. “I'm yours for the taking, babes.”
I cupped her buttock and pressed her against me. I was hard now, and very ready. I pressed my penis between her legs.
She rubbed her hands over my wet biceps and I tightened them. I felt her shiver as I entered her. I lifted on elbows and licked her breast. She held my head there, cupped between her palms, and I sucked her right breast. She cried out and lifted her legs around my hips.
I moaned and began to thrust into her.
“Oh, God, Jules!” She arched her back and pushed against me.
“Reika.” I breathed her name and rolled her on top of me. “You're sweeter than honey juice.” The curve of her hips, her full buttocks under my hands, brought on an orgasm that I couldn't hold back. I rolled her under me and moved hard into her. “Reika,” I gasped. “I can't wait!”
“Neither can I.” She clung to me and responded with spasming muscles of her vagina that held me tight as I slammed into her. The world around me disappeared as those waves of ecstasy lifted me to another sphere. I hung there for an endless moment, then dropped back down to Earth.
Reika was breathing hard beneath me, her nails sharp in my back. “Jesus and Vishnu,” I whispered. “We're going to kill each other one of these days.”
“Oh, Jules!”
“What?”
“I'm coming again.”
“Oh. OK.” I let her roll on top of me and I responded to her thrusts. She cried out, lifted off my chest and arched her back. I fondled her breasts as she came. She fell across me and I held her and kissed her cheek, her eyes. She sighed and relaxed against me.
“Are you through with me, woman?” I asked.
She gasped in a breath. “For now.”
We washed in the layer of water that spread across the sand and grass and tied on our towels again.
I draped my arm across her shoulders as we walked back to camp. “You going to make me a cup of coffee, girl?” I asked.
She pinched my buttock through the towel and put her arm around my waist. “Be nice to Chancey, OK? I think he's really annoyed at both of us.”
“Yeah, well, tough cookies.”
The team was breaking camp. The horses were already saddled and the remnants of breakfast were gone. Hidden somewhere, I thought, in case a BEM craft happened by. Chancey slid down on his butt from his watch at the crest of a dune, with the graphoculars around his neck, as Reika and I dressed. We washed the towels and spread them across our horses' hindquarters to dry.”
“That's some clothesline,” Bat said and grinned.
“I hope you tags were having fun,” Chancey said as he strode by, “while the rest of us were working!”
I strolled over to him. “Truce, Chance?”
“Easy for you to say.”
“OK.” I started back toward Asil.
“Jules.”
I turned.
He smirked and put out his hand.
I took it and grinned.
“You know what I had to do up there besides keeping watch?”
“Whoa!” I pulled my hand away, turned and tiptoed back to Asil. “That's OK, Chance,” I called back. “What happens on the crest stays on the crest.
”
We passed a small native community of perhaps twenty Denebs. A family? Their shelters were wide tents. Women cooked on smoking spits directly over fires. Naked children ran and played in the hot sand. Born to it, I guess. The men were erecting another tent, lashing material to poles. Others tended the horses.
Bat rode up beside me. “Desert nomads,” he said and grinned. “Not a bad way to live. Probably travel from one oasis to anther and gather up the roots and berries that grow there.”
“Not a bad way of life, Bat, unless these small nomadic family groups are the source of the slaves the Villagers gather for the BEMs.”
“Been thinking the same thing. The sooner we find that SPS an' call up Alpha, the sooner this misery's gonna end.”
* * *
I was riding point when I saw a caravan approaching from the west. I lifted the graphoculars and focused. A line of perhaps twenty mounted Denebrians, their horses dragging covered travois, snaked between two hills of ochre sand. I couldn't make out the details of the riders' faces, but they were Denebrians, dressed in long, white tunics, sleeveless cloaks, and headcloths that flowed to their shoulders. I trained the graphoculars on a group of thirty or so Denebs, wearing coveralls and straw hats, who walked behind the horses. Roothe's soldiers disguised as slaves? Or captured Denebs being taken to the BEM butcher shop by Northwestern villagers?
“Joe,” I said as I cantered up to him and reined in. “There's a caravan approaching.” I pointed west. “Could be General Roothe and his men. Could be the traitors with new slaves from other villages.”
Joe shifted in the saddle and squinted west.
“Suppose I take Wolfie and Chancey and go meet them,” I said. “If it's Roothe, we can tell him his people are scattered in the desert, trying to make it home.”
“And if it's the traitors?” Joe said.
The rest of the team had gathered around us. Huff was feeling better and was on his feet.
I shrugged. “Shouldn't be a problem if we have to make a quick getaway.” I grinned. “Remember, spears against stinglers?”
“Have you considered,” Joe said, “that the Northwestern Village may have traded with the BEMs for something a little higher tech than spears? Those people are capturing their own kind and bringing them to the BEMs as slaves. They must be getting well paid for their trouble.”
“I say we avoid them altogether,” Chancey said. “Head north, then cut west around them.”
“I'll second that,” Wolfie said.
“I will third it,” Huff said.
Bat walked his horse up to Joe. “Captain, I'm willing to ride down there an' talk to those boys. If it's Roothe, he might be able to save a bunch of his people wandering around out there in the desert.”
Reika rode up and threw me a worried look. “Jules, you're not thinking of going down there, are you?”
“It might save a lot of Denebs out there in the desert, Ree. What if it were Terrans? Would we hesitate to make contact with the caravan?”
She looked at Joe.
Joe shook his head. “Sorry, Jules. I can't spare you. If it's not general Roothe, it could be dangerous to –”
“I'm sorry, too, Joe!” I turned Asil's head west and pressed his sides. “C'mon, Prince.” He leaped ahead and stretched his legs out across the sand.
“Jesus Christ!” I heard Joe yell. “Wolfie! Get him.”
I knew what was coming. Our sharpshooter Wolfie would hit me with his sidearm set for stun. I leaned over Asil's shoulder and felt a tingling in my wrist and leg as we outran Wolfie's mare. If that wasn't General Roothe at the head of the caravan, I'd swing Asil away from them and they'd never catch me. If it was Roothe, he might just save a lot of his people.
I glanced back. None of the team was following me. I saw the caravan leader raise his arm. Behind him, the horses were reined in.
I pulled up Asil about a hundred feet away from the leader. He was too short and slightly built to be the general. He turned to another Deneb who rode behind him and said something.
The other shrugged.
Uh oh. Bad mistake, Jules, I thought. “Cousin!” I called, “I was sent to you by Older Brother and Bountiful the Profuse.”
The leader sat stiffly in the saddle and watched me.
“May I approach?” I asked.
“Keep your hands over your head,” he called, “and approach.”
I lifted my arms away from my stingler and tapped Asil's sides lightly to put him into a slow walk. “I have an urgent message for you,” I called.
I smiled as I lowered my shields and conjured a red coil of telepathic power. I forced it to grow and spin, hotter and faster into that tight fist that would explode in a thrown mind link and catch him like a bug in a web. This was going to give me a bad headache, dammit, but if it hit its mark, I'd sublimate the crotefucker's thoughts and impose my own will on his mind. I had to make him my puppet in one blast of the link. If I controlled him, I could free the slaves. If he had time to alert the others, I might not make my escape. I knew the heat inside my skull was burning brain cells, but I forced the small tornado to grow.
When I was about twenty feet away from him, and felt as though my head were ready to explode, I threw the coil the way a baseball pitcher flings a ball.
BEM invasion imminent, I sent. Mother ships approach. This area targeted for annihilation of Nomadic groups as example to all Denebrians. Missiles whine overhead. Nuclear explosions turn sand to glass. Only safety. Northwest Village. Race back, cousin. The sky is full of missiles! The ground shakes and explodes!
His round mouth opened into a doughnut circle. His nose slits flared. Long, creased fingers crept up to his throat. I had the bastard by his balls, if he had any.
“My message is only for your ears,” I said aloud as I approached.
He gargled in his throat.
I leaned toward him and whispered, “Flee while you can, cousin. And tell your people to flee. The BEMs at headquarters sent me to warn you. Attacking BEM ships are overhead right now.” I jabbed my finger at the sky and squinted. “There. And there. And there!”
He turned his horse with a cry. “The village,” he screamed. “Back to the village. The BEMs are going to blow up the desert.” He kicked his poor horse's sides hard. The horse grunted and leaped into a gallop. The column of horses behind him broke as the riders tried to follow, crashing into each other. One of the horses screamed and went down. He struggled to his feet, without his rider, and pounded across the desert, stirrups flying. The slaves ran and stumbled to escape the galloping horses.
I unholstered my stingler, aimed at the fleeing leader's back, and pulled the trigger.
He threw up his arms, rolled backward off the horse, and lay motionless in the sand.
“There's your invasion,” I said and holstered the weapon.
* * *
“Come here, Jules,” Joe said too softly and strode toward me as I comforted a slave Deneb who'd been trampled in the chaos, and waited for Bat to arrive with his little black bag,
I stood up. “Uh, I don't think so.” I backed away. “It turned out all right, Joe. Look. We freed them!”
He kept approaching. “Come here.”
I shook my head and backed away into Chancey, who wrapped his arms around me in a gorilla grip.
Huff whined from behind Joe.
“Captain,” Reika called on a pleading note, and pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Take it easy, Joe,” I said as he continued toward me.
Bat shook his head, opened his saddlebag and took out his little black bag while Wolfie held our horses' reins.
I gasped as Joe grabbed the collar of my jacket. I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth. “Not my left cheek!” I groaned as I waited for the blow. I felt a light tap on my right cheek and opened my eyes.
Joe stood before me, looking grim. “I swear to Jesus Christ and Brahma, the next time you disobey my order, I'll flatten you.” He nodded to Chancey, who let me go. I turned
and stared at Chancey, my fists clenched, my body tense. He shrugged and walked away.
“You know, Joe,” I said, “I volunteered for this mission at your urging. I'm not part of your military team!”
“You are now, kid. And this is not a democracy. The team leader is law.”
“Your law!” I strode away.
Bat went to the wounded with his bag.
Reika and Wolfie rode into the desert and returned with the leader's horse and those of two soldiers who'd been dragged off their mounts and killed by the slave Denebs. Huff went searching under rocks, as much, I think, to look for fresh meat as to be away from humans and our senseless disputes for a while.
After Bat treated the three most seriously hurt, he helped the Denebs tie them to travois behind the horses and three Denebs mounted and left for a village, about fifty kilometers to the southwest, they said, to bring back more horses and help for the others.
* * *
Late that evening, while the rest of the team slept, Bat and I sat near a small fire Joe had allowed in the darkness, and sipped coffee. I picked up a branch from a pile beside me and threw it into dying flames. The fire sparked and brightened.
“Not a bad day's work,” I told Bat.
“I wouldn't let Joseph hear ya'll say that.”
“He won't hear it from me, or I'll be needing one of your pain pills.” I glanced at Joe, asleep on his bedroll. “Sometimes he scares me. I think he's still capable of beating the hell out of me if he gets really pissed and puts his mind to it.”
Bat shook his head. “Do you understan' how much he cares about you? He worries himself sick that ya'll gonna get yourself killed.”
“He's got a funny way of showing it.”
“Some people don't know how to express their concern with anything but anger.”
“You were ready to go and talk to the caravan, Bat.”
“Only until Joseph gave the order not to.” He put down his empty cup. “A lot o' those turncoat Denebs are headin' back to the Northwestern Village. Will they know ya'll a telepath?”
“No. I killed their leader.” I picked up a branch and tapped off insects that scurried around it. “He was the only one who might've surmised it. The others think I gave him a message from the BEMs. If anything, the village will figure I'm working for the BEMs.”