Enryn

by Gerard Whittaker

  That was then.

  Now the carbines had replaced all but the heavy crew mounted weapons.

  With replicated ammunition, that never ran out, and a choice of point fifty calibre full metal jacket, armour piercing, grenades, incendiary, self guiding sniper rounds and flares, they gave each Marine an unbeatable combination of fire power.

  The family rushed off through the gate, firing as they ran, shooting their way through an army of monsters, rushing to the town of Orissia where the real battle was.

  For one minute Ace stood still, obeying orders. "To hell with this. Teams one, two and three, guard the way home; the rest follow me."

  Ace ran through the gate and into hell, followed by twenty four men and Sal, she'd finished with her nails and now brandished her carbine as though she knew how to use it.

  She did, very well indeed.

  The night was filled with screams and the clash of arms, as bestial figures attacked with bow and sword. Their hides were a swarthy greenish colour, with yellow tusks and piggy little glowing eyes. Roughly tanned hides and chain-mail covered the leaders while many were naked but for a cleaver. It was the naked ones who were trouble, they needed to gain honour in battle before being allowed to breed with captured women. All they thought of was war and sex, just like most men.

  It really wasn't hard to pick the bad guys who ran forward yelling blood thirsty war cries, from the good who fled in terror screaming for mercy. Ace opened up with a short burst that swept twenty Savages from the road, as Sal was picking off those chasing the fleeing civilians.

  The Marines chased down the road, firing at will, laying waste to the army of nightmare, but always more came on in never ending numbers.

  They caught up with the Percivals near the town centre, entering a leather factory with a built on shop that catered to the elite. John turned, "Don't you know how to obey orders?"

  Ace laughed, "Nope!"

  "Good, there may be hope for you yet." The shop was tastefully fitted out to cater for rich clients, with a walk way for models to display the produce to the seated guests, while they sipped excellent wine and chatted with the sales assistants, but now it was empty and would never be used again. They entered the factory to see it full of refugees.

  Gyor rushed forward to embrace a tall brunet. Then she turned to the rest and turned white, for the factory was full of people, some well dressed but many in rags or nothing at all. "What are you doing here?" she gasped.

  "Waiting for you mistress Gyor," a woman in her mid forties replied, her twin sister gasped, "We knew you would come."

  "Lady!" she sobbed. "I can't handle this many."

  "Who are they?" Ace asked quietly.

  "My former lovers, cum slaves, and their slaves. And about half the slave market by the look of it. About four hundred in total. I can't take them and can't leave them."

  "They will die here," Ace pointed out.

  "This I know."

  "Lady Gyor," he sighed, "do what you have to do, we will take care of them."

  "But you can't take them to the Iowa," she gasped.

  "You promised to cover my butt if anything went wrong. I'll hold you to that. But the refugees are stopping you from completing your mission and returning to the ship."

  "This is En-eta," she introduced the young brunet clinging in desperation to her arm, "you will take her back to the Iowa, and if any more wish to accompany you, it will be on their head."

  En-eta sighed, "Lady Gyor, I know of the restriction on the portal spell, so we removed all the slaves' collars and chains, they will run faster in freedom and enter your reality naked."

  "Sal, look after her," Ace commanded.

  "Aye Gunny," she replied. "Lady, she will be safe with me."

  "Sal is it?" Gyor examined the tiny Latino girl as though expecting the Marine to break in two under her icy glare. Then the Mage did the unexpected, gasping sincerely, "Please look after her, I've been missing her so much..."

  Gyor, Isralla, Ison, Eileen, John, June and Bob, slipped into the street, leaving the rest to organise the mad rush back to the castle.

  Ace took the point, with twenty four men in a arrow formation behind him, guarding the refugees, with the flanks and rear covered by more of the family. Then they rolled forward, crushing all who came against them with point fifty carbines that never ran out of ammunition. They cut a bloody swath through the savage army, leaving no survivors.

  A young girl crept from beneath the wreck of her family's wagon, and her family, who had tried to save everything they could except their own lives, seeing the impossible army sweeping through the Savages with disdain. Ceri could only scamper to catch up in terror as three naked Savages tried to run her down and rape her. They grabbed her long dress with callused paws, ripping into the rich fabric, tearing it off one shoulder. She struggled to pull away, leaving yet more cloth in their claws.

  En-eta glanced around to see the tragedy unfolding, she gestured to her minder. Sal glanced back, fired three times and continued on without even breaking step.

  Ceri heard three whip cracks as the point fifties flew past her head, and the sound of the Savages being ripped apart. In shock she realised it had been a girl no older that herself that had saved her life. She ran even faster, ever just a few feet behind the exodus as her luxurious silk slippers were torn to shreds on the cobbled road.

  Occasionally Ace heard huge explosions across the town, and knew Lady Gyor was doing her worst, decimating the leadership. Then further explosions on the far side of the town where John and Isralla were destroying the invasion barges and supply ships.

  They reached the castle and were pulled inside. The rope now had leather wrist straps bound tightly every few feet, which rose into the air despite the rope standing still. Ace told his first team to strip off and grab the rope, and they quickly rose into the air and vanished from view. He made sure Sal and En-eta were safely away.

  Everyone else had to strip and let the rope pull them to safety, as the Marines in the Tower pulled them into Gyor's study and beyond into the Iowa.

  Ceri watched all the refugees stripping, realising that being a slave was the only option. She looked up as Sal and En-eta were vanishing through the portal. For the first time in her life she undressed herself, pulling off the ruined dress until she stood naked surrounded by strange men. Feeling horror and disgust on top of her terror, she queued to grab one of the straps and was pulled from the ground towards slavery.

  Finally only Ace and ten men, stripped down to nothing but their armour, stood guarding the castle wall and the way home.

  Explosions wracked the town as the family fought their way home with magic, sword and carbine, as a few thousand irate monsters chased them through the streets.

  They made it back as the Marines fired an endless supply of grenades into the monsters' massed ranks, killing hundreds but thousands more came on. The family stripped off and rode the rope to safety, still firing into the army until the very last second before dropping their carbines and vanishing through the portal. Finally only Lady Gyor and Ace stood next to the rope. "It's my duty to go last," she said. "I have to sort out the weapons and armour, we can't let the savages get it."

  "Don't hang about, I'll cover you as long as I can." Ace dropped his armour and rode the rope still firing grenades at the monsters, as arrows pinged off the wall around him.

  Gyor twisted the high tech weapons and armour from existence, and dived for the rope as two savages leapt for her legs.

  Ace was almost at the portal, he saw what was happening and dropped for the lower strap and then the next one, lowering himself towards Gyor as she clung on for dear life with two monsters clinging to her legs.

  An arrow caught his right shoulder and the carbine fell into the crowd of monsters that swarmed below them. Holding on with his left arm he reached for Gyor with his leg, as she swung up to catch his foot. Then he let the rope pull them through the portal as a second arrow caught him in the back.

  The po
rtal accepted him and Gyor, but not the hitchhiking monsters who were dressed and armed, and they were pulled into the tower within the ship. Then explosion after explosion wracked the void beyond the window, as the route to Yag-Urth was forever sealed.

  "I was afraid of that," Gyor gasped. "I pushed reality too far, and it finally pushed back. We can never return."

  Ace finally understood, to be reunited with her slave En-eta, Gyor had deliberately exiled them to this dimension, cutting all ties with her homeworld.

  Both were wounded and the medic sounded the alert, soon they were laying side by side in the infirmary, wrapped in bandages.

  "Your carbine," Gyor gasped. "What serial number was it?" He told her and she smiled, clicking her fingers. "You won't tell anyone will you Gunny?"

  "That you've just destroyed it?"

  "No, not yet, but when it is taken back to their underground city and given to their leader, then it will be destroyed."

  "Big explosion?" he asked with a grin.

  "Very," she sighed. "It'll be a thousand years before they can try this again."

  En-eta came to greet Gyor, she was a sweet girl, nearly six foot tall, dusky and very relieved to be back with her mistress for the first time in two years. She had been described as a slave, by someone who didn't know her, but she stood tall and proud, talking to Lady Gyor as one free person to another. "John and Isralla are running interference for you both," she sighed. "You are both interned here until the fuss over the slaves has died down."

  "So what is the situation now?" Ace asked.

  "Most of the refugees are owned or related, and that's not a problem. It's the two hundred from the slave market that has us stumped, the children we can look after, plenty of room for a school on this ship. Half the girls were from the brothels or dance halls, others maids, factory workers, even field labour and concubines. It's amazing how little their masters got selling them in a war, but they weren't worth the effort to save!" En-eta sighed in outrage. "We can't free them on the Iowa, can't take them home, and can't abandon them."

  "So you put them to work," Gyor guessed. "There must be plenty of menial jobs that need doing on a ship this size."

  Sal and a few Marines came visiting, she had a naked girl with her who would not let go of her arm. Ceri was a short blond with a slim figure and small breasts, a cute face and large terrified green eyes which constantly glanced around the med bay in wonder.

  "Trouble?" Ace laughed.

  "This chick's been begging to be my slave since we gave her the translator injection," Sal sighed in frustration. "Come on, do I look the type?"

  "I want to be owned by Sal," Ceri sobbed. "Please don't turn me away."

  Gyor examined the girl, from her upper class accent to her uncallused neck and wrists. She called Sal over, whispering, "I don't know where she came from, but she is not a slave."

  "I figured that out, I think she picked on me because I was the only girl with the Marines."

  "She wants to feel safe," Gyor agreed. "Look after her Sal, she'll be happy cleaning your quarters; it's the least I can do for the help you gave En-eta."

  Sal turned to the girl in confusion, "Ceri, I will accept you, but you'd better be worth the effort."

  The girl looked up in sudden hope.

  Gyor and Ace spent a week hiding in the infirmary, they could have left at any time but the Mage was totally drained by the battle and didn't want to face a formal hearing over her conduct putting the Iowa at risk.

  When things quietened down they both crept back to their quarters, keeping their heads down.

  Ace finally got to visit the Marines' mess near his quarters, mixing with his Rifle Platoon off duty, and finding that the food was far better than the Sergeant's mess. About twenty slaves helping in the kitchen might have had something to do with it.

  It was getting late when Ace turned to see a girl staring at him from the serving hatch. All she wore was a simple work smock, that looked to have been made from a pillowcase, and an apron. The Marine Quartermasters' store didn't stock clothing for female slaves.

  He knew her from somewhere.

  "Am I then that forgettable?" she snapped in anger. "You saved my bloody life and forget about it!"

  "Ah, the girl who tried to skewer me with a knife," he gasped. "But what are you doing here?"

  "This is where all the slaves belong," she gasped.

  "But you're not a slave," he insisted.

  "Try telling them that," she gestured to the mess officer.

  "Can we try again? Hi, I'm Ace, but most people call me Gunny."

  "Hi, I'm Enryn, and most people call me Hey You!"

  He invited her over to sit facing him. "We can straighten this out. Where did you come from?"

  "Tharsius of course," she snapped in anger.

  "Please Enryn, let me help you. I did save your life."

  "Right," she sighed. "I'm one of the Ship people, do you know about us?"

  "Who doesn't," he sighed. "We have a standing order to save as many of you as we can."

  "You mean enslave, sacrifice!"

  "I mean save your lives and free you," he insisted. "The sacrifices are over and the monster dead. Our ruling family, the Percivals, saved a few of you two years ago and slew the creature that fed on your kind, and accepted them into their family. Enryn, they are free."

  "Free to kneel," she insisted.

  "John and Isralla married a few months ago, and gave their girl Jina a bracelet during the ceremony. Does that sound like she is a slave?"

  "Well, no," she gasped. "Look, I'm confused about this ship, the lights keep going out. Can you tell me why?"

  "Lord," he sighed sadly, "don't you know anything?" Ace was beginning to think he was wasting his time with her, she was a savage.

  "Please tell me why the lights go out. I've never seen the dark in my life, we always equate black with death, and I've never seen stars before," she said in wonder.

  Ace spilled some sugar on the table and proceeded to explain about Earth having a twenty four hour day, rather than a three hundred year one.

  "So you are used to sleeping in the dark," she gasped in shock. "That explains it all." Far from a savage Enryn was a very bright girl, and a very brave one to have survived on her own for ten years.

  Ace was sitting across from a lovely girl wearing a pillowcase, and respecting her courage and intelligence.

  When he realised that he started to laugh.

  There were many things she did not understand but she was worth teaching. For the first time he began to think of Enryn as more than a quick lay. Perhaps the blessing he had received had absolved his bad luck and he could look towards the future for the first time since his divorce. All he needed was someone to share it with.

  "Come to think of it," he mused, "I thought your tradition insisted that you give yourself to the one who saved your life?"

  "Only if I can find him," she snapped. "I have my own standards to find one worthy of me."

  "And what are they?" he sighed.

  "Three orgasms in a row," she insisted.

  "Three, only three! Your last lover must have been a civilian."

  "Then how many do you give?" she scoffed.

  "With the right partner, about six or more," he said mildly.

  "If that," she pointed to his groin, "isn't as big as that," she pointed to his mouth, "don't waste my time!"

  He reached across the table to cup her neck, and pull her forward for a stolen kiss. "Now you know the size of my mouth, if you want to check the other, let me know."

  Enryn stood up and removed her apron, heading for the door. She turned back, "So what's keeping you?"

  Ace led her from the galley towards his quarters.

  He awoke in the morning to see her sitting on his bed naked and scowling at him.

  "So?" he asked quizzically.

  "That was only five," she snapped.

  "And the one in the shower?"

  "Six then," she sighed.

  "T
here would have been more but you fainted."

  "I did no such thing!" she insisted. "Well, perhaps I fell asleep."

  "I've an hour before I get up," he warned her. "Let's see how many we can manage in that time?"

  "Bloody hell!"

  Ace returned to his quarters that evening to find Enryn going through his wardrobe, comparing his uniforms with bemusement.

  "You've more clothes than anyone I've ever met."

  "I thought you'd be back in the galley."

  "I quit, like you said, I'm not a slave."

  "So what are you doing then?"

  "Giving myself to the man who saved my life," she said simply. "If you want me?"

  "What do you think?"

  "I think you want me," she laughed.

  "So do I," he laughed back. "But we've got to get over this fainting."

  "For the love of all! I'm not going to discuss that with one of your Doctors!"

  "I just thought we could get round it the old fashioned way," he said innocently.

  "Which is?" she gasped in confusion.

  "Practise."

  That night he shaved Enryn and showed her more about love than she had ever suspected. She stroked her exposed flesh, feeling clean, exposed and deliciously vulnerable as he drove her wild with his tongue, and realised that she would never be the same. Always would she shave to let him please her, and she would always feel special when he did it himself.

  Ace finally mounted the delirious girl and drove her ever further towards heaven, until she collapsed in ecstasy.

  He lay gently holding her, and realised that he could never let her go. He had found an equal in Enryn, a beautiful girl with courage and determination; someone he could understand and trust with his heart.

  The blessing of The Lady had born fruit hundreds of light-years from Earth.