Enryn

by Gerard Whittaker

  "So, where's the Iowa?" Enryn asked as soon as they returned to reality.

  "We should have locked onto them by now," Ace agreed.

  "Either we're still out of range," Sal mused, "or the FTL drive is on the frizz."

  "Okay," Ace sighed, "bad news or good news?"

  "I'll take the bad," Enryn sighed, "and work up."

  "With the WA we're far over manned, so it's going to get cosy in here. But the good is that we can replicate all the air and food we need."

  "For how long?" Enryn sighed.

  "Until we find the Iowa, or start a colony of our own."

  "Wouldn't that be fun," Sal moaned, "a colony full of little Marines?"

  Enryn chuckled, "Apart from you and Ceri, we are evenly matched. I don't suppose you two err..."

  "No we do not!" Sal gasped in outrage. "I'm not a lesbian and want to marry and have a family of my own some day!"

  "I'm not gay either," Ceri hastened to say.

  "Then you could always become second wives or spinsters," Enryn whispered loudly.

  "Miss Sal," Ceri gasped, "I'm not ready for that either!"

  Sal really looked at the girl she bunked with for the first time, seeing her in a new light. "Gay relationships are not condoned by the Marine Corps."

  "June Percival used to be a Marine, and a good one," Ace laughed, "but what do you think she does with her two girls, play Pattacake?"

  "She shares them openly with her husband Bob," Enryn chuckled. "No sneaking around at night, no shame or hypocrisy, just an open loving relationship, with plenty of room for two more."

  "Must be great to be rich," Sal gasped.

  "Rich?" Enryn laughed. "When this started the Percivals were almost paupers, June had to take in sewing to pay the mortgage, and they were in constant danger of losing the family home."

  "And then John met Isralla while drowning in a swamp, both of them, and they became heroes and learnt how to replicate starships."

  "They got where they are by hard work, good luck and a lot of danger!" Enryn insisted. "I think they've earned the right to be a little eccentric, but, unlike most, they don't hide it. I met them all tonight. Reda is a slave, a real one from Yag-Urth, yes Ceri, just like you, but she loves her masters, totally devoted to them both. But Essia is like me, and gives her love as one free person to another, without shame."

  "There were just five Percivals when this started," Ace pointed out, "Grandfather Jack was in a wheelchair, June and Bob, then their children John and Eileen. And Eileen was only sixteen had had never been to war, unlike the rest of them. Jack was murdered protecting three girls they saved and adopted. And June had a baby the same night and christened him Jack after her father. But by now that old house is packed with love. As well as the girls they saved from Tharsius, and who wanted to continue serving them, they have five adopted children, and a few more living with their extended family. As well as Gyor and her kids Isralla and Ison."

  Enryn gasped, "And they still found time to build fleets of starships and save Earth on at least three occasions."

  Sal sighed, "Enryn, are you sure that when someone saves your life, there isn't a genetic flaw that makes you fall in love with them?"

  "I know the difference between gratitude and love."

  "Do you? I'm waiting to see what happens the next time someone saves your life."

  Turret One continued to make short hops across reality, of just a few light years to avoid burning the drive out, hoping to detect the Iowa, but without any luck. Space was too big for a chance encounter, and the Turret's sensors were meant for battle not tourism.

  Weeks of living cheek by jowl in a tin can that would have been crowded with just the male Rifle Platoon was beginning to take its toll. The WA were now faring better than the men, being used to living in cages.

  The accommodation section was but a tiny part of the vast turret, with bunks that now always slept two to a mattress. Most of the turret was sealed off from the Marines, with deadly energy leaking from the weapons and drives, and serviced by maintenance-bots. A Lander and her five vehicles were housed in the rear hanger. The only place for couples to find some privacy was in the small med bay that was little more than an examination bed and a locker full of body bags. The usual warning sign of occupancy was a towel hung over the lock, and it could take days to book a slot in advance.

  Ace was now struggling to control over sixty highly sexed Marines, and had to include himself and Enryn among them. All he could do was keep them busy, very busy.

  He forced the training for the WA into top gear, teaching them all he could in as short a time as possible. The book had been thrown out of the window. Now it was kill or be killed.

  All the girls learnt their partner's skills, and everything else they could. Even the Lander was put in training mode and all the girls taught to fly the semi automated shuttle.

  Physical fitness training went back to the bad old days for all the Marines, as Ace drove them all with single minded determination to survive. Unarmed combat was taken beyond the usual rough and tumble to the next level with Ace and Enryn leaving bruises as they fought.

  By the time they flopped into bed they were either too tired, or in too much pain, to make love. Not that it stopped them.

  A distant signal drew them on from across space, enticing and beguiling it caught their curiosity with a grip of steel.

  Sal called out, "I'm picking up some kind of homing beacon."

  "We might as well find out where it's coming from," Ace sighed.

  "Intercept course set, ETA three weeks."

  The ship was old and vast as Turret One homed in on the distress beacon with insatiable curiosity, the hull looked to have been exposed to space for decades at least, but still the call enticed them to their doom.

  "And I thought the Uber was ugly," Ace sighed.

  "I'd make her half a million tons," Sal guessed. "And you're right, she is ugly."

  A commanding voice laughed at them, "You will surrender, we have need for such as you."

  "Battle stations," Ace called out. "Team one to man all weapons, team two on standby."

  A beam lashed across space clipping Turret One just before the shields were raised, leaving a hundred yard gash in the armour.

  "Enryn, target that turret."

  She aimed at the turret that was still firing only to see her gauss slug explode against shields with a blinding flash of light leaving no damage. Again she fired and again, and the shields grew ever stronger.

  Ace opened up with the plasma cannon, hitting the shields a dozen times, without causing any damage. Then the alien ship struck back with a whiplash of energy that ripped away Turret One's shields in a split second of horror.

  "One more like that and we're toast," Sal snapped.

  Enryn and the other gunners continued to fire until the ship repeated the whiplash, tearing through the Turret's armour with ease.

  "We're getting our butts kicked," Ace gasped. "Sal, new plan, see if you can dock with her, I want to board that mother fucker."

  "Aye Gunny." Sal dove for the vast ship, then slowed to a stall as Ace and the Rifle Platoon dressed in space armour. She drove the Turret against the ancient hull as Ace led the assault. Handing over to Ceri, Sal chased after her platoon diving through space into an open vehicle bay.

  Enryn could only watch her lover leaving without a word, her duty was to the girls so she could not break down sobbing. No matter how much she wanted to. All along she'd had a terrible feeling that she would never see Ace again.

  The Platoon encountered an alien menace as they floated across space, feeling a sickening presence that almost made them want to throw up in their suits; there was something on the alien ship that left them in dread before they even saw it.

  Enryn forced herself to keep calm and professional, as Ace led his men into what she knew would be a trap.

  They left the vehicle bay entering a pressurerised section of the ship, and opened their helmets, gasping the alien air w
ith apprehension.

  Everything was dark and smelt of rotting lubricant, as loading chains swept to and fro in the half light with tiny screams. They dodged through the ship by the numbers, providing covering fire against the empty darkness and shocking sounds, but found nothing to shoot as shadows converged around them leaving their hearts pounding with fear.

  In the turret the WA could follow their lovers' progress by their helmet cams, seeing the progress in flashes from camera to camera. Enryn kept wanting to scream for them to run for their lives, that they were being trapped, but knew better, the Marines were too proud to turn and run. With their weapons, armour and training they could not conceive of a foe powerful enough to defeat them.

  Pride cometh before the fall.

  Ace turned a corner into a more brightly lit section of the ship and saw twenty men wearing golden collars waiting for them. They were tall and grey, wearing black clothing and supercilious grins. "What kept you?" the leader laughed. "We were growing bored." He raised a pistol and fired at Ace, the beam striking his armour and burning deeply into the ceramic. The Marines opened up with their carbines, mowing through the aliens, but nothing happened. The point fifties did no damage at all to the men who didn't even wear armour.

  "Know this, we are the Warriors of the Lord Karnish, and we own you! Everything you own and everything you are now belongs to My Lord." The leader fired again and the Marines returned with pin point accuracy, and no effect. The men stood laughing at the astonished Marines.

  From behind the men a ball of energy floated in the air, containing a bloated body that was laughing with childish glee.

  The Marines fired in desperation, then an explosion wracked the ambush and the firing stopped.

  All Enryn could hear was shots fired by the Warriors and screams from the Marines.

  Then Ace stopped reporting as an unstoppable force moved in to take the Turret, twenty men walked towards the Woman's Auxiliary, over the bodies of the Marines.

  Ceri gasped, "You're in charge now Sergeant Enryn. Tell us what to do."

  "We can't fight them, that I'm sure of," she sighed. "Can't run, and won't surrender." Then she started to grin, and did the only thing she could think of and selected the Trojan option. "We need to find out what we're facing, and that means going under cover. Way undercover! Listen up ladies, this is what we're going to do, and you are not going to like it. But remember one thing, you are Marines first of all!"

  The force of Warriors found a cage full of bound women crying for mercy.

  Enryn struggled in her bonds, looking up fearfully at her new masters, begging, "Please free us sir, those horrible men raided our ship and kidnapped us. We're not slaves."

  "You are now," the leader laughed. "This is the fourth ship like this we've taken this month, but the first one full of girls."

  Turret One was flown to a planet and landed next to three more damaged Turrets.

  The world look barren, as though it had been swept clean of life a few hundred years ago, and only scrubland and small animals had survived. Only one town stood in the empty world, next to a landing field full of rusting, derelict ships.

  Stripped naked, and with wrists bound behind their backs, the WA were marched from the turret and passed a row of ship that looked abandoned and half stripped down. Expensive drives and electronics had been removed, and weeds were growing over their landing struts, while dust and lichen covered their hulls.

  The women were dragged fearfully to a town that looked half Mediterranean, it was covered with ceramic tiles that looked to have been stripped off ships. Dozens of other pieces of recycled ships blended with the low buildings, with engine cowlings now serving as workshops, and atmospheric control veins propped up before many buildings to provide shade for the lounging mechanics and shopkeepers. Some of the men were forced to work in the mid day heat wearing chains on their legs.

  Parts of ships were being stripped down for recycling, the owners and passengers held to ransom, if rich, put to work if talented, or slain if not.

  A hundred Warriors strode around the town with menacing pride, with grey skin and mousy hair, black jumpsuits and holstered energy pistols; they were a different breed from the mixed lot of civilians who seemed to have been taken off captured ships. It was as if anyone pirated had the option of working to fit in with the society, or dieing.

  A few patrols of humanoid guards kept the slaves under control, armed with slug throwing pistols that could never threaten the Elite Warriors.

  There were only a few thousand people and hundreds of girls who drifted around without hope, dressed in bits of gauze or a few chains. Enryn saw one woman bustling past using a portable computer and ordering someone on her communicator what to do, as if the was the head of a Company, while wearing a few bits of white silk and gilded chains. It was clear that the job she had once done as a free woman she was now doing as a slave, a few long white scars on her back explained why she was complying.

  The WA were pulled back into slavery, guarded by beasts with whips and guns they were chained on a plinth in the market and there they were sold to the highest bidder as men and a few women called out to buy them. To most of the woman it had happened before, more than once, but a few had never been treated this way and Ceri looked down in horror as an old man started to caress her thighs. Her look of utter disgust aroused the rich man even more.

  Enryn stood calmly in her chains, looking around the town and ignoring her plight, she would do whatever she had to for Ace. She was a Marine, and that pride was all she had to hide behind.

  She saw a few of her friends pulled off sobbing, then Ceri being sold to a rich man, and felt her chain pulled sharply.

  Looking down from the dais Enryn saw the brute with the most money counting the price of her life, and was privately insulted at the amount. He was holding a pale girl by a leash on her neck as she stood uncomplainingly with a heavy pack of shopping strapped to her back. The girl was alien, with white skin and hair, and looked small and fragile but walked with feline grace.

  With the sale completed Enryn was dragged to her master's home, along with the pale girl who was totally naked apart from the bag of shopping she was bound to. The alien girl was never talked to or told what to or where to go, instead she was directed by sharp tugs on her leash.

  After a few more purchases Enryn was dragged to the beast's home, weary and sickened. Dressed in nothing but a few chains Enryn was pulled through the door to see two more brutes waiting for her with savage leers. She assessed the three in an instant, they were deckhands from a stolen ship who had worked hard to fit into the pirate town, on learning some of the benefits they could earn, like slavegirls.

  Either this was a way of bonding with their peers, or they were just creeps who couldn't get a date in a brothel.

  The pale girl had her pack removed and was thrown to her knees and forced to please the men while Enryn was hung from the ceiling.

  She hung swaying for a couple of hours as they screwed the alien girl and occasionally beat her with a cane. But Enryn was new and they wanted to train her right, she took it with patience. Her time would come.

  Given the situation a bit of patience and gentleness could have resulted in a captured girl being more compliant, given her options she might even bond with her master- eventually. But the brutes weren't interested in bonding with their slaves, just breaking their spirits.

  The men forced the alien girl to cook for them, and had a few drinks, watching Enryn swaying as they discussed what they were going to do to her. All the comments were on the same basic theme, how to break her spirit without destroying her body. Most were crudely put, basic in the extreme, and not all were physically possible.

  The men were beneath her notice and so she ignored it, knowing they would not live long enough to try any of them.

  She was pulled down and for a second had her hands freed while they attempted to bind her to the bed. The response was instinctive and deadly.

  Enryn lashed out wi
th her open palm and the first man died with his nose crushed into his brain.

  She kicked the next hard and destroyed his groin, and as he stumbled to the floor in agony slipped behind him, put her hands under his chin, and broke his neck with her knee.

  The last man drew a knife so she grabbed his wrist and twisted the knife free, took it off him and returned it point first into his heart.

  The whole fight took three seconds until she stood over the bodies.

  The pale girl panicked and tried to run. Enryn grabbed her and considered what she should do to the fragile girl, then smiled and refastened her bonds, leaving her laying on the bed where the Marine was to have been raped. The kid was not to blame and could prove useful, if she stopped panicking. "Name?" she asked, but the kid shook her head sadly. Looking closer Enryn thought the girl looked older than she first thought, but was smaller and more delicate than a human.

  She looked around the house with disdain, and found a yard with a sty holding six large creatures that looked like Earth hogs, large, hairy and full of tusks. She stripped the bodies and dumped them in the sty, and the hogs started sniffing them with appreciation.

  Enryn returned to the house seeing the girl sobbing. "I think I'll call you Fae," she chuckled. The girl looked up in surprise as Enryn freed her legs and told her to make something to eat.

  She daren't trust the girl and kept her on a leash while eating the best meal she had in months. "You're a good cook Fae," Enryn said with appreciation.

  The girl could only nod.

  Enryn looked through the window, seeing what the slaves were wearing this year, some kind of dancer costume of see-through silk with a tiny bra, loincloth, pantaloons and sleeves. The best bit was the veil. "Fae!" she called. The tiny girl looked up like a lost puppy. She pointed to the slaves outside. "Find clothing."