Women of Steel 2: Martini on the Rocks
Camille Anthony
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Copyright ©2005 by Camille Anthony
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Prologue
Martini sat at the long conference table situated in the main conference room on the Starbase, Gedde Prime, her folded hands resting on the table, eyes glued to the screen showing the approaching Scarth ships. She wondered what Denzel would think about this present situation.
Instantly, she castigated herself. How can you sit here, faced with a horror almost beyond imagining, and still find yourself thinking about him?
She couldn’t help it. She missed him, missed the conversations they’d had, the arguments and quizzes. There was nothing like exploring the mind of a self-aware android.
This morning she had done what she did every day since she’d reported for duty. She’d gotten up early, did her routine calisthenics and then jogged the perimeter of the base. Returning to her cabin, she had then spent far too much time in the shower, trying to scrub the memory of Denzel from her stubborn mind. The only thing was… she kept dwelling on all the things they’d never gotten around to doing.
Recalling how frightened she’d been at the time, she couldn’t believe she was now wishing he’d had the time to take her ass. Just the thought had a nasty leap of excitement tickling her belly, causing her muscles to jump erratically. Her pulse pounded in a frantic rhythm. Nipples, rising against the snug material of her tunic, tightened and swelled. Her womb fluttered, turned liquid with heat that rained down into her vagina, making her wet.
This is insane! I have to stop doing this. I have to get my mind off that fucking robot-boy and focus. Look at that flotilla, will you? The damn thing is miles long.
Gaze locked on the images on the vid screen, she watched the inexorable fate hurtling toward her, toward Earth.
The base stood light years out from Earth. Their allies, the Geddites, had first observed the armada a month ago, but had only confirmed the ships as Scarth configuration a week past. They’d sent the early warning to Command Central right after, and the information had resulted in Brigadier General Thalassic ordering all shore-leaves cancelled.
She sent Marti to Gedde Prime to assess the immediacy of the threat facing Earth. Now, a week later, she was ready to return home and give her report.
What I’m looking at is death, cold and implacable. And it is approaching at warp speed.
“Matrix, help us.”
Chapter One
In the middle of the night, Marti came awake in her lonely bachelor’s quarters, eyes staring into the dark, mind spinning with the information her subconscious had provided during sleep. “Newton! Hercules’s sidekick was Newton, the young centaur.” Her sleep-encrusted eyes narrowed. “But you cheated me on the song, you dog. Those weren’t the right words!”
She fell back against the cool cotton sheets, drawing her blankets up around her shoulders. Shivering in the pre-dawn chill, she twitched and fidgeted until the covers cocooned her just so. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten that show. Mom loved that little mute guy, Tewt, who communicated by playing on the pan pipes.”
A wide yawn surprised her, over before she had time to bring up her hand and cover her mouth. Halfway through a second jaw-stretching yawn, her bladder woke up and screamed. “Well hell! Just when I start to get warm I gotta pee!”
Throwing back the blankets, she sprinted toward the loo, quick-stepping across the cold floor until her bare toes reached the thick army-green rug she’d used to cover the tiles of the latrine.
Doing the pee-pee dance, she palmed the light on, yanked up her nightgown and wiggled out of her panties. Before her bottom hit the seat, the flood commenced. Her chest rose with a thankful sigh, relief flooding through her. “Thank the Matrix I made it, this time!”
She didn’t know why, but the last couple of days she’d missed the mark a few times, unable to control her bladder long enough to make it to a bathroom. She’d never had this problem before and couldn’t figure out why it had cropped up now.
One thing was certain -- she found it darned embarrassing wetting her panties while practicing on the combat drill field… and it was inconvenient, too. Nothing like sprinting off the field while trying to keep the telltale signs from running down your leg. The situation made her feel like a damned school kid, unable to hold her water. Damn it, she was too young to start wearing Retains.
Her toes curled into the warmth of the synthetic rug while her bare arms sprouted a second rash of goose bumps. Impatient to finish emptying her bladder and get back to bed, she rubbed her hands up and down her chilled flesh, working heat into her skin… and froze in the midst of the action.
She hissed through her teeth as a spike of pain curled about her swollen nipples. “Ow -- ow -- ow! Ouch!” She’d forgotten and inadvertently brushed her distended tips. They were so tender, the slightest touch sent agony screaming through her. She carefully cupped her throbbing tips and held on until the pain lessened.
Once it let up, she moved over to the sink and turned on the hot water, waiting impatiently for it to warm up. Shivering, she stuck a finger under the flow and snatched it back. Brrr!
Eons later, convinced the water was never going to turn warm, she gritted her teeth and thrust her hands quickly under the gushing water, lathering and drying them in record time. There was nothing worse than washing already cold hands in colder water.
“Damn the maintenance department to hell,” Marti snarled. She’d put in a request for them to repair her hot water heater two days ago and it still wasn’t fixed. Why was everything going to hell in a hand basket around her, lately?
Fine tremors, caused by the cold, still ran through her hands as she returned everything to its place and headed back to bed, absently palming off the light, brow furrowed in conjecture.
Can good sex destroy your bladder?
She thought it might, because she hadn’t had the “I-can’t-hold-it” problem until after she’d been with her borrowed A.I. unit, Denzel. And, oh my churning Matrix, he definitely had given her good sex! As always lately, as soon as she thought about him, her heart hurt with the now familiar ache of missing Denzel. She’d never had a better lover or better sex. In fact, she wouldn’t mind having some of that stellar class fucking right about now.
“Dammit, I forgot to bank my covers.” With a disgruntled sigh and another low curse, she slid back under her ice-cold bedding. “Shitpissfuck! I’ll never get back to sleep at this rate. Reveille sounds entirely too early these days.”
Hugging herself beneath the blankets, waiting for her spot to warm up again, her mind drifted back to those few glorious days spent with her M.A.N…
Bold, flamboyant hea
t-inducing pictures made up her memories of those long lustful hours of sex -- the hot, panting, groaning, toe-curling, raunchy, nasty best ever imagined kind of sex only possible with a partner blessed with inhuman stamina.
Marti sighed and curled her legs up closer to her torso, trying to evade the distracting cold.
Hard to imagine it had only been three months since her life had changed. For five years, she had devoted her energies toward pushing back the Scarth invasion. Only when Earth’s forces had battled the enemy to a standstill, negotiated a cease-fire and mopped up the radioactive hot spots had she given herself permission to take care of her own needs.
With all the abandonment of over five years’ worth of horniness, she had dived into the sexual experience of a lifetime. She had thoroughly indulged her deprived libido. For five glorious days filled with the joyous heat of discovery, she’d reveled in the intimate attentions of her personal Mechanistic Anatomically-correct Nurturer, taking full advantage of its torrid lovemaking skills -- edgy erotic skills that had left her craving more.
General Thalassic had recalled her to active duty five days early due to rumors of another all-out Scarth invasion. For the first time during her military career, Marti resented having to answer to a higher authority. Reluctantly, she had packed and accompanied her escort back to headquarters. She’d arranged to have the unit delivered back to the offices of M.A.N.-Kind, Inc., only to find it had anticipated her orders and left without saying goodbye. If she’d had her way, she would have remained with her M.A.N. for the full ten days, luxuriating in the sensual feast he’d spread before her.
A heated shudder chased the early morning cold away as she moaned in remembered bliss, recalling how often he’d spread her… buried his hot mouth and facile tongue between her thighs and made her his feast.
Marti greatly feared she’d fallen in love with him… it… and how lame was that? To fall in love with a machine -- an android -- was the height of stupidity. The two of them didn’t have a future. Hell, Denzel wasn’t even real. The android might fake sentience better than some of the soldiers she commanded, but the bottom line remained that he -- it, it, it! -- wasn’t human.
Marti rocked back and forth, biting back her cries, determined to keep her needs private. The walls were thin and the officers sharing this apartment block were light sleepers.
“Oh, Matrix, I burn for him, still!” She gasped as her nipples beaded, womb tightened. A pulse of liquid fire dampened her panties and she squeezed her thighs together, applying pressure to her clit in a useless effort to tamp down her rising arousal.
Denzel had conditioned her body well… no -- he’d addicted her to his body. These last two barren months had taught her nothing she did could stop her hungry pussy creaming in readiness for her absent mechanical lover.
Wide-awake now, she turned onto her back and stared into the dark. The folds of her sex throbbed with the slow, heavy beat of her pulse. She wanted relief, wanted to fly, but she’d never flown as a solo pilot. Masturbation wasn’t the answer -- not for her. She couldn’t get off by using her own hand or orchestrating her own pleasure, which was one of the main reasons she’d looked into purchasing a M.A.N. in the first place.
Turning on her side and curling into a horny, fetal ball, Marti closed her eyes and wished -- like she did a hundred times a day… two hundred times each night -- that Denzel had been real.
Chapter Two
Marti sat in the ready room of the Planetary Repulsion Force’s headquarters, working at cloaking her own trepidation from the avid gazes of the curious officers and world politicians. Like sharks circling bloody prey, they hovered, eager to see how the daughter of the mighty general would react to the information currently displayed on the full wall flat-screen monitor mounted in the media-conference room of headquarters. They couldn’t know she’d already seen what they were gazing at in horror.
Instinctively -- a lifetime of living in her mother’s shadow accustoming her to being under scrutiny -- she hid the quaking of her heart as she focused on the vid screen. Against a matte black background, a trail of tiny silver dots represented the slow, steady advance of a force more than five times larger than the combined military branches of Earth and Gedde Prime, Sept, and Tert could muster.
Matrix unwinding, the armada wasn’t this big when I viewed it at Gedde Prime. I didn’t know there were this many Scarth left. I thought the war had whittled their numbers down! How the hell will we fight an invasion force this large?
Glancing about, observing the other commanders, she saw her questions and her alarm echoed in their eyes. Only her mother showed no fear. As always, General Thalassic exuded a calm determination, her placid demeanor winning the respect and trust of her troops.
“Can you tell us how long until the fleet reaches Earth, General?”
Marti could hear the panic riding beneath the query of the Russian ambassador. Poor bastard sounded scared enough to piss his pants and rightly so. If the Scarth broke through Earth’s defenses, he and all the other men could bend over and kiss their ass goodbye. Only the women had any chance of surviving… if one could classify enduring the Scarth’s vicious use of their female captives by the tame term of survival.
“We were phenomenally blessed that the Geddites sighted them that far out.” The general consulted the thick sheaf of papers spread out in front of her. She pushed a button and the screen changed. “You can see the numbers have grown since the first views we had out past Gedde Tert. The long-range Hubble II telescope out near Neptune took these vids. A panel of astrophysicists and scientists are busy trying to extrapolate the location of their home planet based on the trajectory of their travel. Even at top speed, we don’t expect they’ll be within actual telemetry range for another three to four weeks.”
Horrified gasps sounded from male throats all around the room.
“That soon?”
“How do you plan to fight them?”
“Have they attempted communication?”
“What are our options? What are the chances they will entertain an offer of surrender?”
Shit. Under cover of picking up her glass of chilled water and taking a sip, Marti hid her wince. She could have told him that was the wrong thing to ask. If there was one thing her mother hated, it was timidity. Resigned, she flicked a glance toward her mother, watched her straighten to her full, impressive height.
Even seated, General Thalassic’s presence dominated the room. Tall, lean and slim, she projected an air of subdued elegance and single-minded resolve. Her steel gray hair, pulled back in a smooth chignon that revealed the classic lines of her face, glinted with pure silver highlights.
Look at my mom! Marti swallowed a proud chuckle. She is really something else. Even her hair bows to her iron will, not a strand dares to curl out of place.
Turning her gaze back to the unsuspecting speaker, she waited with glee for the fireworks to begin. The Norwegian diplomat was about to find out why no one considered it cowardice for even heads of state to tremble at her mother’s wrath.
“I will answer the questions in order, Chancellor Mendenholl, before dealing with your concern. Yes, that soon. If need be, we will engage the Scarth at all fronts, to the death -- theirs or ours. Communication is impossible at their present range. Of course, as soon as they move close enough for an exchange, we will begin broadcasting our demands that they state their intentions or prepare to resume the war. At present, our options are to negotiate a continuation of the cease-fire or enter into renewed hostilities with the Scarth. Should the latter occur, our only option will be to win or die trying.”
Thalassic rose from her chair and walked to the front of the ready room, every loose-limbed step a statement of assurance and determination. Turning, she faced the room, her storm-colored eyes sweeping the assembly before her.
“I have no intentions of finding out if they will accept our surrender. Surrender has never been an option. Surrendering to the enemy means giving up all our men. The women of th
e Repulsion Force have discussed this issue at length. Our unanimous choice was made to survive, intact, as a race -- or not at all.”
Marti ducked her head and slumped down in her chair, hoping her low profile would keep her out of the line of fire. Thalassic was just revving up.
“Gentlefem and gentlehommes, need I remind you of our past? We’ve learned the hard way, hostile takeovers are damned hard to overthrow. Seventy-nine years were needed to throw off the yoke of the Rrehlabal. Our present enemy is ten times harder to kill. We do not dare allow these Scarth a secure foothold on our planet… our home.”
She paused to sweep the room with an encompassing gaze, her dark gray eyes shining with determination, fervor and courage. “This planet is where we make our stand, people. Earth has its problems and we, as humans, have often fallen short of living up to our full potential, yet, for all its failures -- and ours, this is all we have. I, for one, will never allow interlopers to snatch it from us. The Repulsion Force intends to make sure any who tries pays a high and mortal cost as they discover Humans… do… not… surrender.
“I tell you, I will never stop fighting. I will never give up hope. With my last breath, I will spit in the eye of the enemy and die proud to have served with all of you.”
The room erupted, ringing with the cheers and clapping of the delegates and officers. Heart pounding, spirits raised, Marti found herself on her feet, applauding along with the others, heart bursting with pride. Only her mother could take a room full of frightened men and women and turn them into a united force ready to meet an enemy that outnumbered them five-to-one.
Feeling privileged to be this woman’s daughter, Marti watched the general circle the room, dispensing courage and cheer. Her throat worked as she tried to breathe around a lump comprised of love, admiration and trepidation. She and her mother had issues; they didn’t always get along well, but right now, she would follow General Thalassic anywhere: even into battle and sure death with her full heart. Judging by their enthusiastic cries and wild clapping, every officer in the room felt the same way.
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