Guards

Spacerebels of Gor, part 5

Calle Dybedahl

The slender woman with the cold eyes leaned back into the heap of pillows stacked behind her. After accepting a freshly peeled grape from one of the scantily clad young women beside the bed, she turned to the one kneeling at her feet.
"Yes?" she said.
"They are coming, mistress," the kneeling blonde said, eyes downcast.
"Good."
"However, it seems that the man you were expecting is not with them."
The cold-eyed woman sat up sharply, making her breasts bounce enticingly under her golden chainmail bra.
"What?! Where is he?"
"In a cell in the outer part of the prison, it seems, mistress."
"Well, get a team together and go and get him, then!"
"Yes, mistress." She got up and left. Once safely outside the room, she let out a whoop of joy and started running down the hallway. There were men out there, and she was going!

"That's it," Jenna said, pointing round the corner of a big crate at an unmarked steel door in the corner of the big storeroom. "Although it seems to be guarded, which they told me it wouldn't be."
Vila peered around the crate. "The tall one's got a club like yours, Cally," he said.
"What?" She had a look. "Oh my," she said. She quickly ducked back into cover and started removing her trooper's uniform. The rest looked expectantly at her, some more expectantly than others.
"Are you going to tell us?" Jenna asked.
"I know her," Cally replied as she pulled down the top of the uniform, revealing a rather heavily decorated thick brown leather top and plenty of cleavage. "She's from Auron." More leather came into view, in the form of a stiff and very short skirt. It was followed by smooth, well-shaped thighs and knee-high soft leather boots. She tossed the black uniform aside and grabbed her cricketbat, smiling cruelly. "Her name is Xena, and she was my greatest rival back in combat school."

"Finally we can start fighting back!" Servalan said. "I have so been waiting for this!"
"'We'?" Travis asked.
Her smile faded like a politician's promise after election day. "What do you mean, Travis?"
"What makes you think I'm here to help you? I might just as well only have come here to see you humiliate yourself. After all, I have the plotdevicium to protect me from Avon's powers, and you don't. If I were to walk out that door, it would only be seconds before you were on your knees again, begging to be abused."
"I am your commanding officer!"
"Are you now? And here I thought I was former Space Commander Travis, a renegade who managed to escape after being sentenced to death by a court-martial. I also distinctly remember reading that the ex-Space Commander died on Star One after betraying the human species. So how can you be my commanding officer?"
Servalan was silent. Travis leered at her. "Although, maybe, if you do what I want, I will help you after all," he said.

"Cally," said the tall, muscular woman in the leather skirt. "I should have guessed that you'd show up one of these days."
"I need to pass through that door," Cally said.
"Well, I'm guarding it. So you won't." Xena raised her cricketbat to a defensive stance..
"We'll see," said Cally. She started somersaulting towards her enemy, wailing like a broken ambulance.

"I won't do it!" Servalan looked furious. "I'll do many things, but not that!"
"Very well," said Travis. "I'll leave you to your manacles, then."
He walked towards the door.
"Wait!"
He turned back to her. "Yes?"
"Promise not to tell anyone and I'll do it."
"Of course I won't promise anything like that. You do as I say, without complaint, or I leave here and now."
If looks could kill, Travis would've been a wet smear on the wall.
"I'll do it," Servalan said. "But only to get out of here!"

Quick as lightning, Cally aimed a blow at Xena's head, who parried. A riposte came flying towards Cally's hip, but the hip was no longer there. She aimed a kick at Xena, who jumped over it at the same time as she crouched to avoid the cricketbat aimed at her head.
"You've got better, little one," she said after she'd landed and taken a couple of steps back. Cally's only reply was to step closer and keep attacking. Xena defended, counterattacked and drove her opponent back a bit, before she found herself pressed back nearly to the door she was supposed to be guarding. After feinting to the side, she managed to knock Cally's bat out of her grasp and halfways across the room. Xena grinned. "Didn't see that one coming, did you?"
Without a word, Cally jumped to the side and landed on top of a four-metre stack of crates.

Carefully avoiding the bouncing warrior women, Vila walked over to the cute blonde girl with the staff. "Hello," he said.
"Hi," she said, momentarily turning away from the battle. They watched in silence for a minute or two.
"Who do you think will win?" Vila asked.
"Xena," she said. "She never loses. It's in the Script."
"You know about this Script stuff?"
"Only what I've heard."
"Do you hear a lot of things?"
She turned to him and smiled. "Yeah. I'm Communications Technician Gabrielle. Pleased to meet you." She held out her hand.
"I'm Vila," Vila said, and shook the offered hand. "Charmed."

"Stop," Travis interrupted. Servalan fell silent. "What?" she said.
"You're not doing the movements. Start over."
"Movements?" she said.
"With your hands."
She glowered at him. "I will not forget this, Travis."
"I'm sure you won't. Now go on."
She closed her eyes, concentrating. Her hands rose to the proper position, and she started singing again, this time with the accompanying hand movements.
"Itsy bitsy spider, crawled up the waterspout,..."

Xena and Cally stood staring at each other, exhausted.
"I...," said Cally, but was too out of breath to continue.
"...," Xena agreed.
Leaning on each other, they staggered over to the little camp near the door that Xena and Gabrielle had arranged earlier. Jenna, Dayna, Tarrant and Kelly had joined Gabrielle and Vila, and Gabrielle had fired up the camping stove and was making tea.
"You certainly took your time," she said as the two warriors collapsed into heaps. "Here, have some hot tea."
Xena grabbed the cup she held out and drank it all in a single gulp.
"...hot!" she gasped.
"Of course it's hot! That's the point!"
A strange wheezing sound that would probably in other circumstances have been cruel laughter came from Cally.
"Maybe we should tie them up, so they don't continue as soon as they've rested a bit," Dayna said.
"I don't think that'll be necessary," Gabrielle said. "Will it, Xena?"
Xena feebly shook her head.
"We still need to pass that door," Jenna said.
"Why? What is it you're after?"
"A woman by the name of Anna Grant. We've been told she's being held prisoner in there, and a friend of ours wants really badly to get her out of there."
Gabrielle and Xena looked at each other for a moment.
"I don't think you were told right," Gabrielle said.

"Please, sergeant, let me come to! Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?"
"No, Seeko, you can't. Twenty of us is already twice as many as it should be, and you did lose the draw. Now be nice, stay here and shut up!"
The blonde, athletic woman turned from her younger friend and fastened the last few buckles on her armour. She really liked these new push-up breastplates.
"Ok, girls!" She turned to the squad. Most of them had already finished dressing, or where just about to do so. "We'll be leaving for the Outer Volume soon, so listen up! We're going out there on a mission, not -- Mirka, leave that makeup kit here! -- on leave. Our orders are to find a man -- no, a specific man, you dolt! -- by the name of Kerr Avon. And no, you can not play with him on the way back, he's for the boss." She gave them her scariest look. "However," she went on, "if you do a good job and we achieve our objective quickly, I may let you stay out there for a while and ...associate.. with the guards." Smiles spread among the amazons.
"Ok, girls! Let's go!"

"What do you mean not told right?" Jenna asked. "If she's not in there, were is she?"
"Oh, she's in there all right," Xena said. "Just not as a prisoner."
"She's a guard?"
Gabrielle chuckled. "In a way. She's the boss."
"Anna Grant runs this place?" Cally said.
"Yeah. A nice, comfy job as a reward for a retired agent of the Federation."
"Avon's not going to like this," Tarrant said.
Jenna was about to reply when Vila interrupted her.
"I hear something! Steps, from the door!"
Xena sat up and listened for a moment. "Amazon Guards," she said as she rose to her feet. "Twenty of them, coming this way. Get in behind those crates and be silent."