A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 46

She picked up the pair of rabbits that she'd been washing and held them both in one hand, clutching one hind leg from each one. "Do like me. These are big, but they're not heavy and you don' need more than one hand.

"Why did you wash me?" Shawa asked with a shiver.

"First," Noriko smiled, "We're gonna walk back to Cesar like we belong to each other. It'll help to keep some of the jerks here off your fine ass 'cause everybody knows I'm nuts," she said as she slipped her arm around Shawa's waist, "Come on, put your arm on me as well."

She giggled a little as Shawa complied and she rubbed her hip into his a little as they began to walk back up the slope. "I like this, "she smiled, and Shawa smiled a little as well, happy to know another person here, but he almost dropped the rabbits that he was carrying in the next instant.

"And the reason that I washed you a little," Noriko said, still smiling, "I don' think it's gonna happen, 'cause Cesar -- he's always sad, but you never know, we might get a little lucky, and Cesar's girls ought to be ready in case it happens for us, right?"

The look that Shawa gave her caused Noriko to laugh and he liked the sound, but then she leaned closer and spoke very quietly. "Lissen, Shawa. I think I know what Maria's tryin' to do with us here. She wants us to keep each other out of trouble while she and Raul try to patch something together with the leaders of the others. She don' need us stirrin' things up anymore that they already are.

Cesar is always like a barrel full of dynamite, ready to blow if you light his fuse. You're different here with us all an' you don' know nothin' 'bout the way that things are here. That ain't your fault, honey. You'll learn, trust me, but first, you need to see how it is.

Me, I'm like Cesar, only you don' gotta light nothin' on me 'cause I'm a crazy bitch anyway. Sometimes all it takes is a look an' I'm in somebody's face."

"Did you lose your family too?" Shawa asked a little carefully.

"Fuck no," Noriko laughed a little bitterly, "They lost me.," she said, "I studied my skinny ass off all day at the Japanese school that they sent me to, and I worked all night in the family business, doin' what they needed to help.

But then I got bit and turned. When I came home the next day, I told them what happened to me an' they chased me out of the house with cleavers and knives. My own family was afraid that I'd eat their shitty Japanese food before they could package it to sell it. My dad swung a cleaver at me and my mom told me to go away and not come back, but I did.

I was back a week later when it was closed on the Monday night an' I kicked the door in an' killed off the two guys they hired to keep me away from my own home. I gave them all fair warming and then I burned the fucking place to the ground."

"See?" she looked at Shawa and threw him a wink, "Toldja.

Crazy-ass bitch, that's me."

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Tirran walked up the ramp and raised it behind him. He sat in the pilot's seat and exhaled heavily. To pull this off, he'd need a little luck, he thought as he looked at the error messages and engaged his solutions as he went through the list.

When his board was clear, he started the engines, willing them to settle down quickly as he scanned his instruments.

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Monnie was smiling as she stood bent over and holding onto the railing of the balcony. She loved the way that it felt to have him slapping her ass with his hips like this. That wonderful thing of his felt so warm inside her. She'd asked if she felt cold to him, but he'd only smiled, "Only a little and only at first. You're a wonderful female, the way that you warm up for me in only seconds."

He fucked her in silence for a little while and she loved it when she looked back and saw his smile to her. "I've decided that I can't do without you, Monnie. You're coming back with me when we go to Mer in a few days. I'm going to see if there's anyone who can give you back some of the life that was taken from you -- as long as you can do for me what needs doing here when we come back. We'll be here then for a while."

"Ohh, "Monnie groaned, "that sounds good to me, boss. I'm very happy now."

They both stopped when they heard and felt the rumble.

"What's that?" Monnie asked, thinking that it couldn't be too much to be alarmed over since he'd gone back to fucking her right then.

"That fool pilot," he hissed as he began to pound into her and she sound of the slapping of her ass grew louder, "He's trying to tell me that he's bored. If he's in one place for too long, he begins to go through every maintenance check in the book. He's probably just testing the engin --"

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Tirran was grinning now as he threw the throttles all the way forward to the stops.

"Here's some 'majestic handling' for you," he chuckled as he felt the cutter lift. When he had about fifty feet of altitude, he kept it wide open and diverted some of the thrust to forward flight, and the whole front wall of the warehouse caved in from the backblast of his exit. He didn't think about it, but he'd showered the pair of lovers with a lot of broken glass. As soon as he had the airspeed, Tirran pulled back and began to rocket skyward, knowing that he was showing his exhaust rings as bright white circles behind him. He wanted the old prick to see this.

Three seconds later, he was out over the Pacific Ocean, still in full afterburner, the cutter soaring toward the heavens faster than a homesick angel. He looked over the instruments and paid attention to one lamp there, which was still out, but it lit dimly in a second or so later and he moved one hand to the preset series of commands that he'd configured for this.

The Merren had pulled out of Monnie and was striding quickly to his bedroom with her following him, knowing better than to say a word now. He grabbed the little transmitter and turned it on.

"I've had about enough of his lip lately," he said, "I can always have another pilot sent here to fly my frigate." He looked out through the hole in the wall and roof and he smiled as he pressed the little button on what he called his leash.

When the indicator lit brightly on the communication panel, Tirran engaged the presets and the decoy was released, glowing brightly along with the flares which flew off into the air, popping softly as they slowed to fall glowing. He pulled the throttles back to flight idle and pushed the nose over until the ocean filled his windscreen.

The old Merren laughed as he saw what to him was the beginning of the destruction of the cutter. He was not aware at all of the timer in the bag under the bed behind him.

With the bright glow of his exhausts gone, the cutter was invisible in the night sky as it fell to earth. Tirran knew that he needed only a few more seconds before he pulled out of the fall.

The little timer finished its last task and closed a set of contacts, initiating the detonation of a small thermic device. It was small, but small is a relative word. In any case, the destruction that it unleashed was not small at all -- unless maybe you were looking at it from space.

Tirran pulled back on the control yoke and moved the throttle forward again as he began his turn to come back. He didn't look at what he'd caused. He didn't need to. The cabin was lit up like high noon.

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Several minutes later, the werewolves began to point and stand up to stare at the bright flickering cloud rising over part of greater Lozenjellis. Rosa began to dance and others joined her, seeing the proof for themselves that Tirran was a powerful lord. She pointed to something which was just visible as a glowing speck that moved sideways a little from their perspective. Before long, it was clear that whatever it was, it was moving toward them in a general way.

Rosa began to cheer and yell that it must be Tirran, on his way past to where they were going.

The air of excitement rose another notch and the dancing began again as they watched the speck grow in the distance. Noriko looked at Shawa for a long moment as she stood a little behind him. She just couldn't help herself a moment later.

"Don' move now, Shawa," Noriko hissed in his ear as she stood behind him, rubbing herself against the place where his long and thick demon tail joined his body. "I think you don' like girls, but baby, you got such good places for me to hump on a little." She hissed a little as her breath dragged over her teeth behind him, "Maybe it'll make you smell like a bitch to Cesar."

Shawa's eyes opened a little wider and he turned his head back, so Noriko kissed his cheek quickly.

"Why do I want to smell like a bitch to him?"

Noriko smiled at him softly, "You don' know?

Listen honey," she said as she reached around to hold his hip with one hand and one of his breasts with the other, "I don' know if Maria thought of it, but if I know her, I'll bet that she did. She's handed you an' me a really fine male. He's a little beat up inside and he carries the scars of his fights on the outside, but he's a good male. He's just forgotten, thass all. We can fix him -- you an' me, Shawa. We just gotta find a way to get the two of you started.

Him an' me, we'll protect you till you figure out how to be here with us, if thass whatchu want. You never been with a girl, have ya?"

He shook his head, "Where I'm from, I'm too small and I'm not built like what a lot of girls want. I found that I could get money for something to eat if I sold my ass to males. I hated it the first few times, but then I just started to really like it. Then I sold it a lot more after I had the operations to make me look like a freak."

"You don' look like no freak," she said, "you're beautiful. Thass why so many males want a piece. Cesar, he wants a piece too. He just don' know it yet."

He groaned softly as he felt her fingers squeezing one of his nipples and she said, "Shawa, where you are now, you need a male to love you and take care of you. None of us knows what'll be there where we're going. You like males, yeah?"

"Uh-huh, he sighed, leaning his head back against hers a little, "I've never been with a girl."

Noriko moved her hand from his hip to reach around and touch his dick, caressing what he had as though they'd been intimate for a long time.

"I'll tell you a secret, "she said after a moment, "I really hope that we can help Cesar. If there's a male here who deserves two bitches, it's him, you just wait an' tell me if I'm wrong. But Shawa," she hissed as she humped against him a little harder, "I like you too. We can at least be friends to help him and maybe ourselves too. We need to, at least a little. We're misfits here, like Cesar said, to live more than just surviving, we'll need each other -- all of us."

She stopped speaking then as she quickly neared her little orgasm, still stroking Shawa as she came, moaning softly into his shoulder until she felt him harden in her hand as though she held a piece of steel. She hung onto him tightly as she looked around him to see him spurt onto the ground. She kept it up for him, slowing a she felt him begin to soften.

"There," she smiled as she came around to the front of him, "you see? You really do like girls. Well, you like me anyway, and thass all I need, honey." She licked her hand and her fingers a little and then she hugged him. "I know you're sad too, Shawa. We all are, the three of us, but I'm gonna do my best to make you an' Cesar happy anyway."

Shawa looked at her and he smiled, a little amazed at her and how she was so obvious with her heart. "Why, Noriko?" he asked and she laughed a little.

"I need a hobby that'll keep me outta trouble, you know?"

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He was at two thousand feet, approaching what to aviators long past would have termed Mach 2 and he was still accelerating. Down here, this low, the atmosphere is relatively thick. The skin temperature of his cutter was climbing, but it had been made for this. What caused him to pull back on the throttles was the eerie way that the edges of the windscreen glowed and flickered a little in the darkness outside. He didn't want it to get to the point where he couldn't see through it. He was far too low for anything like that now, so he pulled back and his airspeed slipped to just below a point on his instruments which would correlate to a little under fourteen hundred miles per hour as he tried to ease a little lower and set the terrain avoidance at that altitude.

But the low ridge that the terrain mapping radar picked out of the clutter forced the software to react and it felt like a solid kick in the balls to him, so he set it to just over four hundred feet. The numbers in human terms meant nothing to him, and they weren't what was displayed to him. He was reading Xerian instruments in his own language.

He drew a relaxed breath, the first in a long while. Getting that bag upstairs and hidden under the bed had been nerve-wracking, what with the old bat and the large female fucking so joyously. But he' done it, he smiled.

He could only hope that the blast had finished the Merren, but it wouldn't have surprised him very much if the Merren was already regenerating.

He saw only a glimpse of the many fires on the gentle slope out there ahead of him, and he had no time to even look, but he knew who it was and he smiled, still not really over the way that the many werewolves down there wanted to believe in him and Rosa. He didn't know how he'd ever be able to keep that faith, but he now intended to try very hard.

He was suddenly glad that he'd set this altitude. He hadn't planned on being this close as he passed them and of course at this velocity, there was nothing that he could really do to change anything, but he was a little glad anyway.

He didn't what to think of what he'd be dragging behind him if he flew past at the hundred or so feet that he'd originally planned on.

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They all stood staring into the night as the saw the glowing speck transform itself into something which grew larger by the second. They heard no sound and it caused them to stand in wonder. The sharper-eyed among them might have seen a figure seated inside the front of whatever this was as it flashed by them a little under an eighth of a mile away.

There was no sound whatsoever.

For a brief moment, anyway.

The sharper-eyed among them might have seen a figure and then they might not have, but everyone saw the white rings of his exhausts and then they heard the sound which followed him. There was a crack like thunder but it was so much louder and the mountains echoed the booming roar of his passage.

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The three of them were on their way back from a bit of a scouting trip down into what had once been Arizona, trying to find the gold repository there. They'd wanted the darkness to do it and they were certain that they now knew where it was. They'd be back again in force the next time with a proper plan, now that they'd mapped the ruin a little better. They didn't expect any opposition, but these days, one never knew. There was a settlement of sorts not all that far off.

Arrax' attention was drawn to one of his displays.

"What is it?" Shaevre asked as he peered over a little.

"I'm picking up a search pulse," he said, "It's a narrow beam and there are multiple signals in it. Looks like terrain clearance and mapping. Who's out there? I've never picked up anything before, not since the Merren and the Xer left."

He fiddled with something, wishing that his craft were not quite so old now and trying to define what this was a little better. "I keep losing it in the signal clutter near the ground and it's moving through the mountains over there," he pointed off to the left.

Before he could finish the thought, he had a solid signal and he nodded, "A fast-mover too." He looked up and pointed again, "There. That's it." They all looked as much as they could and at best saw only a glowing streak miles away.

"It's not very big either, like it's not much more than a cutter."

"He's really hauling it, "Barrett said, "I've never seen anything move that fast."

"Well," Arrrax nodded, "whatever it is -- whoever it is, it cannot be armed very well."

After a brief conversation in Xer with Shaevre, she unstrapped herself and moved to the rear of the cabin and Arrax set a few selectors on his communication panel.

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Tirran's head snapped around to look at his threat displays. Nothing.

So why was he receiving scans on his hull? His systems reported only search signals, but every once in a while there were also height-finder signals in there was well, almost as though someone was trying to get a preliminary lock, but his gear wasn't giving him a warning of that.

The point of origin was a little behind and above him -- way above him. He tried to think of why anyone would want to target him and came up with nothing, but then he heard the warning and knew that he was on somebody's look-down targeting display. He thought that it had to be fairly sophisticated to reveal as little of itself as he was getting here. He wondered who this was. He'd flown back and forth this way or very nearly this way many times between the outpost and Lozenjellis. Now there was someone out there who was scanning him? What for?

He really couldn't go any faster this low to the ground. His windscreen would begin to glow all by itself from the friction of the atmosphere and he wouldn't be able to see a thing then. In these mountains, he didn't really want to trust in the software all that much.

He tried to think of what he might be up against here. What he was looking at was an airborne search sweep.

"The nature of the signals that he's emitting are definitely Xer. Let's see how official I can sound." Arrax smiled before he cleared his throat.

"Unknown craft, seven units off the west airway heading east, respond."

Tirran listened to the call and thought about bringing his jamming gear into this. He didn't know if whoever was calling him was alone. It was all that prevented him from trying to fade out on whatever screen he was currently on up there. He thought back to his time flying interceptions.

There was always a wingman, he thought, always. His systems didn't show much in these mountains -- that was the trouble. He'd have a better idea in clear airspace. He began to transmit his reply hoping that a little creative fibbing might stand him in good stead here.

"Calling unknown craft," he said, "This is Redblade one-one on emergency guard channel. Say call sign, please."

"Well," Arrax said as he tried to refine the image that he was looking at with the highest magnification and turning to follow as he slid his throttles up, "That's a Xer military pilot. Redblade is a call sign that is not used much anymore for Merren high priority flights. I've never heard of any higher than Redblade --four. He must be flying a deity or something -- or he's lying and trying to make himself sound too important to be questioned."

"Redblade one-one, this is Mountain one-six-five transmitting on emergency guard channel, have you clear, and good signal strength. State purpose for your altitude. You are too low for safe operation. Do you wish to declare an emergency, over?"

A light went on in Tirran's mind then and he thought of what he'd say.

Arrax looked at the communication panel a little doubtfully, "Say again, Redblade one-one? State the nature of your difficulty, please."

"This is Redblade one-one. We are having trouble with our navigational equipment. Request aid or guidance. Our destination is classified highest, but we need a fix on the nearest functional beacon, over?"

"Not at that speed, friend," Arrax growled to himself, "Nobody goes that fast when they're lost and there haven't been any working beacons in months."