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From: "Al Steiner" <steiner_al@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} RP: Aftermath by Al Steiner - Ch 11 (MFf) 2/2
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:11:54 -0500
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Reposting because this part didn't make it to ASSM.


AFTERMATH
By Al Steiner
Send all comments to steiner_al@hotmail.com
Previous chapters can be found at www.storiesonline.net


CHAPTER 11
Part 2 of 2



Bracken and the commanding officers of his platoons were sitting in a circle
beside the road, all of them smoking or chewing as they discussed this new
information and what it meant to their mission.  Stu, though he wasn't a
commanding officer, was with them at Bracken's request.  Though Stu was
overly aggressive and sometimes reckless, he did have a keen military mind
and was the better of nearly all of those higher in rank than he.  Jessica
had been spirited off towards the rear of the formation, near the guard
positions.  She was being watched carefully by a small squad and fed from
the homemade MRE's that the company carried.

"I think we can still succeed in this attack," Stu was saying, taking
advantage of Bracken's order to speak freely, without military courtesy.
"Granted, we'll have to sit down and have a brain session on the best way of
countering these new defenses they have, but the fact remains that we have
more automatic weapons, better training, better discipline, and more men."

Two of the lieutenants agreed with this reasoning and vocalized this to
Bracken, both interjecting a few points of their own to further the
argument.

"There are only twenty men in that town," one said.  "Twenty.  We have a
hundred and sixty.  It doesn't matter how good their defensive bunkers are,
simple math will tell you who is going to win."

"They also have nearly two hundred women," Bracken put in.  "Now I'll allow
that women can't possibly fight with the same effectiveness as men can, but
this Brett character has been training them and he is a former member of the
3rd ACR if I understand that bitch correctly.  You can train monkeys to put
up a semi-effective defense if a competent leader commands them.  Women are
a little smarter than monkeys and this Brett sounds like he knows what he's
doing.  Now I'm sure that we would take this town if we attacked it, don't
get me wrong, but at what cost?  How many casualties would we take trying to
bully our way through those hills to that wall?"

"And then there's the helicopter," one of the other lieutenant's, one that
tended to think like Bracken, put in.  "Don't forget about that."

"Exactly," Bracken said.  "I think the helicopter is the deciding factor
here.  That chopper takes away any element of surprise we could hope to
maintain once contact is made with the defenders.  It rules out the use of a
diversionary force to draw their attention away from the main attack.  Once
the first shot is fired, he will go up in that thing and circle around, out
of weapon's range from the ground, and radio our troop concentrations and
locations to the bunkers and to the people inside the wall.  He will be able
to direct the entire battle from three thousand feet in the air where he'll
have a panoramic view of everything.  If he puts a gunner with an automatic
weapon in that chopper, he'll be able to swoop in and make harassing attacks
on any groups of our soldiers that are pinned down or hiding behind cover.
In short, that eye in the sky gives those Garden Hill defenders a tremendous
advantage."

"Not enough of one though," Stu insisted.

"Enough of one to make the entire mission pointless," Bracken replied.
"Sure, we'll probably take the town if we attack it.  Sheer numbers almost
guarantee that.  But what will we take?  We would have to kill almost every
defender in order to gain entry to the town.  And that means many of the
women will be dead.  Every position that we fight our way through will take
out too many of our own men.  Remember our doctrine guys?  We don't have
enough soldiers to be throwing them away in battles of attrition.  Our way
is to hit with overwhelming force and either convince the defenders to
surrender, or take them quickly with minimal casualties.  These people will
fight us and they will fight us hard.  We may have as much as a forty
percent casualty rate and that, I'm afraid, is completely unacceptable."

"So what are you saying?" Stu wanted to know.

"I'm saying that we have lost that overwhelming force advantage that we
strive for.  We need to abort this mission and go back to Auburn.  We're
going to need a hell of a lot more than 160 men to take this town
painlessly.  A hell of a lot more."

Had the Placer County Militia's attack force been a democracy, they might
very well have gone on to take up the fight.  But it wasn't a democracy; it
was a dictatorship under the direction of Bracken.  Bracken's word was the
word of God in that force and God ordered that the entire group turn around
immediately and begin heading home.  By the time night fell, they were
nearly ten miles west of where they had picked up Jessica.


+++++


It was 5:10 and nearly dark when Chrissie heard the voice come over the
command radio that she was monitoring from inside of the community center.

"Position 4 to base," came John Marshall's voice.  He was one of the two
guards on duty at the hill on the south side of the canyon.  "Are you still
there Chrissie?"

"I'm here," she said, fighting to keep her voice neutral.  "Do you have
them?"

"That's affirm," he said.  "I have our aircraft approaching low from the
west along the canyon.  Looks like the last bunch made it back safe."

"Copy that John," Chrissie replied.  "Thanks for the update."

This last return of the helicopter marked the end of a very busy and
productive day for the residents of Garden Hill.  Starting as soon as it was
light enough to fly by that morning, the fuel transfer operation had
continued.  With everyone in the rhythm they had managed to transport all of
the remaining fuel from the Cameron Park tank to the Garden Hill water truck
where it was being stored.  It had taken a total of six cycles of transport,
dumping, and refueling but now, combined with the take from the previous
day's missions, Garden Hill had 2750 gallons of fuel in its possession.

 She picked up the portable radio that she had that was set to the
helicopter's frequency.  With a smile she keyed it up.  "Aircraft
approaching Garden Hill," she said into it, "please identify yourself."

"It's me baby," Brett's voice returned.  "Strung out and sore and with my
ass completely asleep from sitting in this vibrating chair too long.  I have
just enough light to land normally."

"Good to hear that Brett," she said.  "The password if you will?"

"Poultry," he said, giving the agreed upon signal that everything was
normal.  Had he been under duress of some kind he would have said
"waterfowl".

"That's what I like to hear," she said.  "Is everyone safe and sound in
there?"

"That's affirm.  Shellie and her squad are tired, dirty, and hungry but
they're all safe.  We'll be touching down in about two minutes.  See you on
he ground."

"See you on the ground," Chrissie returned, getting up from her chair and
pocketing her portable radio.

She pulled on her rain jacket and walked downstairs to the front door.  As
soon as she was outside she saw the helicopter circling around overhead,
bleeding off its speed.  As many times as she had seen Brett take off and
land she still could not get over how quiet and un-helicopter-like the
machine sounded.  All that could be heard was the whine of the engine and
the rushing of air being churned downward.  Thanks to the NOTAR there was
none of the chopping sound that gave rotor aircraft their nickname.

Though she was standing more than thirty yards away the blast of air and
rainwater churned up by that rotor was still enough to force her to lower
her head.  The skids gently touched the pavement and the whining of the
engine wound down to a soft growl, the rotor slowly losing the suicidal
velocity it had been spinning with.  The blast of air and water went away
and Chrissie stepped out of the doorway and walked closer, seeing Brett
going through the power-down checklist through the windshield.  She kept her
distance, staying outside of the arc of the rotor, not entirely comfortable
walking beneath those spinning blades despite Brett's assurances that it was
impossible for them to come closer than three feet above her head.  At last
the engine was shut off and the blades came to a gradual halt.

The doors opened up allowing Michelle's squad of four to climb out of the
vehicle.  All of them, with weapons on their shoulders and packs on their
backs, took a moment to stretch and work the kinks out of their muscles.
Michelle, who had been sitting in the passenger seat, stepped out next.
Seeing her co-wife standing there she ran over to her.

"Chrissie!" she squealed, throwing her arms around her and hugging her
tightly.  "God, its good to be home."

"It's good to have you back," Chrissie told her, returning the embrace.
"Are you hungry?  I had Stacy and Tina keep a couple of double rations hot
for you and your troops."

"I'm famished," she said.  "And dirty too.  How's the bath situation?"

"Matt's squad are still working their way through one by one," Chrissie told
her.  "They should be done within the hour I would hope."

"Good," she said.  "I'll send my squad through first and then I'll go."  She
gave a saucy look.  "Maybe you and Brett should come over and make sure I
get nice and clean," she said softly.

Chrissie blushed but couldn't help smiling.  There had so far been no repeat
of the events that had taken place the last time Michelle and Brett had
returned from a long mission.  Though the two women now slept in the same
bed with Brett between them and though both continued to imbibe in their
marital liberties freely, neither had touched the other during sexual
encounters or even talked about what had happened between them.  Michelle's
oblique comment about it now was the first mention of it.

"We'll see," Chrissie said, giving Michelle one more hug.  She broke the
embrace and then went over to greet Brett.


+++++


As it turned out, responsibility called on Chrissie when it came time for
Michelle to hop into the bathtub.  She had to drive out to guard position
two, which was located on the hill northeast of the subdivision, to first
break up a fight between the two women stationed out there and then separate
them.  This was not a completely uncommon occurrence.  Though the training
regiment had cut down on such incidents greatly and though the idea of
polygamy was slowly starting to be considered an option to be pursued, the
simple fact was that there was still a lot of sleeping around going on in
the off-duty hours.  Though Chrissie tried not to station people who were in
conflict with each other together, sometimes the rumor mill, which brought
her news of these lethal combinations, did not reach her in time.

"Who is it?" Brett asked as she stood up from the cafeteria table in the
dining room to go deal with the situation.

"Maria and Leanette," she said, shaking her head.  "What's the deal with
those two?" she asked those seated around her.  "What did I miss?"

"You put Maria and Leanette together?" Maggie, who was at the same table,
asked in disbelief.  "Jesus girlfriend, you are behind the times.  Word is
that Leanette and Hector have been spending a little time off in the empty
houses."

"Checkin' out redecorating schemes I'm sure," Chrissie said sourly.  "Brett,
I'm gonna have to break the same-sex rule in order to separate them.  I can
put Leanette over in position 3 with Greg and move Mike over to position 2
with Maria.  It's either that or pull someone who just came off the mission
and put them out there for the night and I don't really want to do that."

Brett shrugged.  "Your discretion," he told her.  "Do you think those two
sets will be able to keep their hands off each other?"

"Probably," she said.  "I think they'll at least wait until after watch if
they want to get in each other's pants."

Brett chuckled a little.  "That's all we can ask for, isn't it?"

"I suppose," she said.  "I'll see you guys at home."

Shortly after she left, driving off in the Honda Prelude that was used to
transport people from town to the guard positions (it was the most fuel
efficient vehicle in a town full of SUVs and BMWs and Mercedes'), the time
for Michelle and Brett's bath period arrived.  They were not so filthy that
a double rinse would be required so Brett went outside and activated the
fire engine pump while Michelle went about adding the hot water.  Ten
minutes later they were sitting in the steaming tub, scrubbing themselves
clean and occasionally stroking a slippery body part that belonged to the
other person.

"I've been more than forty-eight hours without it now," Michelle said as she
slid her hand up and down his erection beneath the water.  "I'm ready for a
fill-up."

"Climb aboard baby," he told her with a smile, beckoning for her to sit on
his lap.

"Let's go home first," she said, giving him a peck on the lips.  "I'd rather
have you in the comfort of our own bed."

"Okay," he said.  Even so he could not resist sliding into her from behind
for a few strokes as they went about washing and rinsing each other's hair.

"You're a pervert," she accused as she felt him penetrate her and gyrate
slowly back and forth.

"And proud of it," he assured her, his hand squeezing her ass.

They walked home together and, after lighting a few candles, immediately
removed the fresh clothing they had just donned and climbed into bed.  They
started out kissing and cuddling under the warmth of the covers but soon
threw them off as they started to heat up.

"Eat me Brett," Michelle moaned, pushing his head down her body.  "Make me
come with your mouth."

Ever the obedient husband, Brett kissed his way across her stomach and soon
had his tongue running through her wet vaginal lips.  He cupped her ass
cheeks with his hands as he licked and sucked at her, tasting her fresh
juices.

The sound of the front door opening a few minutes later did not detract
either of them from what they were doing.  Only when Chrissie walked in the
room carrying a candle with her did Brett raise his head out of Michelle's
crotch.

"Having fun I see," Chrissie said lightly as she set the candle down on the
nightstand.

"That's what it's all about," Brett agreed.  "Did you get the guard problem
taken care of?"

"Oh yes," she said, unclipping her belt and sliding the holstered gun free.
"I warned them all that they were the test case for resumption of coed teams
on guard duty and that they should behave appropriately.  I think they got
the message."

"Hopefully," Brett said.  "It would sure make staffing a lot easier if we
could put men and women together without having to worry about them being
distracted."

"You're telling me," Chrissie, who did all of the staffing, said.

"Uh, is there any chance," Michelle, who was flushed and panting said, "that
we can continue this discussion at a later time?  I was kind of in the
middle of something here."

"Sorry Shelly," Chrissie said with a grin.  "Brett, get back to work."

He went back to work, dropping his head into her crotch once again and
lapping away.  Chrissie went to the bathroom and relieved her bladder and
then walked back into the bedroom just in time to see her starting to raise
and lower her hips with impending orgasm.  She watched them as she took off
her jeans and panties, feeling her own juices starting to flow as they
always did at such times.  She could not resist running the back of her hand
across her wet pussy lips as she reached for the hem of her shirt.

"You can play with yourself if you want," Michelle, who had been watching
her, said breathlessly.

"What?" Chrissie said with a start, pausing with her shirt halfway up.

"It's okay," Michelle said. "It's... ohhh," she squealed as Brett gave her a
particularly pleasurable suck on the clitoris, "it's sexy."

Chrissie felt herself blushing again but she also felt a renewed gush of
moisture in her sex at the thought.  Sure, it was nasty but hadn't Michelle
told her before that married people were sometimes nasty in front of each
other?  Wasn't that part of what made a successful sex life?

"Come on Chrissie," Michelle breathed, patting the bed next to her.  "You
know you want to."

She did want to, was barely restraining herself as it was.  She quickly
pulled off her shirt, tossing it to the floor, and then unclipped the white
bra she was wearing, letting it fall as well.  She sat down on the bed with
her legs spread widely, facing Michelle's supine body, close enough to see
Brett's tongue stabbing in and out of those wet folds.  The smell of aroused
vaginal secretions hit her nose and her hand dropped between her legs, her
fingers probing at her own wetness.  She began to rub, her eyes peeled to
the junction of mouth and vagina.

"Oh god that is such a turn on," Michelle panted excitedly, her head turned,
her eyes looking directly at Chrissie's pussy.  "You put yourself there on
purpose, didn't you?  You nasty girl."

Chrissie didn't say anything, she just smiled and kept rubbing, feeling the
waves of pleasure spreading out in her lower stomach.  She shoved two
fingers inside of herself for a moment.  They came out glistening with
moisture.

"Oh god," Michelle groaned, her hips rising and falling rapidly now.  "Oh
Chrissie that's... oh Brett... ohhh... ohhhh!"  She screamed as she came,
her hands gripping the sheet on the bed hard enough to pull it loose at the
corners.

Brett raised his wet face from her crotch after giving her one last loving
lick.  He had been watching Chrissie's antics as well as he had been
ministering to Michelle and he was incredibly turned on.  Watching women
masturbate had always held an erotic fascination for him.  Watching a woman
masturbate while she watched him eat out another woman was completely off
the scale.  "Does Chrissie need a little kiss too?" he asked her, reaching
out with his hand to stroke her soft leg.

"Not just yet," she said, taking his hand and putting it back on Michelle.
"Fuck her first.  I want to play with myself while you fuck her."

"Yes," Michelle said, her eyes glazed with lust.  "Fuck me while she
watches."

Brett slid up Michelle's body, grabbing her legs and pushing them back as he
went.  This opened her up widely, obscenely for Chrissie's viewing pleasure.
His cock was about as hard as it was possible to get and her pussy was about
as wet as it was possible to get.  As such he was able to slide inside of
her in one stroke, sinking until his pubic hair met hers.  He began to
thrust in and out, not bothering with a slow build up.  As he moved within
her he kept his head elevated and his back straight, using her thighs for
leverage.

While Michelle moaned in pleasure her eyes never left Chrissie's crotch.
She watched those fingers move around and around through that light blonde
hair, watched them dip in and out of her chasm itself.  She put her hand on
Chrissie's leg, near the knee, and began to stroke back and forth, marveling
at the sexy softness of female flesh.  When Chrissie made no protest at the
touch, she began to move her hand higher.

Chrissie felt the intruding hand as it crept higher up her leg, as it inched
across her inner thigh, and her fingers began to move faster.  She felt the
same pang of guilt and shame that she had felt that night in the bathing
room but the sense of arousal and excitement was easily enough to override
it.  The nastiness of being touched by Michelle, of knowing where Michelle's
hand was heading, the forbiddenness of the act, was what made it so
appealing. "Put them in me," she whispered to her co-wife.  "Help me come."

Michelle slid her hand across the inner thigh and to the wet junction where
Chrissie's fingers were rubbing.  She touched the soggy hairs around her
lips and then ran her fingertips over the swollen membranes, feeling their
slippery texture, their warmth.  Using two fingers she penetrated her,
pushing into the tightness, feeling her co-wife's body clutch greedily at
her.  Chrissie moaned loudly at the intrusion and began to rub her clit
harder.

Michelle had never done such a thing before but she knew exactly what would
feel good.  She began to push and pull, twisting her hand a little as she
fingerfucked her, putting pressure on the top of the vagina, where the
clitoral nerves ran.  It didn't take long before Chrissie's juices were
saturating her hand and starting to run down her wrist.

"Oh Shellie," Chrissie moaned, her pelvis starting to thrust now.  "That
feels so good."

"Yes," Michelle panted, her own hips thrusting against Brett's cock, "it
feels beautiful."

Brett watched all of this excitedly, nearly blasting his load prematurely as
he saw Michelle fingering the younger woman's blonde pussy.  As before in
the bathing area, he could not believe that this was actually happening to
him.  He was really participating in a threesome with two beautiful women;
something that he had decided long ago was a myth.  And he was really
watching lesbian activity take place between the two women, activity that
was not faked for his benefit but was actually spontaneous and full of
passion.

"Chrissie," Michelle grunted after a few minutes.  "Sit on my face baby."

"What?" Chrissie said, shocked and excited at the same time.  Had she heard
her correctly?

"Sit on my face," Michelle repeated with a desperate moan.  "I want to eat
your pussy.  Please... let me eat you baby, let me TASTE you."

"Oh god," Chrissie said with a shudder.  Without pausing to consider the
ramifications of her actions, she raised herself up and hiked one of her
legs over Michelle's body, bringing her dripping sex directly over her face,
her body facing towards Brett.

"Bring it down baby," Michelle moaned, seeing it above her.  She reached up
and grabbed Chrissie's hips and began to pull.  "Don't tease me with it."

Slowly Chrissie lowered herself onto Michelle's mouth, feeling the wet
contact of her tongue suddenly licking at her in her most sensitive, most
secret place.  It was a woman doing that to her, her mind screamed at her.
A woman.  And it felt so sexy, so shamefully nasty.  "Oh Shellie," she said
with a moan of sheer pleasure.  "Ohhhh..."

 Again, though she had never done anything of the sort before, Michelle knew
exactly where to lick and how much pressure to lick with.  She used broad
strokes of her tongue at first, lapping from the bottom of that tangy slit
to the top and making a brief circle around the engorged clit before doing
it all over.  She relished the tangy bite of Chrissie's juices.  She had
smelled Chrissie in arousal many times and she had tasted her own secretions
clinging to the face of lovers many times, but this was her first actual
taste of another woman.  It was very similar to her own taste while being
strikingly different at the same time.  She loved it, loved the depravity of
what she was doing.  She was eating Chrissie's pussy!  She longed to feel
her coming on her mouth.

Brett, meanwhile, was exhibiting an almost superhuman strength just to keep
from coming.  The sight of Chrissie rubbing herself over Michelle's face, of
Michelle's tongue running between those pink lips, licking at that clit, was
driving him nearly crazy.  His cock continued to pound in and out Michelle's
body wetly.  He took his hands from Michelle's thighs and leaned forward,
putting them on Chrissie's waist.  His mouth found her breast and began to
suckle it.

"Ohhhh," Chrissie cried as she felt Brett sucking her nipple.  Her mind went
into an overload of sheer pleasure at the feeling of two mouths attacking
her erogenous zones at the same time.  While Brett switched back and forth
from nipple to nipple, Michelle began concentrating upon her clitoris,
licking it and sucking it, bringing her closer and closer to an inevitable
climax.

"My ass Brett," Michelle grunted, taking her mouth off of Chrissie just long
enough to spit these words out.  "Put it in my ass!"

Brett reluctantly broke contact with Chrissie's breasts for a moment and
leaned backward.  He pushed Michelle's legs further apart, widening them as
far as was anatomically possible, and pulled his dripping cock from her
chasm.  He pushed it down, sliding the head into the slippery valley where
her ass started, towards the puckered ring of her anus.  Michelle loved anal
sex, especially during the height of arousal after being fucked in the
traditional fashion.  He put the head right against her smaller opening and
then pushed a little.  She was well lubricated from the juices that had run
down there and the first two inches slid inside easily, making her grunt
from around Chrissie's clit.  He began to push and pull in and out of her
ass, slowly at first, going a little bit deeper with each stroke.  Soon,
very soon since she was used to this sort of thing, he was buried to the
hilt within her and able to thrust normally.  As she grunted and groaned
from the pleasurable intrusion, he leaned forward again, going back after
Chrissie's breasts.

Chrissie, on the verge of orgasm, was nonetheless fascinated by what she had
just seen.  She had heard Brett and Michelle make several allusions to anal
sex in the past but she had never actually seen them do it.  How had that
thing fit in her like that?  Wasn't it painful?  Though it looked like Brett
was about to split her open, it was obvious from the enthusiastic way that
Michelle was attacking her clit that she was not having an unpleasant time
of it.  As Brett started sucking on her tits again, tonguing the nipples,
she found herself craning her head to look below his body and watch him go
in and out.  Michelle's pussy now looked so lonely, sitting there all by
itself, its lips swollen and dripping, the clit standing up at attention
from its hood.  She took her hand, which had been resting on Brett's head,
and reached for that pussy, wanting to touch it, wanting to caress it.  Her
fingers found the folds and she began to rub, pleasuring her co-wife's body
the same way she pleasured her own.

Brett came first.  When he felt the back of Chrissie's hand against his
lower stomach and looked down to see her masturbating Michelle's pussy, the
circuit breaker in his head finally tripped, falling to a smoking mess.  He
grunted and began to shoot a huge load of sperm into Michelle's bowels, the
waves of pleasure so strong that he almost fell over.

Michelle, feeling the indescribable sensation of Brett ejaculating into her
ass coupled with the feminine touch of Chrissie's hand upon her clit, was
the next to go.  Her second orgasm of the night rattled through her, making
her cry out loudly against the wetness on her mouth.

Though Chrissie was the last to come, she experienced perhaps the most
powerful orgasm, its energy released after a long build-up.  While Michelle
attacked her clit in earnest Brett began kissing her neck and shoulders,
placing soft bites upon her skin while his hands fondled her boobs.  So
strong was the pleasure that hit her that her body spasmed violently, her
pelvis bouncing up and down on Michelle's face hard enough to hurt her.

They fell to the bed in a heap, Michelle in the middle, Chrissie and Brett
to the sides.  Unable to help herself, Chrissie began to kiss her co-wife on
the mouth tenderly, running her tongue inside and tasting her own juices
clinging to her.  Michelle kissed back, putting her arm around Chrissie's
back, letting her tongue slide into the other woman's mouth.  Brett, not to
be left out, pushed his face in there with them, inserting his own tongue
from the side, licking at their lips.  Soon all three tongues were dueling
back and forth, exchanging playful licks.

"That was incredible," Michelle said at last, after the kissing died out.
"I have never had an experience as erotic, as sexy as that."

"I must say," Brett agreed, running his hand from one female body to the
other, "that it wasn't the WORST thing that's ever happened to me."

Chrissie, still tingling a little from the aftereffects of her orgasm,
looked at both of them.  "That was very nasty what we just did," she said
softly.  "But god help me, I loved every second of it.  I can't believe you
ate me Shelly.  That was so kinky."

"I was so turned on looking at you and touching you that I had to do it,"
Michelle said, her finger playing with Chrissie's left nipple, which was
still hard.  "That was the first time in my life that I put my mouth on
another woman, but it was so natural.  And you tasted so good baby.  I want
to do that again sometime.  I can't believe I've gone my whole life without
it.  Did I do a good job?"

"You did a GREAT job," Chrissie said.  "You're even better than Brett, and
you know how good he is."

"I'll choose not to be offended by that statement," Brett said.

"I'm a woman," Michelle said.  "I know what feels really good on me so I
just did it to you.  I'll bet you could do the same to me," she said
hopefully.

Chrissie blushed, embarrassed again.  "Probably," she said apologetically.
"But I'm not quite ready for that yet.  I'm sorry."

"It's okay baby," Michelle said, kissing her on the lips.  "You move at your
own pace.  I won't push you to do anything you don't want to."

"I know," Chrissie said, kissing her back.

"But in the meantime," Michelle said, "I could use a little more practice on
my technique."  She shifted her position a little and began to tongue
Chrissie's nipple.  "You don't mind that, do you?"

"Not at all," Chrissie sighed, closing her eyes and letting the sensation
take her away.



+++++


"Aircraft approaching from the east!" came the frantic cry from Stu, whose
squad was handling rear guard for this second morning of the march back to
Auburn.  His radio was broadcasting his words even as he and his men were
diving into cover alongside the roadway.

"Cover, everyone," Bracken yelled into the command channel.  "Cover!  Don't
let them see us!"

It was a frantic ten seconds but every last one of the 160 men and the
single female that was being escorted along by second squad of fourth
platoon, managed to get into the trees or brush before the black and white
helicopter came close enough to see them.

Bracken watched it through binoculars as it approached.  It was the old CHP
helicopter, just as the bitch from Garden Hill had told them.  It was flying
a little over two thousand feet above the ground, well out of range of
accurate small arms fire, and moving at about eighty knots or so.
Apparently this Brett character, the only one who knew how to fly it, was
following the Interstate, using it as a navigational reference to wherever
he was going.

"That thing is quiet," Lieutenant Collier, who was crouching next to Bracken
and looking through a set of his own binoculars, observed.  "It passed right
over the top of us and I didn't even hear it."

"It's got that super quiet rotor system," Bracken said, continuing to watch
as it disappeared to the west, fading into the mist of rain.  "I remember
reading about it in the paper when the CHP first bought that thing a few
years ago.  It doesn't have a tail rotor so it doesn't make the noise that a
normal helicopter does.  Cops like it because it helps them sneak up on
people and keeps down the noise complaints from citizens."

"Where do you think he's going?" Collier asked.

"I don't know," Bracken said worriedly.  "Maybe a little recon mission.  If
he hasn't already done so, we'll have to assume that he's going to check out
Auburn and all the other towns around here, looking for supplies and food
and so forth."

"Maybe he'll land in Auburn," Collier suggested.  "Wouldn't that be nice?
We could take him real painlessly that way."

Bracken shook his head.  "I don't think he's that dumb," he said.


+++++


"About two minutes," Jason said over the intercom to Matt and Paul, who were
sitting in the back of the helicopter.  With the help of Tim Harding, the
former PG&E electrician, headsets had been fashioned and hooked into the
system allowing communication between those in the front and those in the
back.  This was particularly useful on this mission since the right side
door had been removed, an action that would make their task much easier to
accomplish when the time came but which more than doubled the noise level.

The two men looked at each other nervously, both of them taking a few deep
breaths to try to calm down.  "Got ya," Matt replied into his mouthpiece,
giving a weak thumbs up.  They were both adorned with rope harnesses that
Paul had assembled from the vertical rescue inventory on the fire engine.
They had packs full of breaking and entering tools upon their backs and
rifles over their shoulders.  Both of them carried a portable radio set to
the helicopter's direct frequency.  They sat shoulder to shoulder against
the port wall of the cargo area, as far away from the missing door as they
could get, looking out at the scenery passing below.

"How are you doing Matt?" Paul asked his companion as Brett started to
descend towards the train cars on the hillside.

"I'm not sure," he said, "but I don't believe that I've ever been this
scared in my life.  Not even when I was in the middle of that shooting match
with those invaders did I have this much adrenaline pumping through me."

"I know the feeling," Paul said with terrified sympathy.  "I hate just being
up in this helicopter at all.  It scares the crap out of me.  Now I'm going
to have to jump out of the fucking thing and go down a rope from a hundred
feet in the air.  I'm telling you, there better be something down there we
can use or I'm gonna be one pissed off individual."

"Amen," Matt agreed.

"You guys will be fine," Brett said, bleeding off speed and altitude as the
target came into view.  "I used to practice this maneuver with the SWAT team
twice a month.  It's nothing."

"Easy for you to say flyboy," Paul said sourly.  "You get to stay up here
where it's safe."

"Hey," Brett said, amused, "I'd watch what I say to the man who gives you
the ride home."

Brett circled around the area for a few minutes, allowing Jason, the
observer, to look for any signs of trouble on the ground before the outside
crew committed itself.  Nothing was spotted and the go ahead was given for
the mission.  Brett dropped down further and settled into a hover just over
the top of one of the cargo carriers.  "In position," he said.  "Let's get
it done."

Paul, who did not have the combat training that Matt did but who was much
more familiar with the descent gear, went first.  Moving gingerly to the
door he picked up the loop of rope that was coiled near it and pushed it
out, watching as it fell towards the train car.  The other end of the rope
was secured to a hook on the side of the fuselage.  He lay on his stomach,
his head just poking outside, and guided Brett a little closer.  "About ten
more feet down and about six to the right," he told him, watching as the
adjustments were made.  Finally the rope was just touching the top of the
car.  "Right there," he said.  "Hold that position."

"Holding," Brett answered.

Unable to put it off any further, Paul pulled himself to a sitting position
and eased forward until his feet were dangling out over the doorway.  He
reached out with trembling hands and pulled in the rope, attaching it to the
wheeled clamp on the front of his rope harness.  He pulled the intercom from
his head and set it on the floor and then, unable to believe he was actually
doing something so mad, he pushed out of the doorway so that he was standing
on the skid.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he yelled as the downdraft, which was relatively
weak this close the center of the rotor but still quite powerful, hit him.
He could feel the entire aircraft tilt back and forth from the shifting of
his weight from the inside to the outside.  "What the hell am I doing out
here?!"

Nobody answered him, no one even heard him over the noise of the engine.  He
didn't even hear himself.  All the same, the words had the desired effect.
They motivated him into action.  Moving carefully, holding on to the side of
the doorjamb he turned himself around so that he was looking back into the
helicopter.  Matt, his face somewhat ashen, gave him another unenthusiastic
thumbs-up.  "Here goes nothing," Paul said, again without anyone hearing,
and he stepped off the skid.

The harness bit into his groin and his chest as he dropped down foot by
foot.  The two steel wheels attached to the rope kept him from descending
too quickly.  If he began to drop too fast the friction pulled them
together, causing them to clamp shut on the rope and arrest the fall.  He
went down jerkily, a little rougher than he had done during the practice
session off the top of the community center the day before.  The gently
rocking skid passed in front of his face and then it was above him and
rising.  The brown roof of the freight car below began to grow bigger, now
looking like an actual structure instead of a scale model.  Finally, after
what seemed an eternity, his feet touched the roof.  He took a moment to
stabilize himself and get his balance and then, with a sigh of relief, he
disengaged the wheels from the rope.

The noise and the buffeting by the wind was still quite intense so he sat
down where he was, not wanting to be blown off the top of the car and over
the embankment.  Once he was down he hauled out his radio and turned it on.
"I'm down safe," he yelled into it.  "Send in the next victim."

Matt emerged from the helicopter a minute later and began to come down, his
own descent considerably more jerky and halting than Paul's had been.  A
couple of times he fell free for a few feet and caused the wheels to lock,
which in turn made the entire helicopter rock back and forth.  The end of
the rope, which was two feet in front of Paul, danced up and down, back and
forth whenever this would happen.  At last Matt's feet came down and Paul
was able to get his hands on him.  He helped him disengage the wheels and
then radioed up to Brett.  "We're both down.  Go ahead and pull back."

If Brett answered it was lost in the noise, but a moment later the
helicopter raised into the air and moved off to the west.

"I don't ever," Matt said, his face white and pasty, "want to do anything
like that again.  Why the hell did I volunteer for this shit?"

"Hell," Paul said, "you ain't seen nothing yet.  Wait till he pulls us out
of here.  Then you can be really scared."  Since the gear that they had was
only good for lowering someone down, the only way to get the two men back
out of there was to have them clip onto the rope and to fly them dangling
from the bottom of the helicopter to the nearest clearing where Brett could
then land and let them inside.

"I don't even want to think about that right now," he said.  "Let's get to
work."

They unfastened their rope harnesses and left them atop the freight car.
They then climbed down, utilizing a ladder bolted to the end of the car.
They had planned to move from place to place by walking between the freight
cars and the side of the hill.  One quick look told them this was
impossible.  Mud and rocks had piled up in this space in many places
preventing passage.  This forced them to inch along the edge of the
embankment, in the three-foot space between the edge of the cars and the
drop-off.

"You know something Paul?" Matt asked, trying desperately not to look down
at the drop.

"What's that?" Paul, who was doing the same, replied.

"I'm not having a lot of fun here today."

Paul chuckled a little.  "You mean you don't like flying around in a poorly
maintained contraption piloted by a man who has never been checked out on
it, dangling from the bottom of it, and then walking along a cliff?  What
don't you find enjoyable about that?"

"I guess I'm just weird," Matt said.  "You want to check the grain carriers
first?"

"Yeah," he agreed.  "They should be the easiest to get open."

They came to the first one and utilized the ladder to ascend to the roof of
it.  These were steel cars, painted yellow, that had circular spouts on the
top where bulk grain was loaded in from huge bins at the point where the car
was filled.  They crawled along the top until they came to the spout.  It
was sealed shut with a latching mechanism but it was not locked in any way.
Though the latch was sticky from sitting closed for so long, it came open
easily when the both of them pulled on it.  Paul threw the hinged lid upward
and caught a strong, musty odor.  He pulled a three-cell flashlight out of
his pack and shined it down in the hole.

"Well?" Matt said.

"It's rice," Paul said, seeing the brownish-white granules that filled the
entire space.  "Goddamn if it isn't rice.  Probably twenty or thirty tons of
it."

"Is it still good?"

"I don't know," he said, reaching his hand inside.  "It's dry but there's
some mold on the top.  Let me see if it extends underneath."  He pushed
aside the rice under his hand, digging down a little before pulling up a
handful.  It was a nice uniform color with very little mold.

"Looks like we're in the rice business," Matt said happily.  "If nothing
else is here, that'll keep us from starving to death."

"But it'll be boring as hell," Paul said.  "Let's check the other ones."

They moved from one grain carrier to the next, checking each one and
reporting their progress every few minutes to Brett and Jason, who were
circling around a half-mile away.  The first four contained rice - one of
the staples of Sacramento Valley agriculture before the comet - but two of
the four had leaked enough water into the hold to spoil all within them.
The last two contained wheat, another common crop in the valley.  In one of
the two the mold was so bad that the contents were completely unusable.  In
the second one however, though the top layer was contaminated, the
underneath seemed relatively all right.

"Looks like we've got a bread and flour supply as well," Paul said happily,
almost forgetting that he was on the edge of a cliff.  He slammed shut the
lid and re-engaged the hatch.  "Let's go check those cargo carriers now," he
told Matt.

There were ten of those in two distinct groupings.  They climbed down from
the grain car and worked their way carefully back to the first cargo
carrier.  Unlike the grain carriers, these cars were locked tightly with
steel latches.  Paul examined the mechanism for a moment and then concluded
that the best tool for the job would be a five-pound hammer and a heavy-duty
chisel.  Fortunately he had had the foresight to bring these items with him.
He pulled them out of his pack and went to work.

It took five minutes of hammering and banging but finally the entire latch
fell off, landing on the ground at his feet.  "Nothing to it," he said,
wiping sweat from his brow.

"I can see that," Matt said.  "Let's get it open."

They both grabbed hold of the sliding cargo door and pulled, moving it on
its track until it was fully open.  Inside were cardboard boxes stacked on
pallets from floor to roof.  They were labeled SONY.

"Well isn't this ironic?" Paul said, looking at their bounty.  "I always
wanted me a DVD player but the wife wouldn't let me spend the money.  And
now look.  I have about two thousand of them."

"Twenty-two hundred and six," Matt corrected, reading from a manifest he
found just inside the door.  "Fresh off a cargo carrier from the Port of
Stockton, headed for a warehouse in Chicago."

"Wonderful," Paul said, shaking his head partly in amusement, partly in
frustration.  "Let's see what's in the next one."

The contents of the next one turned out to be more Sony products.  There
were one thousand Surround Sound processors and eight hundred stereo VCRs.

"Look," Matt said, pointing at one of the boxes, "they have the Smart Record
feature."

"Shut the fuck up," Paul grumbled.  He handed the hammer and chisel to his
wisecracking companion.  "You do the next one.  My arms need a rest."

The next one did not contain consumer electronics.  Nor did it contain
anything particularly useful either.  "Two million Bic ballpoint pens," Paul
read from the manifest.  "Ain't that some shit?"

"That's a lot of fucking pens," Matt agreed.  "Shall we move on?"

They moved on.  Matt once again handled the job of chiseling the lock off
the freight car.  In the rhythm now, it took only about three minutes before
it fell and they were able to pull the door open.  This time they struck
gold, at least as far as staving off starvation went.  This car was carrying
cans of Campbell's concentrated chicken noodle soup - the same thing that
the Garden Hill residents had been eating at least once a day since the
impact, so common was that stock in their food supply.

"Unbelievable," Paul whispered, looking at the pallets of tin cans stacked
atop each other.

Matt stared for a moment as well and then reached for the manifest and took
a look at it.

"How many?" Paul asked him.

"Thirty thousand cans," Matt replied.  "Coming from the factory in
Sacramento and heading for a distributor in Omaha."

"Thirty thousand cans," Paul repeated.  "If there's a god, I will have to
say that he is kind and benevolent for giving this gift to us.  But he sure
has one twisted-ass sense of humor."

"Yep," Matt agreed.

In the next car they found three huge rolls of blank newsprint that was
heading from Seattle to the offices of the Reno Gazette.  In the one
following it were eleven thousand boxes of Saran Wrap.  The next three all
contained Maytag products - washers in the first, dryers in the second,
dishwashers in the third.  All of the appliances were top-of-the-line, but
none were very useful to a community with no electricity.

With some of their frustration returning they opened the very last cargo
carrier.

"Well," Matt said, looking at what they had found.  "It's food, I'll say
that."

"Yeah," Paul agreed.  "I guess we won't have to worry about anemia or scurvy
now, will we?"

"And if we ever meet Popeye, we'll have a huge edge on trade."

Inside of the final car, stacked to the roof on pallets, were thirty
thousand cans of Del Monte spinach.

"Well," Paul said.  "At least we know that we won't starve to death.  It may
not be much variety but at least it's edible.  Let's get all these cars
closed back up and get ourselves home.  And then we can start figuring out
how to get some of this stuff back with us the next time."

"Amen," Matt said.




Al Steiner
1-13-01
Chapter 12 to follow.

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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