Chapter 9 - Savage and Primitive Combat
As the arrows fell behind and in front of the Shakanar shock troops, a high-ranking Shakanar officer by the name of Ashbar Erech - former resident of the colonial star system Naqsh-i-Russtem – was suddenly furious.
She had qualified to join the ranks of the Shakanar some fifty years earlier. It was at the at the tender age of six when she had killed a playmate because she had wanted her toy. After testing, she had been sent to what the regular military called "Psycho School" at Mur Sejanus in the high desert of the Homeworld. Now nearing retirement, she looked forward to spending the rest of her days educating new Shakanar recruits. There, she would share her knowledge and experience with the new recruits, and - it went without saying, she would abuse those under her control.
"Arrows? These raldash dare try to fight Shakanar with toys?" Erech thought to herself as she stood and ordered a charge. Most of the troops under her command joined her, and all pressed forward.
Erech rushed ahead of her troops, confident that her armor would protect her. However, Amazon arrowheads are made from a mineral known as amazonium. This was a fact very suddenly driven home to the Shakanar leader as surely as the arrow which pierced her bionic armor, shorting it out and dealing her a fatal blow.
There would be no retirement for her; no pleasant hours torturing young Shakanar recruits. In fact, Ashbar Erech had no future. Instead, she had only shock when the arrow suddenly appeared between her oversized breasts, piercing her heart. As she vainly reached up to pull it out, a second arrow entered her left eye.
"Ridiculous," she thought. "This is ridiculous. How can these sticks pierce our bioarmor?" Her last twisted thought was the question of which had killed her first – the arrow in her heart or the one in her brain. She never managed to figure it out before she fell over dead.
Other Shakanar soon followed their leader into the mouth of Avernus as they were tempted into bow range by General Philippus' cunning ploy. Another volley followed and more Shakanar fell. They returned fire and now Amazons joined their Sisters in the Elysian Fields. When neither guns nor arrows were practical any longer, Shakanar and Amazon alike charged one another with sword and spear in hand.
Philippus' cunning plan might have worked, except for one thing. Even after the hail of arrows, there were still three Shakanar left for every Amazon.
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Dee and Napolipolita soon found themselves lost in a maelstrom of hacking double axes and stabbing short swords. Ancient curses in Greek were followed equally by nasty curses in Leptonian. Shouts of triumph were followed by screams of pain and the moans of the dying. Prayers for the slain were interlaced with their killers' victory cries.
It was a form of savage and primitive combat that even Dee and her former Captain, with all their years of service to the Empire, had never seen. Pulse rifles and antimatter bombs were a far cry from this butchery, Napolipolita-Daitokuji thought. After all, something - or someone - couldn't bleed if he or she had been vaporized. And lasers, by their very nature, cauterized wounds as fast as they created them. Modern-day fighting was - well, clean.
There was no elegance to this nightmare of split bone, severed limb, and life suddenly ended. In the moment between life and death at the hands of a Shakanar, Aysha thought that this was the ugly and brutal way in which her ancestors fought. "Perhaps my ancestor who lived a thousand years ago, the great Xramcrusher, would consider us modern warriors soft," she thought. Soft or not, the green-haired woman ducked a broadsword as it whickered toward her head.
"Stop thinking, Aysha," she scolded herself, even in the midst of battle. "Best show these brutes the cold edge of your double-ax instead!"
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The Amazons fought back to back as they battled the Shakanar who swarmed around them, all at once and from every direction. Aysha and Deesha soon found themselves fighting back-to-back as well. It comforted them both that a trusted friend guarded their most vulnerable spot.
Dee had just relieved one of her one-time 'Sisters' of her life. This would have been hard enough with her trusty Cygnan broadsword. However, Deesha did it with an Amazon short sword, a weapon best suited to stabbing rather than hacking. While waiting for another Shakanar to face her, she noticed that General Philippus had lost her shield during the battle. She now used the body of a Shakanar to protect one side of her body while she cut down two more with as many strokes from her own blood-stained sword.
Aysha's battle-ax also dripped blood as she raised the handle to block an overhand sword stroke with the shaft. Using the weighted end of the shaft, she then sent it crashing down into the face of an oversized red-clad Shakanar. She finished her off within seconds.
"Die like a dog, you kakamatandula," Aysha growled. She turned. "Where are Artemis and Queen Hippolyta?" she shouted to General Philippus.
"Artemis and some of her Bana Mighdall Amazons are on their way to defend the Palace. Our Queen and her personal bodyguards must ensure that the Entrance is still safe."
"Entrance? Entrance to what?" asked Napolipolita-Daitokuji before another wave of Shakanar took all her attention.
At any other time, Philippus would have told the Leptonian Ambassador that the entrance about which her Queen was so concerned was to – for want of a better word – Hell.
For over three thousand years, as part of their punishment, Hippolyta and her subjects had been cursed with both immortality and the responsibility of guarding the entrance to Tartarus. If they relaxed their guard for even a moment, the horrors so eager to escape would do so, and bring ruin to the world.
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The Cygnan escape pod slowed its descent to a crawl, just a hundred feet from its projected landing spot. The whine of pulse rifles charging up filled the small ship. The inhabitants' breathing came in short, sharp gasps. Adrenaline mixing in with rushing blood heightened their senses, almost to the point of paranoia.
"I'm so nervous I can hardly think straight," said Queen Zazen'lda, leader of the thirty-three galaxy Leptonian Empire. Her sweaty hands fiddled with the pommel of her broadsword.
"You're not alone," said Sempra Vigilantia the Revenger, unsheathing her twin swords of shining crystal. "I've had that feeling ever since I first handled a blade."
"That's funny," returned the Queen. "You never showed it."
"I can't afford to," answered the member of the Pathfollower Council of Fifteen. "Too many people are counting on me."
"Seventy-five feet and descending," said the soldier in royal blue armor who was handling the controls. "No sign of Shakanar approaching. Should I lower shields?"
"Not until we're three feet from the ground," said Vigilantia. "Shakanar are very good at ambush."
"Let them try," said Buyabah, Chief Sword Mistress of the Royal Cavalry Guard, clenching and unclenching her hands, her heavy pulse rifle on her back. "I'll slake my thirst with their blood."
"No wonder my daughter E-ko calls you Tiger-head," the Queen commented. "That's just the attitude a tiger would take towards its prey."
The Master Sergeant smiled and bowed her head toward her Sovereign.
"As soon as we land," said Vigilantia, "we should head for Queen Hippolyta's Palace. That is, if the enemy hasn't leveled it."
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Queen Hippolyta and her personal guard raced toward the entrance of Tartarus to protect it. She noted many Shakanar corpses lying about, as well as the presence of equally as many live ones. This did not deter her, and they fought their bloody way back toward the entrance to Hell. The Queen saw that only three Amazons remained in the area – herself, Cassandra, and her lover Helena. Everyone had been left behind – wounded, dead, or dying. None had sold her life cheaply. However, each Amazon had made each Shakanar pay dearly for her purchase. They hadn't bargained for Amazon metallurgy piercing their bioarmor. The Queen and her retinue could walk to the island shore over Shakanar bodies littering the ground like overripe red fruit.
The trio finally reached the hilltop overlooking Tartarus Valley where the entrance lay. They beheld a nightmare scene. Although a score of their Amazon sisters lay scattered along with over a hundred Shakanar, twenty red-clad maniacs now did their best to smash the brace barring the entrance to Tartarus. All three Amazons knew too well what would happen if the terrors within escaped.
"Hera, help us!" Cassandra prayed in a voice full of horror. Her life partner squeezed her hand. "Let's hope so, for no one else will. Your orders, my Queen?"
"We neither have time to plan nor reason for subtlety. The world now depends on us, not just Themiscyra. Follow me!" She rushed down the hill to stop the maniacs who strove to release the fiends of Hell, swinging her labrys and screaming out the Amazon battle cry.
Without missing a heartbeat, Cassandra and Helena charged headlong after her, adding their own battle cries to the din of war.
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Princess E-ko and her crew shuddered as their vessel was hit by the Revenge's main battery. The bridge went suddenly dark until the emergency lighting came on. E-ko pushed a button on her control panel. "How much time before impact?"
"Ninety seconds," replied Captain Knossos.
"Good," E-ko said, rubbing her hands together and uttering a low maniacal giggle. "Charge forward, batteries to overload! Aim for the belly of the Beast!"
"Aren't you being too charitable, Your Highness?" said Captain Knossos.
"No – just being accurate." E-ko stood up and moved closer to the visi-screen. She turned and gave her bridge crew a wide smile. "I wanna blow a big enough hole in the Revenge for us to board and start chopping up some meat, if you get my drift!"
Some of the soldiers gulped at E-ko's black humor. A few gave her a halfhearted tiger-claw salute in response.
E-ko returned the salute. "They'll never know what hit 'em!" she laughed. "And if they do – who cares?"
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"Thanks for nothing. Now what?" asked Biko, holding her wounded side.
C-ko put the finishing touches on the series of loops and knots she had learned as a Girl Scout (Troop 17, Graviton City) so that their Shakanar prisoner would be fully restrained. The psychopath was still out cold, thanks to the vase Biko had broken over her thick skull.
Akana made a quick inventory of the Shakanar's weapons. "We have a pulse rifle with 50% charge left, a first-class Cygnan broadsword, and a standard combat dagger."
"Is that good?" Shiiko asked.
"No, you little twit," Aki returned. "I wish I could say that we had independently targeting particle beam phalanx, tactical smart-missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, sonic, electronic, nukes, knives and sharp sticks – "
Biko moaned in exasperation. "Excuse me if I interrupt your armaments rant while I lie here bleeding. Like I said – now what?"
Akana tossed the pulse rifle at the two zaibatsu princesses. "I'll take the broadsword. C-ko can take the knife. And you can always use another vase!"
"Why not? They fight with them on Tauka Banesh."
Akana snickered. "Yeah – during extremely bad Shakespeare productions."
Shiiko and Mitsuko now fought over the pulse rifle. "Gimme!" the elder shrieked.
Akana was a bit miffed at the very idea that these two puffballs could rival a Cygnette in ferocity or fighting skills. She shook her head at them and turned to Biko, "They couldn't figure out how to swing a cat between them, much less fire an AK-10 the correct way!"
"And by the way, rugrats," Biko added, "you two are going nowhere! You are staying right here and the only way you're going to fire that rifle is if and when more Shakanar come marching down the corridor!"
They opened their mouths to protest, but Akana's look cut them short. "Your big sister is right. We'll all stay here and hope no more of those cooked lobsters show up."
While this was going on, Lois, Kir, and Jon had been standing over the trussed-up Shakanar warrior.
"I dare you to touch her," Lois whispered to her brother.
"You're the one who is supposed to be a rough, tough Amazon. You touch her!" he fired right back.
"I'm not touching that thing!" she protested, and then turned her gaze upon the green-headed little boy standing beside her. "I bet big brave Kir isn't afraid."
In fact, Kir was afraid, but he was loath to show it in front of Lois. Slowly, he put his small hand on top of the creature's shaggy head, and then quickly jerked it back when Jonathan screamed, "BOO!" into his ear.
The three children broke out in a series of youthful giggles and laughter, followed by a short wrestling bout between the two boys.
This sport was then quickly ended when C-ko yelled, "Knock it off, you brats!"
"Yes, Princess," little Kir answered, with all due respect that his mother had taught him concerning interactions with members of the Royal Family.