This is chapter 6 of my ongoing sci-fi / fantasy novel called Alpha Centauri Amazons, which has nothing to do with the game with the same name. I started writing this story long before I knew about this game. Anyway, in this chapter, my heroines find out they are not alone on their new planet.
As always, my stories are not your usual sex stories, Actually, this is not a sex story. It is a sci-fi fantasy story with some erotic moments in it. And as always, my stories are female-oriented...
Okay, welcome to my Utopia. :)
-jan
PS - To read earlier chapters and other stories written by me, just go to my site:
http://www.sistersinlove.org
And click on the Fiction link.
All comments are welcome! Send them to: jan123@hotmail.com
SIX
Starvation. They were facing starvation and they would die soon if they didn't find a way to feed themselves. Three days had gone by since the ship had disappeared while they slept. So far they had relied on the ship's dispensers for food and clothing and other items like tobacco and soap. But now that was gone and they were hungry and desperate. Lisa Wells had tried to keep their spirits high, saying that the ship would return, but no such thing had happened.
"We need to do something," said Reidun, facing Sandy Bates.
"What?"
"We need to find wood to make bows and arrows. But first we have to kill an animal for its tendons and skin. We need it for the strings. But we also need knives; a bowie knife would be perfect."
"What's a bowie knife?" asked Sandy absentmindedly, chewing on a grass leaf
"It's a knife that hikers usually use. I guess you've never been a scout girl, have you?"
"You mean, a girl scout," Sandy corrected. She shook her head and added, "No, I was never an outdoors girl. I was a party animal, an animal of the night, know what I mean?"
Reidun ignored Sandy's remark and stared at their would-be leaders. Lisa Wells, Mandy O'Neill and Sandra Lemay formed a semi-circle and they spoke softly as if they didn't want to be heard. She stood up and approach them. Soon as they saw her Lisa fell silent and watched the Norwegian girl with a scowl.
"Yes?"
"I want to talk you," Reidun said. "I was talking to Sandy about this. We need to act and provide for ourselves. The ship's not coming back."
"The aliens wouldn't let us starve."
"I am not so sure of that."
"Why?" asked Sandra, looking at her, shutting her right eye as if she could not stand Alpha Centauri's glaring luminosity. "Why would they bring us here and let us starve?"
Reidun shrugged. "I don't know. I only know we have to do something or we will be too weak to hunt."
"So, what do you suggest?" It was Mandy's turn to interrogate her.
"I know how to make traps and nets. My father taught me how to make them. He said that one day these skills would be useful to me. My sister Kirsten knows how to make them, too. Kirsten and I could organize some classes and teach some of the girls. We need to do something."
Lisa and Mandy shared a glance at each other, and as if she had received a go-ahead Lisa nodded. "All right, I think it is a good idea." She got on her feet and brushed the dirt off her hands. "How can we help?"
But it was easier said than done. Reidun and Kirsten tried to make some holes for the traps, but it was not easy to dig with their own bare hands. After a few minutes they were exhausted and their bodies were covered with sweat. Reidun began to panic. She had overrated their chances of catching a prey like that and if that was true they were going to die. The other girls had helped, but a trap would only catch small animals, too little too late to feed two hundred hungry girls with no body fat to speak of. A group of young women had wanted to make soup out of a tubercle they had found while digging, but they didn't even have a pan to boil it. They had tried to eat it raw but the taste of the tubercle was too bitter to be edible. The only good fortune they had had so far was that the ship had landed near a river, a plentiful supply of drinking water.
It soon became obvious to Reidun that fishing was the only way to keep them from starving. Knowing this, her self-assurance returned, but only for a short period. She tried to weave threads for the nets with the plants growing at the banks of the river but with no success. The threads broke too easily.
"Fuck," Reidun cursed. "I don't believe this."
"Perhaps there is another way," said Kirsten.
"How?"
"I saw this in a documentary. There was this people who caught their fish by scaring them onto shore. I think we could make a human net and scare the fish the same way."
"Don't bother," Sandy Bates said suddenly. "Someone is coming."
Reidun and Kirsten and the group of girls that were with them stood on their feet. To Reidun's surprise Sandy was right. A menacing group of horsemen was galloping in their direction. Reidun didn't know whether they should be scared or thankful. After all they were not alone on this planet.
"Let's go back to the camp," said Reidun. "Let's warn the others."
Lisa and Mandy already knew about the approaching horsemen before Reidun's party managed to reach their improvised camp. Lisa tried to count the horsemen and see the chances they would have if this horde proved to be hostile. There must be one hundred of them, she concluded, her heart beating faster as the horsemen got nearer. At long last, the strangers reached their camp, and Lisa realized they were not horsemen. They were women - all of them. She could see their breasts under their loose tops made of leather. And most of all, they looked like humans, not at all like the gray aliens she had expected.
The horde of amazons, for the lack of a better word, surrounded them at once. Lisa asked them who they were, but none of the horsewomen gave an answer. There was an eerie silence during which the amazons stared at the frightened young women at their mercy. Lisa tried to speak again, but only a whisper came out of her throat. The amazons were armed with bows, arrows, swords and axes, Lisa noticed. Those women could slaughter them all if they so wished.
Suddenly, the horsewomen made way for another amazon who looked to be of a higher rank than the rest of them. Their leader was a tall woman with brawny arms and legs, dressed in a leather suit that covered her abdomen, unlike the other women whose navels and taut stomachs were bare. Each finger of the amazon leader sported a ring. Made of stone or bone, most rings were decorated with sparkling gems of different colors, blood red being the dominant hue. Her face was difficult to fathom because of the multiple layers of what looked like war paintings. Her brown hair was gathered in a lustrous pony tail. With a clicking sound, she ordered her mount to approach Lisa. Instead of speaking to her, the amazon woman directed her horse to go around Lisa and her friends. Lisa stayed immobile as the strange woman examined them from head to toe.
"Karyak ga," the woman finally said. Lisa made an effort to understand what the amazon was saying. "Karyak ga uilyef man'garah ta."
"Sorry, I don't understand," said Lisa, covering her eyes to shield it from the intense light of Alpha Centauri.
"Shez man'tanu?" the woman said, pointing to the sky. "Shez man'tanu goryah maskaleh?"
Lisa looked at Mandy for help, but the Australian woman shrugged.
"I don't know what they're saying. I know some words of Aboriginee, but this doesn't sound like it at all."
Lisa looked up at the woman who was waiting patiently for an answer. Lisa pulled up her shoulders, opening her hands in a sign of impotence and ignorance. This gesture was immediately met with general hilarity by the horsewomen. Their leader remained mostly serious, although Lisa could have sworn she had seen the beginning of a smile on that woman's mouth.
"Vini, mara. Vini gomi ska'li m'hugurami. Ish las mass ta guru ha."
Lisa looked at Mandy again, and this time Mandy seemed to understand what the other woman was saying. "I think she wants us to follow them."
"You think?"
"Yes, I do."
"And if it's a trick?"
"They can kill us right now, even without tricks. We're starving. We have no choice, I should think."
"You're right." Facing the leader of the horsewomen, Lisa said, "Okay, we will follow you." She made a few gestures with her hands, pointing to their companions and then to the horsewomen.
The leader smiled and said, "Mora sym. Ish Marga. Tu?"
For a moment Lisa didn't understand what the stranger meant, but Mandy helped her. "Lisa." And pointing to herself, she added, "Mandy."
"Lisa, Mandy," the woman repeated with a heavy accent, before she issued a command in her language and the horsewomen dispersed, making a looser ring around Lisa and her companions.
Sandy Bates eyed the horsewomen with curiosity. She had never been afraid of those women, unlike Linda Wells and the Johanssen sisters. She was extremely pleased that, after all, Kirsten was a wuss.
During their journey with the horsewomen flanking the long line of women on foot, a particular amazon had looked at Sandy with interest. Sandy would smile at her, but nothing happened. Sandy kept on walking toward an unknown fate, escorted by a horde of amazon women who had materialized from nowhere Eventually, breaking the ranks of the horsewomen, the amazon turned her mount and trotted toward her. She offered her arm, which Sandy accepted immediately. Effortlessly the woman pulled Sandy up and made her sit on the rump of her horse. Sandy slid closer to the woman's body, holding her waist tightly. She was surprised by the muscle tone of the amazon's stomach. That woman, girl, was in top form, Sandy realized with a huge smile. If there were no men on this planet, she thought, these women were perhaps the best replacement of them all. It was weird to think like that, Sandy realized, but she could not help it. She noticed the stranger's body was turning her on, exciting her, making her panties wet.
They rode all day except for light meals of sour cookies and dry meat. Some girls were complaining about their forced walk, but many of them had followed Sandy's example. They had made friends with their escorting amazons and had been allowed to ride together with them.
Sandy learned that her amazon friend was called Azryah ta Mani. She had tried to understand Azryah, but the language barrier had prevented her from comprehending what the horsewoman wanted to tell her. There were times when Azryah would stare at her during a meal break, and Sandy would sneer at her "What? You never seen someone like me?"
On one of those occasions, Mandy intervened. "Cut it out, Sandy. They have us at their mercy. If you start teasing them you'd better know what the consequences are."
"Oh, fuck off."
"No, you fuck off."
Their angry confab was suddenly interrupted by a hunting knife that whooshed between Mandy and Sandy, its blade burying itself on the reddish loose earth in front of the grass patch where Mandy rested.
"G'moru na," said Azryah, pulling Sandy toward her. Sandy sat closer to Azryah with a gloating smile.
"That's what you get when you mess with me, Mandy."
"Okay, don't worry. I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole, now that you have your own girlfriend, or should I say... boyfriend?"
"She's a girl. She has breasts."
"Are you sure? Sometimes you'd be surprised."
"What do you mean?"
"This is a strange planet, with its own logic, if there is one. Better see her naked first before you sure she is a girl... with breasts and all." It was time for Mandy to snicker but she stopped as soon as she saw Lisa's scowl.
Sandy shrugged and pretended not to care about what Mandy had just said. Somehow the image of those women with breasts being... men... repulsed her. She'd rather have a man or a woman, but not both in the same body. She had heard about transsexuals, but she had never had to deal with one before.
Surreptitiously, Sandy cast a glance at Azryah's crotch, but that part of her body was covered with a knee-high leather skirt decorated with geometric engravings and metal incrustations. Sandy shook her head, taking in the shape of Azryah's long legs. They were feminine despite their brawniness. But could Mandy be right?
When Alpha Centauri A fell under the horizon, the amazon women organized a camp. It wasn't as dark as the night before, as the more distant Alpha Centauri B cast surreal long shadows on the ground. A bonfire was set alight and a woman with an animal skin draped over her head and shoulders began to sing with a low voice as if mimicking a growl. The woman's song became a lament then a growl again. Her eyes were shut as she sang and the other amazons remained silent. It was as though it was a religious ceremony before the last meal of the day. The woman continued singing, circling the bonfire three times before she stopped and threw herself to the ground. Immediately three women gathered around the shaman woman and splashed her face with water, waking her up from her trance.
Sandy followed Azryah to the river as one of her new tasks was to keep their water skin full. She was about to return to camp when she noticed that Azryah was taking off her clothes. Azryah entered the water and washed herself, all the while keeping her back toward Sandy. Sandy sat on the river bank and watched Azryah. Breathless, she waited for the amazon woman to come back and fetch her clothing. That crazy possibility suggested by Mandy kept nagging at her. Was she a man after all?
Sandy waited but it seemed as though Azryah did it on purpose to prolong her agony. At last, Azryah's silhouette turned and walked towards her, but the evening had become too dark for Sandy to be sure. When Azryah was just a few feet away, Sandy's doubts had finally been dissipated. Azryah was definitely a human female.