“Convoy, halt! All mechfighters, suit up. Do not deploy until I give the word. Commander out.”
Behind the wheel of the Expedition’s lead vehicle, Lieutenant Wendy DeKalb transferred her foot from accelerator to brake, bringing the massive armored van to a stop. To her immediate right, Sergeant Amy DiCaprio shifted uneasily in her seat as she gazed through the windshield at the incongruous scene ahead. To her right, Commander (Special Weapons Research Base) Barbara Wallace pressed a button on the dash to cut the convoy-wide comm link that had broadcast her terse orders. She had ordered the long line of armored vehicles to halt with Zero Zero One just past the guard tower at the northwest corner of Special Weapons Research Base. Ahead, the uninvited guests formed an indistinct mass of armor and infantry along the base’s front wall and clustered at its main gate.
With her convoy-wide commands duly issued, the Commander restarted her grumpy mumbling.
“...was looking forward to a nice relaxing homecoming, a long hot bubble bath, and a big heap of Mr. Brody’s wonderful lasagna with a nice forty-year-old Chianti. Dammit!”
“Ma’am,” her busty staff sergeant bravely interrupted. “There doesn’t seem to be any actual attacking going on. They look more like they’re waiting to get into a concert!”
“Tell me what you see, sergeant. Give me the counts.”
After an impressively short pause, the sergeant responded. “I count forty-eight deployed infantry, ma’am. Most armed with rifles, at least two with chain guns. Up at the gate, I count twelve APCs and eight tanks. But they don’t seem hostile. In fact, the insignia on their uniforms looks familiar to me. Are they from...?”
“Palmdale Army Base,” replied the Commander, finishing her sergeant’s thought. “Still, for the moment, let’s play it safe. The lieutenant and I will proceed on foot to apprise the situation. Stay here and coordinate the convoy defenses, if needed. Are you up for it?”
The sergeant sat up straighter and nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I—”
That was all the Commander needed to hear. She was already opening her door and hopping out of Zero Zero One’s cab. “I am trusting you to not ‘hulk out’ again, or in any other manner transmogrify into something other than my dependable yet delightfully curvaceous staff sergeant. At least for the short time it will take us to deal with our unexpected company! Lieutenant, come with me.”
“Ma’am, I still don’t know what hap—”
“Not now, sergeant! We will discuss it later. Lieutenant, leave the two crystals here in the cab. I do not want them popping out of your leotard if the situation should become dynamic. And remind me to have a discussion with Mr. Brody about adding pockets to our outfits.”
Smiling, Wendy reached inside her leotard, under her left breast, and dug out the two sky-blue crystal shards she had tucked there. She reached across the cab and deposited them in the van’s glove box. “Pockets where?” she asked her Commander. “There’s barely room to pin a brooch! And I like it that way.”
The Commander shut the passenger door behind her as she dropped the three feet from her seat to the pavement. On the other side of the van, her lieutenant did likewise, casting a brief nervous glance at the sergeant before she departed. Then she turned her attention forward, eyeing the throng of soldiers with just a dash of hunger. She had been looking forward to enjoying (and showing off) her strength and invulnerability once again. But it looked like these guys were going to rain on her parade.
As she stood with her hand still on the van’s door handle, the Commander again beheld the tanks and armored carriers sitting on the road in clusters, with soldiers milling around them. She glanced over at the base’s perimeter wall and was pleased to see the defending mechfighters lined up on top of it, weapons trained on the crowd below. Her sergeant was correct: these strangers certainly did not appear to be making any effort to storm the gates. In fact, the whole lot of them seemed more like a bunch of heavily-armed marionettes with their strings cut. They just stood around chatting with each other and casting frequent glances up at the defenders on the wall.
“Palmdale,” the Commander muttered just loud enough for her lieutenant to hear. “I think I know what is going on. I just did not expect it to happen so soon. Come, lieutenant. Let’s go verify that I am correct as always. I think our reputations will put a damper on any lingering hostile intent.”
The red headed muscle goddess started to walk forward. Wendy moved to do likewise on her side of the van, then stopped. Her lips stretched into a wide grin. Her superior, whose attention was riveted on the mass of soldiers and heavy armor ahead, did not notice her lieutenant’s mighty leap straight up in the air.
In front of Zero Zero One, the Commander stood with her hands on her hips and glared at the milling soldiers. Noticing her now, they gazed back with a mixture of awe and nervousness, their weapons hanging loosely at their sides or in their hands. She turned her head to say something to her lieutenant, but frowned when she saw no one there. “Lieutenant, where the hell did— AGGGHHH!!!”
With a thunderous *CRACK* the raven-haired muscle goddess plummeted down from above, landing hard enough to dig a crater into the asphalt right in front of the Commander’s bare feet. Wendy planted her fists on her hips and puffed out her chest, making muscles bulge all over her amazing body.
The Commander goggled at this unexpected (OK, maybe NOT so unexpected) sight for just a second or so, then she slowly raised one hand and jabbed a finger at Wendy’s grinning face. “I said follow me, not— what in the wide world of sports was that???”
“Superhero landing!” Wendy stage-whispered. “Impress them even more!”
Her superior just stood there, mouth hanging open, muscles quivering and finger quaking, flummoxed beyond words.
Not content to just stand there and wait for her muscly ass to get the chewing out it so richly deserved, Wendy pivoted on her feet to face the nearest soldiers, grinding herself down a little bit into the rubble. Fixing a dreamy smile on her face, she strutted toward a particularly cute specimen who brandished one of the huge chain guns.
“Hiiiiiiiiiiii,” the muscle goddess moaned, stretching the word out as if she were stretching helpless steel with her unstoppable fists. “Do you know who I am?” she cooed sweetly. She brushed one massive thigh against the end of the chain gun’s fearsome barrel, sliding its tip upward to press against her hip.
“Y-yes!” He stammered. “L-lieutenant DeKalb, adjutant to Commander Wallace of Spec—”
“Never mind her,” the muscle goddess said huskily as she slid the fingers of both hands around the huge gun barrel and brought the death-dealing apparatus upward against her heaving chest in a very affectionate hug. “We’re talking about me.”
