Seeing the demon woman go down, Al-Hassein struggled to his feet again, holding together his badly torn chin and gagging at the blood that pooled in his mouth. Stumbling over to the prisoner laying on her side, he watched as she continued to weakly struggle toward the door and freedom. A flush of rage suffused his features as he lashed a booted foot into her abdomen and chest again and again until she finally stop moving. With a final kick which felt as if it had ruptured something internally in the woman, the commander dropped to his knees, panting, his blood streaming from his face to land on the once white robe of his prisoner.
Five heavily armed soldiers burst into the office, their weapons held at the ready.
Saliva frothed from Al-Hassein’s mouth, so complete was his insane rage. A woman had nearly defeated him. A woman! A stupid, useless American woman. Rising, he took out his rage on the squad of guards who stood blinking stupidly at the bloody scene before them.
“What were you waiting for?!” he screamed, his eyes bulging from their sockets. “Allah?!?” Up and down the line he went, raining down blows on each of his men until he was too tired to lift his arms. He looked down at the huddled form of the prisoner at his feet, kicking the body again once more just for the sheer pleasure of it.
“Get this carcass down to the cells and bring me back the skinny pig. Five corpses will decorate my prison by the time this night is over. Do it! Now!!”
Two of the soldiers bent over and grabbed Kael under the arms, a third leading the way out of the office. Kael’s shattered legs trailed limply behind her, a trail of blood marking her passage through the bunker.
Reingold was ready for action as he heard the guards troop down the hallway. He had heard the sounds of gunfire above his head and knew something had gone horribly wrong. At first, he had entertained the notion that Kael had gotten free and taken care of business, but the sounds of many booted feet dashed that fantasy, leaving his muscles coiled and ready for anything.
The door pounded open and his commander was thrown in, the front of her robes painted red with blood. Black power burns told him who had borne the brunt of the weapons fire he had heart. His heart constricted sharply and his vision trebled as a snarl twisted his face.
“You fucking bastards!” he screamed as the first of the guards reached out to grab him. Carefully laying Kael’s body on the ground, he pistoned upward with his legs, giving his blow the strength it needed to release the gun from the guard’s suddenly nerveless fingers. “What the fuck did you do to her, huh?” Reversing his grip on the gun, he clouted the guard under the chin, flipping him into the man behind him. Flipping the gun in his hands once again, he raised it to high port, taking a split second to aim. Bullets sprayed out from the weapon’s muzzle, cutting into the two fallen men. He looked up into the barrel of a weapon pointed directly at his head.
Tongues of fire leapt from both weapons at once. American and Iraqi alike went down, dead before they hit the ground.
All was silent for a long moment until desperate knocking was heard from the adjoining cell. “Gunny? Shooter? What’s going on in there?”
Only a cold silence answered the two Marines.
Continued..Part 2
Return to The Desert Storm Main Page
DESERT STORM
Part 2
by: SwordnQuill
SwordnQuil@aol.com
Disclaimers: The characters of Xena, Gabrielle, Lao Ma, Alti, Borias, and everyone else who sounds familiar belong to Pac Ren and Universal Studios. I am not making money off of this story.
Genre Disclaimer: Ok. Bear with me, please, because this is kinda tough to explain. Sometime last year, I read a story on the internet that moved me so much, I was inspired to write a sort of companion piece to it. That story was “Lost Soul Walking” by DJWP. In her words, “This is NOT UberXena fiction. It just starts out like it is.” The same can be said for this piece. While not directly related to “Lost Soul Walking”, “Desert Storm” can be considered a sort of prequel to it. It is a story, if you will, about the lifetime before the one depicted in that fabulous, outstanding story. (Can you tell I loved it?) In addition, this is somewhat of an ambitious piece of fiction, in that I am attempting (don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I’ve attempted) to take the entire X:WP universe and modernize it. We start, in updated terms, with my version of Xena’s betrayal by Caesar (seen in “Destiny”), and continue up through the X:WP episode known as “Remember Nothing”. The plot will be very recognizable to you. It’s meant to be that way.
Special note: Because of this, Gabrielle does not appear, except in offhand mention, in a great deal of the first half of this story. Do not look for her, because you won’t find her. After all, she was not a part of ‘evil Xena’s’ life. If she were, things might have turned out differently, but because this is based on the premise of “Lost Soul Walking” it cannot happen differently. Gabrielle will, however, make her presence known, and that quite strongly, in the second half of the story. If you can hang on till then, I believe that you will not be disappointed.
Sexuality and Violence Disclaimers: We’re dealing with an updated dark Xena through much of the first half, and an updated redeemed Xena through the second. There’s gonna be violence. There are gonna be naughty words. There are also descriptions of sexual activity in this work. There are allusions to heterosexual sex, but nothing graphic. There are some graphic (though I hope tasteful) scenes of sexual expression between women as well. That is how I see the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, and that is how I will continue to write it.
And, finally, thanks: To, as always, the incomparable Mike. A better beta and a better friend one could never hope for. Thank you also, as always, to Mary D, who rescued this story from the refuse heap and begged me to keep going on it. If you hate it, blame her. <w> Grateful and heartfelt appreciation goes out to DJWP, for continuing to write stories that grab me somewhere above the liver and giving her kind permission to mention her story in these disclaimers. If you haven’t read her stories, please, do yourself a favor and do so. Finally, this story is dedicated to a group of people without whom I would most probably be living on the streets. Elizabeth, Rachel, Sulli, and the rest of the “Get Sue to Atlanta” crew, this one’s for you!
Feedback: As always is gratefully appreciated. If you wrote to me regarding “Redemption” during the month of September to early October and I haven’t responded, please allow me the honor of apologizing in public. It was then that I was at my lowest point and making ready to move to my new home. Your words of praise and encouragement for my writing kept me firmly out of the pit of depression I was falling into and I shall be forever grateful to each and every one of you who took the time out to feed this bard. And for those of you patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for Redemption’s sequel, fear not, for with the conclusion of this piece, that piece will be started. Any and all who wish to may write me at SwordnQuil@aol.com . I’ll continue to do my best to answer each and every email. An exploding mailbox is a good thing to have. Thanks again!
DESERT STORM
by: Sword’n’Quill (Susanne Beck)
24 July, 1990. Very Early Morning. Temporary Israeli Military Camp. ~100 miles West of Tadmur, Syria.
A hot gusty wind blew through the open flap of the command tent, causing the papers on the large table set in the center to rustle, much to the consternation of the small figure who was trying to read a map in the near darkness of the enclosure. Commander Tovah Rybak raked a hand through the cinnamon curls on her head in frustration. “Damn it,” she hissed, trying futilely to prevent the map from rolling up once again.
Lt. Commander Benjamin Adellich, Tovah’s second in command and field medic, grinned at his friend, coming to her aid and flattening the paper down onto the table. “You’ll ruin your eyes if you keep trying to read in the dark,” he quipped.