strikingly deep tanned, long-legged, with a face of chiseled beauty, and a mane of flaming red hair that cascaded down her back like a waterfall. She was a star-patterned mutant, too—like Rockson. Strong, tough as nails, resistant to radiation and a host of diseases. And in bed she had taken Rockson to heights of passion even he hadn’t dreamed existed.
Kim was everything Rona was not—petite at 5'2", blonde, alabaster-complexion, a little on the shy side. She was the all-American girl and, had she lived a hundred years before, would surely have been a model, with a near-perfect look of a certain type of girl who existed only here in the USA. It wasn’t really that she was striking in any way, and if her features were looked at one at a time—ivory skin with a few freckles, blue-green eyes, almost pug nose—she wouldn’t have seemed all that special. But somehow when they were all put together as a face—there was a remarkable open soft beauty that Rockson had found irresistible.
The Doomsday Warrior decided to just sit back in the saddle and enjoy it. At least he wouldn’t have to choose between the two—not while they were both hammering away at each other’s psyches like two boxers jabbing, constantly jabbing, looking for the slightest weakness so they could come in for the knockout blow.
“How do you take care of yourself when you’re on your own?” Rona asked Kim with mock concern. “I mean, when there are no men around for you to be protected by?”
“Oh, haven’t I shown you my arsenal?” Kim laughed. “I’m loaded for bear, darling.” She flung open her velcron-layered field jacket to reveal two pearl-handled .45’s strapped to her waist, a set of throwing knives ready for quick draw, and a snub-nosed magna/aluminum Ingram with a 30-slug clip. “When there’s trouble—it’s usually the men who come to me,” the petite blonde said coolly. And so it went, the rest of the team silent, as they all rode along in single file. Only the barbs of the young women passed back and forth like little platters of poison punctuated the air. Each thought: When we bed down, I will be with him.
They rode for hours into the evening and then the night, which grew dark as heavy storm clouds migrated by above heading east to deposit their straining loads. Rock decided to camp about midnight, sensing that Snorter, his ’brid, was beginning to falter. And if that giant among mutant horses was feeling tired, the others were surely ready to drop.
He held his right hand straight up and cried out, “Rest stop—six hours!” The 15 man, 2 woman team headed the ’brids about fifty yards over to a grove of jungle-leaved willow trees, their nuke-mutated hanging branches forming a protective canopy from the elements and from prying Red spy drones in the morning sky—although since the KGB had attempted its coup, Rockson realized that he had seen not one of the cigar-shaped unmanned camera-rockets flying by. Out of the worst of occurrences came useful results.
The ’brids were given their nylon bags filled with high-protein oats and then allowed to graze on tender morsels nearby while the men set up their sleeping bags and undid their tents, just in case the pack of thunderheads riding miles above their heads should decide to spill out their guts of rain water. McCaughlin quickly set up his mini-kitchen, pulling supplies, pots, and pans down from his two pack ’brids. Using smokeless, low-light flame pellets, he cooked up a meal of rabbit and carrot stew, whose odors had every Freefighter in camp lined up with plate in hand before the tough meat had had time to soften.
“Just wait, pull your belts tighter around your stomachs,” the big-bellied Scottish fighter/chef said, waving a long stainless-steel ladle at them. “You eat rabbit before it’s tender as a chicken and you won’t be getting much sleep tonight. Not with said rabbit trying to jump through your intestinal tract and back up to its
Kim was everything Rona was not—petite at 5'2", blonde, alabaster-complexion, a little on the shy side. She was the all-American girl and, had she lived a hundred years before, would surely have been a model, with a near-perfect look of a certain type of girl who existed only here in the USA. It wasn’t really that she was striking in any way, and if her features were looked at one at a time—ivory skin with a few freckles, blue-green eyes, almost pug nose—she wouldn’t have seemed all that special. But somehow when they were all put together as a face—there was a remarkable open soft beauty that Rockson had found irresistible.
The Doomsday Warrior decided to just sit back in the saddle and enjoy it. At least he wouldn’t have to choose between the two—not while they were both hammering away at each other’s psyches like two boxers jabbing, constantly jabbing, looking for the slightest weakness so they could come in for the knockout blow.
“How do you take care of yourself when you’re on your own?” Rona asked Kim with mock concern. “I mean, when there are no men around for you to be protected by?”
“Oh, haven’t I shown you my arsenal?” Kim laughed. “I’m loaded for bear, darling.” She flung open her velcron-layered field jacket to reveal two pearl-handled .45’s strapped to her waist, a set of throwing knives ready for quick draw, and a snub-nosed magna/aluminum Ingram with a 30-slug clip. “When there’s trouble—it’s usually the men who come to me,” the petite blonde said coolly. And so it went, the rest of the team silent, as they all rode along in single file. Only the barbs of the young women passed back and forth like little platters of poison punctuated the air. Each thought: When we bed down, I will be with him.
They rode for hours into the evening and then the night, which grew dark as heavy storm clouds migrated by above heading east to deposit their straining loads. Rock decided to camp about midnight, sensing that Snorter, his ’brid, was beginning to falter. And if that giant among mutant horses was feeling tired, the others were surely ready to drop.
He held his right hand straight up and cried out, “Rest stop—six hours!” The 15 man, 2 woman team headed the ’brids about fifty yards over to a grove of jungle-leaved willow trees, their nuke-mutated hanging branches forming a protective canopy from the elements and from prying Red spy drones in the morning sky—although since the KGB had attempted its coup, Rockson realized that he had seen not one of the cigar-shaped unmanned camera-rockets flying by. Out of the worst of occurrences came useful results.
The ’brids were given their nylon bags filled with high-protein oats and then allowed to graze on tender morsels nearby while the men set up their sleeping bags and undid their tents, just in case the pack of thunderheads riding miles above their heads should decide to spill out their guts of rain water. McCaughlin quickly set up his mini-kitchen, pulling supplies, pots, and pans down from his two pack ’brids. Using smokeless, low-light flame pellets, he cooked up a meal of rabbit and carrot stew, whose odors had every Freefighter in camp lined up with plate in hand before the tough meat had had time to soften.
“Just wait, pull your belts tighter around your stomachs,” the big-bellied Scottish fighter/chef said, waving a long stainless-steel ladle at them. “You eat rabbit before it’s tender as a chicken and you won’t be getting much sleep tonight. Not with said rabbit trying to jump through your intestinal tract and back up to its
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