Chapter 17

Sirren was walking along a road when a young man in one of the primitive native internal combustion powered vehicles, cars, she remembered they were called, stopped next to her. The man offered her a ride to the city. She accepted, hoping to get some directions from him.

After she got into the vehicle, he drove it a little further until they reached a forest. Then he turned off of the main road onto a smaller unpaved road. He stopped the vehicle, leaned over her, and spoke. "You're not in a hurry to get to town, are you?"

"Yes, I am. I just got here. I'm trying to find my, ah, friends." She thought it best if she didn't tell him too much about her, or about what she was doing here. "My friends don't know that I'm here."

He couldn't believe his luck. He picked up a beautiful half-naked babe along the beach, and nobody knew that she was in the area? What an opportunity!

Remembering what she had done to the two men earlier on the beach, Sirren was very careful to be very gentle as she pushed him away. Using only one hand and almost none of her strength she pushed him back into his seat.

"C'mon, babe," he said, trying to push her hand away so that he could get back up. "Hey! Let me go!" he shouted as he discovered that even using both arms he couldn't budge her slender arm one slightest bit.

It hadn't taken Sirren very long to figure out what the man wanted from her. It seemed that men were the same everywhere in the galaxy, whether they were Arion or Terran. It had taken her even less time to dissuade him from the notion. If she had been a little more careful, he might have been able to have other notions later on. As it was, her hand had crushed his ribcage unintentionally as she had intended merely to hold him in place while she talked with him, trying to convince him to help her get back to the base.

Why did men always behave this way? Couldn't think about anything other than sex when they were with a young woman? It wasn't her fault that she had had to defend herself, was it?

If she could had stopped to think about it, she might have realized that in a way it was indeed her fault. With the car windows closed to keep out the heat, the air conditioner was simply recirculating the air in the car. The air that had been flooded with her pheromones. He had been simply responding to the chemical signals she had been sending out unconsciously.

She had been hoping that this man could drive her to the base, or at least to its vicinity. She knew that her Arion officer's field uniform would draw attention to herself, the native women seldom exposed that much skin. Even when swimming at the beach.

She realized that it was possible to make herself slightly less conspicuous. She quickly stripped the shirt and pants off of the man. There was a little blood on the tee shirt, but it did not show on the black fabric. The man had been about her height, the blue denim jeans didn't fit very well but they were serviceable. The tee shirt was now filled out much better than it had ever been before. The man's shoes were much too big for her feminine feet, so she remained barefoot.

She found the man's wallet in his jeans pocket. Examining it, she discovered a quantity of the strips of paper that the natives used for money. She also found other pieces of paper and plastic, some with the man's picture on them. Some of them, she knew from her training, could be used to purchase things. She wasn't sure what the others were for, but she decided to keep them just in case they turned out to be useful. She knew that the money could be useful. Putting everything back into the wallet, she slipped it back into the right hip pocket of the jeans.

She briefly considered using the vehicle to get to the base, but discarded the thought. Her training had not included the operation of the native vehicles. Resigning herself to traveling on foot, she resumed her journey towards the city she could see through the trees.

It was late afternoon when Sirren reached the outskirts of the city.

Mom made me work with Karen on the Arion martial arts. Really work, I mean. Thus far, in my fights against the Arion Primes I had been relying purely on my brute strength and on my flying abilities. And I had also gotten more than my share of luck. But my battle with the two Primes had shown me that I wouldn't always have the advantage of strength. And in my fights with Terrans, I had so much strength that I could have easily overwhelmed them with one arm tied behind my back, there had been no need for any skill on my part.

I also worked on judo and karate, on the premise that a fighting form unfamiliar to the Arions might give me an advantage. Wearing my heaviest gold necklaces I worked out with Mark and the other field agents.

And I also worked out with Mike. He turned out to be quite good at karate, actually having competed while in school. He had already joined a local dojo and was moving up the ladder quite nicely. In fact, he was able to more than hold his own when sparring with the field agents, occasionally even managing to teach them a thing or two about the art form.

It took me a while to discover the proper balance. Without enough gold to bring my strength and quickness down far enough, I couldn't spar with the men without risking hurting them. And I was much too strong to need any technique.

And with too much gold, I was too horny to concentrate on sparring. Instead I wanted to do something else with the men. When Mom was around she would step in and stop me before I got too carried away. Karen, on the other hand, usually would let me get some fun in before stopping me, though never enough.

As it was, after the sparring sessions I would usually end up taking the men to one of the sleeping rooms to 'reward' them for their efforts and to put them through another session. A much more intimate session. Except when Mike had been my sparring partner. In those cases I usually would wait until we got to his place, so that Rob could also join in on the fun.

Mom and Linda also tried to analyze the tactic the female Prime had used on me. They discovered that Velorians and Primes did have a vulnerability there. It was apparently possible to kill one by crushing the heart.

"I had read that it was possible," Mom told us. "The Velorians mentioned it also, but of course they never bothered to teach me how to do it. It's not something a Beta could do to a Prime, let alone to a Velorian, even if she knew how."

"I never learned it, either," Karen added. "All of my martial arts training was with the other Betas. They certainly weren't going to teach us how to kill Primes, even if we somehow could."

The gym was closed for the evening. But that didn't keep Carlos from working out. Since his parents owned the gym, he had his own key. His father had won the state amateur bodybuilding championship a couple of times in his youth. He had since bought the gym, which soon became popular with other bodybuilders who wished to benefit from his coaching and experience.

But that had been years ago, before he was born. Now there weren't too many bodybuilders at the gym. His father had had to diversify, adding offerings like aerobics.

Carlos enjoyed working out alone. While he considered the other bodybuilders, at least most of them, to be his friends, there were still some things that he didn't want to share with them. Not that he was using steroids or anything like that. He had been developing some training techniques of his own, partly based on things that his father had taught him.

Carlos had placed in the top five in the regional championships in his weight class earlier in the year, and was hoping to place in the top five in the state championships coming up soon. To that end he was working out in the gym every night. If he could do well in the state championships, that would be good advertising for the gym and for his father's coaching. That would draw customers back to the gym. Real customers. Muscle men. Serious bodybuilders and weightlifters, not the sissy aerobics people.

He had just racked the weight after finishing his reps of the bench press when he thought that he heard the back door open. "Damn! I thought that I locked it after I came in," he muttered to himself under his breath.

He was just about to get up and go take a look when the door at the end of the corridor opened. He was surprised to see a girl walk in. She took one look at him and began walking towards him.

A beautiful girl, perhaps about twenty years old, long straight lustrous black hair, bright blue eyes, and obviously a very nice figure under that tee shirt and pair of jeans.

He stood up. He really didn't want to have to chase her out, but the insurance policy wouldn't cover it if someone got hurt after hours.

Sirren had seen the man working out alone in the gym as she had been peering into the buildings, trying to get her bearings. The man was obviously very well built, much more muscular than any of the natives that she had encountered so far had been.

Her curiosity was aroused immediately. Was he as strong as he looked? How much weight was he working out with? She could see that he was straining at it. Was the weight as heavy as he made it look?

She immediately crossed the street. Fortunately there was no traffic on the side street at this time of the night. Her sparkling eyes located the nearest door into the gym, the back door that opened onto the side street. Turning the doorknob, she walked in, not realizing that she had broken the lock. Going through another door, she stepped into the gym itself.

The man got up from the bench where he had been doing his bench presses. She began to walk towards the bench. The weight on the rack didn't look that heavy. She wondered what it was made from. She seemed to recall hearing during her training that the natives didn't make use of the super-dense alloys. And if a native was able to lift it, it just couldn't be that heavy, could it?

Reaching the rack at the head of the bench, she stood there and examined the weight for a moment. It didn't appear to be a super-dense alloy. Then she reached down with her left hand and grasped the bar in the middle. As she began to bend her elbow she was surprised that the weight seemed even lighter than she had expected it to be. It definitely was not a super-dense alloy.

Stars! She hadn't bothered with weights this light since long before her eighth birthday. Actually, calling them weights would be a joke; these were mere toys. And this big man had been straining at it? With a weight that was lighter than some of the dolls that she had played with when she was a child?

Carlos simply stared as the girl walked towards him. Dios! She was beautiful! Even through her ill-fitting jeans he could see the muscles rippling on her legs. There certainly was nothing wrong with the way her tee shirt was fitting her. She certainly filled that out quite nicely.

She was practically gliding across the floor towards him. Then he realized that she wasn't walking to him. She was walking to the weight on its rack at the head of the bench. After looking at it for a moment as if she was adding up the weights, she reached down to the bar with one hand.

His jaw dropped as she smoothly curled the weight up to her chest. Madre de Dios! A curl! With one arm! A weight that he had to work at in order to bench press! A weight that many of the men who came here couldn't lift! And this girl was doing it with just one arm! And it didn't even look like she was exerting herself!

He couldn't help himself. His hands went out to touch her arm and the incredible bicep on it. Even though she curled the weight smoothly, seemingly without effort, the bicep grew to incredible dimensions. A bicep like that would easily win in the women's competition, he thought to himself. It wouldn't do too badly in the men's competition, either.

As she continued to curl the weight with her left arm, he tried to surround her bicep with both of his hands. He found that his hands weren't having any effect on her pumping bicep. When she flexed, her bicep easily forced his hands apart. He tried squeezing her bicep. It didn't slow her down at all as he found that he couldn't make the slightest dent in that rock-hard muscle. Yet her skin felt as soft and smooth as silk.

Sirren smiled as she felt the man's hands on her arm. She continued curling the weight that he had been straining to bench press. She saw the tendons on the back of his hands as he tried to squeeze her arm. Yet his hands didn't impede her efforts at all.

She saw that he was very impressed with her muscles. She decided to show him more, more than this light weight could do. As she racked the weight he released her arm. She raised her arms to shoulder height. Closing her hands into fists she flexed her arms.

Carlos gasped. He had just seen the biggest bicep he had ever seen on a woman, let alone a girl, as she had curled the weight. Yet as she struck a double biceps pose, her biceps grew even bigger. They were even bigger than his were, even though he had bigger arms than she did when relaxed.

He put his hands on her right arm. He again tried squeezing her arm. Again he could not make the slightest dent in that rock-hard muscle. She continued to pump and flex, until her biceps were larger than any he had ever seen before. Bigger than on any man. Biceps like that would easily win the state championship. In the men's heavyweight division!

As he continued to feel her hard muscles he realized that a part of him was also getting harder. This girl was incredible!

As usual, Sirren felt herself getting aroused as she used her muscles. Looking down at the man, she saw that he was also getting aroused, the bulge in his shorts was obvious. Surely a man this big and muscular could do something for her, much more than what those two men that morning on the beach had done.

Remembering how fragile these natives were, she was careful to be gentle. Putting a finger in the middle of his broad muscular chest she began to push him down to the floor. She hooked a finger into the waistband of his shorts and ripped it apart. She quickly ripped off her own clothes. At least the tee shirt and the blue jeans she had taken from the man who had offered her the ride. She then removed her uniform and set it aside.

She then threw a leg over him and lowered herself onto his throbbing cock. She remembered to open herself up fully in order to let his soft Terran flesh penetrate her slit.

Carlos awoke to find himself on the floor of the gym. Looking around he saw the girl sitting on the bench holding a small barbell in her hand, occasionally twirling it in her fingers like a baton. Dios, she was beautiful!

Noticing that he was awake, she smiled, put the barbell down, and walked over to him.

Even after having experienced the most incredible sex of his life, Carlos realized that he still didn't even know the girl's name. In fact, they hadn't even said a word to each other the whole time. He also realized that she hadn't needed to say a word in order to do what she had wanted to do. He had been completely helpless in her arms, those arms with the biceps that put any bodybuilder that he had ever seen to shame. The girl had been fucking incredible.

She had also been an incredible fucker.

As the girl began to put on her unusual read and black bikini, he recovered his breath enough to speak. Despite her black hair and dark tan she didn't quite look Hispanic. He decided to try first in Spanish any way.

The look on her face told him that she didn't understand any Spanish. He switched to English. He was pleased to see the look of comprehension on her face. He was even more pleased to learn that she didn't have any place to stay and that she was willing to come with him.

He was able to scrounge up a set of sweats for her, for Sirren, as he learned that she was called. After a quick shower he dressed and led her out the back way, the way she had come in. He saw how she had been able to get in, the lock had apparently rusted through and broken. He was able to jimmy it shut. That's one more thing we have to pay for, he thought to himself.

He debated whether to take her hand in his as they walked down the street. After what they had done in the gym, it would have been natural. However, he couldn't forget what she had done with that weight. Instead, he tried a different tack. "Have you had dinner yet? Are you hungry?" he asked. He knew that he didn't have that much money left in the bank, not until payday later that week. But for this girl, he knew that he'd spend his last dollar.

Sirren realized that she hadn't had anything to eat all day. And longer, she didn't know how long she had been unconscious at the bottom of the ocean. The last meal she had had was in the infantry captain's quarters aboard the ship, before they had worked it off in bed. "No, I haven't eaten. I don't know where to go." She had seen places where people were eating, but she didn't know whether they were public or private. And she wasn't sure of the value of the money that she had taken from the man who had offered her a ride into the city.

Carlos stopped at the corner. She saw him pull a plastic card out of his wallet and insert it into a machine in the wall. It appeared to be a primitive computer of some type, somewhat reminiscent of the public communications systems back home. As he pressed some of the buttons on it, she expected to see the face of the person he was calling. Instead, she was surprised when the machine ejected some money from a slot. "You get money from a machine?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he replied, putting the money and the plastic card back into his wallet. "I'd like to get more, but that's about all I've got. But it should be enough for dinner."

That was about all he's got? Squinting, she looked past the metal and plastic front of the machine. Focusing, she saw where the money had come from. She also saw that there was a lot more of it inside. "But there's a lot more money inside that machine," she told him.

He laughed. "Yeah, there probably is. But I can't get to it."

The machine didn't look to be that strong. After all, if these Terrans didn't use any super-dense alloys for weights, then they probably didn't build machines out of them either. "But I can. Would you like some more?"

Carlos laughed again. "Sure. Who wouldn't?" But apparently, she wasn't joking. Again he marveled at her strength as she seemingly effortlessly pushed him aside. Standing in front of the ATM she cocked her right arm. Then she drove her fist at the front of the ATM. And right through it! He saw and heard the steel shatter. Even through the baggy sweats he could see the muscles on her back and arms rippling as she used both hands to peel back the metal plate as if it was nothing more than aluminum foil. Reaching in, she pulled out the money cassette. Twisting it open, she withdrew the crisp twenties and handed them to him.

He was stunned. He barely recovered enough of his wits to accept the offered bills. Quickly looking around and seeing that they were alone, he hustled her around the corner and down the street, away from the scene of the crime.

As they ate dinner that night, he thought about the girl sitting across the table from him. With a girl like that, the gym's money problems were over. With her winning the state bodybuilding championship, the gym's business would boom. And if it didn't, well, there were plenty of other ATMs in the city.

He had realized that somehow this girl was connected with the fight that he had seen on the news a few days back. The one between the blonde flying girl who had brought down that alien spacecraft and the black-haired girl on the ground. No one knew who they were or what they had been fighting over.

But if he had his choice, this one would be fighting to get the gym back into the black.

After that little incident in Texas the military really started taking notice of us. Even if the general public didn't really want to believe that the alien Arions were trying to invade the Earth, the military could not just stand back and ignore the threat. They, of all people, couldn't afford to. There even was some talk of trying to move our agency under the wings of the Department of Defense.

It was a tough decision for us. The military had the resources we wanted, but they wanted control over our operation in exchange.

We decided to retain our autonomy, at least for the time being. Though we established liaisons with the Pentagon. In this way, we could call them for help when we needed more manpower or other resources, and they could call us for help when they needed Velorian or Arion muscles.

Of course not everybody in the military wanted us. Some of them, usually men, didn't want women like us around. Some of them didn't want women at the front, as the first line of defense against the Arions. Some of them just plain didn't want women around in the military at all.

At one Army post the commanding general scoffed at the idea that we were better suited to fighting the Arions than his soldiers were. Mom, Karen, and I had gone out to meet with him and his staff about possibly using his facilities as a training camp for our people. We had driven out to see the facilities in person. We were now standing by the obstacle course, where a platoon of soldiers had just gone through. As they were marching off, the general remarked that no woman could go through the obstacle course as well as a good man could.

"What's the course record, General?" Mom asked him, smiling sweetly. The general asked one of the instructors, who told her. "So, would you like to see whether any of us could break that record? Without any practice?"

"There's no way any of you could do that. That record was set by one of our best instructors. He knows this particular course inside and out. He helped design the current layout."

"I think that all three of us could easily break that course record. Not just break it, General, but shatter it."

"Impossible!"

"Would you care to place a little friendly wager on that, General?" Mom was smiling her best smile now. I knew that it was only a matter of time before the General surrendered in the face of that smile. After all, he might be a General, but he was still only a man.

Karen and I couldn't wait to take a crack at that course. We had seen the soldiers going through it, and we knew that we could easily do better than they had done. Easily, even if I didn't bother to fly. That would be too much like cheating, to fly over the wall and the ditch and stuff.

I had also been looking at the soldiers going through the course. I mean at the soldiers, not at the fatigues that they were wearing.

"Just what do you have in mind, Ma'am?"

"Oh, nothing big. Say, dinner at the Officers' Club tonight? If all three of us shave at least ten percent off of that record, you buy us dinner. If we fail, we buy dinner for you, your aide, and the current record holder."

"You're on, Ma'am. When would you like to try it?"

"How about right now? We have our work clothes with us. If you have some place where we could change?" Mom was referring to the Arion work clothes that we had liberated down in Texas.

"It's not much, but there is a storage building just over there," one of the instructors pointed out the building about fifty yards away.

"That would do fine. If you gentlemen would excuse us for a minute?" We grabbed our bags out of the jeep and headed off to change. The men didn't realize it, but we were going in there to change not to protect our modesty, but to protect theirs! While we changed, we discussed just how much we should show off, and just how much we should 'work' at it. For example, Mom didn't want us to just jump over that wall. But she said that it was okay if we just jumped up to the top and climbed over.

When we emerged in our Arion suits, we found that one more man had joined them. A tall well-built black man. He had the finely toned muscles of an athlete, not the bulkier muscles of a bodybuilder. Of course I took a peek. He looked just as good out of uniform as he did in uniform. The general introduced us to Drill Sergeant Harris, who held the course record. "Well, Drill Sergeant, either way somebody is going to buy you dinner tonight at the Officers' Club."

The instructors quickly went over the course, describing the various obstacles, and what qualified as passage and what qualified as cheating. Yep, as I had guessed earlier, flying was out of the question. Well, it actually wasn't forbidden; the Army hasn't dealt with too many soldiers who could fly. But we were supposed to 'climb' and 'run' and 'crawl', not 'fly'.

Drill Sergeant Harris started us off. We took off. We vaulted the wall, climbed the ropes, leaped over the ditch, and ran the rest of the course. Karen and I took it easy; letting Mom set the pace. And I knew that she wasn't going at full speed, either.

When we came across the finish line, the men's jaws were almost on the ground. They were looking at their stopwatches, or at least pretending to be. I thought that they were a little disappointed not to see our chests rising and falling more, but none of us were even breathing hard. Heck, Karen and I could have done the whole thing while holding our breaths.

"Well, General, how was that? I realize that we were slacking off a bit out there, but that should be good enough to earn us our dinners."

The general recovered his military bearing first. Well, some of it, anyway. "What do you mean, Ma'am, slacking off?"

"Julie and Karen, would you girls go through it again? Pull out a few more of the stops this time." She laughed, "I'm getting too old for this."

"Sure thing." Karen and I trotted over to the starting line, giggling all the way. Too old! We knew that Mom could keep doing this all day, just not as fast as a Velorian and a Prime. But still a lot faster than any of these soldiers could.

When Drill Sergeant Harris started us off, Karen took off down the course. I trotted over to the general. "Can I borrow your jeep?" Without waiting for an answer I picked it up and hoisted it up to shoulder height. Balancing it on my shoulder, I ran back to the course. I jumped over the wall. Using just one hand and my legs, and my flight powers, I went up the rope. I couldn't carry the jeep through the tunnel, so I had to put it down. After flying through the tunnel, I ran back and picked it back up. I caught up to Karen in the final sprint. After crossing the finish line, I trotted over to the general and put the jeep back where I had found it.

I still wasn't breathing hard, but I did put on a little show for their benefit, bending over more than was strictly necessary as I put the jeep down. The men certainly seemed impressed. I thought that they were also appreciative, judging from the looks in their eyes. And from what I could see, lower down.

They certainly were appreciative when we showed up for the promised dinner that evening, wearing short dresses and high heels. Karen especially loved wearing high heels; they made her appear taller. For her benefit, I wore heels a little lower than hers, but I was still about five inches taller than she was.

The General was a good loser. He threw quite a party for us. He introduced us to the other officers at the club as his special guests. Of course he couldn't tell everybody just what we had done to make us his special guests.

At the end of the delightful evening Mom and I practically had to drag Karen out of there. She kept wanting "One more dance with that cute officer." But she had already danced with all of them at least twice. Of course Mom and I got in a few dances with the officers ourselves; we weren't about to let Karen have all of the fun. And I got in more than a few dances with Drill Sergeant Harris.

I could certainly understand why Karen was reluctant to leave. I knew that I wanted to do some more dancing with Drill Sergeant Harris. And not the vertical kind that we had already been doing.

There definitely were some officers who no longer objected to having us women in the military. But then, I wasn't sure if I wanted Karen in there. Oh sure, unit morale would go through the roof, but the men wouldn't get much work done. Not with her around. Not if they didn't keep her occupied.

And not in THAT way. That would keep her occupied, but it would also keep all of the men occupied. Quite occupied. Happy, but occupied.

The Army did train us in a lot of stuff, including parachute jumping. Even I had to do it. And it was a little scary, not using my flight powers as I jumped out of an airplane two miles up. I knew that I could always fly out of trouble, but it was tough not to use my flight powers, instead relying on the big piece of silk.

Karen really seemed to enjoy parachuting. She called it "great fun". As for me, once I had gotten used to it, I just considered it a ridiculously slow way to get from the plane down to the ground.

They trained us on their communications equipment. They trained us on weapons and on explosives. They also gave us some classroom training, teaching us the rudiments of strategy and tactics. Not that anybody on Earth had any experience fighting against alien invaders. But some strategy and tactics always applied, whether you were fighting with clubs and stones, or with tactical nuclear weapons.

Of course not all of our training was from the Army. The Navy taught us about scuba diving. Even though I didn't need to breathe, again I had to learn how to use the gear. Mom and Karen couldn't hold their breaths as long as I could, so for them it was definitely beneficial. And while we could swim faster without fins than anybody else could with them, we also learned to be even faster with fins. Of course, since I could still 'fly' underwater, I was even faster. But again, Mom made me learn everything with them and to do them the 'normal' way. Or at least with her and with Karen.

And I did understand her point. At times it would be useful to keep some of our abilities under wraps.

However, the military wasn't the only organization taking notice of us.

We had tried to keep the incident out of the media, but that had turned out to be impossible. Not only had a local TV station lost one of their news helicopters, but the crew had been doing a live broadcast at the time. They had caught some footage of 'Supergirl' battling what obviously was an alien spacecraft.

The news crew on the other helicopter, from another station, had gotten it all. The fight in the sky. The first helicopter being shot down by the drop shuttle. My downing the drop shuttle. My battle with the female Prime on the ground.

In addition, there were a lot of migrant workers on the ground who had seen the battle in the sky. Most of them told their stories through interpreters. Not too many people wanted to believe the migrants, but the fact they all of the stories agreed with each other, and with the TV pictures, left many people with no doubt that something out of the ordinary had happened. And that somebody out of the ordinary had been involved.

In addition some ranchers had seen the ground fighting at the Arion base. They had also seen the same 'Supergirl' who had taken on that alien spacecraft.

The media really went bananas. They fell all over themselves trying to dig up more information about the 'Supergirl' of the 'Battle of the Rio Grande'. Old news stories were dug up again and played as if they were scoops of the decade.

The apartment fire in Denver. The snowbound bus. The stuff that I had hoped was long buried and forgotten. A TV station in Pennsylvania surprised us when they released footage of 'Supergirl' freeing the children after a school bus had hit a pickup truck and rolled over.

I had done that while I had been visiting Larry during my first year of college. I hadn't even known that I had been caught on tape. But now it was all over the network news shows. My darling husband didn't ask me what I had been doing in Pennsylvania, but I was sure that he knew.

There were also several stories out of the San Francisco Bay area. A couple of times while visiting George at Stanford, I had gotten involved in rescuing some people out of their crashed cars on the freeways. Of course my darling husband didn't need to ask me what I had been doing in California.

All the speculations began again. Everybody seemed to have their own pet theories as to who, or what, I was. They ranged all the way from 'Alien' to 'Zen Master'. Or rather, 'Zen Mistress'.

But not all of the speculation was about me. The media also went to work on the Arions. Just ordinary bad guys? Anybody who had tangled with a Prime would know better than that. And enough people had seen them at work. They had seen that the woman at the downed drop shuttle had given me quite a fight. They also ran the alphabet from Alien to Zen Master describing the Primes.

And then there was the question of motives. Why were we fighting? What were we fighting over? Which were the good guys and which were the bad guys?

At least public opinion was predominantly in my favor. I supposed that people preferred the cute blonde 'Supergirl' to whomever had been in that spacecraft. I knew that I did, but then I'm definitely not unbiased. Even if 'Supergirl' hadn't saved that helicopter. At least she wasn't the one who had shot it down in the first place.

CNN started the bidding for an exclusive interview with 'Supergirl' at half a million dollars. It didn't take long for the other networks to raise the bidding to well over a million. ESPN even wanted 'Supergirl' for some sports specials. Just some silly stuff, seeing how far I could throw a football and letting an entire team try to stop me. And seeing how far I could hit a baseball. But I stayed away from all of them, we thought that I could do more good if I stayed out of the public spotlight for as much as possible.

Playboy and Penthouse also got into a bidding war, trying to get 'Supergirl' for a pictorial, or even for a centerfold. I didn't even bother to try to contact them. But Karen thought that it would be 'great fun', in her words. She even thought about revealing herself as an Arion and posing for a centerfold. Mom and I didn't think that she was too serious about it, but we kept an eye on her just in case. Not that keeping an eye on my Prime cousin was too onerous a task. She would make a pretty good centerfold. Especially when flexing.

A number of young blonde women tried to cash in on all of the media attention, trying to impersonate 'Supergirl'. But none of them could convincingly do any of the things that had been captured on film. How could they? I was still the only Velorian on the planet.

And the stuff that started appearing on the World Wide Web on the Internet! I'm not even going to say anything else about that! Even my darling husband ignored that trash. Mostly. He did show me some of the pictures that he found out there. That's enough. I said that I wasn't going to say anything else about that stuff.

We again discussed going public with the information. But we weren't sure what would happen if we tried to tell people that the planet was being invaded. How do you tell a nation, and a world, that they're being invaded? And that their vaunted military forces are powerless against the Primes? That their only hope is the cute blonde 'Supergirl' that most everybody seems to like?

At least that incident in Texas settled the question once and for all about whether there really was a Velorian Planetary Protector here on Earth. I'm sure that the Arions thought there was, in the form of yours truly. We knew that there wasn't, that the only Velorian presence on the planet was here only because her mother's lifeboat crashed here. It wasn't the answer we had hoped for, but one that we were prepared to accept.

Not that we had much choice in the matter. We had to accept the fact that I was the only Velorian here, whether we wanted to or not. And I had to accept that fact that Protector or not, I was going to have to behave as one.

Karen showed us the briefcase computers that we had gotten from the four women in New York. They were not much bigger than the laptop computers that we were all familiar with, my darling husband had half a dozen of them around the house and Steve had a couple, even while he was still playing with the Broncos. But these things had enough computing power to rival the biggest and fastest Terran supercomputers. They had special adapters that let them run off of the normal 110VAC available down here on Earth.

Not only did they have a processor capable of nearly a teraflop, but they had graphics systems that would have allowed us to make something even better than the best Hollywood special effects. And they also had sophisticated communications systems. If it wasn't for the communications system that Karen had already set up, we wouldn't have been able to even detect the communications signals.

She explained that she had had one of these while she had been in Los Angeles. The one she had in the Aleutians had been destroyed during my battle with Meelek. She was really happy to get her hands on one of these things, let alone four.

Steve and George practically fell all over each other examining them. Mike and Rob itched to take one apart to see what made it tick, but Karen wouldn't let them take one apart, preferring to keep all four of them intact and operational. She could use them to intercept and analyze the Arion communications that the system we had retrieved from Alaska couldn't.

"You can dismantle one the day I let Linda dissect me," Karen told them, smiling at Linda. Linda smiled back.

"I'll help you sharpen the scalpels," Mike offered, even though he knew that nobody was ever going to dissect one of us. Everyone laughed.

"I'll hold her down," I offered. Karen stuck her tongue out at me as another round of laughter ensued.

Karen did let George bring one home. Several times I practically had to force my darling husband to leave the computer alone and come to bed. That was a blow to my ego. I've never had any problems with getting men into bed before, at least not since my manifestation. Now I had serious competition from a computer! I had always known that my darling husband had a thing for computers, but to spend more time with one than with a woman? A Velorian woman at that? A computer? Hmmph!

I actually had to force him to take his hands off of the computer and put his hands on something else, namely me. But he didn't mind too much. He had a thing for my body almost as long as he'd had a thing for computers. And I could do some things to him that a computer just couldn't, no matter how advanced it was. He didn't mind those things too much, either.

And those computers did come in handy, in their own way. Even if it meant additional work for me. Considering the alternatives, I didn't mind. Not at all.

Karen had intercepted some messages from the Arion ship. She couldn't decode all of it, but she had determined that one repeated piece was a date and a time. Another was a code word for whatever was going to happen at that time. Apparently they were planning something at that time. But where? I couldn't be everywhere at once.

As we continued to monitor the Arion communications, it became clear that the code word was only being used in communications with a group of Arions somewhere in the South Pacific. But what could they be planning? What was going to happen at that time? Just where was it going to happen?

It was Linda who first stumbled across it. "Isn't there a space shuttle mission that week?" We immediately had her use her connections with NASA to track it down. But they wouldn't tell us much, just that yes, the shuttle was going up that week, and no, they couldn't tell us what it would be doing, just that it was a classified military mission.

A classified military mission? Mom immediately got on the phone to our liaisons at the Pentagon. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was the mission director from NASA. He started telling us about the mission. I asked him if a certain code word and date and time meant anything to him.

He was very surprised. "B-b-but how did you know about that? That's one of the most closely held secrets about this mission."

As far as we were concerned that clinched it. It was too much to be a coincidence, down to the exact minute. We got more details from NASA and the Air Force.

It was to be an Air Force experiment, testing something that involved both something aboard the shuttle and a ground station on a remote island in the South Pacific. Apparently it wouldn't do the Arions much good to just destroy the shuttle, they had to disrupt the experiment as it was happening. I didn't understand all of the technical details.

When I said so, Steve muttered something under his breath about blonde bimbos, just loud enough for me to hear, no one else. I smiled and wagged a finger at him, letting him know that this blonde bimbo was going to make the big jock pay for his words. But after this thing, we had our priorities.

We started making preparations. Mom coordinated things with the NASA and Air Force security people. We didn't know what the Arions were planning to do on the ground, if anything at all. We decided to put the strongest person we had available on that South Pacific Island. That meant Karen. To counter her inexperience we decided to send Nancy and Ted with her.

"That's a switch," Nancy said, smiling and taking Ted's hand in hers. "Being the brains of the team instead of the brawn."

"Hey! What's that make me?" Ted asked.

"Why, darling, you're the balls of the team," Nancy answered him, grinning from ear to ear as Ted turned red.

Mom and Linda would be on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base for the landing; all four of our women were equipped with the Arion laser rifles. Even though Linda hadn't been trained for field action, we just didn't have anybody else available that could handle a laser rifle. But Mark would be with her, and Mom would also be nearby. We didn't know what to expect, but all of our people knew that if any Primes showed up, that they should try to stay out of sight and out of danger.

I, on the other hand, wouldn't be on the ground. I would go up and meet it up in space a couple of orbits before the experiment, and discreetly escort it through the remainder of its journey. Even though we were coordinating things with the NASA security people and the military, the shuttle crew was kept in the dark. Naturally, so was the media.

At least there would only be one space shuttle. It wasn't going to be like the James Bond movie "Moonraker" with Roger Moore and Lois Chiles. There James had to deal with a fleet of space shuttles.

I would be wearing that Arion field uniform. The straps and the cape. This would be the first time I'd actually worn it in action, assuming that I got into any action this trip. I had worn it while flying somewhere, preferring not to fly nude if I could help it. And of course I had worn it in the bedroom for my darling husband. But this time, it wouldn't be that kind of action.

We had managed to dye the top half of the uniform a blue, to somewhat match my eyes. The bottom was still mostly red, but we had replaced the black trim with some gold trim, to match my hair. We had also changed the tint on the cape so that it wasn't the blood red of the Arion Empire. The entire color scheme was reminiscent of the costume worn by 'Supergirl' in the comic books, except that there was much less of it on me than on 'Supergirl'. Mom said that it was the proper color scheme for a Velorian Planetary Protector.

"I don't know if Julie should be allowed to wear that cape," Karen said to Mom, smiling, as I modeled it for them. "Has she earned it yet?"

Mom laughed. "Where would you be right now if she hadn't come along?"

I had no idea what they were talking about. "Hey! What's this all about? Why shouldn't I wear the cape? It's a part of the outfit, isn't it?"

Mom and Karen explained that the 'campaign cape' was only issued to Arions who had successfully completed their first operational assignment in the face of the enemy.

"Hey, wait a sec! I took that cape from a Warrior Prime! Doesn't that count? Isn't that 'in the face of the enemy'? And she wasn't the first one that I defeated in combat. If it wasn't for me, you'd still be up in Alaska with Meelek." I stuck my tongue out at Karen. "What about you, you nasty Prime? Have you earned your 'campaign cape'?"

She stuck her tongue out at me. "Of course I did. I earned mine for completing my first operational assignment, in Los Angeles."

"What! LA! You earned it by being in BED? That counts?" I leered at her.

She leered back, but she was beginning to turn a little red. "Hey! I did my job!"

"Girls, girls! Settle down!" Mom quickly exerted her control over the discussion.

Karen then went on to explain that she had buried her twin brother in her own campaign cape. "Korek earned it, he freed Julie so that she could save me."

There was nothing else that anybody could add to that.

So anyway here I was, in that modified Arion field uniform, with the cape, heading up into space to rendezvous with the shuttle in orbit. Our people were already in California and in the South Pacific. I could see the shuttle up ahead, only a couple of thousand miles away now and heading away from me. I flexed my thighs a bit and accelerated, catching up to it a few minutes later over the Atlantic Ocean. As the shuttle continued on over Africa and the Indian Ocean I had myself a little fun, flying loops and barrel rolls around it, being careful to keep far enough away so that the crew wouldn't spot me.

Even as I frolicked, though, I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of Arions. We didn't know what they intended to do, whether they were going to just shoot it down, or capture it on the ground after landing, or what. I hoped that they didn't want to destroy it. If that was all they wanted to do, they could have done that easily at any time while it was in orbit. We believed that the Arions were intending to somehow disrupt the experiment, but how far could we trust them?

When the cargo bay doors opened to prepare for the experiment, I withdrew about ten miles. I didn't want the crew to see me and get any wrong ideas about what I was doing up here. I also didn't want to interfere with whatever they were going to be doing.

Then I saw it. An Arion drop shuttle, just like the one I had destroyed in Texas. It was still over five thousand miles away, approaching rapidly on an intercept course. It was moving faster than anything else I've ever seen. Except for me, of course.

I scanned the space around us to see whether there were any more. I didn't want to be lured away by a decoy. There weren't any more, just that one drop shuttle. I veered off and flexed my legs, accelerating to intercept it before it could intercept us.

As I approached the Arion drop shuttle I looked inside it. I could see that the crew, a man and a woman, were both mere Betas. I expected that, both Mom and Karen had told me that Primes seldom went in for that kind of work. In a passenger compartment were two more Betas, a man and a woman. I looked in the cargo bay. It was mostly empty, just two men and two women in some kind of spacesuits.

Spacesuits? Focusing in, I couldn't tell whether they were Primes or Betas. Apparently the spacesuits were shielded somehow. But I figured that they had to be Betas. I knew from experience that Primes wouldn't need spacesuits to protect them from the vacuum.

Still thinking that it might be a decoy. I looked around again. But there was nothing else around. No other Arion craft. Just the usual space debris, old satellites and stuff like that. One day I may have to offer my services to NASA to clean up this trash.

At least this time the pilot was flying the drop shuttle. She was the pilot, wasn't she? Wasn't it her job to fly the drop shuttle?

The copilot was monitoring the instruments, scanning for anything unusual and out of the ordinary. He raised his eyes from the display to rest them for a moment, looking out the canopy in order to let his eyes focus on something distant. And you couldn't get any more distant than the stars out there.

Their orders were to intercept the Terran spacecraft and let the special combat team in the cargo bay go do their job. A simple job. The Terran craft didn't have the speed or maneuverability that the drop shuttle had. There was no way it could evade them.

There! He thought that he could see the sun glinting off of the Terran spacecraft. Spacecraft, bah! The primitive vessel didn't even have the range to reach the large natural satellite circling the planet, let alone another planet in the system.

He looked again. It took him a second to locate it again. Stars, the Terran spacecraft wasn't moving that fast, was it? No, there were two objects out there.

Two? It couldn't be. He checked the instruments again. One Terran spacecraft, right where it should be. Then what was that other object out there? He looked out the canopy again. It appeared to be much closer now. He brought the vision enhancer to bear on the object.

No! It couldn't be! Not here! Stars! How had she found out about this mission?

"Pilot! Break off!" he yelled out to her. "Velorian approaching! Starboard bow!"

He felt himself being pushed into his seat as the drop shuttle slowed down and turned to port, paralleling the Terran spacecraft. Now even without the vision enhancer he could see the Velorian Planetary Protector approaching. He quickly switched on the recording devices. Just as he thought that she was going to hit, she pulled up. She matched their trajectory, just hanging there outside the canopy, with her hands on her hips.

She was the first Velorian that he had ever actually seen. And Stars, she was beautiful! Tall, slender, golden hair, and what breasts! She was absolutely magnificent! Her breasts were even bigger than Koren's had been. And he knew that her strength was much more than Koren's half Prime strength had been. Stars! She was a Velorian Planetary Protector; she was much stronger than any full Prime.

Thinking about Koren awakened the ache in his heart. Oh, Koren! Are you still alive down there somewhere? Or had this beautiful Velorian killed you?

Never in his wildest dreams would he imagine that Koren and this Velorian now were cousins in public and frequent lovers in private.

As I got closer the drop shuttle suddenly veered off, flying parallel to the space shuttle. If they weren't going to threaten the space shuttle, then I might not have to kill the Betas. I slowed down to match its trajectory and just 'stood' there beside the cockpit, my hands on my hips.

I could see that the man in the right seat clearly though the canopy. He definitely looked like he hadn't expected to see me. But at least one part of him seemed to be enjoying the view.

The woman was on the far side. She appeared to be flying the drop shuttle; she kept her hands and her eyes on the controls, after sparing one quick look at me.

After about a minute the drop shuttle tried to go around me. I maintained my relative position, making it clear to the crew that I wasn't going to let them go any further.

Then a hatch in the back of the drop shuttle opened and the Arions in the spacesuits came out, little fires flaring out of the soles of their boots. Apparently there were some kind of rockets in the boots allowing them to 'fly'. Two of them came towards me while the other two started trying to go around me towards the space shuttle.

I zoomed towards the nearest one, a woman, and punched a hole in her helmet as she wrapped her arms around me. I could see the air hiss out through the hole but that didn't loosen her grip around my waist. A Prime! What a blonde! I had thought that just because she was wearing a spacesuit that she had to have been a Beta, that she couldn't have been a Prime.

As I tried to get out of her embrace the other one, a man, came up behind me and got his arms around my neck. I managed to kick a hole in his spacesuit, but that didn't slow him down at all. Damn! Were all four of them Primes?

I struggled to get out of their grasps. I felt the woman's hand going under my left breast for the heart, her glove disintegrating between her hand and my chest. I managed to bring my knee up between her legs and kicked her in the crotch. As her grip loosened I kicked her again, sending her spinning away from me. At the same time I brought my elbows back against the man behind me. I managed to squirm out of his grasp as the woman came out of her spin and came back for me.

I immediately flexed my legs and flew out of there, heading 'down'. Even with their rockets they couldn't match my speed or my maneuverability. With two Primes chasing me, I chased the two heading towards the space shuttle. When they saw me coming after them, they split up.

I went after the one on the right, a man. He rolled and turned, trying to shake me off. I kept going right at him. As he started to turn to face me, I put on a burst of speed. But instead of going right at him I went for his feet. I got my hands around his ankles. He flailed his legs, trying to shake me off. I gripped harder. I didn't think that I could really hurt him this way, but that wasn't what I was trying for. I squeezed his ankles and his boots. His rockets sputtered and died, completely mangled in my grip.

Without his rockets he was helpless in space. I flung him away from the space shuttle just as the two pursuers caught up to us. Putting on another burst of speed I evaded them and went after the woman going after the space shuttle.

She had made it about half the way there when I caught up to her. As she banked and turned I tried for her ankles. I only got one of them, but I quickly shredded her boot. With only one rocket she started to spin. But she quickly got herself under control and turned to face me. I dived for her remaining boot. She kicked me in the head with her other foot.

Ow! That hurt! The impact sent me reeling. But the recoil also sent her spinning away in the opposite direction. With only one rocket she seemed to be having trouble getting herself back under control.

But as I stopped my own spinning I felt a burning sensation on my back. A laser cannon! The drop shuttle was shooting at me. But I couldn't take the time to take care of it; I still had three Primes to deal with. I juked left, right, left again, and then headed for the woman again.

She was still spinning out of control when I reached her. I matched her spin and got a hold of her ankle, quickly mangling the rocket on her foot. I then flung her away from the space shuttle, towards the first man.

I turned and tried to find the other two Primes. Oh no! Instead of coming after me they were now going after the space shuttle. I immediately took off after them, weaving slightly to keep the laser cannon on the drop shuttle from getting a good shot at me.

They had too great a head start on me. I might be able to catch one of them, but the other could ruin whatever the space shuttle crew was trying to do. Hell, one Warrior Prime could destroy the space shuttle!

Out of desperation I focused my heat vision on one of the boot rockets that I could see through the exhaust flaring towards me. That didn't seem to have much of an effect on it. But I was desperate; I kept pouring on both the heat and the speed. I was flying faster than I've ever flown before. I was also putting more energy into my heat vision than I've done before. Suddenly there was an explosion and the Prime, the woman, began to spin out of control.

Aha! My heat vision might not destroy the rocket, but it apparently could take out the fuel supply. Or whatever it was that they used for fuel to power those rockets.

Leaving her spinning, I focused my heat vision on one of the man's boots. I was working it from the sole of his boot to half the way up to his knee when his fuel tank also exploded, sending him spinning away.

They managed to regain control, but with only one rocket each, it didn't take me much time to catch up to them. I kept my heat vision on the remaining rockets, exploding their fuel tanks as I closed in on them.

Knowing that they couldn't get to the space shuttle, they both turned to face me. I wasn't in the mood to take on two Primes in a fight at the same time. I really wasn't in the mood to take on even one, but I didn't have much choice in the matter. I couldn't just leave them there.

They couldn't do much more than just float there in space. I circled behind them. As they tried to turn around to face me I zoomed in on the man. Getting my hands around his ankles I hurled him around and flung him away from the space shuttle.

I then turned around to face the woman just as she closed her arms around my waist. We fought there, floating in space, for a few minutes. Each time that I hit her another piece of her spacesuit floated off into space. Soon she was wearing not much more than her field uniform, an outfit just like mine except for the color.

When she let go of me to try to hit me I flexed everything at once and zoomed out of there. She flailed around for a moment, trying to reach me, but without being able to fly she had no chance. I circled back behind her. Just as I got to her she turned her head and looked towards the space shuttle.

I grabbed her and flung her away from the space shuttle just as two faint purple beams shot out of her eyes towards the space shuttle. No! If her heat vision was even half as effective as mine, she could really do a number on the astronauts and the space shuttle.

As I flung her away I disrupted her aim enough to keep her from hitting the space shuttle. But her heat vision sliced through one of the astronaut's tether lines. He was beginning to drift away from the space shuttle.

I gave her a kick to speed her on her way. Then I went after the astronaut. I didn't know how much air he had with him, but I knew that there was no way that he was going to get back to the space shuttle by himself. As I got closer I could see that he was afraid of me. He had probably seen some of the fight, but he had no way to know which side I was on.

I got a hand on his spacesuit. I carried him back towards the space shuttle. I left him in the cargo bay, holding on to a handhold while another astronaut began to open the airlock.

With the four Primes out of the action, the only remaining threat was the drop shuttle. I looked around for it. There! But it was headed away from the space shuttle. Where was it going? Had the Arions given up?

Then I saw what it was doing. It was going after the first two Primes.

After looking around to make sure that there were no other Arion craft in the vicinity, I positioned myself between the two spacecraft, keeping an eye on the Arion one. After picking up the two Primes, it turned around and started coming towards me. But I could see that it wasn't going towards the space shuttle, it was going towards the woman.

I kept myself between the two spacecraft as the drop shuttle picked up first the woman and then the man. Then it turned around and headed away. But as it turned I thought that I saw the man in the cockpit give me a salute and a wave. At least I thought that it was a salute. It could have been the Arion equivalent of the finger, but somehow I didn't think so. Not from the look on his face.

I stayed with the shuttle as it orbited the Earth another couple of dozen times. I kept my eyes peeled for any further signs of the Arions, but I never saw them again. Apparently that one encounter had been enough for them.

Then as we were over the Pacific Ocean the shuttle's thrusters fired and the shuttle rolled right side up. The nose pitched down and it began the reentry. Soon the shuttle was glowing a bright red as it heated up from the friction. I stayed right on its tail, basking in the warmth, both from my own reentry and the reflected heat from the shuttle. And in the warmth that comes from accomplishing a mission successfully.

I followed the shuttle down, staying a discreet distance behind it and still keeping my eyes open for Arions. It banked left over Rogers Dry Lake and headed towards Edwards AFB. I dropped back further when the Air Force chase planes caught up to us. I circled overhead as the shuttle landed.

That was quite a sight. It was the first time that I've ever seen the space shuttle land. Other than on TV, of course. I'd seen a takeoff before, up close and personal. Though I was sure that NASA wouldn't have approved of the way I had done it, that close and personal. Not that I had asked for their approval, anyway.

I had flown down to Cape Canaveral for a pre-dawn shuttle launch a few years earlier, before the Arions had shown up. After the crew had boarded and most of the gantries had been pulled away, I had flown down to the launch pad directly below those big booster engines. I had lain on my back on the concrete pad as the engines had ignited, sending gouts of flames down at me. That had felt SO good! I had lain there for several minutes until the warmth had faded; leaving me half buried in the melted concrete.

Anyway, after the shuttle had landed I also landed and sought out our command post. I checked in with Mom and reported on the Arion drop shuttle that I had chased away from the space shuttle. She told me that Ted had reported that nothing had happened on that South Pacific Island. After accepting the thanks and the congratulations from her and from the others, especially the astronaut that I had rescued, I left for home. But first I asked her whether I could borrow something of hers for the night.

I knew that it would take Mom at least a day to wrap everything up and come home. So I had that much time on my hands. My darling husband was out of town on another business trip. But I had to take care of some business of my own. Something to do with a jock who had called me a blonde bimbo.

A couple of minutes later I landed on the balcony outside my old bedroom. Karen's room, now. Using the secret catch I opened the door and went in. I had seen that Steve was downstairs in the gym, so I closed the door and headed down there.

Steve had just finished his daily workout and was relaxing in the steam room; his only garment the white towel around his waist. His whole family was away on this space shuttle business. His wife was in California, his niece was on an island somewhere in the South Pacific, and his daughter was somewhere out in space. The ideal place for a ditzy blonde, he thought slyly, though he knew that she was anything but ditzy.

No, that blonde daughter of his definitely had her head on straight. She was the most powerful person on the planet, and she definitely had not let that go to her head. She took her responsibilities seriously, as the de facto Protector of the planet.

He thought back to the stories of his daughter's battles with the Arions. With the evil invading Arions, he corrected himself. He had knowledge of two other Arions that could not be considered evil. Personal, intimate knowledge of them. They, along with his Velorian daughter, were at the forefront of the planet's defenses against the Arions. They were also close-knit members of his family, though there were no blood ties between any of them.

He felt a little guilty, not doing anything while everyone else around him was working. But he knew that he would only get in the way if he stayed at the labs. Best to leave this work for the specialists who had been trained for it. Just as he had sat on the bench while the Broncos offense was driving with the ball.

Just then the door to the steam room opened and his blonde daughter walked in, wearing that Arion uniform. Closing the door, she spun around, twirling that red cape and making the steam swirl around with it. Then she began to dance in front of him, floating a couple of inches above the floor. He was mesmerized, he couldn't take his eyes away from her gorgeous body.

She stopped dancing with her smiling face just inches from his. The look in her eyes told him just what she wanted from him. The tongue licking her lips only confirmed it. "There, was that blonde bimbo enough for you?" she asked. He remembered calling her that during the last staff meeting, though not out loud, for her Velorian ears only. She then placed her little finger in the middle of his chest and began to force him down and back onto the warm redwood bench. "Or do you prefer your 'blonde' bimbos' like this?" she asked as she pinned him to the bench with just her little finger.

The wood bench was more than warm, it was hot! He didn't think that it would actually burn him, but it was decidedly uncomfortable. He tried to squirm out of her one-finger hold but he couldn't. His slender daughter was holding him, a former professional football player, down with just a single finger!

She must have sensed his discomfort. "Oh, is it too hot in here for you?" She loosened her hold as her finger slid down his stomach. As he raised his back off of the bench she hooked her finger into his towel. "It might be better if you weren't wearing so much." Before he could stop her she ripped his towel off.

There, that was better. Now I had him completely naked. Using the handle he has in front of him I lifted him up off of the hot wooden bench. While all men have the handle, I could only use it in this way on the two enhanced men in my family. I carried him out of the steam room and laid him down on the mat in the gym.

I wasn't quite ready to take him yet. That would be too much like a 'blonde bimbo'. I wanted him to try to treat me as one; I wasn't going to act as one. Pinning him down with a finger again, I lay down beside him. I then released him and rolled him over on top of me.

He found himself on top of her, one of her barely covered breasts just inches from his face, her large nipple tenting the thin blue fabric. He knew what she wanted him to do. He also knew that it didn't matter whether he wanted to do it or not. And with the sweet fragrance of honey and wildflowers filling his nostrils he wanted to do it. Oh yes, he wanted to make love to the beautiful woman lying underneath him, her golden hair spread out over her red cape. "C'mon, treat me like a blonde bimbo," she whispered to him, as if he needed any more encouragement.

He brought his hands up to her breast, intending to sweep away the thin fabric barely covering the nipple. Much to his surprise he discovered that he couldn't remove the garment. He couldn't even move it a fraction of an inch. It was as if it had been painted on her body. Try as he would, he just couldn't get his fingers under it, the flesh of her firm breast resisting all of his efforts to compress it. He tried to pinch the portion tenting up over her nipple in order to pull it off. But it just would not come off of her.

"C'mon, I thought that you liked undressing blonde bimbos," she taunted him.

He tried again, with the same results. He realized that the Arion garment was somehow sticking to her body, that it was going to take the strength of an Arion Prime to remove it. Or the strength of a Velorian. Far more strength than he possessed.

"Ahh, do I have to do everything?" she taunted him again. But her hand came up to her breast. With absolutely no signs of effort she slid her fingers under the fabric and scooped her breast out.

He immediately began lightly flicking his tongue over her exposed nipple. Then he closed his mouth over her nipple and began suckling. He could feel her breast softening even as the nipple itself grew larger and hardened even more.

Ahh, that felt good! Steve was the man who had the most experience in pleasing a Supremis woman, and it showed. I could feel the wetness between my legs as he first teased and then attacked my one exposed breast with everything he had. It felt so good!

Soon I was ready for more. Lifting him off of me I quickly stripped off the uniform the rest of the way. I then lifted him up and placed him back on top of me, between my legs. He immediately thrust himself into me and began pumping. Having that big heavy body on top of mine felt so good, as my breasts flattened slightly under his muscular chest. I gradually tightened my inner muscles around his hard enhanced manhood.

Soon he was having difficulty moving himself inside of me. I placed my hands on his hips and lent him my strength. I used him to stroke myself, keeping myself tight around him to delay his orgasm until mine approached.

After we climaxed together he rolled himself off of me. Standing up, I picked him up under one arm and began walking up the stairs. My free hand began caressing his body. Before we reached the top floor he was ready for me again. And I certainly was ready for him again.

I stopped in the middle of the stairway. I swung him around, upside down. With my hands on his waist I drew his manhood towards my mouth as he grabbed my thighs to pull his face towards my sex. His tongue darted into my slit as I licked his throbbing cock. I could taste him, mingled with my own juices. I stood there holding him as we both serviced each other.

When we were finished I righted him. I cradled him in my arms against my breasts as I finished the journey to the master bedroom. I laid him down upon the bed and lay down next to him, giving him a chance to recover.

But not for too long. When he was ready I threw a leg over him and mounted him. His hands came up to my breasts as I pumped my legs. Again I tightened myself around him, delaying his release until mine approached.

Afterwards I stayed on top of him, holding his hands to my breasts. "There, was that a 'blonde bimbo'?"

"No way, Julie. I'll never call you a 'blonde bimbo' again," he said, smiling up at me.

I smiled back at him. "That's too bad. I guess that I'll just have to find some other reason to 'punish' you, then." I bent down and kissed him.

I finally let him up for air as I started to get off of him. "When you're wearing that outfit, you're 'Superbimbo'," he said, grinning from ear to ear.

I froze, on one knee with the other one raised over his body. "What!" I reached down and got my left hand under his ass. "I'll show you 'Superbimbo'!" I lifted him up and thrust him into me again. My right arm went around his neck, bringing his face up to mine so that my lips could find his. Balancing us on one knee I took him again, using his entire body as a huge dildo.

Afterwards I left him resting while I went downstairs to fix us dinner. It wasn't a fancy dinner, but it beat the take-out that he had been planning on getting. And I could have eaten anything; I had been out in space for over a day without any food.

After dinner I left to let him get some sleep. After all, he was going to have to deal with Mom tomorrow. And I knew that she wouldn't forgive me if I left Steve too exhausted to welcome her home properly.

Besides, I had to go and make sure that Mike and Rob were okay.

Everybody else got back the next day. Even the ones from the South Pacific, the Air Force had used one of their fast transports for our people. There had been no action on the ground, apparently when I had intercepted the Arion drop shuttle they had decided to cancel the ground portion of the attack. Or else there had been no ground portion planned at all. After debriefings at the office, we met at Mom and Steve's house for dinner. Then afterwards Mom showed us the video.

Not everybody on the space shuttle had been involved with that experiment. One of the astronauts had spotted some flashes of light, probably from the explosions of the boot rockets. They had quickly gotten the telescopes and the cameras into action. It was a little fuzzy, but there was yours truly, fighting it out with the two Primes as we orbited the Earth only a couple of miles from the space shuttle.

Through the telephoto lens you could see me flinging the man away from the space shuttle. You could see me fighting the woman. You could also see her spacesuit disintegrating from the combat, her incredible muscles flexing. There we were, two nearly naked women, one with black hair in the red and black, yours truly with golden hair in the blue and red, battling it out.

Then there I was, saving that astronaut. The beautiful (if I say so myself) blonde woman in the skimpy outfit carrying the man in the big bulky spacesuit through the vacuum of space.

Obviously this tape had immediately been classified. The media would have a field day if they ever got their hands on it.

I wondered what Danny would do if I gave him a copy of the tape for his collection. He'd probably cream his shorts just from watching not one but two half-naked superwomen, battling it out in space.

I had to admit, the two women looked good. Of course, the blonde looked better, but the other one had incredible muscles. Much bigger than even Karen's were.

Karen and I were down in the Arizona desert tracking some smugglers bringing arms up from Mexico. It appeared to be an operation similar to the one Karen had been with, up in Alaska. That would mean at least one Arion Prime. I hoped that it didn't mean more.

After sunset I flew us into the area where we suspected them to be. The Air Force had been nice to us and provided us with some satellite pictures that showed some vehicles moving in and out of the area. The Army had been alerted; they had several armored battalions ready to move in if needed.

But just in case there were any Primes, I had to go in first. The Army's best main battle tanks would be no match for even one Prime. Even Betas equipped with Arion weapons would give the Army a tough battle, with heavy casualties quite possible. And expected. On our side.

Not that I really considered myself a match for a bunch of seasoned veteran Primes. I wasn't exactly looking forward to battling any Primes. Not after my previous experiences. Still, there were no other options available to us. Karen certainly wasn't about to take on any Primes by herself, though she could take on any Betas or Terrans we ran across.

We were going across the desert when I saw the moonlight reflecting off of something shiny. Looking closer, I saw some glass under a layer of mud and some camouflage netting. It was the windshield of an RV, hidden next to a dry stream bed. I tried to peek inside, but the cabins seemed to be lined with lead foil or something, I couldn't see into the interiors. That in of itself was more than a little suspicious.

I landed us on the other side of the stream, on a rise between two ravines. We slowly crept up to the top so we could get a better look. We couldn't see anybody. Then, just to make life even more difficult for us, it started to rain. A typical desert cloudburst, it probably would rain like hell for five minutes and then stop.

Then I heard something behind us in the rain, a splashing sound that wasn't caused by the rain. I turned around and I saw them sneaking up behind us. Especially him. The big guy. The Prime. I didn't care about the other two, they were obviously Betas. Yelling out a warning for Karen, I immediately flew at the Prime. I caught him by surprise; he must not have been expecting to meet a Velorian out here. My outstretched fists hit him in the chest and knocked him back about a hundred yards against a hillside. And two feet into the soft dirt and mud of the hillside.

As I came around for another pass at him, he ripped up a big chunk of the hill and threw it at me. I barely managed to avoid it and flew around behind him. Boring right through the soft sandstone, I came at him from below and behind. This time I sent him flying about half a mile.

He landed on top of a saguaro cactus, which immediately collapsed under him. So did the sandstone boulder next to the cactus. And the next one. He plowed through about twenty feet of boulders before coming to a stop amidst the shattered sandstone. Then he quickly sprang up to his feet, looking around for me.

From his reactions, you'd think that I hadn't done anything more physical to him than to plant a kiss on his cheek. Actually, a kiss might have had more of an effect than my blow. At the least it probably would have surprised him more. He would expect blows from a Velorian, but not kisses. But I wasn't about to go down there and kiss him.

As I circled around and above him, he picked up a boulder the size of a luxury car and threw it at me. I managed to catch it in mid-air and send it back down at him. He dodged it as it shattered upon impact. While he was distracted I flew around behind him. I got my legs around him and pinned one of his arms to his side. I thought about going for his heart, like that woman had tried to do to me the last time, but I wasn't sure exactly how to do it. Instead I took his head in my hands and tried to twist it off of his shoulders.

Once again, I wished that I had some clothes that could take the wear and tear I often subjected them to. My jeans disintegrated as I put everything I had into holding him between my legs as his one free hand tried prying my legs apart. The front of my shirt fell apart, caught between my breasts and his head.

He first used his one free arm to try to pry my legs apart. When that failed, he started trying to hit my head with his huge fist.

With his almost completely naked body slicked down by the rain, I started losing my grip. At least I hoped that it was slick from the rain, not from my own juices. I usually do enjoy having a man between my legs, but an Arion Prime? No way could I be enjoying this. I was in a fight for my life. I knew that he would just as soon kill me as fuck me.

He wrenched free his trapped arm just as he pushed me back against a boulder. The boulder shattered around me as my legs loosened their hold.

As I lay there on my back amidst the fragments of the boulder he pounced on me. I managed to get my legs up and kicked him just as he came down. He went flying across the desert and into a cliff. I went after him.

When I got there, all I could see was a hole in the cliff. I didn't see him inside. I hovered just before the hole, looking around for him.

Then I found him. Or rather, he found me. He had apparently burrowed his way to the top, for he jumped down at me from the top of the cliff. I saw him coming from out of the corner of my eye, and moved aside just in time. Almost. As he plummeted by, he reached out and grabbed my left ankle, breaking his fall.

Damn! Just what is it about my legs that seems to attract Primes? Just about every male Prime I've ever met has hung from my legs at one time or another during a fight. I'd always thought that I had shapely legs, but this was getting ridiculous. And tiresome.

Well, if this guy likes my leg so much, let's see if he can handle both of them. As he started to climb up my left leg, I wrapped my right leg around his waist. I managed to turn him around so that I was behind him, with both of my legs wrapped around his waist, holding him tight. I was still flying above the desert floor, so he couldn't get any leverage with his legs. They just flailed wildly.

I again took his head in my hands and tried to twist it off of his shoulders. I could feel and see his neck muscles bulge as he tried to keep his head on straight. I felt his hands on my thighs, straining to break the grip of my legs. I strained harder, both with my legs and with my hands. I turned his head to the left. As he resisted with all of his strength, I dug my right heel into his balls. At his grunt of pain I suddenly reversed direction, twisting his head to the right. With his own muscles also trying to turn his head that way, I got his head turned all the way to the right until he was practically kissing his own shoulder. When he braced his neck muscles again, I kicked him again in the balls and suddenly wrenched his head the other way, back to the left.

I felt and heard the bones in his neck snap as I laid his head against his left shoulder. Almost immediately his body began to burn up, just like the last one. Soon there was nothing left of him but his uniform and some gray ashes, which the last of the cloudburst soon washed away.

I came back to the normally dry creek bed where we had first run into the Arions. I saw the body of the male Beta, his back snapped in two. Karen had apparently taken him out without much trouble. I didn't see the other Beta, the woman. I also didn't see Karen. Where was Karen?

That cloudburst had washed away any signs of footprints. Apparently it had also collapsed the walls of a small ravine; it was almost completely blocked with mud and boulders, the water beginning to gather behind the dam. I looked in there, but Karen wasn't there. The Beta was, though. Apparently she had been caught in the landslide and killed. Or else killed and then caught in the landslide. Either way, I didn't really care. But where was Karen? Her, I did care about.

This wasn't the first time that she'd disappeared at the end of a case. She had the annoying habit of taking the best looking men around and shacking up with them for a few days after a tough case. It was annoying mainly because she'd grab the best men before I could get my hands on them.

But she had always waited until after the initial debriefing. And where had she found any men around here anyway?

Oh well, I expected her to show up in a few days, a week at the most. Those two technicians back in her electronics lab could use the opportunity to get some rest. It's not that Karen was a slave driver. In fact, she was always nice to them. Very nice to them. Especially outside of working hours. THAT was why they could use some rest while she was gone.

We had long since given up on trying to get her to stop sexually harassing her staff. We just made sure that the men who worked for her understood just what kind of woman she was, the risks they would be taking, and offered them other positions in the labs if they didn't want to work for her. We had also told them to let us know if they didn't like it. Nobody took us up on our offer. Apparently they had enjoyed the positions they found themselves in when working for her. And from personal experience, I knew that Karen would get people into some interesting positions with her.

Though she did know that Mike and Rob were off-limits. They might be working for her during the day, but at night they worked for me.

But still, it wasn't like her to not even tell us that she was going to be gone. And we could really use her knowledge to figure out how those laser rifles worked. Mom knew how to use one, but that was it. When it ran out of energy, all she knew to do was to stick in another energy pack. Unfortunately, Radio Shack doesn't sell energy packs for Arion laser rifles. At least not the stores in our neighborhood. And they're not listed in their catalogs, either.

Karen had been in the process of trying to build a charger for those Arion energy packs. Without a charger, those rifles and energy packs would soon be no more effective than heavy clubs and stones.

And we also still needed her expertise with those Arion computer-slash-communication devices.

I looked around some more, very carefully. Still no sign of Karen anywhere.

Just where had Karen gotten herself off to?

This time she did not wait for him to start the discussion after the staff briefing. Stars damn the rank! Stars damn the protocol! As soon as the last of the staff officers had left the office and closed the door behind him, she sprang to her feet. "I do not think that there can be any doubt about this now, Colonel. There is a Velorian presence on this miserable little Star-forsaken planet!"

He lowered the feet that were less than halfway to finishing their journey to his desktop and slowly stood up to his full height. Even though she was a tall woman he towered almost a full head above her, forcing her to look up at his face as he spoke. "No, I do not think that we can doubt this any longer." He sighed. "I had hoped for a nice quiet invasion, without either the Kintzi or the Velorians bothering us. And of the two, I would have preferred the Kintzi." He sighed again, as he thought about what he had just said. "Stars! I never thought that I would ever hear myself saying that I preferred the Star-forsaken Kintzi to anything else in the galaxy!"

"Nor I, Colonel." She knew how the Colonel felt about the Kintzi. She knew that the Kintzi had been responsible for the death of his father, many campaigns ago and many star systems away. Even though the Star-forsaken felines hadn't actually killed the Colonel's father, their total disregard for military discipline had allowed the Velorians to attack his command ship, resulting in the loss of all aboard. The Colonel had never forgiven the Kintzi for that. She didn't think that he ever would.

The Colonel continued. "Even as fragmentary as the Terran reports are, and that even the Terrans believe most of the sources to be unreliable, the conclusions seem to be inescapable." He sat back down behind his desk. This time his feet came up to the desk quickly.

Taking her cue from him, she also sat back down in her chair. She looked down at the notes she had taken. "Tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, very beautiful, very definitely female. The physical descriptions all agree. And they definitely indicate a Velorian." She pushed a few more keys on the palmtop device she held. "And even though the Terran authorities scoffed at the other accounts, unbelievable as they are to mere Terrans, to us they would definitely seem to indicate a Velorian. Bullets and lasers bouncing off of her ample chest. The woman flying through the air. She cannot be anything but a Velorian. And the survivors that we had been able to rescue also confirm that. Terrans may not recognize a Velorian, but our survivors are unanimous in their identification."

"Yes, that definitely sounds like a Velorian Planetary Protector, Unfortunately, we don not have any survivors from the other battle." the Colonel agreed. "Stars! I was hoping we would not run into any of them. We do not even know how many of them there are."

"Yes, unfortunately, due to the fragmentary and chaotic reports of the incidents, we cannot know for sure how many of them there are. We know there is at least one, and perhaps as many as three. None of the survivors had gotten close enough to get a good look at her face, not that they could be expected to recognize her, even if it had not been in the heat of combat. But I believe that there is only one."

"We are not equipped to deal with Velorian Planetary Protectors! Even one of them, let alone three of them."

"There is one thing about this one that strike me as particularly uncharacteristic of a Velorian Planetary Protector, Colonel."

He raised an eyebrow. "What is that, Major?"

"This Velorian woman does not behave like any Planetary Protector I have ever read about. When presented with the choice of stopping our drop shuttle or saving the lives of the Terrans in their flying machine, she chose to stop the drop shuttle. A Planetary Protector would not have hesitated to save the lives of the natives, even if meant letting the drop shuttle and our troops escape. Perhaps if those Terrans were known to be working with us, but it was clear that those Terrans were innocents, merely observing the activities for the Terran media. It is my understanding that the Velorians breed their Planetary Protectors for just such behavior."

She didn't come out and say it, but this actually made her respect this particular Velorian even more. Planetary Protectors tended to the sentimental side, trying to protect the natives even if it meant letting the aggressors escape. This Velorian had been coldly efficient, quickly weighing the loss of the Terrans in their flying machine against future losses of life if the drop shuttle was allowed to escape and get away. She knew that she would have made exactly the same decision herself, if she had been in that same situation. In fact, she had made that same decision before, expending some lives so that others could live. That incident had helped her earn her the title of the Ice Queen, though no one ever called her that to her face.

"Yes, that also struck me as unusual behavior for a Planetary Protector. Perhaps she is not a Planetary Protector, but an ordinary Velorian, here to aid the Planetary Protector. Perhaps one of their Scribes."

"But she disposed of our entire groundside garrison! Two experienced Warriors Prime! One on the downed drop shuttle. That makes five, including Meelek and his replacement. Only a Planetary Protector could have done that so easily! As easily as she seemed to have done! Not only that, but our base of operations on that landmass has been compromised. We will need a new one. I will have the staff get to work to locate another suitable site immediately, Colonel."

"Very good, Major. Yes, the woman seems to be an especially strong and skilled fighter, for an ordinary Velorian. Or perhaps she is an aberrant Planetary Protector. Somehow, she seems to care more about stopping us than protecting the natives."

"But why would a Scribe engage us in a battle alone, without the Planetary Protector? Especially against Warriors Prime? We know the Planetary Protector was not otherwise engaged with us somewhere else at the time."

"We could speculate all night regarding her motives and not get anywhere, Major. Do you believe her to be responsible for the disappearance of the Betas in New York? And the arms smuggling operation in Alaska?"

"I believe that she would be the most logical explanation, Colonel. That operation in Arizona was the one we set up to replace Meelek's operation. A similar complement of personnel, one Warrior Prime and two Betas." At least she now knew that Meelek was not responsible for what happened in New York, the disappearance of those four Beta women. She had never been able to believe that he could be disloyal in any way. But that would also mean that Meelek was most likely dead, dead at the hands of that Velorian bitch. Or if not at the hands of this Velorian, at the hands of another Velorian. There was nothing more she wanted than to see that Velorian bitch suffer. Preferably at her hands. But she knew that she could not yet go down to the planet. She had her duties here on the ship, as the second-in-command of the invasion fleet. But she longed to go down to the planet and personally take that Velorian bitch apart with her bare hands! She had always considered that the best way to kill Velorians, hand-to-hand. Preferably at her hands.

The Colonel's words interrupted her thoughts. "What about the other women at the first battle at our base, the place they call Texas, Major? What do you make of the two of them?"

"One of the other women, though also blonde, is quite obviously merely an enhanced Terran. Her strength apparently was about that of a Beta. I do not believe her to be a serious threat. Two Betas were able to overpower her."

"No, I do not consider her to be a serious threat, either. What about the other one, the one with the black hair and blue eyes?"

"From all reports, Colonel, she does appear to be an Arion. However, we have been unable to identify her. I am definitely puzzled. She is definitely not one of the women we lost in New York. This woman appears older than any of them. Nor is she Koren, who is even younger than the ones from New York. The few images we did get of her do not match any of our people. Though she acted as if she did not understand Arion, it appeared that she was listening very carefully to what was being said around her."

"And her fighting strength? Definitely more than that of a Beta, according to the reports."

"That also puzzles me, Colonel. It was nowhere near Prime levels. Yet she seemed to be substantially stronger than Koren was. Too strong to be an enhanced Beta, even a Velorian-enhanced Beta. It took a Warrior Prime to overpower her."

"Another half Prime?"

"She could be, Colonel, though her appearance was that of an enhanced Beta. But how did she get here? We are supposed to be the first expedition against this planet. If she did not come with us, how did she get here? Or has the High Command lied to us, and there has been another expedition before ours? A failed expedition, if they had to send a second one?"

"That, only the High Command knows. And by the Stars, they seldom tell us anything. Even when it pertains directly to our mission." After a pause, he continued. "What about the incident with their space shuttle? Was that the same Velorian? She chased off our task force, but did not press the attack, remaining to escort the space shuttle down."

"Yes, Colonel, I admit that that sounds more like a Velorian Planetary Protector. And I believe that the drop shuttle crew did the right thing, not remaining to engage her in combat, but picking up the four Warriors Prime."

"Yes, so do I. They were not prepared to battle a Velorian. Her appearance there was a complete surprise. After she incapacitated the four Warriors Prime there was nothing else the drop shuttle crew could do. And we cannot afford to lose another drop shuttle. Nor can we afford to lose any more Warriors Prime."

"However, I believe that she is the same one as in the battle in Texas. There is a strong resemblance on the photographs we were able to take."

"Besides the blonde hair and the blue eyes, Major?" he smiled at her.

"Besides the blonde hair and the blue eyes, Colonel," she smiled one of her rare smiles back at him. "And her uniform was not that of a Velorian Planetary Protector. The style was exactly that of a female infantry officer, though of a different color. I believe that it was the uniform taken off of the officer we lost with the drop shuttle in Texas. We have seen from the Terran reports that she was killed by the Velorian."

"Yes, I had noticed that her clothing was unlike that of any other Velorian that I have ever encountered. Why would a Velorian wear an Arion uniform, even one that has been colored in the Velorian colors?"

"That, I cannot answer, Colonel. Perhaps she has lost her own uniform?" She looked down at the notes on her palmtop device. "What about the Velorian Planetary Protector's base of operations, Colonel? So far, we believe her to be at least partially responsible for our losses in Alaska, New York, Texas, Arizona, and California. That covers practically the entire northern half of that landmass. And of course, in space. We also have some earlier Terran reports of someone who matches that description from California, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Though some of the earlier reports may not be completely reliable. Even the Terrans themselves do not believe that all of the reports are of the same person, or that the reports are even true."

"Yes, she does seem to get around, does she not?" the Colonel smiled. "If they are not all about the same person, then that would mean that there is more than one Velorian on this miserable planet."

"Yes, a Velorian does have more freedom of movement than one of us would have."

"Unfortunately, yes they certainly do. Even on this small planet, we cannot be everywhere at once." After a pause he continued, "One more thing, Major. Was there not another Warrior Prime on that downed drop shuttle?"

She punched a few buttons on her palmtop device. "Yes, there was, Colonel. A young officer, Lieutenant Sirren, on her first assignment." She punched a few more buttons. "Actually, she had completed her groundside training and was on her way to her first operational groundside assignment. She was to have received her assignment once she reached the base."

"What happened to her?"

"We can only assume that she was somehow killed in the crash. We have been unable to examine the wreckage ourselves, obviously, but we had been keeping a surreptitious watch on the Terran's examinations. We do know that they did not recover an intact body of a Prime. Thus we believe that her body had been consumed by her own fires."

"Could she have fallen out of the drop shuttle as that Star-forsaken Velorian ripped it apart?"

"That is a possibility, Colonel, but if she had survived the fall she has not tried to make contact with us. And there have been no reports of a Prime having been sighted in the area."

"There have no other reports of anything like a Velorian Planetary Protector elsewhere on the planet, has there?"

"No, Colonel, that is something else that is puzzling. We have not suffered any losses anywhere else. Only in the country called the United States. And that one encounter in space."

"If we could only leave that country alone. Unfortunately, they are the most influential and powerful country on the planet. And in that one country we have lost five Warriors Prime and nearly thirty Betas. A tenth of our total force."

"Unfortunately, Colonel, that is true. Though how a planet this small can have this many countries is beyond my understanding. Much of the behavior of these Terrans is beyond my understanding."

"And mine, as well. Very well, Major." He lowered his feet to the floor, signaling the end of the session.

She stood up. "Will there be anything else, Colonel?"

"Yes, Major. Issue Orgone generators to all of the ground units. I wish we had enough heavy disruptors. Unfortunately, Orgone generators are about all we have available to use against the Star-forsaken Velorians. Meanwhile I shall be drafting my report back to the High Council."

"Yes, sir!" Saluting, she pivoted on her heels and left the office. She was glad that she didn't have to report to the High Council back on Aria. Like many military officers, she had always felt that war was much too important a business to be left to the politicians. Especially as many of them had never even been in combat. War always looked easier from behind a desk.

With a start, she realized that that was all she had been doing on this campaign. Sitting behind a desk, or participating in the staff meetings, instead of being down on the planet in the middle of the action.

As she walked back to her quarters, she thought about one other possible weapon she had available for use against the Velorians. Possibly the most powerful weapon on board the ship. A weapon that she alone knew about, a weapon that no one else on the ship knew about, not even the Colonel. A weapon that would be much more effective against Velorians than mere Orgone generators, probably even more effective than the heaviest disruptors would be. This particular weapon still hadn't been fully tested against a Velorian yet. But it looked like it would soon get its baptism under fire. Soon....