The soldier dropped Tovah to bring his own weapon up. The Israeli grabbed the gun by the barrel and shoved, causing the wild shots to fly over her head, missing Kael completely. Adellich’s thick body danced as more ammunition entered it.

Pushing the soldier away, Tovah scrambled back to her feet, heading toward Kael and her weapon. “Don’t, Kael. Please. They’re allies.”

Kael shook her off, weapon raised again as the soldier’s head popped back up under the canvas flap, this time joined by two of his comrades. Kael squeezed the trigger, sending one of the men flying away from the truck. The second lifted his weapon and fired toward Kael.

As if seeing it in slow motion, Tovah felt her body spring over the short distance that separated herself from her American friend. With a yell, she covered Kael’s body with her own. Three bullets tore into her back. She felt the sudden urge to cough, spraying Kael’s white hospital gown with blood. She watched the patterns interestedly, wondering if this was how it felt to die.

Lifting a head which felt like it now weighed a ton, she looked into Kael’s ice blue eyes for a moment that seemed to span eternity. The look of cold death in those eyes was her companion in her journey to oblivion.

Kael broke the gaze and shifted her hips to buck Tovah’s dead body from her. The corners of her mouth turned up in a snarl of utter rage. “Pray to whatever gods you believe in, cause I’m sendin’ you to meet ‘em.” Depressing the trigger, Kael mowed down the two soldiers staring at her from the back of the truck. Lurching to her feet, biting back a shout of pain as her legs tried their best to bear her heavy weight, the American steadied herself against the bench, then turned. Shuffling steps, each a study in agony, brought her to the back of the truck. Without even looking outside to aim, she depressed the trigger of her weapon again, shredding the canvas flap and sending screaming missiles into the desert heat. Screams of the dying men played an orchestra in her ears.

Shooting until she ran out of ammunition, Kael picked up Tovah’s weapon. Standing behind one steel support strut, she eased the canvas flap away with the muzzle of the gun. The desert was littered with bodies. She counted ten in all from her vantage point. Freezing in place, she listened carefully. There was no sound but the howling of the desert wind.

Grunting in satisfaction, the soldier lowered herself to a sitting position in the bed of the truck, then gingerly slipped down to the ground. Her knees gave way immediately, dumping her to the desert sands. Raising up a bloody hand, she gripped the truck bed and pulled herself back onto her feet. The hard packed sand conspired against her, threatening to take her feet out from under her.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she slowly made her way around the truck. There, hiding behind a wheel and looking in the opposite direction, was the last of the patrol. “Nighty night,” she whispered, pulling on the trigger and killing the hiding soldier.

Going to the front of the truck, she pulled the door open, not surprised when the dead body of the Israeli driver fell out into her arms. The weight of his body bore her to the ground again and this time she could not stop the scream of pain as it tore its way out of her throat.

Rolling the body off of her, Kael stood again, looking down at the soldier she had murdered. On his breast was a small emblem. The American flag.

Taking a quick look at the corpses littering the desert, Kael noted the similar flag on each. She tipped her head to the sky, a howl sounding from an opened mouth.

Grimacing, she pulled herself up into the now empty truck and started off, fleeing into an unknown future and escaping the torturous past.

To Be Continued…

DESERT STORM

Part 4

by: SwordnQuill

SwordnQuil@aol.com

Disclaimers: The characters of Xena, Gabrielle, Lao Ma, Alti, Borias, and everyone else who sounds familiar belong to Pac Ren and Universal Studios. I am not making money off of this story.

Genre Disclaimer: Ok. Bear with me, please, because this is kinda tough to explain. Sometime last year, I read a story on the internet that moved me so much, I was inspired to write a sort of companion piece to it. That story was “Lost Soul Walking” by DJWP. In her words, “This is NOT UberXena fiction. It just starts out like it is.” The same can be said for this piece. While not directly related to “Lost Soul Walking”, “Desert Storm” can be considered a sort of prequel to it. It is a story, if you will, about the lifetime before the one depicted in that fabulous, outstanding story. (Can you tell I loved it?) In addition, this is somewhat of an ambitious piece of fiction, in that I am attempting (don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I’ve attempted) to take the entire X:WP universe and modernize it. We start, in updated terms, with my version of Xena’s betrayal by Caesar (seen in “Destiny”), and continue up through the X:WP episode known as “Remember Nothing”. The plot will be very recognizable to you. It’s meant to be that way.

Special note: Because of this, Gabrielle does not appear, except in offhand mention, in a great deal of the first half of this story. Do not look for her, because you won’t find her. After all, she was not a part of ‘evil Xena’s’ life. If she were, things might have turned out differently, but because this is based on the premise of “Lost Soul Walking” it cannot happen differently. Gabrielle will, however, make her presence known, and that quite strongly, in the second half of the story. If you can hang on till then, I believe that you will not be disappointed.

Sexuality and Violence Disclaimers: We’re dealing with an updated dark Xena through much of the first half, and an updated redeemed Xena through the second. There’s gonna be violence. There are gonna be naughty words. There are also descriptions of sexual activity in this work. There are allusions to heterosexual sex, but nothing graphic. There are some graphic (though I hope tasteful) scenes of sexual expression between women as well. That is how I see the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, and that is how I will continue to write it.

And, finally, thanks: To, as always, the incomparable Mike. A better beta and a better friend one could never hope for. Thank you also, as always, to Mary D, who rescued this story from the refuse heap and begged me to keep going on it. If you hate it, blame her. <w> Grateful and heartfelt appreciation goes out to DJWP, for continuing to write stories that grab me somewhere above the liver and giving her kind permission to mention her story in these disclaimers. If you haven’t read her stories, please, do yourself a favor and do so. Finally, this story is dedicated to a group of people without whom I would most probably be living on the streets. Elizabeth, Rachel, Sulli, and the rest of the “Get Sue to Atlanta” crew, this one’s for you!

Feedback: As always is gratefully appreciated. If you wrote to me regarding “Redemption” during the month of September to early October and I haven’t responded, please allow me the honor of apologizing in public. It was then that I was at my lowest point and making ready to move to my new home. Your words of praise and encouragement for my writing kept me firmly out of the pit of depression I was falling into and I shall be forever grateful to each and every one of you who took the time out to feed this bard. And for those of you patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for Redemption’s sequel, fear not, for with the conclusion of this piece, that piece will be started. Any and all who wish to may write me at SwordnQuil@aol.com . I’ll continue to do my best to answer each and every email. An exploding mailbox is a good thing to have. Thanks again!

DESERT STORM

by: Sword’n’Quill (Susanne Beck)

PART 4: Sins of the Present

“With shattered legs and crippled soul, I went east. To lose myself in vengeance. Not against Caesar. But the entire human race.” Xena. The Debt 1: Betrayal

24 April 1991. A Secluded Airstrip Outside Medellin, Colombia.

“Where are they?” Geraldo asked for perhaps the hundredth time, pacing along the front of a flattened area clear-cut from the surrounding jungles and running a hand through his thick black hair.

“They should be here shortly, sir,” Varguez, the chauffeur, replied from his place by the long black Lincoln. “The pilot did say they ran into trouble in customs, remember.”

“That was six hours ago!” Geraldo replied, coming to the end of the dirt strip and reversing to begin the track all over again. The grass was plastered flat under his boots. “They should be here by now.”

Geraldo Nunez Rodriguez, known as el Toro by his compatriots, was a man unused to waiting. As the eldest son and sole leader of one of Colombia’s largest drug cartels, he was used to being waited on hand and foot. When his mouth opened, people jumped. Or they died. His life was simple and cruel and he liked it that way.

Or at least it was simple until she came along. The plains of his handsome face creased into a smile as a picture came to his anxious mind unbidden. A picture of how she had looked when they first met, her face and form almost invisible under the crust of dirt she wore like a cloak, the pupils of her dazzling eyes pinpricks as his cocaine jolted through her system.

His self appointed job as public relations manager for his business kept Geraldo away from the streets of his home for long months. When one of the new pups had been inducted into his family had been given a task to complete, a simple money retrieval, Geraldo jumped at the chance to go back to the streets and alleys where his customers lived. He tagged along as the young man’s mentor and guide, content to simply sit back and watch as the cruelties he had ordered were carried out first hand.

Geraldo smirked as his compatriot pointed out the intended target. It was a woman with long, matted black hair. She sat in a tiny alley, her head propped back against a stucco building, her hands shaking as the drug worked its way through her system. Her long legs, visible beneath the tattered robe she wore, were bent, twisted and scabbed over. A gnarled stick which the drug lord supposed was a walking cane of some type, lay discarded next to her body.

Geraldo watched as his associate smiled arrogantly, thinking this job would be the easiest one he would ever have, and stalked over to where the young woman sat unaware. It would be the last mistake the young man ever made.

In a move almost too quick for the drug lord to see, his employee found himself sprawled between the woman’s twisted legs, a long dirty arm tight across his throat. His face slowly flushed to the color of old brick and his eyes bulged slightly in their sockets. His mouth opened wide in a rictus of pain from which only the slightest of wheezes emerged.

Another quick move, and the man’s gun was removed from its hiding place. The barrel was raised, not to point at the unfortunate man’s trapped head, but at Geraldo himself. The drug lord smiled at the temerity of the dirty woman. As she turned her gaze his way, Geraldo was struck dumb by the dazzling beauty of her sapphire eyes. “You had something you wanted to say to me?” she asked in clear, non-accented Spanish.

Locked in the mesmerizing gaze, Geraldo cleared his throat softly. “You have something that belongs to me,” he said finally.

The woman sneered and tightened her lock on the young thug’s throat. “Not for long,” she drawled.

“I was speaking of my money.”

The woman’s gaze narrowed. “Who are you?”

Geraldo smiled charmingly. “My name is Geraldo Nunez Rodriguez.”

“And I’m supposed to be impressed?”

The drug lord’s smile turned into a bark of laughter. In his life, no one had ever had the guts to speak to him this way. He found that he liked it. In small doses, of course. “Perhaps not,” he replied. “But you’ve been dealing with some of my associates for quite awhile now. And it appears that you haven’t been compensating them fairly for the services they’ve been providing for you.”

The corner of the woman’s mouth turned up in a smirk. “Perhaps if you hired better ‘associates’, fair compensation, or lack thereof, wouldn’t be a problem, now would it.”

Geraldo laughed again, surprised and charmed by the woman’s audacity. “You may have a point, Miss … .”

The woman didn’t rise to the bait. “I’ll make you a deal, Rodriguez. You and your cronies leave me alone and in return, I return your little puppy here back to you only slightly damaged and promise to find another place to procure my …services.”