They attacked the stickies with a series of hollered cries and screams that seemed to also be a series of signals to one another for a battle formation, as they followed one another in a chanted pattern.
None of the companions could get a clear glimpse of the group who had joined the fray. Were they friend or foe? What did they look like? It was hard to tell, as Ryan’s party was being forced to their knees—in some cases literally—by the onslaught of stickies.
Nonetheless, they all took heart from the rapidly realized fact that the newcomers were targeting the stickies, and seemed to be coming to their assistance. “Goodness me, I should have realized that the concept of the fairer sex no longer existed, but this is beyond me,” Doc muttered to himself as the newcomers aided him in driving back the stickies.
Ryan and Jak, also still on their feet, were taken aback by the identity of their rescuers, as indeed was Krysty—but not, like Doc, by their sex.
Ryan and Krysty knew that women could be as competent in combat as men, but were surprised by the fact that every one of the Amazons who were whirling around them in battle was slight in stature. Not a single one they could see clearly appeared to be above five and a half feet in height, and neither did any of them appear to be heavily built. In fact, all of them were slight of build, although their muscles glistened with the perspiration of effort and the slick blood of their enemies, showing a glinting definition. If Ryan Cawdor had come across them in an idle moment, he wouldn’t have thought them capable of such sustained ferocity.
But it was Jak who was the most surprised, and for a reason that none of the others could ever have guessed. For, approaching him in a whirling dance of coordinated kicks and arm movements that allowed the panga she wielded to cut through exposed stickie flesh, came a woman who was all too familiar to him. She was only about five feet—smaller than many of her companions—but carried with her an air of controlled ferocity and authority that set her apart from the others. Her hair was a flaming red, yet lighter than Krysty’s, and flowing like liquid fire in the slanting rays of the fading sun. It spun around her in perfect time as she moved, with a hip-swaying easy grace, screaming high-pitched cries that contained a husky note that Jak found familiar. She wore a T-shirt tied beneath her small breasts, exposing a bronzed midriff that ran flat and muscled into a pair of cutoff shorts. Thonged sandals, laced up her taut calves, allowed her to arch her toes into points that hit home with as much power and force as the straightened fingers of her free hand, the blood s00plashed panga whirling in the other.
The group of women fighters had eschewed the use of blasters in such circumstances, the close-quarters fighting making it a risky option. Instead they were using a variety of pangas and machetes that were obviously well honed, to judge by the way in which they were chopping through the opposition. The turn of the tide in favor of Ryan and his people increased their determination by turns, and they fought back with renewed vigor. The stickies dragged from the now prone bodies of J.B., Mildred and Dean allowed these three to recover some ground, and use their superior strength and fighting intelligence to go on the offensive.
Doc found himself back-to-back with a blond Amazon, matching every slashing movement of his Toledo steel blade with her own blood-slicked machete. She was up to his shoulder, reaching about five-six, and her blond mane, hacked into a rough bob, flicked against his cheek as she protected his left side, lashing out at a crazed and brave stickie that flung itself at the pair of them. For its blood lusting bravery it was rewarded by having its head cleaved in two by one hefty blow.
“It is an honor to have you at my back, madam,” Doc commented as he slashed yet another scar upon a stickie torso.