Steampunk Harlots Ch. 14

The fear of the march to war The fear of the fire around you The fear of returning home The fear of leaving yourself behind

Memories that haunt your nights Impossible choices you made Shielding us from having to make them The freedom your suffering gave me

Thank you for your sacrifice

Hannah knew it wasn't the most lyrically cohesive song in the world, but really a collection of things she had wished someone had said to her.

***

Getting off the waggon, the girls looked at the rundown estate. It clearly needed a lot of work, and several men sat with papers and books at a table appraising it. They turned to notice the group, and were of course distracted by the presence of the four women dressed in finery. Walking inside through thick wooden doors, they could tell work had already started. Scaffolding covered in sheets to disguise them were set up along the walls around the large entry way. It was almost a hall, given how much room there was to fill it, with seats and tables full of food.

The others from the waggon went right to eat while Easy found some handsome looking men to flirt with. Everyone was an Emberborn except the waiters who dispensed drinks. In expensive uniforms that looked vaguely military, they smiled as they took drink orders and answered questions. Emma took Leira into the crowd to start their work while Foxy heard someone approach the balcony overlooking the party.

"Welcome, everyone! I hope you are enjoying the drinks and food. I know you aren't used to this and are eager to take advantage, but please, don't make yourselves sick." He smiled in a friendly tone. "You may have noticed the state of this place, I hope that after tonight you agree to help me make something wonderful out of it. Not that you care about what status I gain, but people need to know you are capable of honest labour and deserving of honest wages. I will personally sign a writ of worthiness for any of you who complete their work here. With that, you will have an easier time finding work later in life. I know it's not much, but I believe you are worth the effort. Enjoy! Work begins tomorrow!"

Everyone returned to their feast. Foxy clicked off her rifle's safety.

"Lock the doors, hit them with the gas." she heard the man say in a hushed tone to someone else as he walked away.

Not that she was the only one with ears so sensitive, but she was being paid to be paranoid and not to be distracted. She spun around to see two men standing at the doors waiting to receive orders to close them. Foxy shouldered her rifle as she took a knee and fired. The bullet took off a chunk of his upper skull and he dropped. His friend moved behind his door and started to push it closed. She fired again hoping to hit him through the door but the wood was too thick to penetrate. It slammed shut as she took off to the other door that someone else had gotten behind and started to close it. Kicking it at a run, it stalled its movement a moment, but a pistol reached in and fired at her. She ducked to avoid it but that gave the other door time to close. The iron bolt locked, and she could hear a bar being locked into place on the outside.

A sudden hiss of pressure started, and Foxy could see the sheets covering the scaffolding start to blow outwards. She fired at any windows she could find to help ventilate the room. People started falling over, and she fumbled with the magazine on her rifle. It was almost loaded when she doubled over and went to sleep.

***

Hannah didn't like the noise. It was loud and industrial. Whatever was going on in the enemy trench was not normal. They could see the bright light from welding tools shine, and sparks flying whenever a grinder was heard. Something was up.

"What are they building?" Grey asked.

"Nothing defensive. We haven't attacked their lines and can't shoot at them with the big guns," Hannah replied.

"Best guess?"

Hannah pondered a moment, wondering what they could be up to. Her hand reached up to rub her stitches, and then she yanked it back down to avoid irritating it. The wound was frustrating her. Sudden movements still hurt, so getting laid the way she liked was off the table. She didn't like dealing with problems like a regular person.

"Whatever it is, it's big. Whatever it does, will be done right where it is or right in front of it. So we don't want to be here when it gets here."

"True, but we can't fall back and we can't leave a gap in the line. Aside from being treasonous, it's just bad tactics. If you want to head off, you are the only one who can get away with it."

"Ignoring that it would be just as dangerous to run as to stay, I am not leaving you here to fend for yourselves." Hannah smiled her most confidence-inspiring smile.

"Appreciated. So then where else can we move?"

"Forward."

"Attack their trenches? They got machine guns of their own. Sure the sun will be in their eyes, but we won't make it much beyond the craters their mortars made in the last few hours."

"Then that's how far we go. They fired those things to find the range they needed. In the night, we get up and over, then crawl into them. No noise, nothing shines, and we wait. Gives us cover from their guns but gets us out of the trench where we know they will be firing. Keep the space directly in front of their construction clear in case it's some kind of weapon. Extra socks on the rifles to keep the mud out, and nobody moves till one of us blows the whistle. They use it, then once we know what it is, we decide if we go forward, back, or hold our ground."

"Everyone should carry some demo charges and grenades. If we have to take their trench and blow up whatever they made, it's up to whoever survives the attempt." Grey emphasised the grim assessment.

"Agreed. Let everyone know the plan and pick the holes they want to crawl into." Hannah turned to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"To find someone hungry."

Hannah never did get his name, but found his tongue to have much better uses than talking. Sitting in the chair of her quarters with her naked legs over the arms as she watched the head between them moving with purpose. Soft moans filled the air, with sudden gasps of surprise to punctuate the importance of what his tongue found. He was teasing her, not focusing on what she wanted, just little bits to drive her wild. Her head felt better. The Leftenant was still rocking back and forth on the floor now over by the bed, but kept glancing over at her.

She lost focus on him when finally feeling the release of orgasm, but knew full well it was just a prelude of pleasure. He was still frustrating her body slowly, starting to use a finger to help. Not wanting to wait, Hannah opened her jacket to expose her breasts and began to pull and yank at her own nipples. She was seldom as rough as Mari usually was, but still loved the pain and pleasure mixture. Both of their efforts yielded her desired result as she was able to finally get the climax that satisfied her. Keeping up his efforts while she endured the crashing wave of pleasure, he only broke off when she started to relax and catch her breath.

"Isn't that cheating?" he asked with a silly grin on his face.

"Maybe, we can have a rematch another time."

"Count on it."

Hannah redressed fully and got ready to spend the night in a muddy shell crater. Helmets were put in sacks to hide their shine and keep them from making noise from the movement. Nothing metal saw the night sky as they slithered, one at a time, over the lip. A few of the wounded who couldn't come with them stayed behind and talked loudly and often to make things seem casual and the trench occupied. Things, in order to maintain stealth, were slow and steady, but the construction noise from the enemy trenches was loud enough to have covered a marching brass band. Hannah took the left side of the gap they were leaving while Grey took the right side. While rain hadn't been a particular issue the last few days, the craters were cold, dark, and miserable.

Hannah gave a stern look at a soldier as he muttered a curse while tumbling into the crater with her. He got the message, and very quietly began positioning himself properly to make room for the next man. As the night went on, four men were with her, all huddled together for warmth. She smiled, watching one soldier facing away from her, feeling his hand up and down the leg of the man next to him. Tapping him on the shoulder, she shot him a quizzical look. Realising his mistake, he withdrew his hand quickly and silently lamented his embarrassing action. The other man turned around to look between the two of them and realised he wasn't next to her after all. Hannah smiled as the two men lay embarrassed in the dark.

The man behind her reached over and started grabbing her breast. Hannah looked to see a man concentrating hard before finally nodding at his conclusion that he was indeed fondling a woman. The fourth man behind him grabbed him by the chest and gave a disappointed head shake when he concluded it was a man. So the five of them sat in the dark trying to keep quiet as the silent jokes went on through the night.

It was an hour before dawn when the noise in the enemy trench died down to an eerie silence.

Something was coming and Hannah could feel it. She gave hand gestures to remove the socks from their rifles so they could use them, but it was lost on the soldiers who started to undo their trousers. Hannah smacked the closest man on the head and pointed at his rifle. He looked quizzically at it before reaching a sudden realisation, an act mimicked by the other men. She rolled her eyes at them and watched as they readied their weapons of war instead of their cocks.

As daylight crept over the battlefield, a whistle sounded in the distance. Yet it wasn't one like she had hanging around her neck. This was a steam whistle. Hannah moved up to where she had positioned the periscope, on an angle to make it look like battlefield debris, and peered through.

She didn't have to wait long before large metal pillars with joints rose up and out of the trench before its ends went back down. Six metal arches were all that was visible outside of the trench for a few moments, when suddenly they moved again. All six worked to lift something between them. A large metal section, looking like three metal boxes welded together, rose up with the metal pillars attached to the central section. It was obviously an ember steam engine in the middle section. In front of it was a smaller box that had vision slits on its forward-facing side. Behind it was a larger box with no visible features other than the rivets holding it together.

As the metal pillars started to lift again, Hannah realised the pillars were actually legs. That the construct was walking and doing so towards their trench. Just as it started to move, the sound of mortars falling came from the sky, and explosions detonated inside and around their trench. Dirt and debris rained down upon them in the craters, but they were far safer than they would have been in the trenches.

The metal spider trudged over the terrain and made its way through no man's land. Under its chin was a pair of long tubes - a flickering flame from one, and the other looking much like one of the machine guns Hannah had seen.

Terrified of what the spider could do, Hannah watched and waited, hoping it wouldn't notice any of them. The mortars stopped as it fired bullets from its chin. It stood in the middle of the gap Hannah had left in the line. It strafed the almost deserted trenches with lead, receiving a few shots in return that made sharp, high-pitched noises as they bounced off. Then it lowered itself close to the ground, and flame spewed out from the other nozzle as it turned its head back and forth to fill the trench with flame. Screams could be heard from the wounded who had remained to maintain their presence.

Then Hannah heard a whistle, but not from Grey as her first reaction was to assume. It came from the enemy trenches, and a wall of infantry rose up to come over the top. They charged over the mud, hollering in glee at the devastating effect their new weapon had. When Hannah was sure they had come too far to fall back quickly, she blew her own whistle, telling everyone to hold their ground. Then, the men next to her and the others down the line rose up to the edge of their craters and began to rain fire down upon their attackers. Soon, machine gunners, who had needed some time to deploy, joined in blunting the attack with a wall of lead.

Meanwhile, Hannah had turned her attention to the metal monster beside her. It was taking some tentative steps over the burning trenches when Hannah had blown the whistle, and it stopped at the sudden sound of battle going on behind it. As it manoeuvred backwards and started to turn around, Hannah dashed out of her cover leaving her rifle behind. She yanked a grenade from her belt, the explosive at the end of a stick to help throw it, and ran up to the rear compartment. There was a wheel on one side and a short ladder on the other. Grasping onto the ladder after a leap up, Hannah hung on with one hand as it rose up high. She rapped the grenade on the door as she pulled herself up and soon saw the wheel spinning. A pistol came out first, before it opened wide enough to reveal a man hunched over. By then Hannah had triggered the fuse and looked to see the pistol aimed at her head, but the eyes of the man holding it stared in surprise at her chest. Even covered, her breasts were distracting enough and she chucked the grenade at his face.

Clutching at his suddenly broken nose, he actually held onto the grenade as he moved away from the door. Hannah reached over and slammed the door shut. Then, swung herself to catch the wheel and turn it a bit to close. Not bothering to stick around and seal it all the way, Hannah let go and fell to the ground. Hard dirt would have hurt a lot more than the soft mud did, and Hannah hit it at the same time the grenade went off.

The deep 'krump' of the explosion contained in the metal box was followed soon after by a much larger bang as other explosives, carried by the soldiers in the rear compartment, blew the back door off.

As Hannah regained her footing and tried to move away, a few body parts fell out around her, charred and mangled, landing in the mud.

Unfortunately for her, the spider was still moving, though a bit off balance from the explosion. Turning to look at it, she could see it trying to move and face her as to spray the flamethrower at close range. Her own trench, still on fire, and the craters nearby offering no cover from such a weapon, Hannah knew her best bet was to stay under it and hope nobody with a gun tried to shoot her. That's when a flashing light caught her eye. Somewhere behind her trenches, someone was holding a mirror to the sunlight and as Hannah found them, she saw the mobile field gun he was next to. Three of them were being set up to fire upon the spider but anything less than a direct hit could kill her or her troops. She realised there was no safe place to be. Looking away she could see the blunted enemy attack retreating. Hannah blew the whistle. She gave the order to attack.

Running back to pick up her rifle, the whistle got the rest of the troops moving forward and focusing on the gap made by the spider. What wire and obstacles had been in the way were now crushed, destroyed, or simply made easier to avoid. No fire was directed at them from the enemy trenches. Ever since the conflict began, there were no offensive attacks made by the infantry who were ordered only to defend. Those who had fled thought they were safe once they got back to their trenches. Only once the spider had turned around and fired its machine gun did anyone fall. Hannah saw the man next to her run for seven more steps after three rounds went through his back. Others outside her vision also fell. A loud explosion behind her shook the ground, but she could still hear the metal spider, clanking around, but at least it had stopped firing.

Going over the lip of the trench, Hannah held her rifle aimed downwards and fired at the first figure she could see. He hadn't even been facing her. Unable to work the bolt action while running and jumping, she landed in the trench, burying her bayonet in the man who had been trying to light a smoke with shaky hands. More of her troops piled in behind her and quickly got organised enough to sweep forward.

Hannah paused to examine the weapon on the lap of the man she had stabbed. A squat barrel much wider than her rifle, with a round drum attached in front of the trigger. She had seen trench guns before, stubby guns that fired scattershot, but nothing so robust with a fat magazine like that. Picking it up she fired a test shot into the sandbag wall and found the deep boom to be pleasing. She snagged the two extra ammo drums he had been carrying as reloads and set off, handing her rifle to one of her troops who had lost his. Moving through the butcher's shop the trench had become. Hannah rounded corners carefully, to punch deeper into the trenchworks. Past the very front line was the area where the spider had risen from. Grey was already blowing the 'rally' whistle, having entered a moment sooner from another access trench.

Grey directed the troops to cover any approaches as Hannah examined the scene. Welding tools, rivets, hammers, and protective gear were everywhere, but Hannah was more interested in a doorway to a dugout. Trench Gun leading the way instead of a grenade because she expected something valuable to be inside. Two more loud explosions from her home trench preceded her entry, and she hoped that they had hit something. Inside was a rack of rolled up papers, a desk with mechanical diagrams, a chair, and a middle-aged man trying to stuff himself in a steamer trunk too full of clothing to admit him. Hannah hauled him out and threw him into the arms of the two men who had followed her in.

"Convince me you are important enough to keep alive," Hannah challenged the man.

"I... I am the genius that made the ultimate weapon. Spider bot!" His fake courage amused Hannah.

Another loud boom outside was followed soon by some cheering, and a soldier poked his head into the dugout, "Metal spider just got fucked up by some arty, Ma'am." The head withdrew after giving the happy news.

An awkward pause followed as Hannah cocked an eyebrow at the man, who suddenly felt more confused than anything else.

"While you process that," Hannah turned to the soldier on the right who was holding him. "Bring men in here one at a time. I got a plan."

"Ma'am..." he hesitated. "Do we really want to spend that much time in here?"

Hannah saw his eyes moving over her body. "Not for that, you dunce. Everyone stuffs one of these papers into their jacket. That way not everything depends on one person getting back to the line."

Bringing soldiers in one at a time, giving them a short rest from holding off the enemy trying to retake their trench, Hannah filled their jackets with the documents and papers. Once finished, she turned back to the slumped over man on the floor.

"Now, where is your personal journal? The thing you keep all your secrets and ideas. I know you have it. Point it out, or I start taking fingers until you can only point with stumps."

"You wouldn't d..."

Hannah grabbed his hand, forced a finger in the barrel of the Trench Gun, and fired. The loud blast amputated the finger and shocked his ears. Starting to put another finger in the barrel Hannah stopped when his screaming turned into directions to look under the steamer trunk. Kicking it over, a soldier retrieved the book. Hannah left the man and took the book, stuffing it into her jacket, and nodding for the soldier to dress his wound. Leaving the dugout with the prisoner in tow, Hannah nodded at the man holding a bag of explosives who seemed to be waiting for permission to rig the dugout. Other soldiers were planting bombs with the equipment and tools as they all prepared to leave.