MAZE By Scott Grildrig and Chelgi

We were running. Well, that's not entirely true, Molly was running. I was offering the kind of side-seat advice that comes from a sense of utter helplessness. "Left! Left! Dodge left!" I hollered. Molly dodged right, and a huge crater materialized where I was pointing. The blast staggered her, but she kept her balance, and even increased her phenomenal speed. Me, I shut up, and clung to my chair atop her right shoulder. I wasn't having a good day. We, weren't having a good day, what with the Dabesi stumbling on us, crippling our ship and driving us out of space onto this forsaken mud hole. I grunted, and grabbed frantically at my chair as Molly executed a mind numbing change of direction. I like my inertia dampeners thank- you, but Molly's never taken my advice to carry one around with her; even that wouldn't be so bad, if I wasn't flopping around nearly fifty meters off the ground. We were enveloped in explosions, but Molly's speed was deceptive, and the Dabesi were only slowly adjusting to it. Moreover, her last move had brought her within range of the first cover either of us had seen in the last five minutes. With a terrific leap she cleared the jumbled outcropping, then spun and dove back behind them. Thank god for good training, she led with her left shoulder, sparing me a terminal experience with the rock. Molly had both hands on her only weapon, a Bace & David Mark IV: a 404mm semi-automatic 'handgun' that tosses nearly a ton of highly compressed Ultymite fiber. Still, neither of us were feeling overly confident right at the moment. We were lucky, lucky that the two ships had been so far south of our crash site, lucky that they hadn't been able to circle around us. ....Yet! Molly peered up over the outcropping. All I could see was rock, but I felt her tense beneath me as she spotted her targets. She turned flush to the wall and backed away a little, kneeling on her right leg, and raised her gun. Now I could see the oncoming ships. One was heading straight towards us, the other curved right, no doubt hoping to flank us. But it was the first one that Molly cared about. Even this little bit of cover wasn't going to help much if he started blasting. She followed him with her gun sights, and chuckled to herself. "Come on sucker, come on, nice and straight, just like you're doing." Raising her left hand to support her shooting hand, she braced her elbow on her knee, and steadied her aim. The Dabesi was still too far away for a decent shot, and shooting wasn't her strong point, so she just tracked him with her automatic. The ship was lining up and trying to get close enough that he couldn't miss. "Somebody's got 'target fixation'," she muttered. "That's good, come on now, nice and straight, that's it.... come to Molly." I watched the minute movements of her arm, as she allowed what she considered the proper lead, then very slowly and deliberately squeezed the trigger. The explosion shook the dust from the rock outcropping, and caused a minor avalanche of dirt and pebbles. The gun bucked in Molly's hand, again and again she fired round after round at the approaching ship, hesitating only long enough between shots to re-align her sights on the ship. At the sound of her fourth shot the entire bow of the Dabesi ship dissolved in a ball of fire. We watched in amazement as it expanded into a black cloud, debris could be seen floating through the pall of smoke with the main portion of the ship still coming on, but now it was dropping faster than it was approaching, I realized that she had not only hit the ship, but hit it with a killing shot. Damn decorum, I whooped and hollered like a kid, "Great shot, Molly! Great! That's the best you've ever done. Damn, but that was good." and we watched the smoking ship until it slammed into the ground raising a blazing fireball. A few seconds later the noise and wind of the blast washed over us. "Half mile away," I noted, "Ye gods, you nailed him at more than a mile. That's wild. You been practicing behind my back?" "Nah," smiled Molly, "If that crazy bastard hadn't kept coming straight on like he knew he had us, I'd have never hit him. Lucky shot, but it worked. I guess he didn't know we had anything that could hurt him." "Well, hope for more luck, here comes the other one." The second ship had completed its maneuver and was approaching us from the east. Molly growled, "I doubt he'll come in like his friend, now that he knows we have teeth." She was right, the second ship pulled up and turned away, then he rolled into a tight turn and started back down into an erratic, twisting dive at the two of us. "Should we run?" I asked. "I can't stay ahead of him," said Molly, "Let's get this over with." She started to circle around the outcropping, then swore viciously. A heavy fall of detritus made any attempt to use that side for protection futile. Disdaining cover, she fell to one knee again, and lined up on the approaching ship. "You think they would have trained me better for this," she growled as she concentrated on her shot. I kept my peace, there aren't that many 'tess/norm pairs in the Scouting arm of the Combined Terran Forces. I remember how they had justified skimping on Molly's firearms work because of the high cost of munitions. Idiots! "Shit!" exploded Molly, "He's dodging, or tacking, or whatever you call it." "It's a technical term," I murmured, "called zig-zagging." I don't think she heard me, good thing too. "Damn it, hold still...!" the air thundered with the explosions of her gun. In lieu of accuracy Molly was filling the sky with fire. We both heard the empty click, but in a reasonably smooth motion she pulled the empty magazine out and slammed in the last clip from her pocket. The Dabesi ship, untouched by her first assault, was recovering from a wild turn. "Here he comes again," I warned. "Maybe he'll get close enough this time." "I wouldn't count on it," I said, "besides, that might be a bad thing." Molly grunted her agreement. Neither of us wanted him to get a good shot at us. Once more Molly braced her gun with her left hand, and lined up on the approaching ship. She set her sights on her target and talked to herself, coaching her own shooting out loud, as she took aim, "About so much lead...uhh...about so high for distance.... Mmmm..." and the world shook again as shot after shot rocked the area. At about the fifth shot a ball of flame leapt from the top of the ship. "Got him....!" crowed Molly, and dropped her gun to her side, then brought it back up as she realized that the hit hadn't been as effective as her first kill. A secondary explosion rocked the Dabesi vessel, which aborted its dive and rose in a climbing turn, trailing thick black smoke. Molly raised her gun for a parting shot, but hesitated, staring at it. I followed her glance and groaned to myself. The barrel was discolored from the heat of too many shots in such a short time, and there was a hairline crack its base. "DamnDamnDamnDamnDamnDAMN!!" snarled Molly, and she rammed the useless weapon back into her holster. "You still have a spare barrel left, right?" I asked her. "Yah," she snapped, "but, we're not staying out here." and she began to run again, glancing over her shoulder at the Dabesi ship. But for the moment it dwindled, hurt enough not to follow us. /\__/\__/\ I'd been bouncing for more than an hour. The chair was secure, but it was improvisational, taken from the wreckage of our ship, and bound to the epaulette on Molly's shoulder. Fortunately, her jet black hair was cut page boy style, otherwise I'd have gone nuts trying to see where we were going. Still, it brushed over me uncounted times, and soft and silky is a relative term, and I didn't think her giant hair was, it was starting to piss me off. Molly was scarcely in a better mood, until we found the pass. Her long powerful legs ate up the ground swiftly, and soon we reached the cleft in the rocks. But it wasn't a pass, it was a chasm or a canyon, driving deep into the body of the rock. And it was big. As I said earlier, Molly is just over fifty meters tall, and the front of the cliff was about three times her height. "This looks pretty good," panted Molly. "I think we'll be well protected in here. There are steep mountains on either side that'll really restrict the approaches. He'll have to come in directly up the canyon, or straight down. And straight down he ain't gonna do, too dangerous to miss pulling out just right. He's too likely to prang into rock. Plus, he knows better than to fall into my field of fire." and she laughed grimly, "Not that I have any 'fire' to field. I'm glad that he doesn't know that.. Gives us a little time and possible edge." "Sold," I said. "But before we dive in, take a quick look at the rock face on the inside of this canyon." Molly took my advice and peered closely at it. "It's artificial," she said, "though worn." and she ran her fingers over it. "I say we go in anyway." "Just be careful," I said. As Molly strode forward, the unnatural construction of the canyon became clearer. The floor smoothed out to a semi-polish, and the walls began to describe an almost perfect right angle to the ground. However, the place was old and untended. Ancient rock falls and whirling winds had accumulated enough dirt and soil along the edges, to support grasses, bushes and occasional trees. As we proceeded the walls narrowed, which didn't make Molly happy, except that they also descended lower, until they stood only half-again as tall as the top of her head; still plenty of cover from the air. "The word 'jackpot' keeps running through my mind," said Molly. I had to agree. The CTF was still reeling from the latest Dabesi attacks. Molly and I had been sent off in the general direction of what command 'hoped' was Dabby territory, and told us to find something -- anything. We were doing okay, until ambushed by a squadron of light fighters. Why the fighters were here, why the planet was uninhabited, why they didn't just nuke us, were questions that plagued us both. Molly stopped, shaking me out of my reverie, and I looked up and saw why.. We had arrived at a fork in the canyon. More than a fork, rather a conjunction of passages. Molly stepped into one of the narrower ones and sat down. "I need a rest," she said. "Do you want down?" She didn't have to ask twice. I unlimbered my belts and hung on, waiting for her hand to approach. Stepping on to it, I turned over and laid down; about the only way I can travel without undue fear. But Molly was gentle, and lowered me carefully enough that I wasn't bothered. I rolled off her hand, and looked up at her. "Ten minutes," I said, and she nodded. Thank god that our links still worked, I hate yelling. I examined the floor of the canyon. It looked more natural up close, until you tracked it to the horizon, and saw how flat it was. "Y'know," I said on an impulse, "I don't think this is a canyon. I think it's some kind of a maze." Molly was sitting cross-legged, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting on the back of her hands. She gazed at me with her rich brown eyes. "I left my string at home," she said. "Ha, ha." I said. "Serve you right if there's a minotaur at the end of this thing." Molly smiled a slow, evil smile. "A big minotaur," I added. She grinned, "What makes you think he'd be interested in me?" then laughed. "We've enough on our hands," she said. "How long do you think it'll be, till our friend will be ready to play again." "Wish I knew," I said, "you put the fear of death in him. Even if he gets his ship fixed, he might wait for reinforcements. How about you, you want to change barrels now?" "No, we're still too much in the open here. One pass and that damn Dabesi could see we had problems. Or maybe if he spotted us in here he could drop half the mountain on us from where we couldn't even see him." "OK, time's up anyway, let's go exploring." Molly gathered me up in her hands, and held me in my chair while I strapped myself back in. Then she got up, and I closed my eyes and mumbled something trite as I shot up into the air like an express elevator. "What was that?" she asked. "Nothing, just practicing my theology." "Well, then, I'd be more carefull what your 'Goddess' hears..." and she laughed. The exploration soon lost its excitement. There were countless forks and side passages, but they all aimlessly meandered about before joining some other previously trodden path, or ended in steep cul-de-sacs. The only thing with any promise was about ten kilometers into the maze where the vertical walls dipped to about twenty meters above Molly's head. We examined the immediate area, but were soon convinced that we hadn't found a way to the other side. There was a strange beveling along the top of the wall that inspired us to call it the 'ledge'. There was, however, another spot, where the wall dipped to its lowest point yet, only ten meters taller than Molly. "Do you want to scale it?" I asked. "I want a look first," said Molly. That meant me, and though I wasn't enthused about the idea, I also didn't have anything better to offer. So I unbuckled myself, and let Molly pick me off her shoulder. She lifted me a short distance above her head, and I glanced around, looking for our Dabesi friend. "No sign of him," I whispered. Molly lifted me higher, I stood on the top of her palm, and clung to her middle finger. The view was staggering, to me anyway. But I managed to choke down my fear and take a good look. All I could see was more of the same: the maze went everywhere. "See anything?" she asked "Nope. Might as well bring me down." Molly lowered her hand until I was level with her shoulder. I fell across the small gap and buckled myself back into my chair. "Any ideas?" she asked. "I was about to ask the same," I sighed. "You ready to try the ledge?" I rubbed at my face, "Yeah, okay, let's get it over with." Molly took off with her usual ground shaking jog, and I clung to my chair with my usual heart pounding panic. Her black hair still occasionally obscured my view, but I wasn't about to let go of my perch; seat belt be damned, there had to be a better way to travel. "You okay?" she asked. "Spiffy," I squeaked. "I mean, fine. I'm doing fine." "Sure you are." Molly turned down what we agreed was a shortcut back to the ledge, and was no more than five paces into it when the tangler came whipping out of nowhere. One moment I was not enjoying a ride that some people would pay good money for, the next I was in free fall. Molly hit the ground with a force normally reserved to mountains, and I snapped like a cracked whip. "Mike?" "Uh?" "What happened?" "That wasn't planned, right?" "It was a tangler." "Yeah, I caught a glimpse. I never saw one that big before. How're you doing?" "I'm real stuck, Mike." "Stay cool, I'll see what I can do." The first order of business was to extricate myself from my perch, but first I had to figure a way to avoid a seven meter fall. I glanced up and made my decision. Molly anticipated me and tucked her chin up against her shoulder. That made it easier as I released the straps and leapt forward. I caught a double armful of her silky black hair and swung back and forth. Molly helped a little by turning her head, but I still had to slide down about three meters before I felt comfortable making the jump. Then when she moved her head she cleared my path, and I jogged away so I could get a feel for the big picture. She was trussed and ready up for Christmas. If it hadn't been such a serious situation, and Molly in such a bad mood, I might have teased her about being a nice big Christmas present for me. As it was, I just let it go. The silver strand of the tangler had struck around her knees and wound its way up and down her colossal body. It was strong stuff too. Molly's no slouch, and I watched as she strained with strength enough to toss a skyscraper, but the fibers didn't even budge. I walked all around her but saw no weakness in the bindings. "Crumbs," I swore, "if I have to saw through this stuff we'll be here forever." "Can't find any thin spots?" "Not down here. I think I need to look from a higher vantage." Nor was that an easy task. I debated climbing Molly's hair, but if I entangled myself we'd both be in trouble. I decided to begin my ascent from her right hand. She obliged by flattening her fingers against the ground, and I stepped up onto her fingers. It was a bit tricky crossing to her open palm, but from there things grew easier, though the angle increased as I reached the uppermost part of her arm. About five minutes later I stepped up onto her back. Molly was spread out beneath me, a chain of undulating hills wrapped in silver. This ground moved beneath me, not much though. The tangler had left her just enough leeway to breathe. "It doesn't look good," I said. "Can you reach my left hand?" Molly asked. It wouldn't be easy, but it was possible. "I'm on my way." The last part was the most difficult, I had to slide down about five meters, but I was glad that she had directed me this way. I ended up close to her left wrist, and was delighted to discover that the tangler had only caught her upper arm in two places. I wasted no time, but unlimbered my phase cannon and targeted the leftmost strand. Molly didn't even flinch, not that my arsenal could do much more than burn her a bit, but it made things go faster. About a minute passed and the strand parted with an singing twang! I wiped away the sweat, holding a phase cannon is like wrestling a furnace. The second strand went a little more quickly, and after it fell apart Molly moved her arm and clenched and unclenched her fingers. "Thanks," she said with a heartfelt sigh. "How bad is it?" "Tingly," she complained, "everything's asleep." "You want me to bust a few more stands?" "Nah, I'll take care of them, you better get off." I packed up the cannon and slid down Molly's wrist and into the palm of her hand. From there I jumped to the floor and trotted a hundred meters in no particular direction. By the time I turned around Molly had begun to dig into the tangler fibers by her hips. Fingers the thickness of tree trunks vented their strength upon the material and tore it with a hideous ripping noise. It took her less than a minute to extricate her right arm, and then she made short work of the bindings across her legs. She tossed the stuff aside and rose to her full height, soaring over everything around her. She cast about, then smiled as she spotted me. "Thanks, hero." "My pleasure." She covered the distance between us and squatted down. I clambered up onto her proffered hand, and soon found myself back in my chair. Happily, nothing else interrupted our journey to the cliff. /\__/\__/\ "I really hate this." "It'll be okay." "Uh-huh. Easy for you to say." "Hey," she admonished, "you trust me, right?" "Uh-huh." "You trust me?" she asked more sternly. I stared into her dark brown eyes, "I trust you with my life," I declared. "Got that right," she murmured and smiled.... "Ready?" I looked up at Molly's face looming above me. I lay on my back with my head on her fingers and my feet about half-way down the palm of her giant hand. "I'm ready," I said. We both ignored the less than stable note in my voice. "One." Dear god. "Two." Why did she have to count. "Three!" Somebody dropped a boulder on me and the world blurred past. The wind roared in my ears. The cliff was snatched downwards. I don't know if I screamed going up, but I sure as hell did coming back down. Something interesting shot into view, something different, a flash of blue and green. I pried my eyes open with my fingers and tried to etch the vision in my brain. The cliff shot back up, and I clenched my eyes shut. "Aaaaaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." "MIKE!!!" "...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuhhhhh?" Molly's thunderous shout blew sense back into my head. "You caught me," I chirped. "On the first bounce," she said dryly. "Sorry, I'll never get used to that." "I'll never get used to catching you. What did you see?" "Oh yeah. We have to get over that wall," I said. "I couldn't see too clearly, but I'm sure that I saw water." Molly glanced up doubtfully. "It'll be a bitch," she said. "I hope you're sure about this. You do know that if you'd open your eyes you could see better, don't you?" and she chuckled. "It's the best thing I've seen so far, and I can't help it if I'm a little afraid of heights and don't really like the idea of you tossing me a couple hundred meters into the air." She nodded, then smiled down at me. "Ready, hero?" "Yeah, I know," I growled. "Me first." "You love it when I toss you around like a toy, and you know it." I grumbled, "Not with seventy meters of air under me." "Hell, I can reach that high," Molly giggled. Yeah, I know," I said, "and I don't really like that either." and Molly laughed. /\__/\__/\ Eighty meters above the floor of the canyon I clung to the narrow ledge. My heart had slowed almost enough to separate the beats, which was hardly fair to Molly, it had been a good toss. Still, I had other things to worry about. "You ready?" asked Molly. "Just one more minute!" I pulled out a few stickys and secured them to the ledge, then I tied myself to the stickys. I had moved a good distance to Molly's left, but I still hung a neon orange flag over the edge. No sense taking stupid chances. "Ready!" I shouted, and I grabbed the ropes and held tight. I was partially blind from my angle, so I heard the booming of her footfalls, but didn't see Molly until she was at the peak of her jump. Her gigantic body struck the cliff and the ground heaved beneath me, but her scrabbling fingers failed to find a purchase and she fell from sight. I heard her heavy muttered curses, and felt the ground shake as she landed. Then I heard the heavy rumble of her footsteps and felt the wall tremble as she stalked off for another try. Her booming footsteps sounded again, the world around me gonged, and the ledge shook violently as Molly hooked her fingers over the edge and lifted her colossal self up to an uneasy perch. I was never more glad for the stickys and ropes. "No sweat," she grinned down at me. I would have begged to differ, but I let her catch her breath before she pulled herself over the ledge and dropped over the side with a thunderous boom! Shaking the wall again. I clung to the ropes without saying a word, until the ground stopped moving, then took my time putting everything away. I heard Molly's boot tapping and decided that she took precedence over my phobias. Stepping up to the edge of the cliff I looked down at the giantess; a novel experience, that was soon dispelled. Molly held up her cupped hands and smiled sweetly. "Jump," she commanded. So I did. I backed up a couple of steps and then just dove out into the empty air toward Molly's hands. About two feet out from the wall my brain kicked it, took one look at the vista below me, and stumbled off to strangle my spine. I wasn't sure if it felt like skydiving, bungee jumping, or just plain suicide, but I turned what started like a credible dive into a flurry of thrashing limbs as I tried to climb empty air. I soared out ten meters above Molly's hands, almost eighty meters above the ground. I would have screamed, but my brain was beating my spine with my tongue, and all that came out was a horrible gurgle. The most painful part was that this wasn't the first time. Molly has never failed to catch me, and I have never failed to shriek horribly. Thank god, she's not malicious about it, but then I know her weaknesses too. Some instinct remained to me, and I landed on my back, still flapping wildly. Her cupped hand was already dropping, cushioning my body as she described a large arc that consumed all the energy of my fall. That wasn't any fun either. Still, it was better than smearing myself all over her hands. Molly's motions were perfectly choreographed, and as the whirling ride ended I found myself next to her right shoulder. Even my unwieldy chair looked good now, but it was a minute before I summoned up enough courage to climb into it. "Mike, you OK?" "You're holding me, aren't you?" "Yes." "You didn't drop me, did you?" "No, certainly not." "And you didn't crush me, right?" "Not that I can tell." "Then thanks, I'm all right! A little dizzy, but all right. I really hate when you do that to me." "Would you have jumped on your own?" "Maybe." "Sure you would," she snapped. "You just don't trust me do you? Well, if you have a better way, let me know. I'll just let you get down yourself the next time. It may take you a couple of days, but I can wait. Unless you fall, of course, then I'd just have to go on without you. I guess I'd just dig a little hole and drop you in. Want me to tamp down your grave with my petite little foot?" Did I mention that Molly has a temper? Obviously the day was getting to her as well. Well, there's a point where I don't back off. "God, but you're macabre," I said. "What's the matter, wouldn't want me to mash your dead body?" "You'd probably enjoy doing it," I yelled. "I've seen what happens when you toddle around. Remember MacEnzie's brand new Hoverette?" Molly chuckled, her mood completely turned around, she also has a sick sense of humor. I grinned too. Everyone knew that Molly weighed just over two thousand tons, but it didn't really mean that much, until Molly stepped on the Colonel's new car. It had been back during training, at the end of a long, long day. Even the sergeant had been drooping, which explained why Molly, eyes forward, as per orders, and marching barefoot, since they hadn't yet made her boots for her, had turned a corner and stepped on the base commander's brand new hovercar; with her huge bare foot. It shouldn't have been parked there, but even so, it might have been worse. Colonel MacEnzie was all of six feet from entering his shiny new car when Molly's huge bare foot came down on top of it, crushing it flat as a pancake.... right in front of him.... He screamed, and nearly cried when Molly lifted her huge bare foot and he saw the flattened scrap of metal that two thousand tons of beautiful woman had made of his brand new car. His beautiful new Hoverette was now no more than an inch thick! A shiny red sheet of wrinkled aluminum, squashed completely flat against the pavement... It looked like a beer can that had been run over by a heavy truck. All the Colonel could say for ten minutes, as he sat and stared in shock, was that he was glad he wasn't in it. After that Molly got a lot more respect, was relieved of any more eyes-forward marching, and the sergeant took no-doze pills, but the training didn't get any easier. Whenever I got uppity with her, she used to remind me of the story, so I was happy to return the favor. On the other hand, Molly has a dark side, and it was important to remind her of that too. "You're thinking of that militia group riot, aren't you?" she said. "Yah, it kinda goes hand in hand, no?" "They shot me," she said. I wasn't ready for her to lose her happy mood yet, "Right, one dingy nut put some birdshot in your ankle, so you crunched him like a snail." "It hurt. Besides, they were coming after you too." "Was that the reason you stomped all fifty of them into paste?" "I like you." "I like you too. Did I ever say thank-you?" "Once or twice." "Third time's charm...thanks." Molly grinned sidelong at me, and I sighed: mission accomplished. It was a fact, Molly was a bit untamed, nor was she the only one. In fact, comparing notes with the few other 'tess/norm pairs, I'd lucked out. But the memory was still with me. Me on the ground with two shots in my belly. Molly looming over those men, snuffing them out one after another. The idiots hadn't run, they hadn't surrendered, they had fought, and my favorite giantess kicked off her shoes and painted the ground with their guts. We were both in counseling for a few weeks after that event, but the CTF got us off the hook; the giantesses aren't kept around just for their looks. "You still enjoy the very thought of crushing men, don't you?" Molly sighed, "Little man, you can't imagine what it's like to have so many little bugs like you, swarming around me all the time." "Is it sexual?" She shook her head, washing me with her hair. "Not really. It's an outlet, a powertrip, it's satisfaction, maybe, a little sexy if I think about domination." "But you get so carried away." "Welllll..... maybe..... a little bit, sometimes." "Don't give me that 'little bit sometimes' I've seen you in action, and I know an orgasm when I see one!" "Mike...!" "I suppose you've never stepped on a man nice and slowly, with your bare foot, so that you could feel his bones crunching under your foot while you turned him into a bloody grease spot, after everything was over? As I said, I know an orgasm when I see one! Especially as big as you are.." "Certainly not!" "What about the time..... never mind.... Just as long as it isn't me," I said. "We still have a ways to go. What was that command the mahouts used to use to get their cute little steeds moving?" "You like living dangerously, don't you, hero? Well watch out for my trunk, and she playfully stabbed at me with her finger." "Whoa, enough, uncle, uncle. Besides, who'd cut you out of the next tangler that gets you?" Molly strode along at a rapid, but comfortable pace, which was much better than her tooth-jarring jog. "You might have a point there," she chuckled, "a little one, but then about all you can make are little ones." "I'm not li....." and I trailed off into silence. I was six feet tall and a hundred eighty five pounds, but there was no way I could win that argument. She'd just tease me the rest of the day. We yank each other's chain quite a bit. The high walls rushed by as Molly walked through the maze, or whatever it was. Tangles of weird plants marred the artificial lines and made it a little surrealistic. As I watched the walls slide past I noticed that they seemed to be closing in on both sides. "Molly, is this passage getting a little narrower?" "Sure enough, hero." She answered. "I don't like this." I said. "How far are we from that blue spot?" She asked. "Couple hundred meters straight line, maybe a little more." I said, "Why don't you slow down a bit, we've already hit one tangler, and we don't need any more." I said. "It's been two hours already, that ship's gonna be back." She said. Still Molly slowed to a more deliberate pace and we both concentrated on the floor and walls of the maze. It was nerve wracking, we both felt the tension. "Mike?" "Yes, Molly?" "I'd like another look around." Terrific, just what I wanted, another trip via Air Molly. "Damn it, if you wanted a bird's eye view, you should've brought a bird." "You're more fun," she chuckled, "But I mean it, I feel blind in here." "Yah, yah. Me too. I fumbled at my belts, and pulled myself up. Something caught on the chair, and I turned my head to free it, then stopped as something flicked on the edge of my vision. "Molly?" "Yes, birdy?" "Don't move." Once again CTF training proved its worth. Nine out of ten people would have taken that as a command to spin wildly and stare, but my long cool Molly froze to immobility. I swung around in my chair and peered to the ground far below. About fifty meters back something was emerging from the walls. "Molly, turn around and run as fast as you can." She turned fast enough, and I swore viciously as I nearly lost my grip on the chair, but she hadn't taken a step when with an audible bang! Steel bars snapped into place, blocking the passageway. "That's neat," said Molly. "Glad you like it," I snarled, "since it's for you." "For me?" "Does it look like it would slow me down?" There were eight bars in all, each spaced about five meters apart. "You think these traps are for me," she said grimly. "The tangler might have been overkill," I explained. "but this thing is just for you." "The Dabesi don't have giants." "One problem at a time." "It looks like it would be easy to climb." "You want to climb it?" I asked. "Nope." "You want to keep going?" "You know what we're gonna find." she drawled. I knew it too. The second part of the trap snapped into place after she had taken her third step. It looked just like the part behind us. "Okay, hero, tell me why I shouldn't just rip these bars off the walls." She lowered me to the ground and I approached the lower most bar on the right. At five meters up, the huge thick steel bar itself was unapproachable, but it wasn't what caught my attention. The bar itself was set into an tall oval aperture, and under that was a round hole, so the entire thing looked like a big exclamation mark. The lower hole was only three meters up, and pulling my flashlight from my belt I stepped back and tried to get a look inside of the thing. Something silver glittered back at me. Molly was on her knees, watching me as I thoughtfully headed back towards her. "So, what's the catch?" she asked. "The bars are rigged to drop. If I was an evil trap designer I'd electrify them or something, but it looks like the least you'd get is tangled up again. There's probably more." "I could hold you next to one of the holes for a better look." "Thanks, but I think we're ready for the next step." "Glad you think so." "Don't get smart. You see that big tree over there?" "Uh...no. You mean that little weed?" "Ha, ha. Yah, right, the weed. Can you pull it up?" It was a silly question, and we both knew it. Molly bent down and wrapped her gigantic fingers around the thick trunk. The ground heaved and ripped, and she stood up, carrying her twenty meter tall prize. I don't care how many times I see it, watching Molly simply rip a huge fifty or sixty foot tree out of the ground so easily, still sends chills down my spine. Grinning she waved the huge tree around like it was no more than a weed. "OK, That's good, it wasn't a trap." I said. Her face fell, "What do you mean, it wasn't a trap?" "It could have been the trigger for another trap, I mean the ground could have opened up, or a top snapped over into place. The tree itself might have exploded." She pointed the tree at me, "Don't try to intimidate me." "I don't have to, not if this nice maze does it for me." "Yah, yah, yah," she muttered. "Sometimes I think you don't love me." "Toss the tree, Molly, just toss the tree into the bars." She tossed it all right. There should have been a sonic boom, it moved so fast. There was a loud clang! and several things happened at once. A puff of dust heralded the ejection of twenty little tanglers, ten to a side, that slammed into each other at the middle, swallowing the tree in the twinkling of an eye. Then the bars dropped a meter or two, and long, evil looking steel spears blasted out of the top of each oval. Two of them struck each other, deflected off the bars, and clattered away on the other side. The rest sank deep into the rock on the opposite side. The tree never even slowed them down. Molly looked white. I'm sure I didn't look much better. "That's rude," she complained. "It's a hell of a way to make a pin cushion." "That's not funny!" She exclaimed. "Calm down," I said, "We're okay. So the traps are getting a bit more serious. I'd like to know why they aren't worse than this, and why there aren't more of them." "Maybe they're lulling us into a false sense of security." "That's not funny," I said. The tanglers were still writhing, apparently dissatisfied with the tree. "Can you reach the tree without being caught by the tanglers?" "They seem to be heat sensitive." noted Molly. "Hey, good point." I cast around, then spotted a three meter tall boulder against the wall, near to where Molly had obtained the tree. Unlimbering my phase cannon, I crossed over to it and began to pump heat into the rock. It only took a minute, soon it was popping and steaming. "Can you kick that near the tanglers?" I asked. Molly was way ahead of me. She lightly tapped at it with her metalshod toe, lifting it out of the ground, then gave it a gentle kick with her toe (gentle on her scale) that sent it rolling it towards the bars. The result was impressive. The tanglers swarmed around the rock, burying it in a mass of twitching silver, that slowly calmed down to quiescence. Only one of the tanglers still held the tree in a partial embrace, caught between conflicting tropisms. Molly reached out for the tree, and I bit my tongue. She knew what she was doing. She grabbed the root ball of the trunk and began to pull. The tangler, sensing movement, enveloped one of the larger branches. Molly laughed, "Hey, dumbo, this is mine," and she pulled harder. The branch tore free with a loud ripping noise. The tangler, deprived of its support, fell to the ground, still snaking and twisting around the broken limb. However, it landed close enough to the still warm boulder to draw it to its fellows, where it too lapsed into stillness. "So," said Molly, "we're safe now, right?" I looked up into her eyes (no mean feat), and saw the twinkle. "You're learning," I said. "Damn right," and she poked and probed at the bars with the tree. The branches scraped and squealed against the metal, but nothing else came of it. Molly cocked her head and thought about it for a moment, then raised her arm, and whacked the topmost bar with her arboreal weapon. There was an audible click! and a host of bars slammed out of the walls from either side, turning the barrier into a nearly solid wall of steel. Molly glared at the bars and began to thrash them with the tree. There were a few more clicks, some smaller tanglers sprang out, but the trap seemed spent. Still, Molly kept pounding it, till the tree was reduced to a handful of kindling. I opened my mouth to say something, but she wasn't done yet. Spinning on her left foot she lashed out with her right, her booted heel struck the bars with a crashing gong, as if a thousand bells had exploded. The force of the blow was strong enough to spread some of the bars apart, but again, no further trap revealed itself. "I think that we're safe now," declared Molly. "I feel safe," I said. "I'll wait on this side while you climb over." "I'm not climbing," she growled. And reaching out, she grabbed the bars just below the opening her last kick had created. Now Molly is strong, and I don't mean just because she's a giantess. She's disproportionately strong, which is necessary to compensate for the incredible pull of gravity on her giant body. Most of the time it's not that obvious, except when she puts her mind to it. So when she pulled on the steel bars, they came apart like warm taffy. She ripped both them, and most of the machinery that operated them, right out of the walls. Huge chunks of rock and dirt fell in cascades of crushed and broken debris as she viciously ripped the huge steel bars out of the walls, along with portions of the walls and the steel of the machinery that operated the huge bars. I jogged back a ways, not that Molly wasn't being careful, but I didn't want to be smeared by a chunk of metal or rock that bounced funny when that enormous giantess ripped it apart. It only took her a few moments to clear the way, and when she was done she looked much happier. "I've been itching to bust something," she said, and she held out her hand for me. You'd think I'd be used to her incredible strength by now, but I just kinda stared at her palm as she lifted me up. Like I said before, she's one of the nicer giantesses, thank goodness.
Molly moved a bit more slowly after that. I think it was the first time she'd ever encountered anything designed to kill her that wasn't based on high explosives. We were also getting close to our target, that and the nervousness we both felt when we checked the skies made us both a bit antsy. Then, suddenly, Molly stopped. "Mike?" "Yah?" "I stepped on something." "Oh hell, "You mean a trap?" "The ground moved funny when I stepped down." "Okay. Okay. Fine, don't move." I unhitched myself from my chair, grabbed onto its arms and peered down. Unfortunately I couldn't see anything from the side, and Molly's breasts and ass prevented any clear view from the front or rear. "I didn't realize how voluptuous you look from up here," I said. "What?" she hissed. "Whoa, no movements, okay? I'm have to get down to the ground. Maybe I can defuse the trap, or find a way to jam it in place." "The term 'shot in the dark' springs to mind," said Molly. "I'm open to suggestions." "Just get going." And therein lay the little foil to my plan. I looked Molly over from every way I could, but failed to find a way down that I could handle. The thing that peeved me most was that I had left a piece of rope back at the ship, since Molly normally carried a better one. "I've got a problem," I said. "Wait in line," said Molly. "I can't climb down." Molly sighed deeply. "No, you can't climb down on the outside." "Sorry?" "Look, you just insert yourself under my collar and climb down, the tension of my clothing will keep you from falling." Ever have one of those moments when words fail you? I wracked my brain for something smart to say, fortunately common sense won out. "Um...okay," I said. /\__/\__/\ I had never been this...uh...'close' to Molly before. I mean, she held me in her hands often enough to be a given. She'd even kissed me once or twice, which was an experience not soon forgotten. But we valued each other's privacy, and I had never been this 'close' to her before. First, I divested myself of anything that might scratch her. Not a real big worry, since Molly is a lot tougher than she looks or feels, but I knew she'd appreciate the thought. So my utility belt, my portable computer, and my phase cannon flew far out into the air behind us, where I was sure they wouldn't hit anything. From there I pried open Molly's collar, and slipped under the black elastic. I started to sweat immediately. Molly generates a lot of heat, her uniform is designed to channel it away, but it wasn't doing me much good at the moment. I squirmed down under her collar and wormed my way to her breasts. Her uniform was taut against her skin, and movement was difficult, but I managed to keep moving. I was wondering what we were going to say to each other about this little escapade, when I bumped into something. It was her nipple. I swore violently to myself. I heard Molly 'Ahem', and I pushed myself past her teat, and down over the rondure of her generous breast. From there I crawled down across her ribs to her belly. It was like climbing boilerplate. I'd never really appreciated just what good condition Molly was in and how how hard her body was. On the other hand I think she was feeling more than a little tense which was probably a factor. I hesitated as I passed her navel. I had never seen it up close before. Wow. Then things became more difficult as I had to insert myself under the elastic of her pants. I worked my way down her right side, pausing one more time. Even in the half-light I could see that Molly was auburn down here. The heat was incredible, though, as was the scent of her, so I didn't need her soft rumbling admonition to 'Keep moving, buster' to send me on my way. From there things went well, until I ran into a bit of a problem. Molly likes to wear her pants tucked into her boots. That time I swore loudly enough that I'm sure she heard me, but she said nothing as I fumbled around in my pockets. Happily, I still had my survival knife. I poked and prodded at the tough material until I made enough of an opening that I could rip a hole. Pulling myself through, I tried to ignore the fact that I was still more than six meters off the ground. I grasped the frayed edges of the tear, and positioned myself over Molly's instep, and with a prayer to anybody listening, let go. I fell only two meters, I was stopped by her boot laces. From there it was a simple matter to climb down to the ground. Molly couldn't see me, so I took a moment to kiss the earth. After that, I dashed off to collect the equipment I had tossed off Molly's shoulder, and then ran back to investigate the trapping mechanism. First off, she was dead right. The ground had sunk a full meter under the weight of her foot. It was an amazingly clean fit between the trap and the ground, there was no way we could have seen it, there was also no way to jam it. I checked around the immediate area of Molly's foot, looking for any other clues as to what would happen if she took her foot off, but found nothing. From there I moved my search to the walls, concentrating on the space below ten meters; Molly would have already spotted anything if it was higher. Bingo. Two long narrow slits marred the walls too either side of Molly, right around ten meters off the ground. "Got something," I said. No reply. I looked up, Molly was staring into the sky. I trotted over to her giant left foot and tapped her toes hard enough to get her attention. Actually, I took my cannon by the barrel and slammed it down, like I was driving a stake with a sledge hammer. She turned and looked down at me, and raised an eyebrow. "Glad you picked the right foot," she said. "The left foot," I corrected. "I'm glad I've got steel toed boots on, you hit me like you were driving nails. Whatever happened to conversation?" "You were supposed to be watching me. When I'm looking for traps or things, don't take your eyes off me unless you have to. If you loose track of me we might both be in trouble." "Sorry, I thought I saw something overhead." "Really?" and it was my turn to gape at the sky. "We'd better hurry." "You mean: 'you had better hurry'. I'm just observing right now." "Observing, oh yah. I found something," I said, and I pointed up towards the wall. "There are two openings on either side of you, right at the ten meter mark, a half-meter in height and...uh, forty in length." "Did you say ten?" "Yah." "Shit. I think I see another set around thirty meters." I turned and looked up at the opposite wall, "You're right, but I think you'll be okay." "What's the plan?" "Well, I want to you to crouch low and roll forward, but first I need to defuse the lower traps and secure the area ahead of you." "Can I help?." "I don't know how. Don't worry, I'll manage." /\__/\__/\ The first step was easy, but tedious. I used the phase cannon to strike holes into the wall, creating a makeshift ladder to the slit ten meters up. It was a pain, since the process took longer the more distant my target grew. I also took great pains to make sure that each hole was more than deep enough to accommodate my hands and feet. Obviously I took too long, because when I turned around Molly was squatting on her heels. "What the hell are you doing!" I exploded. "Helping," she said, "wanna make something of it?" "Warn me next time?" "Fair enough," and she reached out for me. I glared at her for a moment, then turned around, so when her fingers wrapped around me I was facing the wall. I cradled the cannon in my arms. "Ms. Cherry Picker, ready for duty, sir," she quipped. "I'm working on an idea, lets try the left side first." Her hand was rock steady as she lifted me into the air; still, I would have clutched for support if the cannon hadn't impeded me. At the last moment I fumbled at my belt and pulled out my flashlight, shining it deep into the narrow slit. Sharp metal glittered back at me. "It's some kind of a scythe," I reported. "Can you handle it?" Molly sounded worried. "Bring me in closer, and we'll see." Closer inspection confirmed my suspicions. The trap was set to sweep back against the forward motion of the victim. That placed the pivot point on the left side of the opening. I took up my cannon, braced myself on the top of Molly's index finger, and began pumping heat into the hinge. I stopped when I saw the metal begin to drip, then told Molly to move me to the right side. Molly changed hands and held me near the right wall. It was fortunate that the passageway had narrowed as much as it had, but it was still a stretch for her. I melted the tip of the blade, then gouged out some chunks of the low roof, hoping between the two, to jam the mechanism. After another ten minutes I declared the job done. Molly set me on the ground, and I scouted the area ahead of her, looking for any secondary traps. But the area looked clean. "We're ready," I said. "Speak for yourself." "You have to move sometime." "Yah, yah, I know. Why don't you move up against the wall. I don't want to roll over you." I bit back a retort and obediently trotted forward about ninety meters and backed against the wall, well out of harm's way." Molly crouched down, wrapped her hands around her ankles and buried her chin between her knees. She leaned forward a little, then sprang forward in a huge leap, tumbling into a forward somersault that made the ground shiver beneath me. The sunken trap sprang back up. I heard a whirring crunch, the two higher blades swept out with a whistling shriek that just missed Molly's back. The lower blade on the right swept out about two meters and jammed tight. The one on the left never showed. Molly completed her roll, looming over me like a wayward mountain. Before I saw it coming she snatched me up in her hands, and tossed me into the sky. I screamed like a banshee, but she caught me, lifted her hand to her face, and I rolled over just in time to see her huge thick red lips coming down on me. Molly smothered my curses with a warm, wet kiss. My entire upper torso was covered by Molly's enormous soft lips as she engulfed most of my body in a warm wet kiss. "Molly," I spluttered, "What are you doing?" "Kissing my hero..." and I was lifted up and engulfed in her huge, warm, soft lips again. "Molly...." "Well, you deserve it, that damn thing would have chopped me off at the ankles. Thank you, thank you, thank you..." and I was engulfed in the warm moist softness of her gigantic lips again. "Hey, maybe there some good things about having a female partner." I laughed, and I squirmed against the hot, wet, softness of her huge lips, kissing the plush gigantic lips back as she lifted me to her giant lips and kissed me again and again engulfing most of my body in the hot wetness of her enormous lips. "OK, Ok, that's enough." I said... I wasn't really sure it was though, even as gigantic as she was and as huge as her giant lips were, it was kinda nice to get a full body kiss from her warm soft lips. "Thank you, thank you, thank you..." Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. There's a point where you throw up your arms and take your medicine. I did better, I (bravely? stupidly?) inserted my arm into her mouth and latched onto her lower lip, so when she finally lifted her head, she lifted me along with it. I gritted my teeth and hung on. "Wut ore you duing?" she slurred. "Making a point," I said. "Wuch is?" "Don't get carried away." Molly chuckled and tipped her head back. I squawked as I was upended, my legs flailing uselessly for purchase. I glanced down and found myself looking deep into Molly's throat. It was awesome, and I wondered when she had last eaten, all she had to do was to part those gigantic lips and I'd just disappear in her cavernous mouth. Let's face it, her tongue was several times as big as I was. One gulp and I'd be gone. But as she said earlier, I trust her with my life. Over and over again! "I 'aking a 'oint too." "What?" I said a bit too loudly. "'on't 'et 'outhy." "Huh?" Molly plucked me off her lip and held me up in front of her eyes. "Don't. Get. Mouthy." she repeated. "Oh, ha-ha. I was afraid you were going to give me a tongue lashing." Her eyes glittered. "That's against the rules." "So's this," I commented, tugging at my damp uniform. "You, madam, are a messy kisser." "Look at what little I have to work with." she bantered back. My coveralls were soaked from her huge wet lips when she put me up to her shoulder. But I loved not only the feeling of her huge hot lips kissing me, but the idea of her caring enough to kiss me. It felt kinda good that she felt that for once I had saved her. I jumped the narrow gap to her shoulder and climbing into my seat put my harness on. "OK, Mol, I'm ready.." and I continued to talk as Molly started forward, "It isn't like you haven't saved me a lot of times since we've been working together. That's what partners are for." The light flickered. Molly froze. My head snapped back, but I didn't see anything. We were back to serious instantly. "That's twice now," she murmured. "Our friend must be back in action, but he doesn't seem keen on getting too close." "We'd better hustle," I said. "Now would be a bad time to hit another trap." "Yah. Put me down. It's bug hunt time. Maybe between us we can get through this thing unscathed." "I hate this." "Me too." Molly set me down, and I trotted off ahead of her. We both hated this kind of thing, it smacked of the kind of weird drills the CTF thought up for us. Ever parade march with a giantess? They claimed that it was important that we both be capable of independent ground movement. We called it the 'bug hunt' because from both perspectives there was a certain amount of alarm at the consequences of a misstep. Still, there's something to be said for good training: we both knew where the other was going. I ranged forty meters ahead of Molly, zig-zagging across an area wide enough for her to pass. She followed me, walking as if across a balance beam, to stay within my covered area. We were both worried. Though the traps were gratifyingly rare, they were increasing in viciousness. The next one was going to be a doozy. We followed the passageway to a left turn. I darted out into it, staying near the middle of the maze, turned and stopped. "Mike?" I waved her towards me, and she stepped around the turn, her gargantuan right foot shaking the ground close behind me. But both of my eyes were looking forward. I stared into a widening corridor and across the entire corridor was a three hundred foot tall wall, and in the center of the wall was a wide gate. It was an old fashion gate of spears sticking from the ground to well over four hundred feet high at the top of the arc of spear points. Molly had stopped as soon as she had seen the gate. We looked and I couldn't decide whether it was a formidable barrier, or simply a decorative gate. The spears at the ends of the gate were level with the spear points on top of the wall. The wall was rounded on the top and had spear points, giant spear points, like everything else we had found in the maze, protruding from the top of the wall. The gate started with three hundred foot tall spears at the ends and arched up to over four hundred feet high at the middle of the gate. Between where we stood and the gate was a wide clear patio like an open courtyard with huge flagstones for a floor and gigantic benches set at various points around the wall as places for giant visitors to wait. And there were two fountains, one on either side of the gate, each with water falls dropping close to a hundred feet from the mouth of a face on the wall into the stone basins set in the wall. If it weren't for the spear points topping the wall and gate, and the vicious traps on the passage here, it would look like an inviting garden area for waiting visitors. Molly stood and stared, not moving toward the gate. "Right, Molly, don't move, till we're sure." I said. And we both stared at the patio area. The wall was decorated with friezes and sculptures in low relief all along the wall. The giant benches were of such a size that Molly would be very comfortable sitting on them, complete with back rests that would fit her gigantic size. The way the basins with falling water and the benches were set it was as if visitors were being invited to quench their thirst from a long journey. The only problem I could see was that in order to get here, one had to pass several deadly traps. It was an incongruous enigma, deadly traps leading to an invitation to quench your thirst and have a comfortable seat while waiting invitation to... what? We didn't know. The gate seemed to be one piece, with no way to part and admit anyone. Maybe the whole gate slid out of the way, or... what, again we didn't know, or hinged out from either side. "Molly, why don't you stand here and don't even set foot on any of those nice smooth inviting patio stones. Just let me simply walk through the gate and see what this is all about. None of the traps we have seen are for normal people, but for giants or giantesses. I wouldn't have set off any of the traps. I'm not heavy enough to spring the traps and I could have walked under the big steel bars without even knowing they were there, and even the lower blades would have gone thirty feet over my head, even if I had set them off." Molly looked about for several more seconds, then said, "Well, what you say makes sense. I don't see anything threatening, but then all kinds of traps or triggers could be set in those ornate walls, or in the patio stones or where ever, and no one could ever see them. I'll wait here, in fact, I'll be a little further back. Back to where I can just see the waiting room, or courtyard, or what ever it is. Just be sure not to get in trouble, and come back for me." "Molly, you know I'd never leave you." I trotted down the widening pathway and out onto the patio, or courtyard. The stones looked solid and felt solid to me. Which of course didn't mean that Molly's tremendous two thousand tons wouldn't push them down and set off a trigger, that I wouldn't affect. I looked all around and walked over to the base of the towering walls and walked around the perimeter watching for any indication of traps or any signs of 'something not right' There was nothing. I looked up at the tremendously tall figures in the low relief, they looked like any other normal relief figures, women pouring water, people working in fields, nothing unusual, if you don't consider that the figures were a hundred fifty feet tall. Of course there was no way of knowing whether these were oversized figures for the huge sculptur ed mural, or life sized figures. At the "fountains and basins, I stopped and looked, but there was no way for me to climb up to them. It was a sheer wall fifty feet high to the seats of the stone benches and the basin's were another fifty feet above them. Molly was going to have to examine them. I turned and walked toward the gate, everything seemed normal. I didn't find any signs of any traps or anything but a perfectly normal courtyard for visitors to wait for admittance to.... I still didn't know what. When I got to the towering gate, is seemed to me to be silly. A person could merely walk between yard thick iron bars set fifteen feet apart. Of course Molly couldn't get through them, and from the height and spear points on them, nor over them either. When I walked past the gate I was in another patio, or courtyard much like the outer one. For the first half the same three hundred foot walls with the huge spear points surrounding the courtyard, the back half was fitted into a canyon, or carved room in the side of the mountain. Cliffs towered hundreds of feet above me. They were so high it was impossible for me to even gage their height. I'd guess a thousand feet or more straight up. There was a sort of garden in the courtyard, rounded walls fifty feet high were placed in several places around the courtyard. I walked around the walls and wandered around, checking for any suspicious looseness or any signs of traps in the courtyard. I found nothing till I got almost a quarter of a mile from the gate, back very close to the cliff. There was a roofed area, the roof a couple hundred feet above the floor with a section with walls that were smooth and only about a hundred feet tall. Standing back I could see what appeared to be a counter, or shelf at the top of the hundred foot smooth sheer walls around the back portion of the roofed area. I wanted up on the "counter." It was a sheer wall, slick with no hand holds or any way I could see to get up to it, for a guy my size. It would be nothing more than a low counter for Molly, but she couldn't get past that towering gate of spears. I wandered from end to end of the "counter" without finding a way to get up. I still had my rope and stickys in my pack and wondered if I could use them to climb the slick sheer wall. I got out some stickys and rope, then reaching as high as I could stuck a sticky to the wall. Getting another ready, I pulled myself as high as I could and slapped another one against the wall. They stuck. I laughed at myself, that's what they were supposed to do. I dropped back down to the floor and looked up at the hundred foot wall, I only had ten stickys I didn't have enough to make a ladder, then I thought, if I could pull them loose after I used them, maybe I could climb to the top on them. Damn it, why wasn't Molly here, she could just pick me up and set me on the counter.. Save me a lot of work. I remembered one class that had supposedly taught us how to use the stickys to clim b a smooth sheer wall, using them with ropes to pull them loose after we were above them. I tied them into the rope like the instructors had shown us and remembering to not reach too high began setting them and climbing. It was hard work, but after a few minutes I was more than twenty feet up the wall. It took me almost forty five minutes to climb the cliff to the counter, but I finally reached over the ledge with a sticky and pulled myself up to the top. I lay breathing heavily for a few moments exhausted and winded. Then pulled up the remaining stickys, I sure didn't want to loose them. I sat up and looked around. I was on a bar! The ledge I had worked so hard to get onto looked like somebody's patio bar cemented to the higher wall. The other wall, to which the bar was cemented, towered on up to the roof another hundred feet over me. The ledge was a smooth, an almost slick ledge about fifty feet wide and extending almost from one side of the roofed area to the other, looking like nothing so much as someone's patio bar. Molly'd have a good laugh at this. I worked for forty five minutes to climb to nothing, but what was a bar built for her scale. I walked along the bar, that's what I was going to call it, I don't care what it really was, to the side closest to the gate. There set in the back wall was a panel, looking like nothing as much as a control or communications panel. I walked over to it and sure enough there were huge "switches" or buttons set in the panel. There were even symbols below each button. Now all I had to do was to figure out what the symbols meant and I could run the place, or maybe talk to someone somewhere. I didn't even know what I was looking at, and I wasn't sure that I could even push the huge buttons. I raised one hand and pushed the end button. It didn't move. I pushed with both hands. Still nothing. I took two steps back and jumping into it, rammed it as hard as I could with my shoulder. It moved in a few inches, stopped and bounced back to where it was. I stepped back and looked at it for a moment, then I heard something behind me. I whirled around and saw the huge towering gate sliding open. I had hit the right button the first time, who said I wasn't lucky? I watched as the gate simply slid wide open. Molly was still standing out where I had left her. I screamed for her to come on in. Then getting wiser, I turned my link back on. "Molly, come on in. Everything looks good. I'll be waiting at the bar for you." A few seconds later my link said in Molly's slow voice, "What?" "I said, come on in, I'll be waiting for you at the bar, first drink's on me." "Mike, have you lost your mind?" "Try me, you'll like me." and I laughed. I could see Molly standing at the far end of the outer courtyard looking in at the now open gate. "Come on in Molly, I found the controls and opened the gate for you. Ain't I great?" It had been quite a while since I had been this far from Molly, and as I looked at her I realized again what a beautiful woman she really was. I always pictured her as a hulking giantess, and not as a woman, but from this distance standing on the hundred foot high bar I could see that she really was a beautiful woman, her long dark hair shimmered in the sun, and her lovely shape could be seen under the tight coveralls. Too bad she was such an enormous giantess, I could learn to like someone like her. I watched as she cautiously walked through the now open gate and stopped, looking around at what I could see from my new height was a lovely patio garden. What I had seen from the ground as fifty foot walls were the sides of a broad open pool of clear water, with wide benches on the top for peop le to sit by the rippling water. A lovely patio garden built on Molly's scale. It looked very inviting, but why the dangerous traps in the maze leading here? I had no idea, nor any idea of what this whole thing was about. As far as we knew this was an uninhabited planet. Maybe something built years in the past? Or even longer, thousands of years in the past? I couldn't even hazard a guess. Molly looked toward me and then ran toward where I was standing on the bar. She looked absolutely beautiful as I stared at her from my position on the bar, but as she came nearer she seemed to change from a beautiful normal sized woman into the towering giantess I knew, growing with each enormous long step she took. She came right up to the bar where I was standing and looked down at me. "Hi, Babe, want a drink?" I asked, joking with her, raising my hand as though I had a drink in my hand. "You sure look nice tonight." "Mike!" her booming voice rolled over me, "You've lost your mind!" "Just over you, gorgeous." But I was looking up from around her waist at her towering gargantuan figure. I had always known that she was a good looking woman, but seeing her coming across a patio that was scaled to her gigantic size instead of always seeing her as a giant in a normal world brought home to me just how beautiful she really was. Even as I stared up from waist high at her massive towering body, she still looked gorgeous as I stared up in fascination at my giantess. "Miikeee...! What's wrong with you?" "I think I've just seen you for the first time, and I'm in love." "Mike!" and she reached out toward me, with one huge hand. "Are you drunk? Just seen me for the first time, we've been working together for six months, and training together for almost a year before that. And if you got any more acquainted with me, I'd have to have you arrested for rape." "Molly, look around you. What do you see?" "A lovely garden patio, completely out of place on a strange planet forty light years from Earth." "But Molly, can't you see, its built on your scale. You look like a normal sized woman here in this place, and Damn it, you're beautiful! Not like the towering giantess everybody knows you to be. I've always seen you as a gargantuan giantess, never seen you as a lovely lady in a normal setting. Somehow or other even though I knew that you were a good looking woman, I've never looked on you as a "woman" but as my giantess partner. Here in a setting, that's to your scale, you look lovely, a really gorgeous young lady. That's an aspect of you I've never seen before. I've always seen you as a giantess, like when you were ripping up that big fifty foot tree a little while ago, like it was nothing more than an annoying little weed. You're gorgeous, that way too, but in a different way. I've never seen this side of you. I think I'm in love." "Mike, what have you been drinking? Are you drunk?" "Molly, you don't understand. I haven't had anything to drink, just a different look at a beautiful lady that's my partner." "Mike, come back to your senses. How did you get up here?" "Climbed, for forty five minutes, don't that sound silly when its barely as high as your waist. You could have picked me up in one hand and put me up here in a second without even thinking about it" "Climbed?" "Yeah it looks a little higher to me when I'm standing on the floor, than it does to you." I looked at the bar and the pool with the giant benches, and the huge patio with giant fountains. "God, I feel like the midget here, instead of you being a giantess. Enjoy it while you can, you'll be back to being my gigantic partner taking care of me again, before you know it." "Sounds like you've been taking care of me, climbing for forty five minutes to open the gate so I could just walk in." "That's what partners are for, taking care of one another. How about taking care of both of us and seeing if you can get that barrel changed." "Now, that sounds more like the Mike I know. Now see that nice big swimming pool, or whatever kind of pool it is?" "Yeah, so..." "Well, see those benches around the edge where I could sit and soak my feet in the nice cool water and lean back in that nice bench." "Yeah..." "Well, I'm going to take off my boots, sit on that bench over there in the shade and dangle my feet in the water while I change the barrel." "Can you change it there?" "Sure, its not hard, just takes a little time." "What about dropping it in the water?" "I'm not going to do that, and besides its made as a service gun and all I'd have to do is take it out, dry it off and put dry ammo in." "Well. if its that easy, and you want to soak your feet why are we standing here talking, let's get those nice little boots off and soak your poor weary little feet. Poor little baby." "Don't get carried away, 'little'... man." And she grinned down at me. I watched as Molly turned away and walked over to one of the huge concrete benches by the water, in the shade of the only tree I had seen on this planet that was taller than Molly's waist. Molly said, "This one looks nice, I think I'll try it." and she sat on the wall while I watched as she unlaced her huge boots. Pulling them off she set them on the patio floor and pulling her pants up above her knees she turned and lowered her feet into the pool. "Ahhhaaa.... Oh, God, that feels good.... I may retire here, the water's so nice and cool..." and she leaned back against the back rest of the bench. "OOhhoooo.... that feels so good, do you have any idea how long its been since I've sat in a chair that fits me and has a back I can lean back on?" "Hey, Molly, don't get too comfortable, we've still got a job to do, and you've got that gun to fix." She glared at me from the bench as she wiggled her feet in the pool. "Come on, slave driver, let me relax for a couple of minutes." and she lay her head back on the back of the bench and wiggled her feet in the water. The Dabesi ship picked this time to fly over. I just caught a glimpse of movement and looking up, saw the ship high above the valley, I could just barely see him under the edge of the roof. I wondered if he had seen Molly, she was wearing a camouflage jump suit sitting quietly under the biggest tree I had ever seen, but I didn't know if the Dabby could see her. I was sure that he hadn't seen me. I was not only too small for him to see from his altitude, but well back under the roof. "Molly, the Dabs, don't move." I shouted. I watched the ship until he passed on by us, then yelled at Molly, "Get in here under the roof." I shouted. Molly, looked up, "You bastards, you've got the worlds worst timing, that's the first time I've been comfortable in I don't know how long. Wanna' come back and give me a good shot?" and she grabbed her boots and ran into the bar area. I laughed, "I didn't know you could move that fast. Think its time to fix the gun yet?" She was still standing barefoot with floods of water running off her giant feet, but the gun was lying on the bar with the old barrel out and she was fishing in her pocket for the spare. She came out of her pocket with a yard thick package twenty feet long. Unwrapping the heavy greasy paper, she dropped a twenty foot steel shaft nearly a yard thick on the bar by me, and I watched in amazement as she picked it up in her fingers and shoved it into place in the gun. She pulled back she slide, made some adjustments and in moments had the gun back together, and was putting the magazine back in. She looked just like any other shooter as she racked the slide back to load a shell into the chamber and flipped the gun back and forth in her hands to make sure it felt right. "OK, fixed." she said. "Wait, a damn minute, I thought you said it'd take a little while to fix it." "Well, wasn't that a little while?" "I mean, I thought you meant it'd take you a good while to get it changed." "Well, maybe I exaggerated a bit. It actually changes out pretty fast, if things go right, it can be a real bastard if it doesn't fit just right, but that one went in just right first try." she chuckled. "Oh...." and I watched as she slid the gun back into her holster, wrapped the old barrel in the greasy paper and put it back into her pocket. "That's it? You're ready to shoot again?" "Yeah, but we better hope it doesn't crack again, 'cause that's the only spare I've got. "You saw that Dabesi ship a minute ago when he went by?" I ask. "Yeah, he just flew over going in the same direction that we were traveling, but he was real high. I don't know if he saw us or not." she said, "You were under the roof and I was sitting under the tree with my camouflage jump suit on. I don't know if he saw me or not." "Well, if he did he'll be back in a minute." "Yeah, I guess he will be." "Why don't you stay here under the roof and let me go out and have a look around and see if I can see him again." "But, he'll see you." "I don't think so, I think he's looking for a fifty meter giantess, not a six foot guy standing real still alongside a wall in camouflage." "Yeah, but if he does see you, he'll home in on you and get you." "If he starts toward me, you can run out and shoot him like you did the other one." "Mike, that was luck. I'm not that good of a shot with this gun." "Tell that to that guy you blew out of the air. Or to this 'Dab' with the hole in the back of his ship that you hit too. You're plenty good with that gun, just take careful aim at him and squeeze off a good shot, like you did before." I saw the ship a second before Molly did, but she sure was quick on the draw. The Dabby was coming in toward us through a pass in the mountains. I don't think he had seen us, just the patio area we were in and was coming back to check it out. He wasn't dodging or zig zagging, just coming straight in at the patio area. Drawing her gun like a marshal in one of the old western videos, Molly dropped to one knee as she turned to face the approaching ship. I heard Molly talking quietly to herself again, if you can call rolling summer thunder quiet. "Come on, come on in sucker, just like your buddy did." Then she laughed lightly and said to me, "I don't think the sucker even sees us. He's coming in to check this place out, and he don't even know we're here. Its a little dark in here under the shelter of the roof and he's out in the sun looking into the sun too. Boy is he going to get a surprise." She was down on one knee, with her left hand supporting her gun hand as she aimed carefully at the ship. "That's right, come on.... I know he don't see me, he's slowing as he gets closer. That's it, a little higher, Mmm.... that looks good." I had my hands over my ears, but in the confined space of the courtyard and under the roof it sounded like the entire world had exploded around me. Again and again Molly shot. At the third shot, the lower part of the ship exploded in a ball of fire the entire length of the ship. Flames shot from Dabesi ship and a thunderous boom sounded as the Dabesi ship lurched like a wounded duck, pitched forward and accelerated into the floor right where the floor met the wall at the far end of the bar, a lot closer to us than either of us would have liked. Molly yanked me off the bar and turned away just before the shockwave and a wall of flame blew past. Thank God for the thick insulation of her giant hand surrounding me. "Molly, you all right?" I yelled from inside her huge hand. I wasn't sure she could hear me, but in a moment she answered. "Yeah, I'm all right, but next time I hope I can get them a little further away. I don't think I was hit by anything, but you might try a little fire patrol on my back." She laughed, "A little sun burn maybe... it was a little hot for a second when he blew. I'm sure glad that they made these coveralls for me fireproof." Molly dropped to her knees and bent over lifting me to her shoulder so that I could walk out onto her back. It was still a lot higher than I liked, but it was Molly and I felt fairly comfortable as I walked across her back. Then I looked back up at her head. "Uhh... I think you got that nice hair singed a bit. Look up." Molly raised her head and the long black hair dropped to her back. I walked over and there was singing all along the back side of her already jet black hair. "Yep, its nothing but a little singeing, I think it'll all be all right in a day or two. Look down, I want to check the back of your neck." She dropped her head and raising one huge hand swept the black hair away from her neck. "Its OK, Molly, no damage here. Apparently your hair protected your neck from the flames. Hang on just a second and I'll be back in my chair." and I ran over to her shoulder and grabbed the chair and held on for dear life, as she stood up again. I'll never get used to the way her shoulder rises so fast when she stands up. My knees almost buckled with the terrific acceleration of her rising shoulder as she stood up. I swung into the chair and quickly snapped my seat belt on. "OK, Mike, you ready?" "Yeah, but next time, let me know before you stand up when I'm not in my chair. Please..." "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were back in it." "OK, no problem. It's just that you move pretty quickly for someone as big as you are, and you'd never believe how fast your shoulder moves up." "Well, that takes care of both the Dabesi ships, think we'll have any more problem from them?" "I guess not, except that I'm not real sure that that's the ship I saw go over while you were at the pool. I couldn't swear to anything, but the other ship looked a lot bigger than this one, quite a bit fatter, not as sleek and trim, but it was hard to tell how high he was. They do have radios, and may have called in some help. Although they may have felt that the two of them could handle two people stranded on foot on a planet, with two armed space ships." Molly laughed, "Maybe they didn't want to sound crazy and neglected to tell their headquarters how big I am." I laughed along with her, "That could be true too. I'd have had trouble believing it if someone told me that there was a two hundred foot tall giantess shooting at a space ship with a pistol. Much less blowing one of them out of the air." "Make that, blowing two of them out of the air." she laughed. "Will this bring my shooting score up at the academy?" "I don't really think he had time to mention that you now had two Dabesi ships to your credit. The way he exploded I think your shot went right in the lower part of his bow before it exploded inside." Molly walked over and we looked down at the black hole where the Dabesi ship had crashed after she shot him. There was nothing left of the Dabesi ship, but small pieces of debris scattered around a hole in the floor, but the exploding ship had blown a huge hole at the base of the wall just a little ways from the end of the bar. Molly peered into the gaping hole, and I leaned back and closed my eyes as her shoulder tipped me nearly perpendicular to the ground. "Will you look at that?" she murmured. "Is it worth it?" I asked. "You tell me, hero." I opened my eyes, and for a moment forgot about my acrophobia. I was looking down into a starlit sky; distant lights glittered and flashed, twinkled and changed colors, and I realized that it was artificial. "Looks important," said Molly. "Get me down. Get me down!" I hissed. "Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have leaned out so far." "Screw that, we just hit the jackpot," I fumbled at my belt, pulled it off, then yelped as Molly stood up, nearly unseating me. "So, what is it?"
"Who cares," I snapped, as I unhitched my portable computer from the chair and hooked it to my belt. "Maybe it's a weapon. Maybe it's a communication center. Right now it's a place to squirrel away and do the next bit." "Whoa, right there little guy. I'm not going underground." I took a second look. "It looks big enough." "No underground stuff." "You're not still claustrophobic are you?" Molly twitched her shoulder and I bounced hard and hollered. "All right! All right! I'll go in alone, maybe I can get this thing working for us." "How much battery do you have?" "Thirty minutes." "Crap." Molly leaned her head back. "Do you really think you can light this place, or should we make a run for it?" "You can bet your life, there's more ships on the way. But without our ship, what else are we going to do? How far can we run on foot?" Molly nodded, "We were lucky to get this far." "Maybe we're still lucky. I tapped into that Dabesi net." "They let you." "Right, maybe they did, but it was still exposure to their protocols. The portable's been chewing on it for a few days now. I think I have a chance to link up here too." "If their army shows up, they probably won't wait thirty minutes." I stared into Molly's eyes, "I know," I said softly, "I'll work as fast as I can." Molly returned my gaze squarely. "Once I get going, I may not be able to stop," she warned. "Thirty minutes. I'll come out for you, whether I'm successful or not." "What if I don't recognize you?" "One problem at a time, okay?" Molly smiled, "Okay." "Want to put me on the ground? Please..." Molly looked like she wasn't sure, but she held her hand by her shoulder palm up and I jumped into her palm and sat down. "Down, girl." and I smiled up at her vast unsure face. "You're sure?" "Yep, put me on the ground." and she lifted her hand and set me on the ground, at least put her hand on the floor where I could run and jump off to the patio floor. /\__/\__/\ I unlimbered my portable computer and began hunting for any localized command signals. I was still trembling from being lowered into this starry cavern, Molly was in a hurry and let me drop the first sixty meters before she slowed my decent. Hell of a way to earn a living. The Dabesi carrier wave was almost too easy to find, and I set about getting the system to inject itself into the I/O stream. All the while I kept one eye on the field monitor. The screen showed a view from the wall where Molly had fired her gun; in it I could see the enormous giantess boldly advancing on a Dabesi army. I don't know where they came from, but it was probably from the ship I had seen earlier. It was probably a Dabesi troop ship, with their reinforcements.. Now Molly was facing them alone, not that I would have been much but in her way.. /\__/\__/\ I unlimbered my portable computer and began hunting for any localized command signals. I was still trembling from being lowered into this starry cavern, Molly was in a hurry and let me drop the first sixty meters before she slowed my decent. Hell of a way to earn a living. The Dabesi carrier wave was almost too easy to find, and I set about getting the system to inject itself into the I/O stream. All the while I kept one eye on the field monitor. The screen showed a view from the wall where Molly had fired her gun; in it I could see the enormous giantess boldly advancing on a Dabesi army. I don't know where they came from, but it was probably from the ship I had seen earlier. It was probably a Dabesi troop ship, with their reinforcements.. Now Molly was facing them alone, not that I would have been much but in her way.. /\__/\__/\ They fired their weapons at her, and it meant nothing. The monitor showed Molly strutting through the hail of fire with no more concern than if it were a soft tropical breeze. A feral grin lit her beautiful face. Her eyes were bright and alive with uninhibited anticipation. The Dabesi might not have recognized it, but I could see from her expression that they were in trouble, a lot of trouble. She took the leading weapons carrier first. The truck swung toward her, but the weapon was not lined up yet when twenty feet of bare foot came down on top of the truck with two thousand tons of playful giantess behind it, bringing a horrendous crunching squeal of tortured metal. Any screams from the occupants were very short and drowned out by the tremendous sound of crumpling metal as Molly flattened the truck completely under her giant foot. The second weapons carrier fared little better. Molly saw the gun turning toward her and she stepped aside, as she stepped closer to the carrier, the gun flashed and there was an explosion behind Molly that threw boulders all over her back. She looked back and there was a hole in the wall that she could have walked into. She jumped aside then to the ot her side as the gun swung again, she felt the heat of the charge as the gun fired and another hole erupted behind her. This time when she jumped her foot came down directly on the weapons carrier. This time it wasn't a crunch, just a sort of heavy thump as Molly's foot landed making flattened tinfoil out of the truck. When Molly lifted her huge bare foot, there was a piece of flattened scrap metal crushed completely flat against the stones of the ground. Molly saw the Dabesi tank as it came to the corner of the maze by the gate, with two giant strides, and before the tank's gun could line up, Molly stepped down on the heavy tank. With another metallic crunch, it too was a piece of crushed scrap metal resting under her bare foot as two thousand tons of giant woman crushed it flat. Squatting d own she peeled the last tank up off the ground, twisting slightly she flung the makeshift discus forward. It struck the ground and skipped and scuttled right into the Dabesi troops, plowing through them, carving a path through the massed troops as if they were nothing but soft butter. Scores were sliced, smeared and crushed by thirty tons of crushed steel before it slammed into the distant wall. But Molly gave them no relief, even as the survivors began to regroup she assailed them more directly. With no more heavy weapons to threatened her, Molly eagerly turned her attention to the first column of troops to pull itself together. They fired their weapons as they charged, but this group was out of date; their weapons made no impression on her at all. She wondered what kind of weapons they were using, as she felt nothing. No stings, no burning, only a little heat. She laughed and strode straight into their midst. At first she kept it honest. She killed soldiers, stomping them beneath her huge pretty bare feet as if eradicating a bothersome swarm of ants. And at first they fought back against her, as if unaware of the futility of their situation. But that soon changed. The foremost soldiers began to retreat into their advancing comrades, and the sounds of fear began to be heard over the sounds of fighting. Molly's tactics changed too. She was in no obvious danger, and the thrill of power she felt was only heightened by the frantic squeaks of panic coursing through her prey. She no longer stomped on the scurrying men, she stepped carefully on them with her bare feet, savoring the delicate crunching of each individual body. Her mouth was slightly open, sometimes in a moue of pleasure, sometimes in a sneer of disdain. Her body language lost the urgency of battle and adopted the cruel feline hauteur of a lusty giantess. Mike thought, 'if Molly's one of the nicer giantesses, he sure didn't want see what one of the others would do'. The Dabesi didn't have a chance against the giantess's inescapable attack. She picked out one of the lead troopers and very carefully set her big toe on him, effortlessly pressing him to the ground. Her toe descended to the ground as if there was nothing under it. Molly grinned down at her helpless victim as she felt the soldier's body crunch under her giant toe. She smirked, wiggled her toes and took another step, herding the helpless army ahead of her. Her next step was several meters within their line of retreat. She chose a group of a dozen soldiers near the wall and brought her foot down slowly, taking pleasure in the tiny screams and frantic squirming against her sensitive bare sole as she mashed the entire group flat, squirting blood and gore across the nearby wall. Then she drew her foot back in a long lazy arc, smearing their pulpy remains across the hard ground, the only thing that remained of the dozen soldiers, were red stains on the stone. The army retreated from her with agonizing slowness, and with seventy foot long strides Molly punished them for their failure to flee fast enough, playfully catching the troops between her splayed toes and crushing them juicily. The Dabesi no longer thought of retreat, only of flight or escape; Molly, though, was lost in a hedonistic haze. She was deliberately careless, gleefully random, as she let her twenty foot long feet fall haphazardly among the screaming fleeing troops. With two thousand tons of woman behind each flesh liquefying step, little recognizable remained when she lifted her giant foot from her victims. Nothing even vaguely resembling a human. If one had looked closely enough, traces of the smashed metal of the soldiers rifles could be found crushed into the stone along with the red smears and tiny bits of flesh and bone squeezed to thin mush under Molly's immense weight, but there was no one with time to look closely. She soon reached the wall where the flattened tank had landed, and turning to the right she stopped and set her hands on her hips. Just beyond the sea of Dabesi infantry rested a class 3 troop carrier. Its weaponry snapped to attention, but Molly fired first. With a single fluid movement, like some colossal western gunfighter of old, she dropped into a crouch, drew her gun from her holster and fired. Her mighty gun echoed twice through the maze and the entire bow of the troop carrier was ripped asunder by the double blast, disappearing in a ball of fire. Lifting the gun Molly blew the smoke away from the muzzle before reholstering it, and sauntered casually towards her kill. More soldiers vanished beneath her bare feet, but many did manage to flee from her as the Dabesi found ways around the burning ship. Molly grinned, and walked over to the crippled ship. Bending, she grasp the top of the ship's hull with both hands, at the point where her shot had blown the entire bow off the ship. Then she lifted, pulling her hand apart as she did so. The ship tilted up and the metal of the ship's hull ripped like paper in her huge hands, spilling the contents of the ship to the ground. Molly was grinning as she stepped into the shattered remains of the ship. Her twenty foot long feet coming down like giant pile drivers on the broken remains of the ship. Men and equipment alike were mashed flat under her gigantic bare feet. All she needed was some heavy music to keep time with as she stomped on the wrecked ship like she was dancing. In a few moments there was nothing left of the Dabesi troop ship, but crushed and flattened scraps of metal, sprinkled with blobs of reddish gore smeared amid the crushed metal, looking like discarded aluminum foil someone had trampled carelessly. Molly turned to face the column of troops trapped in the corridor of the maze. She grinned, then laughed maliciously, looking down on the helpless men. They were her's! She had them! She had completely destroyed their ship and they had no escape. It was fun time for Molly as she stepped up to a group of troops that were firing uselessly at her. She could barely feel the heat of their weapons through her jump suit as her great foot rose and descended, crushing another dozen men and all their equipment into thin paste under her bare foot as thousands of tons of woman crushed heavily down on them. She saw another tank that she hadn't seen when she had walked toward the Dabesi ship. For a moment she was frightened as she saw that the barrel of their gun was pointed directly at her. She jumped t o the side, just before she saw the flash of the gun, but felt nothing but once again there was an explosion behind her. There was another crater in the wall a couple of hundred feet across. Looking down she saw circles of light glowing all over her jump suit, then she realized that the fireproof material of her coveralls was protecting her completely from their hand held weapons. She laughed, even if it hadn't been she doubted she'd get much more than a slight sun-burn from their weapons. Laughing she stepped next to the tank, before he could align his gun on her, lifting her foot and giggling she said, "Tag, you're it!" and brought her foot down lightly on top of the tank just holding it under the weight of her huge foot. She giggled as she felt the driver racing the motor and trying to tur n the tank. Slowly she pressed harder on the helpless tank, she shuddered and wriggled in slight orgasm at the sound and feel of the metal crunching under her foot, then grinding her foot down with her full weight on the remains of the tank she left nothing but another crushed scrap of metal completely flattened against the ground as she lifted her foot. Wondering about Mike, she turned back toward the courtyard and there was another weapons carrier. By now Molly was really enjoying herself. She idly reached out with her foot and gently, for her, pushed her bare toes under the edge of the weapons carrier and flipped it over. She laughed for a moment, then slowly lifted her foot and set it on top of the wrecked carrier, then very slowly began pressing down on it. She smiled as she heard the metal of the truck crunching, slowly she pressed harder and harder enjoying both the feeling, and the sound of the metal crunching under her huge bare foot. She was giggling as she retraced her footsteps toward the giant patio and she laughed as she realized that the flat floor and the vertical walls of the maze's corridor left no retreat for the Dabesi s oldiers. Although she looked like she was strolling idly, she was grinning as she very carefully choose each step for the maximum number of men she could step on. At the patio she found Mike sitting in the edge of the hole the ship had blown in the floor with his cannon in his lap and no Dabesi in the courtyard, but quite a few blasted Dabesi around the edges of the gate. She looked and saw two groups of Dabesi gathered behind either side of the gate behind the wall. Molly looked down at Mike and said, "Problems, partner?" "Well, none of them have been able to get through the gate yet, but they're shooting at me a lot. Where in Hell have you been?" "Playing." she giggled. "I can just imagine what kind of playing, you've been doing. Any survivors?" "A few, I came back to make sure you were all right, before I cleaned up the leftovers." "I got a few leftovers behind the walls there, that you can play with, if you want to." "Sure," said Molly, "its been a long time since I had this much fun." and she turned toward the far side of the gate and with two giant strides was standing over the trembling screaming Dabesi men. "You guys started it. Now I'm going to finish it! Mike and I were just coming here to explore, not hurting anything or anybody, and you guys shot our ship down, then tried to shoot us. Now, I've got to send a message back to your headquarters, explaining that you should leave us alone." and she lifted one giant foot holding it threateningly over the group of Dabesi men. They began screaming and firing at her enormous foot hovering over their heads. Molly laughed, "Hey, you're shooting at my foot. I can feel it." Suddenly there was an explosion and Molly jumped back and yelled. "Damn, that hurt!" "Molly," I yelled, "are you all right?" "I think so, I haven't been able to even feel their little weapons, they're using some kind of flare or heat gun that my coveralls stop completely. But one of these little idiots just pulled a grenade and blew himself and his whole company up with him. It burned the bottom of my foot. Damn stupid little Dabesi, blew himself up. "I laughed, Molly, how stupid was he to blow himself up with a grenade? You were just about to turn him into paste on the floor with your big ol' foot, weren't you?" "Yeah, but he blew himself and all his company up." "Did he kill anyone that you weren't just about to mash into jelly?" "I don't think so." "Then it didn't make any difference to him and his other troops, but it might have driven you away. Right?" "I suppose so." "Then he did right, he deserves a medal for trying to get you away from the troops or hurt you." "I'll give him a medal. A nice big foot print for his grave. I can just barely feel a little heat on my bare foot with all these guys shooting at it. But their heavy weapons pack a wallop like the space ships, Its a different kind of weapon that they used when they shot us down and blew all those big craters when they chased us. Their tanks and weapons carriers have them too, be careful." "How many more are there?" "I think these two groups are the last groups of their troops here, I've already got their ship and all their heavy equipment. There may be a few scattered here and there, but I'll clean them up, after I take care of these. Wanna watch?" "No, I don't think so. What you're gonna do to them would probably make me sick if I watched. Go ahead, get it over with." "OK," and she brought her foot down slowly on top of the group of helpless men. "OOhhooo, they crunch so neat. I can barely feel them, but if I step down real slowly I can feel their bones breaking." "And that turns you on, I suppose?" I ask. "Well, Yeah.... its almost a sexual turn on, I like feeling their bodies crunching and squishing under my foot, as I turn them into squishy mush. It gets me kinda excited to feel that I have such terrific power over men." The group of Dabesi who had been hiding behind the other gate post broke and ran screaming back toward the troop ship, not knowing that Molly had turned their ship into bits of scrap metal under her huge crushing feet. Nor did they realize that Molly could take two steps and be ahead of the fastest of them. I wondered if there was any of them that spoke English and had understood what Molly had said about getting turned on by stepping on them. Laughing, Molly casually strolled past the running men and set her foot in front of the fleeing Dabesi. Several of them ran into her huge foot and fell, as they fled in panic. Looking up at Molly towering over them so hugely, they began screaming and crying. "Oh, yess.... I like that. Scream for me, scream a little louder," Molly said in her thunderous voice, "I can barely hear you." She lifted her foot and once more selected an individual soldier and set her bare big toe on top of his squirming body. She set her foot down, but held her big toe up so that the helpless soldier was pinned and unable to escape. He screamed and beat at her giant toe until Molly just flexed her toe and slowly pressed it down on him, enjoying the feeling of his bones breaking and his body turning to mush as she flattened his body under the ponderous weight of her toe. "Next?" and she looked down at several other helpless Dabesi lying trembling on the stones of the pathway. "Oh, I've got things to do," and she quickly stepped on each one with the ball of her huge foot turning the screaming men to smears of bloody grease on the floor of the maze. Then she turned and walked up the corridor toward the Dabesi troop ship, very carefully stepping on each Dabesi she found. She hunted around the crushed remains of the ship for a few minutes, finding only a few more victims to crush before she returned to Mike and the patio. She came over to where Mike was still sitting in the edge of the hole. "What have you got, Mike?" "Right now, not much, I was a little busy with those guys that you had so much fun with. Those guns they were using might have just tickled you, but they sure blew some pretty good holes around here. I made sure that none of them got in here with me though. I do wish the gate was a little harder for normal men to get through. Molly laughed, "Why, it was wide open. You didn't close it. You'd have to close it if you wanted the gate to keep them out, Silly." "I guess from your attitude that the Dabesi are all gone?" Molly laughed, "Yep, no more toys to play with, all gone, fun's over, ship and all. I bet you didn't know that I had to fight three tanks and three weapons carriers along with a couple hundred troops, did you?" "Did you have fun?" "OHhhooo... yeah...... their tanks squashed so neat. Crunch... squish.... and it was a pile of flat scrap metal. They're so light, when I step down on them, they look like aluminum foil that's been walked on when I pick my foot up." "And their weapons carriers?" "OOHooo, they're even lighter. I just stepped on the first two, then flipped the last one over with my big toe, then stepped down on them real slow. They sound so neat when they crush, and they contour to the rocks they're on when my foot comes down on them." "And the men in them?" "They've got men in them?" and Molly giggled. "Well, they did before you stepped on 'em, now probably all they have is bloody grease spots." "Yeah, probably. But I'll bet you one thing, we won't have any more trouble from any of them." "Think you got them all? What about their ship? Did it get away?" "NOooo.... I played 'Quick draw Mcgraw' with them. My first shot blew the entire bow off, then I picked it up, and tore it open, and then, just for fun, trampled it into flattened scrap metal." and Molly giggled again. "It was more fun than the tanks." "Did anybody ever tell you that you're a really vicious bitch." and I laughed. "No! Nobody's ever been brave enough, or crazy enough to talk to me like that, but you." "I'll tell you something else, that I'll bet no body else has ever told you either. In fact I doubt if hardly anyone, but me even knows it, but I think its kinda neat. I happen to know that squashing tanks and trucks and all those men under your big ol' bare feet really turns you on. I don't know, its something about stepping on men with your bare feet that really sets you on fire. I don't know if its the thrill you feel over having such terrific power over men, or the feeling of being so supremely powerful that you can just take your bare foot, and feel a man's body crush and turn into a thin layer of paste under your big bare foot. I do know, that you really like to feel a man's bones cracking and breaking as you slowly step down on him with your big bare foot. Stepping on men, and crushin g them under your bare feet really gets you hot. Don't it? In fact, I'll bet that it wasn't really an accident that you took your boots off and left them off, when the Dabesi came back and caught us by 'surprise'." Molly laughed, "You know it does, I told you that a little while ago. I just get a real kick out of feeling men crunching and squishing under my feet. You're right about my loving to feel their bones cracking and crunching under my bare feet, and their bodies getting all soft and squishy as I slowly step down on them, really gets me excited. Its such a terrific feeling of power, I can't even explain it, all I know is that I love it! That's why once I get started stomping on men, its really hard for me to stop. It really gives me a terrific feeling of power when I get a man and slowly step down on his helpless body, squashing him under my bare foot. In fact after 'taking care' of all those Dabesi troops you wouldn't believe how hot and horny I am. In fact when I stepped on one of their tanks I almost had an orgasm. I felt that big heavily armored tank under my big bare foot and I really started to get hot as I thought about how helpless the men inside the tank were. They were so completely helpless as I started putting weight on the tank, I felt the steel buckle and crunch under my foot, and holding it down under my bare foot." Molly giggled and wriggled her hips erotically, then said, "I could feel the helpless driver putting it in and out of gear, racing the motor and trying to turn the tank under my foot, but all I had to do was press down a little bit harder and the tank was completely helpless. He tried shooting at me, but I had the gun turret under my foot and when he started firing I used my toes to point his gun and he was shooting his own men. I was laughing as he was s pinning the treads one way then the other. I Just put a little more weight on my foot and I could feel the heavy armor bending and crunching. There was too much noise to hear the tank crew screaming, but I knew that they were. Poor helpless little men screaming and trying to get away from my big ol' foot. Then I just stepped down and put more weight on their big powerful armored tank. I loved the feeling of the steel just simply crumpling under my foot. I stood there with the tank crushed into a flattened scrap of metal under my foot and I could feel my pussy getting all hot and wet, particularly when I looked down at the crushed tank. It looked like a little piece of tinfoil someone dropped on the ground that had been stepped on. It was almost as flat as Colonel MacEnzie's new Hoverette was. " and she started laughing almost uncontrollably. "Then when I came back here and found you holding off several dozen Dabesi at the gate, I got all excited. I don't know how you feel about me, but right now, let me explain how I feel about you. When I saw those Dabesi troops shooting at you, there was no way to save any of them. I took the greatest pleasure in saving you by stepping on them with my big bare foot. It was a real pleasure to step on the men that had attacked you. When I took individual men and stepped slowly down on them, feeling their bodies breaking and squishing under my bare foot, it turned me on like you couldn't believe. Now, that's the second time I've done that for you, and this time your going to have to pay the price for my saving you. But I think you'll appreciate what I'll charge for saving you. You might even enjo y paying me. I know that I'm going to enjoy collecting." I looked up at the gigantic woman reaching for me. There was no place to run or hide, and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to. She was right, I thought she was wonderful and I loved her. I had always tried to keep my love for her a secret, but today when I saw her coming across that patio, that was scaled to her size, and realizing how beautiful she really was, I didn't know how long I could keep my love for her a secret, especially from her. Her giant body is really a turn on for me too. I just love feeling the luscious gigantic mass of her near me, for me to be able to sit on her shoulder, or other parts of her giant body simply sets my blood boiling. And she has always given me complete freedom of her giant body. She has never stopped me from going anywhere on her giant body. Out of respect for her, there were places that I didn't go, and things that I didn't do, but she had never told me not to, or stopped me. And today when I was inside her jump suit climbing down her bare flesh.. Ohooo Yesss..." I laughed as I remembered what she had said earlier when I had seen her coming across the patio, and had told her how beautiful she was and that I was in love with her, and how I was really seeing her 'for the first time.' She had told me, that if I ever got any more acquainted with her, she'd have to have me arrested for rape. But now, she was picking me up in her giant fingers like a child's toy, and I think she was the one that was had 'rape' on her mind as she picked me up and turned me about in her fingers. She had just told me how hot and horny she had gotten stepping on all those Dabesi and their tanks and trucks. Now she was holding me in her huge soft hands and her fingers were plucking at my clothes. I jerked my zipper open and tried to keep her from simply ripping my clothes off, as I didn't have any spare clothing with me. In moments she had pulled my jump suit off and taken all my clothing off as though she was undressing a tiny child's doll. Now, her huge fingers were wrapped around my body and I lay, naked as a jay bird in her gigantic hand, as she held me like I was nothing more than a tiny doll while she fondled my naked body with her huge soft fingers. Her huge fingers, wrapped around my body, were warm and soft as she rubbed me and caressed me, playing gently with my body with the enormous tips of her giant fingers. I reached down and rubbed her immense long red fingernail with both hands as she drew her huge finger through my crotch again and again as she played with my stiff throbbing cock, flicking and teasing it gently with her gigantic fingernail. "Little man, I think you like me playing with you." I simply nodded my head without saying anything, and pulling her fingertip up with both hands, actually, she lifted the huge finger when I pulled on it, as there was no way I was strong enough to move her finger, I kissed her huge fingernail and nuzzled the side of my face against the warm softness of her fantastically huge finger. She laughed with thunderous roaring laughter and said teasingly, "Want to go down on me? And play with my big ol' pussy?" and she laughed, "or is that play, 'in' my big ol' pussy?" and she wiggled her hips as she teased me. I smiled, looking up at her tremendous grinning face looking down on me as I lay in her giant hand, "Yes! Yes, please... Molly, please... please." I was nearly deafened by her thunderous roaring laughter as she closed her hand completely around me. I could feel her moving and her hand was shifting about with me completely engulfed in her huge hand. Then she opened her hand lifting me between her giant fingers and brought me down into the gigantic valley between her colossal thighs. She was naked! She had removed her own jump suit while she had closed me up in her huge hand. I was in shock as I looked at the enormous masses bare flesh and her gigantic, sensuously rounded, muscular thighs. Each of her huge giant thighs were fleshy canyon walls on either side of me, four times as high as I was tall. Then I stared at the vast tangled hairy masses of her luscious curly pubic hair cascading down in a huge triangle from her enormous mons bef ore me. I remembered that hot curly hair from earlier today, and once again the erotic aroma of her washed over me. I could see right into her tremendous pussy, the gigantic crevice of her pussy, and the huge fleshy mounds of her giant vulva were only a few feet in front of me and in the enormous crevice, between the thick fleshy rolls of her huge vulva, I could see the dark, fleshy mass of her giant labia. The sweet overwhelming aroma of her aroused pussy was awesome, and I could see the dampness seeping from the huge masses of her soft moist flesh. I laughed, I might be no bigger to her than a child's toy soldier, and completely enchanted by this gigantic woman, but it was easy to see that it wasn't a one way romance, she was as aroused by using my six foot body for a sex toy as I was by th e erotic lusciousness of her tremendously massive body. She set me on my feet in the huge canyon between the huge fleshy walls of her thighs, directly before her giant pussy. I looked up at the gigantic mass of her giant pussy in front of me, then looked down at my stiff swollen prick, grabbed it in my hand, squeezed him, shook him and pulled him once, then laughed as I said, "Poor little guy, I think this job's too big for you." Then reached out and began stroking and fondling the gigantic masses of soft, hot flesh in her gargantuan pussy. I stroked the huge thick rolls of her soft giant vulva, fascinated with the enormous gigantic masses of hot moist flesh, that completely dwarfed me as I stroked her hot wet flesh, enjoying looking up at the tremendous size of her giant pussy. Even after being with her a year and a half, I had never seen her giant pussy before today. Now, twice in one day? Not that I hadn't wanted to, but at a hundred seventy two feet tall, she was kinda intimidating. Even as kind and loving as she normally was with me, there were things I just didn't do with her. But as I stared into a pussy bigger than I was tall, I figured that those days were over. Supporting myself with my hands I actually had to climb up to reach the enormous fleshy masses of her vulva. I climbed her giant pussy until I was up between the massive rolls of flesh and leaning forward I began kissing her hot wet flesh, nuzzling my face against the huge masses of her hot, soft, flesh and pressing my face against her giant pussy, rubbing my face in her hot sweet juice, I licked and kissed the enormous hot masses of wet flesh in her giant pussy. Her hot luscious juices tasted erotically wonderful. Musty and salty sweet, and all woman, as I licked the huge mass of her luscious pussy-flesh. I fell forward into the cavernous canyon of her gigantic cunt, squirming and wriggling, rubbing my entire body against the huge soft mass of her hot wet flesh. In moments I was completel y coated with the thick slippery liquid of her hot juices. I rolled my naked body back and forth squeezing myself between the hot moist rolls of her giant pussy-flesh, really enjoying the exotic feeling of the soft mass of her hot bare flesh. Rubbing my naked flesh against her, I wriggled and squeezed my naked body as far into the enormous crevice of her giant pussy as I possibly could. Using both hands on her huge heavy vulva I tried uselessly to part them and squeeze my naked body into the cleft between the huge hot fleshy masses as deeply as I could. Then climbing up and leaning forward I thrust my head up between the huge, soft, hot masses of her giant pussy-flesh and reaching in, pushed back the enormous fleshy hood of her clitoris, grabbing her giant clit with both hands. Then I thrust my face against the hot wet mass of giant flesh kissing and licking as I squeezed it with both hands. Her clit was almost as big around as my body, and throwing my arms around it, I squeezed and hugged it as tightly as I could, rubbing my naked body hard against her hot bare flesh. I was rewarded with a thunderous moan and gasping intakes of breath from Molly and then a thrusting, heaving, shuddering wriggle of her giant pussy as she squeezed me with her giant cunt muscles, picking me up in her cunt. My entire body was squeezed between the enormous masses of her giant vulva, she heaved her hips into the air wriggling and squirming in ecstasy. I squirmed and wriggled, rubbing my naked flesh against hers. I rolled my naked body against the enormous hot wet masses of her gigantic bare pussy-flesh in ecstasy while the erotic masses of her giant pussy-flesh were squeezing and hugging me tightly as she picked me up in her giant cunt, her colossal body heaving and shuddering, shaking me violently in the throes of her ecstasy. Twisting my body in the massive grip of her gian t vulva I squirmed my naked flesh against hers, I thrust an arm into her cunt feeling the gigantic inner masses of her hot wet vaginal sheath engulf my arm as her cavernous cunt easily swallowed my arm to the shoulder without resistance. I wriggled my arm about inside her giant cunt feeling the deep squishy softness of the enormous, hot, wet masses of the deeply soft, gelatinous flesh inside her giant pussy writhing and squirming around my arm. I could feel the immense wet masses of her soft inner flesh getting wetter and hotter on my naked body as I squirmed ecstatically rubbing my entire body against the soft masses of hot wet flesh in her giant cunt. Then her huge fingers caressed my body and pressed on me, squeezing my naked body deeper between huge hot rolls of soft wet pussy-flesh. I sq uirmed and wriggled in the tremendous grip of her giant pussy, loving the exquisite feeling of the hot wet masses of her giant body engulfing me so erotically as her gigantic pussy squeezed, hugged and caressed my entire body between the huge soft masses of her hot wet pussy-flesh. Then I felt Molly's giant fingers squeeze on my hips and thighs as she upended my body between her fingers and pushed my head down between the hot, wet, fantastically soft, fleshy lips of her giant labia, gently pressing my head down with her giant thumb, squeezing my body between her giant labia . Inserting my body deeper into the gaping tunnel of her giant cunt, she slowly began squeezing my entire body through the hot, wet, heavy mass of her labia, pushing me deeper and deeper into the cavernous opening of her hot wet cunt. I was in complete ecstasy as I wriggled and squirmed, completely engulfed inside her giant cunt, rubbing my naked body against the hot, wet masses of unimaginably soft flesh inside her giant cunt. The deeply soft, gelatinous pussy-flesh lining the inside of her cave rnous pussy easily swallowed my entire body as she slowly pushed me up inside her giant vagina, squeezing the huge tremendously powerful muscles of her giant vagina on me in rippling waves of ecstasy, squeezing and hugging my entire body in the deep softness of her sensuous inner flesh, engulfing me totally, sending rippling waves of erotic hugs and squeezes shivering up and down the entire length of my body as she swallowed me completely in the hot, wet, luscious cavern of her giant cunt. Molly used my entire body in her giant cunt as though I was nothing more than a little sex toy for her giant body, and I had never experienced such wondrous ecstasy as she used me in her giant vagina, sliding me in and out through the thick exquisitely soft flesh inside her gigantic vagina. I had lost all track of time as Molly held my legs in her giant fingers and probed herself with my entire body sending rippling waves of erotic sensuality over me again and again as I slid through the giant mass of her soft hot flesh again and again while I exploded in ecstasy again and again in the exquisitely soft luscious depth of her giant vagina. I was used for what seemed like hours as the heat inside her giant body built into a delightful sensation of exotic rapture. I could feel her gigantic body writhing, squirming and shuddering in ecstasy, then suddenly she was shivering and shaking, heaving her great body about in ecstasy as she exploded in squirming, shuddering orgasm, and floods of her hot thick cum inundated the enormous cavern of her giant vagina nearly drowning me in the hot thick deluge of her delightful cum. I had often known the exotic rapture of having my throbbing prick engulfed in the hot luscious love tunnel of a woman, but to have your entire body swallowed totally in the hot, soft, massive flesh of a giantess's most sensuous paradise while her giant vagina writhed and squeezed around me, crushing me lovingly in erotic rippling waves of sensuality was the most exquisite encounter a man could ever experience. It was nearly nightfall when I awoke to the slow heaving of a ship at sea, with the sound of heavy breakers nearby. Then I realized that I was lying on Molly's bosom, beneath her huge warm hands, and the heavy breakers were Molly's breathing. When I stirred Molly moved her hands and looked down at me smiling. "Enjoy yourself?" "Oh, God, Molly.... That was.... Oh, God, that was.... Oh, God..." and I quit even trying to express the exquisite sensations and fantastic rapture I had experienced. "Yeah, I enjoyed it too..." her heavy voice was a soft whisper as she smiled down at me lying on her broad chest between the most massive breasts I had ever seen. Molly had her jump suit on again and I was lying in the huge valley of her bosom totally naked. "If you want to get washed off, the water's really nice, and I think you'll probably enjoy a little swim. Then you can get dressed and explore that hole the Dabesi ship blew in the wall." I sat up and looked around, above me was Molly's beautiful smiling face, and to either side were the luscious mountains of her giant tits. I laughed as I looked up at a massive tit higher than I was tall. "Where's the swimming hole?" Her giant hand came up, her huge fingers wrapped around me, and she lifted me into the air. Extending her arm casually she swung me out over the edge of the pool we had seen earlier. She was lying on her back on the bench under the tree where she had been sitting when the Dabesi had so rudely interrupted our afternoon. "Ready?" "A little lower, please Molly." "Oh, all right, wimp." and she laughed as she lowered her hand to the level of the water. I sat on the edge of her hand and let my legs dangle into the water. "Hey, you're right, that feels pretty good." and leaning forward I dove from her hand into the water. The water was warm but coolly refreshing as I swam a few strokes away from her hand. I was just turning back toward her hand when she sat up and turned to let her feet dangle in the water. I was as awed as ever by her gigantic body as she sat up on the wall over me. You'd think that after being with her for over a year and working so closely with her for almost six month a person would get used to her gigantic size, but I just didn't. Every time I looked up at her I was in awe of her colossal size. It was one thing to work with a giantess, and even climb about on her giant body and ride on her shoulder, but really getting u sed to her, where a person could take a beautiful woman as huge as she was without some awe, was something that just didn't seem to come to me. And after our little "love session" of this afternoon, I didn't know if I'd ever get used to her again. As I swam back to her I was right between her giant legs, and her huge feet were under me in the water. She lifted one foot slowly under me picking me up from the water. "Like the water?" she ask in her usual subdued thunder. "Yeah, it feels really nice." "A little bit more, while you wash yourself off, then we've got to get back to work." "Now, who's the slave driver?" and we both laughed. I rubbed myself with my hand as I treaded water above her giant foot. Then her foot came up and I was lifted from the water, standing on her huge toes. I looked down at her giant toes, then up at her. "Are you sure you got all them Dabesi off your nice big feet?" She laughed, "Sure I got all them off my feet, now you get all of me off of you." I wriggled my shoulders and shook my head and brushed my hair back, as I looked up at her. "I don't think I want to get you off me. You're kinda neat." "Just kinda?" "Well, if I told you how wonderful I really thought you are, you'd get a swelled head, and your head is big enough." Her hand engulfed me and I grabbed a deep breath as she thrust me under water, she shook her hand back and forth making the water rush violently over me as she rinsed me off like a little toy in her giant hand. She picked me up out of the water and taking a corner of her huge jump suit gently dried my naked body off. "There, that ought to take care of you, now get dressed." and she held my jump suit up between two fingers and handed it to me. I climbed into my jump suit and looked up at her, "OK, where's my boots?" "Now, you're getting back to your normal grumpy self, that's better." And she reached into one of her huge pockets and pulled out a tiny looking pair of boots that were completely dwarfed between her enormous thumb and finger. I shook out my socks and put them on, then pulled my boots on. As I was lacing them I asked, "Have you seen any more sign of the Dabesi?" She laughed, "If I missed any, they're sure as hell making sure I don't find them. I don't think we're going to have any more problems from them." "I hope you're right. I didn't have quite as much fun with them as you did." "You didn't?" "Not really." "How'd you like your little sex session?" I looked up at her and just smiled. "Well, you can blame them for that. I just got carried away and all excited when I was stepping on them. I even remember having a little orgasm once when I stepped on one of their tanks. And you got all the benefit from that." "You! A little orgasm? Honey, I hate to tell you this, but any orgasm you have sure as hell isn't little!" "Well, now, what I mean.... little man...." "And I got all the fun, huh? I think I remember that I wasn't the only one that enjoyed 'my little sex session'." I teased. Her laugh was thunderous. "You noticed something?" "Well, I remember hearing a lot of thunder that sounded almost like a woman moaning, and then there was a point toward the end where I got completely swallowed up in a hot, wet, dark cavern, and got squashed in some huge soft masses of hot, wet, squirming flesh, and then almost drowned in some hot, thick, smelly fluid. Couldn't have been somebody I know having another one of those 'little orgasms', could it?" "Smelly fluid?" "Well.... I didn't say it was a bad smell." and I grinned up at her. "Want to go back down and see what you have there in that hole the Dabesi blew in the wall?" "Change of subject, huh? Well, I Guess I better. Any idea where my computer is?" "You think I'm your wife? You've got to keep better track of your equipment." and her hand went back into her pocket and came out with my little portable computer pinched between her thumb and finger. "Thanks, Let's go." and I jumped into her waiting hand and sat down. "You're sure?" "Yep, put me on the ground, woman." she lifted me in her hand and set me on the floor by her huge bare feet. I looked at the tremendous size of her huge bare foot for a moment, and wild thoughts of running over and grabbing her foot, and hugging it flew through my mind, then I thought about what she had done to the Dabesi with those feet and sanity returned as quickly as it had left, and I trotted off toward the hole in the floor. . /\__/\__/\ Once more Molly tied a string around my waist, (Looked a lot more like a pretty hefty rope to me, but she called it a string) and I was lowered into the hole. This time she lowered me more carefully and I actually had time to look around and see what was around me as she lowered me into the hole. It seems silly to have Acrophobia causing problems while you're in a hole, but beneath the floor it was an awfully big hole, and a long way to the bottom. I found myself clinging to the rope with white knuckles as I watched the bottom slowly come up. Looking around I realized that I was in a huge room under the patio/garden. I flicked our link on and told Molly that I was going to leave it on so we could talk while I was down here. Then started describing the room to Molly. "Molly, this isn't anything but a huge basement under the garden. In fact from the size of it, I believe its the reason for the garden. This is why the garden is here. There's electronic machinery all over, huge machinery everywhere. I know I won't have any problem getting into the Dabesi carrier wave, I was in it before, but I'm not sure I can make sense or do anything with it. And honest, its plenty big enough for you to walk around down here plenty comfortably." "NO... Underground stuff! and I mean it!" Her booming voice almost shattered the link from its forcefulness. I figured right away, that I was going to have trouble getting her down here. "Hey, Molly, if I can let you throw me up into the air, you can come down to the basement." "NO!" and I didn't even need the link as her voice echoed through the walls and floor. I giggled quietly to myself, this wasn't going to be easy. I sat down, turned my portable computer on and began hunting for any localized command signals. The Dabesi carrier wave was still there, and once again I set about getting the system to inject itself into the I/O stream. It took me almost a half an hour of nattering around with the signals to realize what the real problem was. This wasn't a Dabesi system, but rather one that they had somehow or other injected their system into with a bastardized rigging. "Hey, Molly, we got anything to eat?" "What do you think I am, your pack mule?" "Its just that you got bigger pockets than I have. Got any food left?" "Don't that wonderful place you've found down there have a cafeteria?" and I could hear her laughter. "Yeah, but their machines are too big for me, I don't have any change for the machines, why don't you come on down and see if you got any." "That's a good idea, and why don't you just fly up here and bring me some, little birdie? Don't get hungry." Forty five minutes later I finally felt I was getting somewhere when I brought up a screen that showed a bunch of hieroglyphics, some of which were familiar symbols that we had used in communications with the Dabesi. Just a few minutes later, "Molly, where are you?" "I'm still here." "Yeah, I know, but exactly where?" "Sitting on the bench under the tree." "Watch!" "Nice try, but I told you I'm not..... Oh God...... OH!" I had figured out a system of signals that opened the door to this room, and had set the door in motion. I watched as half the back wall of the bar area slowly slid back opening a door big enough that Molly could walk in with three of the other Giantesses arm in arm beside her, all standing upright. "Mike, what have you done?" "Well, I was getting hungry so I opened the door so you could bring me a sandwich." "Miiikkeee....! What..... in.... He....."
"Miiikkeee....! What..... in.... He....." "Well you sent me down here to make it work didn't you?" "Butttt...." "You don't have any confidence in me? Little lady, when you send Mike to do something, it gets done! Now bring me that sandwich." and I laughed as I looked up and saw Molly standing at the open door looking down the stairs into the huge basement. "I... I... I don't have any sandwiches, will an MRE do?" "One of the new ones that are almost edible?" "Well, I can't promise you steak and apple pie, but at least it'll fill your empty belly." "And you?" "I've got a couple of mine left. But you know, just like the little ones for you, they're not very good. But they make..." "Never mind, I've heard it. Lets eat." "Can you get the lights on?" "What's the matter, afraid of the dark, little girl?" "OK, I'll admit its my turn. I don't have any problem tossing you up into the air, since that's not my problem. But down in a basement.....?" "Well, there ain't no way I can just pick you up and toss you down here, so its entirely your problem. All I can say is that this whole place is under the garden above and there's enough room under here for all of you gals to have a giantess reunion under here." "But the controls, are they Dabesi?" "No, apparently they're very old, and the Dabs stumbled on them some time ago. They've got a bastard rig connected to the original system, but it won't work very much. I can open a couple of doors, and with any luck I'll get some more of it working in a little while. The dabs couldn't work them, but then that may be because they were trying to use their codes, instead of learning the original codes, and it doesn't look like the original ones are that hard to learn, but that may be because they resemble our systems closer than they resemble the Dab's. I think that this is why the Dabesi were so concerned when we showed up. They didn't want us to find this." Molly laughed, "Yeah, and the funny part is, that if they had left us alone we'd have probably flown over, taken some pictures and left, and never have known that this was here. Instead they shoot us down and run us right in here. That's funny. Can we do anything with it? What is it?" "I don't have the answer to either of your questions. Right now, I can barely make a little bit of sense out of the system. I have no idea what it is, or what we can do with it. I do know that FTC would really like to learn about it and send a team of scientist to study it." "And just how are we gonna tell them about it?" "Molly, I don't even know if we can ever get home, much less tell the command about this." Molly laughed, "You mean I shouldn't have wiped out the entire Dabesi army?" "Well, we might have been able to surrender and let them trade us home." "With the Dabs, not likely. More like a shot in the back and left to rot." "Oh, you've dealt with them too?" and I laughed. Part 4 Standing at the foot of the stairs Molly looked all around the huge room, "What kind of power do they have here?" "I don't know, but it must be pretty damn good, it still works. The gate opened when I pushed the button, an when I got the right signal I got the door to open too." "Got any lights you can turn on?" "I don't know, let me try." and I walked over and picked my computer up again and started fiddling with it. Studying the weird hieroglyphics on the screen I looked up at Molly and said, "Let's try this, its either the lights or the whole place will blow sky high, if I've figured their hieroglyphics right. I pushed a couple of keys, then enter. Instantly the entire room was bright as day. "Eureka it works!" "God, this place is huge..." "Now that's a big place, when Molly says something like that." I laughed, "Like my little basement shop?" "What is this place?" "Molly, I've been in here less than an hour, I couldn't even tell you what all the machines were, if I knew what all of them were, and all I had to do was to name them. And I haven't the slightest idea what any of them are." "What's that big platform over there?" "Molly, give me a break. I just told you I haven't the slightest idea what any of them are. Look they're made for giants, you can see that. The garden and patio are your size, and just look at all these machines, they're your size too. Why don't you take a walk around the place and see if you can make any sense out of the machines by just looking. But, don't touch anything, particularly buttons or switches. After those booby traps on the way in here, there's no telling what's here. Don't blow us up, playing with switches." Molly looked down at me for a minute or two, "Now, you know, talking about the booby traps on the way in here, there's something weird." "What's that Mol?" "Well, think about it. The first one we encountered was just a tangler. Now a tangler is little more than an artificially enhanced vine made to wrap people or animals up and hold them. The next one, the trap was just spring loaded metal bars with a mechanical trip and a couple of tanglers. The last one was just spring loaded scythes with again a mechanical trip. And the gate here was just iron spear points sticking up, but it had an electric, I guess, opener. Other than that, nothing electrical, or electronic. Then down here is a basement, a huge basement filled with electronic machinery. And unless someone opened it for you, you'd never know it was here, just a nice comfortable garden patio. The only reason we even found it was that the Dabesi ship blew a hole in the floor when he hit. If h e hadn't we'd have never known it was here. But notice all the traps were just mechanical, nothing electronic. Why?" "OK, its your question, you tell me." "Yeah, sure. I'm just the muscle, you're supposed to be the genius. Figure it out." "Yeah, nice muscle too." "Mike, get serious." "Molly, I can't tell you anything, lets get the computer working on it and see if it can tell us." "Well.....?" "OK, Ok," and I started punching buttons and watching the screen. Letting the computer work on the problem as I took one of the MREs that Molly handed me opened it and started eating. "Molly.. Molly!" I yelled excitedly. "What, Mike?" I held up the package of rations she had handed me, and made a terrible face. "This damn stuff tastes as bad as ever, carrying it around in your pocket for three days hasn't helped it a bit." and I laughed as Molly looked down at me with a shocked expression on her huge face that slowly turned into a grin. "Damn it Mike, someday you're going to get serious and I won't believe you. Maybe I should just have a little accident and enjoy you for the last time as I step on you." "OK, Molly, I'll be good. Don't step on me." and we both laughed. She stuck out her tremendous tongue and wiggled it as she too made a face, "Mine isn't any better, but it'll take care of being hungry." "Yeah, it'll take care of being hungry all right, the taste would ruin anybody's appetite." and just like any soldier from any war, I stuffed another bite into my mouth. At one time, what now seems ages ago, I had been a history buff and folk song collector, and as we grumbled about the food, a line from a song from America's ancient civil war popped into my mind and I sang it to Molly. "We rode our worn out horses and ate on dry corn meal.' Soldiers have always complained about the food. I'll bet even the Roman and Egyptian soldiers complained about the food." And I laughed, "Yeah, and just like us, I'll bet, they were lucky to even have any." I finished my meal, and took a swig of water. Molly finished hers and looked down at me. "You think that water out there's all right to drink?" "After that meal, most anything would be all right to drink." "Mike, I'm serious, I need something to drink." "Well, its not in the computer, but as near as I can see from what's here, that really is a waiting area for people that are using this machine. The water in the fountains is probably piped in from the mountains and all it is, is just water from the mountains. If it was from the original owners it'd be awfully old, and it looks all right." "What about the traps?" "Good question, could it be a trap? Yeah, it could be. But once we got in here, I think we're past all the traps. From what I've found in the computer, its just exactly what it appears to be, a waiting area with fresh water from the mountains for the visitors." "You sure?" "No, but how long can you go without water?" "OK, but if its not, you gotta carry me home." and she laughed. "Sure Molly, I'll just toss you over my shoulder and carry you home. And I'll walk every step of the way in penitence, just to show how sorry I am." Molly got up and walked up the stairs to the bench where she had been sitting before and looked at the bubbling basin of what appeared to be nice fresh water. Then she reached in her pocket, pulled out a collapsible cup and swishing it in the water as she opened it, rinsed it a moment, then lifted a cup of water to her lips and sipped slowly. "MMmmm... its good. Nice and cold, and tastes a little like some water I've had from springs up in the High Sierras." "Slow acting poison I guess." I immediately received a thumping shower of ice cold water over my entire body, drenching me completely, as Molly dumped her huge cup with the water from the basin over me. "Thanks for your reassurance." she said. "OH, God, that's cold." "Serves you right." and we both laughed. As Molly walked back down the stairs into the huge basement she stopped just before she got to the bottom. "Mike, look at this. These stairs seem to lead to that 'stage' or what ever it is over there. See the stairs lead down from the patio, and there's a clear area that leads right over to that little elevated area there, a stage or something like that." "Put me back on your shoulder and walk around here a bit. I want to get the feel for what it looks like to a giant like you, since it was obviously made for giants." Her hand came down and closed around me, "You're all wet." and she laughed. "Geeze, I wonder how that happened?" and as I strapped myself into my chair I wrung some water out of my jump suit and let it drip down onto Molly's shoulder. It was a mistake, she jerked her shoulder up as the cold water hit her and I bounced roughly around in my chair. I was glad I had already fastened the straps as she would have tossed me out of the chair if I hadn't. She giggled, "OK, even. Don't this look like these stairs lead right directly to that platform?" "Yep, sure do." and I looked around a bit. "And look there at that, console, or what ever it is, it faces right at the stage with controls all over it, and a big screen near the top, but set in such a way that it wouldn't block the vision of a person your size, sitting there, from seeing the stage. Go sit in the chair, Molly." Molly walked over and looked down at the chair. "It hasn't been used in a long time. What ever cushions were here are long gone." She reached down and brushed the crumbled remains of the cushion from the chair seat. "It looks strong enough." and she very cautiously sat in the chair. She wiggled as she tested the strength of the chair, and after a moment she was satisfied and looked out at the stage and the panel in front of her. Fairly familiar looking knobs, and switches set just above what could have been a computer key board, but it was a completely different pattern than I had ever seen before. "I've never seen a key board like this." Molly laughed, "What'd you expect, an IBM qwerty key board?" "Uuhuh.... right!" and from Molly's shoulder I stared down at the desk or table, then back at the 'stage'. "Well, I don't have any idea what it does, but do you have any question that this is the control console for what ever it is?" Molly leaned back and forth a couple of times, then put her hands up on the 'control board'. "Molly, don't touch anything!" "I won't, just seeing what the board feels like. Who ever sat here was a little smaller than I am. The keys, and switches are a bit too small, and too close together for me, and I wouldn't need the cabinet quite this low. I can see the stage, or whatever, real good and the screen doesn't need to be this low." and she giggled, "and that's without a cushion." "Well, we can be sure it wasn't for the Dabesi then, they're my size and don't have any giants," I paused for a moment, "Or giantesses." "Uhhuu... yeh.. Look at this, Mike." and she reached up to the top area of the control panel, and pointed to what appeared to be a cover. What's that?" "How the hell would I know.... then I looked for a moment, a cover for a switch?" "Yeah, Should I?" and she put her fingers at the lower edge of the panel. "Just looks like a cover," I said, "The switch would be under it. Go ahead, I've opened doors and turned on lights, why not? Your turn to try and blow us up." She flipped the cover up. Just like we had speculated, nothing, just a big blue switch under it. Molly laughed, "See, this is what turns it on." and she put her fingers on the switch. "NO! Molly don't!" I shouted in panic. "Oh, Mike, you don't have any confidence in me. I know better. We'll wait till we know exactly what it does before I flip it on. Right?" "Right!" Then I realized that she had caught me. We'd never know what it does until we flipped the switch. "OK, you got me, but don't flip it yet, lets talk about it a minute first." She laughed, "Fine explorers, we don't even want to flip a switch till we know what it does." "Explorers that might live a little longer if we don't go too fast. Remember that little trap with the scythes? Should have just walked right on through, nothing could hurt my great big giant Molly. Right?" "OK, point for you." "Remember, this place is built for your size, I'm the little bug here that has to look out for insect traps. You have to watch for problems your size. So what does the switch do?" "Turns it on." "Turns what on?" "This machine." "What machine?" "This one." "And what does it do?" "UUhhhaaa.... I don't know." "Right, don't... flip... the switch!" "God, I hate a little bug like you, being right so often." "Well, Molly don't feel too bad, I spent five years as an officer in the navy, then ten years as a cop on the street and two more years on the force before I joined this elite scouting arm, then six months of training with you, and if you got some weird idea that I didn't screw up plenty, you're wrong." "Mike, we'll never know what it does if we don't turn it on." "OK, go ahead, it was nice knowing you." Molly turned her head and looked down at me sitting on the chair on her shoulder with my hands over my ears. "You nut!" and she flipped the switch. The console in front of us clicked, then clicked again, then buzzed. The buzz kept up for several long moments, then a light came on, on the screen, and expanded until we were looking at a bright white screen. It flickered, and changed colors, then a pattern came up and stayed for several seconds, then changed to symbols all over the screen. "Looks just like a computer coming on." Molly said. "Well, since I'm not floating around on a cloud with wings on, I guess you're right." Then the stage lit up. I couldn't see where the light was coming from, but there was plenty of area for hidden lights all around the 'stage'. "Look, the platform is all lit up." "And what's it doing?" "Nothing, just sitting there with the lights on." "And your control panel?" "Same as it was, same pattern" "Well, if you could read the screen, it probably tells you exactly what the condition of the stage is." I said. "Right! And I suppose you can read the screen since you're such a computer expert." "Well, not exactly, but let me check." and I opened my computer and turned it on, then started entering inquiries. "MMmmm, says the lights are all on and I left the door open." "You can tell that from the screen?" "No, silly, by looking around." "Mike, I'm going to make you into.... Uunhhuh..." The screen had changed. "OK, Molly, its your turn, you turned the machine on, now figure out what it does." "Sure," and she reached down to the board and turned one of the bigger knobs. "MOoooll...." and I stopped, there was a scene of a pasture on the screen with strange buildings in the background. "What's that?" The lighted area at the back of the stage had changed too. It looked almost like the screen. A wide pasture area with strange buildings in the back. and flickering light all over the stage area. Suddenly there was a strange odor, a clean outdoor smell like woods after a rain, and there seemed to be a slight, very gentle breeze blowing , actually more drifting rather than blowing, from the stage area. Molly laughed, "I guess that's the channel knob, I think I changed channels." "Maybe, but do you notice that the 'stage' has the same program on, complete with wind and smell." "Yeah, but its a kinda dull program, wanna try another channel?" and she reached down and turned the knob again, this time very slowly. The screen flickered, and the scene changed as she moved the knob, just like flipping past channels on the visor. It would be blank for a few seconds then another picture would pop up. Molly stopped on another picture. This one looked almost like the lobby of a hotel, but you could see out an open door and see some more buildings across a clear area. Again a very few moments after Molly stopped moving the knob, the same picture appeared on the 'stage'. This time there was a very definite chill breeze blowing from the 'stage' and instead of the clean air of the previous "picture" there was an odor of city streets. I was on the streets long enough as a cop to know a city street odor when I smell it. "Wait a minute, Molly, change it again, this one's making it cold in here." "Yeah, kinda nice isn't it?" But she reached down and slowly twisted the knob again. Pictures appeared and then disappeared on the computer screen, but the 'stage' was just blank until Molly stopped again. This time we were looking at a broad view of towering mountains in the background, but there was no odor or feeling of breeze from the 'stage'. Then we realized that the breeze was going from us toward the 'stage'. "Can you get the first one back again?" "Dunno, I'll try." and she turned the knob back to where she had stopped it the first time. The screen was blank, then she moved it back and forth very slowly until there was the pasture and the strange buildings in the background again, and she stopped. A moment later the same scene came up on the 'stage'. "Molly, don't move anything till we figure out what's happening." Molly laughed lightly, "We may be here a while, if I wait that long." Sure enough there was the slight, "fresh" breeze drifting from the 'stage'. Suddenly something appeared in the middle of the 'stage' dropping and fluttering as it fell. It looked almost like a leaf, then it drifted off the stage, with the slight breeze still falling until there was a leaf lying on the floor a few feet this side of the 'stage'. "Molly, what's that?" "Looks like a leaf." "Get it." "Suddenly, I'm your slave?" "Molly...." "OK, Lil' bug, I'll get it. Just hang on." She got up and walked over almost to the stage and bending over picked up the leaf. I almost panicked as she bent over. Her shoulders bent forward and I was hanging from my seat straps staring straight at the floor almost a hundred feet down. "Molly....!" I screamed in panic. "Sorry, Mike, I forgot. Look at this, it really is a green leaf, almost like the ones from the tree outside, but its different. Look." and she held the leaf up in front of me for my inspection as she straightened up again. My heart was almost in fibrillation, I couldn't let go of the seat my hands were clenched so tightly on the arms and my MRE meal was just about to return. I had been so interested in what was happening I had almost forgoten about my little problem with heights. But looking straight down at the floor from Molly's shoulder when she bent over, sure brought it back in a hurry. It took me several minutes to even focus on the leaf that Molly was holding up in front of me in her fingers, and a couple of more to get my mind back functioning. It was nothing more than a tree leaf, but it was almost a yard across. A leaf on Molly's size scale. I took several deep breaths and swallowed my MRE again, before I could even think of talking. "Molly, does the tree outside in the patio have leaves like this?" "Well, they're not exactly like this. They're a different shape." "Molly, I mean this size." "Yeah, I think so." "Huge leaves on your scale?" "Yeah, I think so, I didn't really notice. It was just a big tree. I really didn't notice how big the leaves were." "Go look." "What?" "Let's look, I need to know?" "You need to know how big the leaves are on the tree in the patio?" "Yes." "Then run up and look." "Molly...." "I know, you're too little to run up the stairs. Poor little thing. OK, I'll go." Molly got out of the chair and started up the stairs. I clung to my chair for dear life. I had thought it was bad when Molly jogged? I had never felt her run up a flight of stairs before. I screamed, "Molly... please... stop... please.." She stopped. "What's the matter?" "You're killing me." "What the matter, are you all right." "No, don't run up the stairs with me. Every time you take a step its like I fell off a two story building." "Oops sorry, I didn't mean to be so rough. I'm sorry. But look, here's one of the leaves from the tree in the patio. See its about the same size, but look, the leaf is a different pattern." and she held up another giant leaf for my inspection. Molly walked back to the control panel and put the leaf from the patio on the console panel beside the one from the 'stage'. The one from the 'stage' was very roughly shaped with three main lobes with points all around, slightly smaller than the one from the patio. The one from the patio was a long smooth oval with the upper side dark and shiny. Definitely two different type trees, but both with leaves in Molly's scale. "Molly, you know where that Dabesi ship blew the hole in the floor?" "Yeah..." "Lets go over there and get some little rocks for you to throw." "Little rocks for me to throw?" "Yeah, well little to you, I know, boulders to me." "OK, why?" "We're gonna try something with that 'stage'." "What's that?" "You're gonna throw rocks at it." "I'm gonna throw rocks at it?" "Well across it." "What do you mean?" "You saw the leaf come drifting off the stage, didn't you?" "Yeah, so." "I want to see what happens to something when we throw it onto the 'stage'." "Whatever." Molly walked over to the floor under where the Dabesi had exploded and picked up a bunch of rocks, boulders to me. Then walked back to the 'stage'. "Don't step on the 'stage', Molly, just stand out here and toss a rock onto the stage." Molly tossed a rock onto the stage. It fell to the stage with a clunk and lay there. We watched it for a few moments and nothing happened. "Throw the next one at the back of the stage." "What do you mean at the 'back' of the stage?" "Well see where it looks almost like a screen with the same picture as is on the computer?" "Yeah," "Well try to throw the rock into the screen." Molly pitched a little rock across the stage, it sailed in a long arc toward the back of the 'stage' and about half way across it disappeared. A second later it reappeared at the back of the 'stage' and sailed out toward the pasture, falling out of our sight. We heard a definite clunk as it hit the ground, then another little bump then what sounded like a rock rolling across a hard floor. "Try it again, Molly. A little harder this time." This time Molly picked a little bigger rock and gave it a real heave across the 'stage' at the screen. Again half way across it simply disappeared, and then it came flying out of the back area and flew out a way before falling out of sight, again the sound of a rock hitting on a hard ground and rolling. Molly said, "That's weird. Maybe we just don't have good lighting and can't see it part way till it gets to the other side." "Well, let's walk around and look at the other side." Molly turned and walked around the 'stage' when we got to the other side there was no sign of the rocks and when we looked at the 'stage' the scene had changed to look almost like the same room we were in, but the desk console and the furniture looked like it was reasonably new and in good shape instead of old and neglected. Molly took another rock and threw it through the 'stage' again from this side. Again it sailed across the stage, but this time instead of disappearing it merely flickered and then we could see it hit the floor on the other side and bounce right up to the control console where we had been sitting. "OK, lets go look." and Molly walked back around the 'stage' again. When we got to the console it looked old and neglected again and there was no sign of the rock where it had landed. "This weird." Molly looked from the console to the 'stage' and back at the console. "Wait a minute, let's set something up here so that we could see it from the back and then go back and look." "Sounds reasonable, what have we got?" "Let me get a big rock from over there where the Dab blew up." "OK, Let's try it." Molly walked over to the hole in the roof and found a chunk of the wall almost twenty feet across. "Here's something we can sure see from the back." "Molly that's too big, its gotta weigh fifty tons." "To you maybe, its a six inch rock that weighs maybe ten pounds to me, and that's giving it a lot of leeway. Probably closer to five pounds." and she picked the rock up in one hand as easily as I'd pick up a shoe. I took a deep whistling breath; as I said before, even though I've been with her a year and a half, her tremendous strength never fails to amaze me and it sends shivers down my back when I watch her pick up several tons as though it was nothing. She walked over to the console and put the rock on top of the console, setting it so that it would be visible from the other end of the 'stage'. Then we walked around to the other end. Just before we went behind the 'stage' she stopped and turned so that we could both look back and see the rock. It was sitting just where Molly had left it. She stepped behind the stage and looked, there was the newer console with no rock. She stepped back to the corner of the 'stage'. The rock was right where she had set it. She turned her head very slowly and looked down at me sitting on her shoulder and looking at her the same way she was looking at me. Totally shocked, what was happening? Two steps back, new console, no rock. After four or five tries it was always the same. Through the 'stage' new console, no rock, around the 'stage' old console, with rock on top. "OK, Hero, lets hear you explain this one." "Do you read?" "Naw, I'm just an ignorant girl. They don't teach girls to read." "Right, and they don't have space ships and women two hundred foot tall either. How much science fiction have you read?" "I don't read that garbage. That's for kids and dreamers." "Well, you better start dreaming, cause what we're seeing can't be happening." Molly giggled, "I'll bet that's what that Dabesi tank commander said when I stepped on his tank, too." and she laughed, "Well, what are we seeing, Mr. Science Fiction Genius? And this better be good too." "Time travel? Teleport station? Interstellar gateway? I don't know, but those are all old Sci Fi ideas, or gadgets, that nobody has ever been able to build." I said. Molly looked pointedly back at the 'stage'. "You're sure no body has ever built any of them?" "Tell you what, Molly, I'll wait here on the console while you run jump on the 'stage' and take a look and see what's happening. Then you can come back and tell me." "Little man, if I get on that stage, you're gonna be with me, you can bet your life on that one. In fact I've got an even better idea, how about if I just throw you like I did the rocks." "Uh-Uh, they didn't come back. And I don't like being thrown anyway." "Well then, you can take a running jump..." "Molly, be nice... be nice. Act like a lady." "Look, Mike, that rock I tossed onto the 'stage' is still there. Nothing has happened to it. Maybe nothing happens till you get to a certain point. You know that's where all the rocks have disappeared, about half way across before they get to the back screen." "Good point, Molly, have we got a long stick?" "I can get one from that tree up in the patio." "Got any string left?" "Oh, Yeah, I get you, I'll try tossing the limb and then try pulling it back, right?" "Right," I said, "After all we're supposed to be explorers. We have to take a few chances now and again." "Like just being here isn't taking chances?" "Molly, I don't remember making any choices, except dodging them Dabesi ships." "I'll get the limb." and Molly went up the stairs again as I sat on top of the console and stared at the controls. Molly came back in a couple of seconds with a long broken off limb in her hand, ripping off the leaves as she walked. When she had all the leaves off she broke off the secondary limbs and reaching in her voluminous pocket and came out with the length of rope, (she calls it string) that she had used to lower me into the hole. Tying it around the limb at about the middle she stretched it back and tied it again on the thin limb so that she could pull it back toward us in a line, more or less. "Yeah, Mol, that looks good give it a toss onto the 'stage' just on the stage, don't try for a long shot yet, then pull it back. Let's see if your idea works." She stepped up to the edge of the 'stage' and tossed it easily out toward the rock that was lying inertly on the floor. The limb hit with a crash, and then just lay there like the rock had. Then Molly pulled. The limb twisted slightly as it lined up with the 'string/rope' then started back toward us. Molly pulled and the limb came back and fell off the stage. She picked it up and looked it up and down. "Looks all right." "OK, a little further this time. Right next to that "place where the rocks disappear." "OK, I'll try." and she rolled the string up and holding it in one hand tossed the limb to where the base just barely hit the "disappearing point" on the 'stage'. "Mike, look, can you see that?" "What's that Molly?" "The end is gone." "What?" "The end is gone, look, the limb stops, the end is gone. Look!" and she reached back to her shoulder and pinched me between her huge fingers. I reached down as fast as I could and unsnapped my belts. I knew that if Molly pulled with my belts on, either they would break, or she'd rip me in half. Molly was going to lift me, and something was going to give, and it wouldn't be her. Holding me in her fingers, she lifted me and reached out and up with her arm so that I could see the limb better. I could see the limb lying on the floor of the 'stage'. She was right, the end of the limb stopped sharply at the edge of the "half way point". "I see it, you're right, it looks like its been sliced off with a really sharp knife." "Yeah, that's what I wanted you to see." "Pull it, Molly, pull it." "What?" "Pull the string, let's see what happens." Molly pulled, the end of the limb reappeared. She put me back onto her shoulder and pulled the limb all the way back to us. She picked the limb up and held it up so that we could both see it. "Look, right there is where it was cut off, but there's nothing there. It doesn't look like anything ever happened to it. No sign of a cut or anything." She ran her fingers across the end of the limb several times. "Uh-uh, nothing." "Try it again, Molly, a little further this time." "OK," and the limb flew out into the 'stage' to where the "disappearing point" was, this time more than half of the long limb disappeared. And then I saw it. At the back edge of the 'stage' at the bottom of the "Screen" was the other end of the limb. "Molly, look right at the bottom of edge of the "screen" the rest of the limb." We just stood there looking at the severed limb lying inertly on the stage where Molly had thrown it, and at the other end ten, make that a couple hundred feet away, maybe ten of Molly's feet. In this giant place, I was starting to even think in her terms and sizes. "Pull it back." Molly pulled, the other end of the limb disappeared and our end of the limb reappeared. It was just like before, no sign of having been cut, no scars, no seams nothing. This time Molly just took the limb and holding it by the thin end pushed it out onto the 'stage' while she held it. Nothing! She stepped up till her legs were right against the edge of the 'stage' and shoved the limb out. Nothing! "Molly, do you realize that half your arm was on the stage?" "I didn't notice. I didn't feel anything." "Well, we've got to see sometime, hold me in your hand and reach out on the 'stage' again." "You're sure its safe?" "Absolutely..... not! But we've got to try it sometime, we can only find out so much by waving this limb around and playing with it." "But, Mike..." "Molly, either it'll be all right or it won't." Then I laughed, "Besides if I'm in your hand and disappear, they'll be calling you 'lefty'." "Mike, don't! I don't even want to think of things like that." "Come on, lets try it, hold the limb in your hand too so that if something starts to happen to the limb you can let go of the limb and jerk your hand back, and hopefully me with it." Molly reached down and picked up the limb then reached up by her shoulder and I jumped into her waiting hand. This high in the air, my brain was still screaming every time I moved around up here so high, but with what were doing, I sure as hell wasn't going to let Molly see that I was scared..." I started to sit on the limb where Molly held it in her hand, then thought better of it, if she had to let go of the limb, I could stay with her hand and let the limb go too. If I was sitting on it I was going with the limb. Then I had an even better idea. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sticky and a short length of rope, I reached around and stuck the sticky on the back of her index finger, then tied myself to it. If something happened I'd be with Molly's hand no matter what, like I said, if I disappeared, they'd be calling her 'lefty'. "OK, Mol, go for it." She reached out and pushed her hand up onto the 'stage' with the limb out in front of me. Nothing happened, I looked down and I was well out over the 'stage' and nothing had changed I was still in the room, I could see everything like I had a minute ago. "OK, Molly, its fine, a little further." and Molly leaned in and pushed her hand further out, nothing changed. "seems fine, Molly, want to try stepping up on the 'stage' floor." I could feel the slight breeze blowing from the "screen" but it seemed the same as always. Molly stepped up onto the 'stage' floor. Nothing, she stood all the way onto the 'stage' still waving the limb out in front of her, with me in her extended hand. "Still fine, Molly," She turned around and looked out at the room, it was exactly as we had left it. In fact we could still see the huge bolder that Molly had put on the console. "Mike, I'm worried." "Mol, you think you're worried, I'm scared S...ss but move on nearer the screen and stick the end of the limb into the screen." "You sure, Mike?" "Molly, I haven't been sure of anything since I got into training a year and a half ago. In fact with all those elaborate exercises they put us through, are you sure this isn't one of their weird scenarios?" Molly laughed for the first time in what seemed like hours, it broke the tension, I felt better just hearing her booming laugh. I hadn't realized how much I missed her thunderous laugh. And that she was always laughing at something or the other. I really hadn't realized how much she laughed, until I realized how much I missed it, when she hadn't for a while. She stepped up to the screen and deliberately stuck the end of the limb into the screen. It disappeared. And there two hundred feet away was the cut off missing end. She waved the end back and forth across the screen. It disappeared and reappeared as she waved it, it was just like she was stirring water, where the stick stuck into the screen it disappeared, where she pulled it out it reappeared. And exactly the same thing happened in re verse at the other end, the chopped off end appeared and disappeared exactly opposite as it did here. "Molly, put the stick down on the floor and push it in real slowly." She did and as she did I came closer and closer to the "screen". I yelled "Close enough Mol." and she stopped pushing. I was close enough that the "screen" was only a couple of yards from me. I waved my hand in front of the screen. Everything felt as normal as it ever had. I could still feel the gentle breeze from the "screen" but nothing else. "Be real careful Molly, but push me a little closer." She pushed and the screen moved closer, it was now close enough I could reach out and touch it. I leaned up on the limb and reached out with my hand. A foot from the sliced off end of the limb all I could see was the distant scene of the pasture and the odd buildings in the back, and the other end of the limb two hundred feet away. There wasn't any cold, heat, no electrical charge feeling, nothing. I reached within a couple of inches, nothing. An inch, nothing. I held my breath and touched the screen with the tip of one finger. Nothing. The tip of my finger was cut off as clean as the end of the limb, but I felt nothing. I pulled my hand back and my finger was the same as ever. No cut, no scar nothing, just like the limb. I heard a noise that startled me, then I realized that it was Molly exhaling, she had been holding her breath as I put my hand against the screen. I turned around and showed her my hand, "As good as new, well, its not that good, it was kinda scared up before we got this far." and I laughed. I turned around and slowly pushed more of my finger into the screen. Nothing! I pulled it back and it looked the same as it had before I pushed it in. I felt it with the other hand, nothing. I turned and shoved my whole hand into the screen. Again, nothing, but there two hundred feet away was my hand. Only this time it was chopped off at this end, and I could see my bones, and the meat of my severed hand. It was too far away to see many details, but the white bones showed vividly. When I pulled it out, nothing. It was the same as it had always been. Again I leaned forward and put my hand out toward the "screen" but this time I slid my hand along the limb. My hand disappeared at the same point that the limb did, but I could still feel the limb in my hand, which I could only see at the far edg e of the screen with my hand rubbing the limb just as I was doing. I moved my hand, if I closed my eyes I couldn't tell anything was different than it had ever been. I could feel the rough limb, the shape of it, everything felt normal. I reached in with my other hand and reached down and grabbed my hand on the limb. Normal, nothing was unusual, except that both my hands were sliced off cleanly half way from the wrist to the elbow, but there they were two hundred feet distant. I pulled my hands out and turned around and looked up at Molly, "OK, Molly, I'm going in, remember I love you." and I stood up along side the limb and walked into the screen. I could see everything. I stood on a platform that looked out through an open door and there was another room much like the one I had left all around the 'stage' I looked back and there was the platform I had just left, except there was Molly, with her end of the limb, and beyond the 'stage' was the old chair and the console with the rock on top. I walked back to the screen and stepped through. Molly was staring at me. She gasp and reached for me. "Mike!" thundered over me, almost shattering my ear drums. I was snatched up in her giant hand and whirled up to her face. I was pressed against her cheek, then kissed with her tremendous wet lips again and again. "OH, Mike, you're all right. Oh, God, I'm so glad." and I got drenched again in another of her huge wet, slurppy kisses. "Molly.... Molly... Stop it! We're supposed to be professionals. Don't..." Her voice almost shattered my eardrums from so close, "Who says that professionals can't feel for one another?" and I got another big sloppy kiss. "I sure am glad that this jump suit don't shrink, between your little dousing in cold water, and your messy kisses, I been wet all day." "Oh, you, little.... " and her gargantuan tongue came out and she licked me from head to toe. If I hadn't been wet before I sure was now. "Mike I worry about you. And when you went into that..... that.... what is it?" "I don't know." "But you've been through it, or what ever." "Well, when I stepped through where the limb was cut off, I was at the other end looking back at you standing here." "But where were you?" "There", and I pointed at the scene on the 'stage'. "But where is it?" "I don't have any idea. I don't know if its another planet, this one years ago, or this one in the future, I have no idea. Or, hell, maybe somebody's imagination, just a realistic screen play. I mean we've come from paintings on a cave wall, to moving pictures, and to our present holographic visions. Maybe someone else has invented a screen play you can just walk into and it all feels real. I don't have any idea." "Did you see anybody?" "No.. I was all alone, just standing there on the edge of the room looking down on the valley we can see from here." "But....?" "Want to try it, it don't hurt, you're just there, you can still come back here." "But what would happen if you couldn't?" "Would we be any worse off? Our ship is all wrecked, we have no radio, only the Dabs know where we are, and I'd just as soon not let them catch us. They might be a little irritated at you. Lets see your score card, you shot down two of their ships, ripped their troop ship to pieces and stomped it into scrap, flattened three tanks and three weapons carriers, and stomped several hundred of their men into paste. Naw... I can't see any reason why they wouldn't just give us a lift home." "Well, our ships could come and rescue us." "Molly, unless the Dabesi tell them where we are, which isn't real likely, they have no idea where we are. All they know is that we went in the general direction of what they thought might be the Dabesi home world. There's a lot of area and planets out in this direction from the last time we had contact with our base. Hell, for all we know that place there," and I pointed to the open pasture showing on the screen, "Is a lot closer to home than we are here, and they might even know our people and give us that little ride home." "But you said it might be time travel and still be here." "Molly, I don't have any faintest idea what it is. But it looks like the best bet we have right now. I can't believe that the Dabesi won't try to come back and do us in." "But I got them all, even their troop ship. I didn't leave any of them to tell anyone we were here." "Good, that means that 'NO BODY' has any idea where we are." "But.... Uhhh...." and she just looked down at me, "What are we gonna do?" I couldn't believe it, there was my giant Molly, looking lost. My giantess who had shot two Dabesi ships down with her pistol, torn up their troop ship with her bare hands, had a ball crushing their entire army under her feet, and ripped the steel bars of a giant cage apart with her bare hands. Now she was looking at me like a lost little girl, looking at me for help, as I sat like a little bug in her giant hand. What had happened to my 'Unsinkable Molly Brown'? "Molly, I went through and came back without any problems, and its certainly big enough for you. It looks like it was built for people of your size in the first place. Want to try it. We sure as hell wouldn't be any worse off. I mean how long can you live on the few cans of MREs that you have left, and do you really want to?" "Mike, could we go through, find out what's out there, and come back here?" "I did... I'll admit I didn't go very far from where I was when I got there, but it looks like we could just walk back to here any time we wanted to. Lets try it. I don't know if its a time machine, or teleport gateway, or what, but what difference does it make?" Molly took a deep breath, and looked down at me, "Sure, why not? Hell we're supposed to be explorers anyway." Then she grinned down at me and said, "Lets go." and I had my 'unstoppable' Molly back again. She started to lift me to her shoulder, then stopped and brought me up to her vast beautiful face again and gave another big sloppy wet kiss, all over my body with her giant lips, drenching me again. "Good luck, Mike." and she stepped up on the 'stage' and walked toward the "screen" as I strapped into my seat on her shoulder. "Good luck to you too, Molly. I love you! Let's go join your giant people."