Steve may have been battered and bruised, but he still had some fight left in him. Reaching down to his trapped midsection, we drew the sidearm he had strapped to his belt, and started firing. The Cultist stumbled back in surprise, releasing the pressure on Steve. He scrambled to his feet, and stumbled away through the waist high blades grass.

He didn’t get far.

A huge hand came out of nowhere, and swept him up into the sky. The pressure on his chest was intense. He looked in horror at his captors perfect form as he was hoisted past her smooth pale chest and perfect orb like breasts covered in crimson leather.

She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I’ll squeeze you till you pop, human scum” She spat.

The pressure was unbearable, Steve felt he was going to explode. His world went fuzzy and his head span. ‘This could not be then end!’ He thought wildly.

He was correct.

The pressure was suddenly gone, and Steve felt himself tumble back done to the ground. The hands that where once squeezing the life out of him where now clutched to his captors chest, cupping the end of a sword. Blood seeped between her fingers, and the expression on her face changed from anger, to surprise, to fear, then nothing as she tumbled sideways, off the thin blade.

She hit the ground just after Steve, luckily to the side of him. Her eyes, once beautiful and cruel, now locked in deaths eternal stare. A final sigh drifted from her luscious, full lips, and washed over him. There was a stunned silence. Steve turned from the Cultists mountainous corpse, to his saviour.

The Consulite stood, clutching her stomach with one hand, the other holding the blade that had saved Steve. She fell heavily to her knees, dropping the sword, and gasped “Human, please, show your self!”

Steve pushed forward through the grass, raising his hand in the air. “I am here!” He shouted.

She turned her head at the sound of his voice, and said “Please, jump on my hand, we must leave this place”. She gently lowered her hand to his level, and Steve heaved his battered form aboard. “I am sorry, you’ll have to go in here until we have put some distance between us and this awful place ” she opened a pouch on her belt, removing her other hand from her stomach, revealing a tear in her blue leather armour, and what looked like a deep gash in her pale skin.

He was dropped into the pouch, which luckily contained nothing else. He glanced back up at his savour, who grimaced down at him.

“This is only temporary, I am sorry”, and with that she closed the pouch, sealing Steve in darkness.

The pouch then began to bob, and then bucked wildly as the Consulite broke into a run. “This is going to be a long night” Steve muttered to himself, as he was thrown awkwardly around the pouch.

Steve lost track of time. Trapped in this darkness, being thrown from own side to the other constantly. The sudden decrease in pace of recent events paired with the loss of the adrenaline boost made him very tired, yet in this bucking prison, sleep was not an option. Instead, Steve sort to remember everything he could about this strange world and its even stranger (yet undeniably rather beautiful) inhabitants.

He, and all of his companions on his squadron, had been deployed to this place to aid the Consulites in their long conflict with their Cultists foes. Humanity had not been told how this war had started, or why the two sides hated each other so much.

The reason why the UN had decided to deploy there forces here was to both protect the diplomatic relations with the Consulites, and, perhaps more importantly, the economic benefits this relationship brings to both sides. Due to the vast size differences (The Other Earth and everything on it where many times the size of Earth), It was very economical to import materials from Other Earth to Earth due to more material being present in the Other Earth. So the UN gained raw materials, in exchange for the technology humans where so adept at creating.

However, there was one other reason why the UN had deployed troops here. If the Cultists captured the one Rift large enough for people from the Other Earth, then an invasion would be unstoppable.

So its not all about politics, Steve mused. The thought comforted him, because it meant that he was protecting his friends and family. It was the reason that he has joined the RAF in the first place, that and his love of flying. A sudden wave of tiredness overcame him. Maybe sleep wasn’t impossible after all.

z88;