Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse

The girls had holed up in an old club on the outskirts of Melbourne. It was large enough for the horses to be stabled in the enclosed courtyard, while the girls bunked down in the club lounge.

'Club Lounge' made it sound a lot nicer than it was, thought Delphi, looking around at the layers of dust and broken furniture. Still, it was dry and there were no tubiàn, so it ticked all the boxes.

"I'll go out and catch us something for dinner," she said to the girls, who had strewn themselves and their weapons across the space. "Arrie, Winter, see if you can find anything edible to pick outside. I think I saw some big thickets of blackberries not too far back along Ballarat Road. Don't stay out late. It'll be dark soon."

The two girls dragged themselves back to their feet and the three of them left together.

"We'll walk," Arrie said to Delphi. "It's not far enough to bother with the horses."

"Okay. I'll meet you back here. Stay alert. Be safe."

Delphi strode off to get her horse, mounting up and riding out into the gathering dusk.

She cantered back the way they had come, heading south down Ballarat Road until she arrived at the bushland she had seen, breaking up the areas of dense decaying houses.

A faded sign read 'John,' something illegible, 'Reserve'. She rode into the bush, dropping her horse back to a walk so as not to startle any game.

As she emerged from the eucalypt forest into a clearing, she came across a mob of kangaroos grazing in the long grass in the late afternoon light.

She dismounted and crept forward, bow ready for the shot. Once they startled, they'd be too fast to catch.

Before she could loose her arrow, the rustle of an arrow on a bow sang out across the clearing, and the 'roos bounded off, leaving one large male behind with an arrow quivering from its chest.

She stood up and looked indignantly across the clearing for the archer that had stolen her dinner.

Commander Meyer also rose from the long grass. Before she could express her annoyance, he was sprinting towards her, sword drawn.

Delphi drew her sword and dropped into a fighting stance. So he wanted to catch her, did he? Arrogant man. Let's see him try.

He slowed his run to a wary trot when he saw she had drawn her sword.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Miss Chastain. I'm not going to hurt you. Don't make it hard for me. I don't want to fight with you," he shook his head.

"Huh," she laughed shortly. "I certainly don't plan to make it easy for you Commander. And I believe your man Baer told Loveday he 'wouldn't hurt her,' before he forced his unwanted attentions on her."

"I'm sorry my men have lacked discipline in that regard, but that's them and I'm me. I'm sure you can imagine that having only ever seen good women covered from head to toe, seeing your sis… team in those revealing little outfits has been confusing and difficult for them. They have mistakenly put them in the wrong category of women. The sorts of women they might meet in a brothel. Not to mention that all of you are very beautiful Miss Chastain, so it's been more temptation than they can withstand being in such close proximity to them."

"Don't bore me with your misogynistic bullshit Commander. My girls can strut naked in front of your men for all I care, and there is never an excuse for sexually assaulting them."

"Miss Chastain, you and I both know that what took place with Niko and Baer and your two girls was a long way from sexual assault. In both cases, the girls consented and instigated some of the … activities."

"Commander Meyer, 'you and I both know' that those were techniques designed to make sure they could escape a highly dangerous situation. The fact your men are too dumb to read the room is your problem, not ours. Anyway, the small talk's been pleasant, but given you shot my kangaroo, I need to get on with hunting our dinner. Let's not dance around the handbags any longer."

"I didn't know that's what we were doing. It sounds like an activity for women, not you and me, Miss Chastain. I think you'll find what we're up to here, is having an adult conversation."

She gave an exaggerated sigh. "With the track record of your guards, next you'll be telling me this is foreplay and it's time for a shag." 

Delphi started to circle the man, looking for an opening.

He flushed at her crude comment. "I understand you're angry with us, Miss Chastain, but that is absolutely not my style. I'm more of a flowers and dinner kind of guy."

"Is that so? That look you're giving me suggests otherwise."

"What's your interpretation of my 'look' Miss Chastain?"

"Lustful."

"What would you know about lust? You've been an underage girl locked up in the palace with eunuchs your entire life."

"I know plenty about lust from that disgusting uncle of yours, Prince. I've seen that look on his face every day since I was very young."

"I take it his feelings aren't reciprocated."

"If he feels disgust and fear when he looks at me, then 'yes'."

"You seem to have tarred all men with the same brush, Miss Chastain."

"You and your team haven't disabused me of the notion that you're all the same, Commander. Modus operandi, ply the innocent little women with alcohol to try and get in her panties. Sound familiar? That was another one of Baer's sordid little tactics. Unfortunately for him it proved his undoing. Literally..."

"Yes, I saw the 'work' of your girl, Loveday. That 'innocent little woman' didn't have any problem striping a grown man naked and handling his … male organ," he said awkwardly, trying to keep things clean around her.

"Male organ!" she pealed with laughter. "This is not the eighteenth-century Commander. We know what a prick is," she looked at the prick in question, offensively, "and we know a wanker when we see one too".

His face twisted into a 'you got me' kind-of smile, and he nodded his head in grudging respect for this firebrand.

"Those crude words seem incongruous coming off the tongue of such a beautiful woman."

"There you go again, trying to lock us up in a box of male desire. You want your women docile, obedient, kind, innocent, naïve. And you're happy to enforce that by locking us up, covering us up, keeping us uneducated. Well … Prince," she deliberately used his royal title, "we're tired of the way things have been. We've escaped your tyranny, and the only way you'll carry us back to it, is in a box."

"You make it sound like I came up with that system."

"You're the bloody nephew of that evil Emperor. You might not have invented it, but you're an enforcer. Another mindless drone who does what he's told without thinking about right from wrong. Well, I'm here to tell you that You. Are. Wrong. You are on the wrong side of history. You're part of the axis of evil. By all means fight me, but you'll have to kill me."

She was a total extremist, he realised. A treasonous rebel.

Why did she have to make him feel like he was in the wrong, when the woman was clearly way out of line?