The Outpost Read Online Free Page A

in all directions.
    She stared at me, wide-eyed, and I could tell that she was torn between yelling “Off with his head!” and “Off with his clothes!”
    “I may have even more uses for you than I thought at first glance,” she said at last.
    “Then we’re partners?”
    “Why not?” she said with a shrug that went a lot farther and lasted a lot longer than your standard shrug.
    “Well, if we’re partners,” I continued, “I’d sure be interested in knowing why you’re a Dragon Queen rather than a Pirate Queen.”
    “And so you shall, Catastrophe Baker,” she said, walking over and taking me by the hand. She smelled good enough to eat. “Come with me.”
    She led me to a small door I hadn’t seen, since it was hiding behind a bunch of her bodyguards. They stepped aside, and she ordered the door to open, and it did, and suddenly we were in a bedroom that was probably a little smaller than the Navy’s flagship and had a few less windows than the governor’s palace (the old palace, not the new fortified one), and right in the middle of it was a bed that could have accommodated a dozen Dragon Queens and still have some room left over for their gentleman friends.
    “What do you think?” she asked.
    “It’s right impressive,” I acknowledged. “But it still don’t explain why you’re a Dragon Queen.”
    “It’s a result of inbreeding and radiation and genes gone astray,” she said, putting a hand behind my neck and pulling my head down to hers.
    “Looks to me like every gene is sitting right where it’s supposed to be for optimum effect,” I opined.
    “I’m a genetic sport,” she whispered, and suddenly her breath became real warm. “When I get hot, I get hot ! I’m like a dragon in that respect.”
    She smiled, her eyes gleamed and flashed, and twin needles of smoke and fire shot out from beneath her lips.
    She directed my gaze down south of her waist where still more smoke was escaping.
    “You see?” she said. “I’m so constituted that I can’t hide my desire for you, Catastrophe Baker.”
    And sure enough, she couldn’t.

    “Just a second,” interrupted Three-Gun Max. “Are you trying to tell us that she actually was smoking down there?”
    “That’s right,” said Baker.
    “I don’t believe it!”
    “ I was there,” said Baker pugnaciously. “Were you ?”
    “No, but if you’re gonna tell us you took her to bed without getting some real important part of your masculine anatomy fried to a crisp, I’m gonna have a hard time believing any part of this story.”
    Baker glared at him until he kind of shrunk into himself, and then the huge man looked around the room, his hand kind of toying with the pearl handle of his burner. “Has anyone else got a problem with my story?”
    Nobody said a word, and finally he relaxed and began talking again.

    As a matter of fact (continued Baker), I never had a chance to find out just how hot a number she was, figuratively or literally, because at just that instant we heard a huge commotion outside the bedroom, and then there were a bunch of screams, and I could hear the hum of burners and the whine of screechers and the report of bullets.
    “The warlords!” she cried. “They’ve found out about the plutonium and launched a preemptive strike!”
    “That ain’t no problem,” I said. “Give me a couple of them weapons you’re wearing and I’ll send ’em packing.”
    She tossed me a couple of guns, and I walked to the door, opened it, and gently announced my presence by blowing away eight or nine men who were wearing uniforms that were different from her bodyguards.
    Then I looked across the room and saw six men all done up in fancy-looking tunics with rows and rows of medals on their chests, and I knew right away that these had to be the six warlords, so I picked up one of their bigger henchmen, twisted his head around a couple of times until he stopped squirming, and used him as a shield as I began crossing the room.
    “Be