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.