Chapter 24

Once all of the women were hanging upside down on the crosses, Spartacus said, "Each of you men pick up the whip belonging to your former owner. When you have done that, go stand beside her." The former slaves did that and waited for further instructions. "OK, men, now turn the crosses so that the women face the wall. I want to see asses facing me." That was done, and Spartacus ordered, "Now is the time to relieve some of your anger at your former mistress. Whip her ass until I can see blood flow. Don't go easy on her, but do the job right!"

There were no slackers. Whips were applied with a will. Soon there was blood flowing from every ass mounted to a cross. The women were all crying, now, though they had been screaming while the whipping had been going on. Spartacus took his bottle of pepper extract and dribbled a little on the open wounds he could see on each ass.

There was no delay as the pepper went to work on the exposed nerves in the cuts and welts on the asses. The screaming now started in earnest and lasted for 15 minutes or so. Spartacus had been careful to pour the minimum amount of the pepper extract on each wound so that they would have time to go on to other activities.

He was now ready to take care of the next step in the punishment. "Turn all of the women around so that they face away from the wall. We want to be able to see their pussies, now." Everyone of the women had a very profuse and bushy growth of pussy hair. He had brought a candle with him, but, because of its appropriateness, he selected one of the lit candles from the decorative candelabra, and dribbled melted wax on each lot of pussy hair. Once he had what he thought was a suitable coating, he used the candle to light the mass and let it burn the hair from each pussy. More screaming and pain resulted, and it was enjoyed by every ex-slave who was there.

Next, Spartacus produced a small cup and his funnel. He instructed each slave, in turn, to use the funnel to pour the liquid into the cunt of his former owner. The first woman was screaming before the second one had her full dose of pepper extract administered. Spartacus continued down the line, letting each ex-slave treat his former owner to excruciating pain. There was nearly half an hour of screaming before this event was finished. Spartacus had originally thought to do the same to rectums, but they were running too long for him to be comfortable.

He then took a straw-vote and asked if any ex-slave thought that his former owner had been punished enough. None thought so, so Spartacus ordered the climactic act of the night.

The women were still hanging upside down, and he ordered the fuel which the FFA had brought along to be piled under each woman's head. When that was ready, Atlas poured toluene onto each pile of wood and Spartacus had each freed slave set the wood ablaze. The result was nothing like anybody expected. The women's hair was burned away almost immediately and the flesh of their scalp started to char. The sight began to nauseate everybody, so Spartacus had some leaflets scattered about and they left.

The plan had been to burn away the resentment of the ex-slaves with the torture to death of their owners, and it seemed to work. The slaves became good soldiers, but they were not the fanatics that they might have been without the exercise that they had been through. They all felt that they had exacted the needed retribution, and now they could become normal human beings.

A few days later, some more mortar ammunition was delivered by drone and the crews went back into the desert to practice. Included were the special fuses that had been missing from previous shipments. This time, they had enough rounds to learn what they needed to know about the various weapons. Sure, they were not experts, by any means, but they were adequately trained for the job at hand. The NG troops had never been in a true fire-fight, so they were going to be very upset when they found themselves on the receiving end of the mortar fire the FFA was capable of.

Now that the mortar crews were up to snuff, there were two drone loads devoted to their needs. A second 62mm mortar had been delivered and enough ammunition "to fight a war" along with it. The mortar crews felt that they were ready for a serious meeting with the NG and were anxious to show what they could do.

Meanwhile, the riflemen had done some heavy training, and they, too, were in a hurry to meet the NG troops head on. A few of the male riflemen had not seemed to be able to do the kind of shooting their fellows were capable of, so it dawned on Jim that they might be having vision problems. He was no optometrist, but Jim could follow directions as well as the next guy, so he received some of the necessary vision testing equipment and found that a few of the men did, indeed, need glasses.

They had been able to see well enough to function as sex-slaves, so nothing was done to improve their vision. If their vision had been bad enough, the slaves would simply have been dumped down a disposal chute. This problem did not apply to women because they received regular eye exams, and their vision was repaired by surgery as soon as they needed it. As a result, some men soon wore glasses brought in by drone from Canada, but no woman did.

There had been a few minimal fire-fights with the NG troops over the last few weeks, but nothing serious. The FFA now had a total of 81 troops under arms, and Spartacus was interested in testing his troops against the NG in a more serious and protracted battle. Therefore, he proposed to attack one of their camps. The NG had split into four camps, and, strangely enough, they showed no sign of discovering the damage done to their howitzers. One camp was on a bit of park land toward the middle of the city, and that made it very well suited for the type of attack the FFA was best suited for.

Considering the difference in weapons and motivation, this manpower ratio of approximately 12-1 did not seem overwhelming. If the situation got too bad for the FFA, they could retreat among the nearby buildings and escape the NG. At least, that was the plan.

John had been able to get some very good satellite photos of the camp they wanted to attack. The detail was such that they could read serial numbers on the vehicles. The motor pool was a one edge of the camp, so there was a chance that the FFA could capture a number of vehicles undamaged, and their biggest problem was a lack of drivers.

Other than that, the camp was, from the point of view of the FFA, just a collection of servants for the government that they wanted to eliminate. They were going to concentrate on killing as many of the enemy as they could before they had to run like hell as troops from other camps started to flood in. Of course, if the situation came up, they would accept the surrender of any NG troops who didn't want to fight. Spartacus was not going to hold his breathe while he waited for it to happen, but he did hope that some NG troops who could drive trucks would switch sides.

They planned as carefully as they could, but John warned them about not over-planning, especially about not making the plan too complicated. He warned that a very complicated plan could break down from its own complexity. His recommendation was summed up as KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid!

He decided to put his three mortars on the roof of a three-story building. That way they could get a good view of the battlefield. Without artillery of their own, the NG was going to be in trouble from just these three mortars. Air bursts should take out a lot of hostiles, as it amused Spartacus to call them.

Their plan was to attack at night, taking full advantage of the night-vision goggles that the Canadians had supplied. The FFA was used to operating at night, anyway, so this was just another advantage for them. They planned to start the attack at 2300 hours (11:00 PM). The troops were occupying squad tents, so the mortars should catch a lot of troops in their bunks, and a hit on a tent might get eight troopers at one time.

There was no way that the FFA had enough troops to surround the camp, so the plan was to hit the camp from two sides, there were enough FFA troops for that. The FFA would go in as teams of two. That way, they could give each other both moral and physical support, but still have the troops scattered enough to cover a reasonable front.