Ellia sat in the war conference room, listening to the latestintel from her warriors about the incoming attack by the Lionesses. Ellia was a shrewd and alert woman, but she had trouble concentrating during the war meeting.

At first, she thought she was merely tired—the fact that she kept rubbing her eyes toldher as much. But no…

That wasn’tit at all.

It was the Last Man, Nikodemus, who was making it hard for her to concentrate. Him, and their night activities. She hadn’t slept with anyone in so long that her mindwouldn’t let her forget what a good time she had had the night before. It wasn’t just that she hadn’t been touched physically in such a long time, it was that she hadn’t been touched mentally in such a long time, either.

Even as shesat at the table with a cup of lime juice in hand, she could still feel hisfingers dancing across her hips… and she could feel his words prying at her deepest desires and insecurities.

I’ve never told a single soul about John or my father, and yet that pathetic pygmy somehow dug it out of me in a single conversation… Ellia thought toherself.

All she could think about, suddenly, was how much she would like to go back to bed with him and how much she would like him to pick her brain more about her insecurities.

“Ellia, did you hear what we said?” Her right-hand woman, June, asked.

Ellia whohad been leaning her elbow on the round table that seated ten other women, rubbed the bridge of her nose, sat up straight, and folded her hands in herlap. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat what you said?”

“Agatha was saying that, after scouting out the Lioness’ territory and tailing some of their resource gatherers, she heard that the Lionesses plan to attack this Saturday.” June repeated. “As of yet, they seem unaware that we have the Last Man, so they potentially won’t be fighting as vigorously as they otherwise would be.”

Ellianodded. “Good. Any other news?”

“Yes. Hilargi has finished constructing the Mark V Rayguns. They should come in handy when we are defending the fortress.” Agatha chimed in.

“Excellent. I spoke with the scientists earlier and they are hard at work at developing turrets as well, which will be remarkable. They probably won’t be done drawing up the plans for them until Saturday, though.” Ellia said. “If only we couldhave them done, sooner…”

“No worries, Ellia.” June assured her. “We already have the advantage of knowing they’regoing to attack. All we have to do is place our troops so that we’ll have theadvantage. What do you suggest, Ellia?”

Ellia gazeddown at the large map of the Wasteland stretched out on the table. “Hilargi was smart when designing our fortress. Because of its shape, we can easily have our warriors sit on top of it and target the Lionesses with our sniper rifles. Now, we need to make sure that they don’t breech the inside, so we need to stationsome troops outside. I’ll be one of them, of course, but I need some brave women to join me. Who is willing?” Ellia’s gaze swept across the table, and immediately, the hand of every woman at the table shot up.

Ellia grinned fiercely. “I expect nothing less from my brave warriors.”

Ellia’s gaze returned to the map, and finally, she managed to turn her thoughts from the night before and focus. “There’s the matter of robots, too… Because the Lionesses are a fairly new tribe, I don’t think they will have very many. I’m thinking the most they will have are two. Thanks to our brave scouts, we discovered that there are only two ore deposits in their territory as well. They probably have to use what resources they have sparingly, similar to us. So the good news is, they are a relatively weak tribe like we are, but they arehopefully not nearly as cunning. Now, we have to think of the best places to position our ground troops. I was thinking that I will station myself at thefront, right here, Agatha will be on the roof, and…”

The tribeswomen at the table listened carefully to Ellia’s plans and were satisfied that she had come up with yet another brilliant tactic to best their rivals.

Ellia sighedas she came to her last, but most important order of business. “We also need to sacrifice one of our women to the Zironists tonight. Kristy is still willing,right?”

All the women bristled, lowering their eyes at mention of the sacrifice. Everyone who adhered to the Zironist religion also had to adhere to their religious customs, and that included leaving out one of their tribe members as a sacrifice.

June spoke up after a moment. “Yes. Kristy is still willing—Ghuezefig bless her soul.” June said, invoking the name of the Zironist God.

After her war counsel meeting was done, Ellia referred to her written schedule, which she always kept in her pocket. I have to make sure the resource gatherers have left, and then I have to make sure that our stewardesses are on schedule with the cleaning and cooking, and then I have to check on our resources and make sure no one has been taking extra food and we still have a substantial amount of minerals.