"Hey, Sharon!" yelled Corporal Linda Paklowski. "What are you doing?"

"None of your fucking business," answered Sharon good-naturedly. The Avatar was examining a large block of what looked like expanded polyurethane foam. Actually, she wasn't examining it – Sharon was almost meditating upon it, using it as a focus for soothing her soul.

"No, seriously, Sharon," said Paklowski. "I really want to know." She made a sweeping gesture around the Hell's Gate maintenance hangar. "I can't see why you would be inside when it's such a great day."

"Why the fuck would I be outside, when all there is to do is mooch around the base like some feckless shithead," growled Trooper Sharon King. "I'm a chicken strangler, not a fucking cunt of a roachie. If I wasn't doing this," she gestured towards the block of foam," I'd be gonking for the fucking Olympics."

Paklowski almost went cross-eyed as she attempted to translate the Aussie military slang. Ok, she knew that a chicken strangler was a member of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, and a roachie was a rear echelon motherfucker, but what the hell was gonking? It sounded obscene – but then every second word from Sharon's mouth tended to be an obscenity.

Sharon continued, "I'm not cracking the sads, but as long as the boss says we're not going to arc-up with the locals, I'd rather not be swept up to do an emu bob parade picking foddies off the asphalt, just to keep the flog-offs happy."

"Jesus Christ, Sharon, are you even speaking English?" objected Paklowski.

"Well, I'm not speaking fucking Mandarin, húli jīng," she responded to her friend.

Paklowski chuckled, "Did you just call me a bitch in Chinese?"

"Yep," agreed Sharon, grinning at her fellow Avatar, who knew very well Sharon was half-Chinese. Or at least she had been, until she volunteered for duty on Pandora and had her personality permanently transferred to her Avatar. Now she was all smurf. Sharon picked up a slim, straight branch she had scavenged the only time she had been out on patrol – in defiance of orders – and sighted down the close-grained timber. It would do very well as a stringer, she thought, after a little work.

"I'm glad I haven't taught you to swear in Na'vi," commented Paklowski. It was strange that such a foul-mouthed individual as Sharon spoke the most lyrical Na'vi she had ever heard.

"Your bad," replied Sharon, not shifting her eyes from the raw piece of timber deadfall.

"So what are you doing?" asked Paklowski.

Sharon looked up from the branch. "I'm looking for the shape inside this shit," she said, using the branch to point at the block of foam.

Paklowski walked away, shaking her head, no more enlightened than when she first asked.


It might have been point eight of a g on Pandora, thought Sharon, but it still didn't make running with a full combat load any easier. After twenty times around Hell's Gate perimeter in this heat, she was pretty well fucked.

She leaned against one of the lampposts and hydrated, shaking out the last drops of water from her water bottle.

"Soldier!" yelled a voice. It sounded like an officer.

Sharon looked up. Her ears had not deceived her – it was indeed an officer. To be precise, it was Colonel Renshaw, the CO of this dog and pony show.

"Yes, Boss," she replied, drawing herself up to attention. Unlike many of the officers she had encountered during her bumpy career, this one deserved a little respect. Not only that, he was so fucking built he could probably rip off one of her arms and beat her to death with it – without even raising a sweat.

Sometimes Sharon really resented the advantages males had in building up muscle mass. It was so fucking easy for dick swingers. She had to work twice as hard as any of them, just to get the same results. And it was just as hard to build muscle wearing a blue suit as when she had been human.

"At ease," he ordered. "Trooper King, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, relaxing into parade rest. "Everyone calls me Sharon."

He glanced at her sand-coloured beret, only worn by SASR troopers. Anyone else found wearing one would usually be found face-down in a dark alley with their throat cut. "I suppose I could ask why you are training alone out in the midday sun, but I think I already know the answer, Trooper," he said, ignoring the offer of her first name. "You're what the Australians call a door-kicker."

"Yes, sir," she confirmed. "Eight years in the sabre squadrons, usually in search and reconnaissance, but I had eighteen months in counter-terrorism." She grinned happily. "I'm one of T.H.E.M."

"I didn't know the Aussies let women into Special Forces," he commented. "We don't."

"With all due respect, sir," she said, despite the little voice in her head screaming at her to shut up, "You ignorant septics think that cunts are useful only for fucking groundsheets." Never mind that she had been the only female SASR trooper during her entire term of service.

"Is that so?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and ignoring the obscenities, his expression indicating slight disapproval - or perhaps distaste. He had heard the Sec-Ops scuttlebutt that Sharon's normal speech could make a Marine gunny blush – in this case, the rumour-mill was one hundred percent unadulterated truth. But there was a good reason why the legislature had never allowed women into Special Forces. They just weren't as strong as men.

"I could run you into the fucking ground, sir," she dared him. "Right now, as you are."

"I hardly think that's fair," he replied, thinking that this woman had just run twenty laps of the perimeter with full combat load, while he was only carrying his sidearm, and was well rested.

Sharon replied, "You're right, it's not fucking fair. I'll give you thirty seconds head start."

Colonel Renshaw looked into the mad gleam in Trooper King's eyes. She was deadly serious.


The race went pretty well as expected. After ten laps of the perimeter, Colonel Renshaw had lapped Sharon once, and pulled ahead by half a lap.

And then something incredible happened.

Sharon started running faster.

Fifteen laps later, she had unlapped herself, passing Colonel Renshaw at a fair clip. By this time, a crowd had gathered around the start/finish line that was used for such purposes. Renshaw's uniform was soaked with sweat as he tried to remain in contact with the former SASR trooper. He could feel his legs slowing, no matter what he tried.

Another eight laps saw him walking, when Sharon ran on past him, still maintaining the same punishing pace.

She passed him one more time before he finally walked across the start/finish line. She was only a minute behind him, crossing the line to the cheers of the grunts.

"Thank you sir," she said. "You ran a good race."

Renshaw shook his head in amazement as he shook her offered hand. "You're a machine, Sharon. I would never have believed it."

She grinned at him and asked the question she had been dying to ask him, ever since she had made planet-fall on Pandora. "When are you going to allow women out on patrol, sir? I'm going troppo sitting around on my arse."

"I think I will be revisiting my decision," he said. "It looks like you will be going out on patrol tomorrow."

Sharon nodded with satisfaction at proving her point. "If you'll excuse me sir, I think I'll brass up at the range. I haven't shot my ammo ration off this week."

Colonel Renshaw watched the female trooper walk steadily away towards the rifle range. If all Aussie women had been like Trooper Sharon King, the entire world would be saying 'g'day mate' as their standard greeting.


As soon as Sharon was out of sight of the CO, she leant her head against a convenient building, and tried to stop from screaming in agony. The muscles in her legs were convulsing into huge knots. For fuck's sake, what had she been trying to prove?

She never quite made it to the range.


Paklowski found Sharon standing under the shower in her quarters, letting the hot water stream over her smooth blue skin. By the amount of steam flooding the bathroom, she had been there for at least half-an-hour.

"Hi, Linda," said Sharon. She sounded exhausted. "Can you give me a hand out? I can hardly walk."

Shaking her head in amazement, Paklowski helped her friend out of the shower, and rubbed her down with a towel. The knots of muscle in her legs felt harder than steel, at least until Paklowski massaged them out. "I'd swear you would try to beat the guys in a pissing contest, just to see who could get the highest mark on a wall."

Sharon started to giggle. "I did that on my first leave from Swanbourne, after I was frocked as an operator."

Paklowski's mouth dropped open, before she stated, "I suppose you won."

"No," giggled Sharon helplessly. "But I didn't come last." She allowed Paklowski to guide her towards her cot, and collapsed on it face down.

Linda could have sworn that Sharon was asleep before her face hit her pillow.


After Renshaw walked out the soreness in his legs, he returned to his quarters in the command post, the former Avatar longhouse. Out of curiosity, he opened up Sharon King's personnel jacket. Everything in it confirmed what she had told him – a brace of campaign medals, an awe-inspiring list of disciplinary black marks, two awards for gallantry under fire, wounded three times – the blood drained away from his face as his eyes returned to her gallantry awards. He had been about to discipline her for her failure to salute, when he remembered that Australians were notoriously slack about military courtesy. Renshaw had mentally let her off for that minor infraction, ascribing it to cultural differences.

Trooper Sharon King had a fucking VC.

He read the citation twice before he silently watched the attached holovid. In its way, it was a classic of its kind, showing the heroism of a simple soldier trying to save her mates from being slaughtered by crazed Pakistani jihadis, in the midst of the confusion of battle, and beyond all odds surviving. No, Sharon did more than survive – she tore the jihadis apart.

There was indeed a reason she hadn't saluted him. Sharon had been waiting for him to salute her, as was demanded by military custom and law, to honour the holder of the highest award for gallantry of her nation.

And then he began to laugh.

No doubt she had been waiting for him to – what did the Australians say? That's right, give her a right royal face ripper about not saluting. He bet she would endure the shellacking (another idiosyncratic Australianism) perfectly straight-faced, and then calmly advise him that she was not required to salute any officers, thank you very much sir, three bags full sir.

He would have been left with egg all over his face.

As Renshaw continued laughing he flipped back through the record, and noted her middle initial was 'X'. What was that for, he wondered? Xena the warrior princess, he wagered. It would really suit her.

It turned out that her full name was Sharon Xiùlán King. A couple of clicks opened up a gallery of images, showing a deeply tanned woman with long blonde hair and classical Chinese features, together with a couple of shots of her Avatar.

At this point the skin on the back of his neck started prickling, as sure sign that he was facing imminent danger. Normally, this only happened to Renshaw when he was about to step on a landmine, or enter a perfect killing ground. It usually didn't happen when he was seated at his desk looking at personnel jackets.

Renshaw's eyes scrolled down to the entry for next of kin. The contact was her grandfather, listed as Colonel Zhong Li (ret'd). It was the address details of her next-of-kin that made his eyes perform the impossible feat of standing out on stalks. Sharon's maternal grandfather was the fucking CEO of the Resource Development Administration, the head honcho of the entire RDA – the man who had personally briefed him for this mission.

Now he knew he was being set up.

But the real question was this – was he being set up for failure, or for success?


Sharon woke up with a start, her heart pounding and skin pouring with sweat. She had virtually ripped her cot apart in her sleep, and for some strange reason her left hand was very firmly gripped between her thighs.

"Shit," she muttered to herself, as she half-remembered vivid dreams of writhing bodies and slick flesh. Perhaps it wasn't strange at all to find her left hand there. "I should exercise the old wanking spanner a bit more."

Her watch said it was four in the morning. Ninety precious minutes of gonking time left, she thought, before she had to get up. The only problem, sleep wouldn't come. Sharon was hot, and restless, and could think of only one thing.

Sex.

"Fuck!" she swore, and then wished she hadn't. Sharon wanted to scream from frustration.

She was as horny as a fucking sultan's seraglio.

Back on Earth, if she felt like this, Sharon would have gone over the wire, found a good looking townie and fucked his brains out, before doing the old AJ fade away, and been back in her wank chariot before reveille.

It wasn't an option for her on Pandora. The locals weren't that friendly, let alone the fact that the smurfs mated for life. No chance there of a fade away back to base. The option of screwing one of the Sec-Ops spangled drongos was even less appealing, not if she was going to have him rusted on for life. Although, mused Sharon, she wouldn't mind the CO stirring the old honeypot on a regular basis. For some reason she bet Renshaw had a pretty sizeable wooden spoon, and he seemed to be a decent bloke for a red tab. After all, unlike most brass hats, he hadn't arced up about her not saluting, even though she hadn't paraded with her fruit salad on.

The only problem was she was sure as dingoes ate babies that Renshaw was a stickler about fraternising with other ranks.

For some reason, she knew that a quiet wank wouldn't solve her problem. That only left one option. Sharon would have to go muff diving. There was nothing in the Avatar manual that said a spot of Dutch canoe rubbing led to lifetime commitment.

Not that Sharon hadn't done it before, when her need had been great, and there wasn't any big timber around.

She wondered if her friend Paklowski was up for it, even though she was half of the only couple on base. The lucky bitch had sole possession of Sergeant Niccolo Vitello, a very tasty piece of long blue meat, and had made it very clear to all the other slits on base that if she found any of them laying a snail trail in front of her old ball and chain, Linda would have their fucking guts for garters.

No-one else came to mind that she really fancied.

Which was why Sharon found herself in the gym at oh-four-fucking-thirty, belting the crap out of an outsized punching bag.

"Youse wanna spar?" asked a thick Brooklyn accent, attached to one of the Q-wallas.

She considered him for a moment – she knew the prick, even if she couldn't remember his name. The bastard had refused to issue her with a double ration of ammo last time she was in the Q-store. Sharon tilted her head from one side to the other, hearing the bones crack. "Why not," she said. Time for a little come-uppance, perhaps. "Full contact?"

"Yeah," replied the quartermaster's bum-boy, supremely confident of holding his own against her.

He looked as though he fancied himself in the ring, warming up and making Rocky type noises, as though he was some kind of reincarnation of Sylvester Stallone. As she donned protective gear – helmet, breast plates, knee and elbow pads, followed finally by gloves, the shithead growled, "Youse need all those?"

"Regulations," she answered shortly. Sharon had more than enough black marks in her jacket to be racking up any more, just for doing something as stupid as not wearing protective gear in the ring. She wasn't a fucking skxawng. Besides, he probably had at least fifty kilos on her.

Sharon slammed the button on the vending machine to get a mouth guard. When the black lump of polymer dropped out, she swore under her breath. Sharon hated fucking liquorice. When she put it in, just like always the warm plastic shifted greasily around her teeth and tongue, releasing the disgusting taste before the mouthguard hardened into the shape of her mouth.

When she got into the ring, she nodded once to her opponent, and started to feel out his defences. Actually, he wasn't that bad, she thought, as she tried a couple of combinations, only landing two or three light blows. It wasn't a grudge match, after all.

Unfortunately, Sharon was mistaken as to her belief regarding the nature of the bout. She blinked once, and a freight train hit her head. The next thing she knew she was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

The shithead spat out his mouthguard and growled, "How d'youse like them apples, girly?" He gave her a feral grin before he reinserted his mouthguard.

Big mistake, fuckwit, she thought, as she hauled herself back on her feet. Sharon shook her brains back into place, nodded again, and the prick started steaming in, throwing combinations in rapid succession, each series designed specifically to remove her head. She backed off, only allowing him to get in one or two glancing blows, waiting for him to get off-balance.

Now!

Sharon slipped under a haymaker, ripping up a left cross into his solar plexus, paralysing his diaphragm. She followed up with an elbow strike directly into the jaw, the power of the blow turning his body around. A solid left to his kidneys then led to a knee in the groin. Somehow, the bastard still was on his feet as she tore into him, forcing him back into the corner, smashing him with punishing body blows and head shots.

She spat out her mouthguard and screamed with rage, landing blow after blow, feeling the cracking of ribs and the splattering of blood from countless punches, blows and strikes, until he was on the ropes. The ratshit bugger still wouldn't drop to the mat where he belonged.

What she didn't realise was that his left arm had wrapped around one of the ropes, holding him up, even though the prick had lost consciousness. Not that she could see that tiny little fact.

Suddenly there was the insistent ringing of a bell. The red haze in front of her eyes wavered, and then started to dissipate. Sharon shook her head to clear it, and stepped away from the bloodied body of her opponent.

Slowly, so very slowly, like a toppling of a forest giant – Sharon had seen holovids of the Fall of Hometree – the prick crashed to the mat in a disgusting spray of blood and drool.

"Well, fuck you, you fucking numpty grot," she snarled. Sharon bent down to pick up her discarded mouthguard, and slipped between the ropes down to the gym floor.

"Holy fuck," said the bloke who had rang the bell, his eyes wide open at the lump of cold meat in the ring. "What the fuck have you done to him?"

"Thanks for ringing the gong, mate," she said, unlacing her gloves. "You'd better call the scab-lifters. I think I did him a bit of harm." When the bloke didn't react, she yelled at him, "Call a fucking medic, shithead."

As the mango ran off to get a turd burglar, Sharon reflected that she was about to get another fucking rocket up her clacker.


Sharon stood at attention in front of the Colonel's desk, eyes straight ahead, gaze fixed on the wall two feet above his head. She could feel one eye swelling up. No doubt she was going to have a ripper of a shiner in a couple of hours.

Renshaw said in a chilly voice, "Let me get this straight. You sparred without a referee, in direct contravention to regs, and then because your opponent tried to take your head off, you beat him into a pulp."

"Yes, sir," she said. That was about the long, the short and the tall of it.

He nodded. "He'll be in hospital at least a month," stated Renshaw, "If not longer."

"Sorry, sir," replied Sharon. Unwisely, she added, "I lost my temper." Sharon winced inside at her stupidity. She had been dragged up to receive a tongue-lashing on a zillion occasions, and knew better than to say she was sorry.

The CO drummed his fingers on his desk for about thirty seconds, each roll sounding like the drums of hell. "Sorry doesn't cut it, Sharon. You could have killed the fucking idiot."

"Yes, sir," she said, relaxing the tiniest bit. He had called her by her first name. Perhaps she would get out of this one with only a few black marks.

"You're lucky the whole incident was captured on holovid," he said. "If not for that evidence – you were clearly provoked - I would chuck you into solitary and let you stew for a month or so."

"Yes sir," she repeated.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I have to confine you to base, Sharon. I can't afford to take anyone out on patrol who can't control her temper, no matter how good her skills or combat record."

Her shoulders slumped slightly. But he was right. Sharon deserved much worse. What she did to the poor bastard was worthy of a month in the stockade.

"Stay out of trouble, and get some ice on that eye," he added, "Next time, I'll throw the book at you."

"Thank you, sir," she said. It sounded like her interview was over.

"One moment, Sharon, before you go," requested Colonel Renshaw.

"Yes, sir?" she asked, a little surprised.

"There is one thing that is puzzling me," he stated. "Why did you resign from SASR and join RDA Sec-Ops? I've read your record, and despite the number of demerits, I still can't fathom the reasons for your decision."

He must have read her personnel jacket, thought Sharon. There was nothing for it but the truth – perhaps not the whole truth, but the truth nonetheless. "Two reasons, sir," she replied grimly. "After I got the brass gong," referring to her VC, "The red tabs wouldn't let me go back out into the field. They said I was too valuable to risk, and all they would let me do were fucking dog and pony shows, in order to prop up morale. They made me leave my oppos." She bared her teeth. "I fucking hate the fucking media, and the fucking general staff, and most of all I hate the fucking politicians."

He nodded. This same problem occurred in the Marines, whenever some poor bastard got the Medal for doing his job. However, in Sharon's case, he also bet the politicians didn't want to see their only female VC winner brought home in a body bag. "What was the second reason?" he asked.

Sharon shifted her gaze downwards, to look directly into his eyes. "Grandad asked me to volunteer," she answered.

There were two minutes of dead silence, as the two soldiers stared at each other. Finally, Colonel Renshaw shifted in his chair slightly, and said quietly, "Dismissed."


That was only the beginning of the trouble.

Within two weeks, Hell's Gate was in turmoil. Every female on base appeared to have gone completely nuts. They were causing chaos left, right and centre – dumb insolence to officers and NCOs, inciting fighting between men, cat-fights between the women, even a couple of riots in the commissary.

Colonel Renshaw was left with no choice. He confined every woman to barracks, with the exception of essential personnel, and ordered them to turn in all firearms and weapons.

Suddenly, just over ten percent of his personnel were combat-ineffective. And the men – well, they wouldn't go anywhere near any woman, not if their lives depended on it.

The only woman who appeared to be sane was Corporal Linda Paklowski, one of the two Na'vi language instructors. Then again, she was one half of the only married couple on base. It was that fact which gave him the only clue, and caused him to summon the M.O. to his office.

Renshaw examined the female medico cautiously. She didn't seem proof against the madness gripping the Avatar females either. She was sitting in his visitor's chair, lip curled back from her teeth, and she was growling softly. Renshaw could swear that she had no idea that she was doing any of it.

"What's causing this trouble, Doc?" he asked carefully.

Doctor Sabine Fleischmann twitched suddenly, and her hands flexed convulsively, as if they wanted to rip and tear flesh. "I don't know," she snarled, through a heavy German accent. "There isn't anything about aberrant female behaviour in the Avatar literature."

"Could it be something to do with hormone levels, or lack of sexual activity?" he asked. "Corporal Paklowski doesn't seem to be showing any of the symptoms."

"Are you a fucking doctor?" she screeched. "What the fuck would you know, jarhead?" She half rose from her chair, as if she was intending to pounce on him and scratch his eyes out.

"Easy, Doc, easy," he said, his hands held defensively in front of him, gesturing her to calm down. "I did not mean to offer offense, or cast doubt on your expertise."

Slowly, Doctor Fleischmann settled back down into her chair. She twitched again, and said in a very controlled voice, "All females I have examined display elevated temperatures within a small range and localised inflammation of the epidermis, together with intermittent nervous tics, but I can find no other indications of ill-health. Apart from these minor issues, they all seem perfectly healthy." She paused for a moment, adding, "I hypothesize that there is an allergic reaction to some unknown airborne pathogen."

"Is there anything to back up your belief?" he asked.

She sat there for a few moments, a wild glare in her eyes, struggling to maintain control. "I have performed equivalent tests on a random sample of male personnel, and have noted lesser but equivalent symptoms. Slightly raised temperature, nervousness, and in a few cases involuntary tics similar to those being experienced by female personnel."

He nodded. It was clear he wasn't going to get any different advice out of the M.O. Perhaps she was right, and this problem might go away.

"Thank you, Doc," he advised quietly. "That will be all."

As soon as she left, he sighed with relief. Dealing with any of the women at the moment was like juggling bottles of nitro-glycerine. It was worse than any case of über-PMS on record he had ever seen - even worse than his second ex-wife.

He sighed again. If he continued to do nothing, Renshaw doubted that the Hells' Gate garrison would survive another month. That was why he started composing a superluminal message. He needed better advice, even if he had to refer back to Earth. Now.