Canadian Forces Base Kingston, an hour before lunch…
"Yukiko, you're reacting too badly to this…"
"I have a right to react this way, Stephen!" the diminutive Japanese-Canadian woman with the bob-cut raven-black hair and the dark brown eyes behind reading glasses snapped as she glared at the technical officer of the 33rd Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit. "I may be just a 'Saturday Soldier' in comparison to full-timers like you, but I know my job! And THIS can't be ignored no matter what people in Iceland and elsewhere say!" She stabbed a finger towards the security monitoring unit set up in her host's laboratory.
Stephen Caldwell tried not to grin as he gazed in appreciation at Aihoshi Yukiko, the security officer of 33 CSWU. Unlike the marine systems engineer, the military police lieutenant was a part-time soldier, current the second-in-command of 33 Military Police Platoon based in Ottawa, an element of 2 Military Police Unit, the light battalion responsible for security and policing functions concerning Land Forces Central Area and all units operationally and/or administratively assigned to it. Yukiko was a first-degree black belt in the Tensei-ryū who currently worked as an assistant teacher at the Ottawa Academy of Martial Arts in civilian life while parading with 33 MP Platoon on weekday evenings and the odd weekend. She had a gift for languages — Yukiko was functionally trilingual (English, French and Japanese) — thus was able to do two tours in Afghanistan alongside soldiers of both the Royal Canadian Regiment and le Royal 22e Régiment during Rotos 2 and 7 of Operation: Athena. It was during the latter deployment that she became the first member of the Heroes Alliance to receive a bravery decoration; after defusing an IED that threatened to destroy a local market, she was awarded the Medal of Military Valour…much to her embarrassment and shame as she had the same FISS-type powers as Lynda Warbis!
"Agreed, you do," he finally stated to calm her down; Yukiko was a stickler for the rules, especially the special ones made for the members of 33 CSWU, even the eleven other reserve officers scattered across Ontario. "But given the evidence of this young lady's actions — not to mention that her weapon is meson-powered, thus next to impossible to track by any means — I think we can direct our resources elsewhere. Especially since we all now have to deal with the implications of that first!" He pointed to the diagnostic table with the unmoving body of a certain gynoid that Deanna Hordye disabled yesterday.
She looked before she sighed. "I heard of an incident back in the old country."
That meant Japan, he knew. "What happened?"
"Negi Springfield and his friends went down to Kyōto to visit Konoe Konoka's father a week ago," she answered, crossing her arms. "While they were there, Wilhelm von Herrman attacked some of the girls. You know who he is, I believe."
"The demon who petrified all the natives of Negi's home village in Wales years ago."
"Well, it turns out that the Friend of Dragons unfroze them shortly after that incident with the dragons at that reserve near Meridiana," she stated. "And the dear 'count' didn't care for that one bit; after all, who gives mere 'mortals' the right to defy what a demon unleashes?" As he chuckled, a smirk crossed her face. "Near as the people in Japan could figure out…" — by this, she meant members of the regional Magical Associations who were the governing authorities for magicals in that country regardless of specific ability — "…the attack on Negi's friends was intentional."
"It was reported from the start that she was Japanese even if her eye and hair colour say otherwise," he noted. "When she allowed the people of that village to live again, Herr Herrman knew he had to draw her from wherever the Friend of Dragons currently lives — the bioroid factory, most likely — to engage her in battle on a ground of his choosing. Thanks to what Lord Rjazán' and Rittmeister von Taserich did all those centuries ago to the Old Ones, demons know they have no power beyond the limits of Earth's biosphere. The factory was out of his reach."
"And mesonium is deadly to a demon…as he found out the hard way. Fatally."
Silence.
"Have you talked to Larry about this? Or Ursula?" Stephen asked.
"Not yet," Yukiko said with a shake of her head as she crossed her arms. Larry Brigham was the only true magical member of 33 CSWU; when Grigori Wyszynski infused his foetus with mesonium years ago, it awoke long-dormant magical genes which would have seen the young boy invited to the Dominion's local wand-magical school, the Institute of Science and Magic on the Sibley Peninsula near his hometown of Thunder Bay. However, an Ojibwe elder from the Fort William First Nation near northwestern Ontario's largest city intervened to see Larry move to Welland when the War Hawks were helping the other future members of 33 CSWU learn how to use their powers. These days, Larry — a sub-lieutenant in the Navy — worked for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development at their Thunder Bay offices and guest-lectured at the ISM while also serving as a member of the ship's company of H.M.C.S. Griffon as the unit's naval control of shipping officer. "But given that the Friend of Dragons upped and KILLED a high-level demon…"
More silence.
"Given the size of the focusing crystal in her weapon, it doesn't surprise me that woman would be able to pull off something like that," he noted. "From what I saw of it on the security monitor recordings after she came here to deliver that threat to Annabelle's creator, the proportions of the three types of meson is the exact reverse of the Major's Power Jewel: Ten percent diamond, thirty percent ruby and sixty percent ebony."
That made her eyes go wide; her primary weapon — while having spent three billion years charging up with life energy, thus making it the most powerful artificial object on the planet when it had been claimed in 1889 — ironically had over half its mass composed of the normally least powerful version of the Atom of True Life. "So where did she get that thing?"
"That's the question," he noted. "So what happened after Herr Herrman was killed?"
"This girl literally tore Miyazaki Nodoka a brand-new asshole," she said with a smirk. Before becoming an officer in the Canadian Forces Military Police, Yukiko had served as an infantry soldier in the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa while she was obtaining her kinesiology degree at the namesake university of the national capital; because of her "grunt" background, she could swear with the best of them. "While she was busy reducing Herr Herrman to his component quantum elements and sending meson-powered beams into his home dimension to make it clear to any friends that coming to avenge the 'count' was a fatally stupid thing to contemplate, Miss Librarian decided to use the Diarium Ejus to probe the mind of the Friend of Dragons. She didn't take too kindly to that."
Stephen winced. Right from the first time Luna Lovegood tried to interview the Friend of Dragons, it was publicly known in the magical societies of Earth that the latter viewed her duty to her friends — which compelled her silence over her very name — as being under the bounds of giri, the classical Japanese virtue of duty and obligation that once drove samurai to do anything for their lords, even at the sacrifice of their own lives. To have a Japanese girl like Miyazaki Nodoka try to VIOLATE the Friend of Dragons' mind to learn her identity when the latter made such a declaration would be seen as a horrid insult, if not grounds for blood-feud. After destroying a high-level demon like Wilhelm von Herrman, Stephen didn't need his vast intelligence to guess what chances a relatively normal girl like Nodoka might have against such a person. "What happened then?"
"Negi tried to calm things down," Yukiko answered. "He did know of what the Friend of Dragons had done in Wales, so he was caught between his love for Nodoka and his sense of honour. Some of the other girls didn't care too kindly to see the poor girl get ripped apart verbally like that, so they tried to jump her…and got their asses handed to them before the Friend of Dragons disappeared to wherever she's…"
A ding! echoed through the room. "Speak of the devil," he muttered as he walked over to his work desk to tap a control on his telephone. "Good morning, Philip."
"A good morning to you, Stephen. Sorry to bother you, but we got visitors from Japan AND England who want to speak to you," Inspector Philip Parsons, who was one of the junior officers of the RCMP's all-magical "W" Division assigned to the headquarters detachment in Ottawa, called back over the loudspeakers attached to that particular telephone. "Luna Lovegood from the Quibbler and Hakase Satomi from Mahora. When our sensors picked up the energy echo of the Friend of Dragons visiting your laboratory early this morning, the word got out thanks to one of the MMPs overhearing two of the night shift constables chatting about it, then he released a statement about this on MagicNet."
Stephen tensed. "Dear God, he didn't…!"
"Relax, Commander, he didn't," a new voice cut in over the speakers.
"Hello, Satomi," he said with a smirk; unlike other scientists who knew of the "brat loon from Mahora," the technical officer of 33 CSWU was fully aware of the university senior's capabilities. "How on Earth did you draw the short straw in this wild-goose chase?"
A chuckle responded. "I automatically monitor all communications that come into the Kantō Magical Association headquarters room when it comes to things that interest me. Anything I don't feel the others need to know about, I blank it from the system," Hakase Satomi responded from the inspector's private office, located in the hidden sub-basement levels of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, where the offices of the Ministry of Magical Affairs and its departments were based. "I've got your name in that database; sadly, the distinguished gentleman who blabbed things mentioned it. Inspector Parsons assures me that he has no idea of your affiliation with Major Raeburn."
Yukiko breathed out. "Well, that makes my team's security officer quite happy right now," her host said as he gave her an amused look. "I hope you realize, Luna…"
"Please, Commander, I'm not that foolish," Luna Lovegood cut in with an amused titter, her voice as dreamy and airy as ever. "And given how much my family's readership tends to take things we publish in the Quibbler with a grain of salt…"
"'Grain of salt?!' Try the whole damned salt shaker!"
A tear-filled moan responded. "Satomi! That's cruel!"
The sound of someone giving someone a Bronx cheer echoed over the speaker, which made Stephen groan as he tapped a control on his desk. "Ladies! A little decorum, please?" he pleaded. "It's down, Philip. You can send them over."
"On their way, Stephen," Philip said with a stifled laugh…
Canadian Space Agency Station Aurora, lunchtime…
"Lynda!"
Lynda Warbis perked on hearing that familiar voice, then turned…before her jaw hit the deck on gazing at all the changes that had just befallen Deanna Hordye. "Deanna?!" she exclaimed before staring in shock at Sasha Spencer. "Is this…?"
"What she should have looked like all along…had she been born a true woman in lieu of an intersex," the armoured officer answered as she gave her former next-door neighbour a knowing look. On noting the confused look cross the pilot's face, Sasha smirked. "Dee and Helen were born as true hermaphrodites…but had operations when they were babies to correct the issue and make them girls. It didn't go far enough…"
"Because medical technology and social attitudes at the time demanded corrective surgery to ensure I didn't suffer from any diseases because my genes couldn't make their damned minds up about what I was supposed to be," Deanna finished as she gazed in amusement at Lynda. As the latter nodded, the martial artist then sighed. "That's now fixed."
"So we can finally get you and your sister to go on dates?" Lynda then teased.
"Too late."
"Eh?!"
"She's had her 'time of the month,'" Sasha helpfully provided before she sent Deanna an annoyed look. "With an Avalonian friend she never bothered to tell me about!"
"How the hell was I supposed to tell you that, Sash?!"
"Simple! 'Sash, you won't believe this, but I just met up with a bunch of Avalonians who were modelled on the Sweet Valley High characters. One of them is even modelled after the girl I liked the best in the whole series.' How simple is that?"
Lynda gaped. "You're bloody kidding me!"
"Not really, Lynda."
Everyone turned as Lynne Henry came up. Introductions were then made, then Lynda perked on noting Aurélie Marcelle walk up towards them from the direction of the station's main hangar, where the pilot from the Alouettes had landed her CSF-196 Starfire moments before. Once the air combat systems officer from Val d'Or was introduced — to Deanna's amusement, Lynne greeted her in fluent Québécois French — they all headed down a hallway leading into the central hub of the station. "How come you haven't moved down to the planet yet?" Lynda then asked. "Didn't Immigration Canada clear you to land?"
"We are cleared to land, but we can't make up our minds as to where we want to live," Lynne answered. "Factoring in Dee and Helen now…"
"Why didn't you choose California when you came here?" the pilot asked.
"Another group of Sweet Valley replicas — these ones modelled on the actresses who portrayed them in the television series in the 1990s — moved down to Santa Barbara. Atop that, Jessica was and is determined to get us to move to Queenston."
That made the two former residents of Welland perk. "Why?" Sasha asked.
"That was where Dean was born. Remember?" Deanna noted.
Lynda and Sasha nodded. "A fan?" the former asked with a wry smile.
"Almost all the way where I'd apply the word 'otaku' to her," Deanna groaned out.
"Oh, stop, Dee! Jess isn't that bad!" Lynne protested.
"Really? She's already strong-armed all the cheerleaders into supporting it, including Robin," Deanna countered. "Once Robin decided, that made Enid support her. Given that Liz is Amy's lover and Enid's friend, she'll probably fall along…even if she's been preaching all along that everyone has the right to make up their own minds."
"Where would they live in Queenston anyway?" Sasha wondered.
"Oh, Mon Dieu…!"
Eyes locked on a wide-eyed Aurélie. "What is it?" Lynne asked.
A fan-like squeal escaped the air combat systems officer. "YOU KNOW MAJOR RAEBURN?!"
Deanna jerked…before a tired moan escaped her as she felt HUNDREDS of eyes fall on her; they had just stepped into a concourse now filled with many Avalonians, not to mention the odd Terran male in jumpsuits with the patch of the Canadian Space Agency on them. "Thank you very much, Lieutenant!" she snarled as she glared at a now-blushing Aurélie. "I really needed to have THAT revealed to everyone on the damned station!"
And sure enough, a crowd of chattering women were swarming them…
"I am SO sorry about that, Master Hordye…"
Deanna was still giving Lynda's ACSO a death glare; she had just spent the last half-hour fending off a storm of questions about her relationship with Canada's greatest soldier. "Lieutenant, while I more than understand a lot of people's admiration for Dean because of what she did in the war — never mind her becoming Earth's first interplanetary ambassador, long before Moroboshi Ataru and his friends in Tomobiki got slammed with that duty last summer — and how it reflects on the Forces as a whole, she doesn't care at all to be worshipped like other 'heroes'…" — she made finger-quotes on saying that word — "…have been over the years. She did her duty. Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, she's the first woman to win the Victoria Cross in the Commonwealth and the first person ever to get three Victoria Crosses anywhere in the Commonwealth — never mind her being the only living non-American to have won the Medal of Honour after she saved President Roosevelt's life back in '42 — but she never saw herself as someone special. And don't get me started with that whole 'Protector of All Life' horsecrap people have heaped on her!" She snorted as she sat back in her chair, crossing her arms.
Aurélie winced. "Still…"
"Lieutenant, even if there were times that she took training under the major whenever she came back to Earth to relax after tutoring some other Jewel Warrior out there, Dee's mostly been trained by the senior master of the Tensei-ryū in Ontario, Master Lily Ch'oi," Sasha explained. "Yes, as Grandmaster of the Tensei, Major Raeburn is ultimately responsible for Dee's training, but she's been on Earth for at most TEN times in the last thirty years…and each time, she spent only a couple MONTHS at her place in British Columbia, never mind visiting the dōjō in Queenston or the one up in Prince Albert." Of course, for security reasons, the fact that the War Hawks spent nearly five years dealing with the future members of their successor unit back in the 1980s was not mentioned.
"Master Lily is pretty much my true teacher," Deanna added. "Every time someone tries to chat me up about being Dean's student, I see that as an insult to a woman who took me under her wing when I was a child and taught me all I know about martial…"
"Excuse me, Lynne."
Everyone turned as a pretty — Is there no other type of Avalonian? Sasha mused as she tried not to grin too much — woman came up. "What is it, Serena?" Lynne asked.
"We need you to come join us on the stage," Serena van der Woodsen — she was based on one of the characters of the Gossip Girl series of teen romance novels that came out over the previous decade — said. Like the Kentra's Cliff group of Avalonians based on the Sweet Valley High female cast, Serena's group had elected NOT to settle down in their spiritual "home" territory in Manhattan's Upper East Side and moved to Canada instead. Unlike Lynne and her friends, Serena and her group had elected on a place to live: Haldimand County in south-central Ontario, the single-tier municipality hugging the lower Grand River and the shores of Lake Erie incorporating Deanna Hordye's birthplace of Dunnville. Their new places of residence were being erected on the south side of the Grand across from the urban part of Dunnville, next to the old Royal Canadian Air Force station which today served as the town's municipal airport. And the spiritual home of the Canadian Army's local reserve "armoured reconnaissance" unit, the Haldimand and Welland Cavalry Regiment. "People from the regiment will be here to listen to us audition so we can join the band."
"Right," Lynne said, standing. "Excuse me."
"Make sure you put in request time, Lynne," Deanna said.
Lynne laughed as she followed the other woman to the small performance stage located at one side of the concourse, with large picture windows showing a spectacular view of Earth at the would-be military musicians' backs. To symbolize their desire to join the Haldimand and Welland, Serena and her three dozen friends — including people who weren't modelled on any Terran fictional character — were dressed in the two-piece martial arts gi-like uniforms Avalonians adopted as their "liberation dress"; such was modelled on traditional Noukiite commoner's dress. The uniforms were coloured red overall with gold trim, the badge of the Haldimand and Welland Cavalry Regiment embroidered on the tops over the left breast. No rank insignia was displayed on the arms as the would-be "Hollywells" — as members of that particular regiment were nicknamed — had not been formally sworn into service; that, Deanna had learned from Jessica Wakefield, would happen once Serena and her friends had moved into their new homes planetside.
Also on the stage were the members of the Droids: Lead singer Dana Larson, drummer Emily Mayer, electric guitarist Andrea Slade, pianist Julie Porter and synthesizer player Johanna Porter…now being joined by acoustic guitarist Lynne Henry. As the crowd in the concourse calmed down in anticipation of some good music, Lynne whispered something to Dana which made the stylish blonde with the blue eyes gaze in Deanna's direction before she smirked, nodding. By then, Serena had assumed her place behind an electric piano; since they weren't officially in the Hollywells' band, there had been no lectern set up for a conductor. As soon as she saw that her fellow musicians were ready, Serena called out, "Canadian Railway Trilogy, on three. One…two…three…"
Andrea and Lynne launched into the folksy guitar riff that began the famous song written by one of Canada's greatest composers as part of the Dominion's centennial celebrations in 1967. Soon enough, Dana — joined by a chorus of a half-dozen vocalists off to one side — began to sing the lyrics that made people think back to Canada's earlier days, when a wide, foreboding and still mostly unexplored continent stood in the way of the "National Dream" that demanded British Columbia be united by a ribbon of steel with the other provinces, a quest that took nearly two decades to finish before the last spike had been driven into the Canadian Pacific Railroad at Craigellachie in the autumn of 1885.
As the first part of the Trilogy was sung out, many in the audience was quick to join in, even Deanna; the martial artist had discovered Gordon Lightfoot when she was a young child and radio stations played The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the anniversary of the Great Lakes freighter's sinking in a Lake Superior gale in the late autumn of 1975. A glance towards Lynne revealed to Sasha and Lynda that their former classmate's would-be lover was quite pleased to hear Deanna's deep baritone even when it was nearly drowned out by hundreds of other voices. The pilot reached over to tap the armoured officer's leg, making Sasha look over. "She's got it really bad for her," Lynda then mouthed.
Sasha nodded. "Don't need Maria to sense that," she mouthed back.
Lynda smirked. As soon as the band was done with Trilogy, it then launched into Gordon Lightfoot's most popular song ever, the romping Sundown. Here, Lynne took the lead among the vocalists, with Dana and Andrea — and the vocalists planning to join the Hollywells — forming the echoing chorus that followed each stanza of the song. As the visitors from Earth watched, couples were quick to get onto an impromptu dance floor to sway with the bouncy folk melody…even if said song's theme harped on infidelity, a concept that was hard for many Avalonians to understand given their ancestors' more open acceptance of sex in comparison to Terrans. And while it hadn't caused trouble amongst the religiously conservative across Earth — the horror of what many Avalonians and their hybrid children had endured, thanks very much to what the Moroboshi siblings had spent a month doing after the Liberation to put the word out, was just too overwhelming for most Terrans to just ignore — Deanna knew it might be a source of contention in the future.
As stewards moved among the crowd to get food and drinks ordered from the audience, the impromptu band continued with their practice; it normally lasted from lunchtime to mid-afternoon. As the musicians continued to work with their instruments or their voices, Deanna was quick to note someone walk into the concourse from the direction of the main hangar, escorted by Elizabeth Wakefield. He was in CADPATs with a black beret on his head, army captain's stripes on his epaulette slip-on. The general shape of the badge — never mind the man's handsome, rugged looks — was enough to make the martial artist smirk as she rose from the table and head over to join Elizabeth and the newcomer.
"Captain Miles, what are you doing not wearing your PROPER headgear?" she then teased.
He yelped on hearing that question before spinning around…and stopping to gape at the beautiful tomboy in the black martial arts gi with the black belt around her waist. After a moment of blinking, Izak Miles then gasped, "Deanna?!"
She winked, which made the second-in-command of the Hollywells' C Squadron — based at the Niagara Central Airport near Welland — jerk before he gazed on his guide. "How…?"
"That is Deanna's personal story to explain, Captain," Elizabeth stated.
"So what the hell brings you up here, Zak?" Deanna asked.
Izak sighed. He had been — as a good section of elementary school students living in Welland during the 1970s and 1980s could claim — a student of Deanna's late mother Brenda whenever they passed through her Grade 7-8 classes at four separate schools scattered across the Rose City. And while Deanna had never got close to almost all of her mother's students, many of them knew her quite personally, usually thanks to the times the martial artist had come to help her mother with getting classes set up before term started. Many of those ex-students had been there when Brenda Hordye had passed away from complications stemming from abdominal surgery and had kept in contact with Deanna over Facebook since that time. "Something that would probably make the Major a very happy woman, Deanna," he said; she was quick to sense the emphasis on the rank title he just mentioned. "Not that the folks in the Land of Oz have put out warning orders about this, but our newest troopers are intent on getting us back into our proper roles as soon as possible."
That made Deanna gape as a simple phrase echoed in her mind…
The Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry.
The home service of one Major (retired) Deannette Antonia "Dean" Raeburn.
"So you're getting these…what are those things called again?"
"Dynajets, Lynda," Izak provided. "The CSV-131 as it'll be formally designated. Given the numbers being imagined now for both the Air Cavalry and the Air Force, it might be the first aircraft we'll have in the service with a seven-digit tail code." He shook his head before sipping his coffee, then he relaxed in his chair. "And it's one hell of a great machine from what friends of mine in Trenton and Borden have said about it."
The others around the table nodded. As some members of the band continued to play in the background — Izak Miles had been accompanied by the director of music and the drum major of his regiment's band on this trip to CSAS Aurora; both of them were now chatting with Serena van der Woodsen and some of her friends while the Droids enjoyed their lunch — the armoured officer from Welland had explained about the first step being taken by his unit and other such units from Gander to Comox to correct a four decade-long injustice. "So how many of these things will your unit have in the end?" Lynda asked.
"A squadron of thirty, split into five six-ship flying troops," Izak answered. "Four troops will be dedicated utility transport for a ground brigade, with the fifth dedicated to supporting the brigade field ambulance. We'll need three-man crews for the utility birds and four-man crews for the medevac birds. Either med techs or SAR techs."
The others nodded again. "I'm surprised people here didn't do what the British are doing now with their combat brigades," Sasha noted. "One tank regiment and one reconnaissance regiment to work with one armoured infantry battalion, one mechanized battalion and two light battalions. Pulling units out of the Supplementary Order of Battle should see all the slots filled up." She then held up a hand in reassurance. "Not that I would want to stop you guys from being allowed to officially fly again. You've been doing it on the sly since they disbanded the Corps back in '70, so why not make it official?"
"I'd definitely agree to that," Lynda added. "I remember what friends who were there told me about what you guys did in the Blizzard of '77. Even if you weren't 'officially' a flying unit, you did as much work in rescuing people as the Links did!"
"Too many of Paul Hellyer's cronies were still in Ottawa at the time, Lynda," Deanna noted, her voice flooded with sarcasm on her mentioning a certain former minister of national defence from the 1960s who had started the process of consolidating and unifying three separate military services into one single service, the Canadian Armed Forces.
Nods again from the others at the table, even Elizabeth Wakefield. For the most part, the negative aspects of Unification which forced the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force to merge into the Canadian Forces had long since been either accepted by the rank and file or modified over the years to better reflect Canada's long military history. The most visible example of this was the introduction of the Distinctive Environmental Uniforms in the late 1980s to replace the despised CF Greens that had been imposed on everyone — even sailors and air personnel — in the early 1970s. Still, there were things that — in the minds of experts across the country, both working in the Department of National Defence and elsewhere — still needed to be done.
The restoration of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry to official flying service as a separate personnel branch to assume all tactical aviation responsibilities for the Army was, in the eyes of many people — Deanna included — at the top of that list.
Which was ironic indeed given the Corps' initial support for the unification process in the mid-1960s when it was concerned about eliminating duplicated services — training facilities and support bases and units — to ensure more "bang for the buck" given Canada's tradition of being stingy when it came to funding people in uniform.
But when it came to intangible things like service, regimental or corps identity…!
Deanna sighed as she gazed on Izak Miles. The regiment he was a part of now had been formed by Canadian-born veterans of the American Civil War in 1867 as two independent mounted infantry companies in reflection of what they had done to defend their homes during the Fenian Raids into what was then Canada West a year earlier. Unlike the infantry troops rushed from Toronto and Hamilton to confront John O'Neill's "brigade" of Irish-American freedom fighters — all of whom were beaten back at the Battle of Ridgeway on 2 June 1866 — the riders from Cayuga Township in Haldimand County and Humberstone Township in Welland County extracted a brutal price from the invaders, hounding them and harassing them back to the Niagara River, where they would eventually try to flee back to New York state…only to be captured by an American warship once they were across the international border. Because of that, the Cayuga and Humberstone Mounted Infantry Companies were merged together into the 1st Volunteer Mounted Infantry Battalion in 1872, serving as such until conversion to foot infantry the year before the Great War began.
World War One — and the introduction of the aeroplane for military purposes — changed the destiny of that regiment as much as it would several units across the young Dominion.
When called up to serve, the officers and men of the 55th Regiment (Haldimand and Welland Rifles) — as the Haldimand and Welland Cavalry Regiment was known back then — helped form the "9th Air Reconnaissance Battalion" of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, turning its four infantry companies into four "flying companies" of sixteen aircraft apiece for aerial observation duties in support of the 3rd Canadian Division when it was deployed to the Western Front by the end of 1915. Soon enough, the 9th Battalion — along with its fourteen sister battalions supporting the other elements of the Canadian Corps — would be drawn into the growing air war over the blood-soaked fields of France and Flanders, forced to defend themselves against enemy fighters while they also carried out their mission of scouting ahead of the ground troops in preparation of attacks that could break the stalemate of the trenches and bring the Great War to a final end.
Of the 1,639 people the 55th Regiment recruited for service in the 9th Battalion on the Western Front, 287 would never come home, another 543 were wounded in action and seventeen declared missing in action, their final fate not known even to this day.
Because of the bloody yet sterling service given by the Canadian Corps' in-house air reconnaissance forces in the war, it was decided after the guns fell silent that — despite the trend started in Britain with the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918, which emphasized the need for a separate yet equal aviation warfare service free of any influence from the Royal Navy or the British Army — a special tactical aviation service under full Army control needed to be created and maintained to act as the ground forces' airborne eyes and ears. Thus, on the first of May in 1920, the Canadian Air Cavalry Corps was created to take administrative charge of fifteen flying regiments using surplus World War One two-seat fighter scouts scattered from Nova Scotia to British Columbia.
One of those regiments was a transformed 55th Regiment…which would be renamed the "9th Canadian Cavalry (Haldimand and Welland) (Air)."
For fifty years, the Hollywells flew in the service of their country. Called up again to go overseas in World War Two, the regiment formed an active service unit that saw action in the defence of Britain against the Luftwaffe until it — along with the rest of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division — helped launch the invasion of Normandy on D-Day before proceeding to help shield the long left flank of the Allies' advance on Germany for the rest of the war. During that conflict, the regiment recruited a total of 1,279 persons to serve with the overseas unit. Of them, 68 were killed in action, 157 were wounded in action and six declared missing in action. Once that war was over, many wartime Hollywells continued to parade with the peacetime regiment on a part-time basis, forming a core of experienced pilots and ground personnel that stood by for twenty-five years to respond to the call of arms during the Cold War, gladly adopting to the introduction of jet technology and the helicopter to provide tactical air services when ordered.
Then came the "Ides of May."
The combination of deep defence spending cuts in Ottawa in partial response to the introduction of state-financed medical insurance, the growing distaste for the military life thanks to the horrors of Vietnam being splashed nightly across television screens and the morale-wrecking changes Unification brought onto the military forced the Hollywells — along with the other regiments of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry — to be grounded when the corps was disbanded on the fiftieth anniversary of the its foundation in 1920. Of the twenty-seven regiments then in service in both the Regular Force and the Militia, fifteen were placed on the Supplementary Order of Battle — in effect, disbanded in all but name — and the remainder were rerolled either into the Armoured Corps (as the Hollywells were) or the Infantry Corps. Hundreds of pilot sergeants and pilot warrant officers — the Air Cavalry had never followed the standard air force practice of limiting pilot roles to commissioned officers — found themselves swept into the new Air Operations Branch of the Canadian Forces, commissioned as captains and majors along the way to eventually fly in squadrons of up to fifteen aircraft when they once flew in regiments of up to EIGHTY aircraft; members of the Air Cavalry were great believers in the concept of "There is no such thing as 'kill' but 'overkill.'"
And a unique chapter of Canadian military history was consigned to the history books.
But the "Golden Warriors of the Sky" — as members of the Corps of Air Cavalry were often nicknamed thanks to their distinctive buff gold headgear — would not go quietly into that gentle night as it was hoped by many of the civilian planners in Ottawa.
With the help of regimental associations and the silent financial backing of the old service's most famous officer, unofficial "flying troops" of up to four surplus "Hueys," the American Army's UH-1 Iroquois tactical utility helicopter, each — all of which were registered on the civilian market to ensure no interference from Ottawa — were formed to maintain the necessary skills in supporting a fighting squadron of aircraft in the field. Troopers in the former Air Cavalry regiments — regardless if they were officially registered as armoured crewmen or infantrymen — would travel at their own expense to the nearest base to learn the necessary technical skills from sympathetic Air Command personnel; the disbandment of the Air Cavalry had been seen as monumentally stupid in the eyes of former members of the Royal Canadian Air Force as much as it had been for former members of the Canadian Army. "Memorial troops" were formed by veterans of those regiments consigned to the Supplementary Order of Battle, flying the Air Cavalry's signature tactical attack fighter from World War Two, the Sopwith Canada So-48 Camel II, to keep the memories of the Corps alive for younger generations. And military pilots, aircrew and ground crew who retired from full-time service were enticed to join the former Air Cavalry regiments to lend their expertise in maintaining the thirty-two unofficial "flying troops" based from Comox to Gander, all on standby when required; before he became a part of the Hollywells in 2004, Izak Miles had flown the Bell CH-146 Griffon for 427 Tactical Helicopter Squadron in Petawawa. The wisdom of those peculiar arrangements would be proven during the Blizzard of 1977 when the flying troops attached to the Hollywells' A and C Squadrons in Dunnville and Welland would take to the air in their Hueys to support the Lincoln and Welland Regiment in aid to the civilian power duties, airlifting school children from stranded buses and shipping in needed food and other emergency supplies to civilians effectively trapped in homes buried in snow.
While Parliament had formally recognized the Links' actions in that time, the Hollywells — much to the outrage of their friends in the infantry — never got even a public acknowledgement.
And then the Avalonians came…
"Deanna?"
The martial artist perked as she was shaken out of her contemplation by a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," she said as she gazed up on Lynne Henry. "How did they like the band?"
"They're all in, save for the paperwork," the musician mused as she sat down. "Here to see the Dynajets the girls from Bombardier are making, Captain?" she then asked Izak.
"It surprises me that Bell and Boeing haven't gone after you guys for stealing the basic design idea of the V-22 to make the Dynajet," he noted.
"Bell and Boeing were promised exclusive American production rights when the Air Force and the Marine Corps decide it's time to replace their Ospreys with a space-capable aircraft," Elizabeth noted as she sipped her tea. The basic idea behind the CSV-131 Dynajet had actually been proposed for service in the "Army of Lum" — as members of the Niphentaxian defence forces nicknamed their service — a couple years ago, but was taken to Earth as part of the crippling "reparations" the Avalonians extracted from their old masters; all it required once it was shown to people in Canada and elsewhere was for it to be adopted for local conditions and the service requirements of potential customers. "Bombardier…" — by this, the elder Wakefield meant the group of Avalonian-Canadians and Terran-Canadians working for the company's offices on Station Aurora — "…is helping them prepare modifications to the Quad TiltRotor design to adopt it for use in space."
The tactical helicopter pilot-turned-"armoured" officer nodded. As the bugs were finally ironed out concerning the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor tactical transport and it was brought into service with the American military at the turn of the millennium, a four-engine version — currently called the "Quad TiltRotor" — was proposed as a potential replacement aircraft for such large machines like the Sikorsky S-65/S-80 extended family of heavy lift helicopters, known as the CH-53E Super Stallion in the United States Marine Corps, the MH-53E Sea Dragon in the United States Navy and the MH-53H/J/M Pave Low in the United States Air Force. Said aircraft would be able to carry the same amount of cargo or personnel as a C-130 Hercules at 250 knots and land practically anywhere. While design work was still continuing — as far as Izak knew — the sudden introduction of Avalonian technology into military service had rendered so much obsolete in the blink of an eye. Still, it wasn't all that bad. Even if helicopters and tiltrotors couldn't operate in space, the concepts behind machines such as the Osprey were still sound as the Dynajet — in effect, it was an Osprey with tilting impulse jets on the ends of its thick wings in lieu of turboshaft engines with helicopter-sized rotors — was proving. And if a four-engined version of the Dynajet — the "Quad Dynajet" as the concept was nicknamed by Avalonian technicians working for Bombardier; naturally, a much better name would be selected for the type when it came into service — was brought into service, it would give the Canadian Forces an all weather heavy tactical lift capability that could reach places helicopters couldn't due to lack of overall range.
"Excuse me."
Everyone turned as another man in CADPATs, this one with lieutenant's stripes on his slip-ons, came up to join them. "What's the problem, Lieutenant?" Deanna asked.
"Sorry to bother you all, but it's Ms. Henry that I wanted to talk to," the lieutenant — his name tag read GLEASON — said before gazing on Lynne. "What would it take to convince you and your friends in the — Droids, it was called? — to join the regiment?"
Lynne's jaw dropped…
"What?!"
"It's true," Jessica Wakefield stated as she gazed in amusement at Dana Larson. Both were now in the latter's personal quarters in one of the connecting struts that bound the core of Aurora to the twinned habitation rings framing it; like all the other former Niphentaxian stations seized by the Avalonians, CSAS Aurora was modelled on the rotating wheel space stations that appeared in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. "I just talked to Drum Major Bowman just now. You guys were as much a big hit with both him and Lieutenant Gleason as Serena's girls are. They want you to be part of the band."
Dana blinked before she exchanged looks with Andrea Slade, Emily Mayer and the Porter sisters. "I never thought I'd end up wearing a uniform," Julie then confessed.
"What's the matter with joining up?" Andrea asked. "A lot of us are doing it."
The others in the room smirked on hearing that. Almost to the very moment the federal Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada gave clearance for the first groups of Avalonians to descend from orbit to make new homes for themselves in the Dominion, all twenty-six recruiting centres that processed all applications for people seeking full-time employment in the Canadian Forces nationwide — to say anything of all the Naval Reserve, Militia, Air Reserve and Health Services Reserve units from Comox to Saint John's — were instantly deluged by crowds of willing women wanting to put on the uniform and serve their new homeland. Because of that — tacked onto the formulation of the "Class D" reserve concept which would put funding issues concerning Avalonian-Canadian servicewomen on the shoulders of their home communities and not the federal government — all reserve units were currently at full wartime manning…though when it came to the sixteen former Air Cavalry regiments in the Primary Reserve like the Hollywells, what actually constituted proper "wartime manning" was still up to some debate.
"Do you want to join, Rea?" Dana asked.
Andrea shrugged. "I'm tempted. And if we follow Jessica's suggestion and move to the Niagara Peninsula, we'll have the choice of three units to become part of." She then winked. "All we have to do is decide which type of beret we'd want to wear."
Laughter filled the room. Within the boundaries of the Regional Municipality of Niagara, there were — atop C Squadron of the Hollywells in Welland — 10 Field Battery of the Royal Canadian Artillery in Saint Catharines (a sub-unit of the 56th Field Artillery Regiment, headquartered in Brantford to the west of Niagara) as well as A and C Companies of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment in Saint Catharines and Welland respectively. Groups of Avalonians were advocating the reformation of B and D Companies of the "Links" — as the Niagara Region's resident infantry unit was nicknamed; that was often shortened from "Links and Winks" — in Thorold (south of Saint Catharines) and Niagara Falls respectively to bring the total number of rifle companies up to what it was like for the regular Army during the Cold War; budget cuts in the 1990s, improvements in weapons and vehicle technology and shortfalls in manning had forced the Royal Canadian Regiment, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and le Royal 22e Régiment to reduce the fourth rifle company in their full-time battalions to nil strength. The Links' E and F Companies — respectively the weapons company and the combined logistics/maintenance company of a standard infantry battalion — would be formed in Niagara-on-the-Lake at the site of Butler's Barracks just outside the old village located where the Niagara River emptied into Lake Ontario; it had also been proposed to move the battalion headquarters staff there as well to reforge the traditional bond between the modern regiment and Butler's Rangers, a pro-British light infantry battalion formed by loyalists that had fought unsuccessfully to keep the Thirteen Colonies loyal to the Crown in the 1770s.
The field artillery battery located in Saint Catharines — they shared the Lake Street Armoury with Battalion Headquarters and A Company of the Links — would stay in place, but switch regimental affiliations from the 56th Regiment to a reformed 8th Field Artillery Regiment, to be headquartered in Hamilton northwest of Niagara and have its constituent batteries split between there and Niagara. As envisioned now, the 8th Regiment would have regimental headquarters, the logistics/maintenance battery and three combat batteries located in Hamilton while two batteries — 10 Field Battery being one — would be located in Saint Catharines and another battery located alongside the Links' B Company in Thorold. Since there was no plan at this time to form a band for the 8th Regiment due to the Links and the Hollywells having their own bands which could be sent out on ceremonial occasions to support other units, the Droids would probably not elect to join that unit.
Rumours — which Jessica was keeping track of — coming out over the HyperNet from sisters already in Niagara reported that other units were being formed or reformed to boost the Army's strength in the Hamilton-Niagara area to the equivalent of a full mechanized brigade group, which would require much more than just infantry, artillery and tactical aviation/air cavalry. It had been proposed to restore another artillery regiment which had been based in Niagara back from the Supplementary Order of Battle, the 57th Field Artillery Regiment…but said unit would be re-rolled back into the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps under its pre-1946 title, the 2nd/10th Dragoons, with headquarters in a new armoury in Niagara Falls. Said regiment would have four "sabre" squadrons of personnel trained on the Leopard 26AM main battle tank just adopted by the Canadian Army for units like Sasha Spencer's home regiment, a reconnaissance squadron of Coyotes, plus the regimental headquarters and the combined logistics/maintenance support squadron. Atop that, there would be a regiment of combat engineers, a signal squadron to support a brigade headquarters unit, a health services support battalion composed of medical and dental personnel for second-line casualty services, a service battalion that would handle second-line logistics and maintenance duties, a military police company to provide security services and an intelligence platoon to support the brigade headquarters.
And then, there were the Hollywells…
The arguments concerning the reformation of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry had simmered in the background for decades since the Ides of May.
The "pro" side's points were many. There were already a large pool of trained — in many cases, at their own expense! — would-be air cavalry troopers, pilots and technicians ready to answer the call to arms in the traditional manner. Reforming the Air Cavalry in times of emergencies such as the Persian Gulf War in 1990 had been on the Army's mobilization to-do list since Unification. It would be simplicity itself to merge Air Cavalry training with Air Force training at established schools in Borden, Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie and Moose Jaw. It HAD been the Air Cavalry's job for fifty years to provide tactical aviation services for the Army; it was only proper to adhere to time-honoured tradition, especially with the current government's drive to support the military. The Dominion's greatest soldier was a member of the Corps' senior regiment during the Second World War; if the Corps was reformed with her full blessings, Terran-Canadian recruiting numbers would shoot through the roof. Getting the Air Cavalry back in the air would take pressure off the Air Force to funnel resources to more vital tasks such as the defence of the Dominion's airspace. The Air Cavalry could logically step in when the Air Force couldn't respond to domestic missions such as performing search and rescue duties. And the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry had always been seen as the "fifth combat arm" outside the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps, the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery and the Canadian Military Engineers.
The "con" points were just as persuasive. If the Corps of Air Cavalry was reformed, Canada would wind up with TWO aerial warfare services fighting for budget dollars from Ottawa…which could easily magnify to THREE services if the Navy fought to get the Fleet Air Arm reformed as an integral branch of Maritime Command; all one had to do was look at the United States to see how Washington handled the conflicting needs of the Air Force and the aviation branches of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard to see how that sometimes worked out, especially during times of recession. There was no need to have regiments — equal in size to Air Force wings — support ground brigades when single squadrons had done that since 1970. The Air Force HAD been providing tactical aviation services for the Army for forty years and had a pool of experts who would probably NOT want to switch uniforms, thus wrecking morale. Adopting the new British model of a mechanized infantry brigade composed of an armoured regiment and a reconnaissance regiment supporting four infantry battalions would put extra boots on the ground where the fighting almost always happened. And it would be grossly offensive to Air Cavalry veterans to force such storied regiments like the Hollywells into a "combat support" role since the concept of tactical aviation services for the Army had evolved since World War Two, when the Camel IIs of First Canadian Army had roved the skies of Western Europe and Italy, shooting apart anything that moved on the ground in German feldgrau.
Jessica was fully on the "pro" side when it came to that debate. As all her friends knew, the younger Wakefield twin had been a fan of her since she first read about the Dominion's greatest soldier thanks to a friend of Herana odai-Hastrah who had done observation duties in Canada during the early 1990s and had actually seen her when she was elected Grand Marshal of the Saskatoon Exhibition when she had come back to Earth after a particularly long period away teaching sister Jewel Warriors. It was the potential presence of her on Earth that had long held alien races back from openly contemplating invading the planet over the years. Far more than the Steel Angels, the small groups of metahumans like the members of the 33rd Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit or Earth's many hidden magical societies, she — and her three closest friends — was seen as the greatest stumbling block towards the success of such an endeavour. That, Jessica suspected, was the reason the Urusians had elected to follow the tag race path when they came to "invade" Earth the previous summer to block a potential Ipraedies attack.
Getting her — and the other War Hawks, of course — back on Earth full-time would make the Avalonians' recent move into Earth's solar system all the more successful.
To do that, all those who had any means of influencing her had to be brought on-side.
Deanna Hordye — despite her protests to the contrary — was one such person.
And now that Deanna herself was an Avalonian — and soon to bond to Lynne Henry — it would make it easier for Jessica to persuade the martial artist to support it.
Once Deanna had elected to go home…!
"We'll think about it," Dana then stated, shaking Jessica out of her self-reflection. "Much that getting off this station and down on solid ground again would be nice…"
"Would Deanna go along with it?" Emily asked. "She has Helena to think of, too."
"After their being attacked yesterday by that gynoid?" Jessica wondered. "If Sasha herself doesn't lean down on Dee to move back to Niagara — which puts her in far closer range of all of Sasha's friends — as soon as possible, it will shock me."
The others nodded…
Welland (fifteen kilometres southwest of Niagara Falls), mid-afternoon…
"…paid all her bills on time and without any need of asking anyone for loans," the elderly matron who owned the small apartment block located off East Main Street across from a former shopping mall that served these days as one of Canadian Tire's local customer service centres stated as she opened the door into one of the single-bed apartments on the ground floor. "Never had complaints about her concerning loud noises or anything like that. She's gone most of the time doing her work, of course."
"Of course," Maria Kennison mused as she took a look around. The apartment both looked lived-in and neat, with nothing sticking out that might hint at something odd about one Annabelle Sebastian. "Does she have any friends who visit frequently?"
"Not that I know of," the older woman stated before she sighed. Much that she couldn't do anything about trying to remove the small crowd of police and military personnel invading her property — there was a signed warrant granting the Niagara Regional Police the right to search the trucker's apartment — she didn't like the idea of spending the start of the Easter weekend away from her family. "Why is she being investigated?"
"She was possibly involved in an attack on one of her old schoolmates yesterday afternoon up in the Northwest Territories," the senior police officer present, Sergeant Joel Oswald, stated. "The victim is a person of interest to the Department of National Defence, hence Commander Kennison's and Captain Graham's presence here today."
That made the landlady perk before she gazed on Maria, who had moved into the living room to gaze around. With her was a taller man, possessing dark brown hair cut military short, with blue-grey eyes behind reading glasses. Unlike the intelligence officer — who was in CADPATs — he was dressed in Number 3C dress uniform with the dark green pullover sweater bearing epaulettes, the slip-ons showing his Army captain's rank over the word JUSTITIA in gold thread; that served as the shoulder title for the Legal Branch of the Forces. In respect to this being a potential crime scene, both Maria and James Graham had gloves on to ensure their fingerprints didn't contaminate anything. "Normal apartment for a normal person," James mused as he crossed his arms. "Nothing I can see."
"You're not a spook, Jim," Maria noted as she flashed a look at Joel.
The sergeant nodded before he moved to escort the landlady out of the apartment. Once the door was closed, the two visiting military officers and the two constables that had come with Joel to this particular place relaxed. "What are we looking for, Commander?" one of them, Kevin Rathon, asked as he pulled out a tricorder and dataPADD.
"First of all, anything that indicates this place is being watched by someone," Maria answered as she tried not to smirk on seeing the Avalonian-built equipment the two policemen had. All they needed now were Lawgiver pistols to complete the ensemble. "Hidden cameras, microphones stashed away somewhere, sensor filaments…"
"Good place to start," the other constable, Rick McNicoll, breathed out.
"Bathroom," Kevin said. "I'll do the bedroom."
"Right."
Both headed off. So what the hell do you need me for, Maria? James then thought out, knowing Maria would telepathically "hear" him. This is Yukiko's job.
«She's busy dealing with whoever it was that paid Stephen's lab a visit this morning,» the intelligence officer stated. «Besides, you've always had a sharp eye for things.»
That made the legal officer — James was a part of the Assistant Judge Advocate General's staff in Toronto; he normally worked as a trial lawyer defending clients who faced courts martial anywhere in Ontario — lightly blush. "Thanks," he whispered…
…before perking on seeing something on a nearby bookshelf. "Maria."
She looked over…before her jaw dropped in shock. "What on Earth…?"
Walking over to the shelf, she pulled down a picture that had been sitting in front of several Chilton automotive manuals. Gazing closely at it, she blinked several times before shaking her head. "My God…that's Lynn and me!" she hissed out.
"Commander!"
Both officers turned as Kevin peeked out of the bedroom. "What?" James asked.
"You better see this," the police constable advised.
Setting the picture aside, Maria followed him into the bedroom, stopping to look where Kevin was pointing…before her jaw once more fell towards the floor. "What on Earth…?!" she repeated again.
"That's Master Hordye, isn't it?" Kevin asked.
James — who had just come up to join them — nodded. "Yes, that's her…as she looked like before her body-swap," he then added with an amused smirk.
"You knew?" Maria asked as she gazed knowingly at her old classmate.
He winked back. "I was the only boy who got the chance to sleep with her back in high school," he admitted without any change of colour in his cheeks. Before the War Hawks really put their future successors' noses to the grindstone when Maria and her peers were in Grade 11, James Graham had been something of a gigolo when it came to his female classmates. That he was able to land a normally-frigid girl like Deanna Hordye…!
"Right," she drawled as she walked over to gaze intently at the beautiful oil painting — which had been based on Deanna's Grade 12 graduation picture, Maria was quick to note on seeing the brown-and-orange trimmed white academic gown collar draped around her neck — hanging over Annabelle's bed. "So if she has this…and painted this, too…" she mused, pointing to the scripted "AJS" over the month/year number date "07/95" at one corner of the portrait, "…what could this tell us about her?"
"Well, if the robot version of Miss Sebastian was based off a real person, the 'swap' between them might have been quite recent," Kevin proposed; he had been elected by his division commander to be the officer in charge of this part of the investigation due to his interest in science fiction matters. "But what does that mean for the…?"
Maria's iPhone then rang the tune of The Keel Row, the trot march of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. "Kennison," she automatically called out. "What is it, Lorrie?"
"Maria, how soon can you come down to Doan's Ridge Cemetery?" Lorrie Melanko asked.
That made the intelligence officer blink. "What did you find?"
"I played a hunch," the artillery officer replied with a chuckle. "When the NRPs reported that Annabelle's parents were dead, I decided to visit where they were buried. You wouldn't BELIEVE what I just found down here, Maria. Bring everyone."
"We're coming," Maria affirmed with a nod…
Queenston (seven kilometres east of north from Niagara Falls), that moment…
"What the devil is THAT?!"
Hearing that annoyed question from the thin yet muscular man standing at the front gate of the P/WO1 John C. Ebrill MM CD Vineyards, the tomboyish blonde with the dark blue eyes turned to gaze at one of her best friends. "What the hell are you bitching about now, Martin?" Squadron Leader (retired) Jessica Dover demanded as she crossed her arms.
A pair of dark grey eyes focused on the former Royal Canadian Air Force Woman's Division ferry pilot. "That!" Staff Sergeant (retired) Martin Larsden snapped as he pointed up Concession 1 Road in the general direction of the urban part of Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Jessica looked. The front gate of the Ebrill Vineyards was poised at the top of the "T" junction between Concession 1 Road and Dee Road, almost a kilometre due west of the urban part of Queenston and a kilometre west-northwest of Brock's Monument overlooking the Niagara Escarpment. Located just north of the "T" junction between Concession 1 Road and Line 9 Road on the east side of the former road was what appeared to be a basic railway station, with the shelter and boarding platform closest to the road, a single track emerging from a tunnel to pass by the station on its way northward; when it got close to the station, the track split into pairs with a small platform between them, accessible from the station building by an at-grade walkway. Just as Jessica absorbed all those details, a sleek three-car passenger train emerged from the tunnel to come to a stop at the station. The small crowd of people on the island platform quickly boarded the train as other passengers disembarked just as another three-car unit came up to the station from the north. "Subway station," she finally concluded with a shrug.
Martin blinked. "Subway?! HERE?! What the devil for?!"
"The Niagara Light Rapid Transit network, Staff Sergeant," a strange voice then hailed from the small manor house located close to the front gate. "That's the station set aside for Queenston for trains linking to Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Saint Catharines. Line 2N of the system. Just got installed last month."
Both former members of the War Hawks turned as a middle-aged Korean woman in a black martial arts gi came up to join them. "Why a subway, Lily?" Martin then asked. "Last I recall, there are only four hundred thousand people living in Niagara."
"Well, that population just doubled over the last month thanks to the Avalonians," Lily Ch'oi — her native Korean name was Ch'oi Naeri — stated as she crossed her arms. Even if she was in her early fifties — thus quite younger than the veterans of World War Two, both of whom were in their early nineties despite they both still looking as if they were in their early twenties — she was used to their interesting mood swings.
"The who?!" Jessica asked.
"Either of you know of the Niphentaxians?" Lily asked.
Martin's and Jessica's eyes flashed with recognition. "That race of mimics in that three-star system near here," the latter reported. "They share the system with the Gophentaxians. There are no Jewel Warriors there, at least to Dean's knowledge."
"For a century, they enslaved a race of biological androids," Lily explained. "In mid-February, the Earth Angel…" — she tried not to gulp on mentioning that phrase — "…her last host — whose soul was split in half thanks to vowing the Promise — and the Hyoyŏng Emperor of the Huhan led a mixed Noukiite and Yehisrite force to liberate them. All TWO-AND-A-HALF BILLION of them!" she emphasized, which made the just-returned War Hawks gape. "They're now allying themselves with the United Nations to seal off the inner part of the solar system from intrusion by the Niphentaxians and their allies."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"What…?" Martin and Jessica both gasped, their eyes flashing with outrage as faint battle auras instantly appeared around them.
Lily sighed. "It's best that you…"
«Welcome back, you two.»
Everyone perked on hearing that in their heads. "Hello, Maria," Martin called back; he preferred to voice his thoughts out whenever Maria Kennison telepathically communicated with him. "Where the devil are you now? Your 'voice' sounds very close."
«Welland,» Maria called back. «There was an attack yesterday by a gynoid on Deanna and her twin sister Helena; I don't know if either of you were told about her.»
"Deanna was attacked?!" Lily gasped; she viewed the younger woman as her own child, even before Brenda Hordye and her mother Natasha Yevtushenko had passed away. "Why?!"
«We don't know, Master Ch'oi,» Maria responded. «Near as we could tell, it's because Deanna — whom we think was the real target since the gynoid was modelled after a former Centennial student a couple years behind us — was born a hermaphrodite.»
"Do you need help?" Jessica wondered.
A touch of shyness entered Maria's voice. «I don't want to impose…»
"Young lady, we've been a little tense since we got that warning order last summer from the Prime Minister's Office concerning the 'invasion' the Urusians were planning to launch on Earth," Martin explained. "Since there was no direct recall ordered anytime after that warning order came, I assume the tag race went our way."
«No thanks to the Lady Negako's last host,» Maria noted with a titter.
That made both War Hawks blanch. They had seen the Saikō Jinseijutsu in action; it was only by the miracle of the Fates that the being also known as "Moroboshi Negako" had never bonded with a Power Jewel to wind up becoming as physically powerful as the leader of the War Hawks herself! "Dear God! Did the Urusians make it back home in one piece?!" Martin then demanded. "If Negako was involved in anything like that…!"
"Martin."
Out of nowhere, an M1C Garand sniper rifle appeared in the retired RCMP officer's hands as he spun around to bring it to bear on target…
…before a finger hardened with ki deflected the weapon away from the face of a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties, possessing a head of shaggy dark brown hair close-cropped at the neck and very dark brown eyes. Said woman was dressed akin to what Lily was wearing, though the newcomer's black belt possessed the golden kanji 地 at the ends. Before Martin could say anything, the ghost of a smile crossed Moroboshi Negako's face. "Welcome home, Martin," she stated before gazing at his companion. "Jessica."
"How'd you get the body?" Jessica immediately asked.
"The Avalon bioroid factory, which was on the surface of Phentax Twelve," Negako answered as she lowered her hand and Martin lowered his weapon. "It is now at the first Earth-Luna Lagrangian point after I — accompanied by my last host and others — helped liberate it from Niphentaxian control six weeks ago. Along with all the Avalonians that were in close range of the factory when Ganzo dai-Louc used the recall mechanisms aboard it. Not to mention those hybrid children born of Avalonian mothers who were also within range."
"And you brought them all HERE?!" Jessica demanded. "Two-and-a-half BILLION…?!"
"They chose to come here to exact vengeance on the Galactic Federation of Planet-States for their acts of appeasement towards the Niphentaxians," Negako cut her off. "Even with my abilities, I could not turn them away. Despite that, we were able to persuade the Neptunians to divert excess snow from Triton to Mars to eventually see the planet terraformed for colonization. The Special Committee on Alien Activities are also in the midst of negotiating with the Imperial Houses of the Seifukusu Dominion to allow thirty colony worlds closest to Sol to fall under joint Terran-Avalonian control. That…" — she indicated the nearby light rapid transit station — "…is only the start of what interactions with the Avalonians has affected life on Earth."
"Wait until you see the starships they brought with them," Lily added.
Martin and Jessica both gaped. "Starships…?!"
Negako seemed to smirk. «Um, much that I'd hate to interrupt this, everyone, we do have a situation down here in Welland,» Maria then telepathically cut in.
"What have you discovered about Deanna's and Helena's assailant, Maria?" Negako asked.
A shocked gasp responded. «You KNOW…?!»
"Maria, there is NOTHING that Deannette has done whenever she has returned to Earth for any period of time since her retirement from the Canadian Army that I am NOT aware of," Negako then explained. "What have you discovered concerning this situation?"
«Well, it turns out that the assailant is buried here at Doan's Ridge Cemetery,» a new voice then cut in. Everyone was quick to recognize that as belonging to Lorrie Melanko. «And if the death date is right, the 'Annabelle Sebastian' that attended Centennial Secondary School when we were there was a gynoid!»
Negako gazed on the just-returned War Hawks. "Did Heather or Deannette sense this?"
Both of them shook their heads. "We had our hands full with training Maria and her friends," Martin explained. "Besides, if we went too far out to make people realize who we really were, it would have brought too much attention in the wrong place."
That made the grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū blink several times before she nodded. "Understood. Jessica, take us to the cemetery. I wish to examine this myself."
Jessica nodded as her eyes glowed a deep crimson. As the fiery image of the ancient luck spirit that had bonded body-and-soul with her decades before formed around them, Martin sighed as he clicked the safety of his weapon. "I hate doing this…!"
In a flash of light, all three vanished, leaving Lily Ch'oi there. Shaking her head, the senior master of the Tensei-ryū in Ontario then turned to head back to the house where the grandmaster of her Art had been born over fourteen decades before…
Doan's Ridge Cemetery (five kilometres east-southeast of downtown Welland), ten minutes later…
"She died of a form of leukaemia."
Hearing that flat pronouncement from Negako, Joel Oswald gaped. "But how is this possible, Miss Negako?!" he demanded. "If she died, there should be a death certificate, not to mention all the paperwork needed to verify that she was buried…!"
"Sergeant, there's a trace of meson in the headstone."
Eyes locked on Rick McNicholl, who had his tricorder out; he had just done a scan of the headstone in question and had been ready to scan the remains in the small coffin buried in the ground under their feet before Negako spoke. "Similar to a notice-me-not charm," Martin then concluded. "Are there other relatives we can contact about this?"
"We're having it traced down now, Staff Sergeant," Kevin Rathon reported. "But it'll take a bit, even with computers. We might have to raid the Archives of Ontario if more recent records don't give us any indication of other surviving relatives."
"There was no way we could have sensed anything off about Annabelle," James Graham noted. He was standing off to one side, along with Maria Kennison and Lorrie Melanko. "We were too busy doing other things." He then frowned. "But why would Annabelle have a crush — or some sort of attraction — to Deanna, then try to kill her?!"
"We'll have to wait on Stephen to find out," Maria noted…
…before everyone perked on hearing the telltale ringing noise of a materialiser.
People turned as a shower of light appeared under a large tree at the southeast corner of the cemetery grounds. That allowed a woman appearing to be about twenty to materialize. She was dressed in casual civilians with a windbreaker, an ascot on her head. She had dusky golden-brown skin despite her having blonde hair in a bob-cut, bangs falling over her forehead from under her hat, parted in the centre and cut square over her eyebrows. Deep brown eyes peeked out of a beautiful face that glowed with life even if there was a solemn look there. She had a large bouquet of flowers in hand.
"Avalonian," Maria whispered.
"Terran-turned," Negako added with an arched eyebrow. "Her parents are buried in this cemetery." Her other eyebrow then arched as a faint ki reading echoed from close to where the newcomer just beamed in; said person was now approaching a large family headstone. "And her old body, it seems. It appears this one may have been 'kidnapped,' so to speak, by one of the observers that were posted here. No doubt to save her life."
The others all gaped at the ninjutsu grandmaster. "WHAT?!"
Negako tried not to sigh as said newcomer's head snapped around to gaze at the small crowd standing in the middle of the cemetery. Quick to sense a flash of recognition emanating from that person, Negako walked over. "Greetings," she called out.
The newcomer blinked before her eyes went as wide as saucers. Of course, no Avalonian on Earth or in orbit would NOT know of THIS person. "Miss Negako…?"
A nod responded. "I am she. You are?"
A nervous gulp escaped her as she extended her free hand. "Marlene Ioannis. I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Negako," she said as Negako gave her hand a warm squeeze. Quick to sense the ninjutsu grandmaster probing her with her ki senses, Marlene then smirked. "I'm harmless."
"Have you alerted the proper authorities concerning what occurred to you in 1992?"
The other woman snorted as Negako released her hand. "Trying to. It's rather hard to explain, especially since the man I rescued is now space pollution thanks to what happened on Phentax Twelve." Marlene then shrugged. "As far as the idiots in Immigration Canada are concerned, I'm Terran-form, not Terran-turned. No real difference in government eyes, but it would be nice to get anything that once belonged to my parents and other relatives given over to me without anyone raising a stink over it."
Negako nodded. "I comprehend, Marlene. There is someone who can assist you in that manner. Where exactly have you been residing since your return to Earth?"
"Winnipeg; I work for Sopwith Canada in their Advanced Projects Design Team."
The ninjutsu grandmaster smirked. "Preparing the new tactical fighter for the regiments of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry on their restoration to flight status?"
Marlene laughed. "There were a couple guys who had an idea or two, but didn't have anything in the way of government funding to advance it beyond the computer model stage. We should have something prepped up on Sethlans in a couple weeks." She then sighed. "Excuse me, please." With that, she moved to kneel before her family headstone.
Negako moved to rejoin the others. "Who's that?" James asked.
She moved to explain. Jaws instantly dropped as people took in what the ninjutsu grandmaster had just discovered, then Martin and Jessica exchanged looks. "We should have returned to Earth when the warning order came," the former stated.
"You might have been effective in helping free the Avalonians," Negako stated with a nod before she gazed once more on Marlene. "If it is necessary, Maria, we will obtain the assistance of 'W' Division to ensure Marlene can regain her legal identity here."
"I can arrange that," Martin stated.
"Aren't we supposed to be retired?" Jessica asked as she rolled her eyes.
"Mister Larsson! Miss Kent!"
Both War Hawks looked over to see that Marlene was now standing straight and gazing at them. "Hello, Miss Ioannis!" Martin responded as she came over to join them. As soon as she was in close hearing range, he added, "It's good to see that you're alive and well. Negako here told us of what happened to the man who rescued you."
"He didn't hurt you, did he?" Lorrie demanded.
Marlene stopped as her eyes locked on her fellow Centennial alumni, confusion crossing her face before recognition dawned. "You were three of the special students that Mister Larsson and Miss Kent — not to mention Miss Hawke and Miss Thomas — taught back at school!" She then gazed on the three policemen there. "What's going on here?"
"Miss Ioannis, did you know an Annabelle Sebastian?" Martin asked.
That made the aerospace systems technician — Marlene had learned a lot of things in her eighteen years of effective exile under the "ownership" of the man who had once been known as "Shayne Hamlyn" on Earth; she was currently being evaluated by people from Ryerson University in Toronto to be properly accredited with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering — blink in confusion before she nodded. "Belle?! Sure I know her! I dated her when I was at Centennial; we were classmates. Why, Mister Larsson?"
"Marlene, his proper name is 'Martin Larsden,'" Negako cut in as she flashed an amused look towards the War Hawks' sniper. "Staff sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — and the Canadian Provost Corps during the Second World War — until his retirement from the service in 1956. Just as his companion — whom you knew as 'Jane Kent' — is Jessica Dover, squadron commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force."
"Lady Negako!" Maria cried out as Marlene's jaw dropped in stunned shock.
"Maria, be silent," Negako flatly declared, making Maria tense. "As she is a friend and former classmate of Annabelle's, Marlene deserves to know how she was deceived when she was intimate with a gynoid built in Annabelle's image. The same gynoid that attacked a woman Marlene deeply cares for yesterday, requiring Deanna to undergo a body-swap."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"Belle…a ROBOT?!"
That was an ashen-faced Marlene. As people looked at her, she began to point at people. "Wait! Two of the War Hawks were teaching at school?! Why?! And what the hell's this about Belle being a ROBOT of all things?! I slept with her, damn it! There's no way she was like one of the Steel Angels, for God's sake! What the hell's going on here?!" She then stopped as the last part of Negako's statement came back to her.
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO DEANNA?!" she then shrieked.
"You require to be briefed on some things," Negako stated.
As Marlene gaped at her, the others all sighed…
To Be Continued…
WRITER'S NOTES
1) Translations: Saturday Soldier — Nickname bestowed to members of the Primary Reserve of the Canadian Forces due to their parading on the weekends; IED — Improvised Explosive Device; Herr — Literally "lord," this is the German equivalent of the English "Mister"; Rittmeister — Literally "Ride Master," this is the German Army cavalry rank equivalent of an army captain (NATO rank code OF-2); Diarium Ejus — Literally "his diary," this is the name of the magical telepathic book bestowed to Miyazaki Nodoka whenever she uses her Pudica Bibliothecaria ("Modest Librarian") pactio gift; MMP — Magical Member of Parliament, the Canadian title to those people serving on the Dominion's version of the British Wizengamot; MagicNet — The magical version of the Internet; Med Tech — Short title for a Medical Technician (the medics in the Canadian Forces); SAR Tech — Short title for a Search and Rescue Technician (the Air Force's in-house para-rescue specialists); Feldgrau — Literally "field grey," this was the colour of the field uniform worn by members of the German Army from 1907 to 1945; dataPADD — Literally "data Personal Archival Display Device"; P/WO1 — Pilot Warrant Officer Class 1, the highest non-commissioned officer rank in the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry (NATO rank code OR-9); Hyoyŏng Emperor of the Huhan — Korean way of saying the phrase "Xiàolíng Emperor of the Hòuhàn" ("the Filial and Inattentive Emperor of the Latter Hàn"), who lives now as Moroboshi Ataru's sister Moroboshi Hiromi.
2) Aihoshi Yukiko (Sunbird) and Larry Donald Brigham (Galaxy) were created as members of the Heroes Alliance of Canada. Yukiko's proper name in Western "family name-last" order is "Yukiko Donna Aihoshi"; since I use the proper Oriental "family name-first" naming order for those in the West who still fully embrace their ancestral ways, I didn't make mention of her middle name here. As an aside, I borrowed the concept of the Institute for Science and Magic (ISM) from the fanfic writer Marietsy (listed now at this website as "marietsy2").
3) Canadian military unit notes:
2 Military Police Unit (2 MPU) is the security and military police force tasked to provide those functions to Land Forces Central Area. It is a "Total Force" unit with both regular and reserve elements working together under a single commanding officer based in Toronto. The unit is a light battalion in size, divided into three companies: 20 Military Police Company (20 MP COY) to handle security issues for Regular Force field units in the province; 21 Military Police Company (21 MP COY) to handle security issues for the Reserve Force field units in the province; and 22 Military Police Company (22 MP COY) to handle security issues at all bases and garrisons in the province. 33 Military Police Platoon (33 MP PL) in Ottawa is the element of 21 Company that provides security services for 33 Canadian Brigade Group (33 CBG), the reserve formation for eastern and northern Ontario. The platoon was first formed as "28 Military Police Platoon" in the 1970s and became part of "2 Military Police Company" when reserve military police units were amalgamated together into regional companies in 2003. They were banded together with regular force military police units and detachments in Ontario in 2006, forming 2 MPU. In real life, the unit was renamed "2 Military Police Regiment" in 2011.
Land Forces Central Area (LFCA) is, at the time of this story, the senior formation in administrative and operational charge of all Army units in Ontario. LFCA was first founded in 1991 when the Army's senior leadership elected to streamline command and control functions; the headquarters unit was upgraded from the original Central Militia Area Headquarters (CMA HQ) — then responsible for command and control over all reserve force units in the province — to include administrative and operational control over all regular force formations and units in Ontario outside those units assigned under either 1st Canadian Division Headquarters (introduced in Part One) or the Land Forces Doctrine and Training System (LFDTS), the formation in charge of all training facilities in the Army.
H.M.C.S. Griffon is the naval reserve division based in Thunder Bay. The ship was named originally for the first Western-style sailing ship built to sail the upper Great Lakes, le Griffon, built in 1679 on the banks of the Niagara River for the use of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-87) to support his exploration of the North American interior for France. The Canadian Navy unit named after that ship was founded in 1937 as the "Port Arthur Division" of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve and commissioned under its current name in 1941. As an aside, a Naval Control of Shipping (NCS) officer is responsible for coordinating and administering all shipping movements during times of warfare.
The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh's Own) (CH OF O) is one of the two reserve infantry battalions based in Ottawa and forms part of 33 CBG. The regiment is a Highland unit and was formed in 1866 as the "Carleton Battalion of Infantry," the regiment acquired the name it possesses at the time of this story in 1933 and was accorded its royal sub-title in 2013; Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh (born 1921) is the the Colonel-in-Chief (the royal patron) of the regiment.
The Health Services Reserve is that part of the reserve element composed solely of medical and dental service personnel. Controlled by the Canadian Forces Health Services Group in Ottawa, the Health Services Reserve either parades at local field ambulances based in all the major cities across the Dominion or remain on stand-by to be called to service while working at civilian health care facilities full-time.
10 Field Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery (10 FD BTY RCA) was first formed as the "Welland Canal Field Battery" in 1861. The battery was given its present number in 1920. The field battery became affiliated with the 56th Field Artillery Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (56 FD REGT RCA) in 1970 after the 57th Field Artillery Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (2nd/10th Dragoons) was placed on the Supplementary Order of Battle. The 56th Regiment was first formed in 1946 from the re-designation of the "Dufferin and Haldimand Rifles of Canada," which had been formed in 1866 as the local battalion of infantry for Haldimand County.
The Number 3C Uniform combines the pants, dress shirt and tie of the Number 3 Uniform (the "Service" uniform) with a knit sweater in the same colour as the pants (Navy blue-black, Army dark green or Air Force sky blue) possessing a crew-neck style and fabric patches at the elbows and the shoulders. Epaulettes are mounted on the sweater, the wearer's rank on slip-ons slid around the epaulettes.
A trot march is done when mounted parades move at the trot (hence the name), which averages about thirteen kilometres per hour (eight miles per hour). As an aside, The Keel Row — the trot march of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery as noted above — is based on a traditional Tyneside folk song evoking the life and work of the keelmen (men who worked on the keels, large boats that carried coal from the shore to waiting collier ships) of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeast England close to the Scottish border. The tune was first published in 1770, but is believed to be older.
4) Negima character notes:
Wilhelm Josef Graf von Herrman was a character who fought Negi Springfield and his friend Inugami Kotarō to save several of the former's charges in Class 3-A from permanent petrification; this storyline was covered in Volume Eight of the manga series. It should be noted that after Negi had defeated Herrman, he spared the demon's life even after learning of what the latter had done to Negi's home village. As an aside, Akamatsu-sensei placed the German noble title graf ("count") BEFORE the given names; in proper German noble language name order, the rank title always comes before words such as von ("of"), thus making the alias the demon used have the noble title and effective family name "Count of Herrman."
Hakase Satomi was, at the time the Negima manga was set, Student #24 in Class 2-A (and later, Class 3-A) at the Mahora Academy's junior high division. A certifiable genius, Satomi — whose nickname is ALSO hakase (written as 博士 and meaning "professor") as a play on her family name; as a note, Satomi's family name is written with the kanji 葉加瀬 (meaning "book page," "to augment" and "swift current" respectively) — was the person responsible for creating her own classmate, Karakuri Chachamaru (Student #10) so she could act as the ministra magi ("apprentice mage") for Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell (Student #26). At the time of this story, Satomi is a senior at Mahora Academy's university division…and is making quite a name for herself in the scientific community even if many of her projects are seen as completely whacky (hence the derisive nickname also noted above). In my eyes, Satomi is a technomage.
5) The Canadian Ministry of Magical Affairs (MMA) is the Dominion's equivalent to the British Ministry of Magic as depicted in the Harry Potter novels. "W" Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police — which I first introduced in The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone — is the equal of the Aurors serving the British ministry; they were merged into the Force on its founding in 1920 from an independent magical police force that was answerable to the MMA. I chose "W" as the division title as it could mean "wizard" or "witch"; I couldn't use "M" (for "magical") as "M" Division, RCMP is the territorial police force of the Yukon.
6) Lord Rjazán' first appeared in my fanfic Wanderers. Rittmeister Josef Wilhelm Freiherr von Taserich first made his appearance in the third Wizards and Avalonians story, though he's been mentioned from time to time in other stories. As an aside, the term freiherr literally means "free lord" and is the German noble equivalent of a British baron.
7) Lily Ch'oi (AKA Ch'oi Naeri), Izak Miles and Marlene Ioannis are all characters from Deanna's Surprise. Lily is an ethnic Korean who moved to Canada to teach martial arts while Izak was a police officer in the NRP and Marlene was Deanna Hordye's high school love interest in the original story. As an aside, Koreans normally are sticklers for using the proper family name-first naming order…but when they adopt English names, they follow Western family name-last order in using them. Sometimes, they also combine both their birth and adopted names together — i.e. "Lily Ch'oi Naeri" — which can get VERY confusing to those who don't understand how names are written in the Land of the Morning Calm.
8) Gossip Girl is a teen romance novel series written by Cecily von Ziegesar (born 1970). There were fourteen novels in the original series, released between 2002-11, plus a series of four novels under the general title Gossip Girl: The Carlyles released in 2008-09. The television series based on the novels, shown by The CW network, ran from 2007-12. Serena van der Woodsen is the star of the series. A native of Manhattan's Upper East Side, she attended a private school in Connecticut before transferring to the Constance Billard School for Girls at the start of the first novel. She is an "it" girl who is often accused by her peers of using her good looks to get her way, though some critics of the series see her as boring.
9) A single-tier municipality in Ontario is a one-level form of municipal government that is directly subordinate to the provincial government in Toronto. Haldimand County in south-central Ontario became such in 2001. Before 1974, it was a standard county divided into townships and towns with municipal services controlled at local levels. In 1974, it became one-half of the Regional Municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk, a two-tier municipal form of government which combined services such as policing at the regional level. This was modelled after Haldimand County's eastern neighbour, the Regional Municipality of Niagara, which was amalgamated from Lincoln and Welland Counties in 1970; the Niagara Regional Police Service (NRP) is a subordinate agency of the Niagara Region. To this day, the Niagara Region remains as it was initially established. As an aside, Norfolk County — located to the west of Haldimand County — also was a traditional county before 1974 and became a single-tier municipality in 2001. Cayuga Township was sited in the middle of Haldimand; the territory formed part of the town of Haldimand from 1974-2001 and the county headquarters before 1974 and after 2001 was located in the village of the same name in the centre of the township. Humberstone Township in Welland County was on the shores of Lake Erie at the southern terminus of the Welland Canal. Most of the territory became part of the city of Port Colborne in 1970; the northwest sectors around Dain City became part of Welland.
10) The early history of the Haldimand and Welland Cavalry Regiment (Air) (H&WCR) — which is my creation; this unit does not exist in real life — reflects one of the most ridiculous episodes of military foolishness known: The Fenian raids staged against the British North American territories from the United States in the years after the American Civil War. Driven by the understandable desire to see Ireland free from British rule, the leadership of the Fenian Brotherhood — a spiritual precursor of the infamous Irish Republican Army that helped win Ireland's independence during the years of the First World War and later instigated the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland — hatched the idea of invading what would eventually become modern Canada as a way of holding the land hostage to force the British to let go of Ireland. The most successful of these raids crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo in New York to the Niagara Peninsula of then-Canada West in June 1866. This led to the Battle of Ridgeway on 2 June that year, when a "brigade" — in effect, a light battalion — of Fenians fought Canadian militia north of the village of the same name. The battle was a Fenian success…but fears of local mobilisation forced the Fenians to withdraw back to New York state a day later after another quick battle at Fort Erie late on 2 June 1866 after the victory at Ridgeway. When the United States Navy steam frigate U.S.S. Michigan moved to block off any reinforcements, the Fenians were forced to surrender to American custody after withdrawing from Fort Erie.
As an aside, the histories of the various regiments of the Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry (RCCAC) can be read in The Air Cavalry Regiments of Canada, a fact file located at the FictionPress website under my pen name.
11) A note on medals and decorations spoken of here:
The MM is the Military Medal, which was the third-level decoration for valour awarded in the United Kingdom from 1914-93 for soldiers and non-commissioned members. The equivalent for officers at the time the Military Medal was awarded was the Military Cross (MC). Canadian soldiers were eligible for the MC/MM until an indigenous Canadian honours system was devised in the 1970s. For British soldiers, it was decided in 1993 that deeds that merited the MM would see them given the MC instead; this was part of a large revamping of the British honour system to remove the dividing lines between officers and non-commissioned members. Subsequent deeds that merit the awarding of an additional MM/MC would see award bars added to the medal ribbon (or a silver rosette on the undress ribbon); this is similar to the American practice of adding oak leaf clusters, "V" devices or service stars to medals.
The Medal of Military Valour (MMV) spoken of at the start of this part is the modern Canadian version of the MC/MM. This award was first instituted in 1993 when the Canadian government restored the Victoria Cross (VC) as the highest bravery award for military personnel serving with the Dominion's armed forces; the second-level bravery decoration is the Star of Military Valour (SMV).
The CD is the Canadian Forces Decoration, which is the long service award of the Canadian Forces. First established in 1939, it is open to all members of the Canadian military and is normally awarded for twelve years of service with good conduct. Part-time servicemen in the reserve forces are rated in the very same manner as their full-time regular force counterparts; the date when a serviceman is sworn in is the marker from where qualifying time for the CD is measured. Award bars to the CD are added for every ten years additional service past the initial twelve-year qualifying period.
12) The M1 Garand — officially the United States Rifle, Calibre .30, M1 — was the first semi-automatic battle rifle developed for use in the field. The first version of this weapon came into service with the American Army in 1936 and the weapon was employed until 1976; the weapon is still used by drill teams to this very day. Developed at the Springfield Armoury in its namesake town in Massachusetts, the M1 — named in tribute to its Québec-born designer, John Garand (1888-1974) — was given the highest praise by none other than Third United States Army commander General George S. Patton, Jr (1885-1945), when he declared it "the greatest battle implement ever devised." Over six million M1s were built.
Martin Larsden of the War Hawks makes use of an M1C sniper version of the Garand, which mounts an M81 telescopic scope to allow the shooter to aim at a distant target. The reason why the sniper of the War Hawks makes use of the M1 in lieu of the standard Canadian battle rifle from World War Two (the Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 Mk I in .303 calibre) is that his team was most often involved in battles against their opponents in the United States and the Springfield .30-08 ammunition round was readily available despite the M1 having only an eight-round capacity versus the No. 4 Mk I's ten. The fact that the Garand was designed by a Canadian also helped in the selection of the weapon for Martin to use. His Garand — since his targets were often metahumans — was specially modified to fire copper-jacketed ebony mesonium bullets created for his use by his team leader, usually hyper-charged with ki so they could penetrate any known defence.
13) The story about the Sopwith Aircraft Company of Canada and how it came to be is described in Part 51 of PFtA (read Writer's Note #9).
14) Ryerson University in Toronto is one of Canada's top technical schools. First formed as the "Ryerson Institute of Technology" in 1948, the institution was reformed as a university in 1971. It is located in the downtown section of Canada's largest city, near the intersection of Yonge and Dundas Streets.
