Chapter 8: Amazons Rising
The very next day, Mariah made good on her threat. The passenger ships circled around the misty isle of Themyscira, and the smaller ships, referred to as troop carriers, boated the unsuspecting, long isolated, Amazon warriors to the larger ships, and they sailed towards Africa.
Most of the girls had never been off of the island. Mariah had disguised the ships' travel plans as pleasure cruises sponsored by her constituents, to avoid any government's suspicions. Once in friendly ports, she deployed them all across Africa.
When it came to the aerial assault, Mariah disguised several passenger jets as a new airline, Ambrosia Air, and registered private flight plans for the Amazons to fly into major African cities. Most of the Amazons had never flown in a plane before, either.
Continuing with her plan, Mariah also loaded up the Amazon warriors on commercial flights to American cities, and many European cities. She had her operatives process the paperwork, because technically the Amazons would be considered illegal immigrants. Soon, Amazons were relocated to New York, Gotham City, Metropolis, Lakeside City, Star City, and Coast City within the United States.
So it began. The ruthless Amazons attacked village after village, town after town, beginning in Central Africa, they quickly seized the large continent's midsection. Tara, mostly due to Diana and Kara's advocacy, was chosen to lead an Amazon war party into the heart of Africa.
Typically, the Amazons followed a terroristic pattern, as this example illustrates. Six Amazon warriors calmly walked into the center of the village of Nubai. They wore the Islamic coverings called Burkas, and sang a number of religious hymns. The men of the village were instantly offended, seeing the unescorted women strolling along in direct violation of local laws.
At the town square, the disguised Amazons stopped and sang even more loudly. The men began cursing in their native language, and began picking up rocks to stone the unescorted women with. On command, Tara yelled for the attack. The Amazons dropped their garb, revealing their barely clothed bodies, and fired randomly into the crowd of men with Mariah's supplied AK-47's.
Dozens of men killed turned quickly to hundreds, and so it went as the fierce ancient warriors bathed Africa in blood, soon entering and assaulting bigger and more difficult cities. The Amazons escalated the war in accordance with Queen Mariah's directives. The simple village attacks grew into full scale conflicts, as the bloodthirsty Amazons tore through most of Central and Northern Africa.
Mariah's connections included ties to American, British, French, and German military complexes. In short, her Amazons, hidden in plain sight since they were old enough to make their own decisions, infiltrated the Western Civilization's armies. Mariah had sworn the young Amazons to secrecy, and their cultish following grew exponentially. Meanwhile, Mariah had set her sights on Egypt.
Mariah would personally oversee this operation, given the turmoil that already existed throughout the region. It was a three part assault plan, brilliantly executed. The first wave of Amazon warriors would take the Port of Alexandria, the second wave would take the Suez Canal, and finally, deprived of access to water, the third wave of Amazons would take Cairo and Giza.
In a small village north of Alexandria, Queen Gabrielle and her second in command, an Asian Amazon named Linai, hustled dozens of Egyptian children away from the fighting, away from their parents, and into an abandoned diamond mine. The children, evenly mixed between boys and girls, cried for their parents, and wanted an explanation for all of this violence. Gabrielle didn't quite know how to tell them.
"Sit down! Everyone!" Gabrielle ordered. The children, still crying and whining, reluctantly complied. The boys sat across from the girls. Linai stalked in between them, a dusty AK-47 assault rifle, gripped firmly in her hands. "I know that you may not like us…" Gabrielle began. "…But we are doing this for your own good. Wouldn't you all like to be free?"
"Free of what?" A brave boy of about thirteen asked. "Free of the terror that the adults bring." Linai chimed in sourly. "My mama isn't a terrorist!" A girl about the same age put in. "That may very well be, but what about your father, your brothers, and your uncles?" Gabrielle defended.
"Wouldn't you like to one day go to school without being afraid?" Linai butted in on Gabrielle's speech. "You girls…" Linai pointed to the nearest of them. "Wouldn't you like to play on the internet with other boys and girls from around the world? Wouldn't you like to drive a car, like your sisters in America, Australia, Europe, and all across the world do?" Some of the girls nodded, and others silenced.
"Wouldn't you like to rid yourselves of those ridiculous trappings?" Linai gestured towards a partially torn Burka that one of the older girls was wearing. "But our fathers…" One girl began before Gabrielle cut her off. "But nothing!" The Amazon queen snapped. "You should wear the Burkas if you want to, not because you have to!" The girls again silenced, considering the strange, light skinned woman's words.
"We are willing to take you with us." Linai began their standard speech. "The girls may join us in this glorious crusade for freedom. The boys must comply with our rules." One tall, thin boy of about fourteen snorted. "Your rules? What if we don't comply?" He challenged. Linai waved the AK-47 in his face. "That would be most unfortunate, and most unpleasant." Linai's voice was deep and menacing.
The boy quickly silenced. Gabrielle felt bad about threatening the children, but it appeared to be the only way to institute a change in this backwards society. "Here. See this?" Gabrielle offered up her personal camera cell phone for all of them to view. The kids gathered closely as Gabrielle flashed picture after picture of happy, playing children of all races and creeds, just as Mariah had taught her.
The backbone strategy of Mariah's war depended on winning the hearts and minds of the oppressed people, not just their various territories. After a few moments of watching the photos, one brave young teenage girl named Samarji, took off her Burka and tossed it into the dirt, revealing a beautiful young face with a full mane of raven black hair. "I will join with you, my queen." Samarji said and bowed.
Many of the other girls followed suit, and the youngest ones mimicked the older ones. The boys, however, were less impressed. "Samarji! You will be stoned in the square for this!" One older boy named Mahmud, snarled. "You will not!" Linai hissed, and shoved the barrel of the AK-47 under Mahmud's chin. "This outrage will stop!" Gabrielle stated loudly, once again silencing the children.
"Mahmud! If you will not comply, you may leave!" Gabrielle chastised. "But you may only leave after we have moved on. Until then, if you don't comply, you will be our prisoner. Make the choice, but choose wisely." Gabrielle had repeated those exact words hundreds of times within the last week. The Amazon's success rate in the battle of hearts and minds ran to more than half.
They 'turned' roughly sixty percent of the girls they encountered, and about forty percent of the boys complied with the Amazon's wishes, by keeping the warriors' activities secret, while the hardliners were sent back to their towns and villages. There, they would take their chances of survival. Most of the battles were hand to hand, using small arms fire, or on occasion, a battle of common rocket launchers. But now, the battles were in danger of escalation. The larger countries of the world would be drawn into the conflict. The Amazon incursion had made it all the way to the Israeli border.
Mariah's plan went off flawlessly, with limited casualties on both sides. The rogue queen looked to the skies, as a squadron of American F-16 jet fighters banked towards the Cairo Airport. Hot on their contrails, came five Israeli Migs, and three NATO Peacekeeping Force jets. The air surrounding Cairo buzzed with remote controlled Recon drones, mostly made in the U.S. "Thank you, Vice President Anders." Mariah said aloud, as she directed the airport guards to follow her out to greet the pilots.
Jenna's role in the conquest was to head back to her Naval Base, and inform her Aunt Mariah of any impending military intervention by the U.S. and its allies. She and her aunt had developed a secret code to communicate their intentions through common E Mails, Phone Calls, or snail mail letters.
Jenna had sent word that America and its allies had begun talks among themselves, revolving around a peaceful solution to the crisis. This was all part of Mariah's plan. She joked to her niece that it was really a game of 'poke the tiger' meaning, that her goal was to draw the world into a larger scale conflict.
Mariah's flawless execution of the war escalation had indeed garnered the attention of the world leaders. She expected that soon, America and the other countries of their vaunted G-8 committee would contact her to resolve the issues, stopping just short of World War III.
Mariah had forgotten to remember the cardinal phrase: 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' Her gamble was that America and the others would stop short of an all-out conflict, but would it? Back at the Whitehouse, Vice President Hannah Anders was in conference with President Wilfred Ocampo.
"Will, you know that I'm right on this." The vice president argued. "Hannah, I respect your opinion, but we are on the verge of World War III. How can that be good for anyone?" Hannah stood up and paced across the Oval Office floor. "Will, how can you stand idly by and let that lunatic, Mabus, control Ibana? The Ibanans have hated the Western Civilization for years. I for one will not turn my back on the world."
"Ibana is facing the toughest sanctions that we've ever placed on them." Ocampo argued. "True and they laugh in our faces. The Ibanan government must fall." Hannah stated. "You're talking about complete regime change, Hannah, you know that." Ocampo countered. "Yes, I know that." She continued. "Mabus considers himself the Twelfth Imam or something ridiculous like that. The man is a psycho."
"The Amazon Incursion is only a starting point, Will." Hannah defended sternly. "We have an opportunity to visibly change the entire world. All we have to do is defeat Mabus, and end the Ibanan tyranny forever. We'll have a full two thirds of the world on our side, I'm sure of it."
"Hannah, you make a powerful argument, but we can't commit to that level of warfare." Ocampo reasoned. "Will, if you could go back in time to before World War II, and defeat Adolph Hitler, wouldn't you make it happen?" Hannah made her last argument. "Millions of lives would've been saved. Now we're good friends with Germany and Japan."
"No, Hannah. I will not commit the troops to that campaign." Ocampo said, as he slammed his fist onto the Resolute Desk's top. "Fine, Will, then I have no other choice." Hannah threatened. "Tomorrow morning, all of the newspapers, television stations, radio stations, and the internet, will carry stories about your little friends, Darla and Ella." President Ocampo gasped. "Hannah! You wouldn't!"
"Yes I would, Will." Hannah said with conviction. "Mrs. Ocampo would be really interested to hear about those alleged 'off site meetings' that you'd been having. Let's see, Hotel Oxford, Hotel Renaissance, Hotel Aqua…" The Amazon sympathizing vice president ticked off the names on her thin fingers.
