Chapter 11 - Battle and Heartache

The battle lines drifted away from the boulder that Aysha and Dee were using for cover, thanks to a nearby Amazon counterattack that distracted the attention of those Shakanar who were after them. Aysha finally managed to stop Dee's bleeding by tying the improvised bandage tight. The Cygnan remained worried, knowing full well that it was only a temporary solution. The other reason she worried was because she had concluded that the Shakanar targeted her for some unknown reason and Dee for the obvious one – to learn the secret to her restored fertility through means most likely cruel and fatal.

Aysha had made a mistake by giving in to her thoughts; she noticed the lone Shakanar approaching them only after it was too late. Her only warning was the armored giant's maniacal laughter as she leveled her pulse rifle at them. Without even thinking, Aysha dove on top of Dee to protect her. Her mind flashed back to the night that Deesha had been forcibly taken away by the Shakanar recruitment officers. Aysheia Lisia Napolipolita - her sister cadet at the CygniCity Space Academy – had thrown herself upon these Shakanar officers to save this same friend, and was badly beaten for her trouble.

Immediately, the lobsterback soldier grabbed her and locked her in a deadly hold the Shakanar instructors called the sini-di-ei, "the lingering death." It ensured that its victims suffered a slow and agonizing death – not surprisingly, a death that could be enjoyed to the fullest by those who inflicted it. Unfortunately for this particular Shakanar officer, a living fright named Aristel Vo, her orders were only to immobilize and transport Napolipolita-Daitokuji to her commander Borna Chitai. The joy of killing her would belong to the Admiral, and to the Admiral alone.

It was then that Aysha's attacker gave a strange gurgle, her eyes growing wide in surprise. The shock trooper froze in place and then fell flat on her face before them, pinning Napolipolita-Daitokuji beneath her.

It was only then that the two women saw the form of Doctor Almah Stellamaris standing behind the Shakanar soldier with a hypospray gun in her hand.

Deesha looked up at the gentle doctor in amazement. "What are you doing here?" she gasped.

"And where else should a military doctor be but in the middle of the war, tending to the wounded that you warriors so eagerly produce?" She added, "Besides, the Amazon doctors have their hands full at the moment."

Wriggling from under the body of the fallen Shakanar, Aysha gazed at the woman with the saffron-colored uniform and the confederate gray hair with gratitude as well as surprise. The hedonistic and self-destructive former Captain had always been at odds with this gentle and spiritual healer. As of right now, Aysha thanked the Great Mother for the intervention of this woman who did not even know how to handle weapons – but would rather drop dead than admit it to her.

Bending over, the physician picked up the Shakanar weapon and tossed it to Napolipolita-Daitokuji. "Do what you do best – kill something or someone. From now on, leave the doctoring to the doctors. Deesha, let me look at that leg. Here, let's get under this rock face first."

Stepping over the fallen soldier, Dr. Stellamaris took her med kit from her belt. After a painful transport to their new shelter with Aysha's help, the doctor knelt down next to Dee and began working on her wound.

As Napolipolita-Daitokuji kept watch, Dee nodded in the direction of the prone Shakanar. "Did you kill her?" she asked.

"No," Almah Stellamaris answered her. "but she's going to have the Mother of all Headaches when she wakes up!"

"How bad a headache?" asked the former Captain.

"Remember how you used to feel after one of your week-long booze binges?"

As one who had often nursed her bacchante captain after one of her infamous shore leave brawls, Dee added, "Maybe it would have been kinder if you had killed her." The three comrades broke out in laughter, then quieted themselves for fear of attracting Shakanar attention.

A few moments later – that seemed like days to her – Aysha asked the big question. "Well, Doctor – how is Dee?"

Stellamaris smiled, laying her hand on Dee's head while saying a final Pathfollower healing prayer. "Well, with the amount of blood she lost, I don't recommend her jumping back into battle anytime soon. I do agree with her, however, that the bleeding proves that the nano-bots are well and truly gone." The doctor grinned. "This means that I fully expect to be delivering her firstborn little warrior in a year or so!"

Dee burst into tears. "From your mouth to the Mother's ears," said a very relieved Aysheia Napolipolita-Daitokuji.

Deesha relaxed. "To tell the truth, I wouldn't mind having a son instead of another female warrior for the Empire."

The two women slowly turned their heads. Dr. Stellamaris said, "That is quite a change of mind for any Cygnan, especially a follower of the Great Mother Cybele. But it seems that this planet has changed our respective paths. First, my little Keith was born to a woman with few males in her ancestry. Next came little Kir, born to a Napolipolita – a family with no males in its recorded history. And now you, Dee, wanting a little boy, and I'll wager that you have no males in your family either."

Only one out of one hundred and forty-four thousand Cygnan births was male. Consequently, the women of Cygnus Prime considered their few males as national treasures, and the few who remained on the Homeworld were coddled and protected like prize racehorses. The genetic experimentation three hundred years ago had resulted in Cygnans becoming larger, stronger, and more fertile, but somehow also caused the male birth rate to plummet. It was an open secret that Cygnans feared the extinction of their race because of it. Knowing this, it was easier to understand why Cygnans had such large families.

The Earthborn sons of Stellamaris and Napolipolita-Daitokuji – and perhaps the future male child of Deesha Dakina – would be able to do something no other Leptonian male would be able to contemplate, let alone accomplish. He would be able to fully participate in society and he would have the freedom to shape his own destiny.

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A-ko and her mother had cleared all the Skakanar fighters from the sky above Themiscyra. They next turned their attention to the Shakanar horde that was now threatening to turn the tide of battle.

Diana had a spectacular way of dealing with the scarlet-coated Shakanar tanks. She accomplished this by seizing one of the oversized cannon barrels and ripping off the turret to which it was attached. She then used this chunk of metal as a battering ram to crush tank after tank. The fearsome reputation of "The Demon" only grew this day to join the other tales of horror that the Shakanar would tell one another from this day forward.

Diana's firstborn child managed a small trip down Memory Lane as she confronted the Shakanar horde, focusing her attention on the giant mechanical walkers. They reminded her of the giant mecha Biko had built to deal with her back in Graviton City all those years ago. "The Queen Margarita – or was it the Sakurajima 25? What on Earth was that girl thinking?" A-ko mused.

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Back then, she had been a fun-loving sixteen-year-old wisp of a girl, trying her best to fit in while dressed in the wrong school uniform. Today she was a tall twenty-four-year-old young woman with the body of a warrior queen.

Between the ages of eighteen and twenty, this remarkable young woman had begun to blossom like the desert flowers after a winter rain. In a little over a year, she had grown eight inches and had put on almost seventy-five pounds of muscle and bone. She had just the right amount of fat in just the right places to ensure that she would never be mistaken for a boy.

At present, A-ko found herself two inches over six feet tall and nearly two hundred pounds in weight. From her father came size, a dense molecular structure, and his gentle nature. A-ko's grace and warrior spirit, as well as her imposing figure, were gifts from her mother. Together they formed a redheaded young woman, fair of face and form, pure of heart, and filled with a loving passion for family, friends, and – perhaps most important of all – for life itself.

The formal Amazon ceremonial garb she had been wearing for her baby sister's Ascension Ceremony was now gone, lost in the battle. She was reduced to wearing her short Amazon skirt and tunic under her other clothes. In spite of her appearance, A-ko now dealt with the Shakanar walkers in the same way she had with her former enemy Biko Daitokuji's mecha all those years ago.

Back then, she had jumped and leaped and torn her way through the metal monsters in a display of childish temper. Today, she flew through the vastly more sophisticated Shakanar mecha, delaying her next strike just long enough to make sure the crew members inside were not killed when the three-legged horrors collapsed to the rich brown earth.

If it weren't for the serious nature of the moment and the fact that death lay in waiting all around her, she would have laughed as she fought. This young woman, with hair the color of the setting sun and eyes the color of ancient amber, fought back a powerful urge to laugh as she fought the enemies who had invaded her mother's homeland. However, all she allowed herself was a tiny secretive smile, hidden from all who witnessed her destruction of the Shakanar war machines.

True enough, the young redhead heard the cry of the Warrior ringing in her ears. She felt the fire in her blood and heard the call of her Amazon heart as it thrilled in the combat that was going on all around her. Still, she was unlike the Amazons fighting below her. A-ko's lust for battle was and always would be tempered with mercy. The respect and love of life, all life – even the lives of her twisted Shakanar enemies – would always be the most important thing to her.

She had learned all this at her father's knee, in his every word and deed. A-ko learned her respect for life the same way he had, from her parents. Even her mother, the planet's greatest and purest warrior, never took joy on those rare occasions in which she was forced to take a life. She took no pride in her kills. In fact, she had been told by Hippolyta herself that an Amazon's greatest duty is to "spread peace and love, but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty if it's not done."

Diana had always had trouble with that certain Amazon tenet as she grew into womanhood. She often thought that it was that conflict that led her to travel to "Man's World".

No mother could be more proud of a daughter than Diana was of A-ko. No Amazon could ask more of the gods than to be blessed with a daughter such as she. But Diana, Princess of Themiscyra and daughter of Hippolyta, was most grateful that the child she loved took after her father and not after her.

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A-ko had just finished with the last of the walkers when she spied a wounded Cassandra frantically waving at her. A quick fine-tuning of her super hearing picked up her cries for attention. Half a heartbeat later, she found herself standing in front of one of her mother's oldest and dearest friends.

After banging her bracelets with A-ko's brand new ones in the traditional Amazon greeting, the frantic Cassandra shouted, "I must find your mother and father, Princess!" Cassandra held a hand over a still-bleeding wound in her shoulder as she spoke. A-ko could see that was not the only wound she had suffered this day. A gash on her head still bled, and a quick glance with her x-ray vision told the redhead that a score of minor wounds now seeped blood underneath Cassandra's gashed and dented armor.

"You will have to find your way to one of the physicians first," A-ko replied gravely.

"Neither my wounds nor my life matter now, Princess Martha! What matters is the safety of the Nation, your grandmother, and perhaps most importantly – the entire world!"

A-ko was greatly disturbed by the fear written on the Amazon's face. She knew that Amazons almost never showed emotion to anyone, let alone to members of the Royal Family. "My father is in space, dealing with the Shakanar heavy battle cruiser. Mama is taking care of the last of the Shakanar heavy armor."

Cassandra replied, "Thank Athena that your father is here to deal with them! Please, time is short! Find your mother and bring her to me!"

"It will be faster if I take you to her instead," A-ko concluded. She scooped up the surprised warrior in her arms. With a quick leap, she took to the sky to look for Diana.

Soon, they found themselves back on the ground. The pair had arrived just in time to see a group of Shakanar warriors run away from The Demon who had just destroyed the last of their tanks. They screamed in terror. Her blood loss finally betraying her, Cassandra collapsed to the earth.

As Diana and A-ko bent over her, Cassandra gasped, "I'm not important, my Sisters! You are both needed urgently!"

"What do you mean?" Diana asked, still working to assess Cassandra's wounds.

"The entrance to Tartarus has been damaged! Your mother is trying to stem the tide of monsters herself until her family comes to help her!"

A-ko watched her mother turn white; it was a reaction she had never seen before. Diana quickly hid it. "I want you to cauterize this wound on her shoulder, Baby," she said to A-ko.

Without a word A-ko took careful aim, and – as her mother held her friend's hand - twin beams of radiant heat erupted from her amber eyes. Precise, they merged into a narrow beam that seared the wound in the Amazon's shoulder.

A-ko worked as quickly and as carefully as possible. She expected more of a reaction from Cassandra, but only the hiss of her escaping breath betrayed her agony. When she finished, the bleeding had stopped.

Ripping a bandage from her own clothes, Diana went to work covering the wound. "Has Helena stayed behind to help my mother?" she asked.

For the first time since A-ko had found her, she saw tears running down Cassandra's face. "My sweet Helena now walks the Elysian Fields with the rest of our Sisters who were lost today."

A great sadness came over Diana's face. "I am so sorry, Cassandra. I know what you meant to one another."

Cassandra said, "You would have been proud of her, my Princess. She died as a true Amazon, fighting at her Queen's side and doing her duty by serving the Nation we all love."

Gently picking up her old friend, Diana lay her beneath the shade of an ancient oak tree. Standing back up, Diana told her, "The battle seems to have left this area; I think you will be safe here until the Amazon medics come for you."

"Please, Princess Diana! Go now, and make haste! Your mother needs you!"

A-ko watched as her mother knelt and kissed Cassandra's forehead. They banged bracelets together and locked fingers in the ancient Amazon ceremony of greeting and departure. Without another word, both A-ko and Diana took to the sky. They headed toward the mountains and the valley in which the entrance to Tartarus could be found.

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Biko nodded her head in the direction of the main corridor. "We have company!"

The company in question came in the form of a squad of Shakanar storm troopers marching in their direction. Shiiko didn't wait for instruction as she fired her Cygnan pulse rifle, blowing a chunk of the ceiling down on top of the advancing warriors.

"You're as good a shot as Ma was when she was drunk!" chided Mitsuko, grabbing the rifle from her hands. "I've never known you to miss so badly!"

"I hit what I was aiming at," her older sister replied, her jaw jutting. "Look at them flailing around like ants when you stomp their hill."

Shouldering the weapon, young Mitsuko took careful aim and prepared to fire. For a moment or two she only felt vibration from the barrel of the gun. Then, two pulses screamed out of her weapon, taking down two Shakanar with leg wounds. Unfortunately for the children and the young adults who tried to protect them, it would only be moments before the nano-bots inside these genetically-modified monsters would repair those wounds and they would be back on their feet angrier than ever.

As the rest of the children took cover at C-ko's urging, the Cygnan princess remarked, "I think you just discovered that it's not that easy to kill. Be grateful that you two both learned it at a young age!"

Shiiko wailed, "Ma will be so ashamed of us!"

"We're a pretty poor excuse for warriors," added Mitsuko, shuddering as she watched the downed Shakanar troops regain their footing.

Biko sprang forward. "Ma would be proud of both of you. Now, just keep shooting until the rifle charge runs out. The longer you delay them, the better the chance that help will arrive!"

"Once the charge runs out – what then?" the two zaibatsu princesses asked their half-sister Akana, who had joined Biko to assess the ongoing attack.

"There's always the old-fashioned way," the Cygnette replied, waving her broadsword.

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The armored door leading to the bridge of Princess E-ko's ship flew open. A burly member of E-ko's Kollya Stragaeshotherwise known as the Crazy Division – screamed out her battle cry and brought her sword down on the first and only intruder.

She dropped the hilt from her pained and numbed fingers as it vibrated in her large hands. Others rushed forward to take her place, but stopped short when they saw the lone figure in the doorway.

"YOU?" E-ko shrieked. "What are YOU doing here?"

"Didn't you hear me knocking?" answered the Man of Steel, now casually entering the command bridge.

A murmur swept through the group of soldiers. The tales about what this strange and powerful male had done to the great crystal dome at the Sanctum Sanctorum had long since spread throughout the Leptonian Star Fleet [See our story "A Stranger in the House"].

"Princess E-ko!" Superman said. "What are you doing here?"

"One of my loyal agents – who paid for this information with her life – informed my mother and me about the planned attack on your planet. Once the Shakanar found out that the Amazon doctors had found a way to reverse the sterility surgery, that pack of creeps made a beeline right to Themiscyra!" E-ko crossed her arms over her chest. "And we've come to put a stop to it!"

Superman shook his head. "Seems to me that the other ship was about to put an end to you! I can't understand how your mother would allow you to come with such little support."

"My warriors and I are here on our own hook. My mother didn't realize how far up into the Royal Court this treachery had spread. Being able to trust only a handful of loyal retainers, she had made the decision to come to Earth and take care of this base treason personally. But – as both her daughter and loyal warrior – I couldn't let her face such danger! Since my ship was closer to your world than mine, I just happened to get here first!"

Clark Kent smiled in sympathy. "Thank you for your concern, Your Highness, but you must stay out of this. I'm grateful for your support, of course, but as things stand I cannot stay to ensure your safety. I am trying to put an end to this attack without further bloodshed and without anyone else dying!"

E-ko was red-faced and speechless with indignation.

Superman then turned to go. "Your ship is now out of the Revenger's targeting range. Please see to your repairs and your wounded." A heartbeat later, he was gone.

"Wha – wha — what?" E-ko sputtered, too late to do any good.

Captain Knossos walked over to her commander. "You're stuttering again, Your Highness."

"I KNOW THAT!" E-ko roared, fully restored now to her usual vigor.

Knossos bent toward her. "If the Shakanar are attacking his own wife's homeland, why is he so concerned about sparing their lives? It doesn't make sense."

E-ko shrugged. "Dunno. For the life of me, I can't understand why someone so big on truth and justice and all that would want to spare these monsters from death!"

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Hippolyta's muscles stood out like knotted cords under her Amazon shift. The muscles of her arms and legs bulged as she fought against the terrors that were pushing from the other side of the great portal to Hell. Her sandalled feet dug in the earth as she fought to ignore the agony radiating from her back. She gave a short silent prayer, "Hera, please help me!"

Her prayer was answered by a furious fusillade of battering from the massed demons on the other side of the portal.

Help finally arrived in the forms of her own daughter and granddaughter. Just as more demons attacking the door pushed back the Amazon queen, A-ko and Diana jumped down on it to shut it again.

But they weren't quite fast enough. To their horror, a number of claw-covered hands and things that passed as feet – as well as tentacles – whipped around the edge of the entrance. One enterprising monstrosity even managed to force its whole head out one side. It gazed at the women with its multiple eyes, all glittering with avid malevolence. "Head" would have been a rather loose description as the demon seemed to be made up of a collection of eyes, horns, and an almost unlimited number of fangs dripping with poisonous saliva.

"What the hell is that?" screamed A-ko in horror, fighting to close the massive door.

"Ares, the God of War, likes his pets. He always did have rather morbid tastes," shouted her mother, just before she drove the creature back behind the door by smashing her fist down upon the top of its purported head.

Three generations of Amazon royal blood slowly got the upper hand, and began to push the massive door closed once again. In the seconds before it was secured, a thick tentacle of a sickly yellow color snaked out the side of the portal and made its way up A-ko's leg.

"YEEEEEEK!" she screamed, cutting it in half with a quick burst of heat vision. As the other half retreated, the severed tentacle lay twitching on the ground until it dissolved into a soupy puddle of slime.

At the sound of her daughter's scream of disgust, Diana asked, "Are you all right, little one?"

"I'm fine, Mama," she replied. One of Lord Pluto's beasties tried to get fresh with me, is all!"

"I hope you don't treat all your college boyfriends in such a manner," her mother teased as she strained against the door.

"Only the ones who won't take no for an answer," she grinned.

"Man-crazy, both of you!" shouted Hippolyta.

Mother and daughter smiled at the scolding. Then finally, as the door slammed shut, Diana shouted, "I'll hold the door closed! You two see about repairing the damage!"

As Hippolyta and A-ko thought about what could be improvised, Diana leaned with all her power against the wave of terrors still trying to escape from the dark pits of Tartarus. As she strained, the woman whose strength was only second to that of her husband made a silent prayer. "Gaia – Earth Mother – give your daughter the strength to resist these horrors!" She then finished by whispering, "I wish Clark was here."

The Amazon Queen carefully examined the device that would secure the doorway to Tartarus. The bar – actually the trunk of a giant redwood braced with metal forged by the God Hephaestus himself – was intact, as was the great wheel that moved the bar forward and back. The brace was made of pure amazonium, the same metal that had been forged into all Amazon bracelets. The trunk pressed against a solid block of that strange metal, and it was this block of metal that had been ruined by Shakanar heavy weapons, explosives, and the hammering upon it by those women themselves with their enhanced strength and malevolent natures.

"How does it look?" yelled Diana as sweat poured down her face.

"The bar and wheel are fine! It's the brace that's gone," her mother shouted back.

"Can the two pieces be welded back together?" A-ko asked, listening to her mother groaning with effort.

"You can't weld amazonium!" her grandmother cried.

"Clark could!" shouted Diana.

"Well, your so-called mate isn't here to try!" snapped Hippolyta.

"Wait. Let me do it!" cried A-ko.

Diana shook her head. "Oh no you won't! I forbid you to even try. Wait for your father!"

"There isn't time, Mama," her daughter retorted. "I'm sorry about disobeying you, but if you and Papa taught me nothing else, it's duty!" Taking careful aim, A-ko told her grandmother to step back. "Things are about to get a little warm around here!" she said, backing up a step herself. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and fired.

Twin beams of heat erupted from her eyes. They were at first orange – then red – and finally, as she poured it on – blue-white. The target of all of this radiation did likewise. Slowly, the broken pieces of the metal forged by the gods began to soften and slowly flow into each other.

"You're doing it, Martha!" shouted her grandmother. The Queen hadn't noticed A-ko's moans of pain, or that she had slowly collapsed to her knees. Watching with tears in her eyes, her mother knew all too well how her daughter suffered in silence.

With a final supreme effort, A-ko ignored her pain, and – taking a deep breath – blew a blast of frigid air across the brace, tempering the metal. In a shot, Hippolyta rushed forward, spun the great wheel, and forced the door brace forward.

With a thud, the brace locked into place. Once again, the doorway to Tartarus was safely shut once again.

Hippolyta turned to thank her grandchild, only to see her writhing on the ground. Holding her head in visible distress, A-ko bled from her nose and from the corners of her eyes. Her sandalled feet dug holes in the ground with her thrashing. She moaned in agony as she held her head in her hands, convinced that her head would explode.

Her mother was instantly at her side, rocking her back and forth and holding her head in her arms. As A-ko moaned in pain, her mother stroked her red hair and told her, "It's all right, Baby – it will pass!"

"What is wrong with the child?" asked the Queen, kneeling down.

Diana looked up at her mother. "Whenever she uses her heat vision, it pains her. And when she pushes her limits like she just did, it becomes pure agony for her!"

"But the girl's father – ?"

" – is pure Kryptonian, and suffers from no such weakness. Your granddaughter is not. This is the reason I didn't want her to try. I knew the price she would have to pay!"

"I didn't know," Hippolyta answered.

Diana sneered "How could you know about that, or anything else about her or my family? You resented my husband so much that you not only drove me away for all those years but also kept yourself out of your grandchildren's lives!"

Just as the two strong-minded women were about to rip open old wounds, A-ko sat up.

"Are you all right?" Diana asked.

"I've had better days, but I'm all right now."

Diana turned to her mother. "Well, this traitor to the Amazon Nation has to leave now to defend the home and family she so heartlessly abandoned!" With this, Diana streaked upward and headed west toward the din of battle.

As she disappeared from sight, A-ko turned to Hippolyta. "You know, she doesn't love you any less because she loves my Papa. She has her own family and home now, but she will never forget you or the home of her youth. She will always love you. But my father and their children come first now. If I am ever lucky enough to find the right man with whom to spend my life, will you reject me as well, Grandmother?"

Hippolyta shrugged, upset and angry, and then began to march off. "Enough of this foolishness! I have a war to fight!"

A-ko started after her. "You'll get there quicker and fight better with your granddaughter at your side!"

A small smile crossed the Queen's face as she nodded. "That was a very brave thing you did, sacrificing yourself in that way."

"It was only a few minutes of pain. My parents sacrifice a lot more for this world and for me, almost every day. If I've learned to do the same, then it's because of what my parents taught me!"

A moment later, A-ko picked up her grandmother and took to the sky, streaking after Diana.