Disclaimer: I do not own Youjo Senki

Chapter 17

Once I had my deal with the Colombian military, I could turn my attention to other matters. The influx of capital meant I could now start exploring the pharmaceutical potential of cannabis and opium. By this time, I'd been in the country long enough to identify the people who actually cultivated these plants, as well as potential areas for expansion.

While getting a supply of opium proved difficult, I had been pleased to learn that cannabis was already cultivated on an industrial scale in the northern part of the country. Strangely, very little of it went into the production of the drug. Instead the variants being cultivated were specialized for producing hemp fiber. It was a simple matter of getting in touch with few people that actually grew the drug-producing variant and convincing them to supply seeds for several others who showed interest in the higher price I was willing to offer for pharmaceutically useful product. I was even lucky with the timing - harvest season for the winter cannabis crop was coming up, so I could have my first crops planted within a couple of months.

To facilitate the harvest and sale of the product, I decided to set up a new company, Sunrise Botanicals. By this point, I'd become an old hand at quickly setting up a limited liability corporation geared towards a specific purpose. Much more effective than trying to extend an existing company outside its core competency, and if one of the companies I was involved in got embroiled in an investigation by my pursuers, the others would be insulated from the fallout.

When setting up Sunrise Botanicals I decided to appoint one Jesus Vargas as the CEO. Jesus was an independent lawyer I'd hired to act as translator and negotiator to deal with the cannabis plantation owners. In the course of his duties he'd impressed me enough with his business intelligence that when the time came to set up Sunrise Botanicals he seemed the best choice for the hot seat. I had to promise him a 5% share of the company to convince him to abandon his legal practice and become a full-time executive, but I figured it was an acceptable price to get a leader who had been intimately involved in setting up the business from the ground up. I put him in touch with all my American contacts, and he set to work with a will finding ways around the various laws that restricted cannabis in the US.

I also threw several thousand dollars at one of the better medical schools in order to carry out a proper study on potential medical benefits of cannabis. I wasn't very optimistic, but I figured if they did come up with something, I could use it as a tool to keep the various governments from banning the item altogether. The political benefits of having a provable medical utility for the plant easily outweighed the cost of sponsoring the study.

While I took a hands off approach with Sunrise, that didn't mean I was taking it easy. First there was the development of Colombia's new combat orb. While their R&D department was smart enough to reverse engineer the refurbished M27, actually building it in numbers required tools and experts they simply didn't have. Luckily, I knew where to get what they needed thanks to my involvement with Hughes Magic Works. In the end, it proved as simple as putting the Colombians in touch with Changying Lin. Being a known magical service provider, Household Magicks could act as a front for the Colombian government's acquisition of state-of-the-art magical engineering tools as well as the experts to use them without raising too many eyebrows. True, there was absolutely nothing illegal in what they were doing, but I figured it was best the American government not think to ask itself if they should be restricting access to these tools or not.

Soon enough, the Colombians were producing their Libertador Modelo 1928, or LM1928 for short. And if its inner workings looked remarkably similar to the Hughes M27, well, it's a good thing no one familiar with the Hughes model was involved in the production process.

At the same time, I was reorganizing my employees and rapidly expanding Stillwater Security. With Stillwater having a firm 'in' with the Colombian government, I saw no need to extend Velvet Iron's presence in the country. I'm sure Lena breathed a sigh of relief when Jennifer Ecks handed in her resignation and she could get Interpol off her back. I also managed to persuade Tony Almeida and Charles Norris to turn in their own resignations and join up with Stillwater, even as the other four agents went back to New York.

I wanted Tony so that I had a translator I could trust. In spite of my best efforts, my spoken Spanish remained at the most rudimentary level. In the case of Norris, well, it was partly my natural reluctance to part with a combat-rated mage now that I had regular access to orbs to utilize his full potential. The other part, though, was that I didn't want to admit to Lin I'd disrupted Household Magicks' operation for no good reason.

At the time I'd ordered the lad aboard the boat to Colombia, I hadn't realized just how big a difference a high-B-rank mage made to the company. Your normal C-rank mage could get maybe one small Feng Shui system empowered each day. Depending on size, it could take multiple C-rank mages to empower a single setup. Norris could do the work of multiple C-rank mages, and he could do it two or three times a day. When I'd pulled him from Household, Lin had been forced to put a halt to all expansion and instead focus entirely on servicing existing customers. Even borrowing mages from Velvet Iron didn't help, as the only one who could have made a difference was Barrow, and he had too many responsibilities to be available all the time. Lin had been forced to raise salaries all round just so she could compete with the more traditional magical jobs in order to make up the numbers.

Naturally, given the world's fondness for irony, just as Lin got Household Magick's mage shortage resolved, what should happen but an almost seventeen-year-old A-rank girl would show up at Velvet Iron looking for a job, and Lena would send her over to Household Magicks following Velvet Iron's age policy. I'd gotten a chuckle when I'd noticed the annoyance concealed in Lin's reports. I'd written back to her warning her not to get too dependent on her new powerhouse. After all, even if she proved satisfied in her current job, I very much doubted the American government would leave a talent like that alone forever.

While organizing my combat mages as part of Stillwater was simplicity itself, it was somewhat harder to get our mundane forces properly trained and equipped. Why did we need mundane forces? Well, for starters, Sunrise Botanicals' suppliers were facing similar labor issues as the rest of the country. Second, the Coffee Growers Association still had a need for someone to deal with the socialists, communists, and nascent labor unions in general. And when I say 'deal with' I don't just mean it as a euphemism for violence. True, there was some skullcracking involved when the left-wingers got particularly rowdy, but often it involved actually meeting and negotiating with the local bosses in order to ensure the smooth operation of business.

As such, not only did I need a significant force to cover the hilly and forested terrain that made up much of the country, but this force had to be trained up to an adequate level of discipline to make sure they knew when and when not to open fire. To my considerable surprise, I was aided in this by the Colombian's own military organization. I hadn't known until I looked, but Colombia had suffered a serious military defeat at American hands about twenty years ago when fighting over control of Panama, and in an effort to not repeat that debacle, they had taken inspiration from the Empire when reorganizing their military on modern lines. As a result, when I went looking for ex-army people to act as NCOs and officers to my new security force, I found people who, if not for their ethnicity, could have walked on to the Prussian side of the Rhine front, no questions asked. With Koenig, Visha, and the other former members of the 203rd watching over them, by the middle of February we had the first company of Stillwater Security ready for action.

Equipping them proved a bit trickier, though. My arms license meant I could purchase equipment and rations from the Colombian government, but their weapon selection wasn't the best. While there was nothing wrong with their Luger pistols, the Colombian army was still relying on a local variant of the venerable Mauser bolt-action rifles for their primary infantry weapon. Given my troops would often be acting in jungle, mountain, or urban terrain, a bolt-action long rifle was a poor choice of weapon. The ideal would be a submachine gun, but the only decent submachine gun available on short notice were the American Thompsons, and those were just too expensive to give to any but the squad leaders. For the regular grunts, I ordered a mixture of Winchester Model 15s and Remington Model 11s. The Winchesters were a fairly recent semi-automatic rifle that was the standard long arm of the American aerial mages, and I figured if it was good enough for them it was good enough for me. The Remingtons on the other hand were a reliable model of semi-automatic shotgun. I ordered them for twelve gauge caliber and they proved devastating out to 40 meters when loaded with buckshot, and effective out to 100 with slugs. Not a substitute for a Thompson, but at an eighth of the cost it was a bargain. And since I was importing so much from America, I also threw in an order for a few M1919 Browning machine guns. I figured the extra firepower was better to have on hand even if I didn't expect to need it.

Of course each of these weapons operated in a different caliber but as long as it was only a few hundred men, the logistical complexity could be kept manageable.

It was not all smooth sailing. As the main body of Stillwater's troops became available some of the most avaricious plantation owners saw in us a tool to ruthlessly suppress the various labor reforms that had been slowly trickling in. Matters came to a head in March when one of the largest coffee barons, one Senor D'Souza, demanded we use our forces to break up a strike.

Now, I'd done strikebreaking work before in America. Contrary to what the name suggested, there was very little actual breakage involved. Breaking a strike meant escorting workers not part of the local protesters to come in and operate the facility, leaving the original workers out in the cold. Perhaps unethical, but definitely not illegal. In this case though, D'Souza didn't have a second workforce waiting in the wings to take over the jobs. Once he explained what he expected of me, I realized he was looking less for a strikebreaker and more a slave overseer. When I pointed out to him that slavery in Colombia was, in fact, illegal, he cursed me out and started bringing in his own goon squads.

There were several reasons I couldn't let this stand.

First, I'd gone to considerable trouble to establish myself as the middleman between the owners and the workers. While violence was occasionally necessary, it was all defensive in nature to preserve lives and property. Most of the time my work lay in finding a compromise both sides were equally unhappy with, but not enough to complain too loudly. Hiring his own goon squads to terrorize and enslave the workforce was entirely disruptive to this rapport I'd worked so hard to build.

Second, Stillwater Security was currently a friend of the government. Having someone so closely associated with you involved, even tangentially, with such blatantly illegal behavior would be a severe embarrassment for any government with pretensions towards democracy. And I needed the Colombian government to like me, particularly if they ever had to say no to an extradition request with any of my names on it.

Finally, there was also an outside chance it might work. Enslaving his workers couldn't possibly work out in the long term, but in the short term D'Souza might actually see some success before resistance had enough time to coalesce. And that could be just enough time for other plantation owners to think it a good idea as well. The whole thing would inevitably collapse, but not before a great deal of violence and drama - violence that could very well spill over to my own interests.

Faced with such an urgent situation, I quickly got in touch with the local chief of police and reported this illegal activity, requesting he send a force to put down this open violation of human rights. At first, the gentleman seemed extremely reluctant to take my word over that of the aristocrat. I'd expected this though, and I'd already contacted my allies in the Colombian capital. Having an Army General calling him up from Bogota and letting him know in no uncertain terms just how high an esteem the government held one Sarah Witherspoon might have been overkill, but it certainly got things moving quickly.

Of course, I wasn't satisfied leaving this up to the dubious professionalism of the local constabulary. Once the police chief had been properly on board, I persuaded him to deputize me and as many of my mages and troops as I could get there in short order. Bolstered with these numbers, the police raid on the D'Souza's villa was accomplished with only a handful of fatalities. Since all the deaths were among D'Souza's hired thugs, I considered it a clean win. Not only did the raid on his various accounts and properties provide solid evidence of his illegal actions vis a vis his workers, but we also found the completely unexpected bonus of documentary evidence that he had been systematically misreporting his expenses to the tax department, costing them millions in revenue over the last decade.

Once that last little bit of information came out, whatever political patronage D'Souza might have enjoyed was buried under the tidal wave of outrage from those parts of the government that had been denied their cut. Well, all that had nothing to do with me. My objective had been served. I'd sent a clear message that openly illegal behavior would not be tolerated as long as I had something to say about it. Hopefully the local barons would understand that there was only so much honest folk would stand for before drastic action gets taken, and even they were not above the law.

Still, when I heard rumors that the government fines and fees might end up bankrupting the plantation, I asked Sunrise's CEO to put in a bid for the property. It might take years before the case finishes going through the courts, but I was still looking for a reliable source of opium. If in that time Vargas couldn't find an existing source, then we might just have to create our own. I had him put together a very fancy presentation describing the myriad medical application of the poppy plant, and explaining how a great boon it would be to Colombian medicine if Sunrise Botanicals could prove that opium could be commercially cultivated in the country. After all, Colombian hospitals were as reliant on opiates as American ones. I hoped that the social benefits of the project would tip the bidding in our favor if and when the plantation became available.

As March turned to April and the ripples from D'Souza's fall started to die down, I had to turn to what was quickly becoming my biggest annual headache. Tax season. In the past year, I had earned significant incomes in three different countries under four different names. Keeping them all straight was a chore and a half. Thankfully, I had Visha by my side to help me trawl through the unending paperwork.

We worked for two days dotting i's and crossing t's on my tax returns. At the end of it all, I had to sit back and catch my breath as a sudden realization was borne upon me. I was now a millionaire.

This wasn't to say I'd earned a million dollars last year, or even had a million dollars in the bank. But counting my various savings, personal assets, the face value of my shares in the privately held companies I was part of, and the last publicly traded value of my shares in Hughes Magic Works, my nominal net worth had crossed the million-dollar mark.

In my past life, assuming I'd lived and gotten my promotions on time, I could have expected to reach that status in another seven to ten years. It would be a landmark, but not a very significant one - a million dollars' net worth in the 21st century meant a fancy house in the suburbs or a modest apartment in Tokyo. And I'd have been past forty five by the time I managed it.

In this life I'd done it at the age of fifteen - well, fifteen depending on which of my ID's you went by. And I'd done it in the year 1928 when being a dollar millionaire actually meant something. I admit, I may have startled Visha with my cackling.

Of course, the real irony was that I couldn't sit back and enjoy it. If I'd somehow achieved this back in the Empire as a citizen in good standing, I'd have cheerfully cashed out, bought myself an annuity, and made a serious go at the life of the idle rich. Now though, a million dollars wouldn't buy me even a day's respite from my persecutors. The only way I could secure my retirement would be under the aegis of a friendly government and an ironclad security system. In Colombia I thought I had found the former, and with Visha and the others by my side I thought I could achieve the latter.

I should have realized things wouldn't be so easy in a world infected by Being X.

The trouble, as it often happens, initially had nothing to do with me. While I wouldn't call it smooth sailing, Stillwater's troops had managed to keep a lid on the labor disputes among the coffee and cannabis growers. However, in both these industries, there were very few truly large operations. For historical reasons that I did not entirely grasp, both coffee and cannabis cultivation had been largely in the hands of small to medium sized plantations. Big operators like D'Souza were the exception rather than the norm. The same could not be said in other agricultural sectors. In particular, the United Fruit Company, based out of the US, had an effective monopoly on banana production throughout the country.

Like all monopolists, they had long since sought to maximize their own profits at the cost of everyone else. In particular, they had adamantly resisted any attempt to improve the working conditions of their laborers, and seeing as they had the backing of the Unified States, they had gotten away with it for decades. However, their workers had finally had enough and gotten organized. They gathered in massive numbers and effectively shut down the town of Cienaga, United Fruits' primary gateway to the port of Santa Marta.

Normally I'd stay out of the whole sordid affair, except I got a call from General Estevan about a week after the strike started. The Colombian government apparently wanted to hire Stillwater Security to keep the peace during the strike.

It seemed the government was going through some serious infighting over what to do about the labor dispute. The ruling conservative party was worried this strike was the first step to the Communist Revolution, and wanted to use the army to break up the protest. The liberal members of the government, on the other hand, saw Colombian citizens being exploited by a foreign entity and wanted to force United Fruit to the negotiating table. And both sides were under pressure from the American government who were threatening to Do Something about this threat to American property and business.

Stillwater was apparently the compromise. Rather than make themselves unpopular by using the army, the government decided it would be much better to use a private security company as deniable muscle.

Estavan had proved very helpful during the D'Souza affair, so as a quid pro quo I had to at least try and help him out. However, before involving myself I demanded some iron clad rules of engagement. Basically, under no circumstance would Stillwater fire the first shot. Our job was to keep the peace, no more, no less. We would keep the strikers from attacking United Fruit assets and employees - and we would also prevent any attempt to coerce the strikers as long as they stayed peaceful. There would be no repeats of the D'Souza affair.

At first, I hoped the whole thing would be wrapped up in a matter of weeks. United Fruit would bring in non-union labor to work their plantations, we would escort them in, the striking workers would realize their efforts were futile, and eventually it would be business as usual, maybe with a few minor concessions thrown in. Not very good for the workers, who as far as I could tell had legitimate grievances, but I didn't set the rules.

I had underestimated both how organized this strike was, and just how unpopular United Fruit had managed to make themselves. First they had enormous trouble getting hold of enough non-union labor to do even a fraction of the necessary work. Then, when the time came to escort these laborers in, the unions stayed peaceful. They also pulled every trick in the book to slow work down to a crawl - setting up football games on the main roads, food stalls in doorways, parking vehicles in the most awkward places and then emptying them of gas. Basically, if they could mess with United Fruit without visibly breaking the law, they did it.

I wasn't too upset about this, in fact I almost admired them. It was the sort of thing I might have done if I was in their place. My men came down like a ton of bricks on any attempt to start a fight, and otherwise kept out of it. After seeing how things were progressing, you would think United Fruit would fold and at least make some concessions, if only to get work started again. However, in a show of breathtaking arrogance, they started making demands of the Colombian government via the American ambassador. The Colombian government, in turn, started putting pressure on me, but I stood firm. I'd been hired to keep the peace, and keep it I shall. If they wanted someone to brutalize Colombian citizens, they could do it themselves.

I even ended up addressing a meeting of their parliament, where I asked them if they really wanted to go down in history as lapdogs of a foreign power, to use their bullets on their own people rather than their enemies. "Twenty years ago, Colombia failed to defend its sovereignty, and as a result Panama became the fief of a foreign power. Do you now surrender Cienaga and Santa Marta as well?" I was not sure how well cynical politicians would receive a speech appealing to their patriotism, but at least none of them could publicly denounce the sentiment. In fact, what I had expected and hoped was that they would quietly cancel my contract and I could go back to dealing with the far more reasonable cannabis and coffee producers.

Instead, not only did they not cancel my contract, but I started hearing rumors that the Colombian president had done the diplomatic equivalent of telling the Americans to go jump off a cliff. I was honestly a bit concerned about all this, but I consoled myself that it was vanishingly unlikely any country would start a war over bananas of all things.

And if the worst came to worst and the American military did put in an appearance? I would immediately withdraw all my troops and disappear into the interior. Only a lunatic (or a patriot) would try to fight the regional superpower, and a battlefield was certainly no place for a private security company.

As April due to a close, things continued to be extremely tense and uncertain. The Americans actually seemed somewhat worked up about their bananas, but the Colombians were standing firm and so far it was just a war of nasty telegrams. I'd been running myself ragged making sure no one did anything regrettable, and I was so focused on the economic and political situation that I failed to pay attention to the other threat rearing its head through the country, and indeed the whole world.

It started one morning in late April as a sniffle and a cough. Then came the muscle pains and the fever. At first, I was convinced it was nothing more than a bad cold, probably caused by being out in the rain and worsened by me being on my period. Convinced it would pass, I wrapped myself up warm and used a mental doping spell to ignore the pain and dizziness. Two days later I was getting out of bed when I found the world spinning and turning black, and it belatedly occurred to me that I might have caught something slightly worse than a cold.

May 7, 1928, near Santa Marta, Colombia

Visha softly sighed under her surgical mask as she changed the cold compress on the Major's head. Her fever was still high, but doses of paracetamol had brought it back from the near fatal levels of a few days ago. It was almost strange seeing her with her original face on. Now that Visha had a chance to study it, she could see the last traces of puppy fat had disappeared and her features had started taking an aquiline cast that was almost aristocratic. She was still a small girl, but now she had started making the transition from 'cute' to 'beautiful'. That is, if she hadn't been looking like death warmed over.

Then the Major's eyes flickered and Visha immediately drew closer. "Major?"

Blue eyes peeked out painfully, and there came a mumble, "Lieutenant... no... not in army..."

Visha breathed a sigh of relief. No delirium today, the Major seemed lucid. She brought forward a bowl of warm soup. "Here, Major. You need to eat."

"Not Major," came the annoyed mumble. Then the eyes opened again, focusing on Visha. "The strike?"

"Don't worry, we're keeping things under control. No one's going to start anything with us around. Here, you need to eat."

The young girl managed to take in several spoonfuls before her strength and lucidity both seemed to fade. As she sank back into sleep, Visha heard the mumbled words, "Make a great wife..."

Visha felt her face warming as she put away the bowl. It wasn't the first time the Major said such things during her illness. It was a bittersweet experience, hearing such things from the Major but only under a fevered delirium. Still, the important thing was she seemed over the worst of it. Judging by the reported symptoms from the flu epidemic spreading across the nation, she should be up and about in another week or so. According to the reports, Colombia was just the latest country hit by the epidemic. This particular strain seemed to spread particularly quickly. After the Major came down with the illness, orders had gone out for everyone to wear surgical masks in public.

She had just finished covering up the bowl and putting it back on the hot plate when Ernest came into the room. As the two women present who knew the Major's true identity, much of the nursing work had fallen on them. Ernest glanced at the utensils then asked, "She woke up?"

"Yes. Mostly lucid. Managed to take in some soup before going back under."

"That's a relief. Did you tell her what's been going on out there?"

Visha's face hardened. "With her health like this, the last thing she needs is to start worrying. Besides, we already know her orders. The peace is to be maintained and anyone who starts something is to be put down. Even if they are Americans."

Exactly three days ago, an entire US naval battle group had steamed over the horizon of Santa Marta. A battleship, two cruisers and four destroyers. Ostensibly, they were here to protect American lives and property and provide aid to the Colombian government in 'restoring law and order'. The Colombians had pulled out their own navy in response, but it was clear the government was reluctant to truly press the matter. The Colombian ships stayed well away, content with hugging the coast. American Naval Mages had openly started patrolling. The company of mages Colombia had scraped together in response stayed huddled above Santa Marta.

Visha didn't know if the Major had any contingencies for such a scenario. Still, the mission objectives were clear. Stillwater Security was still contracted to maintain the peace at Cienaga. Until that contract was cancelled, that was exactly what Visha planned to do. The Major would never run from her responsibilities, and seeing how the Major had named her as second in command, staying true to her leader's ideals was the least she could do.

May 11, 1928, above the USS Nevada, off the coast of Colombia, near Santa Marta

"So, we're finally getting our thumbs out our asses, huh," grunted Lt. Williams. Houston couldn't help but give a stink-eye to his fellow flight leader. The man seemed to take inordinate pleasure in acting like a crude naval rating instead of the mage officer he was.

Commander Kleberg ignored his subordinate with the ease of long experience. "That's the plan, boys and girls. We buzz over the commies as started this mess and drop a few volleys on them. Either they'll scurry back in their holes or they'll start a fight. And if it's the second, then our Colombian friends have an excuse to send in the army and shove 'em back in their holes. Either way, this strike nonsense will be over and done with."

"What about their mages? We know there's a dozen of them in Santa Marta." This query came from Lt. Stills. She was the Commander's second, and an inveterate worrier.

"That's why the other flights will be staying home. With the support of the fleet, they should be enough to see off the Colombians if they try anything."

Their little fleet had sailed with their full complement of mages. This meant the battleship Nevada carried a full squadron of twelve, while the cruisers Rochester and Trenton had flights of four each. Eight mages, with fleet support, should be able to see off any nearby Colombian mages or aircraft. As for the Colombian Navy, they had nothing close by heavy enough to take on Nevada and they knew it.

"What about opposition at our end?" piped up Houston.

"Dunno if they're actually against us, but we've got some civvie security outfit called Stillwater. The government hired them to keep a lid on the commies, but they must've done a shit job seeing as how we're here. Still, they're supposed to have a few mages. Not enough to worry about though. We'll be outnumbering them maybe 3 to 1. If they're smart, they'll stay out of the way."

A few minutes later, they were under way. Ten minutes' flying brought them within visual range of Cienaga. That's when the ship's radio contacted them, letting them know they'd picked up magical activity over the town.

A minute later, the source of activity became visible. A lone speck flying a thousand feet above their target. A communication spell came in on an open signal, carrying a young woman's voice. "Attention unidentified mages. You do not have permission to overfly Cienaga. Please divert or state your authority."

The woman was speaking in Albish, but from the stilted words and accent she was clearly not a native speaker. The commander responded, "This is Commander Albert Kleberg of the Unified States Navy. We are here on a mission to protect American business and property from subversive elements. Please stand aside and clear the way."

"I'm afraid that is impossible. We are Stillwater Security and we have a contract with the Colombian government to maintain the peace during this labor dispute. Until our employers say otherwise, we cannot leave our station. However, if you wish to join us in maintaining the peace, you are welcome to do so, once you have obtained permission from the President."

"Look miss, that's not going to work. This so-called labor dispute is a threat to American lives and livelihoods, and we are going to end it today. Why don't you go talk to your bosses and see if they really want to fight the US Navy?"

The young voice suddenly sounded as ancient and cold as a glacier. "It is you who do not understand. I am Deputy General Manager of Stillwater Security, Viktoriya Ivanovna Serebryakov! I am in charge, and it is my duty to maintain the peace! We do not wish for trouble, but we will end any that we find! Consider yourselves warned!"

There was a long moment of silence as they digested this declaration. For once, Williams managed to sum up all their thoughts in his crude way. "That bitch be crazy."

"I don't know..." murmured their Commander. "Serebryakov... why does that name sound familiar?"

"It can't be! What in god's name is she doing here?!"

Houston couldn't help but stiffen. Stills might be a worrier, but even she rarely sounded that tense. "Lieutenant, care to enlighten us?" asked the Commander mildly.

"Commander, Serebryakov was second-in-command to Degurechaff, the Devil herself! If I remember right, that woman has twenty-eight confirmed kills."

Houston felt ice beginning to form in his stomach. No one said it out loud, but he was sure everyone was thinking how their entire company didn't even have five kills among the lot of them. "Maybe she's bluffing? Or an illusion?" he suggested weakly.

"Hell of a bluff if so," muttered Stills. "I've got a zoom on her face, she sure looks like the picture I saw of her."

"All right, calm down. War veteran or no, she's still human." Kleberg gave a stern look over his forces. "There's no way she can take on all of us on her lonesome, and she has to know it. Which means there's a trick of some kind. Most likely she's a distraction so any other mages with her can jump us. They're probably hiding in the town, which explains why she's flying so low. So here's how we're doing this. Houston, take your flight and keep her busy. The rest of us will hang back at 4000 feet and keep an eye out for any surprises. Everyone got it? Then let's move!"

"Uh, Commander, what happens if the Devil herself is here?" asked Stills in a small voice. "It's not like they ever found her."

"If Degurechaff puts in an appearance, then hang the mission. We all turn around and run like hell."

A nervous chuckle floated around at the Commander's dry tone. Once the brief moment of levity was over, they all advanced. Heart in his throat, Houston led his flight to engage the enemy ace.

As they came closer though, their enemy didn't seem to respond at all. The distance had closed to six hundred yards but the woman had yet to ready her weapon. Constant calls to stand down or surrender were ignored with equal aplomb. It was only as they closed to four hundred yards that a sudden suspicion gripped him, and Houston leveled his Winchester and snapped off a single shot. The woman's appearance immediately went fuzzy.

"Decoy!" Houston screamed, looking around frantically. It didn't take long to find her - the woman was practically on top of the Commander's flight. In fact, she had somehow closed to within a hundred yards without anyone noticing.

How the hell did she get all the way over there? That was all Houston had time to think before Serebryakov pulled the trigger, and a new sun appeared in the sky.

The biggest advantage of the Elenium Type 97 was not its higher power output, but rather its ability to cast far more spells at the same time than a single-core orb. This had allowed members of the 203rd to pull the trick of simultaneously casting a long-range decoy and a camouflage spell, making it look like they were somewhere far away from where they really were. Entire enemy formations had been ambushed in broad daylight under clear skies using this technique.

Neither the M27 nor the Libertador were capable of a similar feat of parallel casting. Which is why two mages had been involved in pulling off this piece of legerdemain. Teyanen, hiding on the top floor of a building, had carefully crafted an illusion of Visha at the edge of his ability, a little over a thousand feet in the air. Visha, under her best camouflage spell, had stationed herself at 8,000 feet.

Once the American mages had committed themselves, she'd gone into a guided freefall. By letting gravity do most of the work for her, she'd cut down on her mana signature, trying to stave off detection until the last possible moment. She'd had plans for what to do if she was spotted early, but in this case she got to within her optimal range of 100 meters before anyone could engage. That's when she aimed at the center of the American commander's platoon with her Remington, and fired a specially enchanted shell of 12-gauge double-ought buckshot.

Enchanting a bullet beforehand was a question of tradeoffs. An enchantment only lasted for about 24 hours, so as long as you had some magic to spare before going to bed, you could have a few bullets that you didn't need to spend magic on the next day. The trouble was, once a bullet was enchanted, there was no way to easily change or add spells to the mix. If you wanted a different magical effect than what you had loaded, then you had to waste a lot of power overwriting the existing enchantment. Most mages who bothered with enchanted bullets kept them in a separate clip, ready to load and use if a situation calling for that specific enchantment came up.

However, as the late Anson Sioux had demonstrated, shotgun shells were large enough to carry some very impressive enchantments. The one Viktoriya was using was something of a recent development that Tanya had helped her with. It was a cross between an illusion and explosion spell. What it did was create a brief but intense illusion of a blinding white light combined with a loud concussive blast, disrupting visual, auditory, and magical senses alike. Visha was prepared for it. The Americans were not.

Accelerating straight at the enemy commander, Visha closed to point-blank range before slamming down a disruption effect on the next shell and pulling the trigger. The disruption spell broke the commander's mage shell like spun glass, and the heavy buckshot pellets shredded his torso. Visha didn't know if the man would survive either his wounds or the fall to the ground below, nor did she care. Tucking the shotgun in one hand and pulling a combat knife in the other, Visha went to town.

The strategy, if it could be called that, was to stay as close to the American mages as possible. Their long rifles were less than useful at melee range, and her proximity would make them hesitate to shoot. Visha knew it wouldn't work forever. Sooner or later, the Americans would get enough space to catch her in a crossfire. But it didn't have to work long, just long enough. Below her, she could hear the explosions as the rest of her team charged the now-isolated platoon that had approached the decoy.

Mage melee combat was the single fastest and most unforgiving type of combat in the world. Visha would never claim to be as gifted in it as her superior, but having trailed behind Tanya for so long, she had more experience in it than almost anyone. After fifteen stunningly brutal seconds, Visha found herself in open space as her shotgun clicked empty. Frantic at being exposed, Visha immediately spun out a decoy as she threw herself into a desperate dodge while reaching for her pistol - and then she realized no one was shooting at her.

Looking around, she found the surviving Americans in full retreat. She counted six of them. Two of them she recognized as belonging to the command platoon. Both of them were sporting knife wounds, which meant she'd at least tagged them. Three from the second platoon that had been holding back. And amazingly, one survivor from the lowest platoon that had suffered the onslaught from the rest of her team. Speaking of her team, they were all arrayed around her - Teyanen, Vogel, Koenig, Walther, and Norris.

Looking around, Visha could quickly reconstruct what had happened. The rest of her team had blown right past the low-altitude platoon on their way to reinforcing her, which explained the survivor. Once they got to her, a brief skirmish had been enough to convince whoever had taken over command to call the retreat. Of course, if this had been wartime she would most certainly would have ordered a pursuit, but it wasn't and she hadn't.

Visha turned to Koenig. "Sitrep!"

"Six enemies confirmed down, survivors unknown. Only one injury - young Norris thought it was a fine idea to kick his opponent in the head."

Visha blinked, then looked hard at the teenager. "Well, that explains the broken leg. If you were in melee range why didn't you use your mage blade? You could have lost that leg!"

Norris' face reddened. "I was upside down. It was either kick him in the head or stab him in the foot..." he muttered.

"Ah come Visha, lay off the lad!" boomed Vogel. "It was an amazing sight! That poor bastard did a full 360 pirouette, with his head going an additional 180!" The big man slapped a hand on the teenager's shoulder. "Congratulations on your first confirmed kill! Tonight, we celebrate!"

Visha rolled her eyes but didn't say anything. She knew from experience that the young man probably would need to get drunk once the full import of his actions sank in. Instead she turned to Teyanen. "Take Walther and go down there, see if we managed to get any prisoners. Koenig, you and Vogel get back to town and make sure this little show didn't cause any panic. Norris, to the infirmary. I'm going to check in with the... with Sarah."

As they headed back, Walther remarked, "When you do check in, make sure to make the battle sound as boring as possible. You know Ernest is going to be furious she missed out, no need to rub it in."

Visha couldn't help but join in the chuckles at that remark. Yet, she couldn't help but grow pensive. Downing six enemies for only one injury was a great effort, but was it enough? Had she lived up to what the Major had expected of her? Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because a private communication came in from Koenig. "The Major would be proud Visha. Today you proved yourself a worthy successor."

"You really think so? It still feels so strange ordering you around, you always had the higher rank."

"Not so strange to me. Everyone in the 203rd knew you spoke with the Major's voice. Now it's just official."

Visha felt her heart swell with joy. While the Major herself had said it before, Koenig's observation drove home how much the Major trusted her.

Oh, I really hope the Major feels better soon! I can't wait to tell her everything that's happened! I wonder what kind of face she will make when she finds out we went and won a battle while she was out sick!