XXXVII – BACK HOME


Palace of the daughter of the sun, Tokyo, Japan, October 14th, 1939, 0.09 hours

“Ohh, this was great, Miyabi, just great. You havent forgotten about these things under the chinese scum.”
The empress lit a cigarette, an US Lucky Strike, and leaned back into the cushions. Miyabi was silent, waited.
After returning to Japan after a year, her mission a failure, the ninja wouldnt have been surprised if ordered to kill herself, or to be beheaded by the empress herself. Or boiled in oil, crucified or... well. Instead, she had been sent to a pleasure temple of the holy spirits, to relax body, soul and mind. She received only the best treatment, and was slightly ashamed by it. She had failed. The white mercenaries in China were still at large.
Then, after six weeks, she was finally summoned by the daughter of the sun. Straight into her sleeping chamber.
What followed was not a first, but surprising nonetheless.
“I really missed you, my loyal servant, my sweet killress. You killed me again, in the sweetest way possible. But I am still hungry. You will kill me more often this night, I demand it.”
“As you wish.”
“But I will be patient. There are some minor things to discuss. You must know, I am not disappointed. It was a mistake to send you away for so long on such an unimportant mission. I acted like a child. These aviatrixes, they mean nothing in the great sheme of things. They cant save China from our mighty armies.
Other things are on my mind now. Look, the war in Europe has great potential, to distract and even to weaken the western empires. You know, I see the Americans as the main obstacle to my plans. They are weak now, but strong potentially. I am looking for Allies, and the Germans offer themselves as such. In January, a german was here, a fightress, a killress as you. I was very impressed by her. She even spoke good japanese. It was then that I decided to bring about an alliance with them. I have a diplomatic and military mission over there, but you know the reports of these lackeys.
What I need is a real insight into their strength, their resolve, their very nature. Are they worthy to fight alongside our great race?”
Miyabi said nothing, her face impassive as always, even in the hot hour just gone.
“You will go to Europe, to Germany, to visit their Reich, see their army, navy, air force, industry, the way they live and love. Learn as much as possible. I will arrange that this german killress will show you around.
I also want your opinion on her. There is something about her...
I tried to find out where she learned to fight with a katana and to speak japanese, but the Kempei Tai couldnt find much. There is a story about a young western girl in Osaka years ago, learning the martial arts by a great mistress. The mistress is gone without trail, likewise her daughter and the western girl. No one knows what happened then – or they dont speak.
I refrained from torturing some witnesses. It seemed – without honor. This woman has honor, and I will not put shame on her in this way.
Be it as it may, you will meet her. Evaluate her. I sense in hers the best and the worst of Germany together.”
“Whats her name, mistress?”
“Ophelia Skorzeny. You will start your journey tomorrow, with an airship to Los Angeles.”
“As you wish.”
So, she wont be boiled in oil. A spy she now was, not to kill, but to “evaluate”. But the empress wishes were all and everything. Miyabi dismissed these thoughts, waiting for the daughter of the sun to finish her smoke, ready to show her talents in the sheets once again.
Death could come in many ways, and Miyabi knew them all.


The Crooked Dragon, bar in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18th October 1939, 19.24 hours

“You should have seen the faces of the german maidens there in the temple, roped and gagged. This was better than seeing them all dead in their blood. Marias method has its merits.”
The assembled Deltas, about 20 of them, laughed and congratulated Maria to her idea. The small Cipoletti didnt like all the praise. Amy ordered another beer and paused her story to attend to her steak. Only Valery was not among them. She was in New York, helping her mothers in smoothing things for the Komorsky family.
“And what did Beyonce say as you returned?” one Delta asked.
Amy made a face and put a piece of steak into her mouth.
Maria said:
“She called Amy dumb, silly, mad and unresponsible. Our texan heroine became smaller and smaller by the second. After the boss was through with it, she opened up a bottle of Jane Beam and wanted to hear all details of our adventures.”
“Beyonce is a good boss.”
Heads nodded. Maria added:
“I proposed to her to train in this fashion, to overpower enemies in commando fashion like you did it with the Pride of Breslau.”
“We are FBI, not the Army or Marine Corps. Wont fight the Superfrauen.”
“A shame.”
“Did you hear this story from the war in Europe?”
“What?”
“The Britas abducted a german general and her entire staff. Reached french lines with them safely. The Germans were fuming with rage and hatred in their media. After the desaster in Poland, a good thing for morale in England and France.”
Maria snorted.
“The Superfrauen will hardly change their ways now.”
“It was you who proposed to train just such missions.”
“To have an impact, this has to be done more regulary, and on a greater basis. What did this General command?”
“A division.”
“There you have it. How many do they have? Amy?”
Amy gulped down her steak and coughed:
“About 200, the media guesses.”
“You see? Much work for this british outfit. Nevertheless, would like to meet the chicks.”
“What did Beyonce say to your idea?”
“Same as you, we are FBI, not the military.”
“Too bad, would be fun to play Mathilde Wayne packaging the bad indians.”
Amy said:
“Only that our bad indians are blonde.”
Maria kicked Amy under the table.
“Whats the matter? They ARE mostly blonde, arent they?”



Mellowmouth Castle, HQ of the Queens Own Commandos, Scotland, United Queendom, 18th October 1939, 11.11 hours

“Give me a cigarette, please, will you, Justine?”
Leftenant Justine Stockbottom looked up from her paperwork and starred at Lady Knight Eve Lois Mountbatten as if the proud redhead had just announced to be in love with the Hitler herself.
The Mounbatten was more than only slightly pale, with nervous red dots on her cheeks, some hair had come loose of her at other times neat ponytail, and there was this strange flickering in her eyes.
Justine hesitated, then reached slowly for her WINONA Filters, offering her Colonel the pack.
Lois grabbed for it and hastily lit one.
“I didnt know you smoke, Mam...whats the matter? Has the Wehrmacht landed at Dover and is marching on Whitehall?”
“Always loved smoking, started early in my teens, my mothers had me beaten with a leather belt for it. Couldnt stop nonetheless. Greedy and without discipline. Did you know I was nearly relegated from Sandhurst because of a one-night-stand with a male horsecarer?”
Lois sucked in the smoke like oxygen and spoke hastily, all the while starring down at the desk.
Justine eyed her Colonel closely. This had to be serious. The Leftenant surely didnt wish to hear things like that about her personal heroine and mentoress.
“Ahh... Lady Colonel, Mam, uh... Lois... is everything okay?”
“Quit smoking because my husband was into this HEALTH FOR OUR BABIES hype back then when I was pregnant with Moira. Yes, Moira...”
“Lois, whats the matter in the goddess name?”
“Moira, you know she is in this special school, discipline and harsh regimen, all that. They have organized something there, fitting for their view of the world. Should have known, really.”
Justine waited for Lois to continue, took a WINONA herself. The Lady Knight raised her head and starred at the picture at the wall, a snapshot of their first prey, the pretty Burgsmuellers gagged face.
The satisfiying sight of a Superfrau with ridicilously bulging cheeks and wide, dumb looking eyes didnt seem to lighten her mood.
“You know, Justine, the fascistas here in the Queendom, the Mosley and such, were all arrested at wars start. The school and the pupils have organized a protest in front of the prison in London, can you imagine? Several of them, Moira prominent among them, were arrested. I just spoke with the police commissioneress at the phone.”
“By the goddess and all demons! Your daughter siding with the faschistas – what a scandal!”
Justines  girlish outburst suddenly seemed to have cleared Lois head.
The Mountbatten shrugged, eyed her cigarette, shrugged again and took  another drag.
“Well, Justine, I guess if James has to live with a fascist daughter, he can live with a smoking Lady Knight too.”
“Will it, I mean, uh... hurt your career?”
“What? Oh, hardly so, Justine, hardly so. I am everybodies darling now, star in Whitehall and Aldershot, a heroine. Its just a rebellious teenager. No, that I did to my daughter what I myself endured in my rebellious youth... How could I have forgotten how it is to be young and in war with the world and the adults?”
Justine, always a disciplined, well educated, presentable teenager, decided to say nothing to that. Besides, she wasnt really sure what the Colonel was talking about.
“Okay, Leftenant, thanks for the smoke. Carry on with this interesting work you have there occupying you.”
Lois left the room. Justine starred for a while at the closed door, killed her cigarette in the ashtray, and said to the gagged blonde in the wall picture:
“Sometimes, shes a bit strange. But shes a good boss, believe me. What do you say, would you like to have company there at the wall? I for my part would love to litter this wall with pics of gagged, silly looking german officers. I know, you would like that too. So, back to work, you cant remain alone there.”
Justine Stockbottom was always very disciplined, but she was still young too, and in this respect, treated the german gals picture the same way as her toy soldiers back then. What an innocent time that had been, she Lady Wellington, discussing with her staff the deployment orders for Waterloo...
“You lust for company there, I know it...”
The Burgsmueller didnt object to that. Apart from being a mere picture at the wall, she was gagged, you see?



Living room, House of the family Frings, Schüchtern near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 20th October 1939, 22.06 hours

“Did they really make charges with their cavalry?”
“I havent seen it Katie, but I heard it from others. Yes, they did.”
“The poor horses, how horrific.” Sabines first mother said.
Katie, Sabines younger sister, still at school and an eager membress of the JUNGE KATZEN, ignored her mother and pressed Sabine, the great warrioress from the polish campaign, for more stories.
Second Mother Dietlinde, a civil servantess in Frankfurts administration, send her a stern look.
“Young girl, its past ten. You will go to bed now. There is school tomorrow. Your performance in maths as well as english is not very promising of late.”
“Oh, Mum, no...”
“Sabine has leave for two weeks, she will be around awhile. Time enough for you to learn everything about her adventures.”
The way Dietlinde emphazised the phrase “adventures” was lost on young Katie, who wished she herself could join the Wehrmacht and fight for Germany and the Fuhra. It was not lost to Sabine, who send her second mother a sharp look.
Katie sighed, but was educated well, even if the education had eroded a bit under the Junge Katzens clutches. She kissed her mothers but didnt leave til Sabine had promised to tell her more tomorrow evening, after her duty at the Junge Katzen.
The two older german ladies and Sabine waited until the male house servant had removed the dishes, and especially until Katie was gone for good.
The First mother was drawing, her hobby. A horse, a gallopping horse, Sabine saw. Dietlinde lit a cigarette, offered, seemingly as an afterthought, her daughter one too. Sabine didnt like the oldfashioned german brand, but took one nonetheless.
“Well.” Dietlinde said.
The old big clock on the wall sounded very loud in the room. The drawing pen moved with a small sound across the paper.
“Well”, Dietlinde said again.
Sabine busied herself with her smoke, her thoughts trailing back to Poland, and what happened there. The combat, the polish land, the Poles, and then the adventure in this small town were they met the Russians. Strange the way these Americans had overpowered them, like out of a movie. But not so important. Paling in comparison to what followed.
Without the mothers asking for it, Sabine started to tell her story. Slow at first, but gaining momentum, her cigarette, the glass of wine forgotten.
The male servant, in reality Katies and Sabines father, had joined the women, stroking her first mothers hair.
Leutnant Seeler, the russian commissaress, both had been furious. The temple of the mothergodess had been the first victim. It was burnt to the ground.
Sabine Frings continued, telling about atrocities, committed by the Russians, the Germans on Seelers command, and by a SET unit arriving shortly later.
She didnt let out that everything had started with the Seelers decision to torture that polish boy.
Finally finished, she hastily lit one of her own Marlboros. The three older people were silent.
All three still worshipped the mothergoddess, to young Katies anger. Burning down a temple, and these other things that followed...
Dietlinde leaned forward in her sofa.
“What you have witnessed was no coincidence, brought about by these cowboy action of the Americans. We told you long ago. You were in school as the communistas, the democratas were dealt with by the regime. These things happen everywhere, now in Poland, before that they happened in Tschechoslowakia and in Austria. They will happen in France if the Wehrmacht is victorious there too.”
Sabine nodded, took a deep drag of her smoke.
“And I help bringing it about.”
Her father, speaking for the first time, said:
“What else can you do? When you speak out against it...”
The women said nothing to that.
Finally, Dietlinde said:
“The MOTHER made us free to decide for ourselves what we do with the live she gave us. In the end, you alone must decide about your course of action. Howling with the she-wolves, or...”
Sabine gulped heavily.
“I am not yet ready for that.”
Dietlinde nodded.
“Let me know when you change your mind.”
The clock announced 23 hours.
Sabines father turned on the radio.
“Heres the greater german radio. It is 23 hours, the 20th October 1939. Hail to the Fuhra and the german godesses. The OBERKOMMANDO DER WEHRMACHT announces:...”
Sabines first mother had finished the horse and started a new one. One deadly wounded, screaming, with bloody wounds.