Prologue

 

The United States military has long accepted its role as subordinate to the civilian government. When it was ordered to make unwanted changes, such as admitting women into the various service academies, the military establishment resisted, but finally gave way to the elected officials set over it by the Constitution. It did not necessarily have to happen that way.

We know from modern scientific theory that there are an infinite number of alternate worlds, and therefore, an infinite number of alternate Americas where history has taken a different course from the one we know. Some of the alternates must be so strange as to be unrecognizable, while others so similar as to be almost identical. This story is set in a United States where the military gained the upper hand early in the history of the Republic and reduced the civilian government to a mere a tool of the generals.

That United States became the world's leading superpower after the Second World War, as here. However, a dangerous rival arose in the 1990's, after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, in China. The China of that history, having built up its industrial base to become a great economic power, used its new muscle to create a huge, powerful military establishment to carry out an expansionist foreign policy. The United States and its allies sustained a series of defeats, beginning with the loss of Taiwan in 1993. The Chinese went on to invade and conquer the small nations of Southeast Asia, one after the other, followed by a successful invasion of the Philippines in 2004. Japan fell into the Chinese orbit without a fight the next year. In 2009, China crushed a combined U.S, Australian and Indonesian army and occupied the entire archipelago of Indonesia. This disaster led to the removal of the United States Chief of Staff who had presided over this string of defeats, and to the elevation to the top spot of General Bernard Grant Cafferson.

Under Cafferson, women were permitted to enlist the armed services, starting in 2009. For the first two years, women were not allowed to rise above the rank of sergeant; there were no female officers. Not, that is, until the National Women's Military Academy was founded on the grounds of a nearly abandoned Army base at High Point, Pennsylvania. The NWMA was established at the insistence of the new Chief of the General Staff. The purpose of the Academy was to train beautiful, intelligent women to be efficient staff officers to top generals and admirals, but also to enslave them and make them submissive sexual playthings for those high-ranking officers. Cafferson agreed to this seemingly bizarre arrangement reluctantly, for reasons that will become clear.

 

Chapter One: Welcome to the Real Army

 

Private Robin Bransom stepped down from the bus in which she had been riding for the better part of two days, took a deep breath and stretched her shoulders and legs to get the kinks out. Robin was five foot four and weighed one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Her long copper-red hair was confined in a French braid, and it contrasted sharply with her big sky-blue eyes, while complementing the freckles sprinkled lightly on her upturned nose. There seemed to be the hint of a smile perpetually hovering at the corners of her lips. Her stomach was flat and her waist narrow, matching well her small, proud breasts and firm buttocks, whose shape not even her unflattering gray-green uniform could completely conceal.

Robin dropped her heavy duffle bag to the ground and took a long look around at her new home. She was not cheered by what she saw. The setting sun threw long shadows across the dusty lot where she stood. She, along with the other women still scrambling down from the bus, were on a flat dirt field that stretched at least a hundred yards away from her on every direction. There was a running track, and some exercise equipment off in the distance to her right. Straight ahead was a weathered, two-story wooden building from which gray paint was peeling. A sign on the front identified it as "Office of Cadet Commandant". Further away, behind the Commandant's office, were rows of long, low wooden structures, also badly in need of paint. These, Robin guessed, were to be the barracks for the new cadets, the first class of women chosen by the Army to receive officer training.

Surrounding the entire campus was a grim, forbidding, twenty-foot high fieldstone wall. It was not a very cheerful place, nor very impressive. Still it was the National Women's Military Academy, and she was one of the chosen few. Her heart swelled with pride, as it did every time she thought about the great honor it had been to be selected for this first class. She could still hardly believe it. She thought back to three days earlier, when she learned that she had been chosen.

 

***

 

"Private Bransom," Drill Instructor Torrens barked, towering over Robin as she sat, Indian style, on the linoleum floor of her barracks, polishing her boots. "I need to have a word with you. My office, now."

She dropped the boot and the polishing rag she had been holding, and sprang to her feet, nervously trying to remember which of the many boot camp rules she might have violated. She followed the Sergeant into his private quarters, and stood stiffly at attention in front of his desk, waiting.

"At ease, Private," he said, motioning. "You're not in any shit. This is good news." He picked up a sheaf of papers. "You have been picked, along with only twenty-nine others from the whole Army, for the first class of cadets at the new Academy for female officers at High Point. Congratulations," he said, extending a hand.

Robin was so surprised she did not even take the proffered handshake.

"There must be some mistake, sir," she protested. "I'm only eighteen, just out of high school. I'm not qualified to be an officer." Then another thought occurred to her: "I didn't even apply for officer training, Sergeant." In fact, she had not been aware that such training was available.

The big man's face creased in an expression she could not identify at first. After a second or two, she realized it was what served the Drill Instructor for a smile.

"There's no mistake, Bransom," he assured her. "You were chosen based on the scores on your admission testing and your performance here at boot camp, just like the other candidates. The brass thinks you are hot stuff, little girl. You should be proud."

And just like that, she was proud. Her father was a career Army man who had retired with the rank of Major. Robin knew that her father wished he had a son to follow in his footsteps, but Rachel Bransom had died delivering Robin's younger sister Merry, so the two girls in the family were all the children he had.

Still, she had done what she could to make him proud of her. That was why she seized the chance to sign up as soon as she had finished high school. She knew that she could rise no higher than sergeant (and that was only theoretical; in reality, corporal would probably be the limit), as women were not permitted to become officers. But now, quite unexpectedly, she had been given a chance to make her father's dream come true. She smiled as she imagined herself walking into their house in her dress uniform, an officer's uniform, with silver bars on the shoulders, bracing to attention, saluting her father, and saying "Lieutenant Bransom, reporting for duty, sir."

"Yes, sir, thank you sir!" Robin almost shouted, snapping to attention, and tearing off her smartest salute.

"You won't have to salute me anymore, Bransom," Sergeant Torrens chuckled. "The next time I see you, I'll be saluting you. Get packing. You have an early bus to catch tomorrow, Private. Dismissed." He returned her salute, and sat down at his desk to complete the paperwork for her transfer.

 

***

 

The familiar sound of a drill Sergeant's bellow brought her instantly back to the present.

"Atten-shun!" she heard a voice roar somewhere off to her right. Robin did not turn her head to see who was doing the yelling, but she stiffened immediately to attention, her eyes rigidly fixed forward. "I said 'attention', God damn it!" The man was clearly displeased by the way the cadets responded to his order. "Isn't there one of you ignorant cows that knows how to stand at attention? Shoulders back, chest out, chin up, you dumb cunts! I'm talking to you!" he screamed. The speaker's voice sounded as if it was coming from only a few inches away, directly behind Robin. She did not know if he was talking to her, but she forced her shoulders back until her shoulder blades were touching, thrust her chest out as far as she could, and drew herself up to her full, not particularly impressive, height.

She took a chance by shifting her eyeballs to her left when she heard the sound of the Sergeant (it had to be a Sergeant) moving away from her, and was rewarded with a view of the man himself moving behind the line of new cadets, then him pushing his way out in front between two of the stiffly erect women.

The Sergeant was short, only a few of inches taller than Robin, but he was built like a refrigerator. His upper arms resembled bundles of writhing pythons. He did not appear to have a neck, as his head seemed to rest directly on wedges of muscle that rose from his shoulders. His forearms looked as though they had been the models for those of a cartoon sailor famed for his fondness for spinach. His waist was narrow, his belly a rippling six- or possibly even eight-pack. His thighs bulged beneath his trousers. He gripped a leather swagger stick in his hairy hand. He was the scariest-looking human being Robin had ever seen.

He stood facing them, inspecting the line of women, his dark troll-like face wearing a hideous scowl. She sensed that he was about to focus his wrath on one unfortunate cadet to provide an example. She prayed silently that she would not be the chosen one.

The Sergeant started walking in Robin's direction, and she snapped her eyes front, silently repeating he's not looking at me, he's not looking at me, as he drew nearer. He stopped in front of the small Asian girl to Robin's immediate left. Robin had met and spoken to her briefly on the bus trip. She was a shy 18-year old from San Francisco named Kim Lee. She was a lovely, delicate girl, with large, dark, almond eyes, straight black hair, and a slender, graceful body. She seemed to be a quiet, gentle girl. Robin suspected Kim might be a little too gentle for the Army.

The Sergeant moved closer to Kim, bending over her until his mouth was an inch from the trembling girl's pert nose. "Is that what you call standing at attention, maggot?" he demanded, his teeth threatening to bite her nose clean off. When she did not respond to this question, he continued. "It looks like you're planning to go flying. Are you going flying today, cadet?" he asked.

Robin had heard this question before. It meant that you were standing with your elbows away from your body. She prayed that the little Asian girl would pick up the hint.

"No, Sergeant." Robin could barely hear the soft voice of the terrified girl. "I'm not going flying."

Without any warning, the Sergeant's fist shot out and drove deep into Kim's midsection. She made an explosive whooshing sound as the air was driven from her body. The force of the blow lifted her off the ground. She sailed several feet backwards, then thumped heavily to the earth. She immediately curled into a ball, making hoarse retching noises.

"Then you are one stupid cadet cunt," the Sergeant concluded, standing over her, hands on hips. "Because you were going flying, after all."

He stooped over the prone figure and seized her long hair in his fist. Using this hold, he dragged Kim, still curled in fetal position, out in front of the line of women. "Cadets, I want you all to watch what is going to happen to your classmate here," he said, standing over Kim while she shuddered, trying to force air into her lungs.

The Sergeant went down on his right knee and pulled the raggedly gasping Asian girl over his left thigh, handling her as easily as if she was a cotton-stuffed doll. He unhooked her belt and ripped open her pants, breaking the zipper and sending the waist button flying. Then he yanked her baggy gray-green fatigue trousers down to her ankles, exposing her gray Army issue underwear. He took Kim's underpants by the elastic waistband and gave a tremendous pull, momentarily lifting the unfortunate girl's lower body into the air, before the material ripped free from her waist, to drop her midsection back across his leg. After that she remained unmoving, bent over the Sergeant's powerful thigh, her smooth bottom and soft thighs exposed to the rapidly cooling evening air.

The Sergeant took Kim's right wrist, holding it behind her back in an arm lock. She yelped weakly in pain as he raised the elbow higher and higher, to force her to elevate her naked buttocks to a more vulnerable angle. When he was done, her hips were high enough to expose the little patch of pubic hair around Kim's sex to Robin's gaze.