Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War

  The massive, sealed door to the lowest level was near the back of the third level. The women were already surrendering by the time Dano’s boys reached that level, so the damage wasn’t too bad. Boots were sufficient to take out computer screens. The area even had power.

  The intercom was just outside the framing of the vault door. When I pushed the button to talk, a red light came on.

  “Hello?” The voice was female.

  “Lt. Col. Malone?” She wouldn’t know my voice, but she’d know it was a male voice.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Captain John Rumford of the Northern Confederation. The war’s over, Colonel. Can we talk?”

  “I don’t know how you’ve broken into this system, Captain, but I know a trick when I hear one. The Azanian Armed Forces are doing well. I’m not surprised you need to pull some tricks at this point.”

  “Sorry ma’am, but the trick was played earlier. This is for real. The info on your email has been coming from us.”

  “You’re lying, Captain, and you’re not good at it.”

  Just at that moment one of our troops came running up with the land-line connection to the radio to Patel. “Patel, come clean with your customer. Tell her who you are and what you’ve been up to.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ma’am, I think your computer screen will soon have a different message on it. But before you go take a look at it, someone here would like to say hello.”

  I put Willy on the intercom. “Hi, Molly.”

  A long silence. “Willy?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the door.”

  “You can’t be.”

  “I am.”

  Silence. Was she consulting her computer or reaching for the button?

  “Willy?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Is it true that we’ve been beaten?” She had gone to her computer.

  “Yes, it is. It’s over.”

  “Not quite.”

  “Molly?”

  “Yes?”

  “I still love you. Will you marry me?”

  Silence. A long, long silence. What would being vaporized feel like, I wondered? Then, a low, quiet, little-girl voice. “Yes. Yes, Willy, I’ll marry you.”

  The war was over. North America was saved. Human nature had again triumphed over ideology. And I needed to take a whizz.

  Before we Yankees could go home, we still faced a mopping-up operation. This time, the problem wasn’t enemy units that were still holding out. It was several million panic-stricken women.

  Propaganda in the world’s first, and last all-female state had a single theme: men are horrible. All males are born rapists, torturers, and murders. They are capable of only one relationship with women: as abusers. Now, the nation that called itself “the planet’s safe house for women” was again ruled by armed males in battle uniforms. Some even had armored vehicles with big phallic cannons on them.

  As usual, the Azanian propaganda’s main victims were its inventors. Azania’s women were terrified. Some hid, others fled into the hills and the bush, knowing the first male who found them would rape them, slice off their breasts and notch their ears and noses like a sow’s.

  None of those things happened, of course. Ours was a Christian army. But it was a Christian army with a big problem. If we simply left northern California, the feminists might take over again. If we stayed, women would die of hunger, thirst, and exposure. The dilemma had to be resolved quickly. Winter was coming on.

  We set up our headquarters and a new Government of Northern California, chosen from among the exiles now returning home, in the old capital, Sacramento. Berkeley, birthplace of so many demons, we burned and bulldozed before we symbolically sowed it with salt. I was sitting at my desk in the old capital building on bright mid-September day when my corporal announced a female visitor. I rose from my chair to greet none other than the formidable Mrs. Rutherford P. Bingham of Boston, Massachusetts.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Rumford,” she intoned in a rich voice that suggested the stage more than Back Bay. “I am so delighted to be able to congratulate you on your splendid victory.”

  “Thank you very much ma’am,” I replied. “We couldn’t have done it without you. Your ladies were the real focus of this operation.”

  “Why, you are too kind, Captain!”

  “May I offer you a seat?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Mrs. Bingham sat with the dignity of a camel getting down on its knees.

  “Captain, as I said to you when we met in Boston, I know women have no place on the battlefield. But when the din of battle has died, it is time once again for women to come to the fore. It is a woman’s duty to bind up the wounds of war, to succor the injured in body and spirit, friend and foe, and to spread the bounty of peace.”

  “I think I go along with that,” I replied.

  “Good. As you know, the women of this sorry place are in a most unfortunate condition. Most are suffering, and some are dying. It is all their own fault, of course. But we must not hold that against them. They were led astray, and now it is our duty to lead them back.”

  “That’s proving something of a challenge,” I replied.

  “Captain, your men cannot reach out to these women. It is quite unjust that they fear you, but the fact is, they do. But they will not fear us – ladies of the Northern Confederation. I have been in touch with our organization back in our own country, and thousands of our women are prepared to do as we few did and come here. But they cannot do so without your permission and your assistance.”

  “What would they do if they came?” I inquired.

  “Go out into the countryside, find these poor, deluded creatures and bring them home.”

  The maternal instinct at work, I thought. That might be just what the situation required. Most of the former Azanians were hard-core feminazis, or had been. But when a cause collapses, it loses its hold on many of its former adherents. By 1995, there were more believing Marxists on American university faculties than in the former Soviet Union.

  “You realize there will be risks? Some of the former Azanians are armed, and a few might even be able to shoot.”

  “We took risks in Utah and the other Rocky Mountain states, Captain.”

  “Indeed you did,” I replied. “Very well, you have my permission to proceed. But I’d like to start on a small scale and see how it works. How many of the other ladies from the N.C. are still with you?”

  “Every one, Captain. None of us is willing to go home while there is still work to be done here.”

  “Is that enough to try your approach in one location?'”

  “I should think so.”

  I turned to my map of northern California. I wanted to pick a relatively small town, but one with countryside around it where a fair number of Azanian women would likely be hiding. There: Fort Bragg. Odd that America had not one but two places named for the Confederacy’s worst general. The Azanians had renamed it Fortress Bragg. They seemed to have thought that a fortress was a female fort. Was their offspring a bastion?

  “How’s this?”, I said to Mrs. Bingham, putting my finger on the map.

  “I’m sure one place is as good as another.”

  “OK, I’ll arrange an escort. An infantry company should be sufficient to protect you.”

  “Captain, we cannot take any of your soldiers with us. They would frighten the refugees away.”

  “That leaves you pretty open. I don’t suppose any of you would want a shotgun?”

  “Captain, the only weapons a lady needs are her elbows, her purse, her umbrella, and her sense of indignation.”

  I could sense the latter was on the verge of rising, and I was more comfortable facing a flight of Zany F-22s than a single indignant Back Bay matron. “Very well, Madam. I will arrange transport. Will the day after tomorrow be convenient?”

  “It will. Thank you, Captain.” Mrs. Bingham rose majestically,
like an airship. I came to attention at my desk and offered a crisp salute. The thought floated through the room that it would be easier to be Alonzo than Mr. Rutherford P. Bingham.

  There were a whole number of ways this could go bad, I thought to myself as Mrs. Bingham receded down the corridor. If it did, I would be responsible. But that was what authority entails. If it bothered me, it was time to retire.

  Our 82nd Airborne left on commandeered buses the next day. The no-men-allowed rule meant I couldn’t send a trusted agent to serve as the commander’s telescope. I supplied the ladies with comm gear, which, for once in female history, they didn’t use.

  It was ten days before we heard from them. On the 27th of September, I was again in my office when the phone rang. On the other end was Mrs. Bingham, patched through from our comm center.

  “Good morning, Captain Rumford.”

  “Good morning, ma’am. I hope this isn’t a request to be ransomed?”

  “Indeed it is not, Captain. Things are going splendidly, just splendidly. I want you to come and see for yourself.”

  I didn’t have anything particularly pressing to deal with at the moment, other than the refugee problem. Maybe our ladies had something to show me that would solve it. “I would be delighted. But won’t my presence scare off the refugees?”

  “I don’t believe so, Captain.”

  “OK, I’m on my way.”

  If Mrs. Bingham thought she accomplished something, the least I could do was test it. So I called for a couple of LAVs as transport.

  Along the way, we saw a few furtive female figures, which promptly vanished when they spotted us, like feral cats. Nothing was working. No stores were open, no cars were on the roads, no fields were being tended. Northern California was a ghost town.

  Until we rolled into Fort Bragg. Suddenly, we saw normal life. People were on the streets, walking, shopping, talking. Lawns were being cut, houses cleaned, gardens watered. Of course, everyone we saw was a woman. Strangely, they weren’t just women. They looked like ladies. Instead of jeans and tee shirts, they were all wearing dresses and skirts. Downtown, most had hats and handbags. The place looked as it might have in 1950.

  We pulled up to the town hall, which was serving as a soup kitchen and reception point for refugees. We parked the LAVs, and the crews, all in battle dress, dismounted with me. Nobody ran away.

  “Welcome, Captain Rumford,” I heard in an unmistakable voice from the women gathered in front of the building. “You and your men are just in time for dinner. Please come in.”

  Mrs. Bingham led us through the growing crowd. I noticed a few admiring glances from some of the women, clearly former Azanians, directed toward my young stud troopers. What miracle had our good ladies wrought?

  More refugees were gathered inside. Shyly, they welcomed us. Again, each and every one was dressed as a lady. No feminist “unisex” here. We sat at a long table and were served, not by Northern Confederation women but by locals, ex-refugees.

  “Well, this is quite a transformation,” I said to Mrs. Bingham. “How have you managed it?”

  “By being ladies ourselves, Captain,” Mrs. Bingham replied. “You see, every woman really wants to be a lady. When the refugees saw us, dressed properly and behaving properly, they were drawn to us. Oh, they came in great numbers, poor things, dirty, half-starved, quite desperate. We fed them, bathed them, gave them proper clothes to wear, and explained that no one was going to hurt them. On the contrary, we were here to help celebrate their freedom, freedom from all the unnatural, nasty things that had deluded them. Now, they are preparing to go out to other places and bring in more women like themselves.”

  I turned to one young woman who was serving our soup. “Is what I’m hearing true?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “We’re all happy it’s finally over. And, well, it’s nice to see men again, and to be real women again ourselves.”

  At Mrs. Bingham’s request, we began an airlift, bringing in more ladies from the Northern Confederation and also from the Rocky Mountains states. The Mormon women were especially eager to come, and they made wonderful role models. Word spread quickly throughout northern California that the terror was over and normal life could resume. By the time winter set in, the refugee crisis was over. More than a few former Azanian feminists became blushing war brides, heading back to the N.C. with their new soldier husbands.

  There were a few hold-outs, of course, women so poisoned by feminism that they could not let go of it even after its failure was evident. We quietly rounded them up and sold them into the slave market at Aden. Muslim husbands would be good for them.

  Among the volunteers from the N.C. was Maria. She thought her Spanish might be useful, though few Hispanic women had been sucked into feminism. Once her work was done, we spent a quiet Christmas together in San Francisco, which remained a beautiful city. On January 2, 2039, we headed home to Hartland.

  What new war awaited me, I wondered. Would our country and our continent finally know some peace? If it did, what might that mean for me…and for Maria?

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Were symbols chosen by men of action rather than poets and painters, they would be very different. The symbol of war would be a hand reaching out toward another, for war makes brothers of men. The symbol of peace would be a sword, for peace divides.

  War had brought the Northern Confederation into being and given it purpose and direction. War had cleansed our country of America's vices, the silliness, selfishness, and sluttiness that had overflowed the late United States. We had fought together, scrimped together, and huddled together in our cold, dark houses for more than a decade. Now, with the coming of peace, I feared we would never again be so coherent or so content.

  I had to shovel four feet of snow before we could get to the door, but once I settled Maria in again at the Old Place and brought the livestock up from my cousin's farm, I headed back down to General Staff headquarters in Augusta. There I moved swiftly to begin the lessons-learned critique for the Azanian war. Unless the man at the top insists on a rigorous, honest, air-all-the-dirty-linen review, even the best army tends to reach for the whitewash. Then, the next time, it makes the same mistakes all over again and the lance corporals pay the bill.

  The second thing I did was tell Bill Kraft to cut the defense budget. The continent was as quiet as it was likely to get, quiet enough we could reduce the burden on our taxpayers. I figured we could cut our spending at least by half.

  Third on my agenda was improving our officer education. War is always the best training ground for officers, because you can promote the men who get results. Peacetime makes it harder.

  In late March, I wandered over to Bill Kraft’s office to get his take on an idea. The best officer education the world had known was in the old German Kriegsakademie. I wanted to set up a War Academy of our own, modeled on the original German one. I knew the right man to do it. Colonel Mike Fox, formerly of the United States Marine Corps, was a neighbor of mine up in Hartland. Mike had been one of the leaders of the last, doomed attempt to make the U.S. armed forces think seriously about war, the Military Reform Movement of the 1980’s. There was no one better on the subject of officer education. Mike was well along in years, but in the Northern Confederation, old people worked, and wanted to do so. Retirement killed a lot more men than work ever did.

  The governor received me graciously, as he usually did now. He seemed to be mellowing some, though he wouldn’t have taken it as a compliment if anyone had dared tell him so. He understood German officer education thoroughly, and immediately approved my proposal and the choice of Mike Fox to head the new school.

  “Is there any reason we can’t name it the Kriegsakademie?” he asked.

  “None I can think of,” I replied. “It's about time somebody brings back the name. Germany calls its General Staff academy the Führungsakademie now. They’re afraid some idiot will call them Nazis if they use the old name, even though the Nazis hated the place and every
thing else about the old Prussian officer corps.”

  “Well, then, consider it done,” Bill replied. “I’ll be happy to put on my Prussian uniform again for the opening ceremonies.”

  “Are you going to wear it for the ceremonies opening the Fundy project? The first power is due to start flowing in May, if I remember right.”

  “Are you certain that is something to celebrate?” Bill asked.

  “I can’t imagine why not,” I replied, taken aback. “Our industries have been starved for power. With this, they should be able to take off. It’s clean power, too. Why shouldn’t we celebrate?”

  “Television, computers, and cars, to give three good reasons up front,” Bill shot back. “The best thing the war has done for us, beyond guaranteeing our survival, is shattering the virtual realities created by television and computers. Cars and television together destroyed community in the old U.S.A., and without community there is no way to prevent moral decay except by the power of the state. That’s another road we don’t want to go down.”

  “Waal, I have to admit, I haven’t thought much about that side of it. I was just looking forward to central heat, hot water without heating kettles on the stove, and lights that go on when you flip a switch. Not to mention ice cream.”

  “Well, you’d better think about it, because we all face some tough decisions. If we decide wrongly, we may end up right back where we were. Remember, technology isn’t neutral. Some technologies are inherently evil in their effects. And there is no record of a modern society being able to say no to a technology.”

  “What you’re telling me is, we have to find some way to kill Faust.”

  “Exactly. Or he will once again kill us. And I don’t know how to do it.”

  If Bill Kraft didn’t know the answer, he wasn’t the only one asking the question. Slowly, through the war years, the Retroculture movement had been spreading through the N.C. In wartime, a return to past ways of living had been natural, often unavoidable. Our poverty and our loss of many of the “necessities” of early 21st century life had compelled people to go back. The Retroculture folks, along with the Amish, had become everybody’s teachers because they knew how to do things in the old ways.