Black powder and lace
copyright 2011 Faeriemage
When the entire universe is stacked against you, all you can do is change the game.

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Matron Alecia Farrell shook her head as she walked beside Colonel Kei Lorenze. They were both of an age when most assumed that the passions of life began to cool, but even at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, she still felt a stirring for the dashing colonel. She'd never let him know of course, but she did like the way his uniform made him look.

Anhelette, on the other hand, was a conundrum. The girl had been there to observe, to see protocol. See that we served the city as loyally as any of the men. Then she'd broken the edict. Not only that but Anhelette had known what she was talking about. The colonel was one of the few men, the few people that knew of the extent of the edict. Knew the reason for it.

And here was this slip of a girl who couldn't be older than fourteen or fifteen…

Sometimes she actually wished that they used standard solarian years. It added a granularity to the calculations of age missing for anyone using this planet's own orbit time.

The matron shook her head, as once again she realized she was heading into proscribed waters, but she couldn't help it. She was first, and foremost, a scientist. She quantified, catalogued, parsed and probed. She wanted to push forward the realm of human understanding, but the research was beyond the bounds of the edict. The tools to even attempt the research were beyond the bounds of the edict.

To pass the time as they went, the matron calculated the girls age in solarian years. Twenty years old, most likely.

She smiled ruefully with the thoughts of how old twenty seemed to her. A year as short as old earth used to have was like…stopping the year at September.

She snorted at the thought.

"Something humorous, Matron?"

"A lot is, Colonel. And I've told you in the past to call me Alecia."

"That would be lese majeste, Matron. I might as well ask you to call me Kei."

"Ok, Kei. If that's what it takes." The matron blushed like a girl at how forward she'd just been, and hoped that it would work out as she hoped.

"Women. There's a reason I have never married. I don't understand you at all. Give me a field of battle any day. Not only is it understandable, but it's also less dangerous."

The matron's musical laughter rang through the halls, and Anhelette's shoulders hunched. The girl must think herself truly in trouble for laughter to cause her anxiety.

"Kei, I find that the title Matron makes me feel old and grim. Nothing like the beauty I was acclaimed with in my youth."

"Alecia, you will always be a beauty."

Again, the matron blushed. She was saved from any further embarrassing revelations by the fact that they'd arrived at their destination.

"Child, please enter the room on your left," the matron said, raising her voice so that Anhelette would be able to hear her.

The room was better appointed than the cell they'd left, but the heavy lock on the outside of the door suggested that this was not a room you wanted to have to stay in very long. As soon as the three of them entered the room, Anhelette turned and asked, "did I do something wrong? It was my impression that I was there to make a scientific observation."

"Child, where have you heard of breech loading a cannon?"

Anhelette's expression betrayed the shock at not only what the question was, but what it implied.

Mar watched as Anhelette left the room with more than a twinge of regret. The woman was more than beautiful to the young lieutenant, and she likely didn't even know that the lieutenant even existed.

"They're going to kill us all, you know. All of us."

Mar looked over at the former lord and sneered. "You are the most graven coward I have ever met. It is not a question of whether or not they'll win, but of how we carry ourselves until then."

"You're a fool, Mar, a fool!"

"And you are a cuckold or a pimp, I haven't decided yet which. You aren't man enough to keep your wife in line, or you whore out your wife to gain influence and favor. Which is it lord Amherst."

His face turned a shade of purple that Mar had never thought she would see on a human being. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound escaped. Mar'd had enough 'lord baiting' for the moment, and simply left and locked the door behind her.

"Sergeant, I'd like you to make sure no one enters this room. No one. If he kills himself, he kills himself. Only the colonel or myself can change this, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good."

Mar left the unknown sergeant behind her as she went in search of more familiar faces. She'd never been a big drinker in the past, but for the first time she had a feeling that it would be welcome to deaden her senses.

The matron's revelation that she already knew Mar's secret was more than enough to make her doubt everything. Wondering who else was 'in the know' threatened to bury her in despair. Was she only fooling herself that her men accepted her?

"Sikes," she called out as soon as she left the Palace of Justice. He was sitting there with a couple of the men, patiently waiting for her to appear.

"Yes, sir?"

"I want to get drunk."

Sikes and the other men laughed, thinking it was a joke, but when Mar failed to join in, he sobered his expression.

"Sir, I can help you do that, but is it really something you want to do?" There was concern in his voice that made Mar even more certain that this was something she wanted to do. He thought she was weak. He thought that she was a woman. She was sure of it. She'd have to prove to all of them that this wasn't the case.

Seeing her determined look, and knowing it from times when she'd laid into deserving wretches, he pulled her aside to talk to her out of earshot of the men.

"Sir, I don't know what crawled up your ass and died, but I sure as hell don't want to let you go out and get smashed for the hell of it. You don't drink. The men all know this and respect you for it. You've more balls than any of them to stick to your guns. Don't go throwing that away now."

"Sir…balls…" Mar laughed bitterly. "Don't you really mean, 'ma'am?'"

"Don't listen to what that lick-spittle has to say, Sir. We know you're a man. Sure, you're a bit slight, but then so if Collins."

It occurred to Mar that Sikes really had no idea what she was talking about. He thought that she was upset by something that Ale Amherst had said to her. She began laughing, and realized that she wouldn't be able to stop. There was a hysterical air to it. The other men were looking at her a bit worriedly, so Sikes waved them off and dragged her back into the building. It wouldn't do to have witnesses to what he was going to do next.

As soon as they found an empty room, he dragged her in and locked the door behind them. Then he slapped her as hard as he could.

"Sir, this is unbecoming. I don't care what stresses…"

Mar no longer cared about any of it. It was all too much, and she was tired of hiding herself. As he was beginning to berate her, Mar just stripped out of her tunic and shirt. Then she removed the bandages that kept everything out of sight.

Sikes couldn't help himself and just stared. A couple of times he began to reach up, as if to assure himself that they were real, and stopped before getting anywhere close.

"Sir, I suggest you put your shirt on before anyone else comes in." Sikes said quietly.

Mar was about to just put on the shirt, without the bandaging, but Sikes stopped her, "Sir, you need to make sure that wound is properly bound. It wouldn't do for everything to break loose, now would it?"

With a bemused smile on her face, Mar quickly redid the bandages and put her uniform back together.

"I assume that you are…the same below?" He asked.

"Yes, Sikes," Mar said in her normal soprano voice, "I am the same below."

"Damn, sir, I never would have realized. I mean, sure you were small, but you kick the ass out of the rest of us in determination. I've seen you fight."

Mar was shocked. This wasn't the response that she expected. Then she got a shrewd look on her face, "what do you want, Sikes? You're not looking for…"

Sikes looked horrified. "No, sir! I'd sooner lie with the colonel, no offense, sir. Besides, I know you'd have my guts for garters if I ever suggested it." Sikes looked at her again, cocking his head to the side as if trying to see something that wasn't there, and shuddered.

"No offense, sir, but I can't really see it. I know, I saw it, but I can't see it, if you know what I mean."

Mar looked a bit confused, and Sikes continued.

"Look, I know you tend to keep to yourself in the barracks, but you are a man as far as anyone has been able to tell. You act like the rest of us, sir. You even laugh at our jokes. The last lady I made the mistake of telling one of your jokes to a girl, well, it didn't go off as well as I'd hoped. You know the one about the vicar's daughter and the highway rogue?"

Mar laughed at the reference.

"Not what I expected, but enjoyable all the same," Mar said, referencing the joke's punch line, and Sikes again began to laugh.

"See, there's no way a respectable woman would ever tell that joke."

Mar gestured at her outfit, and Sikes smirked, "point taken, but you knew what I meant."

"I did, and I thank you for the sentiment."

"That being said, we need to find you a respectable woman of your own, and from what I hear that Anhelette is mighty respectable."

The expression he was using was at odds with the accepted meaning of the words, and Mar was shocked to realize she knew exactly what he meant.

"You'd like to assault her walls with your cannon, would you?" Mar asked.

Sikes just smiled and let her realize the response she'd made to his suggestion. She smirked back at him, but brought the conversation back to her original problem of the idea, "you don't think it strange that a man like me would want to chase after a woman?"

"Only goes to prove that you are man enough, Sir. Man enough for me or any of the men."

Mar smiled and clapped his sergeant on the shoulder. "So, not that this is out of the way, what say we go out and I can watch the rest of you drink like normal."

Sikes just grinned, happy to have his unique officer back. Sure, he was ever more unique than Sikes thought a few minutes ago, but what are a couple of breasts between friends.

"Matron, I heard about it the same place that I heard that a carbon filament immersed in an inert gas and charged with an electric current produces light."

Anhelette was thinking furiously, trying to determine what was going on here. Not being trained as a field agent, she was doing her best to try to minimize the damage she'd already done. If the matron knew what in the world she was talking about…

"Colonel, leave us."

"Matron…"

"Please, Kei. I need to speak to Anhelette alone."

The colonel looked at the two women, and then turned to leave. He stopped as he reached the door. "I'll be right outside, Alecia, if you need me."

The matron began to walk around the younger woman. When she got to the girl's front again, the matron stopped. "How old are you, Anhelette."

"Sixteen, Matron."

"Still so young for so much responsibility. What was your own Matron thinking to initiate one so young?"

"Initiate into what, Matron?"

"Don't play coy with me, girl. While that is the most unique response I've heard before, you obviously know of the edict. Or are you going to try and tell me that you don't know what a 'light bulb' is?"

Anhelette swore. Her worst fears were confirmed, and they'd have to do something she would forever regret. She didn't consider herself one of those types of girls, truth be told she wasn't any type of girl, but the thought of everyone here going up in flames really got to her. She began to cry and just sank down on her knees, her dress spreading out around her.

"Child, it's not so bad. There is no problem that I know."

"Isn't there?" Anhelette asked with venom in her voice. "If you let me out of this room, I have no choice but to have this entire planet bombed back to the stone age. All of you in this city are sure to be a target, and likely every other major city on the planet."

The matron's knees failed her, and she collapsed. Her face completely white. She was focusing on nothing, looking at nothing. Then she turned the weight of her attention on the girl sobbing in the middle of the room.

"But we followed the edict. We follow the edict."

"No choice," Anhelette said to herself, as she began to cry even harder. She knew that there was no hope of Mar accepting her as she truly was, and yet…she'd had hopes. Hopes that would burn her up every time she closed her eyes.

The matron regained her composure enough to rise from the position she'd been sitting in. She walked over to the door and let herself out. Anhelette heard the sound of the lock being thrown.

She ran to the door and pounded on it, "Let me out of here! You don't understand! I must tell them what's going on. They must hear from me or it will be worse for all of you."

Although how exactly it would be worse, Anhelette didn't know. She knew, however, that as soon as she failed to report this evening, the clock would begin to tick down. In a little over eighteen hours, twelve after her next check in point, this city would cease to exist.