A Young Girl’s Outer Heaven

05

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Commissioned by Sneakydevil.

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“I don’t like it.”

“It needs to happen.”

“The men don’t like it.”

I sent a look up at Visha. My blonde subordinate was out of uniform, and instead wore a light sun dress, a large straw hat, her Type 97 on a chain around her throat, and carried a handbag that contained her sidearm. “You mean the ones above us, tracking our magical signatures?”

“It’s risky, ma’am,” Grantz murmured from where he was tucked against Visha’s side. The other captain wore a beige suit and fedora that left him cutting a handsome figure that drew the eyes of the native girls, many of whom were sending Visha jealous looks. I could just barely spot the bulge of his own sidearm worn on a holster under his arm, and I knew he’d have his computation orb on him somewhere.

“No risk, no reward,” I reminded them, before turning my attention back to the modified sniping formula I was using to scan the crowd. I was still getting used to it, but… having a perfect sphere of vision that I could zoom in on within a multiple mile range was surprisingly easier to adjust to than I had thought it would be.

More proof I’m not entirely human anymore, I mused idly as I spotted multiple potential candidates for the mission watching us. I was my own computation orb, and my processing ability didn’t seem to be limited by things like four synchronous cores and mechanical processing, or even a squishy human meat-brain. No, I seemed to be doing my thinking with my mana and the shell of solidified mana that made up my body was just a container. Even the little bit of meat my body was starting to grow thanks to consuming food to replace my squishy bits was still just… superfluous, it seemed.

“We have several to choose from, it seems,” I eventually said. “This is where we’ll do it. Go into that store over there and I’ll head over to buy some food and make myself vulnerable.”

The pair shared a look and I narrowed my eyes, before focusing on my mana. With a thought, I sent a shortwave transmission without ever moving my mouth. It was mostly to prove a point—namely, that there was no way to disarm me anymore. Nor could my radio be removed. I would be in constant contact with the others and I could blast my way out any time I wanted. “That’s an order, you two.”

Visha and Grantz nodded. Grantz reached into his pocket and pulled out a fairly large stack of reals—the sort of money a rich father might hand his daughter to get rid of her for a while, so he could take care of some things with his wife. Accepting the money with a happy smile, I slipped it into the pocket of my shorts and took off at a jog through the crowd as Grantz and Visha walked into a boutique clothing store.

Yes, even I was out of uniform today. I had picked out my outfit myself, thankfully, so I wouldn’t be forced into a dress by Visha—whose eyes had lit up at the idea of getting to play dress-up with me again, only for her to pout for hours after I broke the news to her. I might have taken a bit of sadistic joy in doing so… But she deserved it for trying to stuff me in a dress!

Instead, I wore a set of comfortable hiking boots, shorts, a light white button-down shirt, and a khaki patrol cap. I may have modified the shorts, cutting them off to an indecently short length that showed off entirely too much of my thighs. And the shirt was tied off at the bottom and left part of my stomach exposed, while the top buttons were undone enough to see the top of the curve of my small breasts. The long, blonde ponytail fed through the back of my cap flew behind me like a flag as the wind caught it, drawing the eye to me and from there to everything else.

Nothing I wore would have been out of place in the modern world I had come from in my first life. Even here, the local girls sometimes wore less. But the fact was, I wasn’t a local.

Tanya’s looks—my looks were something I had taken pride in for a while. It was one of the most useful tools in my arsenal. First, when I looked like an adorable cherub. Now that I had begun to fill out, well… Long expanse of pale, toned, bare legs. A flash of a toned, pale belly and back. The curve of a muscular little ass. Just a hint of cleavage starting to develop. A beautiful young white naive foreign rich girl, all alone and vulnerable now that she was out from under the safety of her parents’ gazes.

I looked like jail bait.

Or just plain bait. Which is what I was going for. Irresistible, delicious bait for this fishing expedition.

I almost didn’t make it to the food stall selling tacos before three different people made their move from different angles—one from behind, one from my right, and one from ahead. Pulling out my money, I hummed as I considered what was on offer. “One of those please, senor,” I told the man running the stall in Ispagna with a big, bright smile.

“A drink too, senorita?”

“Please!” I agreed, and a moment later, he popped the top on a bottled soda and handed it and my taco over. “Thank you.”

I moved away and began eating, enjoying my lunch as I waited, seemingly looking around at the other local stores. Just to make things easier, I moved towards one of the smaller side streets leading off into the warren that was the favela—where the poorest in this city lived. A shantytown that looked like it would fall apart in a stiff breeze, or catch fire with a single spark.

I wasn’t even halfway into enjoying my taco when someone grabbed me from behind, covered my mouth, lifted me bodily, and then ran into the alley, ducking between buildings as the other two ran along with him. Just to put on a show, I screamed into the filthy, stinking hand over my mouth and bit down, thrashing and struggling to get free. The man carrying me stopped and set me on my feet just long enough to slam a fist into my gut—five quick blows, one after another, that left me physically doubled over and would have disabled even a grown man.

“Shut up, you dumb little bitch, or there’s more where that came from!” the man growled, then resumed his run.

That… didn’t hurt at all, I mused, studying the sensation. Oh, I certainly felt the pressure and the force of the blow, and it had been enough to knock the air out of my lungs. But… most of my body didn’t need air so that wasn’t an inconvenience. Likewise, it hadn’t triggered any sort of pain response in my nerves—likely because those nerves were still made almost entirely of mana and were only pretending to be nerves, because it was convenient to me and how I remembered my body before my attempted suicide bombing.

“Status report.”

“We’re following from above, colonel. Visha and Grantz have already rejoined us,” Weiss reported in.

“Good. Maintain your distance. Let’s see where they lead us.”

“Roger that.”

After a run with many turns, my erstwhile kidnapper threw me into the cab of a truck. I grabbed for the door, only to find a gun shoved in my face. “You move, you die, senorita.”

“Al-alright,” I allowed my voice to waver, holding up my hands in the universal ‘I surrender’ gesture.

He quickly started the truck and I felt it shake as the other two men climbed into the back before slapping the side twice, someone calling, “Go! Go!”

And then we were zipping through the twisting, turning streets in a ride that bounced me about the seat as we went. After several minutes of this, we exited out of the city from the eastern side, heading east into the thick trees along a little dirt track. After about half an hour of driving and turning off on several smaller roads, the trees opened up to a farm and we pulled to a stop in front of a farm house.

I was jerked out of the truck and dragged inside as the other two men followed. As soon as the door was closed, one of them began unzipping his fly. “Hurry up, I want to sample the goods before we ship her off!”

“And where would you be shipping me off to?” I asked, only for the one holding my arm to pull back his other fist and punch me in the nose. There was a crack of bone… and then he howled as he pulled his fist back. “Mm, that’s about enough of that.”

Grabbing his hand, I broke the hold he had on me and jerked him down to the ground, jerking his arm up behind his back and stepping on his neck. One of the men, the one who hadn’t been fishing his dick out, had the presence of mind to pull his pistol on me. “Let him go! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Instead, I gave the go order. “First company, move in! Second and third company, commence operations!”

The front and back doors blew open and, a moment later, the one with the gun found himself crashing to the ground under the force of Weiss’ magically empowered fist. The other members of the company spread out, making to secure the farm. Weiss and a couple of other men tied up our prisoners and dragged them outside.

“Colonel, we’ve got prisoners down here.”

“Take them out front, load them into the truck and take them back to town, to a hospital,” I ordered as I followed Weiss with our prisoners, moving out to the back of the house. After a moment, they had the three amigos lined up on their knees, my men standing guard behind them with rifles. “Alright, senors. Let’s play a game~!”

I held out my hand to Weiss and he handed me his sidearm. Checking to make sure it was armed, I pointed the weapon at the one that had his pants down and shot him in the thigh. Luckily for him, my aim was impeccable and it was just a graze, but I was trying to set a tone here.

“AHH!”

“You’re going to tell me everything you know about where the Carniceros are taking the people that have been kidnapped. Where they’re being held. Who is in charge. Whoever tells me everything I want to know gets to outlive your friends.”

From there, the interrogation proceeded as most tended to. The difference here being that we didn’t have to observe the Imperial RoE for dealing with prisoners. That is, legally speaking, we had a green light to execute all prisoners captured, if they were determined to be either communists or members of the Carniceros gang.

By the end of the interrogation, we had rough positions for Carniceros ‘ranches’ like this one, where they took their kidnap victims, along with the name and likely location of the next person up the chain. Once I was sure we had everything we were going to get from them, I put a bullet in each of them myself, after we made them march into the edge of the forest for the animals to find. True to my word, I executed the one who had given us the most last.

“Weiss,” I called, and my second in command came to attention. “Get this place cleaned up and kitted out as a fallback position and supply depot. Ammo, non-perishables, weapons. See if you can scrounge up some radio kit and an antennae, and a generator.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded and began assigning people to the task. After a moment, he came back and asked, “What next?”

“I want to move on the other locations now, before word spreads. Hit them hard and fast, take prisoners, interrogate them, and move on to the next. We shouldn’t need more than… three teams. Split up the company. A group here to set up, then three other groups of four. You’ll lead one, I’ll lead the other, and whoever you see fit to lead the last. We aren’t going to stop until we’ve got their leadership, or we’ve run out of information.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Understood. I’ll leave squad four here.”

Nodding, I added, “And Weiss? Remember. These are kidnappers, slavers, and rapists. They aren’t men. They aren’t even dogs. When you’ve got everything you can get from them, put them down. No survivors. Keep a record of the ones we’ve killed. We’ll turn it in to the governor for bonus pay.” A thought occurred and I glared up at the man. “And if you find the leader before me and don’t call me, so help me…”

Weiss grinned. “We’ll see who gets there first.”

“I will PT you until doomsday,” I growled, earning a chuckle. “Get to it.”

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I sighed as I dropped my bags on the floor, then flopped on top of the massive bed, with its sinfully slick silk sheets.

A fortnight. Two weeks. That was how long it took, once we had boots on the ground, to get to where we were now. In that time, so much had happened.

We had made contact and established friendly ties and a long-term contract with a local, well-funded politician. We took an island for ourselves, along with the spoils of equipment, funds, and materials from the commies and even managed to recruit a few new people to our side. We had ousted a corrupt local mayor and police force and installed someone willing to do the job properly, and reinstated a competent police force that were even now cracking down hard on the crime that had infected Bellum. We had all but gutted a local human trafficking ring, freed the people they kidnapped, forced them to turn over the identities of their buyers and were in the process of tracking them down to recover yet more people, and seized their assets and holdings—which had immediately gone into funding our group while the buildings and lands were earmarked to be turned into safe-houses, resupply depots, and fallback positions. And we had gotten local contractors to refit the garrison to house our people and men, and were already working on building them a village on the island.

Today, we had moved out of the governor’s villa and into the garrison. All of us, military and civilians. I was looking forward to having private quarters again, where I didn’t have to share space with anyone. On the other hand… Visha made for a comfortable body pillow, on those occasions we’d shared a bed for either body heat or comfort, during those hellish nights on various fronts.

Shaking the thought from my head, I forced myself to get up and start unpacking. I was given the communist piggy Zelenskii’s old room. I thought it was a bit excessive in terms of size and luxury, but… I wasn’t going to turn it down. Especially when Visha assured me that they had cleared out all of his personal effects, changed out the mattress and bedding, and sterilized the room. It even had an amazing view of the river from the doors leading out onto the balcony, which provided a cool breeze helped along by the ceiling fan.

Eventually, I finished up unpacking and looked around the room. Thinking back over my schedule, I realized that I didn’t have anything else to do today. For a change, there was a lull in the mad rush to get things taken care of and set up. I had, dare I think it, free time.

With that in mind, I hummed and considered things, before grinning. I changed out of my uniform into civilian clothes—pretty much identical to my ‘kidnapper bait’ outfit, save that the shorts and shirt actually covered more skin. Keying up on the local shortwave, I announced, “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off and heading into town. Those of you not scheduled for duty later, consider yourselves dismissed as soon as you finish your duties for the day. Weiss, arrange things so that everyone not on duty has a day off tomorrow, and those that have duty tomorrow have the next day off. Out.”

Then, I stepped out onto the balcony and took off, flying over the river and back into town. I got a few weird looks when I set down on the main street, but it wasn’t like aerial mages were unheard of—just ones my age. And to my knowledge, the Brasa military didn’t have any—at least, according to governor Vasquez.

After a bit of looking around, I made my way into a small shop selling clothes—the same one where we had gotten my disguise and the rest of my civilian attire for use here. After a bit of perusing, I found what I was looking for. Swimsuits were a thing, but the styles were almost all one-piece. So, I improvised, with some light silk stuff I had seen some of the women here wearing as their daily wear—basically a tube top and a sarong. Some sandals, a wide straw hat, and sunglasses rounded things out.

My second stop was to buy some drinks, a bunch of purple berries, some lemons, ice, a pitcher, and a glass. Finally, I found an umbrella, some towels, and a hammock. Then, it was back to our private beach where I found a secluded spot to set up for a day on the beach.

I used a mana blade to peel the skin and core from the berries, something called a jabutacaba, and dropped the pulp and juice into the pitcher with a bunch of ice and left it to sit for a while—though licking the juice off my fingers, I found it tasted like some combination of blueberry and grape, so pretty good. I’d have to try something else later.

I set up the hammock and umbrella and gathered a bunch of driftwood and some fallen limbs from the forest for later, then changed into my improvised swimsuit. Then, it was time to dive!

Using magic really is cheating, I mused to myself as I used a flight formula underwater, pushing myself along as I brought up my modified sniping formula to spot fish. Unfortunately, I discovered a problem with that strategy almost immediately, as my improvised swimsuit was yanked off by the speed of my movement. With an annoyed curse, I gathered it up and hung it up to dry for me to change back into later, before heading back into the water.

Finding a particularly tasty looking yellow and black fish, I zipped in and speared it, before heading back for the surface to deposit it on the beach. I did this three more times before I was satisfied, then spent some time collecting some crabs and large shrimp. Once I had what I wanted, I made my way back to the beach and dragged my catch to the edge of the forest, where I dug a hole for the fish leftovers. I cleaned everything and set it aside, before making a fire pit and starting a fire. Some sticks cut down from the trees gave me skewers for the food and I set those up to cook.

While I fondly remembered Japanese food, most especially sushi and sashimi… this was Brasa. I didn’t want to risk getting parasites, even if I was pretty sure they couldn’t actually harm the interior of my mostly mana body. I poured myself a glass of juice and laid out in my hammock, sipping at the cold drink and enjoying the peace and quiet as I closed my eyes and smiled contentedly.

Peace and quiet which was broken a few moments later as I heard a rowdy whoop and a splash. Cracking open my eye, I glared at the intrusion upon my quiet afternoon. The source of the noise was none other than my own men. Grantz broke the surface and yelled to the others, “The water’s amazing!”

“Alright, we’ll set up here,” Weiss began directing the others to put out their own supplies. They looked a little well-prepared for people who had only just been told they had the afternoon off. In fact, I was pretty sure they had planned it.

It was Visha who finally spotted me. She wore an outfit similar to my own, a red and green floral pattern to hers as opposed to my white and orange. For a moment, she looked confused, wearing an expression on her beautiful face that screamed, ‘Does Not Compute.’ I’ll admit that I might have taken a few moments to study her curvy, athletic form from behind the safety of my sunglasses.

“Uh, guys?” she called after a moment, before pointing at me. “The colonel is already here.”

There was a collective flinch, before all eyes turned to me. After a moment, Weiss snapped to attention. “Ma’am! We apologize. We didn’t know you were set up here—”

I waved him off, sitting up and rolling out of my hammock. Picking up my hat, I pulled it on as I made my way over. “It’s fine, major. The beach is big enough for all of us.”

“If you’re sure, ma’am? We can leave…”

I glanced at Visha for a moment and hummed. I didn’t want to leave, and I didn’t want them to feel obligated to leave, or to stay, on my behalf. I also… really wanted to enjoy the eye candy, now that Visha had shown up.

Damn puberty, I sighed internally. I shouldn’t be eyeing up my subordinate, but… hrm.

A grin pulled my lips up. “I said it’s fine. And drop the formalities, Weiss.” Making a show of looking down at myself, I asked, “I don’t see any rank insignia. Do you?”

“No, ma—” He caught himself, looking flummoxed for a moment.

“Tanya,” I offered. “It occurs to me that until such a time as we return home, we are all stuck with each other. So perhaps it would be best if we developed a rapport outside of work hours.”

Weiss nodded. “Very well.”

Visha chose that moment to strike, wrapping me in a hug against the vast expanses of her creamy, pale flesh and very athletic, but still very feminine body. “Tanya~! Let’s go swimming!”

“Sure,” I agreed easily, and allowed myself to be dragged off. But not before calling back, “Make sure the fish don’t burn and we can share!”

“Will do,” Weiss answered, and the group quickly relaxed.

We stayed out until the sun went down. By the time we made our way back up the beach to the garrison, I was pleasantly tired and full, my belly warm with something I was certain wasn’t just fruit juice. In fact, I was pretty sure that someone had dipped into the company stash of liquor and brought out the good stuff we’d brought back from Africa, and poured a few splashes into the iced juice I’d made and shared with the others, which they had refilled after another trip into town for more supplies at some point. Either way, I was relaxed and happy as I showered off and collapsed into my bed, the open windows and fan providing a cool breeze that felt great on my hot skin, as I slept with the covers off.

The next morning, I woke up feeling refreshed and, frankly, amazing as I stretched out in the bed and popped various joints in my back, neck, arms, legs, and even hips. “Oof. I can’t believe how much of a difference just an afternoon makes.”

Sitting up, I frowned as I realized that Visha hadn’t come by with my breakfast or to set out my clothes. Well, I was hardly one to begrudge my subordinates a day off, especially when I had ordered it the previous afternoon. So, I got up and got dressed in my civilian clothes again, intending to take the day myself and resume duty tomorrow. As I did, I noticed that I hadn’t sunburned at all.

You know, I mused as I slipped my sandals on, this provides a somewhat unique opportunity…

Whistling to myself, I made my way down to the kitchen. It had been a while since I’d cooked, but I still remembered how. Knowing Visha’s preferences, I whipped up some eggs (sunny side up and runny, yuck), bacon (burnt to a crisp, the heathen), and a couple of buttered rolls while putting together my own breakfast and starting the coffee brewing. After eating and downing my own coffee, I made my way up to Visha’s quarters, coffee and breakfast in hand.

Bumping the door open with my hip, I found my adjutant sleeping away soundly on her belly, covers thrown off and her back side exposed to the air—not that I blamed her, I’d wound up much the same way last night. It was just too warm to be comfortable, otherwise. Visha’s normally pale skin was pink all over from sunburn.

Those are going to make for some interesting tan lines… Mm, summer edition Visha.

Setting the plate and coffee down on her desk, I considered how to wake her. Smacking the very inviting target she presented was oh so very tempting… but a superior shouldn’t sexually harass their subordinates. And with Visha, that could have very real, very dire consequences… So I thought better of it.

I wasn’t this randy before I blew myself up, I grumbled internally, wondering if maybe rebuilding my body had changed something fundamental. Or it could just be that with a new body that isn’t malnourished and stunted, my sex drive is waking up? It could be environmental as well. We’re no longer in an active combat zone and I’ve started to relax. Even if we’ve seen combat, so far, our enemies haven’t been anything like a match for us. It’s like that time we rolled over Dacia. Less stress, new environment…

Shaking my head, I compartmentalized, putting those thoughts in a box to deal with later. Instead, I reached out and shook Visha’s shoulder. The blonde snorted softly, before jerking, coming awake with an explosive formula on her lips as was habit when someone unexpected touched her while she was sleeping. She caught herself as she noticed me. “Colonel?” She blinked, taking in my lack of uniform. “Tanya?”

“I made breakfast,” I told her, gesturing at the table. “Enjoy. I’m going to go for a jog.”

“Uh…” she stared after me as I headed for the balcony windows. Finally, she came to her senses as I took off and called, “Thank you!”

Touching down on the path between the garrison and the fort, I settled into a jog, letting the easy rhythm of my boots on the dirt path lull me into a zen-like state as I let my mind wander.

There were so many things we needed to do soon.

Recruit more troops—I remembered the governor had said he would see what he could do about that, so we could afford to wait a bit on it. Possibly recruit and start training some new aerial mages. Any mage could detect someone with potential, so we should easily be able to find recruits and entice them with pay, we just had to look. We also needed supplies to equip those soldiers and replace our own gear as it wore down—more guns, more bullets, more computation orbs, boots, uniforms, and so on. We had a bunch of supplies that Ugar had managed to send to us on the train, but those wouldn’t last forever.

There’s a thought. Uniforms. We can’t keep going around in altered Imperial uniforms. Eventually, someone may catch wind of it and look to investigate. We also need to do something about our name. We can source uniforms locally. Find out what color the locals use and avoid that. Perhaps a couple of different camouflage patterns for different environments. We’re going to be doing a bunch of work in the jungle, so those should come first.

As for a name… what was it I said? I had a thought… Ah! A military without borders. Why not that? In English, it’s ‘military without borders.’ German, ‘militar ohne grenzen.’ But we’re here in Brasa and we don’t want to tie ourselves back to the Empire if possible, so… Militar Sin Fronteras, or MSF. Going to need a logo. Eh, I’ll leave that to someone more artsy.

Eventually, I finished the three and a half mile run as the fort came into sight. I didn’t even feel winded, after that—just a slight drain on my mana. Approaching the gate, I was greeted by the guard on duty. “Halt! No one is allowed—oh! Sorry, colonel!” he snapped to attention. “Go on in.”

“It’s fine. Any activity?”

“None, ma’am! It’s been quiet. The locals avoid the place.”

“Good,” I murmured, nodding. “At ease,” I nodded and continued inside, looking around. Lifting off from the ground, I surveyed the area from the air, stopping when I got a good view of the river and the wall facing it. Humming to myself, I eyed the gate leading into the courtyard and did some mental math. My lips quirked into a grin as I keyed up on the shortwave. “This is Colonel von Degurechaff. Who is on duty for the mechanized division today?”

“That’d be me, ma’am,” Capt. Maybert answered.

“Capt. Maybert, are you busy at the moment?”

“No, ma’am. Nothing I can’t hand off to someone else.”

“Meet me at the fort. I want to ask your opinion of something.”

“Roger that, ma’am. I’ll be there shortly.”

Roughly three minutes later, the man dropped in beside me. He paused, seeing I was out of uniform. “Ma’am, aren’t you off duty?”

“I am,” I confirmed. “However, I was taking a little stroll around the place up here and I couldn’t help but notice that we have a long, open line of sight over the river and the fact that we’re sitting in a natural choke point. Tell me, captain. What’s the range on those guns we took from the commies?”

“The smaller guns have an effective range of a little over eight miles, but if you want any sort of accuracy, I’d call it seven. The big guns have a range of a bit over twelve miles, but I’d back it down to eleven.” Looking out over the water, he grinned. “Those 122mm guns could easily cover the entire river. The 76mm guns, not so much. They’d be clear on our northwest and we couldn’t traverse the 122mm guns that far if you’re thinking of parking them in the courtyard. However…” He pointed across the river. “We could build a small bunker, put in a couple of those arty pieces, and if we need to, send someone over to man it.”

“I like it,” I nodded. “Get it done, captain. And deploy the other pieces at the garrison. I want as much coverage as we can get. We’ll need to make sure we’ve got lookouts stationed here watching the river, just in case some unwelcome surprise comes wandering in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, and Maybert? See if you can have it done before dark. We need to range them properly and everyone loves a good fireworks display.”

I left with a whistle and a skip in my step. Pretty fireworks. All I need is a proper target to test them on… Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a division of commies for a live fire test.