Part 27 - Roots

 

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Warning: This is adult literature.  If you’re not of a legal age to read this stuff, don’t.

 

Disclaimer: This is a work of pure fiction.  No semblance between the characters described here and real individuals -- living or dead -- is implied or intended.

 

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Plot Synopsis Up to This Point:

 

Four female postgraduate students in New Mexico (Vicky, Tammy, Louisa and Kim) are living depressing lives fraught with personal and professional failures. 

 

One day, driving through the lonely new Mexico desert, they are commandeered by aliens.  Turns out, the aliens would like to come back one day and mine the our earthly sphere until it's Swiss cheese.  But in the meantime, they need a little help mapping the earth's geology.  And who better to help with that than a handful of local females, recruited involuntarily? The aliens soup them up with some supernatural abilities and turn them loose.

 

No one knows when the aliens are going to come back, if they ever do.  And that gives the girls plenty of opportunity to explore the supernatural abilities the aliens have given them.  In case you've never been superhuman, it involves not only absurd strength, but also being absurdly attractive, with the sexual appetite to match.  It means that whichever guy you choose to sleep with somehow finds reserves of virility and endurance that he never previously had.  It means you can store a city’s worth of electricity inside of you, and blow shit up at will.  And it means you can fly.

 

As we leave off Part 26, Tammy and her new boyfriend Alec are visiting Crimea, on the Black Sea.  Both have been to Eastern Europe before.  Alec had visited frequently as part of a fine art smuggling ring, a part of his life he had later come to regret.  In the most recent chapter, Tammy came to bail his ass out of trouble, an adventure that ended with her finally realizing the depth of her affection for him.

 

But Tammy has made a previous visit to the region as well.  She had come earlier to drain the power from a local nuclear plant -- recharging her super body and bringing its power to new levels.  Now, Tammy's girlfriends were making their own visits to the nuclear plant, recharging their bodies as well.  The strain on the power plant has caused massive power outages throughout the region.  Seizing an opportunity, the a group of countries to the east of Crimea -- Eastern Coalition -- army has begun to press long-festering territorial claims in the area.  They are carrying out an invasion that the power-starved Ukrainian military has been unable to resist.   

 

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Tammy closed her eyes, took another sip of her espresso as the cool sea breeze tickled her skin.  Yalta was said to be the jewel of the Crimean coast, and after two days here, she could believe it.  Warm sunshine embraced a town square lined with cafes and stately stone buildings, rich with history.  Views from her seat at the cafe took in the expanse of the Black Sea, as well as the forested hills behind.  It would have been more enjoyable, however, without the chatter of the TV next to the door.

 

"....and so the ocean reef teems with life -- a fascinating undersea community rich with exotic shapes and vivid colors.  Here, we see a see a sea anemone, it's translucent tentacles waving slowly through the water..."

 

The volume of the TV was too loud.  The broadcast was in English and Tammy found it hard to ignore.

 

"....sea anemones derive part of their sustenance on their own, but a significant share comes from this bright-orange creature, the clownfish.  This diminutive fish excretes nutrients that sustain the anemone..."

 

Gross, Tammy thought.

 

"... the fish, however, receives something in return.  The stinging tentacles of anemone protect the fish, providing a safe haven in an environment teeming with predators...."

 

Why do people always find nature shows so fascinating, Tammy wondered?  Sure, all the little colored fish are pretty.  But they're stupid, unthinking organisms doing whatever their ingrained behaviors tell them to do.  It's not like there is some hidden genius in all of their actions.

 

"...and thus, one of the great relationships in undersea nature is formed.  The fish sustains the anemone, and the anemone in turn protect the clownfish..."

 

Tammy shot a look of annoyance at the cafe manager.  He reluctantly grabbed the remote and muted the show out.

 

The cafe now silent, Tammy closed her eyes again.  It was the first moment of solitary peace she had experienced since arriving in the region.  The silence, combined with the rhythm of the distant waves, was hypnotizing.

 

Her thoughts drifted to Alec.  He had disappeared to find several things for her -- a Ukrainian phrase book and a sun hat.   Alec was great that way: his enthusiasm for doing her favors seemed to know no limits.  To replace her bullet-hole-ridden garments, he had already scared up some resort clothing -- a sarong type skirt and a sleeveless tank top that hugged her curves nicely.  She had tied the sarong lazily, allowing it to open to the upper thigh.  Might as well give the man some eye candy for his labors.

 

But perhaps her eye candy was being proffered to more than just Alec, she wondered.  Even with her eyes closed, her super senses could detect the movements of the people in the square, the tone of their whispered foreign language.   They seemed to be gawking at her.  She was used to being stared at -- any trip to a Scottsdale nightclub or pool party would set off a near riot among the hormone-infested men looking for a good time.  

 

But then again, there was something different about the way these townspeople gawked at her.  The activity in the square was wary, asexual, and strangely organized. 

 

The children's soccer game, boisterous when she had arrived, had slowed to half-hearted passes combined with muted conversation.  Two mothers sat nervously on a bench, all whispers and pointing.

 

Something was up.

 

Perhaps it was the invasion by the group of countries called the “Eastern Coalition”.  E.C. tanks and rolled past the town several days ago on their march to seize more territory.  There had been no violence in the town itself, but the occupation was an uneasy peace.  And the BOOM of distant mortars was a reminder that recent events were not friendly.

 

Looking at the people on the square however, Tammy wondered whether the unease could really be about the Eastern Coalition.  These people seemed to be staring directly at her.  

 

"You .... you from here."  An old toothless man was resting on his cane. She had seen him before, nearly immobile in his frailty.  But now he had mustered the energy to hobble over to her.

 

"No, I'm not from here.  I'm from New Mexico, a city call Alb--"

 

"No."  He waved a vehement hand, as if he was trying to stop traffic.  "You from here.  Obornets Tamara."

 

"My name is Tammy."

 

"Obornets Tamara," he insisted.  "Your name."

 

"No, my name is not Obornets, and it's not Tamara either," she said authoritatively.  Did he know who he was fucking with?

 

He held up a hand, again directing the conversational traffic to stop.  Anxiously, he smoothed his button-down cardigan and looked around.  Hobbling several steps across the cafe, he came back with a newspaper, which he lay on her cafe table.

 

His thick fingers had trouble turning the pages. 

 

Tammy's own fingers strummed her coffee cup impatiently.  Superwomen shouldn't have to put up with entertaining crazy-old-men.

 

At long last, he found the article he was looking for, and spread it out proudly before her.  

 

Tammy's breath caught in her throat.  There was her picture, clear as day.  It was not an action scene or a lustful bikini shot.  It had lines and triangles throughout the page --  a family tree.  She found her biological father -- not her step dad, but her biological one -- and then a grandfather she never knew, and the linkages went on from there.  English names, such as Albuquerque, she recognized.  Other names were in a foreign tongue.

 

"Tamara," the man pointed at the ground adamantly, his grey eyes urgent.  "Here!"

 

In her confusion, she barely noticed Alec place a newly purchased sunhat on her lap.

 

"Tamara is, in fact, a Slavic name," Alec agreed, pecking her on the check.

 

"Take a look at this," Tammy asked, handing him the paper.

 

Alec's eyes darted back and forth, up and down, across the page before he spoke again.  "Looks like your roots indeed go back here," he observed.  "The article even points out a village.  Your ancestors used to tend sheep in those hills."  He looked looked east, toward the Kerch Strait, the green hills shrouded in morning mist. 

 

"You're shitting me," Tammy replied, grabbing the article back.

 

"The locals must be elated," Alec noted.  "This isn't just a passing mention in the paper.  This is part of an eight-part series."

 

A smile spread across the old man's face, victorious.  He grabbed Tammy's hand and nearly hauled her out of the cafe chair.  It clattered to the ground as he, with some resurgence of energy he had not shown before, dragged her out of the cafe.

 

"Um, Alec," she shouted over her shoulder.  "Now that I'm getting so schooled on my heritage, remind me, what country are we in?"

 

"Ukraine," he replied as she was led away.

 

The old man guided her into the seaside t-shirt shop next to the cafe.  

 

The inside of the shop was like a bizarre metaphysical joke.  T-shirts bore her likeness, over the words "оборонець Tamara".  Coffee mugs had the same imagery.  The store had poorly crafted ceramic statues of her, with big blue eyes that made her look more like a bug than a person.  There were postcards of some village with old buildings and sheep labeled "селище Tamara."

 

"Tamara," the man insisted, assertively jabbing his finger into the collarbone of the woman who could crush tanks with a shrug.  "No Tammy."

 

"OK, OK!" she giggled.  "Have it your way.  Tamara.  As long as I’m a tourist here, I’m Tamara.”

 

“No tourist,” the man asserted urgently, pointing at her feet.  “Always home.”

 

A crowd was gathering now -- the soccer-playing kids, the women, others too.

 

"It's weird," she confided to Alec as the commotion grew.  "Ever since we landed here, I've felt strangely at peace here.  But he didn't say just 'Tamara.'  He said 'Obornets Tamara'."

 

"'Obornets...." Alec thought out loud.  "I usually hear that word in a soccer game.  It's the position right in front of the goalie."

 

"They want me to play soccer?"

 

"Hang on.  Let's see what the phrase book says," he offered, flipping through the pages.  "The position in soccer immediately in front of the goal.   Also, ‘defender’ or sometimes 'protector'."

 

As he finished speaking, another fully loaded Eastern Coalition gunship roared overhead.

 

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"This?  This is where I came from?"  Tammy asked.

 

Tank tracks were still fresh in the main street of the hillside village.  Several aged cars still smoldered, filling the air with the sickening smell of burning plastic.  Shopkeepers swept the shards of shattered store front windows off the sidewalk.  Tammy and Alec had glanced through the jagged holes in the glass to see empty store shelves: the invaders had taken whatever provisions they desired as they passed through town.  

 

Outside of town, the sheep had been slaughtered, not as food for the passing troops, but as part of the assault, Alec explained.  Rob the people of their livelihood, and the resistance will break easier.  And it was working.  

 

"I'm from this place?" she asked redundantly.

 

Alec nodded.

 

"And they did this to MY people?"

 

He nodded again.

 

"And what about the Ukrainian army, Alec?  Do they have a chance of resisting them?"

 

"No against these invaders."

 

Her eyes went distant.  Alec watched the tendons on her forearms stand out in steely relief as her fists clenched.

 

"They are fucking with the wrong girl."

 

 

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The slanted rays of dawn carved hard lines across Tammy's nude form as she stretched on the hotel balcony.

 

Alec paused for a moment to appreciate the powerful architecture of her backside -- the athletic swell of her rounded ass, the depth of the valley formed by by the muscles on either side of her back bone.  He forced himself to appreciate her with his eyes only, and not his hands.  There was no time.

 

"Here," he offered, placing a garment on the balcony rail.  "The country wanted you to have this."

 

Tammy turned the garment over in her hands.  It looked like a workout outfit -- a stretchy "boy short" bottom, and a stretchy top with a high neckline and t-shirt-length arms, but bare at the midriff.  It was golden yellow and sky blue.

 

"Michigan football?" Tammy asked as she examined the colors.  

 

"No, uh, Ukraine.  It's their national colors."

 

"Oh.  They made this thing for me overnight?"  

 

"In Kiev.  They flew it down this morning."

 

After Tammy's announcement to the media yesterday, this was not a surprise.  She had made headlines.  Her announcement was directed at the Eastern Coalition-- a consortium of Middle Eastern and Eastern European countries that had united to evict Ukraine from the Strait.  She told the Coalition it had 24 hours to withdraw or they would suffer the consequences.  Further, Tammy demanded they cede not just the territory they had conquered, but also everything within 100 miles of the "Church Strait."   

 

Breathless news reporters had translated her message into Ukrainian and other languages.  Despite the continuing power outages, they had broadcast her ultimatum with such effectiveness that even children were repeating her phrases.  Nobody had mustered the temerity to tell her that she had the name of the "Kerch Strait" wrong.

 

Alec tried tear his eyes away from the perfection of her naked form.  Even after all their love-making, the sight of her was a vortex from which his mind struggled to escape.  Even now, he felt his eyes involuntarily sliding down the over-generous curvature of her breasts.  

 

"Your uniform-- try it on," he almost begged. "They told me it was made of the same stuff they use in bullet-proof vests.  But instead of using one layer, they used fifteen.  The uniform, uh, ought to be able to take considerable abuse."  

 

She slid her arms into the top and brought it over her head.  Alec had handled the material himself and had concluded that fifteen layers of Kevlar had no give.  But in Tammy's hands the material seemed no stronger than gauze. Tammy forced the material over her prodigious bust line.  The top crackled with strain and hugged her like a glove.  

 

The bottom half of her suit suffered the same fate, crackling with strain as it was forced over the firm swell of her ass.  Tammy then ran her hands over the firm material that was stretched across her far firmer body.  

 

"Ask them if they can make one more of these suits.  Louisa is nearby," she explained.  The electric lights continued to flicker, a reminder that Tammy's companion was continuing to help herself to the country's power supply.

 

Alec traced an arm around the concave lines of her trim waist.  "Are you sure you want to do this?   This is more than a few mercenaries.  This is an army.  Have you ever tested yourselves against weapons of this size?"

 

She responded by grabbing his free arm and pulling it further around her.  "Tell me how they're responding to my ultimatum.  What's happening in the Eastern Coalition?"

 

"Desertions have been increasing.  Some soldiers don't want to confront a girl who hauled a cruise ship into port single-handedly.  But..."

 

"But what?" she prodded.

 

"...But they're bringing in replacements for the deserters, and then some.  An untold amount of weaponry is arriving on the eastern side of the Strait as well -- heavy artillery as well as other armaments that appear to be secret in nature.  They're planning on a hell of an assault, Tammy."

 

Tammy gazed out over the sea, its onshore wind blowing her hair gently back.  The gentle blue of her eyes seemed suddenly to harden.

 

"Good," she replied.  

 

Her voice had a strange depth to it, and for some reason it sent a shiver through Alec.

 

"What?" he ventured.

 

"I don't know.  There's a part of me that wants this badly.

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Thousands of enemy troops harbor hopes of resisting me.  I want to crush them.  I want to see the look on their faces when they realize how pathetic they are against my overwhelming power."

 

Another chill went through him.  "It's not like you to talk like that."

 

"I know.  My own desire for this fight is scaring me.  I can't wait to obliterate everyone standing in my way.  Is that normal?"

 

"Honestly, no," he replied.

 

"I have to resist it."

 

Alec was silent.

 

"The feeling is foreign, Alec.  It's as though the desire is being injected into me, from deep down inside."

 

 

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"Under no circumstances will I have you out there fighting on our behalf."  The Ukrainian General looked up from his battlefield map and rubbed the leathery skin on his face.  "I've heard all kinds of silliness about your abilities.  But this is not a game for girls."

 

"It IS a game, for me at least," the blond pouted.  "And playing it would make me feel very, very good."

 

The General felt himself temporarily distracted by her presence, his eyes wandered over a body that was half porn star, half Olympic athlete.  He felt a small stirring of pride to realize that Ukraine's genetic stock had brought forth this.... wonder.  

 

Be firm, he reminded himself.  Lives were on the line.  "We don't have time for more banter," he replied sternly.  "If it wasn't for three phone calls from the prime minister, you wouldn't even be in here right now.  I have a battle that could start at any moment, and I need to prepare for it."

 

"No," the blond smiled as she sidled up to him.  "You need to prepare ME for it.  Tell me about all these little thingys," she demanded, waving her hand over the battlefield map.  It was the size of a large conference table, complete with miniature colored wood pieces representing infantry, armored divisions, artillery -- the list went on.

 

The general groaned to himself.

 

She grabbed a green block, holding it up.  "Is this a tank?"

 

"No," he retorted grabbing it back from her.  "It represents a division of armored personnel carriers."

 

"That's different than a tank?" she asked, furrowing her brow in confusion. 

 

Damn, she was beautiful.  "No.  I mean yes, it's different than a tank.  You need to leave the command center now.  I'm ordering you."

 

"What's this?" she asked, picking up a yellow piece with a dowel glued on the top.  "Is this a big gun?"

 

"In the military, we call it artillery.  You need to leave," he reminded her, but with less conviction. It made him feel good to explain things to her.  

 

"And what's all this stuff?" she asked pointing to a line of x-shaped metal objects.

 

"Those are barricades to prevent the enemy from reaching us on a flanking operation..."  He studied the confusion on her breathtaking face.  "... It's to stop them from coming around the side."

 

"But how could they come around the side?  That's off the edge of the table."  She stomped her foot in frustration, causing a battlefield's worth of little wood blocks to jump.  "Oh, I'm never going to understand this using stupid wood models.  And it's almost show time.  Maybe you can explain it to me using the real stuff?"

 

"What do you mean?"  

 

Rather than respond, she became a blur.  He felt a lithe arm wrapped around his waist and, without warning, felt himself rocketing upward in her embrace.  He was a thousand feet in the air -- and still climbing -- by the time he managed to look down.    Below, his headquarters tent was a quickly disappearing speck, punctuated by a hole in the canvas the size of a period.

 

"OK," she chirped.  "Let's try this over again."

 

"aaaaaaaaaa," the General responded, looking at the endless void below his feet.

 

"Artillery over there," Tammy volunteered, pointing.  "And then, uh, tanks over there."

 

"Armm.... aaaaaa.... armored personnel ca... aaaaaa"

 

"Sorry, armored personnel carriers.  Is that right?"

 

"aaaaa... yeaa... aaaa..."

 

"Yea, I got one right!"  Her angelic face turned to examine him.  "Don't be so nervous!  I got you real good."

 

She gave a playful squeeze to empathize the point.  His chest momentarily felt like it had been hit by a flying cinder block.

 

"What's that stuff way in the distance over there?"  She pointed.

 

"Anti..... anti-aircraft missiles," the General managed, slowly collecting his senses.  

 

"Very good," she chided.  "You're speaking again."

 

The General took as big a breath as the steel vice of her arms would allow.  The words started to flow now.  "We can't tell if they are Kub systems or Krugs.  They're too well camouflaged."

 

"How can you tell them apart?"

 

"One has two missiles on each launcher, one has three."

 

Tammy squinted her eyes.  "Looks like they've got both.  Ten of one type, eight of the other.  Do you want the serial numbers?"

 

The general looked at the anti-aircraft batteries in the distance -- formless blobs the size of ants, hidden under layer upon layer of green tarpaulin.  "How can you ..."

 

But he never finished his sentence.  A zinging sound -- one that he knew all too well-- filled his ears.  Looking around, he spotted the culprit.  Six enemy gunships, arriving seemingly out of nowhere, had unleashed their gatling guns upon the flying pair.

 

The woman, however, seemed not to notice the assault and instead stayed focused on the launchers in the distance.  "What's the big difference if they are Kub's or Krug's?  They're all missiles right?"

 

"Uh, lady, we're being fired upon!"  Another volley of bullets tore past.  They were big bullets, so big that they almost made a groaning sound as they traveled -- so big that a single one could easily tear a guy to shreds.

 

"I'm not done talking about the anti-aircraft stuff," Tammy pouted, giving him a little squeeze to remind him who was in charge.  "Why do you care about which kind it is?"

 

"OK."  He did his best to calm his nerves.  "anti-aircraft systems matter..."

 

Zing, groan went another volley of huge bullets.

 

"... they matter because one's short range and one's long range."  

 

Zing, whirr, groan sounded the bullets.  "With both types of systems deployed, they can take down any of our aircraft, anywhere in the skies..."  

 

Zing, groan.  "...that, combined with their superior helicopter and jet fleets, gives them complete air supremacy..."

 

Zing, whoosh.  ".... a relevant example of their air supremacy is the fact that they have six gunships over our forces right now.  And we are unable to stop them from turning you and me into target practice!"

 

Zing, groan.  The most recent volley of bullets was so close, he could feel the wind on his cheek.

 

"Can't they see that we're not ready yet?" the woman asked in annoyance.  She waved a hand at one of the attacking craft, and a blue bolt of lightning erupted out of her fingers.  The lightning danced across the helicopter, producing a loud WHUMP and engulfing the craft in a 50-foot-wide fireball.  Its frame, blackened and hollowed-out, began plummeting to earth.  Then, she waved her hand dismissively -- as if she were trying to brush crumbs off a table -- at the remaining five craft.  WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP -- the helicopters erupted into blinding fireballs, scraps of metal flying a hundred yards in every direction.

 

The General tried to form words, but they didn't come.

 

"What's going on down there?"  She pointed at the enemy's columns on the ground, which were now shifting forward toward the Ukrainians.  "Are they mobilizing for a ground attack too?"

 

He nodded.

 

"I need more time to learn all this stuff," the woman lamented to the wind.  "These jerks need to stay back for now."  

 

The General watched as his aerial companion directed a fist at the ground below.  If the lightning bolts she had used on the helicopters had been impressive, this one was downright terrifying.  The back of his eyes winced in pain from the brightness and his gut felt the rumble of thunder caused by her discharge.  The bolt hit the ground with a resounding THUMP, sending a plume of dirt, vehicles, and troops two hundred feet into the air.  

 

The advancing column had been stopped in its tracks.  As an enormous plume of smoke slowly cleared, the crater became visible.  It was sixty yards across.

 

"How much power do you actually have?  That was like ten of our most powerful aerial bombs," he noted in trepidation.

 

"Oh," she said, slowly comprehending.  "So that was impressive?"

 

The General only stared into the distance, in silence.  She was more observant than any radar system, faster in her response than any jet, more powerful than any fleet of bombers.  She was a one woman air force.

 

The beautiful girl narrowed her gaze in earnest concentration.  "Where were we?  Oh!  You were telling me that the enemy had something called 'air supremacy.'  Do we need to do something about that?"

 

"Not anymore."  With his free hand, he unfastened a pin on his uniform jacket, slipped its sharp prong under the neck strap of her top, and re-fastened it.   The general ran his fingers solemnly over the pin.  

 

It had four stars. 

 

"Commander Tamara.  It will be you that leads us into battle."

 

 

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Tammy felt the eyes of the officers as she walked the command center with the General, now second in command, at her side.  The officers were staring, which shouldn't have been unusual.  But how much was desire, and how much was wariness of the new, supernatural force in their midst?

 

"Is the temporary ceasefire in effect?" she asked her General.

 

"Yes.  We requested and received a cease fire, as you instructed."

 

"And the troop assembly?"

 

"We assembled as many of the troops as we could for your introductory speech.  We still need a few minutes to get the sound system set up.  Nonetheless, if you wish to appear before them now, the dais from which you will give your speech is through there."  He motioned toward an opening in the tent flap.

 

Tammy looked at the opening.  She hesitated.  She didn't have a speech prepared.

 

"Tamara, think carefully about what you say to them" the General cautioned.  "They're willing to believe that you can survive this fight.  But they're concerned what happens to them.  Do they just become collateral damage as you become absorbed in the thick of the battle?  Will the Eastern Coalition annihilate them in order to get at you?  Serious questions are on their mind."

 

"How many of our troops are out there?"

 

"About five thousand."

 

Five thousand -- the number sent a tremor through her.  She had acted once in a school play, in front of an audience of perhaps 150, and that experience had reduced her to a nervous wreck.  Now, she would be speaking to many times that.  

 

They would be watching her every move, wondering whether she had the maturity and experience to handle the coming conflict.  Even worse, they didn't have to wonder about her experience: she didn't have any.  Tammy felt the flutter of butterflies in her stomach as she walked toward the opening in the flap.

 

Cool morning air tickled her midriff as the bright sun stabbed at her eyes.  Thousands stood before her.  She looked at their faces, full of apprehension and uncertainty.  

 

But then it hit hear -- a confident warmth welling up from within.  Of course they are are scared, an inner voice told her.

 

They should be.   Look at your skin -- soft as any on this earth, and yet capable of withstanding high-caliber gatling guns without a scratch.  Now at their skin, so weak that it could be cut by knives and rocks.  Look at your muscles.  With 10,000 times the strength of a man, you have twice the strength of the assembled army -- combined.  Now look at their muscles, so frail that lifting even a paltry 200 pounds is a challenge.  Compared to you, they are insects.

 

The confidence she was feeling was truly foreign to her -- as if the emotion was being injected into her.  She had never looked at men as so weak and inconsequential.  But something inside her was changing.  And the new emotions felt good -- awfully good.  She wanted to feel them some more.

 

This is the way it should be, the inner voice continued.  They are meek. you are powerful.  They cower in fear, hanging on your every word.  You meanwhile act with impunity.

 

"Don't bother with the sound system."  Tammy announced.  "I will speak to them now."  

 

"Soldiers!"  Her voice was like a chorus of cannons.  It boomed over the assembly.  "I have come today to vanquish the foe that has occupied your land -- our land.  I expect that some of you may have misgivings about my ability to do this."

 

Tammy then slowly ascended through the air, her hair billowing in the wind, the bold colors of her blue-and-yellow suit visible to all.  She circled to the eastern edge of the field, close to the ground that separated the Ukrainians from their enemies.  Her delicate fist pointed below her.

 

The bolt the ground with an earth tremor of a THUMP, sending a plume of dirt and debris a hundred feet in the air.  A gut-wrenching shock wave rumbled across the assembled crowd.  

 

And rather than cease, the beam was sustained.  It began to "walk" a line across the landscape--- THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.  Enormous plumes of earth climbed skyward as the beam formed a hundred-foot-deep trench wherever it wandered.

 

She was separating the armies, they finally realized, with a trench that no enemy vehicle could cross.  Even infantry would have difficulty scaling the steep walls of her newly formed moat-without-water.

 

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP went the beam, as she casually reformed the landscape to fit her whims.

 

Finally, the gut-churning reverberations of the beam ceased.  In only a few effortless moments, the lithe blond woman had dramatically altered the odds of the battle.  The Ukrainians might still be the weaker army, but with that moat in place, they could defend themselves for many days.  The woman did an elegant aerial barrel roll and landed back on the dias.

 

"Do any of you have misgivings now?"

 

The crowed was in awed silence.

 

"You learn quickly, it appears.  The enemy may have a large army.  But it's only an army of men."  

 

Webbing her hands together, Tammy cracked her knuckles.  The sound rang out over the assembly-- like a half dozen large rifles firing, but deeper.  It echoed off the surrounding hills.

 

Somewhere in the crowd, a pair of hands came together in applause.  Then another, and another after that.  "Obornets Tamara" one soldier shouted.  Soon, other voices joined in.  "Obornets Tamara, Obornets Tamara!" the crowd shouted.

 

She raised a hand, silencing the crowd.

 

"I'm going to have a word with our enemy-- give them one last chance to surrender.  Meanwhile, you should go call your wives.  Tell them that you are coming home tomorrow."