Alternate Histories: Evacuation Day by GeekSeven ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOWNLOADED FROM http://www.superwomenmania.com/storybank ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- General George Washington, Supreme Commander of the Continental Army, sat behind a desk in his Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters with a satisfied smile on his face. The long siege of Boston was drawing to a close. The idiotic General Howe and his garrison had sat in Boston as Washington's forces had fortified Dorchester Heights and installed captured artillery, painstakingly transported hundreds of miles from Fort Ticonderoga over three hard winter months. They could now bombard the city of Boston at will. This presented Howe with two options: a frontal assault on the well-defended Dorchester Heights, or an evacuation of Boston. An assault would break the back of the British forces, even if it was successful; Washington would bet good money that Howe would retreat rather than face another Bunker Hill. Soon the British would be driven out of New England and Washington could turn his attention to New York and the mid-Atlantic. There was a knock at the door. His aide-de-camp entered with a puzzled expression. "General Washington, sir. You have a visitor. She insists on speaking with you and claims to be under the direct orders of King George." "She?" asked Washington. He was very puzzled; he had not heard the sounds of an approaching horse or cart. "Indeed. She introduced herself as Lady Caroline, Duchess of Rutland." The name did not mean much to Washington. He had always been more concerned with the affairs of the Colonies than with keeping track of the shifting world of noble politics in Great Britain. "Do our spies in Boston know anything about this?" he asked. His aide shook his head. "Not much. No ships have arrived in Boston for the last week. It is reported that a woman visited General Howe's headquarters yesterday and spent over an hour there. Raised voices were heard, but we know nothing else." Washington was intrigued. If she had raised her voice to the prickly Howe, then she must surely have the King's authority on her side. It was time she learned just how little that counted for in the newly independent States of America. "Show her in. I want you and two guards to stay with her at all times." The aide left and returned a few minutes later. He entered and said, "General Washington, may I present the Lady Caroline, Duchess of Rutland." A tall, strikingly attractive young woman entered the room, moving serenely across the floor as if she were gliding across ice. Washington could not remember the last time he had seen such a beautiful woman; certainly not since the first time he had met Martha. She had piercing blue eyes that Washington imagined could see right through him. Two regular soldiers followed her in and closed the door behind them. They stood to either side of the door, arms crossed. Washington's aide took a position behind and to the right of Washington. Lady Caroline wore a light, summery outfit: a full white skirt and a corseted bodice with a golden trim around her decolletage. Her golden blonde hair was tied back and a single braid hung down the side of her face. She looked as if she was dressed for a London garden party in June, rather than the muck and cold of a New England winter slowly turning to spring. Washington could not believe that she was not shivering in the chilly room, or that her white skirts were so clean. Her skin was her most unusual feature: it was smooth and flawless. There were no scars from smallpox or other diseases, the everyday travails of life appeared to have left no mark on her whatsoever, leaving her creamy skin as perfect as a marble statue. She smiled, revealing a full set of the whitest teeth he had ever seen. "General Washington! So good to make your acquaintance." She bowed slightly, clearly at ease with the masculine gesture. He bowed in return. "Lady Caroline. So good of you to visit. I apologize for the somewhat rough condition of my current abode, but we appear to be in the middle of a war right now." Washington had little time for pleasantries today. "Please, take a seat." "Thank you." Lady Caroline arranged herself in a chair. She sat with her back straight up, which caused her chest to thrust out, emphasising her femininity in a way that caused some discomfort amongst the men in the room. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Lady Caroline? I was told that you were here under orders from the King? Please do not take this the wrong way, but I am surprised that he would think it appropriate to send a mere woman to negotiate with me." Lady Caroline laughed; a sweet sound that filled the room. "Oh dear me, no. I am not here to negotiate with you. I am here to present an ultimatum and to ensure compliance with said ultimatum." Washington was taken aback. "What do you mean, an ultimatum?" he asked, angrily. "Please do not become agitated, General. The terms are quite simple. At noon tomorrow, the Continental Army will surrender and cease all hostile acts against the legitimate government of the Colonies, which is to say the Crown. The people of the Colonies will then have a week to stand down and end their illegal rebellion. They will then rejoin the family of Great Britain, with less independence than before." Washington could not help but stare at her with his mouth wide. "You jest, of course. Why would we surrender when we are on the brink of driving the Crown out of New England once and for all? You are losing this war. The united States of America are standing at the brink of freedom from British tyranny." Lady Caroline smiled as if she had secret knowledge. "You have been fighting quite admirably against idiots like Howe, but I am here now. Unless you surrender, I will literally decimate the Continental Army; that is to say I will kill one tenth of the soldiers. Another tenth will die every day that you delay surrender. I will see your capital in Philadelphia razed to the ground. You and the other leaders will be taken to London where you will be hanged, drawn and quartered for your treachery. If you surrender, then I am sure that the King will show more leniency than you deserve." "That is preposterous!" shouted Washington. "With what are you planning to do this? You have brought no fresh armies, no new weapons and no new ships. You expect us to surrender our freedoms because a mere slip of a woman tells us to?" Lady Caroline rose to her feet. "It is true that I am unaccompanied by fresh soldiers, but in truth I do not need them. I will do all these things myself, alone and unaided. These hands," she raised her slim hands to show them to Washington, "can tear your toy soldiers apart as if they were nothing more than the smallest twigs on a tree." "You are a madwoman! Guards! Escort Lady Caroline, if that even is her real name, from the premises!" The two guards moved to obey their General. Each of them placed an arm on one of Lady Caroline's shoulders and made to escort her to the door. "Do not touch me, Colonial scum!" she shouted. She raised her arms and pushed each of the guards lightly in the chest; they flew across the room and into the walls. They were shocked, but mostly unhurt. They rose to their feet, drew their flintlock pistols and aimed them at Lady Caroline. Washington's aide drew his own pistol and aimed it directly at Lady Caroline's forehead. He stood barely seven feet from her and at that range even the notoriously inaccurate flintlock would have no problem hitting her. Lady Caroline laughed. "How delicious. Go ahead and use your pathetic weapons. It will make a fine demonstration of how foolish it would be to stand against me." The aide needed no other encouragement. Part of his role was to carry out the morally questionable jobs that Washington could not; shooting a British noblewoman in the head probably fell into that category. He pulled the trigger and fired the flintlock. At first it appeared that he had, against all the odds, missed the shot. Lady Caroline did not flinch and there was no apparent effect. Looking closer, he could see a smudge of gray on her forehead left behind by the impact of the bullet. Lady Caroline leaned over and picked a flattened disc of lead from the ground. She tossed it towards the aide. "I believe this is yours," she said. The aide desperately worked to reload his pistol. Meanwhile the two guards each took a shot at Lady Caroline. There was no doubt that they were on target; holes appeared in both sides of her bodice where the bullets had hit, but the woman herself was unharmed and seemingly oblivious to the impacts. "I should warn you," she said, "that you only get one free shot. The next time you fire upon me, I will retaliate." The men ignored her threat, since she carried no weapon of any kind. General Washington rose to his feet and drew his own pistol, which he kept unloaded. While he worked to load it, his aide took another shot at Lady Caroline. The bullet hit her square in the chest, between the firm mounds of her breasts. The silk bow that she wore there was torn apart, but her cleavage was unperturbed by the shot. Lady Caroline started walking towards the aide with a purposeful stride. The two guards fired their pistols into her back, to no effect other than to tear more cloth. Washington's large, heavy desk stood between Lady Caroline and her target. She reached down and grabbed it with one hand. With a casual flick of her wrist, she send the desk flying across the room and into a wall, where it cracked into several pieces. She closed the remaining distance between her and the aide faster than the eye could follow. The aide was fumbling with his pistol, attempting to load it for a third shot. Lady Caroline grabbed the firearm and easily pulled it from his hands. "You do not learn very quickly, do you? Your pistol is nothing to me. Here, let me demonstrate how superior I am to your primitive firearm." she said. She held the gun near the trigger and snapped it in half, tearing the strong wood of the stock into two pieces with little apparent effort. With a twist of her wrist, she separated the metal barrel from the rest of the wood. She held the barrel with one hand at each end and began to bend it; the metal gave little resistance in her hands and was soon bent into a perfect circle. She held it up to show to the aide and then dropped it to the ground. General Washington had loaded his pistol by this time. He held it up to the side of Lady Caroline's head and pressed the barrel into her hair. "I doubt that even you could survive a shot at this range, Lady Caroline. Stand down." Lady Caroline smiled her vicious smile. "Would you care to make a gentleman's wager on that, General Washington? Remember, you get one free shot." Washington pulled the trigger. There was a flash and a puff of smoke, but Lady Caroline did not move an inch. Washington was thrown onto his back by the recoil from the weapon. He examined his pistol and saw that the front of the barrel had split open and was now useless. He discarded the weapon, got to his feet and drew his sword. Lady Caroline reached for the aide's ammunition pouch and tore it apart; she caught one of the round lead bullets out of the air before it fell to the ground. She held the bullet between her thumb and forefinger. She looked the aide straight in the eyes with a cold expression on her face. "It is my turn now." she said. She pulled her finger back and flicked the bullet; the bullet flew through the air faster than a flintlock pistol could have propelled it and it closed the short distance to the aid in an instant. A ragged hole appeared in the man's head as the bullet entered through his temple and exited the back of the skull. The aide dropped to the floor, dead. The two guards were determined to protect General Washington and they fired their pistols at the impossible noblewoman for a third time. Again, the impact of the lead bullets appeared to be less than a gnat's bite to the young woman. She turned to face the soldiers, both grizzled veterans of the revolutionary campaign and a number of previous conflicts against the French and Indians. "You are to be commended for your devotion to duty, gentlemen. Alas, it will be your undoing today." She made no effort to move towards them, instead she simply stared intently at one of the men. Twin red beams of light shot from her eyes and hit one of the guards in the head. The room was filled with the stench of burning meat as the beams cut through the man's skin, skull and brains, disintegrating everything in their path and cooking everything around. The beams ceased and the man slumped to the ground, his head blackened, scorched and drilled clean through. She turned her head and looked at the remaining guard. He held his ground and continued loading his pistol for a shot that he would never fire. The terrifying red beams shot out from her eyes once again and hit the man in the chest. In an instant the material of his uniform was burned away, along with flesh, bone, muscle and his heart. When the beams were shut off, there was a ragged hole all the way through the man's chest where his heart had once been. He toppled over to the ground. General Washington came up behind her and swung his sword down hard. He was not expecting anything to come of it; the blade was not as sharp as it should have been and he was under no illusion that a sword would succeed where a gun had not. His swing never connected. Lady Caroline sidestepped quicker than his eye could follow and the General was left to swing at thin air. "I am afraid that if you were to strike me again, I would have to kill you. Unfortunately, that would be a direct violation of my orders. I choose not to let you strike me." she said. Washington slumped his shoulders in defeat. It would take an army to defeat this woman, not one old man with a blunt sword. He had an army, but he was not sure it would be enough. Lady Caroline turned to leave. "Remember, General, you have until noon tomorrow to surrender your army, or I will have to take matters into my own hands." She turned back to face him and sneered. "I am rather hoping that you do not surrender. I have not yet spilled nearly enough Colonial blood." "Why do you hate us so?" asked Washington. "My feelings are not important, General. What is important is that I am loyal to my King and my country. You and the rest of your rabble will be forced to show that same loyalty, even if you do not feel it in your hearts." She paused before leaving. "One more thing, General. I am looking forward to a relaxing afternoon and a good night's sleep. I would suggest that you do not fire any of the cannons you have worked so hard to install on Dorchester Heights. If I hear one cannon fire, I will scour Dorchester Heights clean of every living thing. Good day to you, General." With those words she was gone. General Washington ran to the window to observe her departure, but he could not see her in the street. He looked up and caught a glimpse of her slender figure, flying through the sky and over the river to Boston. Now he had to make a decision. He prepared to gather his senior commanders to discuss the situation. He left the bodies of the guards and his aide where they lay so that the other officers would have some idea of the force they were going up against should they choose to fight. He wondered what thoughts were going through the mind of the flying woman and whether they were even remotely human. ***** Lady Caroline was in a dark mood during her short flight over the river. She had enjoyed the brief demonstration of her powers, but she was worried that the demonstration might have been too effective. She had hoped that this mission would give her the chance to kill some Colonials and her opportunities to do so would be greatly reduced if they simply gave up their little rebellion and went home to their filthy farms. General Washington was right; she did hate the American Colonists. She had no intention of explaining to him why, or of telling him her story. Of how she was the sole survivor of a doomed planet, rocketed to safety by her parents mere moments before the destruction of her world. Of how she had landed on Earth many years later in the English countryside and been adopted by an aristocratic couple who had recently lost a daughter of their own and of how they had raised her as their own child, with love and respect. She would never reveal to the traitorous general how she had discovered her alien heritage and found that another child, her cousin no less, had also escaped the destruction of her world. Her cousin had not been as lucky as her. Due to the vagaries of interstellar travel, he had arrived on Earth 60 years before her. He had landed on the outskirts of Salem, Massachusetts during the fever of the witch trials. The ignorant, superstitious Colonists had dragged the infant boy from his craft, still weak and without the powers that long term exposure to a yellow sun would eventually grant him, and burned him alive. Shortly after the tragic death of her adoptive parents and a few years before the outbreak of the revolution, she had travelled to Salem and unearthed the charred bones of her baby cousin. In her nightmares, she imagined she could hear his screams as the flames consumed him. Was is any wonder that she hated the Colonials so much? If it were up to her, she would wipe the New World clean of life and start again from scratch with loyal English men and women. She was loyal to her King, however, and she would obey his orders to bring the rebellion to heel. ***** The weak, milky sun of a March dawn in Massachusetts woke Lady Caroline moments before the sound of cannons firing would have. The back window of her lodging gave her a good view of Dorchester Heights where the American soldiers were engaged in bombarding the city of Boston. Puffs of smoke rose from their cannons. It would appear that General Washington had decided to fight after all. She took her time getting dressed. She wanted the Colonials all fired up for a fight before she crushed them. Since she would be going into action against the entire army this time, she decided to wear her special outfit. Among the items found in the tiny spacecraft that had brought her to Earth was a small quantity of cloth. The cloth could not be worked with any tools found on Earth, but there was a small device found with it that Caroline had eventually determined could be used to shape the cloth. It could even change the texture and color of the material. There was enough to make one outfit, which she wore on special occasions, since it was invulnerable to damage. The outfit was inspired by military garb, but not so overtly that it could not be worn in polite company. Over a dark blue skirt, she wore golden bodice and a flared, dark blue tunic with decoration that suggested the buttons of a military uniform. Around the collar she had added a flash of red, which seemed appropriate for some reason. Black gloves and boots completed the outfit. She wore no hat, as it would have been difficult to keep it in place, and she let her long, blonde hair float free. She quickly flew across the water to Dorchester Heights and hovered in the air in front of the Continental forces. The artillery was arrayed along the edge of the hill with a good view of the city. She fired her heat vision along the line of cannons, igniting the stores of gunpowder and causing a series of explosions to throw guns and gunners flying in every direction. To their credit, the regular troops kept their composure. One hundred men raised their muskets and fired at her in unison. The firearms were inaccurate and she made for a small target, but the sheer number of shots fired guaranteed that many of them would hit her. Bullets struck her all over to no effect; they did not even leave a mark on her impervious outfit. The rebellious forces were too far away to see, but one bullet struck her lower lip, which was one of the more delicate parts of her body, but it too was flattened by the impact and went flying away having made no impression on Lady Caroline. While the first wave of musket-men were reloading, a second group of one hundred opened fire, to similarly little effect. Lady Caroline decided to take the fight to the enemy. She swooped out of the sky like an avenging eagle and landed on top of a musket-man; his body literally flew apart into a thousand pieces, splattering his nearby comrades with pieces of blood, bone and flesh. Lady Caroline gave herself completely to the thrill of combat. She moved like a dancer, killing man after man with grace and efficiency. They fought for a while, but eventually the soldiers realized that it was hopeless. Their weapons were useless against her, while she could tear them apart with impunity or fry them to death with her heat vision. They broke and tried to retreat to the main body of the Continental Army, but Lady Caroline refused to let them escape. She had promised to scour Dorchester Heights and she intended to keep that promise. As the rabble that dared to call itself an army died under her slender fists and her clear blue eyes, Lady Caroline's heart was filled with joy. She was doing the King's work, she was avenging the death of her cousin and she was finally able to unleash the full extent of her powers. She hoped against hope that the rebels would refuse to surrender and give her the excuse she needed to wipe them from the face of the Earth. The last soldier on Dorchester Heights died with her right hand wrapped around his throat; the tiniest squeeze of her super-strong hand was all that she needed to snap his neck. She threw the man aside and surveyed the carnage; men, weapons and equipment lay broken all around her. She flew straight up for a mile and surveyed the country laid out before her. With her incredible eyes, she could see the smallest details for a hundred miles in every direction. For as long as the revolution persisted, this land was her land, to ravage at will. Lady Caroline let out a shout of joy as she flipped in the air and made for Cambridge and the Headquarters of the Continental Army. She was the King's sword and she had finally been unsheathed. She intended to make the most of it.