Cadet 3

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Prologue

We know from modern scientific theory that
there are an infinite number of alternate universes, and therefore
that there exist an infinite number of alternate worlds where
history has taken a different course from the one we know. Some of
these alternates must be so strange as to be unrecognizable, while
others would be almost identical to our own. This story is set in a
world where the United States military gained the upper hand early
in the history of the Republic, and reduced the civilian government
to a mere a tool of the generals.

The United States of that world became the
world’s leading superpower after the Second World War, as here.
However, a dangerous rival arose in Communist China in the 1990’s
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That China, having built up
its industrial base to become a leading economic power, used its
new muscle to create a huge, powerful military establishment to
carry out an expansionist foreign policy. The United States and its
allies sustained a series of defeats, beginning with the loss of
Taiwan in 1993. The Chinese went on to absorb the small nations to
the south and southeast over the next few years with monotonous
ease, as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma were occupied
one after the other, so that by 2002 the Chinese armies stood on
the border of India. Thereafter came a successful invasion of the
Philippines in 2004. Japan fell into China’s orbit without a fight
the following year. In 2009, China crushed a combined U.S,
Australian and Indonesian army and occupied the entire archipelago
of Indonesia in the largest amphibious operation in history. This
disaster led to the removal of the United States Chief of the
General Staff who had presided over this string of disasters, and
the elevation of General Bernard Grant Cafferson to the top
spot

Under Cafferson, women were permitted to
serve in the U.S. Army for the first time in history, in 2009
(Cafferson was unable to obtain the cooperation of the other
services). For the first two years, women were limited to the rank
of non-coms: there were no female officers. Not, that is, until the
National Women’s Military Academy was opened on the grounds of an
abandoned Army base in the Pocono Mountains at High Point,
Pennsylvania. As told in the first book in the series,
Cadet:
The Academy
, the NWMA was established at the insistence of the
Chief of the General Staff. The purpose of the Academy was twofold:
to train beautiful, intelligent women to be efficient staff
officers to top generals and admirals, but also to teach them to be
submissive sexual playthings for those same high-ranking officers.
Cafferson adopted this scheme as the only way to gain agreement
from the rest of the General Staff to allow the commissioning of
female officers. He hoped to eventually place women in all three
major services and every type of position, including the command of
combat troops, because he believed the country could not afford to
waste half its population if it hoped to defeat Red China.

The NWMA was a success, graduating a class
of young women who were efficient aides-de-camp and highly trained
sexual partners for the Army and Air Force general officers to whom
they were assigned. But far more important than this was the one
completely unexpected product of the academy, a cadet who proved to
be a military genius on the level of a Robert E. Lee, a Count
Belisarius or an Alexander of Macedon, by the name of Jodie
Lawrence. Recognizing Lawrence’s unique abilities, General
Cafferson, gave her the responsibility for devising a plan to turn
back the expected Chinese invasion of New Zealand. She did, and her
plan handed the Chinese their first major defeat in over twenty
years. As a result, Lawrence enjoyed an unprecedented, lightning
rise to the top of the U.S military establishment. She was promoted
to Lieutenant General within a year of her graduation from the
NWMA, and named as Cafferson’s second in command on the General
Staff.

There was a cabal within the General Staff
that had originally opposed allowing women to serve in the armed
forces, and had never accepted their presence (this story is told
in full in
Cadet 2: Duty, Service, Country)
. The leaders of
this group were all senior naval officers, and they had attempted
to overthrow Cafferson by creating a scandal at the NWMA. The
Revolt of the Admirals was foiled, and the leaders of the junta
were forced to resign their commissions and retire from the
service, but even after they were forced out, these men continued
to work with other discontented elements still in the military, as
determined as ever to destroy Cafferson’s legacy, bring down his
successor, and seize power for themselves. They were only waiting
for the right moment to make their move…

Chapter One: National Security

If I were struck dead at this very
second,
Lieutenant General Jodie Lawrence thought,
I would
go out with a smile on my face
. The diminutive blonde was
engaged at that moment in her favorite pastime: making love with
her partner and adjutant, Captain Robin Bransom. Robin’s firm body
moved sensuously beneath her own and she sighed softly.

“Oh Jodie, that’s so
good
,” Robin
murmured, and Jodie, who loved giving pleasure to Robin above all
else, was in paradise. Robin moaned in ecstasy.

The two women were so preoccupied with their
lovemaking that it was not surprising they did not notice the
muffled sounds of shouting coming from the first floor of the
Georgetown house where they lived. For the same reason, they failed
to note the sounds of heavy boots approaching on the stairs,
remaining lost in their pleasures and utterly oblivious to anything
out of the ordinary, until there was a sound of wood shattering as
the door was ripped from its frame and came flying into the
bedroom, immediately followed by several large uniformed and armed
men.

Jodie popped out from under the sheets. She
and Robin stared in astonishment at the squad of soldiers wearing
Military Police armbands, who surrounded the bed and held assault
rifles leveled at their heads.

“What the hell…?” Jodie began angrily.

She was cut short by the leader of the squad,
a Captain. He looked at a sheet of paper in his hand, and,
evidently reading from it, asked, “Are you two General Jodie
Lawrence and Captain Robin Bransom?”

“You’re goddam right we are!” Jodie answered
angrily. “Who the fuck are you, Captain, and what do you and your
apes think you’re doing in my bedroom?”

“General Lawrence,” he said, ignoring her
demand to identify himself, “you and Captain Bransom are under
arrest. I have a warrants for here for both of you signed by the
Chief of National Security himself, General Pemberton.”

“That’s bullshit!” Jodie exclaimed. “What
crimes are we supposed to have committed?”

“You are charged as of this moment under
Section 2 of the Uniform Military Code of Justice with espionage on
behalf of a hostile power, sabotage, treason and conspiracy to
commit all of the above, General,” the Captain answered. “I have no
doubt that more charges will be added before the investigation is
completed.”

“You do realize, Captain, that this is the
same General Lawrence who planned Operation Seahorse and won the
Battle of Auckland last year, and commanded the army that drove the
Chinese out of India a few months ago?” Robin asked. “Do you
suppose she suddenly became a traitor last week?” she added
sarcastically.

Her sarcasm rolled off the MP officer like
water from a mallard’s back. “I don’t suppose anything. I just know
I have orders to arrest two traitors, and I am going to carry those
orders out. Get out of that bed,
now
,” he snapped. The
Captain and his squad watched wide-eyed as the naked women tossed
the bedclothes aside and rose to their feet.

“I trust you won’t mind if we put some
clothes on before you drag us away to the brig, Captain,” Jodie
said. She and Robin started towards their closets.

“Freeze right there!” the Captain shouted. He
gestured to his men. “Cuff the bitches. Hands behind their backs.”
Two of the huge MPs immediately sprang forward to seize the arms of
the naked women.

Jodie looked the Captain, her face an
expressionless mask. “You’re going to take us out in the street
like this?” she asked coolly. “A pair of naked women in handcuffs
is an unusual sight for the streets Georgetown, especially in the
middle of the day. Maybe it’s different where you come from
Captain, but I suspect people in this neighborhood might notice
something like that, and there are a lot of them out and about on a
sunny Saturday morning like this. And if any of them happen to
notice that one of the naked women you’re hauling around in
handcuffs is the only female General in the Army, they just
might
start to call the newspapers and the television
stations to report it. Are you absolutely certain your bosses want
this story to be all over the network news tonight? Or do you think
there might be a chance you’ll get your balls caught in a ringer if
you make a dog’s breakfast out of this arrest?”

The Captain appeared to have second thoughts.
He opened one of the closets, rifled through it, and found a pair
of terrycloth bathrobes. He tossed the robes to the soldiers who
were holding Jodie and Robin, and said, “Put these on them, and
cover their heads up with pillowcases. We’ll leave by the back
door. Tompkins, bring the car around to the service alley behind
the house.” In a few moments, their nakedness was concealed beneath
the robes, which were belted shut. The soldiers took pillowcases
from the bed, and used them to cover their heads. Now blind, with
their hands in restraints behind their backs, Robin and Jodie were
hustled down the stairs, each flanked by a pair of muscular
MPs.

As they were taken out of the house, they
passed the security desk on the first floor. The sergeant of the
squad assigned to guard Jodie’s residence called out as they
passed, “I’m sorry, General, Captain. They had a warrant from the
General Staff, or we wouldn’t have let them take you. I’m sure it’s
all a mistake, and it’ll all be straightened out in no time.”

A mistake
? Jodie thought as the
soldiers dragged her into the alley and a heavy hand on her head
pushed her down to load her into a vehicle.
I don’t think so.
This is not a mistake or an accident; nobody risks arresting a
three-star General, unless they mean business. Somebody out there
seriously wants my head on a plate.

They rode in silence for fifteen minutes.
When they reached the unknown destination, the captives were
unceremoniously dragged out of the car into what Jodie guessed from
the way the sound echoed was an underground garage. They were taken
inside a building, marched down a flight of stairs, then along a
long corridor, through another door (a very heavy metal one, if the
sound it made when it closed behind them was anything to go by),
and finally flung down onto a hard, concrete floor. As she lay
helpless on the cold floor, Jodie heard the Captain say, “Let’s get
this one ready.”

Robin started to protest, but her words were
abruptly stifled. After that, all Jodie heard were from her lover
was a mish-mosh of inarticulate noises, as the MPs “got her ready”,
what ever that might entail. She heard sounds of metal chain-links
clinking against each other, and the MPs working on Robin saying
things like “Make it tighter,” “Lift her up” and so on, until
finally their Captain was satisfied with whatever it was they were
doing. “OK, that’s good enough,” he said.

The MP Captain pulled the pillowcase away
from Jodie’s head. She found herself in a sparsely furnished,
windowless room with bare cement walls, floor and ceiling. It was
immediately apparent that there was only one way in or out: through
the massive riveted metal door where they had been brought in.
There was a small holding cell in one corner, with thick
transparent walls of what Jodie assumed was bulletproof plastic.
Along one wall were what looked to her like restraints: metal cuffs
on chains anchored in the wall. The furniture consisted of three
chairs and a desk, all made of metal of the most utilitarian
design. The chairs all displayed dents and gouges suggesting that
they and, by implication, whoever had been sitting in them, had
been subjected to some rough treatment.