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Prologue -- Fort George Meade, Maryland
It was a dark and stormy night. A gale had blown in from Chesapeake Bay, lashing rain against the windows, making the sky rumble and flash with thunder and lightning. Corporal Walter Hill, working a sudoku puzzle at his post inside Security Warehouse Number Three, certainly didn't expect anyone on a night like this.
The bell at the door gave a loud, shrill ring. Hill got up, nervously touching his sidearm while he glanced at the ID card which someone held up to the little window. "Oh geez come in, captain!" he said, as he hastily flung open the door and let three damp figures quickly get in out of the rain. "Bad night to be out." Once they were inside, he locked the door again.
Two of the arrivals were Military Police privates in fatigues. The third was a woman officer. "Do you always state the painfully obvious, corporal?" Valerie Jakes said irritably, as she pulled off her hat and tried to shake some of the water off of her.
She was dressed in a well-tailored class B uniform; pale green blouse, dark green skirt which showed off a nice pair of stockinged legs. Her hair was jet black, pinned up in regulation style but starting to come a little unraveled. Hill automatically took in the service branch insignia on the left collar of her blouse, noting the red, white and blue enameled shield. She was with the Judge Advocate General's office!
"Just making conversation, ma'am," he said, coming to a respectful attention. "What can I do for you?"
She unzipped the leather briefcase she was carrying and took out a paper. "Item 7857640 stroke 9906 stroke 23," she said in a businesslike tone.
Corporal Hill checked the release form carefully, then unlocked the big walk-in iron cage in the center of the warehouse. Moments later, the two MP privates came out carrying between them a heavy, lead lined box two feet long and one foot deep. There was a sticker on it that said, "Hazardous!! Handle With Extreme Caution!"
"I've sometimes wondered what this thing was," the corporal said. "It's not radioactive or anything, is it?"
"I've learned one thing from my time in the Army, corporal," Capt. Jakes said. "It doesn't pay to be curious about things I'm not ordered to be curious about."
"Yes, ma'am... I mean no, ma'am."
"In this case, it's an historical relic that belongs to a tiny Mid East kingdom called Magristan. Some terrorist brought it to America some time ago, and during the legal wrangling over which country had the better claim to him, the relic itself got lost in the shuffle. Now the Magristanis are demanding it back, vociferously."
The corporal grinned. "What is it, Mohammed's toenails or something?"
The captain snapped him an irritated look. "That's not funny, corporal."
Just then there was a particularly loud crack of thunder outside. A circular section of the warehouse roof fell in, almost as if it had been cut through deliberately. Immediately three men dropped gently through the opening one at a time, not rappelling with ropes, but just drifting down as though they could fly!
They were dressed in flowing brown robes. The one in the center was bigger than the other two, the one on the right had long hair, the one on the left wore what looked like a round wickerwork hat which seemed to encircle his head like a cage. They carried short, curved swords on their belts, but none of the three had drawn them. None of them spoke. They just stood there as the rain poured through the opening and the thunder crashed above their heads.
"Hey!" Corporal Hill said, "you're not authorized to be in here!" The two privates drew their sidearms.
The intruder with the wicker hat swept his arms in a complex martial arts pattern. Tendrils of electricity seemed to pour from his arms and flicker around the two MPs, sending them into painful spasms as they flew back across the floor unconscious. Corporal Hill went for his sidearm, but the long-haired intruder jumped him before he could clear his holster. One kick disarmed him, another caught him in the stomach and made him double over, while a final swipe thrust a curved sword straight up through the corporal's ribcage and out his back! He dropped to the floor just that fast, dead.
Valerie Jakes had already fled for the door, remembering too late that the corporal had locked it behind him. The girl frantically tugged on the stubbornly immobile handle, tears in her eyes as she listened to the one-sided battle behind her. The two intruders stood regarding her in eerie silence. "No! Please," she sobbed, as they roughly grabbed her arms, ripping her green Army blouse as they carried her back.
The big one had broken the seal on the lead lined box and opened it. Valerie was forced to her knees in front of him. One of her bare shoulders was exposed where her blouse was torn, her bust rising and falling with sheer terror. "Ppplease, please don't hurt me!" she begged, watching as the man lifted out a brass crown with a single black gemstone in the center. Still without speaking a word, he brought the crown over and gently set it on her head.
There was an explosion of light. Armies were clashing, spaceships were fighting in deep space, unleashing energy beams and missiles at one another. Two beautiful women were struggling in hand to hand combat -- one brunette in a bright blue body suit, the other raven haired wearing midnight black. The woman in black was defeated, thrown down and locked in chains. Alone in the dark, the woman screamed. The images of dread and despair continued to crowd in on her, until Valerie Jakes was overwhelmed, reduced to a tiny shell whimpering in one corner of her own mind.
"I live again!" she shouted, raising her head. "Ereshkigal, the Black Storm, lives again!" She stood up, slowly stretching her sinuous body as if she had just awakened from a long, long sleep. Her arms fell gracefully to her sides, hands caressing her soft curves as though she had forgotten what they felt like. Retracing their path upwards, her fingers gently cupped the supple roundness of her two breasts. Apparently pleased with them, she ripped off her uniform blouse to completely expose her bra. "This body seems much more compatible than the last one I was forced to use. You have done well, Namtaru. I congratulate you."
The three minions bowed their heads in acknowledgment. The big one in the center raised his head as though asking a silent question.
"All in good time," the woman said. "We shall indeed return to my throne, and when we do the very heavens shall tremble. But first I will have my revenge upon the minion of Ishtar, who left me imprisoned for so long." Her eyes glinted with anticipation. "I will hunt down and destroy... the Fuchsia Fox!"