Little Women In The Modern World

     "Christmas won't be Christmas this year without presents," Jo grumbled as she watched the holo–message coming through her communication link. The holographic images of her twin niece and nephew as they babbled holiday greetings lit up their dingy corner of the barrack.

     "It's so dreadful to be here while my children are on Mars," Meg sighed. Meg was the mother of the two kids in the message and the older sister of Jo. They had been separated from their family for nearly two years. That was half the life of Meg's children and Jo's heart broke at the thought of what Meg must feel.

     You wouldn't know the two sisters were sisters by looking at them. In fact, if you gathered all four March sisters together you wouldn't be able to tell they were family. All were orphans taken in by a couple who couldn't have children of their own. When the aliens first invaded so many years ago it left orphans on every space station, outpost, and colony in the system. Their bonds to one another were strong though, perhaps stronger than any blood tie could have made them, especially considering the loss they'd suffered.

     "You'll see them again, Meg. John too," Jo reassured her sister as she saw Meg fighting tears at the sight of her children. Josephine clicked off the message and the barrack went dark.

     "I wish I knew where he was," Meg said glumly. Communication, military and civilian, had gotten spotty because the aliens had taken out key satellites months ago. Nobody had heard from Meg's husband since the satellites went dark and as John was stationed on the far side of the quadrant, any subspace frequencies he sent would likely take a year to reach them without those satellites. The techs were working on replacements but the situation was growing ever more desperate as parts for satellites and other necessities were increasingly hard to come by. In light of that fact, procedure now was to scavenge not just from their own downed ships, but those of the enemy as well.

     That's how the two oldest March sisters came to be on Io, the most volcanic moon in the solar system. Even now they could hear explosions from an eruption, no doubt shooting lava kilometers into the air creating a stunning picture, but one which the novelty had long since worn. It wasn't prestigious work but somebody had to do it and with Josephine's recent court martial she and her team were the natural choice, under supervision of a commander of course.

     Josephine March was notorious for being something of a rouge in the ranks. On her last mission she lead her team behind enemy lines to rescue hostages from an alien detention facility. The facility was on the edge of a recent skirmish and the alien forces had suffered severe losses. As had the United Terran Forces but not quite as bad. The hostages were a mix of civilians and low ranking military personnel.

     As horrible as it was to say they weren't priority for extraction. Jo's orders were to collect her men and head back to base. UTF wanted to regroup and assess before any plans were made. Meg was in command of her own platoon and fought in the skirmish with Jo and her soldiers. Remarkably both sisters survived with minor injuries, but the night before they were to pull out they'd gotten word of Beth's death.

     Hearing her sister had been killed, Jo was full of rage and couldn't stand to leave without doing something more. She'd taken a select group of men and planned to assault the base. Meg just barely managed to head Jo off but Meg couldn't stop her. Meg sent most of her soldiers home but a few wouldn't leave their commander and joined the mission.

     Rescuing the hostages took two hours and wasn't without losses. They lost five soldiers and six of the hostages. As they came out with more alive than dead it was technically rated a success. But that success came with consequences. The mission had been without orders, they'd lost people, and it was Jo's second strike which lead to a court martial. Jo was lucky not to be dishonorably discharged but it was a close call. Meg went with her and therefor also suffered the demotion.