Sappho's Commando

INTRODUCTION (ISELEN POV)

"I hope it doesn't rain, I can stand the cold weather but hate humidity. Feeling your wet uniform stuck to your body sucks." Hanna grumbles quietly, lying next to me on the rooftop made of hard concrete, the building is totally ruined and I wonder how it's still standing instead of collapsing under our torsos. The Hungarian girl is focused on looking through her M151 Scope at the building that's in front of us, about half mile away, while the icy dew falls on our shoulders. I grumble something unintelligible as an answer and she takes it as a sign of agreement but I remain still, leaning my cheek on my Barrett Mk22 MRDA rifle stock and my finger on the trigger. "We've been waiting for two hours and I see no movement, maybe the target is gone."

"I hope not, I'd hate to miss dinner for nothing, I could eat an entire cow right now," Tara answers through the radio and Nora, her copilot, chuckles. "But it's a beautiful night... You're right, maybe a little cold."

"Cold?" Dakota snorts amused through the earbud, she's supposed to be in a different building to our right along with Ruby, they'll be our support team tonight and will have our backs in case something goes wrong and we have to bug out fast. "You don't know what the word cold really means, Madame Croissant. I'm going to take you to my hometown in winter to see how you try to make your way through a meter thick layer of snow, your fafarique will get frozen, for sure."

"My what?" Tara asks puzzled and this time I can't help giggling.

"It's a Spanish word for pussy. Iselen taught it to me, it's funny, according to her."

"It really is," I whisper and Hanna chuckles next to me while fixing the collar of her jacket to try to stay warm.

"Well, whatever," Tara growls in response. "I just hope that my pretty French ass doesn't get frozen tonight, I don't want to catch a cold, I hate being sick because the doctor will give me one of her bitter potions to bring me back to life."

"Don't worry, next time I'll add some honey to the potion and the French spoiled brat won't have a reason to complain," Ruby answers through the radio.

"Really?" Tara asks shocked by the Scottish lady's unexpected kind words.

"Of course not, screw you!"

"Voilà. Je vous l'avais dit. I told you many times, nothing good comes from those living on the other side of La Manche."

"The English Channel..."

"La Manche..."

"Here we go again," Nora sighs frustrated. "If you start an argument about this stupid thing, I'll kick your French ass out of the chopper with my Italian boot."

"It's the Highlander's fault, she can't stop provoking me," Tara answers pretending to be angry. Actually, they've been arguing about the same matter for months and it's become a funny game between them. "Changing the subject, I heard something..."

"The gossip queen strikes again," Hanna whispers next to me fixing her scope.

"Excuse me, it's not my fault if people are talking when I walk behind them coincidentally," our helicopter pilot replies offended. "I'm not deaf and the knuckleheads weren't trying to hide, that's for sure. They love criticising us, calling us useless baby boos, angry dykes and all those sexist and homophonic nonsense. They think they're funny... and they gave us a new name. It's gone viral at the headquarters and even the NATO top guys are calling us that now."

"Okay," I heave a sigh, wearily, keeping my eyes on the target in front of me while part of my brain gets ready to know the new witticism from those idiots that are supposed to be our comrades in arms. "Tell me, what's the new name of our wonderful elite unit? I don't think it can top the previous one: Barbies in Camo."

"Sappho's Commando."

"Oh, come on, really?" Dakota laughs out loud through the earbud. "Are we supposed to feel offended? It's not even that original nor funny, the army spent thousands of dollars paying for their college education and that's what these morons come up with."

"It's not that bad, print it on a T-shirt and I'll wear it proudly," I reply smiling.

"Fuck yes, it'll be nice if we could have our own merch," Hanna gets slightly tense next to me. "I can see movement in that building. Get ready..."

"You're right, I'd love to have some cute T-shirts with our unit's name," Tara admits. "What do you think, girls?"

"Can you stop talking nonsense?" The boss interrupts us angrily from the headquarters, her icy cold tone of voice on the other end of the line almost made me jump startled. "Half of the Allied Command Operations is listening to you right now. Switch to channel 2 if you intend to keep gossiping."

"Whoops..." Tara whispers but I can sense she's smiling and not sorry at all despite the Valkyrie has caught her blabbering.

"Eyes on target," Hanna hits my side with her elbow to grab my attention.

"Identified," I whisper watching the short and stocky guy who walks out of the building surrounded by three bodyguards that check if the way to his car is clear. Only six steps between the main door and the vehicle, but they're more than enough for me: it's a clean and perfect shot. "Tango down."

"Roger that," the boss answers in my earbud.

"Great, we can go to have dinner. Hurry up, girls," Tara cries excited while Hanna and I crawl across the rooftop till reaching the staircase. A thunder rumbles in the distance and I can't help smiling, my spotter is lucky since she narrowly avoided the rain.

 A/N and Disclaimer: I should be studying to pass my difficult test, or sleeping, or doing many things I postponed because I'm the Queen of Procrastination, but here I am, starting a new book because of... Kat. Who else? She wanted a new story about soldiers, a real one, with bullets flying and hot women with hard abs and hard biceps diving, shooting, jumping from planes, throwing grenades and watching enemies going boom. And lots of good, steamy, pure fire smut.

This is a book full of clichés, I know not all women in the military are butches or tom boys, or lesbians, or arrogant, or foul-mouthed. And not all men are sexists, bigots, arrogant idiots, all muscle and no brain. In fact, from my own experience, I know they tend to be humble, hard workers and respectful. But this is supposed to be a funny book and easy to write so I'll stick to clichés, sorry in advance, I never meant to offend you. And sorry for the lame jokes too.

As usual, I try to be accurate: weapons, equipment, locations, ranks, uniforms, the argot... I'll try to make it as real as possible but will make lot of mistakes too, probably. Again, sorry for that. Feel free to give me feedback... politely, please. I spent all Sunday doing research to write the first chapter, it was harder than I expected because I'm a perfectionist. The brigades, squadrons, regiments, units, etc. are all real, but not all of them accept women, I know, and when they do, they work in administrative tasks usually, not on the front line. Sorry for that inaccuracy.

Please, follow me, vote, comment. I love talking to you and Wattpad algorithm doesn't ignore me when you interact with me. Excuse the mistakes of this Spanish speaker that's getting better at English but not as good as she'd like to be. Be gay, be a good ally, be happy, be proud, enjoy the summer that's coming... or winter if you're on the other side of the world. Love you!

First chapter coming soon, maybe tomorrow. You read way faster than I write but will try to update more frequently.