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The Village:

An Alternate History Tale


By Jose J. Clavell

Patrol, 2d Squad, Third Platoon


807th Military Police Company (CS)
American Expeditionary Force
June 1635

Military Police Lieutenant Teresa Rader watched grimly as her translator


gave new meaning to the phrase talking to a wall. Both women stood surrounded
by what could become at any moment an unruly crowd in the small village
common. Her incipient migraine, she concluded, was only likely to get worse,
leaving her wishing that she could start her day all over. Its early part – which had
for the most part been uneventful, or as uneventful as it could get, given that she
and her troops were part of the 21st century American Expeditionary Force deep
in seventeenth-century Germany – rapidly faded to a distant but fond memory.

***

All had been routine until AEF Headquarters tasked her unit to conduct a
field investigation in the nearby village – to focus on, of all things, the death of a
sheep. Said demise purposely assisted by the driver of one of the AEF infantry
battalion Strikers, then compounded by the appropriation of the resultant carcass
by the grunts in the back to supplement their rations, according to the
accompanying report. The report further alleged that in the ensuing excitement
the Stryker team had forgotten to pay for the animal.

Her first instinct inclined to dismiss the whole affair out of hand because as
the only MP unit assigned to the brigade size task force, she had enough already
on her plate. However, her platoon sergeant promptly reminded her of the facts of
life during their daily leaders meeting at their command tent.

Sergeant First Class Jonas Carter, a former infantryman with combat tours
in both Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt and a soldier from the old school,
made the logical point with his usual wit. “We have been months eating nothing
but field rations, LT,” Carter said.

“Given that food poisoning and other food-borne illnesses are common
conditions in our pre-hygienic and scenic tour of Europe, don’t you think that fresh
meat will start to look enticing to everybody, sooner or later? So how many more
sheep-Stryker incidents do you want to investigate, ma’am?”

Reluctantly, Rader conceded the wisdom of her friend’s argument and


ignore the suppressed “coughs” of the gathered squad leaders.

She still remembered the lean times right after what everyone now called
The Event flung the whole state of Pennsylvania and surrounding areas back
through time, to what the locals reverently referred to as The Year of Our Lord of
1631. Suffice it to say, developing a taste for whale steak and buffalo burgers had
not been high on her to-do list. But like everyone else, she ate what was available
and was thankful for it. Surrendering to the inevitable, the tall 28-year-old former
law student turned full-time MP Officer swallowed her last objections and turned
to the leader of her second squad.

“Sergeant Dos Santos, get your squad ready. We're taking a patrol,” Rader
announced, grabbing her battle rattle, and calling also for her driver and gunner.
“Someone get me Klopfenstein and the medic, too, the more the merrier.” She
concluded with a sigh.

After everyone assigned meet her by the vehicles, Rader briefed them all
and together with Dos Santos, inspected and supervised their prep. “Okay, Jonas,”
she said to Carter. “You're in charge here 'til we get back.”

Carter saluted and added a mocking finger wave as her four-vehicle convoy
left the FOB to make their way to the village. As she keep an ear on the radio and
her eyes on the road, Rader mentally prepared herself for the visit, intending to
make nice with the villagers, pay for the sheep, and create a cooperative
arrangement that should help to prevent any more ‘accidental’ livestock run-down
incidents.

Heck, she thought, although personally I'm not a particular fan of mutton,
like Jonas say, given enough time on just field rations even I might get interested
in acquiring my own personal MRE on the hoof. Of course, if things get to that
point, I'll fervently hope it tastes lots better than whale meat.

So, after a kidney-jarring trip on what the locals euphemistically called a


road, her patrol reached their destination. As soon as she dismounted in the
common and the smells hit her full force, Rader quickly came to a bleak
realization: that awful trip had been the good part of her day. Ergo her incipient
headache.

In her carefree pre-ROF youth, Rader went to the occasional Renaissance


Faire, and once she'd gone to the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Pennsic
War. But those experiences, further realization dawned on Rader, were the Disney
version of this period. In no way shape or form do they relate the realities or the
smells of your typical seventeenth century working German farming village the
way real experience does …. ewww.

On arrival, as usual for American troops, children surrounded the patrol,


interested in a closer look at the strange horseless wagons, the uniforms, body
armor and weapons of the soldiers from the future. At least, that had been their
initial intent, until the kids, and the adults following at a more leisurely pace,
realized that seven of the fourteen MP Officers, starting with Rader herself, were
women. That discovery had been as well-received as a skunk in a church picnic.
The villagers brought themselves to an immediate and abrupt halt,
speechless. Until, goggle-eyed and of one mind, all had taken a big step back
while offering what could be either evil warding signs against the possible witches
now in their midst or perhaps the local version of a firmly extended middle finger.

First warning, Rader thought as she moved towards them together with Dos
Santos, Klopfenstein a step behind. Troubles lie ahead.

Stepping in front of the crowd, the village elder, headman, or whatever they
called him around this area, quickly make his objections known in a fast and
guttural dialect completely unintelligible to Rader, but punctuated by angry
gestures, so she looked at her translator with a raised eyebrow.

Private Klopfenstein concentrated on the tirade with a frown. “Lieutenant, I


think that he is saying that all the unnatural women, the ones dressed like men,
need to leave now!”

Rader nodded, she expected something in that vein and started to get hot
under her armored vest collar, despite the “mini-ice age”-induced cold weather
gripping the century, but tried to maintain an outwardly calm demeanor as she
evaluated the situation. Even if I were willing to humor this guy – and I most
certainly am not – that demand would include not just me but Sergeant Dos
Santos, Klopfenstein, and most of the squad leadership, Rader thought. In
practical terms it splits my forces. Not only is that a big no-no in the AEF rule
book, it's a big no-no in my rule book, too.

“Tell him,” she said to Klopfenstein, “No. It's not a negotiable point.”
Unlikely to be the last one of the day, either, Teresa she thought. “Be diplomatic
about it, Sarah. But put it in no uncertain terms.”

Her now very nervous translator gave their reply – forcefully reinforced and
carried across by the obvious cocking of crew-served weapons in her vehicles
turrets, adding insult to injury, two of which were manned by the aforementioned
unnatural women.

Rader's Pennsylvania, circa 2008, had been part of a nation at war for seven
years, long enough that its Army Guard and Reserve—now the basis for the new
US Army--like those of other states, had shed their traditional and long-held
weekend-only warriors' status and attitudes. Rader's Guardsmen and Reservists
had fought alongside the Regulars, against ruthless and fanatical foes.

Curiously, those foes shared similar ideas with the ones her unit had
encountered in the seventeenth-century Germany amidst the Thirty Years' War:
Both sides intended to force fundamental changes in everyone's lives, in the
name of their versions of God, most especially, in the treatment of women. So no
pipsqueak village headman's was going to make Rader back down without a fight.

The elder, judging correctly the unmovable nature of her stand backed up
by unimaginable firepower, wisely changed his pitch and let loose another
barrage of gibberish but in a softer more conciliatory tone.

“He is asking why our eyes are covered.” Klopfenstein translated. “He thinks
that our glasses give us the ability to see through clothing.”

Dos Santos, standing behind her, loudly snorted. Once during a well
deserved down-time, she had related to Rader some of her experiences during
her tour in Iraq. That particular tale, according to her, had been a staple of the
early part of the 2003 Iraq invasion, until someone figured out that for the most
part, Iraqis — who were not as technologically backwards as seventeenth-century
Europeans — were pulling their occupiers' chain.

So without a word, Rader took off her protective Oakleys and let him stare
into her cold brown eyes. The headman took one quick glance and dropped his
eyes. Whatever he saw in that gaze had been enough to stop his objections cold.
He quickly returned to the reason of her visit.

Thus the negotiations for the sheep started in earnest as Rader allowed her
medic to provide a shortened sick call to the villagers. “Nation-building,” or as
Rader's father, a former Special Forces colonel liked to call it, “hearts and minds,”
had become an important staple of the American military operational art. So, she
heard the translated elder's arguments that had suddenly promoted the dead
sheep from livestock to a beloved pet and thus more valuable with a straight face
as she kept a weather eye on the crowd and surrounding area.

Still, that didn't prevent her from picking up her squad leader's increasing
uneasiness.

Staff Sergeant Dos Santos had more experience in overseas operations


than her commander — although by now Rader had become an experienced
frontier fighter, earning her Combat Action Badge the hard way fighting off Indian
attacks and putting down civilian unrest after the Event. Her stint on the AEF was
her first official foray overseas.

On the other hand, Jessica Dos Santos had one tour in Iraq under her belt
before the Event, and during the height of the Surge. That had earned her a CAB,
a bronze star, the first of her two Purple Hearts, and burn scars that marred what
was otherwise a perfect cover girl face. Consequently, when the sergeant moved
her gloved finger from the guard to the trigger of her M4 and started to move
subtly to open her field of fire and cover her back, Rader took immediate notice.

Discreetly, Rader started to cautiously scan the crowd, until she could zero-
in to the cause of her NCO's discomfort as she allowed her right hand to rest on
her pistol holster flap, quietly snapping it open. Rader quickly found several young
men of military age milling around towards the back of the crowd periphery,
trying also to be inconspicuous. Even to her untrained eyes, they didn't fit the
image of farmers. Under the cover of her sunglasses, Rader studied them
carefully.

They're not just armed. Some are wearing what passes for body armor in
this century under those clothes, she thought. Her gut feeling told her
mercenaries, but in a world just starting to introduce the concept of uniforms,
their true affiliation was anyone's guess. The bottom line spelled trouble.

The Lieutenant caught the eye of her squad designated marksman, PFC
Elizabeth Running Deer, an Iroquois Confederation native whose mother was one
of the elected Indian representatives to the new US Congress at Harrisburg, and
used her smattering of sign language to alert the shooter.

***

Some wags had suggested that the presence of the downtime Indians'
delegates in their full dress regalia in the new Congress had added not only some
color to their proceedings but an element long missed in the deliberations of the
august body -- decorum. But when the new US that had formed around
Pennsylvania accepted the Iroquois confederation, the question about how to
quickly integrate their members into the general population rose.

Enter Yoni Cohen, an Israeli Army Major caught in the Pennsylvania Ring of
Fire while doing a term as a student in the War College at the Carlisle Barracks.
He wrote a paper there about his Army's role in integrating new immigrants into
the overall Israeli society. Cohen's paper emphasized the lessons learned during
the experience and how those could be utilized in the current situation to
Pennsylvania’s benefit. It seemed tailor made to serve as a blueprint to integrate
a native population into the general culture.

Now, commissioned as a full Colonel in the new United States Army and
assigned to head the Agency for Integration to the New Society, Cohen served the
American Indians as the main proponent of their recruitment into the army. His
program had been wildly successful; a good portion of the Corps of Rediscovery
crews now expanding into the continent's interior, north, west and south were
natives, serving honorably. The big surprise came when not only men responded
to the call but also women, in significant numbers.

Running Deer shot as well with bow and arrow as with her optimized M4,
and also served as the “Ma-deuce” gunner for her squad leader vehicle. Following
Rader’s hand signals, she pulled her rifle unobserved from the Humvee interior
into her turret and kept it at the ready by her side, her actions also cluing the rest
of the squad into raising their alert status.

***

When she turned her attention back to the negotiations, Rader found out
that they had reached an impasse. Thanks to a German-speaking grandmother,
Rader had been able to follow the gist of the talk while leaving PVT Klopfenstein to
shoulder the bulk of the negotiations in overall charge.

If the presence of Running Deer in Rader's platoon ranks was a notable


event, Klopfenstein's was barely short of an honest to God miracle. The Amish had
always been staunchly pacifist; many in Pennsylvania considered them the
unsung heroes of the Event, thanks to the knowledge that they shared about
farming methods without modern machinery. Knowledge that proved responsible
in large part for helping to stand off the massive population die-down that
everyone had predicted as the sure result of their unplanned time travel's induced
famine.

Still, no one really expected them to deviate too far from their traditional
customs and ways, nor saw a reason for them to do so. So, when the formation of
the AEF was announced, everyone was astonished when the community elders
stepped forward and offered the services of selected single men and women to
the force as non-combatant translators. This was made possible because the
Amish still spoke a German based language at home and in their community that
had significant similarities with some of the seventeenth-century German dialects.

Caught by surprise and wanting to test the limits of this newfound


commitment to the common effort, national leaders in Harrisburg informed the
elders that the only way that their men and women would be allowed to go with
the force was as an official part and parcel of the army component -- in other
words, to enlist. When the elders agreed to that without even blinking an eyelash,
the surprised Army leadership, hoisted on their own petard, found themselves
wondering what to do with their newest batch of recruits. Once more, Colonel
Cohen and his staff came to the rescue, using Israel's experience with the service
of ultra conservative members of their religion in their Army to mold the
brethren's training program. Like his prior efforts with Native Americans, these too
were successful. Still, no one understood yet what had pushed the Amish into
volunteering their services in such an extraordinary manner in the first place.

Rumor has it lately, Rader thought, they're alarmed at the increase in


congenital malformations in the community, closely related to their proscriptions
against marrying outside their faith and the consequent inbreeding that had
caused. The take amounted to Amish elders figuring out a way around that
particular self-imposed problem: Go out and recruit new blood from the earlier
Anabaptists' communities still residing in Europe. If the Amish want to use the AEF
as their personal ticket to a Continental love cruise, frankly, I don't much care.
The Event ended the world as we knew it; I've turned into a full-time military cop
instead of a part-timer financing law school with that job, and it looks like it'll stay
this way for the foreseeable future. Since she now went willingly, although not
necessarily enthusiastically, wherever the Army sent her ACU-clad butt, she'd be
glad for any help the Amish, or Native Americans, could provide to help keep it in
one piece.

Still, she liked the girl. Sarah Klopfenstein was a slight quiet blonde girl
barely past eighteen with a sunny disposition and a good-humored nature, sorely
tested by the initial barrage of Amish-related jokes and slurs directed against her
on her arrival to the company. That situation required Sergeant Carter's direct
intervention to put a stop to it, but more importantly in the long run, Running
Deer's behind-the-scenes action. Being outsiders, naturally both young women
gravitated together and formed a strong bond of friendship. If Sarah was quiet,
Running Deer was not; in her assertive manner she let the rest of the unit and any
other takers know, in no uncertain terms — a tomahawk was said to be involved –
that all jokes and comments about her friend and battle buddy were over if they
valued their scalps.

After that, everyone involved had gotten the message loud and clear. The
Amish girl then settled down to integrate into the unit. A hard worker, she quickly
won everyone over by her willingness to be the first to volunteer for latrine and
barracks cleaning duties. Rader never knew that the concrete floor in their old
WWII quarters could gleam until her arrival. She also became the go-to person
when someone needed a sympathetic ear and a piece of solid advice.

***

At this moment, the village elder put Klopfenstein's good natured character
to a sore test. Watching her harried expression, Rader was relieved to know that
as a conscious objector she did not carry a weapon. Not for the first time, either;
even a saint has her limits.

After one time too many of being told to mind her words, Klopfenstein had
finally reached hers. Clamming up, she turned to walk away and cool down.
Unaware of the situation developing in the crowd, she came too close to it before
Rader could call out a warning.

The ‘mercenaries’ had been waiting for just such a moment to put their
plans into effect. Rader watched the whole thing unfolding in slow motion, as one
of them grabbed Klopfenstein by the neck. Using her body as a shield, he put a
knife to her throat. Without even thinking about it, Rader's M9 pistol was suddenly
in her hand, aimed to the center of the man's forehead without a quiver. While
she ignored the screams and shouts of the innocent bystanders in the crowd,
melting away at a run in all directions, the mercenary barked a series of demands
in rapid- fire German, too fast for Rader to catch.

“Lieutenant, he says to drop your weapons, or he is going to kill me,”


Klopfenstein translated in a frightened rush.

Rader heard her but didn't even give it a moment's consideration. Neither
the old nor the new US Army negotiated with terrorists, a threat category to which
Rader had happily promoted the bastards automatically.

Besides no cop relinquishes control of her weapon and expects to survive


the experience. So coolly Rader waited for her moment. It arrived when a red dot
suddenly appeared, centered on the chest of the man beside Klopfenstein's
captor.

“SARAH, drop!” Rader ordered with a shout. As a noncombatant and


conscientious objector, the Amish girl had never received any combat training in
accordance with her beliefs. Nothing, though, was wrong with her reflexes. Rader
and Running Deer had worked with her in a simple defensive maneuver.

On hearing the command, Klopfenstein dropped to the ground as quickly as


if she had been shot, tucking her helmeted head into the collar of her body armor
and curling her body into a fetal position not unlike a turtle. The surprise move
left her captor unshielded, and before he could react, Rader without hesitation
shot him twice, her gunfire joining her squad's as they engaged the rest of his
companions. Five seconds later, the only sound heard around the common was
the continuous chirping of the MILES system tattletales.

***

The training scenario over, Rader once again stood back in Pennsylvania, in
the European village mock-up at Fort Indiantown Gap, surrounded by her troops,
the aggressors, and hired SCA and Amish actors. Seven years of war had
introduced realistic training methods to the American armed forces. Methods that,
despite their unexpected trip back in time, continued to be proven lifesavers, able
to be adapted to new circumstances. Anyone trying to go against the
Expeditionary Force on their arrival in Europe was going to get some nasty
surprises.

“Damn it, Teresa. You never even called out for our surrender.” An angry
Captain Joseph Campbell, trainer, OPFOR leader and her fiancée, bellowed. Rader
calmly holstered her sidearm, knowing that she and her troops had responded
appropriately to the unexpected ARTEX threat.

She then blew a kiss and a satisfied smile in her future husband’s face,
discovering that her headache was gone, but quickly sobered up, remembering
that the clock was running out and that she and the AEF would be sailing in a
month to Europe. Their missions there would be to let everyone know that they
had new and much advanced neighbors reclaiming their homeland, and to try to
stop a war.

Her next village would be the real thing.

***30***

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