by Nancy Holder
Diana took off running to build up speed, then sprang ten feet in the air. She hit the side of a building and vaulted off of it. Using the full power of her legs, she jumped even higher. High enough to crash through a second-story window in the building opposite where most of the concentrated gunfire was coming from. She landed in a crouch in a stripped room with a rough wooden floor, in the middle of a group of armed German soldiers. Before they could raise and aim their rifles at her, she kicked a heavy table that screeched across the floor and slammed into two of the soldiers, pinning them against the wall.
Unable to believe their own eyes, the terrified Germans began firing at her at close range. She ducked under the slow-moving bullets, some of which sailed past and hit the soldiers behind her. Their bodies fell to the floor.
A soldier snapped his rifle across her back; it shattered and she kicked him through the window. She moved so fast that sparks flew from the soles of her boots. She skidded across the floor on her knees and slammed a soldier with her shield, flipping and twirling high into the air, an Amazon in full-strength combat mode. Sword and shield, fists and legs, she threw kicks and punches to clear the rooms. She swept the feet out from under a soldier and before he, too, hit the ground she swung her shield, batting him like a ball through the broken window.
Diana was like a whirlwind in their midst, a force of nature that could not be stopped. The surviving soldiers backed away with empty hands, then broke for the door.
Diana heard the receding bootfalls of the men who had escaped. She raced out of the room and down a narrow hallway. The Germans were still shouting at each other. Then they suddenly went silent. But she had already honed in on the source of the sound. It lay behind a heavy wooden door.
No doubt they were ready for her on the other side. Or thought they were.
Bracing her feet, she threw herself shield-first at the door and shattered it like a cannon shot, sending splinters and sawdust flying around her as she burst through the doorway. The room full of Germans attacked her as one, using their steel-shod rifle butts as clubs.
They didn’t realize that she, not they, had the advantage, but that quickly became all too evident. They were too slow and too weak to keep up with her. She swung her shield left and right, using the edge to crush the sides of their helmets. The impacts snapped their heads back and sent them toppling to the floor. They tried to raise their rifles against her, but, with fists and feet, she beat them to the floor before they could get off a single shot.
And when she finished, there were only two people left standing in the room.
Running full tilt, she hit the last soldier in the chest with her shoulder, driving him backwards. The impact’s momentum carried them both across the room and through the glass of a big window. For a second they were soaring, then she landed on top on the roof one level below and raced from rooftop to rooftop toward the center of the town.
As she ran, she looked for Steve and the others, but they were not yet there. But she was confronted with an unexpected arrival: an armored tank, roaring toward her on its steel treads, maneuvering its 57 mm cannon to bear. Diana jumped down from the high rooftop like it was stair step. She lowered her head and headed toward the tank.
The tank shot; Diana deflected the cannon fire with her shield, then dropped it as she charged the tank. And it yielded. The bonds of gravity, the inertia of its thirty-six tons, none of that mattered. She flipped the tank. It went flying end over end across the town square, and as it did, pieces of it sailed into the air; the steel treads snapped off. The soldiers who had stood behind it were suddenly without cover themselves.
At the moment, she became aware that Steve and the team had arrived, and were seizing the opportunity to advance. They poured fire on the Germans who, instead of standing and fighting, ran for the square’s nearest exit. The ones caught flat-footed absorbed multiple hits and fell where they stood. Steve waved for the team to follow him. They chased the soldiers down the street, firing on the run.
* * *
Steve sent the others to free the prisoners and burst into the square beside Diana. She was surrounded by German soldiers who were firing at her from all sides. She blocked their bullets with her bracelets, moving in blur, spinning, ducking.
He pulled the pins on a pair of grenades. A handful of Germans was shooting at Diana from behind a crumpled armored car. Steve underhanded one of the grenades, skipping it over the pavement and under the car. When it exploded, the soldiers were trapped between the side of car and the wall of the building.
The blast stunned the other soldiers in the square. They stopped firing and looked at the armored car, which had burst into flames. The Germans firing from behind the fountain stood up to get a better view. Steve lobbed the second grenade in a low arc that ended in the middle of the ruined fountain. When it exploded it sent not only shrapnel flying, but pieces of masonry that cut down the soldiers like a scythe.
Diana smiled at him as they moved in unison.
More soldiers poured into the square. One of them started climbing up the ladder to the village bell tower. Steve fired at him, but he was out of the shotgun’s effective range. Diana charged into the German reinforcements, snatching them off their feet and throwing them like rag dolls, bouncing them off the sides of the buildings, off the sidewalk.
Steve looked over his shoulder; a German was aiming a rifle at him and others were closing in. The soldier’s finger was already curled around the trigger. Before he could fire, Diana was on him. She tore the gun from his hands and, swinging it by the barrel, broke the butt stock over the top of his helmet, putting a deep dent in the steel pot, driving the man into the ground like a tent stake. Whipping out her lasso, she snared one of the others by the foot, jerked him off his feet, then used his body as a sledge hammer, swinging him around and around, and smashing him into his slack-jawed comrades.
Covering the town square, they fought together, moving in concert, each reinforcing and supporting the other. Diana unleashed her lasso, using it to wrangle the soldiers, spinning them, as Steve laid down covering fire. Lessons they had learned together on the beach of Themyscira and in the trenches of No Man’s Land— combining strengths, adopting each other’s strategy and tactics—proved the advantage as they fought for the freedom of the village.
Fierce volleys barked as more Germans entered the square and once again Diana deflected bullets with her bracelets. She and Steve worked side by side, she blocking, he shooting. He saw the rest of the team hurrying into the square to back them up, taking position along a row of storefronts. Suddenly Diana jumped behind Steve and thrust up her hand. The bracelet knocked aside a shot that came from above them. That was intended for his head.
Steve looked up and pointed. “Bell tower,” he said. He could see the sniper at the top of the tower. No one in the square was safe.
“Charlie?” he said, motioning for the man across the square to take the shot.
Charlie dropped the safety on his rifle and leaned against the building’s wall, peering through his telescopic sight. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. Sweat began to pour down the sides of his face. Seconds passed. More seconds. He could feel Sammy staring at him. He put the crosshairs on the German silhouette crouched below the bell.
But he couldn’t squeeze the trigger. He was frozen in place, captured by his own fears as surely as if he had been taken prisoner.
The soldier’s weapon flashed again, and the round hit the sidewalk in front of him. Then bullets were flying down at Sammy and the Chief. All three were pinned where they stood.
“You don’t miss,” Sammy said.
“Bloody scope,” Charlie said. “Lens is cracked.”
When Sammy tried to get a look at it, Charlie covered it with his hand. It was not the scope, of course. It was him. He had cracked.
* * *
Diana watched Steve rise from cover, then duck back as a bullet from the sniper zipped by his head. There was no way to return fire from their posi
tion.
Diana looked up at the tower, gauging the distance between herself and the target. Frustrated, she told him, “It’s too high.”
Then Steve spotted the tank door, which had blown off. He remembered Antiope’s heroic leap on the beach. He said to the team, “Follow me. Give me some cover. When I say ‘go’ lift hard.”
They did as he asked, and the four of them raised up the sheet of metal as Steve called, “Diana! Shield!”
She understood at once. With a running start, she thrust her feet against the angled surface as they hefted it hard and she soared into the air. She rocketed up, and farther up, and crashed into the bell tower. It seemed to hover in space for a second, and then it tumbled down in huge waves of bricks and mortar, metal and glass, utterly demolished.
A roar went up from directly below her. The townspeople had emerged from hiding and gathered to cheer her heroic victory and their restored freedom. Diana looked down at them from the great height. She could see Steve looking up at her with awe.
Thank you, Antiope, she thought. What I did today, I dedicate to you.
* * *
The jubilant townspeople surrounded their liberators, shaking Diana’s hand, thanking the group for saving their lives. One of the villagers was a photographer and he insisted in broken English that he be allowed to photograph the liberators of Veld—pour la postérité.
“You must stand very still, very still,” he admonished them. Diana, Steve, Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief posed standing on the rubble at the edge of the square. Steve looked at Diana, but turned his head toward the camera before the flash powder went off. His expression hinted at something more than admiration.
“Thank you for this honneur,” the man said.
After the photo was taken, Diana walked with Sammy to survey the damage the battle had caused. She looked back at Charlie, his head hanging low, clearly shaken, his mind turned inward. He fumbled with the screw top of his flask, then dropped it.
“For all his talk of murdering people from afar,” Diana said to Sammy, “your shooter can’t shoot.”
“Not everyone gets to be who they want to be all the time. Me, I wanted to be an actor, not a soldier. But I’m the wrong color. Everyone is fighting their own battles,” he concluded. “Just like you are fighting yours.”
Diana considered, then noticed the Chief standing with a small group of Belgians who had taken cover in the allied trench, including the young mother and her daughter. All of them looked ragged, sleep-deprived, and starving, but hopeful. The Chief dispensed bread and cheese to all with a big grin on his face. Again, the so-called “smuggler” was the benefactor. She was touched by the man’s generosity. She remembered her dismay at the pub when she had first met Sammy and Charlie, brawling and lying. Her opinion of them had changed dramatically.
Across the square another cheer went up from the villagers, who were busying themselves in preparation for a party to celebrate their heroes and their liberation. The square was being swept and cleaned, evidence of the battle removed, and men were stringing up party lights and setting out tables.
13
As the villagers of Veld prepared for a celebration, Steve used the phone in the village’s one and only inn to report in to Etta Candy.
“Veld,” he said, reporting their position. “Tiny village. It’s probably not even on the…”
Steve looked up and Diana in the entryway and held out the handset so that she could hear too, giving her a quick tutorial by gesturing to his ear. Diana’s grin was quick and sharp. No phones, of course, on Themyscira.
“Found it,” Etta announced the other end.
“Have you found Ludendorff’s operation?” Steve asked her.
“Not yet,” Etta told them, “but we’ve located him. And lucky you, he’s only a few miles away—at German High Command.”
“German High Command?” he repeated.
“Intel reports Ludendorff is hosting a gala—a last hurrah before the Germans sign the Armistice. The Kaiser himself will be there. As will Dr. Maru.”
Steve began mentally sketching out a scenario. “Actually, that gala’s perfect cover…”
Sir Patrick’s voice came over the line. “Captain Trevor, you are not, under any circumstances, to attend that gala tomorrow night. We cannot risk jeopardizing the Armistice.”
Diana lowered the handset and told Steve in an undervoice, “You shouldn’t be worried about upsetting the peace accord. Ares would never let that happen.”
Steve motioned to her to please stop talking about Ares.
Then Diana flinched, struck by a realization. Why hadn’t it dawned on her before? Her Amazon blood blazed super-hot as the thrill of the hunt coursed through her. Her heart thundered and her body demanded battle. Her quarry lay within her reach. In her mind, she saw their story unfolding in her mother’s beautiful paneled book. The final chase, the victory. Diana with her sword, her defeated quarry at her feet.
She wished with all her heart that her mother could be with her to witness her triumph. That Diana could prove to her that she had made the right choice—that both of them had. Diana for leaving, and Hippolyta for giving Diana her blessing.
Her emotion must have shown on her face because Steve asked, “What is it?”
“Of course,” Diana said, “it makes complete sense. Ares developed a weapon, the worst ever devised.”
“Ares? You mean Ludendorff.”
She looked Steve in the eye. “No. I mean Ares. Ludendorff is Ares.”
It was difficult to decipher the expression on Steve’s face, but to her it translated as the same thunderstruck revelation.
“Steve?” Sir Patrick said.
Steve returned his attention to the conversation on the phone. “Sir, this is our chance to find the gas and learn how Ludendorff plans on delivering it. Maybe our only chance. Our last chance.”
“I forbid it. Do you hear me?”
Diana watched Steve closely, but this time she was confident that he would do the right thing. He had pretended once before to do as Sir Patrick had wished, and he was pretending now.
Sure enough, Steve paused as if weighing a decision. Then he said, “I’m sorry, sir, you’re breaking up.”
“Steve? Are you there?” the man protested.
Steve quietly hung up the phone. Diana wanted to embrace him. Instead she forced herself to breathe deeply. She had a battle to prepare for.
A peace to make.
* * *
Back in London, Etta disconnected the call as Sir Patrick looked on.
“How likely is he to respect my wishes?” he asked her.
Etta shrugged. “Not very likely, to be honest,” she replied.
* * *
That night, villagers sat at tables in the town square of Veld, which were scattered with platters of sausages, cheese, and bread—the hoarded food of the Germans plus their own meager stores brought out for the celebration. Though scarce by Themysciran standards, it was clearly a banquet to the starved villagers, freely shared. Their gaunt but relieved faces were illuminated by tea lights, and despite their exhaustion, they wore smiles and tapped their toes to the music. Joy at their deliverance glowed in their tired eyes.
Inside the building marked “Café Bar Buvette” with its cheery striped awnings, a man sat at a large instrument made of wood. It took Diana only a second to realize with delight that this was a piano. He pushed his fingers downward and music flowed. He was tickling the ivories. She smiled as she made the connection. How strange it was, to possess vast vocabularies in languages she had never heard spoken by anyone but her own people, and now to encounter them where they were used. There were so many unexpected details and nuances. Everything was so different from home—harsher, darker, crueler— but alleviated with kindness and warmth, even in the midst of a catastrophic war.
A deep pang caught her as her mother’s face rose in her mind. You are my greatest love, she had told Diana. And my greatest sorrow.
If you could have se
en me today, I would have been your greatest pride, Diana thought, as voices in the café lifted in song. What we did today was possible because of you. And Antiope, who made me the fighter I am. Humanity could use the help of all the Amazons. This world is aching. This world is in such danger. Danger, and terror; and yet, here, tonight, men and women smiled and danced. They shrugged away the perils and lived.
As she scanned the clusters of people at the tables, a pair of children chased each other, squealing with delight. As with the baby in London, she was mesmerized. She had never played with another child. “You know nothing about the world,” Hippolyta had told her, and that had been true. And yet, the Queen of the Amazons had allowed her to leave everything she had known behind. Perhaps like Diana, she had heard the wind and the waves whispering into Diana’s ear: This is your destiny. Your quest. You must do this.
Steve joined her at the edge of the crowd. There were greater victories to be won, at higher prices. This war, this endless war—she could chip at the edges of it, save those she could, but until she brought down Ares, pain and suffering would wash over humanity like the dark, dirty water of the London seaway, receding only briefly to leave treasures on the beach. Tonight was one such treasure.
Sammy approached with two large glass steins of a beverage whose scent was like the yellowing hillsides of Themyscira in summer.
At home the Amazons had spent centuries perfecting their painting skills, creating pottery that was as finely wrought as their armor, swords, and shields. In London, there had been such a disparity in the quality of all objects, from clothing to tankards to dwellings. Some people staggered down the dirty London streets in rags. Others strutted proudly in the choking finery Diana had tried on for Etta. On Themyscira, some Amazons were higher-ranking than others, but a sister would never allow another sister to go without.
With a jovial smile and his maroon fez cocked at a jaunty angle, the dark-skinned man held out the tankards.
“Drinks later, Sammy,” Steve said. “I need you to rustle me up a German uniform.”