SGT. KAT AND HER HOWLING MUDCAT COMMANDOS Chapter 1: Talibani Bound <

It had started out so well, the team setting out in the high bright morning air as soon as the gates to Peshawar opened, disguised as a merchant caravan selling Ricky Martin T-shirts to the tribals. And now here they were, late in the hot afternoon, deep in the rocky Afghan hills, pinned down by a murderous cross-fire.

Sgt. Kat chomped down on her stogie, and smiled to herself. These MF's were already way too overconfident, hurling down antiwoman slogans from their shadowy lairs like dud grenades. She squinted for a moment towards the sun, arcing towards the west. They had a hour or two to go before nightfall. Then she turned her head and checked out how the troops were doing. She didn't know what the sight of them did to the Taliban, but they scared the hell out of her.

Crouched behind the closest rock, balancing the bazooka, was "U.S." Wyowoman. Kat smiled when she remembered how she had got the name. Wyowoman was a bigshot editor back in Wyoming, and one day after she had finished reaming out some poor hapless reporter for not being able to spell "excrement" worth shit, he turned to her as he was leaving the office, and said, "I guess that's why they call you 'Mr. Grant' eh?" And Wyowoman stood there and grunted, "Not Lou Grant, you useless F***ing bastard, Ulysses S. Grant!! Get the hell out of my office!"

Feeding her ammo was "Snaps" bbc, the CIA-FBI liason, the one with the photographic memory and the memories to match. She had come out of the hardest school of all, school, to be on the team. On the other side, tinkering with the laser-guided rocket, was "Ocarina" Barbara, who could make anything, though she preferred blowing things up and putting big holes in them. Beside her, working the command post radio, was "Radio" Duckboots, the famous engineer who had been dropped behind enemy lines in Bolivia, set up the clandestine radio station, and driven the local government into submission by endless replaying of old Freddy Mercury songs.

Across the narrow valley cut, her rifle slanting out from the shadow of a shallow cavemouth, was Alice, who had had to leave America in a hurry after an ex boyfriend had one morning achieved low earth orbital in a bomb-wired S.U.V.

Beside her was the party animal, Annap, who had left the Peshawar traders the night before with a lesson in belly dancing they would not soon forget, and had already given a few new navels to a bunch of dirty burnooses somewhere just up ahead.

And next to her was the Aussie, "Fair" Alison, in her swagman kit, making the Taliban hop about like 'roos on a frypan; and it was her curses, mingled with the salty sailor's phrases "Shanty" Margarita had picked up in her days as the concertina player with the Navy Seals, that were already causing several Talibanese to run for the border, their ears aflame.

And there were others, others she did not know well. There was Hanan Rashid, dedicated to bringing the true teachings of Islam about women to her people; there was Sherry Aims, Commando Nurse, who looked after the horses and the camels; and other women, tough women. Great team. None however, as brawny and tough as Big Michelle, with her beautiful blond hair and her thick red beard. Kat couldn't figure her out, really, especially as she seemed to spend a lot of time hanging around Alison. Butch dyke, probably: though she certainly didn't dress like one -- evening gowns in these mountains were not exactly utilitarian, but she was sure built to fight.

And then of course there was herself, Sgt. Kat Fury, graduate from Catspaw's Angels, multiple winner of the Ms. Magazine G.I. Jane Award, Divorce Advisor to the First Lady, and now this: Leader of the Howling Mudcatters, Dedicated to the Liberation of the Women of the World, Starting with Afghanistan (HMDLWWSA).
Enough exposition, it was time to get liberating. Sgt. Kat said a brief prayer to the Bitch Goddess, Kali, took a bite out of her lunchbag of pickled sheep's testicles, and stood up, spraying machine gun fire in all directions. "Take that, you scum-sucking oppressors of women!!", she yelled spiritually, "Let's go, girls!!"