I stared through the clubhouse window of the men's colony. This was the first time I'd seen men in their native habitat, and they were in various states of dress, gathered around a large view screen. Some lacked shirts, showing their bare chests for all to see, and a couple wore very short pants, exposing their legs. They all had a surprising amount of hair on their bodies--although some didn't have any on the tops of the heads. Weird.
       The little boys we'd delivered weren't anything like that.
       Suddenly they all cheered.
       I jerked back. "What are they doing?" I said over comms to my best friend, Brittani, standing next to me. We were on our first mission, just the two of us. Of course, we weren't likely to run into any large predators between our colony and the men's colony, so it wasn't like it was super dangerous.
       "Who knows, Trinity," she said. "They're men." She paused. "It's probably some porn thing. Can we go, already?" She shifted her feet, and her boots made a noise on the gravel outside the window. I looked in what I thought was her direction, but I couldn't see her. We were trying out the new stealth mode of our suits.
       A couple of the men glanced our way, and we froze. The scrawny dark-haired one in the back was cute. I stared at him.
       He didn't react, clearly not seeing me.
       I released a breath I hadn't known I was holding. Was I a little disappointed Scrawny-guy hadn't seen me looking at him?
        "What are we doing here, anyway, Trinity?" she said. "We delivered the little boys to the male nursery. We're not supposed to be here. Spying."
       Her wording gave me a good idea. "I'm, we're, gathering intel."
       "Is that an official mission from Queen Mother?" she asked, sounding skeptical. Queen Mother was our wise and wonderful ultimate leader.
       ". . .Sure," I said. Scrawny-guy was the closest to the window. I dialed up the magnification on my helmet. He had beautiful long eyelashes around his stormy gray eyes. There was something about him. He was almost as pretty as a girl. . .
       "Trinity!" Brittani said loudly over comms. "I'm leaving." She quietly turned and started stalking off.
       Reluctantly, I followed her.
       As we walked to our plane, I asked, "What's porn, again?"
       "It's something perverted to do with procreation," she said. "Why do you care? You're acting like a Breeder, not an Amazon." She glanced at me.
       "How could you call me a Breeder!" I said, aghast. "I thought we were friends!" I hadn't trained in combat every day for the last sixteen years to be a Breeder.
       As we entered the cloaked plane, she said, "Seriously, are you regretting your career choice?"
       We walked to the pilots' chairs. "Of course not," I said. "Amazon Warrior Princesses are the best!"
       We completed the pre-flight checklist and flew towards home.
       As we left male airspace and entered female-controlled airspace, the vegetation down below changed from lush green to crunchy brown.
       
       Commander Emma met us in the mess hall after we'd taken off our suits and put on clean uniforms. "That took a while," she said. "Everything go okay?" Standing, she towered over us as we sat at one of the dining tables.
       I'd been reading The Art of Peace by Amber, the most famous Amazon Warrior Princess of them all. Was Commander Emma employing some kind of intimidation tactic?
       Brittani opened her mouth as if to complain about my behavior.
       I gave her a dirty look, and she shut her mouth.
       "Of course, ma'am," I said. "The mission was smooth as skin, by the book."
       Brittani snorted.
       "You have something to add, young lady?" the commander asked Brittani, nano-reinforced-steel in her voice.
       "No, ma'am," Brittani said in a small voice.
       "Good," Commander Emma said. "Queen Mother wants to see you two immediately." Queen Mother mentored all the Amazons personally. She was awesome like that. But 'immediately' must mean a time-sensitive mission.
       Brittani and I double-timed it over to Queen Mother's office. As we approached, we could hear yelling--male yelling. What? Men weren't allowed in the women's colony.
       My conscience niggled me a little. But Brittani and I hadn't actually gone into the male sanctum--so it wasn't the same thing at all.
       We stopped outsider Queen Mother's office, the yelling almost deafening from this vantage point.
       "What should we do?" Brittani asked.
       "I think we should knock," I said.
       "But there's a man in there!" she said.
       "Queen Mother ordered us." I knocked on the beautifully-carved wooden door.
       The yelling inside stopped immediately.
       "Come in," Queen Mother called out.
       Brittani and I glanced at each other. Were we really going to be in the same room as a man?
       "Come in!" Queen Mother said.
       Apparently so. I opened the door.
       Inside, Queen Mother's office was the same as ever: a thick hand-woven carpet, comfy cushions strewn about the floor, beautiful needlepoint tapestries on the walls.
       And yet her office was also totally different: a man stood in the middle of it. He seemed old, with a white head of hair and a bunch of white hair on his face. He was taller than Queen Mother but fatter.
       The weirdest thing about it was they looked totally natural standing next to each other.
       "We're done, Ambrose," Queen Mother said calmly. "Get out."
       "That's President Ambrose to you!" he yelled."And we're done when I say we're done!"
       "Did you bring your sidearms, girls?" Queen Mother asked me and Brittani in a pleasant voice.
       We each put our hands on our sidearms. "Of course, ma'am." I turned to the man and gave him a steely gaze (The Art of Peace Chapter Five. I'd been practicing.).
       The blood seemed to drain from his face, and his mouth sagged. "Uh," he finally said. "I'll be going then." He took a step towards us. "But I'm going because I want to leave. Not because you told me to leave."
       Queen Mother sighed but didn't say anything.
       The man scampered out, and Queen Mother closed the door behind him.
       "So, girls," Queen Mother said. "How did the new stealth technology work?"
       "It was great, ma'am!" Brittani said.
       "Yes, ma'am." I nodded. "We even did a little extra, ah, testing."
       Brittani looked scared.
       But Queen Mother only nodded. "Good. I've got a new mission for you. I need the two of you to surveil what's going on with the river. Use stealth mode. Why has our water supply disappeared? Is it truly as the men say, natural, or did they do something nefarious?"
       Wow. Nefarious. I mean, I knew they were men, but that seemed extreme, even for them.
       "Are you all right, Queen Mother?" I asked as we were leaving.
       "I'm worried about the water. Our colony can't survive without water." She froze for a few moments.
       "Queen Mother?" I asked. I'd never seen her worried like this. She always seemed so kind and wise--straight out of the section on Ideal Rulers in The Art of Peace.
       She said slowly, "You won't believe this, but my grandmother was one of the original colonists."
       "I know that, ma'am," I said.
       She chuckled a little. "No. That's not the unbelievable part. Grandmother told me originally there was only one colony. Here. Our colony."
       "If there was no men's colony, how did you procreate?" Brittani blurted out. Maybe she had a little of the Breeder in her.
       "No," Queen Mother said. "The men were here with us, in our colony. We had one colony together."
       My eyes opened wide in surprise. Men and women together? No. It was hard to even imagine.
       "I can tell you girls don't believe it. I agree it sounds very strange, but the colony records are clear." She smiled. "Never mind that. Please get to work, girls."
       "Yes, ma'am," I said.
       "Yes, ma'am," Brittani said.
       As we walked out, she said, "I don't believe it. Men and women living together? It's crazy. And who would want that?"
       But I wasn't sure. Queen Mother had never lied to us before, why would she start now? Maybe men weren't quite as bad as we thought. . .
       
       Brittani and I landed our cloaked plane in a clearing in the forest, near the dry riverbed. Our plan was to follow the riverbed up until we hit water and then to see what was what. We hadn't been able to discern anything from airborne surveillance--there were too many trees.
       Outside the ship, I glanced over at where I thought she was. "Brittani?" I said over comms. "Are you there? I can't see you."
       "I'm here, standing right outside the ship," she said. "Are you there? I can't see you."
       "I'm here, too," I said. "So, stealth-tech still working, check."
       "Check," she said. "Now, let's go see what the men are up to." I saw a bush jiggle for no apparent reason as she brushed past it.
       "Right behind you." I felt honored to do this special mission for Queen Mother.
       We followed the dry riverbed, but it was tough going through the woods, filled with dried bushes, small trees, and the like. The riverbed itself was as flat and smooth as an Amazon's stomach.
       "Hey, Britt," I said. "I think we should walk in the riverbed." I pointed at it, but she couldn't see me, of course. "It'll be much easier than dodging all this wildlife."
       "Great idea, Trinity," she said. "I knew I partnered with you for a reason."
       We followed the dry riverbed, from the middle of the riverbed. Eventually, there was a small trickle of water, and the plants on the riverbank were green rather than brown.
       "Huh," Brittani said. "I don't get it. Why is there just a trickle here?"
       "Good question," I said. "Let's go up further."
       As we continued walking upstream, the amount of water increased.
       Eventually, we reached what appeared to be a large tree-fall across the river.
       "There must be at least ten trees down here," Brittani said. "I don't recall any huge storm that would cause this. But they shouldn't cut off the river, should they? Wouldn't the water just go around them?"
       My Amazonian senses were tingling. This seemed suspicious.
       We waded right up to the trees. It turned out they were not actually in the river, they were suspended somehow above the river--as if to hide whatever was happening from Amazonian eyes.
       I ducked down a little and waded under the trees.
       Brittani was right behind me.
       Under the trees, there was some kind of huge dam, connected to a huge pipe that diverted the water in the very direction of the men's colony. We both gasped. Then men were stealing our water!
       "Nefarious." Brittani exhaled loudly. "What should we do?"
       I knew we should report this as soon as possible. But The Art of Peace also said, 'Do your duty--asked and unasked.' "Let's wreck it!"
       "Yes!" she said. "That's what I'm talking about!" She pulled her weapon. As it left the holster on her suit, it seemed to materialize out of thin air.
       I pulled my weapon. "But we need to get up on the bank."
       "Right!" she said.
       The two of us scrambled out of the water. Once we were on the bank, I said. "Fire at will!"
       We riddled the dam and the pipe with energy bolts.
       Within seconds, water crashed down, crushing everything in its path. Several of the suspended trees fell and rushed downstream. A lot of water crashed onto the bank as well. I had to grab onto a tree to keep from being washed away. "Britt, are you all right?" But I could see an Amazon-shaped hole in the water on the bank a little upstream from me.
       "Yeah," she answered, grunting a little.
       Once the flood calmed down, I said, "Let's hot-foot it back to the ship, ASAP."
       'A considered retreat can be very effective.' --The Art of Peace.
       
       When we got back to base, a colony-wide confab was in progress.
       Commander Emma stood. ". . .And I say if they want a fight, let's give them a fight!"
       The Amazons cheered. Standing near the door, Brittani and I joined in.
       The Breeders, surrounding Queen Mother, frowned.
       One called out, "We should preserve the peace. If we don't, all could perish."
       The Breeders cheered.
       Now, the Amazons frowned.
       Queen Mother stood, holding up her hands. "Normally, I would counsel peace. But in this case, Ambrose has been most uncooperative. He claims we had no right to destroy their equipment. He's been sputtering and yelling, threatening general mayhem. . ."
       A sentry ran into the room. "The men have been spotted coming this way! And they're armed!"
       For a moment, it was quiet enough to hear a needle drop.
       Then the room erupted into chaos, everyone yelling and shouting at once.
       Gradually, the shouts coalesced into one cry: "Send in the virgins!"
       The Amazons roared--me and Brittani along with the rest of them.
       
       Thirty of us, the most brave, most awesome, Amazon Warrior Princesses had been deployed near the colony entrance. All of us wore stealth armor. All of us were armed with sidearms and pulse rifles.
       A large group of men ran up, brandishing old-fashioned guns.
       Commander Emma said over comms, "Warning shots, ladies. On my mark . . .fire."
       Thirty energy pulses roared out of sidearms, seemingly floating in mid-air, and slammed into the ground in front of the men.
       I approved. 'Peace through strength.' was one of The Art of Peace's most important tenets.
       The men stopped abruptly and pretty much all screamed like, well, little girls. Some fell over backwards.
       Commander Emma pressed a button and her helmet retracted. "We will accept your unconditional surrender now."
       I noticed the dark-haired scrawny-guy I'd seen in the clubhouse was there in the front. He'd managed to stay on his feet. Good on him. He might have the makings of an Amazon Warrior Princess, himself.
       That Ambrose guy got up off the ground, pants stained, face red. "Never! We'll never surrender to a bunch of women!"
       Commander Emma shrugged. "Suit yourself. Amazons, prepare to fire on my mark." She reached up and closed her helmet.
       "Wait!" Scrawny Dark-haired Guy said. "We're clearly outmatched." He pointed at us. "We're not crazy or suicidal." He glared at Ambrose. "We surrender." He threw down his gun. All the other men, except Ambrose, followed suit. "We surrender."
       "But, but--," Ambrose sputtered.
       Commander Emma retracted her helmet. "We'd be happy to shoot you, Ambrose, if you truly refuse to surrender." She smiled without really smiling. (The Art of Peace Chapter Five.)
       "Aurgh!" He threw down his gun on the ground.
       Scrawny Dark-haired Guy stepped forward. "What now?"
       "Now we talk," Commander Emma said.
       I quickly retracted my helmet and walked up to Scrawny Dark-haired Guy. "Hi, I'm Trinity."
       He blinked his long eyelashes and stared into my eyes. "Hi, I'm, uh, Josh. It's, uh, nice to meet you."
       "Likewise." I smiled--really and truly.
       He smiled back.
       The art of peace--through peace.