Mid-January, 1962

“Goddess! I HATE New York winters!” Actress Lily Lovelace complained softly to herself as she left the theatre after a late performance, irritation twisting her beautiful heart-shaped face into an angry mask. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was snow, but this dirty dingy slush is just intolerable!.” The beautiful black-haired actress stomped her high-heeled boot in disapproval and then swore softly as wet sludge sprayed the brick wall of the theatre. “I don’t know why I even bother! There’s no one around to see, anyway, and I‘ve got places to go. Rakasha!”

In response to Lily’s magic word, a hot red flame roared up from the slushy pavement and the snow on the sidewalk sizzled, engulfing Lily in a cloud of grimy steam and oily black smoke. The dirty fog wrapped around her tightly, then reluctantly cleared to reveal a very tall four-armed black-skinned woman with a mane of blood red hair and yellow flames flashing from her eyes. She wore a dress of fine golden links with a wide silver belt, buckled with a fist-sized red-tinged diamond cut into the shape of a skull. Kali, the World’s Most Powerful Woman leaped into the air and vanished in less than an eye-blink, leaving behind nothing but a clap of thunder.

In another place, infinitely far from the dingy streets of New York, yet separated by a magical veil as flimsy as tissue for those who knew the secret, two grotesque figures sat in a room full of flames, watching the amazing transformation through a magical window and cackling with satisfaction.

“Yes, brother, every time she changes, she comes more under our control. Be patient, and soon she will be our agent.” The shape that spoke was humanoid with red skin, female, larger than human with giant horns on the front of her head.”

“A patient demon, sister? Your sense of humor is almost humanly atrocious! My own plan should provide us with a new human agent much sooner than yours!” boasted the other. The male demon looked much like his sister, save his skin seemed black as coal.

The two laughed again, and then turned their attention back to their magic window.

Kali sped crosstown through the night sky to the NY Headquarters building of the Super Squad in only seconds, then raced into the aircraft hanger. ‘Good!‘ she thought with satisfaction. ‘The C-57D is set to go. Next stop, Chicago… then St. Louis, then San Fran and finally, St. Thomas! I’m really looking forward to a week’s vacation in a Caribbean paradise!’

The C-57D was an alien flying craft which had been named by the Super Squad member Miss Music, who was an enthusiast of 50s science fiction movies. A typical ‘flying saucer’ some 30 feet across and about 12 feet thick in the center, it resembled a scaled-down model of the famed flying saucer from the movie ’Forbidden World‘.

The Super Squad had confiscated it from an alien invasion force they had defeated in the group’s first adventure together. The alien interior had been rebuilt into a comfortably-appointed cabin with human furnishings and ceilings high enough to accommodate the 7 foot Kali and her taller husband Shiva. She was taking off empty, but she’d pick up her first passenger in Chicago in less than half an hour.

“Tammi, why couldn’t you pack last night?” Alex (Palette) Silverstone’s voice showed her irritation with her tiny roommate. “I could have used an extra hour’s sleep!” It was 4 AM; they were scheduled to meet Kali, Bonnie (Lady Victory) Marlow and Valerie (Majique) Coppersmith on the football field in Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park in an hour.

“We’re going to the Virgin Islands for a week and you’re grousing about getting up a little early?” Tammi (Miss Music) Page replied to her roommate, holding up another wisp of nothing from her dainties drawer, then throwing it in her bag after a headshake from Alex. “What do you think of this swimsuit?” It was a tiny bikini, yellow with red polka dots. In the background a popular rock and roll song was playing softly.

“I think you won’t be able to see the sand on the beach, there will be so many boys around. If you’re lucky, you’ll miss the riot because they’ll arrest you before it starts.” Alex answered disapprovingly.

“Do you really think so? That's so sweet!” Tammi responded gleefully. She threw it into her bag.

“I like the metallic silvery one better myself.” Alex replied. Tammi threw that one into the bag as well.

“What about this?” Tammi held up a pair of scandalous dresses which Alex knew had cost almost $300 each, a diaphanous sun dress and a little black cocktail dress with sequins, which Tammi wore to artists’ showings, charity receptions and benefits, and other high visibility social events when she wanted to be the center of attention, which was all the time.

“We’re not going clubbing, Tams, we’re going to the beach.”

“You’d spend the whole week in cutoffs and a grubby tank top!“ Tammi complained. “A lot of rich people go there for vacation, you know. Heck, the Rockerfellows own half of one of the islands! They know how to take care of tourists, and they‘ve got some great clubs! We’re can’t lay on the beach the whole time.”

Alex gave up. As usual, Tammi would do whatever Tammi wanted to do. Alex set to work packing a picnic basket with breakfast for the whole group, and when Tammi was finally finished, the two headed for the park. Alex struggled to pull their big Radio Flyer kid’s wagon, piled high with Tammi’s three giant bags and her own small one. Tam’s 3 bags weighed more than she did! The dense morning fog distorted sight and sound, and Alex realized she could just pick out the muffled strains of the theme song for the TV Show ‘Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Theatre” mixed with the distant moan of foghorns.

“Mother Gaia, I love San Francisco in January!” Alex mused. “I love the mystery inherent in a pea soup fog like this. You get the feeling that almost anything is possible, and might be revealed with your next step.” Tammi didn’t reply - she hated the cold and damp. When she’d moved to California, she thought she was moving to a mythical semi-tropical paradise where it would never be cold, but San Francisco in the winter could be bitter. If it hadn’t been for Alex, she would have left again long ago.

Human senses and human-built instruments would have been baffled, trying to guide the C-57D to a precision landing in this pea soup fog, but the alien navigational instruments were up to the task. At 5 AM exactly, Pacific Standard Time, the C-57D touched down on the 50 yard line, and the Bay Area Bombshells boarded ‘Super Squad Airlines Flight 101’ to St. Thomas. The first annual Super Squad Girl’s Only Week was underway!

*****

“Since the Super Squad has our own ‘airline‘, why are we flying so darn early in the morning?” Val grumbled as they floated up through the dense San Francisco fog. She had to speak fairly loudly to be heard over the faint whistle of the wind outside the cabin and the background music that she recognized as ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’.

“People who see the C-57D tend to panic and call the papers and start another UFO scare.” said Kali, disgustedly. “I’d rather fly by myself, but I’m sure not going to carry you guys!“

“You’d think that after that story about us in Life Magazine, people would recognize that the C-57D means Super Squad, not aliens. They should cheer when they see it.” Tammi sniffed peevishly. “And they showed our story on the news on all three TV networks! How could they miss it?”

“Most people still don’t believe in super heroes, even now.” Bonnie soothed her. “Easier to blame every strange thing on UFOs than pay attention to the news.” She changed the subject enthusiastically. “We’ve got reservations for a group of bungalows at a resort near Red Hook, just off the beach. They have all kinds of activities, and they even have a freshwater pool.”

“And massage!” Tammi cheered. “And a great club.”

“How are we paying for all this?” Val was worried; she didn’t make enough (yet) from her fortune telling business to pay for a Caribbean vacation, and she’d just blown through the last of her latest reward for helping the St. Louis police solve another missing person case.

“No problems, mon” Kali grinned at her as she tried to fake an island accent. “After Hurricane Jenny last year I did some rescue and reconstruction operations in the Virgin Islands, and the island government contacted the Super Squad to offer us free hospitality as a reward. At the November Squad meeting, when the 5 of us started planning a vacation without the boys, I remembered the invitation. Ya, mon, a perfect fit.” The others nodded

“So everyone working for the resort will know we’re the Super Squad?” Alex asked disapprovingly. “Tam and I haven’t been able to keep our identities secret, and it’s starting to get annoying having legions of adoring fans hanging around all the time, asking for our autographs or just staring at us, hoping for a chance to talk to us.”

“I didn’t mind legions of adoring fans, at first.” Tammi added sadly. “It was cool being recognized and idolized - better than being a movie star! But now it’s kind of creepy - there’s people walking through our yard and all over our gardens, and yesterday I even caught some guy peeping through the bathroom window!”

“The government hasn’t told the resort who we are” Bonnie reassured them. “To them, we’re just another group of rich tourists.” She looked around at the group and grinned. “Rich, beautiful tourists! Even if they don‘t know who we are, we‘re going to draw a crowd. This is going to be fun.” Tammi cheered up and laughed at this.

To read the rest of this story, you must purchase it (for $1.00) at myebook.com

A little later, after they had landed discretely, Kali changed back to Lily and they checked in at the Red Hook Resort. They agreed to spend the morning unpacking and getting settled in, then meet for lunch. Alex finished unpacking in minutes; Tammi was just starting on her second bag when someone knocked on the door of their bungalow

“I can help you with your secret identity problem” Val announced cheerfully as she barged in. “Hold on”. Without waiting for acknowledgement, she completed a short chant in a language unknown to either of the California girls, then dramatically opened her large leather pouch and reached in.

Behind the magical gossamer veil in that far away yet nearby flame-filled place, the male demon smirked in evil satisfaction as he spoke to the other. “Watch this, sister! I think you’ll find it amusing…”

“Oh, grotty!” Val exclaimed in disgust. “It’s all wet and slimy!” She pulled her hand out of the pouch, clutching a large handful of dripping sea weed and fronds.

“Oh, GROSS! It’s dripping icky slime on the carpet!“ Tammi yelped as she jumped to her feet. “Get it OUT of here!“

“Tams, we’re in a bungalow only yards from the ocean. We’ll be tracking in sticky sand and dripping salt water all over everything all week!” With the keen eye of an artist, Alex realized that there was something inside the mass of seaweed, something that was the right size and shape to be a bottle. Her artistic curiosity was aroused. She took the wet mess from Val and started to examine it closely. Sure enough, there was something solid in the lump of weed. She carefully began pulling away strands and asked Val: “What is it?”

“I summonsed a magical charm that will cause people to forget your other identities, as long as it is yours. If you give it away, lose it, or it gets stolen, it will stop working.” Val felt uneasy as she said that. She had a seemingly instinctive magical connection with the artifacts she summonsed, and she sensed that there was more to this artifact than the purpose to which Alex and Tammi would turn it. But it would do the job they needed.

Now that she realized how powerful this artifact was, she would like to have it back, to study and use to augment her own abilities once she‘d figured it out, but she’d already given it away. It was unfortunate, but in a couple of hours she could summons another artifact.

The bottle was blue glass, made cloudy by long submersion in salt water, shaped like a hip liquor flask, and partially covered with corroded gilt-metal filigree. Barnacles clung to part of the glass surface. The metal cap was in surprisingly good condition, and there was something in the bottle, something that rattled when Alex shook it gently, though it was impossible to discern through the cloudy blue glass.

“Ooooohhh! I wonder if there’s a genie inside?” Tammi asked in awe. “I want to make a wish!”

“No genie.” Val said, uncertainly. “But I don’t think you should open it. The magic is trapped inside the bottle, and it will stop working if you let it out.”

“Wow! That is outta sight cool!” Tammi exclaimed. “Let’s hit the beach!”

Just after noon a band of clouds blew by overhead, and it rained for about 15 minutes, a cool light refreshing rain that was the perfect complement for the beautiful warm, clear day. The 5 women were seated at an outside table shaded by palm trees, cooled by the constant afternoon Tradewind blowing out of the northeast directly down the Windward Passage and over Pillsbury Sound. About a mile out, she estimated, Alex spotted a sailing ship with 2 masts, heading directly downwind towards them under full sail. She realized she was hearing the rock instrumental ‘Tequilla’; it seemed to suit the mood perfectly!

“So you guys still get pirate ships? I thought they were wiped out centuries ago.” Alex jokingly asked their waiter. Her eyesight was well superior to that of a normal human, and she could see the Jolly Roger flying on the mid-ships mast even at this distance.

(Sorry, I’m not able to speak or write phonetically the charming Virgin Island vocal ‘lilt‘, so you will have to imagine it).

“There are a lot of sailing ships in our waters, and some of them fly that flag for a lark. But I don’t recognize that one at all.” Before he could say more, Alex stiffened.

“Crap - they’re shooting at us!” She’d seen the smoke from the swivel gun on the bow.

“Probably blanks, part of the gag - and even if it were real, the maximum range of the guns on a schooner that size is only around a thousand yards. Nothing to worry about…” the waiter replied soothingly.

While he was speaking, something splashed into the water with a tremendous boom only a few yards offshore, throwing a geyser 40 feet into the air. Somebody on the beach yelled “INCOMING. Out of the water!” in an incredibly loud voice and the resort guests and staff were suddenly screaming and scrambling towards shore and over the beach. “To the hurricane shelters!” the same voice was now shouting. One of the staff was a veteran of World War II and Korea who had retired to St. Thomas to escape the stresses of the mainland, and he now called on his almost-forgotten command experience to try to bring some order into the chaos around them. Somehow, the background music had changed to the cannon part from “The 1812 Overture’.

Fortunately, a pirate ship only has one gun that can shoot forward, and it takes a trained team almost 4 minutes to reload. Alex could see that team in action, and she warned her teammates that the pirate schooner was about to fire its uncanny weapon again.

“Rakasha!” Lily cried out in her strong, clear voice. A gout of greasy flame roared up through the ground beneath her, melting the sand before it surrounded her. Then the flame vanished, leaving Lily wreathed in a clinging cloud of thick black oily smoke. The smoke dissipated, and Kali stood before them once again.

At the same instant, Alex yelled ‘They’ve fired again!” Kali leaped into the air and flashed towards the attacking pirate ship. She saw the incoming cannon ball, about the size of a fist, and her speed easily allowed her to fly to intercept it. It would shatter harmlessly against her invulnerable form, and then she’d easily wipe up the pirates and she wouldn’t even miss lunch.

Except it didn’t work that way. The 4 pound iron ball smashed into her and exploded, releasing stinging mystical energies that blasted her backwards through the sky! The impact was worse than being kicked by Master Man in a full contact training exercise; in fact, she’d never been hit harder. She spun groggily through the air and crashed down on the beach she’d just left, gouging a long ditch through the sand until she finally stopped moving, just short of the table where her teammates were still sitting. She tried to struggle out of the ditch, and managed to drag herself to a sitting position, and then slumped over, unconscious.

“Crap” said Tammi, very softly. “I think we’re in trouble!”

The four women had been sitting absolutely still, unbelieving, as they watched the World’s Most Powerful Woman get casually blasted out of the sky. When she couldn’t rise, and instead collapsed unconscious it was like someone had thrown the ‘On’ switch. There was a sudden flurry of activity and in an instant the table was empty, as the heroines ran back to their rooms to don their costumes. In less than three minutes they were back - Lady Victory, Miss Music, Palette, Majique - ready to fight for truth and justice. Instantly the air was filled with babble.

“What are we going to do against someone who can knock down Kali so easily? We need a plan of attack! I sense powerful magic. Follow me, we need a speedboat! I can’t swim! They just fired another cannon shot but it’s going to miss. I’m supposed to meet Derek for a walk on the beach at 2:30. I hope that splash doesn’t get icky stuff in my hair. They’re turning. What if they hit one of us? I think there’s a ghost on that ship. The schooner was a commonly used ship for piracy in the 1600s and 1700s. I hope everyone’s in the hurricane shelter by now. We need someone who can fly.”

“WHO SAID THEY’RE TURNING?” Lady Victory’s roared question was so loud it stunned even Miss Music into silence.

Palette answered. “You can see it now, too, look.“

“Sailing ships used to have to turn broadside in order to fire all their guns at an opponent” Lady V said quickly. “We need to move!” As she spoke, they could see multiple puffs of smoke from the side of the boat. It would take a couple of seconds for the gunpowder-propelled volley to travel the half mile to shore.

“Quick, into the pool! Dive and hold your breaths as long as you can!” The 4 heroines ran to the side of the pool and dove in. A few seconds later, they heard several explosions and the sounds of destruction on the grounds above them, weirdly amplified and distorted by the water of the pool. After around 30 seconds, it was quiet again. Lady Victory signaled to the group to surface. Debris was dropping into the pool and sinking around them, but nothing dangerously large.

“It should take a few minutes before they can fire again.” She climbed out of the pool and looked at the debris around them. “They must have used chainshot, look how things are torn up. We should try to get out of their firing line before they can reload.”

“Hey, who died and made you boss!?” Miss Music asked petulantly.

“I’ve been Lady Victory since 1956 - can you match my experience? Can we argue about this later? Or we can go back into a huddle and babble at each other again until the bad guys manage to shoot us. Besides, unless you shut up and follow orders I‘ll beat the crap out of you when this is over - if you live through it.” She was already headed towards the resort’s boat shack.

“She wouldn’t dare, the ancient bitch. This isn’t over yet!” Miss Music mumbled to herself. Palette overheard.

“Shut up, Tams!” Palette ordered. “She’s right. We’ll take her orders for now, and vote on a permanent leader later.”

“You always give in to the bossy types!” Miss Music complained, and then shut up. She knew she was pretty bossy herself. It was part of her charm.