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even joining. Those
who did, ended up dropping out because of the brutal training. Tamisa
considered her childhood on Aanadya brutal training. Nothing the Enforcers
could throw at her could ever be worse than what she had already endured.
Consequently, she hadn’t dropped out. Instead, she proved to be an excellent
cadet. She trained to become just as strong, as fast and resilient as any of
her male counterparts.
    Tamisa believed
that her only weakness was her extraordinary beauty. She feared it might
distract others from her accomplishments, so she struggled to reduceit
in any way she could. She made sure her clothes were fit in such a way as to
deemphasize her curvy body.  She even practiced her speech to be as raspy
and sharp as possible, hoping it would grant her a more masculine image. Then,
right before her first scheduled mission, she decided to get rid of the last
feminine trait she felt had left: her voluminous curly hair.
    When she had reported
in front of Thomas Liam Anderson with a shaved scalp, the commander had sent
her packing and told her to return only when her hair was back to at least a
third of the level it had been before.
    “That’s
ridiculous, sir, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” she had protested.
Anderson just nonchalantly shrugged. “I would suggest training.” That evening,
the punching bag in the training room was nicknamed Commander Anderson.
    Many times she
had felt that she hated the man with a passion. More times still, she felt she
loved him like a father. Such was the nature of the High Commander of the
greatest military in human history. Whatever her personal feelings toward him
at any given time, she knew better than to question his judgment. So she trained
for another six months, knowing that she should actually be on field missions
instead. She waited for her hair to grow back a little. Now, she was returning
for a private consultation with him, at his request. Marty was right, she
needed to get the anger out of her system first. Luckily, she knew just the way
to do that.
     
    ●
     
    Tamisa decided
to put off her talk with the commander for a few minutes. First, she had to
talk to a friend. She had promised herself that she would not get close to
anyone at the academy. She didn’t want to create any emotional bonds which
could be perceived as weakness, but she had no choice when it came to Villo.
    He was one of
her trainers, in charge of mental conditioning and meditation. The Enforcers
focused on enhancing the body’s fighting ability with a natural approach. They
lacked any of the neural or muscular insertions that other fighting units used
to enhance strength or speed. They didn’t download any fighting techniques into
their memory insertions. Instead, they developed their own.
    They were not
prototechs because they used technology to compensate for abilities that were
not natural to the human body, like retinal insertions for thermal recognition
or the solar positioning system. However, they didn’t technologically enhance
the body’s natural abilities: strength, speed, balance and endurance. Those
were trained and perfected using flawless control of the mind and nervous
system.  
    “The mind can be
taught to do amazing things,” Villo had told them, smiling like he always did.
“You don’t have to technologically advance your body in order to be invincible.
You can teach it to become invincible.”
    Those were his
first words to his students, on their first ever lesson with him. Since then,
Tamisa had lived her life according to the wisdom of those words. Without any
trace of neuroinsertions, muscular insertions or memory enhancements, the
enforcers had become the most effective fighters in the man-inhabited universe.
They were near impossible to defeat in battle, whether it was tactical warfare
or hand-to-hand combat. While the planets of the IFCO all had their individual
militaries, the enforcers were at the top of the hierarchy, responsible with
the