“Lady cadets, attention.”
I straightened up automatically, with a motion sharpened by years of service in the 117th Mobile Recon Group. Shoulders back, chin slightly raised, hands at my sides, eyes forward. So instinctively that for a second I almost felt like Sergeant Daniel Cross again, the man I’d had the honor of being for all thirty-two years of my life before running into that anomaly, God damn it.
That feeling didn’t last long though, only a fraction of a second, because it was impossible to ignore how even with such a small movement, my breasts, emphasized by the tight corset, immediately swayed, making me tense the muscles in my back out of habit, and I barely held back a sigh from how tight the damn thing was pulled. Fucking Sasha, she tightened it on purpose, didn’t she? Didn’t she?
Stupid question. Obviously “yes”, because here it seemed like everyone either hated me or saw me as a walking joke.
“Dress ranks!” Sergeant Elizabeth Kane’s voice thundered out, making the entire formation jerk at once like we’d all been hooked through the spine by the same metal hook.
I sharply turned my head to the right with everyone else, feeling the tightly stretched bonnet tug unpleasantly at my hair where it was strapped under my chin, while my earrings swung with the motion.
Behind me I heard that quiet little laugh, the kind impossible to mistake for anything else. Mel. Melody Gibbs, who’d dreamed since childhood of getting into the transfer program despite barely having any chance at all. The “Lady” squad, part of the much larger “Echelon-5” project that handled undercover insertion programs across countless parallel worlds, was basically the highest peak she could ever hope to reach. And she’d made it, though apparently she still wasn’t satisfied. Especially not with the fact that I’d ended up in the corps alongside her, completely undeserved in her opinion.
“Nice hairstyle, Cross,” Melody whispered quietly, barely moving her lips as she glanced at me with pale gray eyes. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. “Very… masculine.”
“Thanks, Gibbs,” I hissed back without moving my head. My voice still sounded way too soft and feminine to my ears. High, with a faint rasp from nerves. “I try.”
Melody snorted quietly.
“I believe it. Very professional. Heard the commander gave your present back?”
I almost twitched hard enough to punch that face, the same face I probably would’ve wanted to kiss two years ago because of how cute she was, but now? Now she pissed me off more than my huge tits.
“The present.” I’d had to explain myself in front of a review board that the dildo in my locker hadn’t appeared because I, quote, “possessed an excessively high libido and was attempting to adapt to the female role faster”, but because those idiots had decided to give me an “initiation.”
I stayed silent, grinding my teeth and squeezing the fabric of my goddamn bloomers hard enough that they stretched tight over my thick ass, while the thin cotton slid unpleasantly between my cheeks. Fuck. It slipped up there again and I hadn’t even noticed it’d been there the whole time! Fucking body! Fucking uniform! Fucking Victorian program!
“Did you try falling asleep with it between your tits?”
I inhaled sharply through my nose hard enough that the lace edge of the corset undershirt tightened even more, while my breasts painfully bounced from that single motion alone. God. Why. Why did I have to feel that so clearly right now? Those damn words practically forced me to imagine that pink plastic monstrosity sliding between my tits while I stared at its tip and held my boobs together with both hands, moving them slowly up and down.
I turned my head so sharply that the bonnet yanked at my hair under my chin while my earrings swung against my neck.
“One more word, Gibbs…”
“Private Lady Cross!” Sergeant Elizabeth Kane’s voice exploded across the parade ground.
I flinched so hard my breasts bounced again under the tight corset fabric, while cold sweat instantly spread between my shoulder blades.
“Ma’am!”
“Do you have a discipline problem?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why do I see a problem?”
“My fault, ma’am.”
“Oh, I have absolutely no doubt it’s your fault, Cross.”
A faint laugh rippled through the formation.
Jesus Christ. Maybe that’s enough already? I get it, all of you dreamed of ending up here, and you think I’m some pervert, some misogynist who got stuck in this body because he deserved it. I understand that. I understand I can’t prove otherwise, and that back in civilian life I’d probably have ended up with a fate even worse than becoming “someone’s wife” in another world while occasionally sending back reports on local conditions. I understand all of that perfectly well, but for fuck’s sake, I’ve explained a hundred times that it wasn’t true and that this wasn’t some “reverse wish fulfillment” anomaly working on a mirror punishment principle. It was something else! And this cadet lady squad was simply the only place Uncle Sam could shove me without raising too many questions from the press, psychologists, and every other professional bullshitter. Besides, sending me into another world solved every inconvenient problem in one move.
“So then, lady cadets. Today is the final day of your basic training before assignment into the worlds of the ‘Victorian Veil’ program. In two hours each of you will receive your final placement. Role. Status. Cover family. Access level. Some of you will go into aristocratic households. Some into domestic service. Some into brothels within the diplomatic sector.”
“Oh, you’d love it there, Cross…” Melody whispered, not even trying to hide the satisfied grin on her face. “You’re so curvy and… insatiable.”
I felt my cheek twitch.
No.
No, not right now.
“Each of you will receive a legend maintained by ‘Echelon-5’ until the very moment of your death,” Sergeant Kane continued, slowly walking along the formation. “Remember the most important thing: after transition, you are no longer soldiers of the United States. You are women of the nineteenth century. And if you fail, nobody is coming for you.”
The wind stirred the American flag behind the drill yard.
Somewhere in the distance, a transport craft groaned.
And I let out a heavy breath. “Women of the nineteenth century”… Was that what that little boy from Oklahoma dreamed about when he first saw Marines on television at twelve years old and decided he’d become one someday too? Was that what Daniel Cross dreamed about after surviving three cleanup operations in Caracas, pulling wounded men out from under fire in the Tian Shan mountains, and spending a week eating synthetic ration bars in radioactive dust on the Mars Colony?
To become a fucking “lady” with fifth-size tits and a bonnet on my head?
I smirked. Apparently the sergeant didn’t notice… at least thank God for that. Though honestly, I’m starting to think it might not be so bad over there after all. At least I won’t have these dumb whores around me anymore.