Military Fiction
Tag: ALTHIST
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— Brina is keelhauled. —Brina didn’t remember what keelhauling was, but she decided she didn’t want to know.
Many of the ship’s crew stared at their feet while others dragged her to the bow.
“Do you think this a good idea?” she heard Devlin say to Brindley. “Suppose she dies? She probably will!”
“Then we won’t be docking in Tasman.”
“She’s only a woman!”
“Shut up Devlin. Do it now!”
The crewmen lowered Brina over the bow by the length of rope attached to her wrists while another sailor guided the other length of rope to the stern. He worked it under the moving ship’s hull and pulled it taught.
“Ready!” he yelled from the stern.
Six men lowered Brina to the crashing bow-waves, while three others hauled on the stern rope. Her feet touched the cold water, so she began to take deep breaths, taking her last a moment before her head went under. After that, she understood little of what happened, except that the sea battered her against the barnacle-studded planks of the hull and her lungs began to scream with the agony of asphyxiation. She held on as long as she could, feeling her chest convulse with its primitive urge to breath. The last thing she saw was a patch of light in the bottle-blue water behind her thrashing legs.
“You’re a lucky bitch!” a male voice said. “The Captain wouldn’t have revived anyone else but you!”
Rip-Find the Magic Key: 2nd longest Western novel at 1 M+ words. Buy Vol 1 bit.ly/ripvol1 | Understand more bit.ly/inforip
— Omah needs a shave. —“I need a shave.”
“Let me show you. Take this off first.”
She tugged on the collar of his jumpsuit.
“Oh no! You’re not getting me naked that quick.”
“Ha! You’ll see us naked before too long. Don’t be shy.”
“No!”
“Alright! Just strip to the waist then.”
Omah unfastened the sticky front tab and peeled the smooth, metallic top down to his waist, rubbed his bare chest out of embarrassment and gave Archivist a lopsided grin.
Now look in the mirror and say, “Shave!”
“Shave! Hey! What’s this! I have a white mark on my chest. Like a key!”
“Yes. I thought it was kinda cute when we were shown your body in one of our first briefings.”
“Oh god! You mean you’ve seen me naked?”
“Sure! All of it. And you’re quite a healthy man.”
Omah blushed and replied.
“But what does this mark mean? Do you have it?”
“No. You’re the only one. We don’t know what it means. You had it when you came to u- … . Oh there, now you’re jumping the gun! Or making me! Let’s do the shave.”
“But wait a minute! At least it’s something not blue! And Controller; he seems very emotionless and blank. Are you all robots?”
Archivist’s laugh sounded like the delicate titter of a teenage girl.
“It sometimes feels like it.”
“Androids then? Cyborgs?”
Rip-Find the Magic Key: 2nd longest Western novel at 1 M+ words. Buy Vol 1 bit.ly/ripvol1 | Understand more bit.ly/inforip
Lazlo Ferran | Vampire, Werewolf and Sci-fi Books 