Chapter 2 #2
“So do IBSes.” Inflatable Boats, Small were heavy rubber boats, an integral part of BUD/S training. “You gonna eliminate those, too?”
He shook his head. “No, we’re gonna give them a try.
Somehow they seem more manageable. I don’t know.
We’re playing by ear...or muscle. But don’t worry, we’ll push them to their limits.
They’ll have to work harder than they ever have in their lives to survive.
..till they can kick ass and take names like any special forces unit. ”
“And afterward?”
“Once trained, they’ll be incorporated into the new U.S. Liberty Teams.”
Zach frowned. “That anti-terrorist squad? I heard about it starting up a year or so ago, then nothing.”
“It’s still in the works. Just ran into a few snags, which could be expected when you try to combine SEALs, Green Berets, Army Special Forces and every other Rambo-like idiot warrior group in the world, not to mention, now, WEALS.”
“I can see dozens of complications with this WEALS program. Sex, as in instructors and officers hitting on the women. Serious distractions, like breasts bobbing all over the place. Female periods. PMS. Can you imagine?”
“That’s not the half of it. In pre-training last week, we were doing duck squats when one of the women accidentally farted. Some of the instructors laughed. She burst out bawling with embarrassment and ended up ringing out.”
Any SEAL trainee, or WEALS trainee for that matter, could DOR, drop on request, at any time.
All they had to do was walk to the northeast corner of the grinder where there was a ship’s bell, place their personalized helmets on the ground, and ring the bell three times.
In fact, there was a forty per cent drop-out rate during the first phase of BUD/S.
He had no idea how high it would be for WEALS which had started with ninety-five women.
“And there’s more. The Navy has appointed a female ombudsman, Captain Lenore Feldman, to handle complaints from the WEALS trainees.
Think anal with a Capital A. Her big thing is memos.
” The commander picked up a memo as if it were something repugnant.
“Look at this,” he added, shoving a pink slip his way.
MEMO
From: Captain Lenore Feldman
To: Commander Ian MacLean
Subject: WEALS
PMS is a legitimate medical condition according to Code 722, Article 7.
Zach shook his head at the absurdity. “Picture this scenario: `Please, Instructor Floyd, sir, can I be excused from PT today? I’m in a bad mood.’”
“Here’s another one. Can you believe it?”
MEMO
From: Captain Lenore Feldman
To: Commander Ian MacLean
Subject: WEALS
Excessive hollering in some circumstances can be considered harassment. No Nexus, but open to interpretation, case-by-case basis.
“You know, SEALs are not the most politically correct beings on the planet. Next, they’ll be giving us sensitivity training. Find our inner female, or some such crap. This is going to be a nightmare,” Zach concluded.
“More like a field of land mines. We’ll have to be careful where we step, but I’ll be damned if I’ll change special forces training just to accommodate these women.
If they want to join the game, they’re gonna have to play by our rules.
Anyhow, we’ll have a briefing later this afternoon.
All SEALs, SEAL trainees and any testosterone-oozing body within a mile radius of the compound will know by tomorrow what they can or cannot do. ”
Including no laughing at farts. Unbelievable! Zach nodded. “So, this is going to be my punishment.”
“It’ll be fun.”
Zach was too appalled to say anything but, “Hoo-yah!”
A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do...
Britta figured that she must have landed on her head when she fell over the cliff, knocking her unconscious. Or was she dead? Could this be the famed Other World? If so, its glory had been vastly exaggerated, in her opinion. There was not a gold sword or one-eyed God in sight.
Or mayhap this was Muspell. It was certainly hot enough. But, nay, Britta did not think she had done anything so bad in her lifetime to merit those eternal fires.
Still, I must be in bad odor with the gods. Naught goes right with me anymore.
When Britta emerged from the haze she found herself in, it was not her head that throbbed, but her backside. She wasn’t impaled on the sharp rocks, but sitting in a flat, sandy arena.
A man wearing short, thigh-exposing braies and a short-sleeved shert leaned over her, his clean-shaven face florid with anger.
To her shock, she realized that she was dressed in a similar fashion, right down to the heavy skin boots.
Into her ear, the man shouted, “Lady, get yer butt in gear and climb back up that Cargo Net. NOW!” He had a ruddy complexion which got redder, a clear sign of his anger.
Best he be careful. She knew a man, Snorri the Red, who’d had a similar ruddiness. One day in the midst of one of his yelling fits, he just dropped over, dead as a lutefisk.
“Move it, move it, move it!” the man continued to scream.
“What?” She glanced upward and saw not the cliff face, but a high wall made of rope.
And women, in similar attire, were climbing upward.
Could they be Valkyries? Nay. None of them looked goddess-like in beauty.
And, truth to tell, if they were all virgins, she would bite her best sword. Not in that scant attire.
One of them fell down, dusted herself off, and immediately started over. Some men, blowing metal whistles, smirked as they stared at the women’s fabric-strained buttocks sticking out like obscene boulders above them.
“You heard me, birdbrain. And you know the correct response. Yes, Master Chief Uxley, sir. Say it with the proper respect.”
Birdbrain? Is he calling me birdbrain? “What did you say?” Britta was about to clout the insulting man aside his head, which had been shaved nigh bald, but then she reminded herself that she was in some strange place. Mayhap she should play along till she got her bearings.
“Are you mocking me? Are you mocking me? Drop, sister, and give me ten,” the man hollered, spittle pooling at the corners of his mouth, as he jabbed her in the chest with a forefinger.
“What?” she said again. What has got the miscreant’s bald head in a blaze?
“You heard me. Push ’em up, sweetie.” He said “sweetie” as if it were a slur and pointed to a woman behind her who was raising and lowering her body, which was level with the ground, but never quite touching it. She assumed this was what he wanted her to do when he mentioned “pushing up.”
“Yes, chieftain, sir,” she said, dropping down to the sand. But what she thought was, Go swive a goat, chieftain, sir.
Anger flared in his eyes. “Master chief. Not chieftain. Now give me thirty for insubordination.”
I would like to give you something, you witless cur, but it has naught to do with pushing-ups. Gritting her teeth, Britta decided that compliance was the wisest course of action till she determined where she was.
Thus it was that she found herself raising and lowering her body like a lackwit, along with a half dozen other women.
If this was meant to be punishment, she had news for the man with the flaming face.
Flogging was punishment. Kneeling on a stone floor for a day was punishment.
Eating gammelost was punishment. Being imprisoned in a nunnery was punishment.
Raising and lowering the body in sand was not punishment.
The whole time she and the other women did the pushing-ups, the chieftain kept goading them. “Are you sure you don’t wanna ring out? Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a quitter. It’s only yer first day. You gotta have a fire in the gut to succeed here, ladies. I don’t see a spark in a blasted one of you.”
One woman muttered, “I got fire,” and the rest echoed her refrain. Britta did, too, figuring it must mean something significant.
“Do you really wanna put yourselves through this pain? Wouldn’t you like a nice manicure about now?” the miscreant leader continued.
“Why would I need a man to cure me?”
The chieftain’s face got ruddier, his eyes bulging.
That was her cue to remain silent, she suspected.
Since none of the other women were quitting, she followed suit.
When in doubt, just follow your instincts, that had always been her philosophy.
When she completed the exercise, which was more difficult than it appeared, no doubt due to her recent bout of mead madness, he ordered her once again to climb the rope wall.
She started to climb, then turned back to stare down at the chieftain, “Dare to look at my arse, you bloody lecher, and you will find your face in the sand when I come back down.”
His sputtering and the other men’s laughter could be heard as she climbed up the rope netting, not an easy task since it swayed and moved to and fro with the climbers.
It would have been easier if she were barefooted and could grip the ropes with her toes.
This way, her skin boots could get no purchase.
But anger fueled her, and she soon reached the top, which she straddled, as best she could, panting for breath.
She had not realized how high it was...more than two floors of a fortress castle.
She tried her best not to look downward.
Glancing around, Britta realized that from this vantage point she had a bird’s eye view of a vast region.
She should have recognized the scent of salt water in the air, but still she was surprised to see the blue ocean on one side with extremely large metal ships not so far away.
Not a low-riding wood dragonship in sight.
Was it a harbor of some kind? If so, where was the market town that usually catered to the incoming and outgoing traders on longboats and knarrs?
There were people running on the beach, both singly and in groups. Was someone chasing them?