WAR: Second Free Chapter

2

SEIZURE

The war started in her mind first.

Laika took count of the soldiers on board the warship. As a single female prisoner, she got only five escorts, one ship steerer and the captain who was so fat he could barely fit in the door to his cabin; she counted six in all, as she couldn’t regard the captain as hostile.

She took stock of weapons at her disposal and for the first time, the clogging stench of the crocodile filled muddy water was her strongest ally. It was a stench so vile that one would regard the smell of a dead rat in a damp, stuffy house as potpourri. She noticed that the armed guard beside her started twitching his nose as the ship made its torturous way through the college of crocodiles and possibly decayed bodies thrown into the marsh for as long as Marshland existed; bodies that the crocodiles apparently refused to devour, so pieces of human body parts floated around stinking up the place.

The stench was her distraction.

Then she had to find a way to kill without destroying their uniforms, especially that of the captain, she was going to wear that; and whoever else would be on board after the rescue would need to pretend they were soldiers to be able to return into the walls of Nigeria.

While the soldier beside her gagged, covering his nose, Laika casually reached behind and pulled off the piece of rubber holding her natural dreadlocks. She flipped the long locks which now had some brown highlights at the tips from washing with caustic soap, pulling them up to the top of her head. She bound it with the rubber and allowed the locks swing down to the top of her back.

Then she slowly folded the long sleeves of the usual brown, khaki Marshland prison uniform; a detestable colour and design of clothing that the government never failed to send out every six months in all sizes. It was the only clothing on Marshland, trousers and long sleeve shirts of the same hue; it had become the identity of Marshland. Laika felt it depicted the dirtiness, the marshy quality of the land and of course the government’s opinion about the people.

They were outcasts whom nothing good was expected. People who deserved to be killed for no just cause. Sixty five percent of the prisoners in Marshland, excluding children, were innocent people, victims of a heinously corrupt system; they were people sent there for trying to be honest, for being witnesses to real crimes, for wanting to contest political positions, for being heirs to billions wanted by some other powerful, greedy person, for plain being an accused person’s child like she’d been.

Maybe this war between the countries would provide an opportunity to get justice and retrieve her inheritance. But that would only be possible if she succeeded to commandeer the ship, evict Marshland people and return within the walls of Nigeria before day break.

“I’d like to ease myself,” Laika asked politely after folding the sleeves of her brown khaki shirt to the elbow, exposing the crude tattoos on her inner arms.

The soldier could barely breathe at this point. He couldn’t even lift his hand from his nose, he used his rifle to point out the door that would take her below deck.

Laika looked behind, she’d been left with only this army man on deck, the rest had retreated below deck to avoid the stench; this was probably this soldier’s turn to stand on deck with her.

“Go there!” he commanded with widened eyes, his words muffled by his hand over his nose and mouth. Laika nodded, scanned the upper deck to make sure they were still alone before flinging her arm in a swift, measured arc, perfectly landing her knifed hand on his windpipe.

He choked, stumbling forward and Laika swiped his gun from his hand while shoving him over the railing into the waiting jaws of bored crocodiles. His shouts were carried off with the wind as crocodiles tore him to shreds in seconds.

She didn’t spare the dead soldier a glance, cocked his gun and was about to go below deck when his radio crackled, it was loud enough to be heard above the howling wind as rain clouds gathered. The radio had apparently fallen when she shoved him overboard; she picked it up, fixed the earpiece in her ear and arranged the mouthpiece close to her lips.

“Have you choked to death yet?” the voice squawked through the two way radio and Laika could hear laughter at his question in the background. She’d been right to assume it was the dead soldier’s turn to stand guard on deck while the others escaped the stench.

“Almost,” Laika replied, muffling her voice with her hand over her nose and mouth.

Laughter crackled through the radio, “Maybe you should seduce the big breasted Amazon, it might make your duty less smelly,” more laughter filtered through.

“I’ll try,” she replied and began moving towards the door.

“You’re too skinny for that Marshland whore anyway,” was the reply and Laika felt nothing at the insult. Having spent over seven years at Marshland, one became immune to petty insults.

Laika quietly went down the stairs into the lower deck, it was dimly lit, which was good. She went down the corridor that would lead to the steering room, she peeped through the glass and saw the lone steerer at the controls; he seemed engrossed.

She left him and returned to the steps she’d just descended from. It was a big ship but for this operation, the soldiers used only a couple of the cabins. One of them was the one bearing ‘Captain’ with music filtering through and the other cabin had a net door which she’d peeped and seen the other four soldiers sitting round a table, smoking and playing cards and probably still laughing on the joke on their colleague.

Making a swift decision, she returned to the Captain’s cabin three doors away, she dropped the rifle, opened her shirt to reveal her just insulted bosom and barged into the captain’s cabin, shocking the man from wiping his giant buttocks with a towel; he’d been showering apparently. Her eyes quickly found his discarded uniform, perfect, she thought.

“Oh dear God, sorry captain, I thought it was the toilet,” she exclaimed and pretended to be flustered while flipping her shirt over her bosom but not really covering anything, and then she wouldn’t look away from the man’s flabby gut and the almost nonexistent length of his manhood.

“So sorry, Captain,” she kept saying but didn’t turn away, the man was greatly affected by her almost naked chest. So she smiled shyly, batted her eye lashes and said, “You’re pretty impressive, Captain.”

“Call me General,” the man said in his guttural voice while he wheezed, unhealthy fat had clogged his airways.

“Oh my, General,” she grinned, her fingers slowly caressed down the swell of her breasts as she moved towards him and the idiot actually dropped his towel.

Laika wanted to cringe at the almost childlike appearance of his manhood, but she widened her eyes in awe, “Wow, General,” she said breathlessly and hurried over, reaching out and touching his huge belly and slowly caressing down…

Her eyes caught the used fork on the table, she looked up and he’d shut his eyes in expectation of pleasure. Grimacing lightly, she touched him and he wheezed and toppled into a chair. She didn’t let go, he flung his head back and moaned while her right hand grabbed the fork and stabbed him continuously in the neck, one of the softest, capital parts of the body.

He toppled from the chair and gurgled as he struggled to breathe to stay alive. Blood was everywhere, even on her chest; she had busted his arteries and was sure he’d be dead in seconds. She left him there and went into the bathroom to wash off the blood. As expected, he was dead when she returned; she silently pulled on his army uniform.

Maybe it had been for vanity but the General had worn trousers two sizes smaller than him. It had been a comical sight when she’d seen him on deck but now, it was beneficial because it fit, though it proofed to be a bit snug around the hips.

Black combat trousers, black vest crisscrossed with deep green leather which was almost black and black combat boots. Laika admired herself in the mirror and checked the galley attached to the Captain’s quarters for knives, which she found in abundance; apparently the Captain had a passion for knives, she wondered what he used them for as she picked out four light weighted ones.

When she stepped out of the cabin into the corridor, one of the soldiers had discovered the gun she dropped there. He was looking at it quizzically, probably wondering what it was doing in front of the captain’s cabin.

He turned to her and she casually shoved the first knife into his neck and watched him topple over. The noise attracted another of the soldiers, he peeped from the open glass door, half of his body still in the cabin, she flung the second knife as she ran towards him, it stuck in his neck.

He hadn’t yet landed on the ground when she flew over him into the room in time to let loose the remaining knives while those sitting soldiers scrambled for their guns.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she breathed deeply and grabbed an automatic handgun and made her way back to the control room.

With all the beeps and squawks from the controls, the soldier in there was unaware of what had happened, he didn’t even turn when she’d softly opened the door. It was a huge room with screens and dials and buttons on a dash board. One of the screens showed that they were approaching Marshland.

Laika walked up to him and put her arm with the gun over his shoulder, allowing the gun to rest on his vested chest.

“I think it’s going to rain,” she said casually, not even looking at the soldier who’d gone as still as stone.

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