WRAITH SHIPS CHAPTER ONE

WRAITH SHIPS CHAPTER ONE

When I left home to head for work, I heard screams coming from the Plantation. This is the woodlot out behind our homestead. All we grow there is manuka, a shrub that grows to the size of a small tree and makes nice firewood. We use the firewood for smoking snapper, a name applied to the kind of sea bream which we catch in local waters.
Judging by the screaming, it was a woman who was making the noise. I was all dolled up in my new dress uniform, because I was going to be meeting with Colonel Cuthbert, and I wanted him to sign some surcease papers for me. The last thing I wanted to do was to paddle down the wet and muddy path that leads into the Plantation, but that's what I did.
When I got to the clearing where the incinerator stands, there was a woman staked out on the ground, fresh blood red on her pale thighs. Half a dozen of the Gwenty brats were standing around, three of them with vivid blue paint spattered all over their pubic area. She's obviously had one of those anti-rape packets stashed in her panties, and it had gone off, and now three of the Gwenty brats were splattered with it.
"Get lost, Eater,@ said the largest Gwenty on hand, Barolo, eighteen years of age and a head taller than I was.
I didn't mess around. I hauled out my Taser and I tazed him. Twice. I just love the way they kick around in screaming convulsions. That really does it for me. I love the Taser so much that my first stock purchase ever was ten shares in Taser Transcosmica, our beloved T-trans, most important commercial outfit in Known Reality, if you ask me.
"Call the police," said Miss Bloody Thighs, struggling to the feet.
"Get out of here, bitch," I said.
I didn't want her bringing any cops here. My dad had not yet finished harvesting this year's marijuana crop. Plus I had five totally illegal plants of my own growing in the back of the Plantation - tobacco plants. You get caught with those, it's a death penalty offence. And on top of that there's the methamphetamine lab.
"Get out of here, bitch," I said, "or I'll taze you."
That upset her so much that she started pissing, right then and there. I was disgusted to see the stuff vomiting out of her. I hate it when a woman can't control her excretory functions.
My hatred goes back to the day when I murdered my sister, who was twelve years old at the time. It was my dad who had tasked me to perform this honor killing, just one day before my fourteenth birthday. Here on Sentosa, when you turn fourteen you become criminally liable for your acts, but up until then you get a free ride.
Although sister Belinda was as tall as I was, and almost as strong, taking her down was easy enough, thanks to the piano wire garotte that my father had recommended. But toward the end she lost control of her bowels, and all the excrement she had packed inside herself came shoveling out all over my best suede dress uniform shoes, which were never the same thereafter.
So when I saw Miss Bloody Thighs doing her Me Big Leaky act, I lost my onion, and I tased her. Three times. Just love that sinister clickety-click. In my imagination, it sounds like the hugest scorpion in the world coming scrabbling over wet rock to grab you and do you.
I tazed her three times, leaving her in a weeping heap huddled on the ground.
"Can we do her now?" said Putty Gwenty.
Only nine years old, but, much to my surprise, fairly well hung, and already standing at attention.
"Yeah, okay," I said. "But no knives! That means no blades, no chisels, no screwdrivers, no bamboo stakes, nothing apart from what you were born that. Got that?"
Once I made sure they weren't going to overdo things, I headed for the Brynderwn Hospice.
By now, I wasn't
worried about the raped foreigner going and blabbing to the police. After our local custom of raping tourists got out of head, the govenment put pressure on the cops to crack down. Accordingly, if the rape rate stays below ten percent of what it was formerly, back in the louche days before the crackdown, each cop gets a tax free cash bonus which is equivalent to twice his annual salary.
The cops do a great job of keeping the rape complaint rate right down. They have a simple but effective method. When a woman comes in, they stuff her mouth full of modeling clay then gag her. Then handcuff her and stuff her in a bait bag, one of those big bags which are big enough and strong enough to hold a full-grown cow. Then, that night, they take her out fishing. What they fish for is megasharks. And her function is to make herself useful by going on the big hook and serving as bait.
I used to be friendly with a cop, once, and got invited to a copshop beer bash where they showed off trophy videos. So I saw uncut video of megashark fishing. Boy! Talk about a turn on! Some day, I'd like to get hold of some expendable girl - an unsatisfactory wife, for example - and take her out on the Big Deep to do a bit of that fishing myself.
But I'd need help getting her on the hook. I don't know how that is achieved, getting her meat on the steel, so I'd need some help with that part.