Undead Underway by Brenna Lyons Page B

that he slept.
    Or was it day? I guess it was day, though we were so far north that there was little or no day to the day. Never mind that. I've gotten off the subject again...sort of.
    Torturing Clueless that watch was sweet justice. It was always good entertainment when some nub thought he could drink with the big boys. In ten years, I hadn't met a nub that could drink me under the table, and that included Lonnie, a monster of a man who weighed in at more than double my one-seventy-five and stood a full six-feet-four in height.
    It didn't surprise us that Clueless couldn't look at food or stand the smell of coffee. That's how you can tell a true submariner, by the way. A true submariner can drink tar-thick coffee in any state from hung-over to state five seas.
    Clueless had never been cut out to be a submariner, and we all knew it. The only thing we had to do was drive him crazy...or drive him to go AWOL. We'd done both to weak links before, and he was undeniably the weak link of the current underway.
    If he was an older man, we could drive him to a heart attack, as Cat Man and I had done with the former COB, but that was unlikely with Clueless. He worked out and ate as healthy as one could on a submarine. No, it would have to be insanity or UA with Clueless.
    We cast off near the end of the watch, and everyone back aft waited patiently, hoping Clueless would lose what little he had in his stomach before we managed to dive.
    The time a submarine spends on the surface is the roughest it gets. It's made to be steady as a rock underwater; but in all honesty, a submarine is little better than a bobber up top.
    Once again, Clueless disappointed me, but at least I didn't lose any money on him that time. That bet was between Diamond Dallas and Lonnie, and Lonnie was none too happy about losing five on the nub, though Diamond was rolling in dough after two winning bets in the past twelve hours.
    The fact that Clueless slept a portion of his down-time, ignoring his forward quals, and didn't eat added fuel to the fire. He was easier to rack out for the next watch, but he still wasn't eating...and he was looking more than a little pale.
    Maybe, we should have seen something bad coming then, but who expects anything but what we see every day?
    He took shit when he was still dragging the next day, but it was the third day that finally snapped me.
    "What is wrong with you?" I finally demanded, not bothering with the 'sir' that we both knew was said with the highest disdain and distaste when I did bother with it.
    Clueless pushed at his collar, fidgeting, brown eyes half hidden by the dark circles beneath them. The bruises on the side of his throat caught my eye, and I grabbed his collar, uncovering them.
    "What is this shit?" I asked, more interested than frustrated now.
    It wasn't a hickey. Not that I thought Clueless could get a hickey. No, this looked more like two fingertip bruises. The certainty that someone was testing out the Vulcan neck pinch on him brought a smile to my face. Now, would Clueless admit to it or not?
    "She bit me."
    "She? She who?" There were no women on submarines. Maybe it worked. Maybe he's finally cracking, and we can get rid of him.
    "The woman in port. The one I..." He darkened, yet more proof that he didn't belong on a submarine. "The one I picked up at the bar and took back to her room."
    I pushed Clueless away. "Nice try. Why don't we try something believable, like aliens or the Loch Ness Monster?"
    "You don't think I can get laid?" It was a petulant complaint at best.
    "No, I don't." Might as well be honest, right? "What really happened? Did Diamond Dallas play Spock on your ass?"
    "Can it, Len. I got laid, and she bit me."
    I couldn't help it; I laughed. "No, really. What woman would—"
    "A really gorgeous one, now can it. I wish I knew what the hell she did to me." Clueless wandered off, looking befuddled, murmuring something about seeing Doc.
    A niggling of unease settled in my stomach. He'd sounded