[RainbowSky]

The Desertion

In the morning, they untie Nia before the Captain can return and tell everyone off. Nia pulls out her dirty underwear from her mouth and looks at the shreds of it. There is no way Nia can possibly wear them. Left with no clothing, Nia shivers in the room, waiting for the Captain to arrive and say something. He glances her up and down but says nothing. He grins slightly. Without a word, he leads the recruits down to breakfast.

The stares from the day before when Nia was just in underwear are now even worse. It doesn’t take long before catcalls and laughs and jeers and echoing throughout the canteen at Nia’s state of undress. Nia picks up a tray, takes her bowl of porridge gruel and keeps her head down while eating. Once finished, she makes a choice.

Everyone else is eating so Nia decides now is the time to speak to the Captain alone. Her heart is pounding in fear, she knows he doesn’t like her. She sits opposite him. He looks up, surprised by her appearance in front of him. "I want to resign," Nia says. The night of no sleep had given her plenty of opportunity and chance to think. She had joined the navy for a job, a family, a life. Not to be picked on and abused. This wasn’t the poster perfect image she had been sold by Kai.

The Captain looks at her and smiles. "Well, you've already completed two full days of training. I'm afraid if you leave now, it counts as desertion to the navy. The navy then has the power to arrest you and keep you locked up indefinitely if you try to leave, and if you do leave - they can shoot you, shoot to kill. So are you sure you want to leave?" he asks.

Nia takes a moment to consider the options. Being locked in a navy prison didn’t sound enjoyable and certainly wouldn’t put an end to the torture. And death definitely was the worst option here. Deciding that death is worse than anything else Nia shakes her head. "No Sir."

"Then welcome to the Navy, Nia,” the Captain says loud enough for the rest of the unit to hear. Nia blushes and returns to her place, naked, waiting for the rest to finish breakfast.

After breakfast the recruits are finally taken to the shower room. There is no separate changing. Everyone just gets naked and in the walk-in showers together. ‘It’s like those ones you see in American prisons,’ Nia thinks. Already naked, Nia has an advantage and walks straight into the shower room. The water is hot and relaxing and Nia can feel some of the knots of tension in her body melt away. She quickly uses the soap to clean her body from the dirt and spit that is covering her. As she is finishing, the other recruits begin to file in. Nia hurries out quickly, desperate to avoid showering with them.

As she leaves, she trips on a bar of soap and hits the floor hard. The recruits all smirk and laugh. Nia, nursing an injured ego, hurries out, finding a towel to dry herself with and then waiting outside the room for the others to finish.

After they have all showered, they are led back to the training ground. It is a shorter day of training. A timed obstacle course. There are a variety of wooden structures and cargo nets in an obvious route. “You have three attempts, all timed. Your best time gets written down. If it reaches our standards, great. If not, you will be retested in a few weeks to get a better score,” the Captain explains.

Nia watches as the other recruits go first, clocking up some impressive, and some not so impressive times. A couple of the recruits come back with splinters in their fingers. She shudders thinking about the fact that soon her bare skin will be up against the wood. She really doesn’t want splinters in certain areas of her body that are exposed to the air.

Nia is finally up. She looks at the Captain waiting for the signal to start. When it arrives, she sprints from the start point to the first climbing wall. Nia looks over it. Is rough wood, untreated. She can see small flakes of wood on the wall. Gritting her teeth, Nia grabs the rope and walks herself up the wall. She gets to the top relatively quickly. The top is even more splintered and rotten. Taking a deep breath, Nia steps one foot carefully over the top, trying to avoid her naked crotch touching the wood. Her foot slips and falls forwards, her crotch pushing straight into the splintered wood. Nia bites her lip as pain rockets through her pussy as it is slashed open by the wood. She quickly swings her leg over and begins to descend.

Once on the ground, Nia runs as fast as she could, her body feeling like it is on fire. She felt a few spots of blood on her thighs from her slashed open pussy. The next obstacle was a muddy watery ditch. Nia bit her lip – aware of the fact her pussy could be in danger of infection from the muddy water. She jumped in. She sank down to almost the bottom of her breasts. Ignoring the stinging all over the cuts on her body, Nia waded through the mud towards the other side. Pulling herself out, Nia felt exhausted. How was she going to complete this, and then repeat it twice more?

************************************************** *******

Several hours later, the recruits had all finished. Nia’s body was coated in drying and stiffening mud. “Well done. Every one of you completed it in time. I’m amazed,” The Captain stated looking at the recruits. “I think you’ve earnt a shower.”

The recruits filled back into the bathroom and the showers. Nia let the cold water wash over her body, washing the thick mud coating her, rinsing out all her cuts to prevent infection.

That evening, for the first time, all the recruits fell asleep straight away – exhausted from the challenging day. Nia pulled her duvet over her, snuggling deep under its warmth.