# Mitch Laskell — Short Fiction character guide

> Mitch Laskell in Short Fiction by Walter M. Miller Jr..

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Mitch, Laskell

**First appearance:** 0000-conditionally-human

## Snapshot

An undersea fighter with the killer instinct who jerks open a knife-switch mid-patrol and tells his own command to go to hell.

## Who they are

Mitch Laskell has always gotten along in the Navy — the undersea equivalent of a fighter pilot, a man who grinned when he streaked in for a kill — and he has never needed a philosophy to do it. Then a message crackles through the command-set and something in him refuses, and he sits on the floor of a tiny compartment with the microphone dangling, trying to explain to himself why quitting feels less like cowardice than going back. He suspects Garson, he suspects himself, and he knows the word coward will make him wince either way.

## In the story

### [Way of a Rebel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_57_se/chapters/way-of-a-rebel)

Protagonist who deserts the Navy, steals a submarine, and reflects on his motives and the nature of war.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_57_se/characters/mitch_laskell
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_57_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_57_se/characters