Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

You and Kwon sat for a moment--well, Kwon sat, you hunched the over the table with a second set of headphones, concentrating. A whispered conversation passed between you as you tried to make sense of what you were hearing. You were getting better at this, but Kwon still had the advantage on you, and at last you relayed your information to Kenshin.

"Bearing… 229. Course South-southwest. Speed…" You looked at Kwon, your notes. Listened for a moment later.

"Speed I'd say is fourteen knots. Range now one thousand and fifty meters." Kenshin nodded and the information was relayed to the torpedo room. You took a breath, trying not to let the tension get to you as seconds ticked away before confirmation of a firing solution was relayed back to the control deck. Kenshin looked serious for a moment, then spoke clearly. Like always.

"Tube two, fire." And then, seconds later. "Tube three, fire!" Then it was the wait. The interminable wait. You still weren't used to it. With guns, you fired and then watched for your shell splashes and you could gauge the range. Firing like this? By ear? It felt wrong. As the seconds passed, you felt sure you had missed, then you finally heard a dull rumble through the water as something exploded.

"We hit something," you said, probably faster than you should have.

"Damn periscope. I can't get a good view any longer," Kenshin muttered. "Anything else on the hydrophone?"

You listened for a long moment, looked at Kwon who nodded in confirmation and then shook your head.

"Nothing. I can't make out her engine noise any longer, but she might just be too far away. We might have hit her, but I can't be sure."

"Mark it down as 'probable' in the log. We'll resume our course submerged. Stand down from action stations." Kenshin rattled out his orders and soon you were back on your way.

---

I-02 had been on its way to the north island of Shikotan, one of the disputed islands that marked the northern boundary of the Akitsukuni Sea. Obviously these islands were, by ancient tradition and current military occupation, rightful Akitsukuni territory, but international recognition had them as part of Caspian territory, and the issue had been the real driving force, more or less, for this entire war (alongside military buildup on both sides of the Joseon border, internal pressures in both nations, and a Crown Prince losing a hand).

For all that, they were remarkably dreary places, just dark rocky coastline, fog, and volcanic smoke with the occasional hardy shrub as best you could tell.

"There it is." Kenshin said sardonically. "The noble soil of our homeland."

I-02 was tasked, alongside several other minelayers of various description, with essentially turning every natural landing spot and harbour along the northern coast into a minefield, to ward off, slow, or disrupt scouting and landing. That a landing force was coming was inevitable, as was the defeat of the garrison, as the barren rocks lack of infrastructure made maintaining a meaningful garrison almost impossible. The trick was to make them work for it, and mines were a low-cost way of doing just that.

At the back of I-02 were the mine-laying tubes, which were a much more efficient mechanical method of laying mines than the traditional mechanism of dumping them overboard. It was not unlike a torpedo tube, but two-stage, releasing first the anchor, then the mine. The anchor was a steel hook attached to what to your eyes was a relatively flimsy looking chain, while the mines themselves were rounded cones, the upper half of which was dotted with little spikes. When a ship struck the spike, a vial of sulfuric acid was cracked, running down into a battery, electrifying it, and detonating the explosive.

When the ship was in position to launch a mine, the empty mine tube was loaded, the anchor in one tube, running out the back of the submarine and into the second tube. Then, both tubes were flooded, and the anchor launched off by a jet of air. The chain ran out, and a simple mechanical plunger pushed the mine from the tube and into the water. Finally, as the ship pulled away, it pulled out a cable that armed the mine, and in the process optionally filled the water with a fluorescent dye for a few hours, so minelayer would have no risk of hitting its own mine.

Personally, you'd been trained to oversee sailors just throw the anchor over the side, dump the mine with a chute, and then pull the cable yourself with a hooked stick, but the fact that I-02 could do all that while still underwater was an impressive feat. Not that you were underwater now, drifting along the surface. Hell, there were sailors on deck moving mines from the wet locker to the loading tubes, putting them back in the sub only to launch them out again.

The Navy works in mysterious ways, you reminded yourself.

---

The return to the main fleet had been fraught with whispered rumors and discussion about what was going on. Fortunately, as one of the officers of the submarine, you were lucky enough to find out when Kenshin piled all the officers into his tiny cabin once you had steamed back into the harbor.

"So, here are our orders--the admirals want the Navy to show some proper fighting spirit. Along with a group of destroyers, we're going to be going to lay mines in the area of Port Georgia. Then if we manage to lure their fleet out to chase us, the main fleet will pounce on them. Either way, mines or guns, we'll give them a good thrashing," he said with relish as he tapped at the chart he had half unrolled on the table.

"...We're not actually going into Port Georgia, are we?" Akio asked with a frown.

"No. We're not supposed to, anyway. I don't know what orders the destroyer boys have but they're probably the same as ours," Kenshin said with more conviction than you felt in that declaration. What if those weren't their orders? No use worrying about it, though.

"We'll be taking along the Ha-05, Ha-04, and Ha-19. Also, uh…" He looked over the orders. "The I-01, and… the Otamajakushi. Spirits be kind, that thing is still floating?"

"Somehow," someone quipped.

You thanked every spirit you thought was relevant that you hadn't ended up on that deathtrap. It spend more time being refloated than actually floating.

The briefing was followed by about thirty minutes onshore, during which time you managed to find and use a real shower and breath some real air, and then you were back on the boat, freshly stocked with mines and torpedoes. You'd be traveling through the night to rally with the destroyers, and attacking just before dawn.

---

"Five minutes to go time. Any sign?" Akio asked again.

You swept your binoculars over the dark horizon again, uselessly. The Otamajukushi was a specialized minelaying semi-submersible which could sail almost flush with the water… in theory. In practice, it tended to simply roll over and capsize in anything but the most still seas.
The last few times it did, nobody even died, they'd gotten so good at recovering it.

"I don't see it." You said. "Not that I would…"

"She's not coming!" You heard Kenshin's voice from inside the tower. "She flipped coming out of dock, they're fishing her out now!"

"Typical." Akio said, heading for the ladder.

You took a quick look around in the dark. It was a moonless night, still and calm, and with the lights out, there was almost no way to tell there was a dozen ships and submarines occupying this square kilometer of ocean. You could just, just make out the prow of Blade Squadron's Harutsuki, a cutting edge long-range ship.

You headed back to your station, and at 2am on the dot, the order to move went out. You were too anxious to sleep and besides that, everyone was standing to their stations in the event of enemy action. So you leaned against the doorway of the little radio hut and waited as cool air wafted down the open hatchway. Occasionally, an order would be passed down from the conning tower and the submarine would alter course, but long hours went by with nothing but the sound of the engines and murmured conversation to break the monotony. At last, though, just as the barest hint of twilight started to sneak down the hatchway, came word: you'd reached your target. The submarine turned, starting to move parallel with the coast and in your mind's eye you could see the other submarines following you, each of them preparing to drop off their rather deadly cargo--the sea mines you'd been assigned to lay outside of Port Georgia. The destroyers headed onwards. Theirs was the more dangerous work--to get right up into the harbor, fire torpedos, lay mines, and lure the enemy ships out into the newly laid minefield.

Akio had been incredibly jealous of it, and he couldn't understand why the submarines weren't honoured with such a task. You knew that a lot of the smaller subs weren't equipped to both launch torpedoes and lay mines in the same mission without breaking open the wet lockers, but you admitted a pang of envy as well. It was going to be glorious.

Your radio station was quiet. There were orders to obey strict radio silence unless absolutely necessary, lest the enemy discover the task force and the element of surprise be lost. Your palms itched--you badly wanted to be up in the tower, but you had your orders and you stuck to them. Akio was aft, supervising the mine-laying. You wished you had something active like that to keep you busy instead of hovering on the control deck, forced to wait for something, anything to happen. Minutes seemed like days and as it got close to an hour of waiting, it felt like years. Then, a sailor appeared at your elbow.

"Ma'am, captain wants you on the tower." You didn't have to be told twice. You clambered up the ladder with more enthusiasm than you really should've been showing in front of the men, but the movement was a relief! You clambered out into the chilly sea air and Kenshin nodded at you briefly before his eyes were glued back to his binoculars. He was looking north-east, towards Port Georgia.

"If we're on schedule, there's about to be fireworks." He said.

A long pause carried. Minutes, maybe, in anticipation. You found yourself counting the seconds in your head.

Then, there was a flicker of orange light, like a distant match being lit.

Another. And another. Then one that briefly lit up so bright it was reflected against the low clouds.

"Good fucking hunting." Kenshin whispered.

You watched for several minutes more as the fires burned, then went back below. Reports started filtering in over the radio, destroyers breaking silence as they announced their hits and started their retreat out of the harbour. From the sound of things, they'd sent a half-a-dozen ships to the bottom, or near enough to, and they were now firing everything they had in all directions as they steamed back out and the shore batteries opened up.

Then one ship, Hayashimo, reported a hit to the engine room that stopped them dead. Another lost rudder control and was forced to slow to avoid a collision. The shore guns and the other ships were tearing into them. At least two ships weren't making it out of the port.

Then you heard the call from the lead ships for the others to form up and fight, and you realized with horror what was happening. They weren't leaving the stricken ships without evacuating them… which meant they weren't leaving at all. They were going to bring their comrades out or die in the noblest traditions of Akitsukuni warriors.

You strained to hear through your headphones, trying to pick out each signal as it came in. According to the radio exchange, it might even be working. Apparently shore batteries were starting to drop off after a shell struck what sounded like a magazine, a noise so loud it drowned out one of the reports with static. Maybe they'd pull it off. Maybe they'd get out…

You heard boots against the top of the conning tower above your head, and then Kenshin calling down the hatch.

"Caspian forces coming in! Radio them! There's a whole fucking battlefleet!" He cried.