Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

That evening, you were invited to a sort of 'welcome aboard' dinner by the other senior Naval officer on the island. It was also kind of a farewell for Lieutenant Mizutani, of course, but you had the feeling it would be a fairly cheerful sort of get together. Dinner was in what must have been the house of someone important, or maybe the town hall. Like your quarters, the place had the feeling of having been occupied at some point but now having fallen into something like decline. It was a lovely house, smaller than your family's country home of course but it put you in mind of someone of means, at least for a place like this. Built in the traditional style, it even had a central courtyard with a little garden, though it needed a bit of weeding if you were any judge.

The dining room was very traditional, with woven matting and a short table that required everyone to sit on the floor, which created a rather incongruous image of a lot of men in modern naval uniform sitting around in a way that would have been normal a hundred years ago. That was modern Akitsukuni though, wasn't it? A country torn between two parts of itself and trying to decide which parts to hold on to and which to keep.

Your host was Lieutenant Maeda Yasunari, a stout, solid looking man who was perhaps a decade older than you if you had to guess. He wore a beard and mustache and bowed in a staid manner when you entered the dining room. The other assembled officers joined him as you returned the gesture of respect and the whole thing was repeated a few moments later when Mizutani arrived with Ensign Ishinari in tow. Once everyone there, Maeda's serious demeanor seemed to melt away and he was all smiles as you sat down to a simple (but delicious) meal of fresh fish, soup, and rice. There was also rice wine in copious amounts.

"First, let me say welcome to the newest member of our little Shikotan Social Club, Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna, lately arrived from a stint in Joseon. She is, along with being the first woman to graduate from the Academy, highly decorated and we can probably expect great things from her. Salute!" He raised his cup and drained it and everyone else imitated his gesture. The attention was a touch embarrassing, but a welcome relief from being treated like a perennial outsider.

"Now, let me get down to business and introduce you to your fellows here. Of course, you know Shinji, who will be leaving us tomorrow to where ever the winds of the Admiralty take him," he nodded towards Lieutenant Mizutani in an easy, familiar manner and Mizutani laughed.
"I'll miss you too, Yasunari." A ripple of laughter around the table. Then the introductions continued.

"Next, Junior Lieutenant Sawa Haruki. Looks like we have two Harus now. You have competition, Sawa!" Sawa was a short, slender, and exceedingly pale young man who smiled at Maeda's ribbing.

"A pleasure to meet you, lieutenant," he said across the table to you.

"The pleasure is mine," you replied automatically between bites of fish.

"Sawa is my second-in-command and our current Go champion. He also knows more about radios than anyone else so if you need to get a wireless message to the mainland he's your man." Maeda was still talking.

"Next, our crop of ensigns. You know your own fellow, Ishinari. He's a bit uptight but he knows his way around an engine room. Promising future, that one." Ishinari was gawky and awkward in a way that suggested he hadn't quite yet grown into all his limbs yet, but his smile seemed genuine enough when he bowed again.

"And of course, there are my two pilots. There's Iori Saionji, who ferried you over here with his usual skill." The round-faced ensign beamed at the mention of his name and raised his glass in salute.

"My pleasure, sir."

"Well, you're taking Mizutani back tomorrow so don't drink too much." More laughter from the table, though the last officer, an aristocratic young man was noticeably quiet. You weren't quite sure what to make of him, especially since he seemed strangely familiar to you. You couldn't place him, though.

"And last, but most certainly not least, we have our other Imperial connection. Ensign Nashimoto Kageyasu. He flies our other kite." Everything clicked into place. Kageyasu had been much, much younger last time he had seen you. You had also been preoccupied with trying to avoid his older brother pulling your hair at the time.

"Cousin," you said pleasantly. "A pleasure to see you."

"A pleasure," he replied stiffly in a manner that suggested it was not, in fact, a pleasure. "It's been too long."

"It has," you replied. "How's your brother?" His brother, the unfortunate Captain Nashimoto Hisanobu whom you had caught helping to plan what was essentially a Purity Club coup against the civilian government. Sadly for the rest of the world, Nashimoto had managed to wriggle out of being cashiered or imprisoned, but he was essentially under house arrest and ran a desk in Tokei. No doubt all his aides were Naval Special Police men and he did nothing but sign forms regarding rice requisitions but he was still technically free and would be working on finding a way to resign as soon as he could.

"He's well." Nashimoto was probably the reason that Kageyasu was out here at the edge of the Empire flying a patrol plane instead of somewhere near the action doing something more 'important.' Hisanobu's treasonous little jaunt was something of an open secret, though your involvement was less well known. Despite both of you doing your best to maintain courtly stillness, some of the acid Kageyasu felt was leaking into his voice. At least, that's the impression you were getting.

"Yes, ah… Anyway, I think you'll get quite attached to Habomai," Maeda said hurriedly before the obviously tense conversation could get any worse. "It's small and out of the way, but we do important work out here patrolling the sea lanes."

"Have you seen much action?" You asked, genuinely curious. You hadn't heard of the Caspians pushing too close to the home islands, but you weren't well appraised as to the larger war situation.

"Not… as such." There were some telling glances across the table.

"We mostly search fishing boats." Iori quipped. "They'll have Caspian spies on them eventually."

"How productive." You said flatly.

"It keeps the men active and alert, as useless as it is, but it's really not ingratiating ourselves to the local fishermen."

"And one of these days, somebody's going to screw up and die."

You started noticing that everyone was looking at you expectantly as they talked about this. Like you were supposed to have an answer. Which was odd since you'd just got here and hadn't even had time to settle in and get to know your boat and your crew yet, let alone the sorts of problems they were digging into now.

"You really think someone will get killed?" You ventured, cautious.

"All it takes is one jumpy sailor with a rifle. At least that's how I've been looking at it," Mizutani said with a frown. "Thankfully the petty officers on the Kari do a good job of keeping everyone on a tight leash, but..."

"It's only a matter of time." You said grimly.

Somebody uncorked another bottle, and conversation moved on to happier things. The dinner went on later than you expected and by the time you stumbled home you were well and truly sloshed. Only your personal discipline woke you up at your usual hour the next morning. Hot tea and a cold bath helped clear your head and then you headed down to the wharf to see off Mizutani, who waved to the sailors on the Kari before clambering into the waiting seaplane for the ride back to the mainland. The men, lining the railings, gave a rousing three cheers for their former commander with the traditional cry of 'ten thousand years!' Then you were left to take charge.

To take charge.

You were technically of equal rank to the air station's commander, Lieutenant Maeda, but practically… you were the only one who had seen any kind of action. You were highly decorated. You were a princess. This whole thing, the base and the boat and, you suspected, the village to a sizable degree, was all under your watch now.

As it turned out, despite being the main "port" of the island, Habomai was tiny. A cluster of buildings in the main village surrounded by outlying farms with a total population that, at the last census in Year 10 of the Empress' Reign (or year 2533 since the first Empress assumed the throne), had been something like 800 people. You suspected there were even less now judging by the empty houses and quiet streets. Which meant that the war had brought a huge influx of young men to an otherwise exceedingly quiet and sleepy village. You had 30 petty officers and seamen in your crew. The air station had the air crews of course, plus the ground crews responsible for maintaining and fueling the airplanes, staff for the radio station that had been erected at the town hall, and the crew for the ancient coastal artillery piece that had been put on the headland overlooking the harbor. Altogether, there were something like 120 new more or less permanent residents to the town. Plus whenever the supply ship came in the crew from that vessel was added to the total.

It was a mess. Not a mess as in you'd been set up to fail, but just the kind of mess that happens when a bunch of bored young men end up in a small community with nothing to do. Mizutani had left you detailed notes on the situation, thankfully, and had tried to do his best to wrap up some of the issues before he'd left to save you additional headache but he was only one man, and one with less effective authority than you suspected you'd have.

For one, there was the core problem of what to do to maintain readiness that wasn't constantly harassing friendly fishing boats. Especially because you suspected the same boats had been looked over multiples times at this point and everyone was getting tired of it. You drew up a training schedule inspired by the sorts that Kenshin used to run for his damage control group, with lots of cross-training and getting sailors used to operating outside their comfort zones, but there was an overwhelming need to feel like you were doing something for the war effort that, you suspected, morale pretty much rested on. That would need an outlet, or your other problems would get much worse.

One of those problems was Seaman Tsuda. The sailor himself wasn't much of a problem, save that he was seventeen, which made you a bit uneasy. Minors weren't supposed to be deployed directly into action, but apparently torpedo boats in sleepy harbours didn't count. Or maybe he just had an uncle who knew a guy and he'd pestered them for an 'exciting' posting. Regardless of how, that wasn't really the issue.

While Seaman Tsuda was in many ways a model sailor, he did have a clandestine relationship with the daughter of the local village headman. Mayor. Whatever the term might be. That in itself wasn't a problem--she was a year younger than him and they were both teenagers. Normal, right?

Except for the part where she was pregnant. That had hit you like a slap in the face. In Tokei and more urban areas, the easy and cheap availability of contraceptives, and the near universal use of silphium resin, made unplanned pregnancy rare, though not unheard of. And even then, there was little stigma about taking care of the problem in the way the woman wanted.

The problem here was that apparently the navy provided contraceptive devices had either not been plentiful enough or just not used (you remembered being seventeen. You had been an idiot), and options on the girl's side were… rather restricted. On top of that, based on what Mizutani had gleaned from his interview of Tsuda was that the girl's father wanted the unfortunate young sailor to take responsibility for this whole thing. What the girl wanted wasn't laid out--something you suspected you'd have to find out for yourself.

The whole thing felt positively medieval. Unplanned pregnancy was a horror of historical novels and plays, not a modern event. That would have to wait, though, until you had a chance to get a feel for your new command. After seeing off Mizutani and acquainting yourself with the neat stack of documents he had left you, you called your crew to stations, stoked the boilers, and had the boat guided out past the surf at the harbor's entrance and into the open sea around the island. Standing on the open bridge, the sea breeze whipping past your face, you remembered how much you loved the ocean and the thrill of being back on the waves.

"Mister Ishinari, let's stretch her legs. All ahead full."

"Aye, captain. All head full!" He reached over to the engine telegraph and a few moments later you felt the boat surge forward in the water and the engines rumble into a higher revolution as you picked up speed. Aft, a group of sailors tossed the ship's taffrail log overboard and started their hourglass. A few minutes later, a seaman arrived, saluted.

"We're making 28 knots, sir," he reported to the ensign, who dutifully turned to you.

"Speed is 28 knots, captain." Captain. It still felt surreal to be called that, but it felt good. Very good.

"Thank you, ensign. Call the crew to action stations," you fished into your pocket to pull out a watch--you wanted to see how well they handed themselves. You heard Ensign Ishinari pass the word and a moment later the sharp, clear sound a boatswain's whistle cut through the sea air over the rumble of the engines and the deck swarmed with activity. The crew had likely been expecting it, which meant their time might be better than if they weren't trying to put on a good show for a new officer, but they had the deck cleared and all men at their action station within a minute. Not surprising in a small boat like this.

Once everyone was at their station, you went through a few mock torpedo attacks, had the men load the tubes to see how quickly they could do so, and ran through a few gunnery drills. All in all, despite being in the middle of nowhere, the Kari had a well-drilled and competent crew with only a little room for improvement. Mizutani had been the right kind of officer, as you saw it. That also meant it was time to make things more complicated.

You clambered down to the main deck and walked forward to the forward gun where the men were drilling and reached out, gently tapping the petty officer in command on the shoulder, then the man laying the gun.

"We've been hit by a shell. These two are dead or so badly wounded they can no longer man their stations. Now what?" You asked. It was the sort of drill that you had been made intimately familiar with at the Academy, especially when you had been called on to play a mock casualty. Which was… a lot, for some reason. As the petty officer started to speak, you held a hand up and smiled.

"Sorry. You're dead, you can't tell them what to do. I will permit a death poem if you have one ready. No cliches about cherry blossoms allowed, though." Despite the brief ripple of laughter, there was only a moment of hesitation before the senior seaman at the gun started giving orders to the others and called for a medical corpsman to come forward. You repeated the exercise a few times with different gun and torpedo crews and were happy to see that despite a few fumbles, most of the men seemed ready to step up to the responsibility. This sparked a perverse curiosity in you, so you tried something new.

"Alright! We're doing a good job, despite our losses." There was more laughter: you found good humour was a pretty vital tool for creating a bond. "We're going to run the torpedo drill again, but…" You swept your hand over a section of crew, "All of you have died heroically."

"But… we're the torpedo crew, ma'am." One of them said.

"I know. We still need the torpedo loaded. Now!" You shouted the last word, and the now dead crew quickly shuffled out of the way, but nobody else seemed to know what to do.

"Now, ensign!" You repeated, rather pointedly.

"Uh, right… uh, you three, come with me!" He said, pointing to a handful of random sailors, and the group scurried to the torpedo position and started attempting to figure out the process. You called a halt to it midway through.

"Stop! Our boat has, tragically, now exploded, and we're all dead." You explained. "This is a small boat, and we don't have a lot of surplus crew. It also means there's not a lot to keep track of. Ideally, any sailor on this boat should be able to do the job of any other sailor. I won't ask quite that much, but I think we can do better, can't we?"

There was a ragged "Aye ma'am" from the crew, which was good enough for you, and you got back to the more pressing matter of putting your new boat through its paces. You even took the chance to stand right up on the prow and feel the wind on your face (and threaten to steal your hat). Eventually, the trip did have to end, and the Kari was guided back to the wharf under the expert direction of the crew. There were some shore crew waiting for your return, and to your surprise also some civilians. A pair of them, an older man and probably his wife. Normally they shouldn't be allowed onto the wharf: you'd have to talk to somebody about that.

The boat was made secure and the gangplank extended. You gave a last few orders, asked that Ishinari find out how much coal and ammunition you'd used in the exercises today, and then you shuffled off close to the end of the procession. The moment the villagers set eyes on you, though, a look of shock passed over their faces before they prostrated themselves and pressed their noses and palms against the wooden boards.
That took you back a bit.

"You don't have to… do that. I'm just a Navy lieutenant." You said. Honestly, after four years of being treated… well, usually not like an equal, one or another, but certainly not like royalty, this was fairly uncomfortable. Never used to be.

"Yes, your Highness." The man said. He didn't move. He was going to make you do the voice, wasn't he.

"Arise. I give you leave to stand in my presence and to address me normally." You hadn't spoken like this to anyone in… well, a while. This kind of treatment was pretty much reserved for the Empress and her immediate family nowadays. Which you kind of were, but it wasn't like you were her daughter or consort. You weren't directly in the line of succession, despite the (extremely remote) possibility that you could be named in an emergency. The Empress had a young daughter who was all lined up, and if something happened there were other relations who were better suited (like her younger sister and her children).

The two civilians rose slowly, cautiously, and still averting their eyes (were you going to have to tell them to stop that, too?). After a few moments of awkward silence, one of them spoke.

"Your--- uh… Your Highness. We, there…" The man stumbled over his words terribly, but fortunately his wife came to his rescue.

"We were wondering if, if you had the time, you could see fit to visit the village's shrine. It would be such an honour for it to once again see an Imperial presence. Your Highness."

"Hm." That was curious. You found it hard to imagine any important members of the Imperial family wandering up this far. "When did it last see such a presence?"

"Prince Atsusada took refuge in the shrine for one night in 1632, Your Highness." She responded. Almost a thousand years!

Whoa, old shrine. Might be worth a look. You generally didn't put much stock in the whole divine royalty thing. Nobody in the Imperial family did: your cousin had explained when you were a child that it was something the shoguns had come up with. Before that, the throne was holy, the position was divine, but the woman sitting in it was just that. Favoured, sure, but not a living goddess. Of course, you didn't say that stuff out loud. Or as your cousin had explained…

"Haruna, if somebody asks you if you're a god, you say yes!"

… that said, you had a long few days ahead of you. If there was any divine power in your blood, you sure could use it.