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"FUCK YES! FINISH HER, ARIZONA!"
The American battleship needed no further prompting as her remaining guns finished reloading.
Nine 14 inch 45 caliber rifles were joined in murderous harmony by eight more as they delivered a death sentence to the mortally wounded abyssal.
With its waterline already perforated and shredded by four Mark 14's, the combined might of two battleships rent the monster asunder. Violent explosions burst the hull and hurled burning entrails across the sea. Magazines detonated and fuel burned. Twisted machinery was mutilated and the keel shattered beneath the brutal onslaught.
When the last four bubble trails finally reached the hulk, it's death was complete. Three explosions rang out and sealed the overkill with a final detonation that sent a shockwave through the savaged waters, hurling burning oil and broken steel into the sky.
Arizona fell to a knee as her strength gave out. Her damage control crews working as fast as they possibly could to save her. She brought her hand to the gaping wound in her belly and fought to not cry out in pain. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Hiei cutting a hard turn to shield her whilst placing all of her guns squarely upon the last Abyssal battleship. Her mouth moved, but only gasps of pain escaped her lips.
Even though it could no longer move, the last Abyssal on the field still vainly attempted to escape with its life. The damages inflicted upon it ensured what little remained was barely functional. Vile cannons attempted to track the advancing Hiei with minimal success. Its guns screeched as they tore into the broken armor while wrecked shafts mangled each other further.
But Hiei's cannons, even had they been likewise damaged, outpaced the Abyssal's.
"All guns! Target set! FIRE!" Her eyes narrowed as she thrust a hand forward and roared. The Emperor's Ship fired her guns all in one motion with a thundering boom and cast down the Abyssal to the hell from whence it came. Her shells punched through the armor with relative ease and gutted the monstrosity. Shrapnel and fire tore the internal structure to ribbons, leaving their final foe little more than a burning husk as it sank to the bottom.
However despite apparent victory, Hiei turned cautiously towards Arizona with a wide arc.
"Where are you..." She muttered as she scanned the seas, putting her lights to the water. The illumination of the burning debris could only do so much. Richardson had said he'd try to wrangle up some support, but there was none to be seen. Combined that with a decent number of splashes she was almost certain weren't from her or her comrade and there was little doubt as to what had saved Arizona's life.
"This is Lieutenant Hiei of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Unknown submarine, please identify yourself." Her clear and commanding voice rang out as she racked her brain to imagine who it could be. An IJN sub would have identified herself by now. She slowly began closing the distance to Arizona in order to render aid, but never once stopped keeping her eye on the water. Just in case. "I repeat, please identify yourself."
Albacore could have remained submerged.
She could have gone to full silence and faded into the deep.
The battleship seeking her could not hunt as she lacked the means and mobility to do so.
But USS Albacore, terrified as she was, was neither blind nor stupid. She had seen Hiei come to Arizona's aid. She had seen them fight together. Seen them bleed together. And in Arizona's defense, she herself had thrown caution to the wind and hurled her own weapons into the fray.
Her fauxhawk slowly breached the surface of the waves off of Hiei's starboard, her gaze snapping back and forth between the Japanese warship and the obviously suffering Arizona. The spotlights found her with appropriate haste and she had to blink the spots out of her eyes as one caught her head on. A moment passed before she fully arose from the sea, camo pants and swimsuit dripping with brine. She was plainly tense and her motions nervous to the point of being twitchy.
"Lieu-t-tenant." Arizona finally spoke, addressing the only other battleship present. Her voice was cracked and a trickle of blood and oil ran down her chin. She paused before violently spitting out a congealed gob of the vile mixture. "Help me up. Please."
"Right! Right away. Hang on Ari, I'm coming." Hiei seemed to ignore Albacore completely at that moment, to the submarine's surprise, as she dropped her commanding demeanor and rushed to help the wounded American. Yet the searchlights remained fixed. "Jeez. I thought I'd seen dreadnoughts fight before. But that's something else."
"Ari?" Albacore blinked.
"It was more vicious than I imagin-AH!" She yelped as Hiei's hand slipped too close to the gaping exit wound on her back. It was a testament to her damage control crews that she was able to finish her fight, much less survive to the end.
"Whoops! Sorry!" Hiei readjusted her grip on Arizona and continued helping her up, a sight which looked utterly bizarre to the submarine. "Gotcha..."
"Thank you." It took some doing, but Arizona was finally able to stand upright. However Hiei was forced to keep a tight hold on her in order to keep her upright.
"I really want to chew you out. I really do. But I'm going to wait. I also need to have a few words with myself. Plus, you did really well despite nearly getting killed." There was a brevity and a sharpness to her tone that did not go unnoticed by the two Americans. Both could tell that Hiei, while glad they had won and that Arizona hadn't sunk on her first combat mission, was very much not happy at the moment. "But I'm mostly just glad you're alive."
"Yes sir. Sorry sir." Arizona's apology was sincere, and appeared even moreso given the amount of pain she was in. Sometimes grievous injury and a near death experience made for very potent motivators to simply give up on putting on airs. At least they made it a lot harder to maintain a stoic image.
"Apology accepted. Now then!" Hiei turned her attention to the thus far silent savior currently held in her spotlights. Albacore did not flinch to her credit. Or show any sort of reaction other than straightening her back. "Looks like a new younger sister has arrived."
She offered a toothy, if bloody, grin to Albacore.
Albacore drew in a deep breath. This was it. The moment she would put all her chips on the table and lay down her hand. She had a clear and plain shot at the Japanese battleship with all six of her forward tubes. The same battleship who was smiling at her while offering every aid she could to the Martyr of Pearl. A ship she had an indirect hand in killing...
She would trust.
She would find her answers. And if she had been mislead...
Her eyes sharpened as she brought her hand up in a salute.
"Gato-class submarine. SS-218. USS Albacore." Her voice was clipped and edged like a razor. "Ma'am."
"Good to meet you, Albacore. Sorry if I don't return the salute. Ari's kinda heavy." Hiei chuckled at the painful attempted glare sent her way by Arizona. "What? You are. Not everyone has that much armor."
"Nevermind. I only ask that we... hurry back to base. There is nothing else we can do here." Arizona would have gestured towards the smoking port, but did not wish to risk falling from Hiei's strong grip. It was a painful admittance. She wished she could do more. But her drive to slay the Abyssal's had cost her and there was little to nothing they could have done regardless on land. But they had slain the monsters with great prejudice. They had done their duty.
She turned her grey gaze to the submarine. "You saved my life. Thank you, Albacore."
"Just doing my job, ma'am." Albacore allowed herself to sail in a bit closer to the battleships, still keeping the most watchful eye possible on Hiei. "Why are you... here?"
Not the most eloquent of questions. But she needed to know. And at least she had managed to catch herself before she flat out asked why a Japanese and an American battlewagon were sailing together. That would have been disastrous.
"The Admiral didn't tell you?" Hiei appeared genuinely confused. Even if it was in a hurry, Richardson would have at least given the girl a rundown on her way here. Somehow. Sub communication was always odd to her.
Albacore shook her head. She didn't know who the Admiral in charge of this battlegroup was and she certainly hadn't received orders or instruction from him. But no need for anyone else to know that. She'd play it by ear and work with what she could get.
"Hmm... That's odd. Come on. We've got to hurry up. I'll get you up to speed while we head back to base. Ari's stable for now, but you really don't want to let injuries like these linger." She pulled Arizona closer as she angled them towards the fastest path back to Sasebo. "Arizona's still new to the fleet, so she might not know everything."
"The Lieutenant is the commanding officer here, regardless." Arizona piped in tiredly. A part of her might want to just take a nap and let herself be towed home, but the far more willful share demanded she stay awake and alert. Especially with a new ally apparently present.
As the three began traveling in earnest, Albacore took position towards the rear of the impromptu formation. Neither battleship made mention of this and Hiei was inclined to allow the sub some leeway. The girl was certainly confused. But sometimes a little give went a long way.
"Let me just drop the biggest, but probably most obvious bomb for you right from the start: You won the war. We might have sucker punched you and gotten a few decent hits in, but we woke up a giant we didn't have a hope of beating." Hiei began her little history lesson with a jovial tone despite the grim nature of it. "And it's been over seventy years since the end."
"Seventy years?!"
"Yup!" Hiei adjusted a few degrees to port to account for Arizona's mass as she continued. "A lot has changed. In fact, Japan and America are pretty good allies with each other and have been for a long time now."
"Bu-"
"You will adjust. It may take time, and not everything will make sense. But you will adjust." Arizona winced as she spoke. Regretting having decided to voice so much as one of her fairies had decided at that moment to begin welding some of her communications array back together.
"Look on the plus side. Admiral Richardson is US Navy, so it's not like you're being tossed into a completely unfamiliar command structure." Hiei laughed as she recalled her posting under Richardson. "He's the only Admiral I've had since waking up. And since my last Admiral was Admiral Abe, it was a bit of a culture shock."
"That's one way to look at it I suppose." Albacore paused and discreetly thumbed the folded waistband of the camo pants she had pilfered from Jane's home. There on the tag was the name Richardson. Made sense. Not to worry. Probably plenty of Richardsons. "Are there any other submarines in service?"
"A few. None of your sisters if that's what you're asking. You are the very first US sub to answer the call." She glanced back to flash another toothy grin in the darkness. "That we know of at least. You were really good at hiding, so there could be dozens out there and we have no clue."
Albacore felt a slight swell of pride in her chest at the compliment. Not that she'd let it show though. The silent service was just that. Silent in their service. Knives in the dark. Unknown until after the fact.
"I pray they will all be just as well dressed." Arizona muttered somewhat irritably.
"What do you mean, Lieutenant Arizona?"
"Oh, Ari's just a big prude. That's all." Hiei's amused comment drew a glare from the super-dreadnought and a rather shocked expression from the submarine.
"A woman should not be revealing so much of herself!" The redhead's voice was raised. A fair achievement considering how worn out and wounded she was. Up to and including the gaping hole in her midsection. "I am amazed the Lieutenant Commander has not flashed her undergarments to the entire base. And the less said about I-19 the better."
"Iku's a... special case." There was a hesitation in Hiei's voice, as if she wasn't really sure how to defend the amorous submarine. She would have made mention of Arizona's current state of dress if she had been feeling teasing at the time. But she wasn't Mutsu. And could read the mood. Sort of.
"Then please explain to me why I heard the term 'Lewdmarine' so often at Yokosuka in reference to Japanese submarines as a whole." She winced as her increasingly animated anger twisted something in a way it did not wish to be twisted at the moment. Having her engineer begin yelling at her did not help matters.
Hiei remained conspicuously silent.
"Albacore at least has the decency to wear pants and a swimsuit far more appropriate for her duties." She didn't think folding the pants down to reveal more of the hip line was appropriate however. But she would take what she could get at the moment. "It a uniform. Not some... fetish outfit."
That got a laugh out of both Hiei and Albacore, though the latter did her best to stifle it. Arizona simply grumbled irritably.
"This is still... pretty weird." Albacore took stock of herself again when the laughter died down. Hands. Legs. She had a face, hair, a shapely rear, and a voice to speak with. "I'm a submarine. An American submarine. And here I am having fun with USS Arizona and the Hiei after a battle to the death with some sort of evil sea monster." Thinking of those twisted, vile... things made her skin crawl.
"Yeah. It's weird. Terrifying. And really freaky sometimes. But I'm glad. I get a second chance to make things right. So do a lot of us." Hiei gave Arizona a gentle squeeze. "And some of us get to finally do what we were made for. You two should have seen Mutsu after her first battle. She had the biggest smile on her face for weeks. Jintsuu was like that too. But she was way more reserved about it. All shy and humble."
"Jintsuu?" Albacore suddenly became far more self conscious and had to fight off the urge to go silent. Play it dumb. Just enough to get the information. Hearing the name Mutsu was important, but not nearly so much as having heard the name of the cruiser supposedly guarding Jane.
"Yep. She's been a bit out of it lately. Got sick. And then something I made didn't help." It wasn't her fault! It wasn't! She'd followed the directions to the letter this time. She'd only added a little extra brown sugar. A single teaspoon! "She's Admiral Richardson's Yeoman right now."
The submarine froze as things began sliding into place.
Jintsuu was Admiral Richardson's Yeoman. The home she had broken into belonged to someone named Richardson. Jintsuu was sleeping at the Richardson residence according to the girl there named Jane. More obviously now, Jane Richardson.
"Oh fuck."
"What's the matter?" Arizona asked of Albacore as their little formation slowed, the submarine having stopped moving.
"I... may have broken into Admiral Richardson's home."
The battleships blinked in unison.
"You what?"
Maybe a crash dive was in order...
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