With a breathless gasp, the Snow Queen sank into the frigid wine-dark water of her birthing dock. She was far from a stranger to the pain of feeling her demonic spawn clawing and tearing free from the icy confinement of her womb, but this had been a particularly agonizing delivery.
The pain had been excruciating, but also exhilarating. Her muscles shivered with exhaustion, and every time a bloodstained iceberg touched her bone-white skin a bolt of pleasure roared up her spine.
She had eyes, once. Now a crown of twisted, blackened metal burst from her skull, its fine tendrils weaving through hammered-silver hair. But out of habit, she turned her eyeless face the the demon crawling up from her bleeding womb and smiled.
There was only one. One perfect specimen out of a litter half a dozen. Her swollen belly had been home to them all once, but one by one the weaker fell before the might of the stronger. The queen had felt every battle of the furious war waged within her belly. She'd sensed every skirmish with unmitigated bliss as the weak within her were defeated and devoured by the strong.
Her lips twisted into a smile at the eyeless thing clawing past her still-distended middle. A gaping, bloody maw tore across flesh still stained with oily placenta, and a crown of blackened metal tore through jet-black air. A crown not nearly as impressive as the Snow Queens', but a crown none the less.
"Mmm," The queen stroked her monstrous talon down her spawn's shivering back. Its spine was riddled with long, twisted blades. Its limbs were entombed in talons smaller, but no less monstrous than those of its mother, and its claws tore into her flesh as it clawed towards her icy breast.
The queen gently helped her newborn on its way, her mind drifting on a cloud of excruciating bliss. Already the demon was massive, and it would grow to enormity suckling at her icy teat. "You will be great."
The demon was too ravenous to give even the faintest hint of a reply. Breath by laborious breath it hauled itself along its mother's massive body, until at last its razor teeth tore into the Queen's breast. Blood and milk poured through its crooked teeth and joined the gallons of blood and oil dyeing the birthing water black.
But before the Queen could truly enjoy the experience, a scuff of polished leather by her side drew her attention. Her faceless attendants with their blood-spattered lab coats and thick rubber gauntlets stood aside as an officer snapped to attention.
"Yes?" The Snow Queen turned her eyeless face in his direction, idly supporting her demon at her teat all the while. His report was through, but concise and almost sterile in its blandness. That didn't matter of course. He communicated the essence well enough, and it was the essence that filled the Queen with such joy she completely forgot the demon on her breast.
Her elder sister, the valiant warship who's death—honorable or not—came far too soon—had met her foe. A hapless convoy caught far away from any who could help. At last, her sister would know the thrill and ecstasy of the hunt.
"Keep me informed," said the queen with undisguised glee. "I want every detail of my sister's hunt."
—|—|—
Maya was soaked to the bone and drenched with sweat. She shivered from the frigid rain squall she hid in while deep within her engineers toiled in the unlivable heat of her overloaded boiler rooms. She squinted into the gloom, barely able to pick out her own bow in the wind-driven rain. Sweat stung at her eyes, and she wiped her brow with the back of her hand.
The squall had been a lucky one. German radar—and thus, she hoped, the loathsome mockeries the abyssal fleet carried—was blinded by rain. Even if her pursuers bothered to heat up their sets—which knowing what she did about Kreigesmarine doctrine, Maya doubted—the squall would keep her hidden.
It was a gamble of course, Maya's radar
could pierce the driven rain, but she didn't dare flick it on. Her foes might not carry effective radar, but they
had warning receivers. She couldn't take the risk, even a rough bearing would let her foes saturate the area with their vast layered batteries. This would be a battle of optics and skill. Not a technical display of military equipment, but a dance.
Her last dance.
Maya smiled, tasting burnt copper and charred blood with each breath. Her surging boilers were slowly killing her, but that didn't matter. She fully intended to die before the added wear and tear became an issue.
She glanced at her watch. The Abyssal fleet had been bearing down at flank, zig-zaging only enough to throw off any hopes of making a long-range torpedo shot. The Abyssal flagship might only be a reflection of Bismark, but she must've picked up a healthy respect for torpedoes from her namesake.
Any second now the Abyssal fleet would blunder into her hastily-constructed trap. Twice already she'd almost sprung her ploy when something wandered into her rain-ruined vision, only to realize it was just an iceberg. What exactly icebergs were doing in the thoroughly subtropical Pacific was a question Maya didn't want to contemplate.
The cruiser fished her phone from her pocket and got as far as unlocking it before she thought better. There wasn't any evidence that Abyssals could crack the data-burst radios kanmusu-issue phones used, but Maya couldn't bring herself to risk it. When the battle started… she'd know.
Sendai was lying in wait just outside the squall, staring into the gloomy horizon for any hint of the Abyssals' Teutonic silhouette no doubt. The light cruiser was smaller and her superstructure was sleeker than Maya's monolithic tower. And at almost a third the weight, Sendai was far quicker on her feet than Maya. It there was anyone who could dodge salvos, it was the neon ninja.
"YASAEN!" Sendai's voice roared over the waves and even through the howling rain Maya saw her slim friend tear for flank as fast as her screws could manage. Tinny pops from her distant five-point-fives rolled over the waves as Sendai tore into the distant—and currently invisible—forms of the Abyssal fleet.
Maya wasted no time building up speed. Her turbines roared and her screws bit into the frigid water and churned it white. Her stern fell as her bow pierced the waves and drenched her with a curtain of salty spray.
Leaving the squall behind, it only took Maya a moment to get her bearings. Sendai was darting through the waves, frantically bouncing between towering splashes like a saftey-orange pinball. Her guns chattered puny challenges to the thundering concussions of her monstrous foes. Every so often, her searchlights would catch a glimpse of one of the massive warships. But the next instant a frantic evasion would send the beam shining off into nothing.
Maya grit her teeth and squinted into the night. She wanted nothing more than to dive into the fight with her friend, but she couldn't risk it. Not with her precious and volatile oxygen torpedoes aboard. Sendai was quick on her feet, she could dodge shots the fifteen-thousand ton Takao could never dream of.
"HA HA HA!" Sendai howled with laughter as spray from near misses drenched her scarf. "I'M RIGHT HERE!"
Maya, meanwhile, had slipped to within a few thousand yards of the roaring battleship fleet. Close enough to make out distinct shapes, not just blobs in the dark. The Abyssals were stabbing at the dark with their own spotlights, scouring frantically for the light-footed cruiser. But their attention was focused solely on the highly-visible ninja, letting Maya draw a bead in peace.
Ka-Ka-Ka-THOOM! Maya's ten twenty-centimeter guns barked in unison, hurling high-explosive on an almost perfectly-flat trajectory into the Abyssal fleet. There were more misses than hits from her hasty barrage, but a handful of shells slammed home against Abyssal superstructure, mauling precious searchlights and lookouts.
Almost as one, the three battleships turned their ire towards Maya. Secondary batteries that had until lay idle roared with hate, churning the water around her into a boiling mass of splashes and splinters. Frag from a near miss tore at her face, and Maya threw her rudder hard over and fired a hasty salvo of oxygen torpedoes.
Meanwhile, Sendai used the brief reprieve Maya's sudden appearance had bought her to line up her own salvo. Long oxygen-fueled torpedoes lept from her tubes and tore into the frigid water.
Some sixth sense, or maybe it was just a healthy respect for the dangers of torpedoes in low-visibility conditions, alerted the Abyssals. The flagship and one of the smaller battleships peeled off, parting ways and spoiling Maya's already tenuous solution. Most of her fish went wide, but she heard two titanic explosions and glanced back to check.
Hits to the bow, outside the citadel. Not enough to enough to stop the Abyssal warship, but at least enough to slow them down. A whoop of glee roared through Maya's parched throat. She might've bought the convoy some time after all.
Sendai had no such luck, her spread was smaller and aimed even more hastily than Maya's. Her fish sailed harmlessly into the vast emptiness, and her maneuvers were far to erratic to risk a reload.
Maya threw her rudder over and reversed course. The two undamaged battleships were detaching from the third, leaving it to handle Maya and Sendai alone. Against one wounded ship… Maya thought she might have a chance, but letting the other to go free was unacceptable.
Her searchlights stabbed into the black frantically probing for a target as her blowers roared in her ears. Splashes drenched her already soaking uniform as guns of every caliber whipped the sea into a froth. She swung her lights towards the muzzle flash and ripped off a full broadside.
Shells arced through the air in every direction as five ships fought a brutal melee. Even Maya's twenty-five millimeters got into the action as she poured fire into every fleeting glimpse she got of her foes. Torpedoes splashed into the furious water, but most sailed wide of targets only barely glimpsed.
Then, a bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air. Sendai had been hit amidships. She was ablaze. Instantly, what seemed like every gun the Abyssals possessed swung her direction, peppering the burning cruiser like a beacon. In heartbeats, Sendai was burning from stem to stern, her hull low by the bow from countless holes.
Maya blinked, but before she could react a fifteen-inch shell slammed into her bow. The massive round muscled its way past her armored bulkheads like they were made of tissue paper and nearly tore her bow off. The blow knocked every bit of breath from the cruiser's lungs, she couldn't even scream as thousands of gallons of frigid saltwater poured through her rent hull and smashed against her battered bulkheads.
Her speed drooped like a rock and her bow dug into the ocean. Her torpedoes were shadowed and with her energy hemorrhaging she'd never get her bow around before her foe's next salvo. Maya felt her world go silent as her searchlights picked out the Abyssal warships. She was staring down the barrel of four massive fifteens.
"YAAASEEENNN!!!" Sendai howled at the top of her scorched lungs, steaming with everything she had up the middle. Maya's shadowed hull was all but lost in the brilliant pyre of Sendai's burning hull, giving the heavy cruiser precious time to get her hull around. Moments later, Sendai threw her rudder over, angling for the middle of the fleet.
It was just enough light to give Maya a solution. Her launchers roared and torpedoes erupted into the frigid waters. One crashed into an iceberg short of her target, but the other seven ran hot straight and true.
Before they could find their mark, a furious volley of fifteen, eleven, and six inch shells tore into Maya's hull. The smaller shells tore into her superstructure, drenching her soaking clothes in blood. The bigger found her magazine, touching off what ammo she had left and cracking her already battered hull apart at the keel.
