As amazing as all of this sounded, ice cream sounded even more amazing. You'd never really had it yourself though you had read of it and seen it and had similar things, you think. But never real ice cream. You pointed towards the line of children.
"There. Let's go there."
"With the kids?"
"Kenshin, you asked me to choose. We're going there." The pair of you awkwardly shuffled into the queue behind a few kids. One or two of them openly gawked at you in your white uniforms and sleepless, rumpled look. You did your best to try and look dignified, even if you knew it wasn't quite working.
You realized as you moved up to the window that you were still wearing a sword. Oh well!
"
Two ice creams, please! In the little cones." You said. The shopkeep looked at your suspiciously, then gestured to a chalkboard beside him.
"
What flavours?" He said. You looked it over, explaining each to Kenshin, who couldn't read Tiber characters to save his life.
"That's vanilla, lemon, strawberry, orange, pineapple, grape, chocolate, coffee, and pistachio." You listed. It seemed like an overwhelming selection. It looked like there was two scoops per cone, of any flavour you wanted.
"Coffee sounds good." Kenshin said. "And… pineapple, I guess?"
"Okay.
One of coffee and pineapple, and one chocolate and strawberry." You'd had a little bit of chocolate, but it wasn't common back home. You knew it was amazing, if a little bitter. Strawberries, meanwhile, were simply the best edible fruit there was, and anyone who disagreed was objectively wrong.
The man scooped the ice cream into the cones and handed them over. Now that you had them in your hands, they were huge, much too large for any one person. Well, that was New Alleghany for you! You handed over a few yellowish bills of local money and sat down at a local bench to enjoy it. You took a cautious lick at the chocolate blob resting atop the cone.
Oh wow. It was much, much sweeter than you were expecting, almost acid, but nice and cold in the heat and the taste of the chocolate was simply amazing. You tore into it, perhaps a bit messily.
-2 Stress
Kenshin, for his part, was a bit more hesitant. "Do you think it's supposed to be this sweet? I feel they added too much sugar." You shrugged: it was a lot, no question, but it was also amazing, so who cares?
You were about finished the chocolate and moving on to the strawberry when you were interrupted by a small voice.
"
You have ice cream on your shirt."
You looked down and saw that, indeed, you'd ruined your nice white uniform with a streak of chocolatey goodness. If your mother saw you like this, she'd probably disown you.
The source of the voice was a little girl, maybe seven or eight. She had on one of those soft brimmed caps you saw the baseball players wearing back home pulled down over thick black curls, and had a little leather mitten and one of those baseball sticks to match.
"
You're from those Aki ships, ain't you?" She said, pointing down the hill. Now that you were distracted from your ice cream for two seconds, you could see that the steep hill this bench was atop had a perfect view down into the bay. The two little white ships down there looked so small next to the giant black battleships besides them. "
Can you understand me, huh?"
You nodded. "Y
ep! I can. My friend can't. I'm Arisugawa Haruna, and this is my friend Kusakabe Kenshin. We're both lieutenants."
She looked you over suspiciously, then held out a hand for a tiny, absurd shake. "
Wendy." She said simply. You took her hand and smiled: she didn't offer the same to Kenshin. "
What you doing here? You here to stay?"
"
Just visiting. Picking up a submarine!" You said. You doubted that anyone would drill this kid for classified information. "
Where are your parents?"
"
Dad's sleeping 'cause he works the night shift and mom's at work or something. That a real sword?"
"
Very real," you said with a laugh. Kenshin frowned.
"What is she talking about?"
"She wants to know if my sword is real. It's cute."
"Cute." He's quiet for a moment. "...You got ice cream on your uniform."
Before Wendy could ask another question, someone called her name and she went running off with a shouted '
Bye!' You watched as a game of street baseball in miniature began to unfold. When you were her age, they didn't let you outside without a guard, nevermind to play in the streets. You felt almost bitter about that, maybe.
You started crunching through the cone, finding it had become deliciously soaked with ice cream. There was shouting and you watched as one child hit the ball down the street and took off for the first base, then had to hold up as a delivery truck came puttering down the street. All the children scurried for the sidewalk and jeered at the driver, who good-naturedly told them to count it as a 'home-run' as she drove by. You stifled a laugh and Kenshin shook his head while he crunched through his own cone.
"I don't know why they don't sell ice cream like this back home." You said, smiling as the game resumed. "This is amazing."
"It's too sweet. I mean, it's good. But I couldn't eat this more than once a month if they sold it back home." Kenshin was still finishing off the bottom of the cone. You think that was maybe the best part, where all the melted ice cream had pooled.
"Still, whoever gets clever enough to do that would probably make a lot of… urgh." That was weird. Stomach ache?
"Urgh?" Kenshin asked.
"I kinda feel weird." You said.
"Told you, too much sugar."
"Eh, it'll probably be fine."
---
It was not fine. You were never eating that much ice cream again.
You took solace in the fact that Kenshin was also not fine.
---
A few days later, it seems like orders finally got sorted out. Commander Yajima, who was originally going to take command of the newly-purchased submarine, was instead going to helm the
Hachinosu for the return journey. To everyone's surprise, yours included, the task of commanding the submarine on the way back would go to Kenshin. You'd be coming along, as would all the other minisub captains and crew and, it appeared, everyone that assisted in foiling the conspiracy. They were probably hoping that would prevent you from having any unfortunate accidents on board, in case there were more conspirators who hadn't been caught. That just so happened to be all the officers and men you needed to crew the damn thing for the trip home (5 officers, 22 men. Normally the complement was 6 officers and 40 men) Kenshin was in command, while one of the other more senior miniature submarine officers, Lieutenant Kanbayashi, was the executive officer while the rest of you split up the other duties.
The submarine was cramped, sure, but having spent so much time aboard the mini-subs, it didn't seem so bad. Besides that, it was bigger and more powerful than any of the submarines Akitsukuni had developed domestically. You could see why the Admiralty had snapped it up when the Alleghanians had decided to offer it up for sale.
It was a single deck laid out like a long hallway, with the conning tower above. From front to back, you had the forward torpedo room with its four tubes, officers quarters (which were each tiny closets of sorts with just enough room for a too-small bed), a tiny wardroom and galley, then the main control room and conning tower, crew quarters, engine room, battery room, some various engineering spaces, and a rear torpedo room with a single tube. Sailors slept wherever there was room, though there really wasn't, with stacked berths scattered about through most of the ship.
Atop the ship there was a gun aft of the control room, and a bulge ahead of it that was supposed to be external torpedo storage. All told, the boat carried ten torpedoes internally and another two in the deck locker, which would be enough for some pretty impressive raiding. There was some work to be done: the tubes needed converting to accept Akitsukuni-built torpedoes (which, apparently, were actually much better than the New Alleghany ones), the deck gun would need to be replaced, and of course she would need repainting from that midnight black to a respectable white and sea gray and all the information labels would need to be translated and the various gauges and dials replaced, since for some reason the New Alleghanians used Albian feet instead of the much more sensible meters. You suspected it would probably be in the yard a month or two once you got back. They'd probably also want to study it to build copies.
Most importantly, it had something none of the Akitsukuni subs back home had yet: a diesel engine. All of the domestic submarines had petrol or kerosene engines and you suspected that the Admiralty were eager to get their hands on a fine example of New Alleghanian engine design. It's engines gave it some lovely legs. According to the chief petty officer who was running the engine room, it could make 3,000 nautical miles on its own tanks, which would get it all the way to Katuroa and another 400 nautical miles past that before it would need to be refueled. Of course, you'd top up in port there, but still. That was impressive. Even a full tank wouldn't get you all the way home to Tokei once you left Katuroa, but that was why
Hachinosu had filled its tanks with diesel fuel before you had sailed out of Shimazu.
Ken immediately implemented some rules that the new crew complained about and the experienced submariners were very thankful for, no smoking being a big one. The duties were pretty slap-dash, seeing as the sub had about half the crew it needed and wasn't using most of its functions. Mostly, you yelled at sailors to stay out of the middle of the hallway and took shifts on the top of the conning tower communicating with your tender and scanning the horizon with binoculars, though as you weren't at war everyone was pretty lax about keeping an eye out for other ships. Plus the
Kaiyo could and would see see any approaching vessels long before you would with her tall superstructure and masts. You also sat in your cabin reading and writing letters to be sent when you got to Katuroa.
At Katuroa the mail finally caught up with you. A sealed envelope containing
The Right to Well-Being with a "reader's guide" that poked holes in all the arguments within (though a brief glance at that showed a serious deficiency of academic rigour), as well as a variety of others. One was from your mother, the longest she'd sent yet, which… you think might have been amonishing you for interfering with the honour of another Cadet branch, though it may have instead (or, perhaps additionally) been intended to congratulate you. Her letters were indirectly written and so dense with hidden meaning that, frankly, it was impossible to tell.
Another was from Aiko. You tore it open and huddled up in your cabin to read it. It was long, but surprisingly restrained coming from her. That said, a lifetime of reading your mother's letters had prepared to for extracting her meaning, and…
Look, Aiko was a lot of things, but subtle wasn't one. Everywhere there was possibly a chance, she used a suggestive word or turn of phrase. There was one page of nothing but dots and dashes that spent a rather long time describing how badly she wanted to embrace you and be able to smell your perfume again.
Okay, she probably got the message.
It ended thusly.
I understand that your job and your position often leave you rather tied up. However, now that I understand how important our friendship is to you, I want to do my best to keep it alive. If your job happens to bring you by Tokei in the future, I would love to meet and catch up. Maybe we can get some tea or maybe have dinner sometime? I would love to host you at the dorm, too, since every girl there would LOVE to meet our Navy princess in person. I can cook for you there, too! Let me know.
Aiko
Well. That wasn't exactly subtle either. She pretty much ended the letter asking you to step out with her and you rather badly wanted to accept. Thankfully, she constrained herself to being mildly suggestive and to talking about how pretty you were but anyone who read this would immediately be able to tell the depth of feeling there. You read and re-read the letter and finally folded it neatly and tucked it into the inner pocket of your uniform so it would be next to your heart. Mostly because you're a big romantic idiot and you couldn't imagine doing anything else.
Finally, as you set out on the final leg of your journey, you set down your terrible pulp fiction for the final time (Aiko mentioned that Gallian classes were a part of the curriculum, and you were curious now if there was a subtle and deniable way to mail a girl foreign erotica) and picked up the two pieces of political literature you had sitting around and gave them a read.
Into a Heroic Age was not a complicated book. It was barely even a mission statement. It took you maybe an hour to read, and Kenshin's summary did it fair justice. The author, now-Rear Admiral Tahara Utamuro, had basically poured his contempt for not just the people of the colonies but the people of his homeland into a slim volume that called for 'heroic individuals' like the reader to band together and enforce a new and just order with absolute authority. The only thing surprising about it was the sheer level of vitriol, as well as the weak ties made to some works of political and moral philosophy you hadn't read. One of the people he kept coming back to was some Europan writer with a theory about "master" and "slave" moralities, and the author posited that Western influence was an attempt to impose a slave morality on Akitsukuni, which could only be countered by dynamic, powerful, prideful people taking back what's theirs, which apparently included pretty much everything in and touching the Auroric Ocean.
Also, the dude loathed women. To a degree that was, even after all the shit you'd gone through at the Academy and in the fleet, actually still a little shocking. And the 'about the author' blurb indicated he was married. Poor woman.
The Right to Well-Being was a different thing entirely. Originally written by a member of the Caspian gentry, it posited that the world was abundant with resources to a degree that the average worker produced huge amounts of wealth much less and less labor than in the past. This was due in large part to the advances of science, mechanization and industrialization. The workers, of course, saw none of that extra value they produced--it all went to those who owned businesses and ran governments. As she put it:
We, in civilized societies, are rich. Why then are the many poor? Why this painful drudgery for the masses? Why, even to the best paid worker, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the midst of all the wealth inherited from the past, and in spite of the powerful means of production, which could ensure comfort to all in return for a few hours of daily toil?
While her examination of the problems seemed sound enough, her solutions were radical to say the least. An abolishment of monarchs and even of governments and states as they were understood in the modern world and the collusion of people in radically democratic fashion. There would be no taxes, no government except that which was directly responsible to the people who elected it. No police, no real legislature or laws. No courts! It sounded all well and good on paper, but thinking about it in practice made you shudder in horror.
It would be chaos, of course. Absolutely unworkable. Total idealistic trash that, if it managed to function at all, would do so until a neighbouring state noticed and their leaders and government organized an army to come and take it. Besides, what would stop some local strong man from simply organizing his own gang of toughs to simply seize control of this "stateless" society and reform some sort of new feudal order with himself (or herself, you supposed) at the top? While the rule of the Empress was, of course, divine providence, that was pretty close to how the shoguns had done it, when the old Empresses had grown so inwardly focused that they ceased to govern.
No, it could never work. You could see the appeal to someone like Ota who came from a working class family of former peasants, though. The thought of a world where everyone worked together in harmony and produced what was needed according to the democratic direction of their communities sounded a lot like the sort of thing some of the ancient peasant rebellions had demanded, too. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same…
If the problems laid out by this book were to be addressed, and you were at least fairly convinced that they ought to be, in some way, it would have to be through strong governance. What these anarchists really needed, basically, was an Empress.
---
You did end up back in Tokei, but there was no chance to make good on Aiko's offers, as you found yourself rapidly pulled into a months-long nightmare of legal proceedings. While about half the conspirators ended up offing themselves in the brig, as was right and proper, your cousin and Lieutenant Yaginuma decided to fight the charges instead, which meant a lot of waiting in courtrooms, explaining things to the family lawyer and the prosecuting attorneys, writing out a variety of reports, and so forth. At one point, you were placed under house arrest in a hotel while they investigated if you had, in fact, conspired to commit mutiny.
Eventually, however, they let up, and the cases came to a close. The enlisted members of the conspiracy who were determined to have been ordered to participate were shuffled off to prison for obeying illegal orders, the volunteers were shot, and Lieutenant Yaginuma finally took the honourable way out the day before his sentencing hearing. Your cousin, on the other hand, skated through most of the charges on the backs of some of the best lawyers in the navy, convincing the court he was mostly ignorant of the intentions of the conspiracy and so forth. Ridiculous, but he still got out relatively unscathed, at least legally. While he wasn't imprisoned or even cashiered out of the service, the whole ordeal had ruined his reputation within the military.
You were unsurprised to hear he planned on "wrapping up loose ends" and then retiring to politics as soon as he was able, though he still technically had another four years left on the mandatory decade of service that came with graduation from the Academy, all expenses paid by Her Majesty. You were sure his family was in the process of finding a way to wiggle him out of that. In the meantime he was placed on "shore duty" which meant he was put in an office somewhere with nothing more dangerous than a set of pens. He would never be at sea again and you weren't surprised that he was shuffled into some staff position where some admiral's staff could keep a very close eye on him.
Finally, finally, you were able to visit home for a few days before you got your new orders. Unfortunately, your eager visit was somewhat ruined by the discovery of a black and gold envelope on the shelf in your room. You promptly dropped that off with the Imperial Guardsman who watched over the house and went back to hotels. You would be surprised if the Purity Club actually had anyone inside the house staff who would be up for any action greater than leaving you an anonymous threat, but you weren't taking any chances.
While you were there, you took advantage of the hotel's free newspaper service to try and catch up on things. The scandal was very much in the news, and every paper had their own narrative on it.
Dawn Star cast you as the hero, while most of the others named Kenshin as the driving force in breaking up the conspiracy. Your name simply wasn't mentioned in
Our Way, which danced around the issue with a variety of excuses, deflections, and pictures of undressed women, the latter of which was the only reason you picked up a copy on your last days in the hotel.
Eventually, though, your orders did come. You learned that Kenshin had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander on account of his history of good service and his initiative breaking up the conspiracy. He had, in fact, been named as the commanding officer of the new Long-range Submarine Type 14,
I-02, which was just re-entering service following an extensive overhaul, refit, and study. Your orders placed you on that boat as well.
What position are you taking on the submarine?
[ ] Signals Officer: You'll be put in charge of the radios and other communication equipment, which includes the hydrophone. You'll be the first to hear of anything that happens, and you'll also be informally in charge of managing incidents with the crew.
[ ] Torpedo Officer: You'll be responsible for the technically intense work involved with the torpedo tubes, where absolute discipline must be maintained lest a misloaded torpedo flood the boat. You'll also be responsible for the deck gun, if and when it's employed.
[ ] Engineering Officer: You're in charge of the teams that keep the engines running, the batteries working, and the diving mechanism from filling the ship with water. You're also in charge of damage control.
[ ] Logistics Officer: You're in charge of making sure the submarine has everything it needs. You've got experience in this field, and it gives a lot of authority, for all that it's once again being shuffled off to a logistics position.
