After careful consideration and muttering between you, Kenshin, and Takamitsu about which might make a better target it was decided that you had the best angle of attack on the Imperator Nikolai. They were lagging behind the other ships in the line and you had a better idea of what was behind them, in case the torpedoes missed their mark. Kenshin glued his eyes back onto the periscope a moment later and began rattling off course corrections and ranges to target while Takamitsu set to work with his slide rule and pencil, relaying firing angles, speeds, and distances to Akio in the torpedo room. It seemed almost routine, except for the rumble of engines and shell fire all around you that seemed to reverberate through the water with enough force to shake the submarine. You were certain it was your imagination, however. Finally, the last of calculations was done and Kenshin began the grim ritual that proceeded every launch of torpedoes.
"Flood tubes one through four." Kenshin.
"Aye, sir. Flood tubes one through four." Takamitsu, at the speaking tube. Then the tinny voice of Akio responding in acknowledgement a few moments later.
"All tubes flooded, sir," Takamitsu reported with the same brisk, business-like air as if this was just another exercise. He was always a cool one, Lieutenant Takamitsu. Kenshin nodded. You were firing four torpedoes, which was more than normal and the stopwatches you carried could only really reliably track one or maybe two firing times at once, so you and Takamitsu had been given one a piece to help keep track of the firing. He was tube three. You were tube four.
"Tube one, fire."
"Tube one, fire!"
"Tube one, fired!" The soft whooshing rush of the torpedo speeding away from the boat almost swallowed up Akio's tiny voice from the speaking tube. The clicking of the stopwatch in Kenshin's hand started.
"Tube two, fire."
"Tube two, fire!"
"Tube two, fired!" Next to Kenshin, one of the petty officers assigned to the control room started his own stopwatch.
Tube three went, then tube four and you started your watch. At a range of almost 1000 meters, it would take just over a minute for the torpedoes to hit. You had to hope that they weren't noticed during that time--it was likely they wouldn't be, with the fury and confusion of the battle. You tried not to think about it and instead focused on the watch in your hand. Each tick of the second hand was an age--it always was in this situation. You were about fifteen seconds behind the first torpedo, you knew but couldn't quite get your brain to focus on the arithmetic needed to estimate how long after Kenshin's torpedo hit you could expect yours. Spirits, let it be over already--this waiting was the worst part of this damnable boat and it's newfangled weapons--
A distinct rumble of an underwater explosion interrupted your frantic thoughts and you looked up. Kenshin shook his head. His was overdue, but the petty officer next to him nodded.
"A hit, sir!" Then another rumble and a few seconds later, a third. Three. Three distinct hits. Everyone in the control room was cheering, and you felt yourself swept up in it.
"Holy shit. I. Well, half the superstructure just dropped into the hull." Kenshin said, peering through the periscope. "She's listing…"
"The cruiser, captain?"
Kenshin shimmied around the periscope, scanning around. "Oh, there she is… um… oh, they did not like that, did they… fuck. Fuck!" Kenshin pulled away from the periscope like he was ducking behind a wall in a gunfight.
"What, captain?" You asked.
"EMERGENCY DIVE! Bow planes, twenty degrees dive, right full rudder--" The submarine lurched and began to nose downwards through the water. There was a scramble of men as everyone who wasn't doing anything else important scrambled forward to add more weight to the bow. The deck tilted and you reached out to grab a nearby bulkhead to keep yourself from slipping in the film of seawater that always seemed to be on the control room floor. There was a crashing, rumbling explosion somewhere nearby and the sub shook from the impact of something exploding nearby. Shellfire?
You looked to Kenshin, who was staking a long swig from his canteen.
"There was a cannon pointing right at us. They must have seen us before the torpedo hit. If we'd fired thirty seconds later, we'd have been hit…" He broke into a grin and laughed nervously, and you did too, the adrenaline crashing through you. The nervous laughter spread through the control room. "That was so close!"
You clapped him on the shoulder in your best imitation of masculine affection. "Good catch."
"What's the plan, captain?" Takamitsu, standing by.
"Uh, take us north, get us clear of the fleet. We've done our job, unless anyone wants to surface and try taking on the cruiser with our deck gun? Helm, make our depth 30 meters. Set our course 30 degrees North-east by North."
"Thirty meters, aye."
"North-east by north, 30 degrees aye."
The submarine trundled along underwater awhile on the electric engines, no sounds except feet on the deck and the creaking of metal. You were agonizingly slow underwater, but you weren't really in a hurry either. Your battle was over, and though there was some tension still, you found yourself starting to calm, and with it the horror you'd suppressed for the battle came rushing back.
Mochizuki was still gone. Uncle Tokimoro wasn't going to clap you on the shoulder at New Year's and tell you how pretty you were in your uniform and ask how your assignment was and tell you about how he'd been standing on the bridge next to Admiral Fushimori. He wouldn't tell you how your cousin Takahashi, his son, was doing. Because Takahashi was also dead, blown up in the
Mochizuki's forward turret where he was a gunnery officer.
You wanted to weep, but couldn't. There were others who wouldn't be coming home too, all across your extended family. You couldn't grieve in front of the others; wouldn't let yourself be seen to be so weak. Instead, you went over to your station, sat down next to Kwon, and just tried to steady your breathing.
He noticed, you could tell, but didn't say anything. Good man, Kwon. You slumped over against the bulkhead to focus on your breathing. The stale air of the submarine was thick and you tried not to think about all the funerals your family was going to have to appear at.
---
The sub ended up having to surface early. Something went wrong with the ballast tanks again, this time leading to a stream of water through some pipes in engineering. Kenshin held the boat under for a while longer to make some distance and a few turns, then the boat simply had to surface before the water shorted the batteries or drowned the engines.
You surfaced north of Port Georgia, in in the far distance the battle was wrapping up. Akitsukuni forces were retreating, the battle inconclusive but your side out of steam. Imperator Nikolai was listing almost 45 degrees and was burning, most of the superstructure having fallen off into the water.
Over the radio, the battle's results were being hashed out. While the trade of two enemy battleships for one was good, the Akitsukuni escort squadrons were devastated. The officers mused, as you ate dinner in the control room and poured over the snippets of reports, that perhaps the aggression of the screens, derived from Albian doctrine, was simply too risky. As it was, the Akitsukuni fleet was leaving with less than half the escorts it arrived with. Casualties in the raiding party were likely also to be high, but you probably wouldn't know definitively until you limped back to port.
The submarine couldn't even go to periscope depth right now, so you were waiting until nightfall, watching the Caspians consolidate their line and launch rescue operations for stricken ships on both sides while you danced in and out of mist and rain squalls to keep yourself out of sight. Interestingly, over the next few hours, there were several flyovers by solitary little planes which buzzed over the fleet and port, one of the Navy scouts. It looked like the same sort of plane that you'd rescued a man from, though you swore the floats were a little different.
Finally, darkness fell as the bulk of the Caspian fleet headed into port and I-02 started back home. As you crossed the port, everyone watching intently for any sign of enemy patrol boats, one of the Caspian ships hit a mine in the port, causing a huge orange fire to rage inside and other ships to begin panicked turns to reverse out. At least one other detonated before you made it clear, and you swore you could see a cruiser backlit in flame as it capsized.
You shuddered and turned away, focusing your binoculars on the horizon again. You probably should go off watch soon, but you'd lost all sense of time in the last few hours. You'd slept briefly earlier, though it hadn't been that restful. So instead you had drank several mugs of hot, black coffee and smoked a few surreptitious cigarettes with Akio, your hands cupped over them to hide the cherry glow on the bridge (explicitly forbidden to be smoked below decks in case of diesel fumes, and because Kenshin hated the smell). Unable to dive anyway, Kenshin had allowed some off-duty sailors out onto the deck, and they were mostly just sitting out in the cold and enjoying the winter air.
Kwon and Ota were leaning against one another at the base of the conning tower, taking a nap, their fingers intertwined. You had always suspected there was something going on there.
As you listened to the rumble of your engines, you thought you heard something else. Something over the faint murmur of conversation on the deck and Akio's muttered griping about how the weather was certain to get worse.
"Quiet," you hissed to him, then raised your voice. "QUIET!" The conversation died away and you strained your ears, listening, then heard a faint voice from somewhere to starboard.
"Ahoyyy!" Then, someone louder.
"
Na palube!"
Caspian? You turned your binoculars, trying to seek out the source of the cries, then bellowed down into the hatch.
"All stop! Rig me a searchlight!" Dangerous, maybe, but you weren't going to leave anyone else to freeze out here. A few minutes later a light was clamped to the railing and a rating swung it across the waves.
"Ahoy!" You cried out. "Say something!" The voices replied, this time wordless and the searchlight swept over something in the waves before finally focusing in on it, perhaps 200 or 300 meters away. A piece of wreckage from one ship or another, you couldn't even call it a raft. There were three men clinging to it, two Akitsukuni and one barrel-chested Caspian with the bushiest beard you had ever seen. All of them were soaked, and wearing water-logged life-vests. You were surprised they were still alive in this weather--especially with dark having close in. It was freezing.
It was the work of a few minutes to close in and toss the men on their makeshift raft a line, then to haul them all aboard, shivering and miserable. The Caspian looked grateful just to be alive and the armed petty officer standing by to escort him down below seemed utterly unnecessary. You had the feeling that he didn't care who had dragged him from the sea. He seemed surprised to see a woman in uniform on the deck of an Akitsukuni warship, though, and stared at you with numb sort of shock before he was urged below to get wrapped in warm blankets and have hot tea and coffee forced on him.
The two Akitsukuni sailors were brought down to the engine room to warm up, and as they past by on the way to the hatch, you stopped them a moment, looking at one who looked… very familiar.
"... Petty Officer Tomita?" You said, astonished.
"Y-yeah." He said, nodding shakily. "Er, aye ma'am," he corrected after a moment.
"Where were you posted? What ship?"
"W-well I was on the
Mochizuki, on the foremast. Something--there was a flash and I don't remember much until I was in the water..."
"Okay. Don't worry. You don't have to talk about it." You said, waving him on his way.
Well… okay. Maybe the curse
was real.
And now he was on your boat.
---
The boat was redirected away from the northern islands and all the way straight back to Tokei for repairs. Normally you might go all the way south to Shimazu, but the ports there were going to have their hands full with the repairs to cruisers and battleships. On the way back, more things started going wrong, which, while the made sense given that I-02 had been run to the edge of its tolerances and already at sea a while, still made you think there might be something supernatural at foot. Still, the sub pulled into dock soon enough, and you stumbled out onto shore holding a leave pass and freezing. Tokei was in the grips of the worst winter in a generation, winds whipping snow drifts down the streets.
You spent about a half-day just sleeping off the voyage after taking the longest bath of your life. You kept your hair long, down your entire back: it's what noblewomen have done for centuries, and what single professional women did nowadays, and you weren't giving up either. Besides, you worried a lot that people might think you were masculine, and this was a damn good argument against it. But… after months in a submarine, washing it with saltwater, it was
pretty gross. It took nearly two hours to untangle even with the help of a trained bath attendant and you came damn close to taking scissors to it.
You'd sent a letter ahead to Aiko inviting her to dinner, and you woke up just in time to scramble into a clean uniform (and a skirt, for the first time in months) and out into a cab.
You met her at the door of the restaurant, your heart pounding as she strode over and brushed close to you. You regretted meeting her in a public place, because what you really wanted to do now was kiss her. She had her hair cut a little shorter than when you'd last seen her, with waves in it and a touch of makeup. She looked amazing and you felt a little out of place and plain by comparison in your black uniform (even with medals pinned to it and the gold and silver insignia) and simple bun. You'd slept too long to put proper time into getting ready.
The two of you had a lovely dinner at a place which was much too pricey for her but also much less likely to be frequented by reporters for unsavory newspapers and gossip magazines. You were originally afraid of offending her with this display of wealth, but then she started talking about how she ate as a student and your concerns transformed into worries that she wasn't eating
enough.
You conspicuously avoided talking about the war as much as possible. You mostly talked about her, to be honest, and she could tell that's what you wanted so she went into detail. Her classes were fascinating, though the subject was completely opaque to you (you had no idea how electricity worked, nevermind what a
resistor was) and her school life was fascinating. Her class had originally been heavily male dominated, with her being one of only four women, but so many students had quit to sign up for the war effort in the past two months that her classes were now mostly women--the universities needed someone to pay tuition and had apparently doing a sweeping round of late admissions to many of the women they had previously rejected. This extended to large parts of the rest of campus life: Aiko was on the
rowing team now after the entire group of them, reserves and all, volunteered for the Navy, and she was eyeing a spot on the baseball team too. Not that you had a problem with physical fitness (far from it) but at this rate you suspected this was a plan to give you a debilitating heart condition so that she could keep you at home.
"... and mum was like, oh, you can't row you'll get arms like a man!" She said, in between her constant quest to find the exact line between eating politely in front of the princess and stuffing her face with as much delicious and expensive food as possible. "Oh no, what a nightmare, right? Anyway, she's way off, rowing is much more a back and shoulder exercise and it shows. Spirits, does it ever…" She trailed off and gave you a positively
wicked grin that almost made you choke on the bite of food you were taking at that exact moment.
"I-I bet." You said weakly. Why were you such an idiot for this girl? You were an idiot about girls in general, but this girl, Aiko. She made you more of an idiot than usual. It was a mystery to you and you weren't quite sure it was one you'd solve anytime soon.
--
As it turned out, Aiko was right. I
t did show. Very well. You were laying next to her in the bed of the hotel room you had reserved ahead of time for the night (sharing a student futon was not as romantic a proposition for you after having lived in a bedroom the size of a closet for the last few months), letting your fingers trace along the muscles of her bare back. Your hair was loose now, spilling across the pillow in a dark wave as you watched Aiko in the dim half-lit lamps. This was an older building with gas lighting--hadn't been wired for electric light yet. You didn't really care at the moment, though.
"I missed you," you murmured, nestling your nose against her shoulder so that you could take the scent of her. Cheap perfume and cheaper soap (she was doing her best on a budget) and beneath it the scent of her sweat and the scent of
her. You sighed, pursed your lips to kiss a patch of bared skin.
"I missed you too, silly," she replied, half turning so she could prop herself up on one arm, her hair shifting to spill along her pale shoulders, not quite reaching the line of her collarbone (her very pretty collarbone). She had been darker when you'd met her, tanned by spring and summer sunlight and you missed that quality to her. But it would come back in time--your mother had never let you get tanned, worried about how that might make you seem common. Well. Aiko wasn't common. So there, Mother.
"I know. I just--" Just what? You'd thought you were going to die? You were scared of not coming back? Those weren't things you should say. Those were things you couldn't say as a gallant officer of the Akitsukuni Imperial Navy. Maybe they were things you could say as a woman, but to indulge in the weaknesses of your gender wasn't permitted to you since you had entered the masculine world.
"I just missed you, that's all," you finished lamely and Aiko's expression changed slightly from one of indulgent amusement to something more like concern. She reached out and fingers cupped your cheek. You could feel the callouses there, from the rowing probably.
"Haru." Her little pet name for you. "Are you alright?"
No. I'm scared. I'm scared every day and every time we go beneath the waves I think we might not come up. My uncle is dead, my mother is in mourning, I have so many funerals to go to. You can't say that though. You don't say that even though you want to open up to her, to show you how you're truly feeling.
"I--I'm fine. Really." You smiled, showing bravado and confidence. Like an officer did. Like a warrior. And so unlike the weakness of women you had to shed to prove yourself in this world.
"Haru…" Aiko's frown grew deeper and you hated that she seemed so perceptive about your feelings because she wasn't just dropping it.
"Fine. I don't know… I don't know if I'm cut out for this, Aiko. I-I have made such a… it's…" Your voice started to tremble and you hated it. Hated how weak it made you sound. You tried to find the words you needed to express yourself, and it finally the perfect one occurred to you. "Aiko, I think I really fucked up. What if they're right? What if we're not su-suited for this, whole… this thing?" You felt tears on your cheeks. You were crying, and you hated that you were crying. Hated that you still had this weakness that you couldn't shake because it was in your bones and your blood and the
depth of your soul.
"I… in the battle. All of the battles. I was so scared and... I… so much of my family is gone and I just had to not. Feel. And I couldn't. I'm not… Maybe they're right. Maybe we're too weak." You were full on sobbing now as your grief and stress and fear all poured out of you in one rush of emotion, the fragile walls you'd built up over the last few months finally letting loose as you clung to Aiko. Her arms encircled you and she held you close to let you cry.
She just held you a while. That helped. Her hand stroked your hair and you shivered even though the room was warm and the bed warmer.
"Haru… you know that isn't true. You… okay." Aiko took a deep breath, steadying herself, and you along with her. "Haruna, you are the bravest person I've ever even heard of. You're doing something amazing… Do you know how many of the girls get starry-eyed when I tell them my brother served with you? That you came to his
wedding?"
Nope, that didn't help. That just made you cry more. You were letting so many people down now, more than just yourself and your family and your ancestors. All the women who looked to you to help make this country a place where they could do everything a man could, all the women who wanted a fair chance in the modern age were looking at you and you were failing them. Spirits. Why had you taken this burden on yourself?
"- okay, no. Fuck, let me start over." Aiko said. You nodded.
Please say what I need to hear. Whatever that is.
"Okay. So… You're not the only one there scared or mourning. You know that, right?"
"I, but, they all…"
"Haruna, do you think men just don't feel this stuff? Do you think they just, what, throw their lives away without a care, all just a game to them? I promise you, everyone on that ship is exactly as scared as you are."
"It's a boat." You corrected automatically.
"Boat, fine. Whatever! Spirits. Haru, they… they're doing the same thing you're doing. They're bottling it all up so nobody sees and going back to their girls or boys or whatever and… doing this!"
"How do you know?"
"
How do you know they aren't? That's how it works. You feel something, you hide it, you tell it to somebody you trust later. It's what people do. And look, I know my brother--I know when he's not being entirely truthful. I've seen him look my mother in the face and say he's fine, it wasn't dangerous at all and he's okay and known he wasn't telling her because he didn't want to look weak in front of dad or because he didn't want her to worry or whatever reason he had to not tell the truth. Really, there's no way to tell, that's the point! They're all masking their emotions, they just… you know, if they fuck up, it's because
they're weak. If you fuck up, it's because
women are weak, right?"
"Y-yeah." You said.
"Exactly! And that's totally unfair to you and to
us. We should be allowed to have our fuck-ups be our fuck-ups, like, individually. You're… you're the most in-control of anyone I know. Haru, nobody can tell what you're thinking but you. You don't have to feel ashamed about feeling it any more than they do. You're allowed to feel scared, Haruna. They all feel scared."
"They never don't show it." You said, though you realized as you were saying it that was a bit of a lie. You could tell when Kenshin was scared, had seen Takamitsu break a pencil between his teeth during one of the deeper dives with the hull groaning and popping around you. Knew when Akio's voice was strained through the speaking tube. But it wouldn't do to point that out and... Oh fuck. You just realized that was what happening here was you weren't being given the benefit of the doubt over this little stuff by anyone,
yourself included.
"Right! And you don't either. I think going out there when you're still scared is really the bravest thing any of you do. You know how scary it is and… and you still go." Aiko trailed off and smiled, though there were tears prickling in her eyes and you saw them clearly, almost ready to spill down her cheeks. "Don't try and put that whole burden on your shoulders, Haruna. I--" She took a breath. "I'm here to help you. Okay? Because..." She gestured, looking suddenly awkward. "Just because I care about you, you idiot princess. I'll be here when you feel sad or scared or whatever. Got it?" You let out a snort of ugly half-sobbing laughter.
"Okay, okay. I get it, you insolent
peasant." You stuck your tongue out.
"Good." She tugged you down for another kiss. Soon enough, the two of you were doing your best to make some better memories for this particular evening of your shore leave.
---
Haruna is going to take some cool ass shore leave, and you're going to help. The time with Aiko has neutralized the stress from the battle, so all you need to do is get rid of as much of the rest of it as possible. So…
[ ] Write In!
Also, we're going to do a thing where we'll either mark a post as open for snippet votes or not. Battles are not good times to have snippet votes, but scenes like these are really great times, so please snippet away!
Finally, folks, please don't bottle up all your emotions. These characters are idiots.
