As the first month of the year slipped away you had to prepare yourself to face the Admiralty board that was discussing the eventual fate of the WNA. That meant assembling all of your logs and letters that were fit for public consumption, making sure your uniform was as neat as possible, and then heading off for the imposing old castle that overlooked the entrance of Tokei harbor. It had once been a premier fortification, but now had been renovated into the modern headquarters of a modern navy. The Navy had originally conceived of a new, modern building in the heart of Tokei. But then an Army general had decided to renovate an old castle for their use and it had been decided that a bunch of mudsloggers weren't going to out-tradition the Navy.
The sentries at the entrance checked your papers, saluted, and ushered you inside. Your boots tapped on imported marble flooring and eventually you were asked to wait outside one of the opulent meeting rooms where the board was having its meeting. After what seemed like an hour, an officer arrived and asked you to follow him inside. It felt like being in the academy again. A long table at which set several severe looking old men was at one end of the room. A smaller table, obviously intended for those being interrogated by the board, was set in front of it. You marched over, saluted, then sat yourself down and spread your papers out in front of you.
The man who you assumed was in charge leaned forward.
"Lieutenant Arisukawa, thank you for taking the time out of your no doubt busy schedule to speak to us today." There was some muted mirth from others. Obviously some of them, at least, knew you weren't busy in the least. You ignored it.
"Thank you, sir. I'm gratified to have the chance to speak on this subject. It's very important, I feel, to the future of the Navy."
"On that we agree. As the first woman to
officially join the Navy, we feel that you have unique insights into the question before us regarding the status of the Woman's Naval Auxiliary and how we are to proceed with it. Please don't feel that you are on trial here, though. None of us have any reason to doubt your capability, dedication, or courage under fire." Unspoken was 'at this time.' You had no doubt that they had all doubted it before. Probably would again when your medals were not as new and your name not as popular in the newspapers.
"Of course, sir."
The next hour was spent on relative minutiae. As politely as they could (usually through the only non-binary admiral on the board) they inquired about your bathing facilities, laundry, and basically everything that had to do with all the awkward feminine bodily functions they didn't like thinking about. Which was silly because
most of those things were already in the masculine purview thanks to men in the Navy who
also dealt with them. But… they were still men and you were still a woman, so in their minds there had to be some difference, right? Finally, after that mind-numbing hour they began to get to the real meat of the thing.
"We've noticed that you're a woman with many opinions. Opinions that you choose to make public, too." The admiral who was speaking said, his hands folding in front of him. "You wrote a letter to the
Akitsukuni Herald arguing in favor of the WNA and women in the service. So, to be clear, we expect that you are in favor of allowing women to enlist in the Navy? For the record."
"Yes, sir," you said.
"And if women were to be allowed into the Navy, as you have been," a reminder that you were only here because they
allowed it. Not subtle. "In your experience as a woman officer
in the Navy how would you favor integrating them? The Europan model that is quite standard for the West? Or do you think there is a possibility of something different?"
"Sir, to be blunt, I think the Europan model is backwards and outdated at this point. I haven't needed separate facilities or separate accommodation to do my job. If there had been, I would not have been able to serve in the posts that I have. The Europan model is based almost entirely in the lack of harmony in their societies. Here in Akitsukuni, we live a harmonious life. We have no need to adopt these methods." You said clearly. "We can integrate women into the normal operations of the Navy and not lose a step. Completely reorganizing different watches, assignments, and vessels purely for women would be disruptive. They simply need the chance to do the work. At most, I might give women their own sleeping quarters where possible, but I don't think it's strictly necessary."
"I see." The admiral sat back and looked from left to right, as if gauging the thoughts of his fellows. "That is a radical step to take, lieutenant."
"I agree," you said. "But only by the standards of Europa. And are those really the standards we wish to hold ourselves to? When it seems that they are designed to hold us back?"
That landed well. There was a faint murmur of conversation between several of the men at the board table.
"One has to worry about the safety of these sailors, put in such a position." one of the Admirals mused. "Without the benefit of your authority as an officer to protect them from their fellows."
"That would seem to be a problem with the male sailors then, wouldn't it?" you responded smoothly. One of the admirals chuckled, but quickly stopped when he saw how stone-faced the others were.
"And this view is a result of your own experiences?" Another admiral said, leaning forward with keen interest that you hadn't seen from him before.
"Yes, sir. I have been able to manage the expectations of my career, I feel."
"Of course, lieutenant. We can rely on a woman like you to know what she's talking about. However, you did spend two weeks in the hospital with a case of war neurosis…" Someone else was saying. "I do worry that women less well suited for the rigours of a military career may not be able to recover as you did."
You hadn't even
needed that hospital stay. It had been forced on you as a matter of course and now they wanted you to speculate that other women were
weaker than you and wouldn't be able to handle it? You kept the disgust off your face, but it was not easy.
"With respect, sir, I think the women of Akitsukuni are hardier than you give them credit for. If Europan women are able to manage it, I'm sure that we can as well."
You saw their skeptical faces and decided now was the time for some of the more formal diplomacy, and cast your memory back to the more florid and overwrought of your poetry lessons." "We may be delicate blossoms,"
UGH, "but we are resilient and where an oak may be felled by a mighty wind, we merely bend before it and recover."
"I see. Thank you." The meeting went on, then, and began to delve back into the moronic small things that were of no real consequence to the argument you had made, but you felt that your point had landed. And perhaps even been well received. You'd have to wait and see what decision they made. Which probably wouldn't be for months or even years still since they would review and re-review everything first. When you finally left the Admiralty, though, you felt that maybe, just maybe, some progress had been made.
That feeling vanished when you got back to work over the next few days and had to find even more busywork to assign to your longsuffering WNA ladies. Some of your junior officers had even started resigning instead of holding out, which was… depressing. They were good workers. It only hurt the Navy to see them go. You got back on the streetcar home, half-asleep on your feet. It would be nice to get home, see Aiko. Make some supper. Really, you just needed to relax…
"I'm home," you said as you unlocked the door and stepped into the front entryway, and nudged your shoes off. You took a step up and into the apartment and froze as you caught sight of the living room. It was absolutely cramped with men in long coats and Western style business suits, some of them leaning against the walls and almost all of them smoking
in your apartment. Aiko sat at the table, looking as nervous as you'd ever seen her. Your eyes darted from her to the door into your sleeping space. Your revolver was there and so were your swords. You'd have to get past them, though. Before you could formulate a plan, though, one of the men who was sitting across from Aiko got to his feet and turned to face you. Bowed.
"Your Imperial Highness, forgive the intrusion but there has been an attempt on the Empress's life and we had to ensure your safety. I am Inspector Tabata of the Special Higher Police. We let ourselves in. We have a woman here who insists she is your girlfriend?" He cast a suspicious glance at Aiko.
"Because she
is my girlfriend, Inspector," you said, exasperated. "There was an attempt on the Empress's life?"
"A plot was discovered. That's all I'm at liberty to say."
"Are you at liberty to leave my apartment so I can have dinner with my girlfriend?"
"I'm afraid not. We're required to remain here until we receive further orders." This was ridiculous. There were at least a half-dozen men in there. Where were you going to put them all?
"Then at least stop smoking in my apartment."
"Of course, Your Highness." He gestured at his men and they all sheepishly stubbed their cigarettes out into a mug that was serving as an impromptu ashtray.
The two of you spent a long 30 minutes sitting together, surrounded by the officers, who constantly checked at the windows into the dark street. You were only away from Aiko's side long enough to change into more comfortable house clothing and to pointedly lay your far-too-heavy holstered revolver on the table in front of you. You could take care of yourself, after all--you didn't need these interlopers here harassing Aiko. Unfortunately, the intended effect was a bit lost when Aiko actually snorted out a nervous giggle at the sight of the revolver once you started loading it.
"You use that thing? How do you even carry it?" she said in a half-whisper, placing her hand next to yours on the table and comparing. "I don't think
I'd want to use it. Why do you have this thing?"
"It's a perfectly serviceable weapon, Aiko, it just fires a larger cartridge…"
"Do they use it to hunt elephants or something? What's the bullet like?"
Sheepishly, and fully aware every Special Higher Police officer was watching, you pulled open one of the cartridge pouches on the belt and pulled out a round.
"Spirits, I wouldn't want to be hit with that." she said quietly.
"There's a reason I chose it. This thing saved my life in Joseon."
"... did you use it to kill one of their big rolly things? Don't they make pistols more your size?"
"I'm not carrying a
derringer I want people to take me seriously…" you muttered, fully aware nobody in the room was taking you seriously at the moment. But the constant patter of conversation was keeping Aiko calm, so you decided to continue, describing your awful first experience with an automatic pistol, how the most use you'd gotten out of it was hitting a Cathay smuggler with the butt end and then throwing it at him, how you'd resolved to get a weapon that would never fail and would never leave you vulnerable. You left out the awful, horrifying, messy memory of firing the thing blindly over the lip of a mud hole in Joseon at advancing Caspian soldiers who wanted to stick long, sharp pieces of metal into you over and over until you were dead.
Aiko leaned over a little and whispered, trying not to be heard by the officers around you--you weren't sure it worked.
"So why are they here? Do they think you had something to do with it?"
"No, of course not. It's…" You hesitated. "...if the worst case scenario happens I might be in line. Maybe. If Mitsuko--er, the Empress dies and her daughter dies. And the maybe the Empress' sister and her daughters, I don't know the official succession. They're… what's the term from baseball you like to use? Covering all their bases."
"Oh!" Further conversation was cut off by a knock on the door. Both you and Aiko froze. Aiko gasped. You'd forgotten in the chaos.
"Mai!" Aiko said, horrified. Before you could say anything, two of the inspector's men strode to the front door. One opened it and then hauled Mai inside by the collar of her work uniform and shoved her against the wall face first, the barrel of the revolver that had suddenly appeared in his hand pressed against her head. The second shut the door behind her and turned to start patting her down for signs of weaponry. Putting his hands all over her.
That was
too far. You put on your command voice and stood up.
"Unhand her, right now, and if any of you draw a weapon on one of my friends again I will see to it you never work in government for the rest of your miserable lives!"
The man pulled his pistol back a little, pointing it in the air near her instead. His finger was on the trigger, the idiot! He didn't release Mai, but instead he looked to Inspector Tabata for instructions. The officer patting her down came up with her fare book, ticket punch, and her identification, which he offered over to Inspector as well.
"She isn't armed, sir."
"Let her go," the Inspector said as he accepted the results of the search and turned them over in his hands. Shakily, Mai stumbled over and sat down on the other side of Aiko. Three women surrounded by men with guns.
At least you
also had a gun.
"What's your name?" Tabata asked Mai, apparently ignoring your outburst. It made your blood boil.
"W-Watanuki Mai," she said.
"What's your address?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but failed to produce much of anything in the way of sound. She tried again.
"2nd District, block 18, building 3," she stammered. "Wh-what's this about? I--I don't have any money, I don't get paid until Friday!" Her face was pale and her hair, which was finally growing out and looking pretty darn cute, was disheveled from the manhandling she'd received.
"Are you trying to bribe a government official?"
"What?!"
"Mai," you interjected, "They're Special Higher Police officers."
"Oh. S-sorry, sir."
"Where do you work?" he said, ignoring the obvious answer provided by her uniform.
The questioning went on for a few minutes more, Mai growing ever more terrified as they moved away from information about her identity and towards her recent whereabouts, reasons for coming here, and then into her political views, which was complicated by the fact that her old union card from back home was still tucked into her wallet. Your attempts to get the officers to stop were ignored until they were satisfied that the poor girl didn't pose any threat to your person or to the Imperial family, which took a long while, and you suspected it was only because of your presence that Mai wasn't dragged off to their station someplace. If you'd tarried on your way home…
Finally, they let her go and went back to guarding the windows, leaving Mai crumpled next to the table with her personal effects strewn about her, and Aiko moved to her side to comfort her. You were going increasingly anxious with the Special Higher Police in your apartment, violating the first place of genuine safety and privacy you'd had since you were a teenager (really, that you'd ever had), but they didn't have to listen to you and you honestly weren't sure what you could do about it. You could probably find a way to register a complaint, but it would be through unofficial channels and might blow back against your career.
And you
still didn't know what was happening.
Finally, a runner arrived, and all but one of the officers left. You were informed that, for the foreseeable future, your home would be placed under guard, though fortunately that meant that they'd be outside it after this evening, and the three of you ate a tense dinner with an officer standing at the door, his hand on his holster.
As you were cleaning up, Mai leaned in close to the both of you and whispered urgently.
"I'm… I'm scared of leaving. They seemed really… really angry at me. I'm worried they'll do something…" she confessed with a stammer.
Absolutely. The moment she was out of sight of your door they'd take her in, with tensions this high. Whatever was happening, this was the stage where the secret police just tried to make as many arrests as possible to look like they were getting results. And being arrested by the Special Higher Police was as good as being convicted, as far as the courts were usually concerned.
"I'll walk you home," you said, then you glanced to the door. Could they keep you here, under house arrest? Would they dare? "Or, if you'd rather wait you can stay here and we'll go in the morning. We have a couple spare futons."
"That would be… thank you. Sorry."
"Not your fault."
---
The next morning, you accompanied Mai back to her boarding house, went to work, and found out the news in the officer's mess, what there was to find out. The 'assasssination attempt' was that they, apparently, found bomb making materials in a print shop at Tokei U, alongside communist and anarchist propaganda, and as a result several leftist newspapers had been shut down and a bunch of activists (or conspirators, according to the
Herald) had been arrested. One of them was the son of the Prime Minister, who'd resigned that night in absolute shame and triggered a snap election.
Absurd, really. Just because someone was making a bomb didn't mean they planned to use it on the Empress. Your experience of the previous evening had you wondering if they'd even found that much: Inspector Tabata and his crew very much seemed the sort to take the flimsiest evidence.
For a brief moment, you hoped that Ota and Kwon hadn't been wrapped up in all this (Ota had intended to get out of the Navy after the war after all) but then decided that they were too smart to get involved in something this stupid. Besides, Ota was probably transferred out somewhere right now, and Kwon was back on some form of light duty, last Ota had heard and relayed to you.
On the way home, there were crowds out in the street, among them uniformed sailors and soldiers who'd likely been turned out by their politically-minded officers to make a scene. Old New Years was always a bit hectic, but this was… this was something terrifying. A mass of people moving through the streets with banners and rallying cries, chasing regular folks off the street, clogging the lanes with bodies and anger. The next morning, there was still smoldering smoke on the horizon from the fires one of them had started, and you dearly wished they'd find whoever did it and shoot them. One did not fuck around with fire in a city of wood and paper.
The world didn't seem to return to any kind of normality afterward, but the tension felt almost artificial, off in some indescribable way. You followed the trials in the newspaper, all the articles just rephrasing government press releases that tried to make the limited and circumstantial evidence into concrete cases, with increasing frustration. The whole incident was being called 'The High Treason Incident' already before anyone had even been convicted.
You
recognized this. It was in some of the books you read, it was in
The Right To Well Being, which you'd ended up rereading instead of starting on those Dynamists manifestos the Empress had sent you. This was a show being put on, this was somebody important missing the wartime atmosphere and trying to recreate it, and the worst part was that it was
working. You weren't an anarchist or anything. You loved your country. You supported law and order. You revered the Empress. But this just felt
wrong.
"Can you believe this?" you said, for what felt like the twentieth time, laying down your morning paper with disgust. You got them delivered to the apartment now, no longer wanting to be out of the loop at the officer's mess. Today's brand of nonsense was a representative of the Special Higher Police advising people to be on the lookout for anyone purchasing certain household chemicals in bulk due to their danger. They were
actually worried about somebody trying to use sodium borate to make a bomb somehow, they were just making people suspicious about their neighbours, creating an atmosphere of fear.
"It can't be helped." Aiko said wearily, for the twentieth time, as she gathered her school bags, and this time, something about it just landed wrong.
"
Of course it can." you said defiantly, but then you didn't have a second part to the sentence, so you just kissed her goodbye and started pulling on your boots.
Of course it can.
---
Work remained boring: You got additional WNA transfers under your expanding command, these ones from a yard down south, you successfully secured responsibility over the motorpool, and you managed to get a sailor written up for harassing one of your shipmaids, which was a titanic task. Aiko was doing well in her studies, and had managed to convince the school to keep their rowing team despite not really having any other girl's teams to row
against: you saw them at practice and it was… well, it was impressive as hell. The Special Higher Police guard quietly vanished from your apartment building's lobby, the streets calmed down… either things were normal again, or there was now a new normal. You weren't sure.
Aiko collected the mail daily as she came back from school, and had started to leave the letters for you just inside the doorway, so you could snatch them and read them immediately. Today, there was some friendly correspondence (Hideaki was enjoying his tropical posting quite a lot, apparently), a letter from your father (mostly talking about the struggle of the latest project he was taking on), and something else. An envelope of exceptionally good quality paper (not
quite the sort you saw from most nobles, but it was good). Opening it, you found a finely printed invitation inviting you to the wedding of Commander Kushakabe Kenshin and Miss Koide Hatsu. A little thrill ran through you and you actually laughed before you waved the invitation towards Aiko.
"Hoi, my friend Kenshin is getting married."
"The submarine captain?"
"That's the one." you confirmed. "He's been dating this engineer from one of the airplane companies for the last year or so, I guess they finally decided to make it official. Probably the war. A lot of officers are getting married all of a sudden now that it's over." It was true. At least three of the junior officers at the naval base had gotten hitched just this month, that you were aware of.
"They probably don't want to miss their chance. In case there's another war," Aiko said with uncharacteristic grimness. Which gave you pause. Did
Aiko want to get married?
Did you? Maybe you did. It might make her happier. Keep her safer. Though who knew how the Navy pension would work out for this kind of relationship… the idea of single-handedly making some lawyer somewhere sit down and write out new regulations
just for you was fairly delightful, though. You imagined the two of you in pretty kimonos and hands intertwined and getting smacked with evergreen branches and flowers. Okay, that was cute.
"...You're probably right," you conceded. "In any case, it's going to be a big fancy ceremony, and I have here an invitation with a plus one…"
You were expecting enthusiasm, not an introspective frown.
"Not a fan of weddings?" you asked.
"I… no, not really, Haruna. I… I'm sure it'll be a
big fun party but… urgh…"
You sat next to her, studying her face. Her emotions were very readable by your standards, she was not at all a stoic person, and right now she looked deeply conflicted.
"What's wrong?" you asked.
"You're gonna think its stupid and dumb and wrong." she muttered.
"Aiko, please."
You could see the brief stiffening of her posture as she steeled herself to say something, the momentary breath of her leveling out, trying to find serenity before talking about something difficult.
"... I don't like weddings. I think they're awful. I think they're the worst thing. It's a big ceremony built around the transfer of the ownership of a woman from her father to her husband and everything about it skeeves me the fuck out. Every time I've been to a wedding it feels like I'm watching an execution."
"... Spirits."
"See, I told you. You think I'm crazy." she said.
"I don't think that's quite the most reasonable position, no." you said diplomatically. You didn't want to hurt her, but you also didn't want to be dishonest. "But I would like to understand why you think that."
"It's what it is. You literally go off your dad's household and into your husband's on the family registry. They take part of your name away and give you another one. Your dad walks you down the aisle and literally hands you off, like you're a
thing. It's… it's really upsetting."
"You don't like the idea of a woman being seen as some man's property," you said. You shouldn't be surprised, you
knew that about her. "I understand that. But trust me, Kenshin and this girl he's marrying--he would never try to keep her in the house or treat her like he owned her. He supports her career one hundred percent." A pause. "Even if he doesn't get the stuff she had to deal with…"
"It's still, like, the symbolism and stuff is really bad, and… like, in the laws and stuff, your husband gets all kind of authority over you, it freaks me out."
She paused a second, clearly doing her best to stay level, to not get too angry or too scared.
"If this Kenshin dude is such a nice guy, why does he want to do that to her?"
You winced. That was an incredibly harsh thing to say about your friend, and there was an impulse to defend him, but Aiko was clearly in a place of hurt here and you didn't want to make it worse.
"I think you're mischaracterizing his intention, like… you're assuming he shares your views, is there a word for that? He doesn't want to own her. I think he wants to show her and the rest of the world that he wants to spend the rest of his life loving and cherishing her in the best way he knows how. And when they were writing back and forth during the war this Koide woman was just as enthusiastic about him."
There was a long silence. Not an awkward one, because you could tell Aiko was thinking hard about her response and you didn't want to rush her, so instead you just leaned your head against her shoulder and waited.
"I know you're right, but I know I'm not wrong." she said finally. "I… want to say that she thinks that because everything in society tells women how they need to get married and its their purpose in life and everything, that there's this overwhelming and horrible pressure saying that this is what you're
for, this is who you
belong to… but I don't… actually I just said it. But I don't, like, that's not the thing. You trust this guy?"
"With my life, in the absolutely most literal sense. He is the best commanding officer I've ever had, and the best friend I've ever had in the Navy. He supported me when no one else would. He is honest, loyal, and kind. As best I can tell, only thing he's ever done wrong in his life is overworking himself trying to keep those around him safe." you said, meaning every word. "We foiled a coup together, we sunk a battleship, we nearly died together multiple times. We're
friends. You know I pick my friends carefully."
Absurdly, Aiko laughed at that.
"Spirits, Haruna, you sound smitten."
"Wait till you see him. Koide is lucky I'm gay." you said.
"Okay. Like… if he's a good guy, then… I'm not happy about the fact we're going to a symbolic patriarchal prison transfer ritual, but… he didn't come up with the traditions, I guess." she said finally. "I think our weddings are way better though."
And then she kissed you, and you found yourself trying to work out how much she was implying with that.
"Besides, big fancy thing, they'll be cake, right? I'll put up with a lot for cake."
"Kenshin comes from a good family and Koide's dad has a lot of money. There will
definitely be a lot of cake."
---
Your first ever election day that you could vote in (being both of age and in the country at the time) came. You were a little put out that the leftist parties were struck from the ballot (not that you would ever, in a million years, vote for them), and you threw your half-ballot at the Women's Equality League without thinking about it. The bizarre results came in, your country's legislature now stuck in deadlock as no party won enough seats for a majority and no coalitions seemed possible, and you shrugged and went about your business. At least Purity got rightfully thrashed, and might well cease to exist at this rate.
The Navy didn't need the Diet to function, after all.
Unfortunately, neither did the foolish escapades of certain women under your command. It was mid-morning on a blustery spring day when a phone call summoned you to a busy street corner a few blocks from the naval yard. When you arrived, there was… something of a scene unfolded in front of you. A harried looking traffic cop was trying to calm down a man in a colonel's uniform who was practically spitting in the man's face with how much he was yelling. The reason for this was, of course, obvious.
One of your Navy trucks (made in Caspia, still ran like new) had struck the army staff car directly in the front bonnet and run it up onto the curb, though how that had come to happen, you had no idea. The Army driver was unhappily looking over the damage, the radiator smashed open and steam rising into the crisp, cold air. More importantly, off to one side, looking sheepish, stood Shipmaid 1st Class Iha Hoshi, arms crossed over her crisp, slightly disheveled uniform. Even more awkwardly, there was a young foreign woman standing next to her doing her best to hide behind the brim of her hat, who apparently hadn't had time to fix the fact she'd misaligned the buttons on her blouse.
You did not need to be a genius detective to work out what had happened.
"Shipmaid Iha, care to fill me in?" you asked anyway. Might as well get her side of the story well you waited for Colonel Mud to calm down..
"Army brat needs to watch where he's going, ma'am." she said defiantly, a smile just barely staying off her face. You eyed her, then looked at the foreigner.
"And who is this?"
"Miss Clara Rose Sanders, at your service" the girl said in surprisingly good Akitsukuni. If you weren't so used to hiding your feelings, you might even have looked surprised.
"...You were the Shipmaid's passenger?" You asked in careful, slow words. Just in case she didn't understand.
"Oh, yes!" She said. "She was showing me the sights while I'm here with my cousin Elizabeth and Uncle William."
"I see," you said. Something told you that it was Iha who had been seeing things, but you were too polite to say so. You just nodded, then turned to step over towards the poor traffic cop and the angry Army officer. The man had stopped yelling, at least.
"Lieutenant Arisugawa," you said to introduce yourself. "What happened?"
"
Boths of them went through the intersection when I had traffic stopped and everything," the police officer said, sounding harried. He motioned towards the little podium he stood on to direct the interaction. A small crowd had gathered to gawk at the two smashed up vehicles and mutter about what a shame it was and at least no one was hurt and so on and so forth.
"That's not true at all," the colonel said sharply. "My driver clearly had the right of way. And I'm in a hurry--I'm a very busy man!"
"Sir, please, can we just not with this?" the officer said wearily, and you held up a calming hand.
"Colonel, hold on a moment." you brought the traffic cop a few steps away and leaned in conspiratorially, "Both of them, really?"
"Not a surprise, that Army driver there looks dead on his feet. Before he started yellin' at
me, the colonel was yellin' at
him, and then there's the broads… motor vehicles are dangerous enough without being idiots behind the wheel. I swear, we shoulda stuck to horses, they're smart enough to stop when their drivers are morons."
"Are you going to arrest anyone?"
"Nah, these are both government vehicles, it's outta my hands. It's an internal matter, I just want them to get off my street, there's people walkin' here. Kids play stickball and stuff! People shouldn't be drivin' if they don't pay attention to the street!"
"Ah ha. I see. I'll take my truck, we'll deal with this."
You walked over to the Colonel and gave him your information, spent a few frustrating minutes being berated ineffectually, then told him you were taking your shipmaid and heading back to base. He was not happy, but you just kept reminding him that there were internal channels for this and he had to use them.
The truck was fine, so you indicated to Iha to get in, then ordered her out of the driver's seat that she'd immediately climbed into and into the passengers.
"I'm driving, Shipmaid, as you've proven yourself incapable of doing so if there's another woman in the cab." you said, and Iha groaned and yes ma'amed. Then Miss Clara Rose Sanders hopped up onto the passenger running board and gave your shipmaid a kiss through the open window of the cab and things became excruciatingly clear.
"Miss, please don't kiss my shipmaid, we're trying not to encourage this behavior. She's in trouble for crashing a military vehicle. Shipmaid Iha, stop that."
"I wanted to let her know how to get in touch," Miss Clara Rose Sanders said, and shoved a folded piece of paper into Iha's hands. "I don't get to do this at home, you know."
You didn't have the heart to tell her to stop or anything, recalling the conversation you'd had at the Empress' New Years Eve party a few years ago. How restricting it must feel.
"...Just make it quick," you said and looked the other direction pointedly so that you wouldn't be able to see Iha violate your orders.
When they were finished, you drove the truck back to the naval yard and gave Iha a dressing down before confining her to her quarters until further notice. You needed to work out what you were going to do now. It ought to be simple: dangerously operating a motor vehicle and damaging Navy property wasn't minor, but it also wasn't court marshal material. This was the sort of thing you assigned some harsh awful non-judicial punishment for. Honestly, if she was a man, this might be a flogging, but that was prohibited in the WNA. But you had a feeling it was about to get more complicated.
It got more complicated later that afternoon when you got a letter (in Albian,
of course) from Miss Clara Rose Sanders's uncle who it turned out was Mister William Naylor, one of the sons in Naylor, Sons, & Daughers armaments, the company which provided the delightful pom-pom guns you were so familiar with. He understood that his niece had been involved in some sort of car smash up but that nobody had been hurt, thankfully, and then offered to pay for the damages. He also understood that Shipmaid Iha might be found at fault and wondered if there was a way that she might be… let off the hook, so to speak, for a bit of youthful indiscretion. Clara was rather fond of her, after all.
That took you by surprise. It was pretty much the opposite of the problem you thought you were going to be having, and it would have been simple to let this one slide, play politics and ensure the Navy keeps the foreign supplier of your favourite artillery piece happy.
But then there was the Army. The colonel in question was on someone important's staff and the car had technically not been his, so you had to put up with a telephone call where someone higher up than you relayed how unhappy the Army was about the whole thing and that they expected you, as the one running the WNA detachment here, to deal with it appropriately. Which probably meant a court-martial. Otherwise the Army might decide to deal with it themselves. Whatever that meant.
What it probably meant was Iha and other WNA women getting harassed by the Army. They had to drive to the Arsenal up the road to get shells and stuff almost daily, and that was an Army installation, plus wherever else the trucks might go. Your Shipmaids, unsupervised, alone,
targeted by the Army.
Not only was that horrifying, it meant that the Navy would probably want to stop them from going outside once it started. Which would lead to a restriction in the duties of the WNA here, their last remaining major post. Which meant actual enlisted women in the actual Navy might be pushed even further back, even more restricted. People could point to it as a case study for why this wouldn't work out.
Well. This was going to be
fun.
[ ] Appease Mister William Naylor and let Iha off with a proverbial slap on the wrist. The Army will be furious, and your Shipmaids will likely bear the brunt of the hurt. Discipline in the unit might suffer, and Iha is almost certainly going to get worse after this incident, if that is at all possible, but it's for the greater good.
[ ] Appease the Army and have her written up officially. It will spare your Shipmaids the harassment, and spare the future of women in the Navy an embarrassing setback. Other Navy officers might take umbrage with you for bending over backwards for the Army, and Iha's career, such as it is, might suffer but it's for the greater good.
[ ] The Navy is supposed to be above petty politics. Assign her the punishment you were planning to and let the chips fall where they will. Discipline and order in the Navy can't be subverted by some Army dogs or entitled foriegn interests. Sure, the Army will be angry and Miss Clara Rose Sanders's unhappiness might bleed into upcoming weapon contracts, but it's for the greater good.
