Interlude: Utah
Compared to any city in the United States, it was not hard to see that London was a city at war. People were thin on the ground, darting to and from storefronts in ways that spoke to long practice. More than a few would look to the sky, nervously gulping as if they expected bombs to fall any second. Even the more relaxed walked with a purpose and wasted little time. Compared to New York, lights shining into the night, or any other American city? Where people didn't act like they were in any danger, and just went about business as usual? It was a sharp and unwelcome contrast and a reminder of what could happen if the war turned truly sour. Not a good thing to contemplate.
As if Pearl hadn't been enough of a reminder, as a gray-haired woman brought a hand to the thin scars crisscrossing her face and let out a little sigh.
'Admiral, do you mind if I walk around London? I'm curious about how different it is.'
'Have you never been to London before?'
'I've been to Britain. Did I go to London...? I don't honestly remember, that was a long time ago. But...I want to see it with my own eyes. Walk with my own feet. This is something I feel like I need to do.'
'Don't let me stop you! I've got too much work to do here, so I won't be able to join you, though. Just remember to take your papers with you. No one will mess with you if you do.'
So, with the harried Admiral Thompson's permission, Utah had decided to wander London. Not sure exactly what she was looking for, beyond just base curiosity. Perhaps she wanted to see what life at war was like.
I'm not even sure why I asked to do this. I...feel I had to do this. Maybe I'll learn why
before I return.
Shaking her head, Utah brushed a lock of silver hair back and tried to ignore the looks she was getting. More pity than any worry or curiosity about her. Perhaps, despite her relatively youthful features, the people assumed she was an old woman who was wounded in a bombing raid. Ha. They wouldn't exactly be
wrong, now would they? Wrong reasons, right conclusion. Stranger things had happened.
"Excuse me, miss? You need to step back, this is a military base." The first person to
talk to her, in fact, was a young man in some form of uniform. He looked apologetic for interrupting her, though his rifle wasn't far from hand. "Are you lost? First time in London, right? I know the look."
Utah smiled softly, despite herself. "I don't know if this is my
first time. It would have been years ago, though, so I may just not remember it." Smiling a little more at the confused look from the young man- the boy, really -Utah shook her head again. "Sorry, just an old woman rattling on. Where am I, exactly? I don't want to go somewhere important."
Tilting his head to the side, the soldier scratched at the side of his scalp, beneath his old helmet. "This is the docks, ma'am. I would have thought the smell would have tipped you off! Right stinky place, it is."
"I've been to docks many times. The smell is something I'm
very used to now." Utah couldn't help the small amount of amusement she got out of confusing the poor boy. Being able to talk to someone outside the Navy was...she could never get enough of it. "Sorry, sorry. Though...do you mind answering an old woman's question? I promise I'll be out of your way after that. Don't want to be getting a nice boy like you in trouble."
"Ask away, madame." The boy flushed a little, coughing at the way Utah smiled at him.
I wonder if he feels like I'm his mother. Perhaps his grandmother.
It didn't occur to the boy, nor the woman, that Utah was probably only a decade or so older than the boy.
"I've heard that
Victory is in drydock to become a museum. Could you direct me to where she is?" If she were asked, Utah wouldn't be able to tell anyone what prompted that question. She just felt...right.
"
Victory?" For his part, the boy was confused more than anything else. "Erm...right. I'm sorry, ma'am, but
Victory hasn't been in London in decades. Far as I know, she's down in Portsmouth. Do you know where that is? It's not that far from here, really, though you might have some trouble catching a train. What with the war and all."
Utah simply shrugged, and pulled out her papers. When she showed the picture- with a fake name, admittedly -and the signature of
Churchill himself, the poor lad's eyes practically bugged out. He coughed, almost choking on his own breath. "W--well, that would work, yes. Would you like me to get my Leftenant to escort you, madame? I imagine someone as important as you would--"
"That won't be necessary. I'd like to look around the countryside a bit, anyway."
Giving the poor boy a little wave, Utah continued on her way. The map in her mind- her navigator, seemingly reincarnated, looking over it -pointed her in the right direction better than any young soldier could. She could visit Portsmouth and be back to Admiral Thompson within the day, if she was quick about it. Why she wanted to see
Victory so much? That she couldn't answer. Not until she had actually talked to the old girl...
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"Ma'am, can I ask why you're wanting to board
Victory? She's still being refit at the moment and isn't open to the public. Doubly so with the War."
It was hard to resist the temptation to sigh, it really was. Utah stood before a portly middle-aged man, who wore an ill-fitting Commander uniform. Or so her crew said it was, those who had served in the Great War. Did he expect her to be a German spy wanting to set
Victory alight or something? She'd make a poor spy indeed, if she were trying to do that in broad daylight.
"I have...
personal reasons to see
Victory." Utah still didn't have a direct answer to give, so she wasn't even lying. "I won't go anywhere dangerous."
The man
stared at her, suspicion in his beady eyes. "Hm. You a descendant of a crewman or something? Can't imagine why you'd want to board her until after the War if you aren't something like that. It's not like
Victory is going anywhere!" His face twisted into a deep,
dark scowl. "Unless the Huns manage to actually bomb her. Bastards can't resist trying to spit in our eyes. See how
they like it when we burn one of their fancy museums to the ground."
Perhaps it was because she had already looked at the depths of her anger and come back from the brink- though it would always be lurking beneath the surface -but Utah couldn't stop from rolling her eyes this time. Luckily, the man didn't notice. Revenge. What good was revenge, when it only hurt the people you cared about? She'd never forget the sight of that burning plane. She wouldn't
let herself forget.
"That's part of why I want to see her now," and this time she
was lying through her teeth. "I don't know when I will get another chance. I'm only in Britain for a little while before I head back to the States.
Victory may not be here when I return, if I ever do."
If I even survive this war. Admiral Thompson is still worried that I may have to fight something I can't beat, though I can't get a straight answer out of him.
"A
Yankee?" The middle-aged Commander blanched, his face showing more annoyance now. "A Yank wants to board
Victory, in the middle of the War, when we're trying to refit her? You expect me to---"
Tiring of the man's blustering, Utah just pulled the papers out again. She got a little vindictive amusement out of the way he paled, when he saw her picture and Churchill's signature authorizing her access to anything short of the Admiralty. And even
that was allowed, provided she was with Admiral Thompson. The man reminded her of some truly unsavory types she'd had in her crew over the years. His stubborn resistance, in particular, reminded her of the officers who had ignored her when she tried to talk to them. Until...until Joe had
listened.
It wasn't a fond memory, and if she could push it down by making this man splutter, well...it pleased a part of her she'd rather not talk about.
"A--aah--" Struggling to put words together, the man thrust the papers back at Utah and looked at her with a
very sour expression. "...I don't know, or want to know, why the Prime Minister gave you permission to come here, Mrs. Jackson--"
...Admiral Thompson still has a strange sense of humor. Utah still couldn't hide the flush when she heard that name. Or how she remembered the gobsmacked look on her Engineer's face.
"---but if you want to board
Victory, you may. I'm sure you'll understand if I have men keep an eye on you. For your own safety, of course."
"If they must."
Utah knew, very well, that it wasn't about her safety. She was a
woman, with the Prime Minister's signature. Intruding on a man's personal fiefdom. A man who, if his appearance was any indication, had been enjoying his cushy assignment far from the frontlines. Hm. Maybe she'd drop a comment around Oak, next time she saw the younger battleship. If Utah was lithe and elegant in a motherly way, Oak was built like a brawler and a proper battleship. Imagining her reaction to the man in charge of
Victory acting like this?
Laughing softly to herself, Utah boarded the gangplank to
Victory, electing to ignore the uniformed men following behind her at a respectful distance.
They, at least, seemed more awkward about things than anything else and were giving her space. As, indeed, did the many laborers toiling to shore up
Victory and replace rotted planks. A few curious glances directed her way, nothing more.
I wonder...where would Victory be hiding?
The old battleship wasn't interested in any of the various men wandering around anyway. She was only interested in one person.
"Victory...can you hear me?" Utah whispered, knowing very well that her voice would carry. If Victory were like her, the old girl could hear anything on her hull, no matter how quiet. If she just
listened.
A theory quickly confirmed, when a
rough voice spoke up from beside her. "W--who the bloody hell are
you?"
The voice was rough and gravelly, from disuse or age, it was hard to tell. Maybe it was both. Utah couldn't tell, when she turned her head and looked at the source. The first thing she noticed was how
short the woman was. She only came up to Utah's elbow, more or less, and Utah wasn't the tallest woman around in her own right. The
second thing that she noticed, was that the woman was dressed in a positively antique uniform. The coat had
gold thread on the shoulders, and she carried a sword that wouldn't have looked out of place in a museum.
"You going to stare, or are you going to
talk?" The woman's rough voice drew Utah's eyes back to her face, sallow and sullen.
Her skin was pockmarked, as if heavily injured and barely healed over, and her nose looked like it had been broken and reset poorly. Crooked and rough. Bushy eyebrows, gray streaked blonde, sat above watery brown eyes. The woman's shoulder-length dark blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and the only thing that seemed to be missing was a stereotypical tricorn hat. Well, that and anything resembling a smile.
"Sorry, you're...not quite what I expected." Utah apologized, her grey eyes shifting to look back at the men following her. They weren't paying
too much attention. Still, better safe than sorry. "We should sit down..."
Not waiting for a response, Utah found a bench that had clearly been set for the workers. As none were around at the moment, Utah took advantage to sit down. She even let out a drawn out sigh, to play up her apparent age. It worked, as the men watching her settled for leaning against the railing around
Victory's deck and talk with each other, while keeping an eye on her.
As for the ship herself? Victory, for who else could it be, sat next to Utah with a huff. Her stocking-clad legs shifted, the scuffed boots on her heels clacking against the wood. "So. You are clearly not human. No human could see me."
Her accent was so thickly
British that Utah got the feeling Victory was deliberately talking slowly, so the 'foreigner' could understand her. "You'd be correct. USS
Utah, BB-31. Would I be right to guess you're
Victory then?"
"Naturally. Who
else would I be?" Victory seemed to be more annoyed than curious as to how someone could see her. "BB...what the 'ell does that mean, anyway? Never heard a Pennant Number like that one."
Utah chuckled softly, "It isn't a Pennant Number. Our navy doesn't use those, we use identification codes. BB is for
battleship." Looking at Victory out of the corner of her eye, the old battleship turned her gaze skyward and sighed. "I think that makes you my great-grandmother, at least if you use our roles. I'm the new 'Line of Battle' ship."
For the sake of Victory, Utah didn't mention that she was nothing new and that
much better battleships were afloat. Or that, if Admiral Thompson was correct, battleships wouldn't last past this war. Not as the pride of any navy.
"You Yankees and your special names for everything under the sun..." Victory just grumbled anyway, rubbing at her brow. Bloodshot eyes looked at Utah, and did so with a challenging air to them. "So. What's a fancy
battleship doing visiting little old me? Surely you have more important things to do. How in the bloody hell are you even
here anyway? Ships just up and walking around now? What else have I missed, cooped up here all the time?"
She's bitter. I wonder...no, I don't wonder why. I know exactly how she feels.
"It isn't fun being cooped up here for decades, is it?" Utah asked her own question, instead of answering. If the way Victory twitched was any indication, she wasn't wrong either. "I know how it feels, for what that is worth. I've spent the last decade or so as a target ship for my daughters."
Victory quirked an eyebrow, "What kind of...a
target ship? What, your navy too cheap to buy disposable targets?"
"Perhaps." Utah shrugged her shoulders, figuring it would be for another time to explain the concept of moving targets and fire control systems.
"Forget that," Victory continued to stare at her, evidently deciding that
she didn't much care anyway. "You never answered my question. Besides, you cannot understand what my life has been like. Flagship of Nelson, victor of Trafalgar, and the Navy let me rot at dock for
decades before stuffing me in here. And what good did that bloody do? I have spent the last couple years being attacked by flying machines from the Germans, if the gossipers are telling the truth." Victory glared up at the sky, before turning her gaze back to Utah. "And for all of that, they
still haven't done much more than shore up my old beams. Give it a few more years, and I will bloody well sink into the dock in pieces."
To be fair, Utah hadn't been down to Victory's keel or anything like that. But from the amount of workers and wood laying around...she could believe the old warrior. "Maybe I can't understand that. Even so, I was barely keeping myself moving before the
Japanese sank me. I know the feeling of
dying and being unable to do anything about it."
That, finally, got an appraising look from Victory. "Asians
sank you? How did they possibly pull that off?"
"Underestimating them because they're not white was a bad idea." Utah was dry in her response. Casual racism was still a sore point with her, when Admiral Thompson had berated each and every one of the ships he could talk to about it.
None of them had ever looked at their African-American cooks and laborers the same way again.
Victory shrugged her shoulders, covering a soft wince at the movement. "I've been in my fair share of battles, and my fair share of near-death moments. Is that how you are here, then? You died and somehow you can...bloody walk and talk like a normal person? How does
that even happen?"
"I wish I had an answer to that. I don't know myself."
Utah let that hang in the air, leaning back to let the sun warm her skin. Cool, salty air wafted over from the busy port, the sounds of men and ships echoing even here. Victory would never see the sea again, but she was close enough to still hear every single one of the newer ships moving by. Was it any wonder she was sour? Utah had felt similarly, when she was torn down and made a target while her daughters were upgraded and sent out to potentially fight wars. She'd never get the chance to sail in formation with them again. She would have to always sit back and watch them leave.
Yes. She could understand Victory better than the old tall-ship thought she did.
"Victory." Utah turned her gaze fully onto the older ship, raising an eyebrow at how Victory had her eyes shut and was leaning back herself. "Can I ask you something?"
The ancient warship snorted in a distinctly un-ladylike manner. Didn't even open her eyes. "You already have been, Yankee. Feel free."
"Did you ever feel like the warships around you are your daughters? I wasn't lying earlier, you
are my ancestor in a lot of ways. Did you ever look at Dreadnought or the others and think they were your children?" Utah didn't know exactly what she was expecting to hear from Victory. Or even why she was asking the question.
There wasn't an answer, at least not right away. Victory hummed softly, continuing to keep her eyes shut. As if she were deep in thought, or merely resting off the aches and pains she
had to be feeling. Utah couldn't blame her for that. Her old body had hurt at times, and she hadn't been in nearly as bad of a shape.
"That is a hard question to answer, Yankee." Victory finally spoke up, her gravelly voice rough with emotions that were hard to decipher. Her eyes remained shut. "I rarely saw any ship newer than
Warrior, you know. Not to any great extent. I know
Dreadnought and what she created, but...haaaa." Letting out a long, drawn out sigh, Victory held a calloused hand up and shook it. "Were they my children? Not any more than
Warrior or other ironclads. We were always different breeds. I never even got to know them."
Utah felt her shoulders slump, just a little. Had she honestly expected anything else?
"I always looked at the younger battleships as my daughters, my children." Utah whispered softly, brushing her hair back and not looking at Victory's stubbornly shut eyes. "I know they weren't. Not biologically, not by design, and certainly not because I was the first of my kind. I wasn't even the second or third or fourth." The battleship laughed, softly and weakly. "They still treated me as their mother anyway. It was silly, but I loved them all the same."
Victory was silent, before sighing heavily. She finally opened her eyes, bloodshot brown looking at Utah with a calculating expression. "You came to the wrong person to ask about that, Utah." She actually used the battleship's name, and it wasn't sarcastic at all. "For what it may be worth, that sounds like what a mother
should do. I had elders like that, when I was your age."
Climbing to her feet, Victory smoothed her skirt and limped over towards a hatch leading down into her hull. The ancient warship looked back at Utah, eyebrow raised high and a sardonic smile on her face.
"They may not have been my mother, but I sure as hell loved them like they were. That is what matters, innit? Remember that, next time you wonder if you deserve to be called a mother." Victory raised a hand in a wave, descending into her hull with a final parting shot. "Maybe the next time we meet, I will have a different answer for you. Might as well see if any of those metal monstrosities think I was their mother..."
In her own, rough and callous way, Victory had answered the question Utah hadn't asked. It had the gray-haired woman looking up at the overcast sky, with a smile that refused to fade.
Yes...I'm their mother, despite everything. I shouldn't doubt that...I love Ari, Okie, Cali and all the others. And they love me too...
She sat there for a long time, lost in thought as men continued to do what they could to fix up
Victory around her.
You would think being stuck at home would help my muse. It might, if I weren't sick half the time, or not sleeping the rest of the time, or any number of things that have left me in bed and not able to really do anything. I may like being at home, but even I'm having my limits pressed.
It hasn't been a fun couple months.
As for this...initially, I was going to do a short little 1-1.5k interlude for Mother's Day yesterday. Then Victory took over my keyboard and, well, we get the above. 
(I'm going to
try to work on the next proper chapter soon, though it'll be a long one to make up for the wait. So it may take a little bit more to write, though I'm going to try and make it soon.)
