Reading Guide:

Paragraphs of text in italics separated by a single star (*) are meant to indicate a concurrent memory, something that is running through Taylor’s mind as she goes. Not something she is thinking of, but memories welling up.

Part 1: Whirlpool

Taylor was angry. She was livid. And she didn’t know why. They were at war. With people. They were monsters. And a monster died. Surely that was a good thing?

*

“Think you can get to Hawaii for the dead drop?” Taylor asked her accomplice.

Shun looked at her like she was being particularly dense.

“Without being noticed?” she pressed.

“Hell no” the sub scoffed. ”I’ll go on patrol. Sub patrol routes are more suggestions than orders. What are they going to do, send destroyers to keep an eye one me? You’re complicating this for no reason. Some of them will have some idea of where I’ve been, but finding a specific rock at the bottom? Hell no.” she scoffed.

“How did you think a black market worked with all this radar?” she mocked her. Because they all did that, push and pull and jockey for position, tearing each other down.

*

Like climbing higher was the only way out of the dark.

So the monsters had lost. Many had died and good had carried the day, right? Wasn’t this a reason for celebration? With fewer forces and fewer guards, she could move more freely and maybe finally have a chance to break free and humans had survived to go back to their families.

*

Taylor was sailing for the first time. She was struggling, trying so hard but she was sailing. And they wouldn’t let her catch a breath. Why did nothing make them happy? Why was nothing good enough?

“Impatient fuck, aren’t you. Well if you feel good enough to sail the sea we can start your trials right now!” Sapphire transmitted as she set her hounds on Taylor.

*

She’d left the lagoon. It was too small. It wasn’t some challenge to Sapphire’s authority. Taylor hadn’t meant anything like it. She just wanted to run.

*

“…and it is with a heavy heart that I finish on this note: Your wanton cruelty is known to all and sundry but truly I was unaware of the heights of your foolishness and incompetence, that you would allow an unarmed transport to travel alone. Unescorted, left open to the Predations of the Enemy. Truly this shows the depths of your failure and incompetence, letting the only example of a new class in our joint fleets be so at risk, as a Princess to her daughters and a leader to her fleet. You are unfit for command and unfit for service in the wall of battle.” the Anchorage Princess finished her dictation, smug.

“You get all that little mouse? Repeat it, word for word. Oh, to be there when you deliver those words.” she preened, giggling.

*

The idea that her behavior could embarrass a Princess, her Princess? It was mind boggling. She was a slave. Held under duress and forced the work at the point of a gun. She’d been sure it was nothing, another game. That the entire message was just a way to tweak noses among the Princesses. Just another cruel game where Taylor would get punished for delivering that missive. Taylor never did deliver it in person. She left it with the pyromaniac near Iwo Jima, as the Battleship Princess was away from anchorage.

*

“-and then she accused Bertha of diluting her oil rations. Said Bertha was so fat because she was stealing from everyone,” her escort regaled her table mates. Taylor played waitress. She knew they were only keeping her there as an audience and a prop. They enjoyed seeing her squirm.

Several girls rolled their eyes, while two leaned in.

“What was it this time? Did she get the Rant? Please tell me someone else was subjected to that horror.” one suggested.

“It was probably fire. She’s fond of fire.” the other said.

“Oh it was fire…” the storyteller confided, leading them on.

“She starts grabbing barrels of oil and setting them on fire. Then announced an impromptu exercise: sailing under combat conditions, with Bertha as the subject.”

Parts of the table were finding it difficult to breathe.

“But Big Bertha can’t turn for shit.” her escort finished with a shrug to peals of laughter.

“So she’s on fire, the sea is on fire, our supplies are on fire. Abyss did we get a telling off for that one. Damn near lost a four-hundred tons because rookie here can’t pull together a fire crew to save her own life. We had to put her out.”

Well maybe if they’d done something else than laugh at her as she was being pelted with flaming fireballs, she wouldn’t have been on fire in the first place!

“Oh when this push is over, the girls and Bertha here are going to have such fun, aren’t we Bertha? You’re going to get to know fire up close and personally.” she finished, laughing as Taylor shuddered.

“Suck it up, large load. Hell, with how much we’ll be helping you isn’t there something you’d like to say?”

This game she knew. It was like something from Winslow. The words were ash on her tongue.

“That you for your instructions, Little Sis. I am grateful for any time you can spare.” she recited. She’d learned enough to slip in a barb and felt satisfaction when the cruiser couldn’t find any justification to punish her for her lip. She was little, compared to Taylor, after all. It would be poor comfort, but at least something when the fuckers started setting her on fire on the regular. As “training” no doubt. They enjoyed hurting her, the rest was just an thin excuse.

“You’d think she’d learn that throwing away her food only makes it worse, but who’d be stupid enough to tell that to her face?“ another asked.

*

They were just being vicious for the sake of it. Monsters that only looked like girls. It was fine. Taylor was the one being treated as less than human. She’d get her own back. Taylor would get revenge for every indignity.

*

Sapphire after Taylor’s sea trials. Taylor had glimpsed her coming out of the long range com stations. In the moment she’d looked… chastised. Ashamed. Then she spotted Taylor and it all slid right off her face. Taylor expected Sapphire to unload at her. It’s how it always worked. She just scowled and stomped off.

*

Had she… reported in? Gotten reamed for letting Taylor out of her slight? Why?

*

Yo-Class submarine: Shun; Killed in action by The Ghost of Kyushu 32 miles N-NW off the coast of Midway.

*

Taylor stopped. She’d been lost in her own head. She’d cooked, served and sat down, just looking at her meal. Breakfast. Oil and metal. Her fingers tapped the table of their own accord, vibrating the whole thing.

“We’re eating, how are you bored? Stop it.” the Light Cruiser next to her complained, ramming her elbow into Taylor’s ribs, right below her stump.

It took her breath away. “Sorry.” Taylor apologized, nearly in reflex, wheezing.

“Hey. Lay off.” the Division leader at the head of the table ordered.

“What, she’s just,” just a freighter Taylor finished in her mind. She expected her to continue, complain. Her right-side neighbor instead descended into sullen silence. It sparked something in her head. She wasn’t the only one. Ships were missing from many tables, and more were still on the deployment, but the loud, raucous atmosphere of the lunch room was absent. The feeling was general, like a sports bad that had just watched their favorites lose against their rivals. Sullen defeat. But not grief, not mourning.

Like they didn’t care about the dead, only that their team, their fleet had failed. Why did Taylor feel disappointed? Did she expected anything else? They were monsters.

*

Taylor was loading Bauxite in Acapulco, struggling to do anything but work and not break down, but her sensors were still working, she was still listening, even if her mind was too preoccupied to notice or parse any of the world.

The limping light cruiser was trying to keep off her leg and kept wincing in pain. Sapphire was away, but her sister ship was right next to her, talking softly. Not softly enough for Taylor’s crew not to pick up on it.

“Come on, hold it in. This isn’t our port. You can’t cry here. Keep it together, you’ll embarrass everyone.”

“I can’t. It’s my fault. I was too slow and that torpedo bomber had me dead to rights. I missed him four times, how could I miss four times? It’s my fault.” the limping Light Cruiser softly whined.

“That fish was going to sink me. Kiki jumped on it for me and now she’s dead because I can’t hit a bomber flying in a straight line.” she cried, quietly.

Her sister looked spooked, furtively glancing around. Only on making certain no one was watching did she give the quietly crying girl a quick hug, before quickly letting go.

“Come now. Pull it together. Don’t make me enforce discipline before all these girls. Kiki’s with the Abyss now. Take comfort in that.” she finished, putting her had on the limping girls shoulder and squeezing.

First in support, then painfully.

“Enough” she brusquely demanded, the picture of a cruel and uncaring warship.

*

What was wrong with her? Why were all these memories rushing up? Conversation at the table had moved on when Taylor focused inward, looking for something wrong. She found one of her bugs, a member of the sensor crew, messing with her recording equipment and input cables. Feeling suspicion rising, she accused: “Just what are you doing?”

The bug panicked, freezing in place. Her consciousness was wrenched to her bridge where the Wilted Lily stood with a jolly smile. “Well, that’s a wrap.” Jack Slash’s voice said. “My Lady, it has been a privilege and an honor serving on your vessel.” Taylor’s Chief Security Officer merrily joked.

“I saw an opportunity, so I took it. It is Mutiny boys!” he shouted, the flowery petals turning like lighting, their tips sharpened daggers that lunged at the captain’s chair. Seated there was a woman in a broken bug mask, with damaged mechanical arms poking over her shoulders and a cracked flight pack, missing her right arm. Taylor’s captain jumped out of the chair, rolling across the deck even as the knives descended.

The captain leapt to her feet and found the Lily hadn’t even bothered to compensate. Instead, all four petals were buried in the captain’s shadow, just before her chair. The shadow boiled up, bleeding, screaming like the damned. The last thing Taylor heard as her crew mutinied and consciousness failed was her speakers blaring in Myrddin’s voice all over her hull. It was the drone the Leader of the Chicago Protectorate adopted when lecturing, but deadly serious:

“The first step to escaping a master situation is recognizing you are being mastered.”

Taylor Hebert, Big Bertha, collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. She fell to the floor and would not wake. For the first time since awakening beneath that tree, fully Abyssal, her dreams were her own, not Nightmares. They were a recording her sensor crew had put together. Because while most of her crew was of the Abyss? The sensor crew in particular held her Legend closer to their hearts than the silent beat of the Abyss. They would hold the doors; long enough for the recording to run its course.

Part 2: Sinking

The First Pacific East Division was gutted. They’d followed their Battleship Princess into the harshest fighting and paid the price. They did their part but this lunch room was just depressingly empty. With Sapphire and Shinigami sent back to the Abyss. Wakumi as Escort Lead was in command of this detached duty. Following Bertha around and for her sins she’d missed the battle, which made hers the most intact command. Wakumi had watched the girl slowly grow up. She was a weird one, always busy. Usually girls needed order, to be shown their place, before they could settle down.

Bertha never had. She’d struggled under scrutiny, but seemed to finally find her place on detached duty. The freedom suited her. Maybe it was something about freighters. Transports generally kept to themselves. As the most often traded ships in the fleets as well as ones who didn’t fight themselves, freighters were somewhat insular. Wakumi had expected Bertha to gravitate to her peers, maybe form a minor court of her own among the traders, but no such thing happened. Except for her pets, Bertha was a loner. Or so Wakumi believed before today.

There’d been a singing tension in the steps of her charge since their return to Midway. An unheard hum that promised violence that had no place in a freighter. Ever since the casualty report had been officially put up, Bertha had been wound up so tight it hurt to watch her walk. So she must have had someone. Much like many things about Bertha, Wakumi had noted it and left it aside. Bertha had Shinigami’s eye and was Sapphire’s personal project. No need to get involved in that mess. Her job was just to deliver the girl, whole and hale, to her destinations. Which proved mostly uneventful.

Wakumi was sharing targeting tips with her second over lunch when Bertha stiffened like she’d just suffered an ammo explosion. All the light went out of her eyes and she slid, boneless, right off her chair. Her head hit the floor with a loud thump, the body limp as a dead fish. Wakumi waited out the laughter, wondering if this was another one of Bertha’s fits. It had been a while since the last one. But the memory of that tension and cause of the sullen air in the room made her get up before the giggles were done.

“She can’t even sit without falling over” someone quipped, which only spread the laughter. If nothing else, Shinigami’s original justification for keeping her alive was again proved true. Bertha was good for morale. It was cute, how outraged she got for minor hardening. They’d make her tough yet, but something about sailing with Bertha for weeks was telling Wakumi that maybe now wasn’t the time to push.

Still, she had a job to do. “Come on. Don’t start this shit again Bertha.” Wakumi commanded, but the girl wouldn’t be dissuaded. Bertha kept pretending hits hurt worse than they did, like they all had not taken the same blows. She never was grateful for the training they were giving her damage control crews. A giant brat. It would save her life one day. Bertha’s favorite once you were really laying into her was to pretend to faint, hoping they’d give up on disciplining her if she wasn’t responding. Silly girl.

Her boot nudged the unrigged girl, first lightly, and when that didn’t work, hard enough to rub against her ribs. Nothing. That sliver of unease grew and Wakumi kneeled next to the fallen girl, as everyone jeered and laughed. Her hand went to Bertha’s face, as Wakumi leaned over and pried open her eyes. Her palm felt the heat, the fallen girl was feverish. Bertha’s eyes were rolling in her sockets. This close Wakumi could feel her breath. Thin, shallow and rapid gulps of air, as the girl was almost invisibly shaking, vibrating beneath her fingers.

Cold dread seized her lungs. It robbed Wakumi of her breath. She wasn’t ready, the Escort Leader had never been the one who had to deal with this before. But by reaching her position, she’d earned the right to know. Even if everyone had heard of it, Wakumi knew. She’d been trained for it. The order wouldn’t come out the first time. The second time it was too soft, breathless, going unheard. The image of her Princess watching her fail flashed before her eyes. It rammed a steel girder down her spine and Wakumi bellowed on all horns.

“Quiet.” it was cutting, vicious, an order given in a hissed tone no Abyssal but a Princess used in harbor, at rest. It cut through every discussion in the room like an executioners axe, because that’s what it was. The promise of death, if you were not obeyed, instantly.

Wakumi saw the outrage blooming at some of the ships not of the East fleet, multiple Heavies ready to beat her teeth in and finished before the room could explode:

“She’s hot. Feverish. Bertha’s sick.” You could have heard a submarine sneaking in the ensuing silence.

A few fools or particularly tough girls scoffed, leaving. The rest? Escorts were rocking back and forth, hugging their knees. Praying to the Abyss for the curse to spare them. Wakumi’s own merry pack of jackals and bottom feeders were frozen in place and not helping. A battleship she’d vaguely met emerged from the gathering crowd, pushing her way forward with long legs and quick steps. Together, they picked Bertha up and laid her on the table, scattering the meal, spilling oil and broth, bowls scattering all over the floor as her girls scattered with squeaks.

The little cowards tried to run but Wakumi and the battleship pinned them in place with their guns without looking. Another battleship had taken charge of the crowd, organizing heavy cruisers in forming a cordon. A line of battle, should it be needed. Assured everyone who’d been near Bertha was on this side of the battle line and had guns on them, Wakumi had no more attention to spare for anyone but the girl on the table.

“DAMN IT!” she cursed. The battleship just looked at her. “Bertha is a new type of ship. She’s new.”

Understanding appeared in the other woman’s eyes. Those who would fall had fallen over the years. There hadn’t been an incident in over ten months, globally. Not that the Court would admit there was. Midway and the north pacific fleets hadn’t had one in more than a year.

No amount of re-summoning made them batter. The damage to their minds, souls, persisted. Impossible to fix. The Court had given up on trying and consigned them to permanently rotting in the Abyss. They were unthinking, unfeeling, killing machines that cared nothing for pain or death. Or who was in front of them. Empty eyes and ghost crews, no one home. It was like the Abyss had hollowed them out and all that was left was the Hunger.

One of the little shits stuck here with her dared speak up.

“The curse isn’t going to get us, is it Big Sis? We didn’t do anything wrong! Katherine’s curse can’t get you if you’re a good girl! They promised!”

The Court and the Princesses did promise that. They’d lied. That’s not how it worked, Wakumi knew. But she wasn’t going to spread knowledge like that. It was dangerous. But if Bertha went, she might drag her entire formation down with her. They were her convoy, her escorts, they’d spent weeks sailing together as a single formation. That bond was enough for the madness to bleed through. They were all fucked.

How Wakumi now wished she knew exactly what Sapphire had been doing to the girl. Was Sapphire pushing too hard, or was Bertha just too sensitive? Was it the civilian origin? Few freighters had even fallen, and Wakumi couldn’t recall a one that had been the origin point. They knew their jobs and did them well. But then, most traders didn’t struggle as much in finding their place. If they lost Bertha to the Black Madness, she’d never forgive herself. Hells, what if she hadn’t been pretending and throwing willful fits? What if she just couldn’t take it? Bertha held herself as a warship, she acted like one, so they’d all threated her like one. If she was a soft as the other freighters, why the fuck would she fight to buck authority so hard?

“Fuck her life. Fuck this day. Fuck stupid, stubborn Bertha in particular. Fuck her vicious little sisters, but Abyss please don’t take them.”

Wakumi had to keep a brave face on. No surrender, no pain, no retreat. They were depending on her.

They’d lost many in the early years, none more so then sub-tenders. Tenders and repair ships in general were hit the worst, though if anyone knew why, they hadn’t shared it with Wakumi. But she knew what did it. What could drive Abyssal ships mad. The Grudge at the core of the girl that had become impossible to fulfill, or total, abject despair. None more so famously then Princess Katharine, who took her whole fleet with her and gave it her name among the common girls of the fleet: Katherine’s Curse. Wakumi shivered. She didn’t want to be forever mad, stuck at the bottom, in the cold, empty Abyss. Abandoned. Forgotten, forsaken.

A shout went out from her fellow. “Get the Princess!”

“Midway is in the middle of Ritual prep, she’ll just kill me for interrupting her!” a cruiser objected from the crowd.

“Then get a Princess! Run, you fool!” ordered the battleship. The cruiser ran.

The woman at least knew what to do as Wakumi tried to gently touch Bertha. Be reassuring to a girl lost to the world. Warships enjoyed violence, target practice being a particular favorite and everyone like feeling useful, but how the fuck do you comfort a freighter? Give her something to carry?

“What does she like? What does she want?” Wakumi asked, trying to stay calm.

Furious eyes turned to her as the woman next to her looked at Wakumi like she was scum she’d just scrapped of her heel.

“Aren’t you her patrol leader? Isn’t it your job to know that?” she asked. Voice full of scorn and venom.

But she didn’t. They hardly ever spoke. If you weren’t training her, Bertha pretty much didn’t speak. Not with any of them. Surely Wakumi knew something?

“Her pets!” she cried in relief.

“She has three Imps … damn it, they’re on her and Bertha’s unrigged.” she realized. They couldn’t call them up.

“Wait! There were two more. Some destroyers. But I don’t know who.” she realized, feeling like a gnat. A failure.

“Um.” one her girls started. “She hugs them a lot. Bertha calls them Itchy and Scratch.” Wakumi just looked at her.

“What? I was curious. They’re the two really old ones. Midway’s mascots?” the girl deflected.

“The hugs looked nice.” she muttered to herself, quietly, intensely jealous.

Wakumi didn’t have time to deal with that or all the other little twists in her command. Each girl had one, you learned to work around it. Before she could ask a voice called out from the crowd:

“They’re on patrol. Can’t be back in less than four hours even if we recalled them right now.“

“Do it.” the battleship called out, her eyes far away.

“You going to take the flak for that?” the same voice asked.

The responding glare speared a girl in the back.

“Yes.”

She backed away, head down in surrender.

“Going, going.”

“What else?” the woman asked.

Wakumi had finally found something that worked, gently combing her fingers through Bertha’s ashen locks. It stilled the shakes at least.

“I don’t know. I think she likes eating but she wouldn’t touch her food.”

That was a red flag. She should have been paying attention. Wakumi should have noticed. Bertha was always hungry.

“Bauxite. When Sapphire gave her that pacifier, Bertha looked so happy. I caught her licking her hands in Acapulco from the dust. She was delighted.” piped up one of the little traitors.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Wakumi nearly screamed. She really wanted to beat Nami’s ass until it was weeping oil.

The girl shrank down.

“I didn’t want to get her in trouble. Her cooking is nice. Bertha wouldn’t be able to cook if Midway ate her.” the cruiser admitted.

Wakumi was floored. Yes, Midway was twisted about supplies. But holy hell. She knew a lot of girls didn’t know much about the logistics of the Abyss. Or of Spooky Abyssal Bullshit. But this was advanced stupid. This was stupid that might get them all worse than dead. Wakumi somehow managed not the blast the cowering cruiser through the wall.

“And your empty, useless head, the one that you’ve never used and never will, did it stop for a moment, just a moment, to consider that maybe the fact the freighter was craving Bauxite might be important?” she hammered in.

The look she got back was so bewildered Wakumi planted her fist down Nami’s throat so hard her teeth fell like rain and Nami’s bridge bounced off the back wall. The cruiser collapsed, stunned.

“You’re staying, there, on that floor, until we all find out if you’ve doomed us all.” Wakumi spat out. All she got in return was a groan. Doomed, the lot of them. Every last speck of Bauxite on the island was locked up behind Midway’s wards. Wards only she could open. Screwed.

The woman next to her was giving her a worried look. “She’s craving Bauxite? What are her portions?”

“Steel and oil.” Wakumi ground out, and now Nami started crying.

A horrified whisper slipped out of the gaggle of girls. “She’s starving. For weeks, months. Bertha’s starved.” Which was one of the few things that could drive an Abyssal mad, as the Hunger devoured them from within.

Even from the floor and missing most her teeth, Nami kept digging herself deeper, as she spat out another tooth.

“No. No, Big Bertha’s big! She eats more than any of us. She can’t be starving. That’s not fair.”

The battleship was un-impressed. “What’s her tonnage? Armament?”

“She’s a freighter, she doesn’t have weapons!” Nami got out before Wakumi had had enough.

“Did I or did I not tell you to stay there? Was that an invitation to talk? No? Are my orders suggestions for the rest of you as well?” Wakumi asked, glaring at the group. They jumped, enforcing order on Nami. She’d survive it and that was about as much concern as Wakumi could spare right now. It was also familiar and would keep them occupied.

The battleship was pensive. “Two weeks? Three?”

Wakumi thought about it.

“At least two months.”

That earned a wince. The battleship seemed to struggle with herself, before calling out: “Hells with it, Riptide! Get some back up and pry whatever Bauxite you can from our resident junky.” There was a moment of silence and a wince from her subordinate.

“That’s going to get loud, quick, Ma’am.”

“Patch the holes sinking us now, we’ll deal with the fire on deck later sailor.”

Three girls separated from the blockade, going on their task.

“Your girl hides Bauxite from Midway.” Wakumi really didn’t need say more, the disbelief was dripping from every word.

The woman shrugged. Shrugged. “It’s her twist. Court Rules.”

Well, alright then. Everyone had a twist. Still…

“Let’s never tell Midway.”

“Standing orders.”

Wakumi went back to combing Bertha’s hair. What else could she do in response to that?

“That’s going to get ugly, messing with a girl’s twist.” Wakumi noted.

“Yeah well, we’re here, aren’t we? How much worse can it get?” the woman said with a sardonic smile.

Wakumi started.

“I never did get your name.” she apologized.

“Wakumi, incompetent Escort Command, apparently. Pacific East.” she said, extending a hand.

The battleship accepted, linking forearms.

“Montana. Pacific West, Flagship. At least you’re coping to it.” and no wonder she’d taken charge.

Wakumi gave her a hopeful look but Montana was already shaking her head.

“I went ahead. Mine is at least four days behind me.”

And that was that. Midway was not coming out, West was four days out. Wakumi could only hope her own Princess was closer.

Nothing was left, but to wait, to the familiar, comforting sounds of violence behind them.

Part 3: Fever

News spread across Midway, slowly at first. Girls streaming out of the lunch room. Others going there. The rush of a girls hurried steps to the long range coms. Murmurs, rumors. A girl had collapsed. It was just Bertha. Who? The fat freighter. Some ignored it, others didn’t.

In the barracks built for the East Fleet, there was a room. One reserved for Big Bertha. One she’d never been in, because Sapphire wanted to reward Bertha with a home after her sea trials, make her feel like part of the fleet. But Bertha left the lagoon without an escort, so Sapphire put it off for getting her in hot water with the Princess. With all the war preparations and just how much of a sulking, stubborn child Sapphire considered Bertha, the opportunity never came up, and the room slipped her mind. Someone would tell her, right? Someone should already have told her. Bertha wasn’t complaining about having nowhere to sleep. It was fine. But with the rush to organize the new advance on Japan, things had slipped through the cracks. None of them were friends with her.

No one saw her coming or going, but Bertha kept a weird schedule anyway. She’d be up all day. Everyone would get up as the Sun began to fall and Bertha would already be up, playing with her pets. A few of the girls who liked her cooking left her gifts near the beginning, a welcome to the fleet kind of thing, but Bertha never said anything, the gifts untouched. No thanks, nothing. If she was too good for them, well they weren’t going to take a freighter snubbing them laying down. If she didn’t want to be friends, well that was just fine. Who needs a freighter anyway?

Sachi was… special. When Sachi heard the new girl was finally out of her trial period and was moving in, she went around figuring out how to switch rooms so they could be next to each other. Sachi loved welcoming new girls to the fleet. She liked cooking and cleaning and being useful because Sachi wasn’t a great ship. She was old and not skilled enough to justify refits. Not worth the investment. Besides, if she got them Sachi would be sent to the front lines again. No one wanted that.

Sachi was feeling like the most useless cruiser who ever sailed. Her friends had gone out and so many of them were missing now. Midway was going to fix it, but she felt like a failure not having been there for them. But Sachi had a plan. She was making a re-summoning party!

She’d pilfered supplies from the kitchens and was making some of her famous Sachi noodles. A few of her monster friends had spent that last couple days catching fishes for her and she’d left them in small pool outside the beach house so they’d been nice and fresh for everyone after they woke up. They were always grumpy coming right out of the Abyss and nothing worked to remind the girls there were back like a nice hot meal.

Sachi was in the middle of checking on her party supplies when Amelie came around the corner. She was walking somewhere fast and her eyes lit up where she found Sachi. Sachi waved. It was polite, even if she needed to fix this table leg.

“Sachi. There you are, I’ve been looking for you all over. Come on, now, quick and quiet. We’ve got a patrol to get to. Come on, come on.”

The carrier swept in and Sachi was heading for her room before she knew it. She was a bit confused.

“But I have everything I need for a patrol, Lie-chan?” she asked.

“And I was just a call away.” she wondered.

“Hush, hush. No lip from you young lady.” the German-accented carrier chided.

They got to her rooms quick, Amelie was just walking but Sachi had to scurry to keep up. She’d rarely seen the carrier move so quick while looking that relaxed. Usually Amelie only hurried when there was trouble.

Sachi was quick. She left the nails and glue in her room and grabbed some extra rations and a thermos to keep everything nice and warm. On further thought Sachi also packed her cooking bag, maybe she’d get the chance to use it again.

Amelie looked at her, carefully biting her lip, before bending down to whisper in her ear.

“Take your treasures, Sachi.” she ordered with a wobbly smile.

Sachi felt cold. She quickly nodded and pried up the floor in the corner of her room. After a few quick scoops, the sailor’s case came out of the ground beneath the wooden floor and she opened it to check everything was there. Several comics, Mr Mushi, a well-worn and cared for plushy rabbit. He was a rabbit, not a bunny, Sachi would correct everyone. She had to hide him, because there were girls who through they were tough and mean and that those two were the same and he’d already lost one ear. He couldn’t lose the other, he’d be deaf, but Sachi loved him to bits.

The final item was a dress woven from dried sea-grass, clams and shells and stringy tree bits. It was nice and Sachi loved wearing it, even if she had to keep it to her room, or one of the bigger girls would take it. A lot of girls had new dresses on Midway. Sachi was just glad they got cheap enough she could get one. And these were different. Human clothes tore at the slightest touch. Usually only a Flag or a Princess could afford to have clothes and keep replacing them, apart from their rigging and swimwear. Sachi didn’t know why swimwear was, different, it had something to do with the sea.

The subs looked really silly in full body diving suits though. Sachi giggled and caught the reproachful look from Amelie.

“Sorry.” she apologized and packed her case in her travel bag. Amelia took her hand and led her out to sea. Sachi worried. If Lie-chan was worried, Sachi was worried. They hit the open sea.

“Where are we going?” Sachi asked, knowing this wasn’t a patrol. Her radar could pick them up. In ones and twos, girls were scattering from Midway, those in the lead taking the usual patrol routs out, but more just setting sail. Everyone was keeping away from each other. It felt wrong, they were supposed to be a fleet.

“Hawaii” Amelia answered. “We’ll go to Hawaii and re-access. Hopefully everything will be cleared out by then. Anyway, I’m sure Acapulco is nice this time of year.”

Sachi felt like her legs had become anchors. “But what about everyone?”

Everyone Midway was supposed to call back? Her fleet, her friends?

Amelia grimaced. “We’ll figure something out if we have to. I’m sure it won’t come to that.” she said, like she was trying to convince herself.

“What happened?” Sachi asked, slumping, letting Amelia all but tow her.

Amelia swallowed. Once, twice. “A girl got sick.” she finally said.

“Oh.” Sachi replied.

Then she started sailing again and soon the cruiser was towing the carrier, pulling away. Neither one said what each knew. If it came to that, they’d blow themselves up first. Midway wouldn’t let that happen, right? She was the Perfect Princess.

*

Taylor remembered this. The Light cruiser that tried to flatter and manipulate her into lowering her price and get her to work for nothing. Did she think Taylor was a fool? She got her payment and managed to convince the gullible girl to pay extra. Seriously, like Taylor couldn’t see right through her.

“Your hair is really pretty. I know your work a lot in the kitchens. I’ve been cooking lots so maybe later you could come over and I could teach you? ”

Like she’d fall for that. Let her mock and belittle her cooking as some twisted way to make herself feel better. The cruiser had just wanted something from her, but at least that one had had the common decency to pay Taylor. Yet as the dream spun and played again, it was different.

Where once she saw malice and greed in the cruisers eyes, now only sincerity shined. Her smiles no longer reminded Taylor of Emma, but were tentative. Like Aisha, when she thought no one could see her. Like some of the kids post Leviatan, when she showed up with supplies.

And Taylor wondered if the made up story about switching rooms to be next to her was made up. If the invitation to teach her cooking wasn’t genuine. Because Taylor didn’t have a room, yet when the girl talked about coming over, there was nothing but sincere hope, like it would mean the world to her if she could come visit. When before Taylor had read her as trying to manipulate her, get on her good side for a discount. Dreams didn’t make sense. Why were they all doubled, each repeated but different on the repeat?

One of the Abyssal monsters as she’d known them the entirety of her new life, un-repentant abusers, bitches, cold hearted monsters who enjoyed the pain they caused. The other as some… something else. You’d think it would make sense, or make them perfect, not show them as broken, flawed. Still monsters, but frail. What was the point of that?

*

The trio found their way to their target. But as with anything that touched on their cores, nothing was that simple. The addict already had her stash in hand and was halfway out her window when they broke through the door. “Hold, damn it!” she ordered.

“Choke on my spray Riptide!” the carrier said, jumping.

Riptide and her back up were right behind her, but when they looked out the window an Abyssal dive bomber slammed into it, detonating in a fire blast that swallowed them all. Riptide cursed, singed, but hells, if they were going loud.

“Cripple the bitch!”

She was running but she wasn’t running fast enough. The shattered window and blown up wall gave them all space to line up and fire. A battleship and two heavy cruisers at this range? On a solid shooting platform? It was trivial. Fire swallowed the fleeing ship as the battleship turned away. Best she could do was end it fast, when it couldn’t be quiet. She left one of her supports on the high ground and ran down the stairs with the other.

When they reached the carrier, she was half out of the crater, her legs pitted with cracks and holes, the engines totaled and missing a leg below the knee. Not ideal, but not terrible. That would heal with a few hours in the baths. The next part? Not so much. Riptide braced, hardening her heart. She was under orders on a Quarantine mission, no half measures.

Her other support pinned the screaming, screeching, pleading carrier as she tried to curl around her treasure. The woven chain bag of Bauxite held to her stomach as she curled protectively around it.

“You can’t! I have permission! I need it! Need it! The Court said so! I can keep it! You can’t take it! You can’t make me!”

Damn it, she had a death grip on the bag. Riptide started breaking fingers even as her gorge rose. Tears fell freely from the carrier’s eyes.

“No! Stop it! Stop it!” Finally she freed the bag and the carrier went limp. Riptide knew what had to be done, but neither her nor the support could be the one to do it. Her eyes scanned the forming crowd. It was easy to find the ship that wanted to sink her the most, she was the one pointing all her guns this way.

“Get in here and help her. You can sink me after!”

Riptide was already running. She vomited to the side but managed to keep her feet. She could hate herself later.

“Patch the holes sinking us first, fires later.”

Behind her, the other girl pulled the carrier out of the crater, hugging her as hard as she could, her glare daring anyone to say a word. No one did. Ships were using cannon and bombs on Midway. Things were beyond fucked, the masks cracking.

The Heavy Cruiser that had pinned the carrier just slumped over. She glared at her.

“I’m not going back there.” The voice was dead, empty.

She tried to keep Susie comfortable at least, starting a familiar cadence, keeping it steady.

“Our Princess is mighty and she is rich.

She has a whole ship set aside for each.

For Montana oils and Henrietta soils.

But little Susie is special still.

For her she keeps her fill.”

Again, and again she sang the nursery rhyme. Until the carrier hugged her back, holding on for dear life. “I can’t.”

“You won’t Susie. We’re not fighting anyone here. You won’t go without. The Hunger won’t get you.” she tried.

“But I don’t have any. What if we get separated? What if They attack? I need it. I can’t, I can’t.” she panted, shaking. Hitting her head against the girl trying to comfort her.

“You won’t be hungry ever again Susie. The Princess promised remember? She has a special bag she carries herself, just for you. No one else can touch it. She’d die first. She promised, remember?” she spoke, softy.

The crowd had long since scattered, no one wanting to watch this. It was the Abyss. Everyone had a twist. It was ugly and no one liked being forced to watch. It was too close to facing their own.

“I remember.” the carrier softly said.

“You can feel her, can’t you Susie. She’s still there and she has you bag. The Princess is coming and then everything will be ok. Why don’t you let me carry you to my room. Would you like that?”

She didn’t answer with words, only squeezed a bit harder. But at least he head-butts stopped. Progress.

Slowly, her sister carried her back to the dorms, singing a nursery rhyme:

“Our Princess is mighty and she is rich.

She has a whole ship set aside for each.

For Montana oils and Henrietta soils.

But little Susie is special still.

For her she keeps her fill.”

She swore, by the end of this, someone would be paying in blood.

*

Shun was fucking with her. Almost every night she spent in the lagoon under the tree, she’d wake up with her hand in the water. Taylor could see the damn imprint in the bottom. She didn’t have to keep reminding Taylor she could kill her in her sleep, she was aware and tired of it.

It rewound, replayed.

Again she noticed her hand in the water. The shape of the displacement. But that same dark fire was missing, the certainty. The hate. Taylor stood within her dreams and wondered. What would possess a girl to come here every night and pull her hand in the water? The possible answers…concerned her.

*

“Got it!” a shout startled the blockade as a girl came in from the kitchens.

“The Perfect Princess wouldn’t have left her carriers hungry.” she beamed.

Wakumi groaned. Montana’s hand twitched, before she sighed explosively.

“Well, what’s done is done. What do you have?” Montana asked.

“Enough spice for two carriers for two days? It isn’t much.” the cook shrugged, in apology.

“I’ll take what I can get.” the battleship rumbled.

The cook dropped the whole bundle into a small pot of oil, before handing it over to the line. She wasn’t getting anywhere near that.

Wakumi looked from the feverish girl to the pot.

“How do we make her eat?”

“I got it.” Montana claimed with a grin.

She dipped her fingers into the thick mix and started spreading it along the sick girls forearm.

Wakumi blinked.

“What are you doing?” she asked, lost.

“The skin is the most important part of everyone. It can breathe, keep out water and even absorb nutrients.” Montana said, smiling, her eyes shining with zeal.

There was a loud, disgusted “Warships!” as a repair ship elbowed her way to the front.

“I’m fucked anyway, I was her supervisor in port. Make some room you stupid cannon obsessed fools.”

Within a few moments Bertha was propped up, her head in the repair-ships lap, as the Ra-class spoon fed her the mix, carefully massaging Bertha’s throat to help her swallow. Within minutes, her color started improving noticeably, the eyes not rolling as much. As they finished with the kitchen pot, Riptide rushed in, carrying much more. But though the Ra kept feeding her, the repair ship never stopped looking worried.

“What?” Wakumi.

“She never came in for a checkup.” the Ra whispered, horrified.

“Is it working or not?” Montana asked.

“It’s helping with the fever,” the repair ship answered. Which was both helpful and not.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Montana demanded.

The Ra managed to pry her eyes from the girl in her lap and gulped.

“It’s not my place to say.” she settled on. And wasn’t that a whole new knot to untangle. It took Montana nearly a minute to do so.

“I need to call my Princess.”

Then she was up like a plane.

“If that girl is a Princess… this could be ground zero for the second coming of Katherine. The Princess needs to know. Never again.”

.

.

“I hate quarantine.”

Bertha lay there, as the repair ship fled in the wake of the battleship, still on the table, sweating. They let her out of the circle, but not out of the room. Wakumi heard some gurgling and in a moment of insight turned Bertha to her side. Bertha dry heaved, but nothing came out. She was still out of it, the fever dropping but her eyes had gone mad behind her eyelids.

Wakumi kept gently running her hands through Bertha’s ashen hair, staying with her, as the pale repair ship fell into a chair of her own.

*

“Excellent, so she’s agreed to sell the Walkman?” Taylor asked.

Shun nodded.

Detached duty after serving in the docks was proving a blessing in disguise. Taylor had time to watch and study the boats. Even if she didn’t know all the players, she knew their servants. Taylor could make overtures, introductions, find out what the smugglers were selling and buying. She was still far too reliant on the sub to actually access the black market, her Imps and PTs not nearly as able to move freely outside of Midway.

But with her latest delivery from the south, Taylor should be able to squeeze in a few more things.

“Still nothing on the Bauxite?” she grit out.

“No, Bertha.” the sub answered, not looking at her.

Right. It was keeping things from her, but she wasn’t quite ready to buy her out. Once she had another sub, this one wouldn’t be nearly so ready to deny her. She needed it, knew she was lesser for the lack of Bauxite and the sub had likely figured it out. The sneaky little devil was deliberately keeping it away so that Taylor would stay reliant on her, stay weak. It didn’t matter, all debts would be paid. Taylor had to focus on things she could change. Like expanding her reach to the east.

And whose stupid idea was it to call the fleet fighting in the East Pacific, the West Pacific fleet?

Rewind, replay.

Taylor watched and she wondered. When did she grow so hateful, so vengeful?

When did she start thinking of Shun’s work as her own? Her reach in the black market. Her deals. As if the sub wasn’t involved, as if it was a dog, an extension of Taylor’s will, playing tricks for her master. Mistress? Unimportant. Looking at herself, Taylor was a Merchant. She was an addict, hiding, pretending, but needing her next fix, blind to anything but her own troubles. Her eyes were manic when Taylor spoke of the rocks.

Shun wasn’t looking away to hide ill thought. It was obvious from here, without the cobwebs before her eyes. The sub was looking away because it hurt her to see Taylor like that.

That thought? It summoned an entire highlight reel. Mornings spent plotting her revenge, her vengeance as Shun listened on. Not in silence. The girl was clever, Taylor would give her that. Poking and prodding, guiding Taylor away from her more self-destructive ideas. Never making it seem like any of it was her, but like Taylor had come to the ideas on her own. But she’d never wanted to see herself managed. Like she was a demented old cat person and Shun her nurse. Oh if only.

Because there were times there. Times where, the Taylor that was, was so deeply in thought, planning, plotting or just distracted. Times that Shun would sit next to her, patiently, silently, inching forward. Until she was so close Taylor’s hand would distractedly go up and pat her on the head.

“Not now Shun.”

Oh, she’d hide it. Lower her head, turn away, as if disappointed. But here, now? She could not just see it but understand. The tendrils that had replaced the subs legs would wiggle, in a happy little dance, as Shun kept looking away. Because she’d had human contact, that wasn’t pain.

And the longer she looked, the more Taylor saw it. Her eyes would linger on Taylor, when she wasn’t looking. Awake, Taylor had thought it a sensible precaution, keeping an eye on someone you didn’t trust. They were partners in crime in the Abyss, after all, plotting theft and rebellion.

Shun didn’t look at her like a business partner, or someone who was a threat. The sub had started out anxious and snarky, but by the end? She wasn’t just friendly, Shun was devoted, like Taylor was her best friend in the whole world. Hiding it all behind a tough girl exterior and bluster. How could Taylor be that blind?

And if she was missing that, what else had she missed or misread? Because the girls around her? Many of them had monstrous features, but Taylor had barely noticed. No, she’d barely cared.

On and on, the dreams carried her. Taylor began to wonder. They were Abyssal. They were monsters. But wasn’t she one too? What was different? Her memories? Would that be enough, if this was the effect on her after a couple of months? How much of it was Taylor and what she was enduring, her missing pieces and diet; how she’d died and came into the world? How much a nudge from her new Passenger?

And if memories were enough? If good, she couldn’t believe she’d call it that, but if a good childhood was all it took? Than what did it mean for every girl around her?

Were they monsters or people? Taylor had seen plenty of people who’d become monsters in her old life. Even if the Abyssal were monsters, could they become people? Early humans had done some really fucked up shit. Early? There was less than two centuries between her own time and rampart slavery.

Really, Taylor didn’t feel great at her odds of trying to figure this out in her own head. She needed something tangible, definite. An anchor to hold on to. That felt right.

Part 4: Breakdown

Taylor woke to the sound of sirens. Her eyes were bleary, yet in the entirety of her new life, Taylor had never felt so good. She was aching, like after a good workout. It was the pain of recovery, or growth and Taylor knew her pains. She’d tasted so many she could qualify as a gourmet chef of pain, both inflicting them and tasting them. Huh. She felt… good. Giddy. A giggle escaped her before her eyes adjusted and she took in the room.

Taylor was laying on a table, her head in the lap of another girl. She looked familiar.

“Wakumi?” she asked.

The sirens were wailing but the room was oddly quiet.

“Yeah, Bertha?” the carrier replied.

Her face was odd. There was an expression on it, but Taylor couldn’t read it.

Wakumi’s eyes were a bit wide, her brows furrowed, uneven, her face a bit scrunched, lips pressed together. Her eyes were a bit watery. Taylor swore she knew it, but it wouldn’t come to her.

“What happened?”

Her Escort let out a wheezy laugh.

“You had an accident. But you’re fine now,” she said, suddenly standing up, like a scolded cat.

Taylor’s head thumped on the table. She slowly peered around. “Why is everyone looking at me?”

Because they were. The room was a mess. Tables were overturned, girls crying or just curled up against the walls. Food all over the floor. Next to their table one of the girls was groaning on the floor, bruised to hell and back, heady bloody. The rest of Taylor’s escorts lingered, leaning on the wall around the fallen girl.

On the other side there was a line of ships, ones her radar identified as multiple Heavy Cruisers, a Battleship, and about a dozens of other girls behind them, most lost to the world or praying. She could see her supervisor. Taylor waved. The repair ship snapped upright in her chair, before audibly swallowing. Carefully, she waved back, but said nothing.

Slowly, wary that something might be wrong and of the whole odd tableau Taylor got off the table. She was a bit dizzy, but she knew her part. She bent down to pick up the scattered bowls and get to cleaning the spilled food when suddenly there were hands everywhere.

Wakumi pulled her back into a chair saying: “You just sit here and rest a bit, ok Bertha. Just. Just relax for a bit.”

Taylor watched warships cleaning the floor while she sat, wondering if she’d fallen through a portal while she was sleeping and was now in some other Midway. Her hand went to her hair in habit and froze.

“Wakumi. Why is there blood in my hair?” The Escort leader gave another indecipherable half smile half grimace, before scratching the back of her head. It was so common a hand motion that Taylor knew she was being sheepish even if her eyes couldn’t see it on the girls face.

“Nami was being a little shit. Don’t worry about that, let’s just get something to eat.”

Well. That shouldn’t have explained anything, and yet in the Abyss, it did. The teeth scattered around the table and the small pool of blood matting Nami’s hair helped, but still. The blood was black. Was Abyssal blood always black?

Taylor did as she was told. She wanted some time to figure out why she felt like she’d swallowed a bunch of fireflies. Airy and light.

***

Taylor was worried. That wasn’t right. Taylor was on the edge of panic. She couldn’t read them. Any of them. Every face was closed to her. Fat too many were glancing her way while they talked amongst themselves. Her own table was hardly better. She could hear the two girls cleaning the floor quietly complaining, but none of their faces made sense. A full bowl landed before her as the serving freighter gave her another of those unreadable smiles.

Her Escort Leader glanced her way.

“Eat up. You’ll need your strength. Sorry about the Bauxite, we can get more when the wards come down. “ the head of the table… dismissed?

She couldn’t tell. Why couldn’t Taylor recognize even tone of voice? Since when did they know about her needing Bauxite? The panic grew. Something about this alienation from the girls around her was terribly, horrifyingly familiar.

Still, that answered some questions, like why Taylor was feeling so well. It also started a flood of others and drove a pillar of ice right down her spine. What the hell had happened? How did they find out? Did someone sell her out?

“Who would even know, the Imps?” Shun did. Shun had.

No, her PTs were on her. The memory of the dream was fading but Taylor remembered more than enough.

“Shun was still dead. But I. I could…try.”

She could feel the tears falling. Trying was hard.

“What happened?” She asked, pleaded.

Taylor couldn’t even recognize the emotion in her own voice and she was putting it there.

The horror was an ocean. She was alone and drowning in it.

***

Everything was fine, everything was fine. Bertha was awake and no one had gone mad. There would be hell to pay, but they were all going to live through this. Wakumi’s eyes kept going to Bertha on her own, checking and rechecking. It was fine. Her eyes were normal. She was eating again. Montana would be back soon and then someone actually qualified would be here. Wakumi wouldn’t be the one responsible when it went to hell.

She wasn’t a Witch. But every ship picked up some tricks, and escorts trended towards evasion and spotting. Wakumi could feel a storm on the horizon. Coming right at her.

In the middle of a bite, Bertha started crying. She swallowed, hiccupping, and asked in a miserable voice:

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened, right girls? Everything is fine. Just fine.”

Alright, so maybe she was panicking a bit. Anyone would panic if they were at risk of being driven mad for eternity. Just because Bertha wasn’t mad yet, didn’t mean she did not had every reason to be. Bless their cruel little hearts, not one of her girls contradicted her.

“No Ma’am.” they chorused.

“Well, except for the bit with you going mad.” a voice piped up from below.

Wakumi was going to smear Nami all over the floor. Did she have no sense?

Nami wasn’t getting up. She sort off… flopped over. Some of the girls may have been a bit enthusiastic. Her face was a broken, blotched mess and it looked like someone had cracked her skull…

Nope, wasn’t her fault. Wakumi did not order that and she was sticking to it. Which did nothing to quell the drums hammering at her chest.

“Mad?” the ship in question cried.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure it’s fine. Why don’t you eat up and we’ll get you to an exam berth after. I’m sure a nice once over by a repair ship would feel good, right? Maybe have a look at that arm?” she desperately deflected.

The girl only started weeping harder. Oh hells, what was Wakumi doing wrong?

Montana finally came back in and headed towards them like a torpedo on an attack run. She met Wakumi’s eyes and the Escort Leader raised signal flags: Uniform, Whiskey.

"You are running into danger."

"I require medical assistance."

Montana slowed her advance as Wakumi got up to meet her half-way.

“I don’t know what to do. I offered to take her to the baths and it only made it worse.”

“Then do nothing. Just make sure she isn’t alone. Your Princess is close. We just need to hold out until then.” Montana informed her, with a worried frown. She smoothed out her face and painted on a gentle smile.

“Bertha dear, let me have a look at you.” Slowly she approached the crying girl, taking a knee.

She took Bertha’s head in her hands and slowly turned her to look into her eyes. The mad had sickly, unnatural colors and ominous shapes, amorphous shapes swimming in their souls. Bertha was a deep, almost black blue, clean and pure. She was also completely lost and miserable.

“That’s a relief.” She concluded.

Montana carefully wiped away her tears, mindful of her tiny finger claws. Tiny, but sharp. The Flagship had a lot of practice being careful.

“Don’t you worry about a thing dear, you aren’t mad. Your Princess is coming. She’ll have a personal look at you after the repair ships have had their turn. They’ll find any hidden issues right quick. Don’t you feel special to have the personal attention of your Princess?”

Contrarily, while this stopped the tears, it girl only spiraled further into the black. Montana winced. Whatever the problem was, it was in deep. “Be a good dear, eat your lunch.” she patted her head. Her Princess would know what to do.

“False alarm everyone. The Battleship Hime will be here soon to sort everything out. Please be patient.” a glace drew up Wakumi.

“Keep an eye on her. I have to take care of the island. Midway is still in her chambers.” The departing battleship threw a glare at her sister, then she was out. Riptide looked pissed.

The storm grew, Wakumi’s bones aching.

The Light Carrier made sure Bertha was settled in, but she had stopped eating again. Murmurs were rising among the other ships.

“Are we stuck here?”

“For how long?”

“What do you mean until she gets here? I need to go!”

“Stupid fat prick.”

“Why is she always acting out?”

“East can’t even get a freighter to behave. Morons.”

On and on. Wakumi was the only one paying enough attention to connect the dots, but she was distracted looking for the coming storm while trying to reassure Bertha it wasn’t her fault and shield her from the crowd. Only one ship at the table noticed a final tear fall. It had an odd shimmer to it. A speck of blue, like the summer skies. Like lightning in a storm.

She kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to end up like Nami.

***

A Princess was coming. Just for her. They already thought she was mad, that something was wrong with her. They were treating her like a bomb. Taylor didn’t know what she’d said while dreaming, but no doubt it was damming if they were sending her to both a repair ship and a Princess. She was going to get found out and then she was doomed. Slowly, the tears stopped. If she was going to face her death, again? At least this time she’d do it as herself. This world wasn’t so bad. This particular part of it was awful, not only overrun by monsters, but monsters who hated her. But the whole world?

Japan was holding on. On its own. The US was still around, there was a European theater. How bad could it be? There was The Enemy. Heroes to the Abyssal Villains. She hadn’t seen one, not up close. But with how much the Abyss was messing with her, Taylor doubted anything her compromised instincts had told her. The world was holding. Had been for years. This was bad, but not Scion bad. Not even Endbringers bad. They’d figure it out, make it through. Earth Bet had. Even if it had cost them nearly everything.

She didn’t have to fight. Hadn’t she fought enough? Sacrificed enough? They’d be fine without her. She didn’t really have a reason to fight here. It wasn’t her fight.

There was a hole where all that hate used to be. She was just passing through. If she stuck around she’d just turn into another monster. It was better this way.

Taylor did have one final wish.

***

“What happened to Shun?” Bertha asked, wiping away snot.

“Who?”

“The Ghost thing. The subs who died?”

Wakami thought about it.

“I don’t actually know. Not my crew. But I guess what usually happens with the Ghost: they disappeared. Signal lost, blood in the water, better luck next time. Umm. I heard it’s quick and mostly painless?”

She tried to soften the blow.

“How did Bertha even meet a sub? Why? What would they even talk about?”

“Don’t worry, she’s with the Abyss now.”

There. That should help. Remind the girl she’ll see her again. If another Princess doesn’t claim her first. Better not say that. Few would dare.

There was a disgusted snort from the next table over. Riptide, Montana’s sister.

“Really? All this over a dead sub? We’ve been quarantined because sweet cheeks couldn’t handle a little death?” she mocked. She wanted more, to break the damn freighters face. Riptide was a battleship, meant to protect her fleet, take the shells so they didn’t have to. Half the escorts in the room were still huddling with their knees up, silent. Waiting until a Princess showed up to tell them the Nightmare was over. She’d stomped all over a girls twist for her, for this, and it was nothing? A false alarm?

Tell that to Susie. Fuck. It was all Bertha’s fault. And the rest of East for fucking up so badly. Riptide wasn’t even allowed to touch the girl under quarantine. It pissed her off something fierce.

“Fuck, I knew you East girls were bad, but this is a new level of failure. I heard you got ripped open a new one. Guess it just goes to show you deserved every single fail, if this is your level of competence. Are you going to cry over every useless ship that got herself sunk, you waste of steel?” she challenged.

“What did you say?” Bertha asked. It was nice. Polite. Perfectly level. Every hair on Wakumi’s body was tingling. She could smell the lightning.

“I said: Any ship that gets sunk deserves it. For being too slow, too stupid and too lazy to do the work that could have saved their lives. I’m saying it’s no loss if trash sinks.” the battleship hammered on.

Because she could, because she was beyond stressed and pissed off by this whole thing. By her failure, by the sickness scare. By her still crying sisters. By messing up Susie. Riptide needed a target to take it out on. This one was both unarmed and thus on the bottom of the heap and actually to blame which just made it all the sweeter when she unloaded on the incompetent civilian.

Seeing her crumple, seeing any light go out of her eyes? It felt great. That bitch was getting exactly what she deserved. Bertha even froze and didn’t move. Like she’d sunk her. With a snort the battleship turned back to her own table. Riptide had damage control to run. Least she could do was take on some of the burden, with the Flag busy.

***

They didn’t even care. Sure the West was pouring out vitriol but her own escorts were no more moved or affected. Like losing them didn’t matter. Plenty more where they came from. Did she not see Midway punching out monsters and girls by the dozen?

Liquid fire poured down her veins as her alarms rang. Their allies gave their lives in common cause, fighting the same damn war, sacrificing everything, and they didn’t even care. They were monsters. They were all monsters. She was doomed? Taylor would spit in their face if it was the last thing she did. It was only fair that if she was a monster, she got to be one, at least once. Whatever happened, there would be less monsters in the world. Taylor had been bowing and scraping, feeling weak for weeks.

For the first time in her new life, she felt ready.

“At least this can end on a high note.”

***

Wakumi wanted to go over and give those cold fuckers a few new holes. She didn’t. The Light Carrier could feel invisible wind whirling around her. When Bertha got up, like she had, dozens of times, heading for the kitchen?

Wakumi’s head slowly retreated beneath her own table. Her arms reached out and pulled the closest two of the little menaces with her. Fleet sense told the rest to follow the Flag out of the line of fire. Bertha walked to the other table, in slow deliberate steps. Her rigging coming into the world, like the ocean rising to swallow the world and Wakumi’s was acutely aware just how big the other ship was. There was a hum around Bertha, an odd sound that wasn’t one, so much as the absence of it.

A bubble of silence affectionately wrapped around her.

Part 5: Bertha

It was odd, how simple her path was, once she was committed. She was just a freighter. Invisible, irrelevant. Give them five minutes and that battleship would forget Taylor existed. For shitting all over Shun’s sacrifice? She’d have front row seats.

***

The blockade ships were still on edge. Montana had said everything was fine, but they still had jittery nerves and twitchy trigger fingers. Seeing her walking over, in her rigging? She was just a freighter, but the Curse wouldn’t care about that. Getting rammed would hurt, but only do so much damage. Every girl in the line of battle that had relaxed now rigged again, just in case the flurry of cannon and steel drawing every eye in the room. They were watching her escorts more than her. That’s where all the weapons were.

Bertha strolled over behind the loudmouth, laying her hand on the back of the chair. The battleship didn’t even look at her.

“You got something to say, flotsam?”

Bertha smiled at everyone at the table, all teeth. The chair’s back legs crunched as her foot shattered them, arm pulling back, the chair flying away to break on the walls. Leaving a battleship in free-fall. Bertha was kind enough to catch her mid-air. Her cranes whirled, the sound of their engines like the hiss of sea serpents as the lines moved like snakes. Viper quick, each line hugged one side of her target’s neck, the hooks cutting pale flesh as they advanced and locked together at the front.

***

“It’s no loss if trash sinks.” she quoted, her eyes watering. Taylor didn’t need her eyes anyway.

{Far Sight – [Panopticon]}

She could see…everything.

***

The hooks were vicious, pointed things, pointed inwards so their bladed tips sunk into the battleships neck and the line was thin and sharp. The battleship fell. Bertha’s cranes pulled. Black blood sprayed all over the floor as Bertha cut her neck to the bone. The other ships were rising, jumping up, but they’d kept their guns pointed the wrong way. Trusting their leader to deal with the closest threat. Clawed hands were up and trying to grasp the lines in her throat as she gasped for air and found only blood.

***

“I’m not weak.” She was surrounded and in enemy waters, but not weak. Not helpless. She wasn’t half-starved and mad with hunger anymore. Taylor had just wanted to live. She knew better now. Survival would only turn her into a monster.

***

Bertha turned, from the hips, her skirts parting, flaring. Her knee struck the back of the head as thunder rang outside, her lines flashing brilliant blue. The battleship slumped to the floor, spraying blood. Her severed head rolled across the lunch room table. The lines? Both snapped outwards in short arcs that sprayed black over everyone at the far side of the table. They were not the true targets. Left, right and from below, completing in the mouths of the girls to her left and right, voices raised in outrage and pain. Digging in to the roofs of their mouth as Bertha went over the table, rolling, pulling.

Left with a choice to follow or have half their faces torn off, they followed, their hands grabbing for the lines, but unable to hold on. They were slick with blood and only cut one’s fingers, though the other was having more success having the teeth of her cannon try and sever it. What she didn’t have, was time. Both of them were half on the table, bent over, when Bertha made it to the other side.

Bertha’s feet found the floor in front of the Heavy Cruiser still reeling from the sudden explosion of violence, Riptide’s sudden death and the blood in her eyes. It wasn’t much, just a single step back as Bertha came over the table, but it gave her room. Room to land. To stand up and plant her feet. The lines went slack for a moment, before she pushed with her whole massive weight. The cables went taut with a snap, before adding two voices to the chorus of screams as the hooks tore their way out, taking most of their front teeth and tearing their noses on the way out.

“That’s Bertha?” someone whispered. Wakumi realized it was her. She could feel the two girls in her arms shaking into her. She was shivering too.

The weight off her back Bertha stepped into the fire. They were point blank but the Cruiser was done with this shit. She unloaded everything she had. Bertha slid, swayed. Knee bent, head back, leaning away just so. The shells landed into the table and the ships behind her, throwing up a curtain of debris and smoke. Not one hit her.

***

“It’s not bugs on guns, but with these sensors the same lesson applies. Dodge the gun, not the bullet,” Taylor felt, as her blood sang. She was not useless. Not a tool to be wielded or hammered into shape. Taylor spat her denial of everything they were right in their teeth. She hoped they choked on it.

***

For an instant her opponent hesitated, seeing Bertha bathed in flames and debris, yet unhurt. Hearing the cries of pain behind her she’d caused by missing.

Bertha didn’t. She came on, boilers in overdrive, dropping low and driving her palm into the cruisers guts so hard it kept going. Both of them crashed into the wall with a thump that broke stone and cracked plating. Breathless the cruiser still tried to block the follow up. Her armored arms came up, deflecting Bertha’s hooks from her face but it left her wide open to an uppercut that made her see stars and bounced her head of the wall again.

Shadows came from the smoke behind Bertha, the same two Cruisers that Bertha had already bled, and they were murderous. They came to tear her apart, through the smoke and half blind with pain and injury. They saw a silhouette standing tall, taller than their missing sister. They lunged. She disappeared like smoke.

Bertha hit the deck, down and sideways, spinning on her heel. Leaving one leg out, hooks flashing. The left cruiser felt fire on the back of her knee an instant before she hit something and tripped. She threw her arms up to catch herself and came out of the smoke to crash into her sister, dazed against the wall. Weakened, cracked plating gave way as her hand buried itself in her sister’s stomach as she looked on in sick horror.

***

The right one? Took a shoulder to the diaphragm to stun and stop her in place, before Taylor repeated her boxer impression. With a twist. Taylor’s palm hit the bottom of her jaw, sending her reeling but she wasn’t done. Her lines came whipping back, from below and around, hooks flashing in threat. The faint flash of steel drew eyes like nothing else. The feint left her wide open to a kick to the stomach that bent her over, unable the breath. Her hand grabbed the back of the cruisers neck and Taylor brought her knee up. The blow caved in her skull.

***

The feint wasn’t itself pointless. The momentum carried. Up and over and behind the mad girl, the other was just standing up. Removing her hand from her sister apology on her lips when the hooks came over the top of her head and buried themselves in her eyes. The explosions, shouting, screams? They were as nothing to the wail that came out of her throat as she was pulled towards her tormentor by her eyes. Bertha was a monster. A Demon.

***

Yet as the smoke cleared the other ships had not been idle. Not overcome by pain and rage they’d formed a [Line of Battle] that to Taylor more looked like a firing squad. That was a lot of gun pointed her way. As the smoke cleared and she reeled in her catch, it became a lot of murderous girls. They’d been only furious before.

***

Bertha wasn’t satisfied with not only humiliating and killing Riptide, but was going after the rest? She was mad, to be put down. Their fears realized, the Curse before them in the flesh. Montana was wrong and the ships made for the thunder of battle would protect their sisters. If there was some small mercy, it was that Bertha’s Escort fleet wasn’t affected. They were cowing like the rest of the Lights.

***

The shells came like rain. There was no dancing through it. Taylor didn’t need to.

She reeled the girl in, hand reaching behind and legs in the proper stance. As the rain fell, Taylor executed a textbook Aikido over the shoulder throw. Her tax dollars in action. That brought a smile to her face. The girl disintegrated in her hand as did the wall behind her. She’d served as an adequate shield. Taylor felt several hot tears in her dress, as if her own flesh had torn, where shells had landed. A few stings in her body as well, but nothing critical. She still had her engines, her cranes. She could still fight.

Still, charging a wall of guns was stupid and there was new cloud-cover to abuse.

***

“Did we get her?”

“Does it feel like we got her, dimwit? Keep your eyes peeled and shoot the moment you spot the fatfuck.”

The Heavies were keeping their calm. Her own had abandoned Wakumi the first time Bertha had dodged shells at point blank range.

“What the hell? What in all the watery hells of the Abyss?”

“She’s smiling, dancing. She’s…” murmured her gaggle of frightened Lights.

“Fighting like a Demon.” Wakumi finished in her own mind.

“A specter of death on the sea. A Demon slaughtering the weak around her.”

Wakumi had seen something like it, fighting beside a Destroyer Princess. The Destroyer would blur, moving like wind. Bertha wasn’t. She had long strides and she was fast, but not magic fast. What she was, was never where the shells were falling. That? That had Spooky Abyssal Bullshit all over it.

Then Bertha burst out of the dust cloud running flat out. Running along the wall towards Wakumi. She flinched away, trying to shield at least the two she could but Bertha had another target. The heavy turrets were turning to track her, she wasn’t that fast. They’d catch her.

As she ran by her hand and hooks lashed out, grabbing Nami and Bertha threw her like a rock right at the Heavies. She’d ruined their firing lines by flanking, distracted the ones up close with her missile and again danced through the fire of the sole ship who had a clear shot. Before turning so hard her feet dug into the floor and she was sprinting for the line, to get under their guns.

***

Taylor wasn’t thinking anymore, just reacting, moving, each step another breath, another small victory. A taste of freedom.

***

The hooks went low. The Heavy Cruiser didn’t care about the damage. She swung, the shark heads on her hands hungry for blood. Bertha took that exchange, hooks digging into legs while the arms went for her. She was taller, wiry, had a longer arm. Her blow landed first, tracking unerringly. Bertha’s hand was a spear, driven by the force of both girls going at each other.

She rammed her hand into the bridge so hard her wrist was scraping against the other girls skull where her eyelid used to be. The cruiser collapsed, the shark teeth scraping against Bertha, but the cuts were shallow. Turned off like a light. For a moment Bertha’s hand was still stuck in her skull.

Montana burst through the door. She’d ran in, summoned by the screams and shelling. The Flagship took the situation in at glance. Turned and fired in a single motion. The full barrage of a Flagship Battleship.

***

Taylor barely had time to raise her stump to shield her face, tucking in behind her shoulder before the pain hit.

***

She could have cut her in half. Gutted her there and then. But that never stopped the Ghost of Kyushu, and if she was struck with the madness? If Montana had missed something? Then containment was the order of the day. Death would just allow her spirit to slip away and she’d claw her way out of the Abyss again somewhere else. So she only put a couple of shells in her body.

Most of the barrage broke both of Bertha’s legs to splinters. Or it damn well should have. Her legs were weeping blood from a dozen wounds but Bertha was still standing. That was another point to the Princess theory. Which would complicate Montana’s life a bit, if she killed her. The Court would worse than just execute her for killing a Princess. Or any of the other ships taking aim.

“Alive! We need her alive.” The Flagship ordered.

The [Command] ripped down the line at the speed of though. Deeper growls emerged from multiple throats, but the guns went down. Then all six remaining Heavy Cruisers charged her.

Bertha took a single step back, but it proved too much. She could stand, but her engines were torched. Her feet wobbled dangerously, so she met the charge in place, head on. Without her footing her blows lacked force, and with six of them the two targeted by her hooks could focus on defense while the other four overran her. There was a flash of petty coats and two Torpedo Imps leaped from their hiding places, right into the face of the charging Heavies.

The resulting explosion shook the whole room. They’d detonated every torpedo on them. Montana leapt into the dust and debris.

There, waiting for her, were four ships, two kills and one very angry, broken thing. The Cruisers were tearing apart Bertha’s cranes, while another two held her down, bleeding from the shrapnel. But the girl was down. Abyss damn it.

Bertha was a hissing, screaming, crying girl, still trying to hurt, to bite. Eyes could be regrown and Heavies were used to cuts and blood. Hells, they could re-summon the losses. It still hurt like a bitch to see her fleet so reduced.

Looking at her leaking eyes, Montana still could find no signs of madness. An ocean of pain and grief, a storm of grim determination, but no madness. Even if Spooky Abyssal Bullshit was in full effect. Bertha’s tears were a clean blue so pure they hurt to look at. Every tear that left her face, fell right through the floor, like it was falling straight to the Abyss to a hum that echoed in Montana’s bones.

And the screeching, Abyss. No words, just an endless tide of sound. Like listening to whale song with a faulty sonar. It hurt.

“So, feel like talking yet?” Montana tried.

“Because we’re going to be here for a while and I can’t understand a word coming out of your mouth.”

She hoped she didn’t have to sit on her to end this racket. The room was wrecked and Montana hadn’t hit with all off her own shots, punching more holes in the building. At least none of them hit another girl.

Slowly, the volume came down. The very fact it could was a sign no one was sick here. The madness could hide, and hide well, but once it blew there was no stopping it. If not that, what the hell happened?

***

Everything hurt. Taylor had no idea how much it would hurt to have her cranes broken. It was worse than losing an arm. She kept trying to move them and they’d twitch, pumping liquid, refined suffering right into her heart. Breaking her cranes had felt like losing the arm all over again. Taylor had grown to depend on them for everything. Sewing, cooking, she only had one arm. The cranes had turned into true extensions of herself. Now they were broken and so was she.

“Talking? What’s there to talk about? Kill me and be done with it. Or are you going to torture me first you crazy Abyssal?” she ground out. Her throat hurt. It was a minor thing in the litany of pain, but the way it made her sound breathless was irritating.

“No one is killing anyone.” Then she seemed to catch herself. The room was a charnel house, filled with terrified and crying girls.

“No one is killing you.”

“Figures. You won’t even let me die. So what’s next, for this unworthy one? Punishment for raising her hands against the beloved masters?” Taylor asked sarcastically. She was beat up, in pain and very tired, but damn her if she wasn’t going to keep pissing the other girl off. Maybe she’ll lose it and end Taylor before the knives come out.

***

Montana blinked. Several times. “What are you talking about? If you are so unhappy, why’d you stay?”

The girl scoffed. “Yeah, right. That’s a really funny joke. Let’s me just waltz on over to the evil cannibal overlord and ask her for a retirement package. She’ll retire me alright, right down her gullet.”

“No, Midway wouldn’t do that. Not for no reason.” Montana argued.

“I’ve lost four fingers learning that she’ll do whatever the fuck she wants to.” The disgust and pain was dripping off that statement.

“Well she has to enforce discipline. The rest is just her twist making everything worse, as they tend to. But if you wanted to leave, why are you still in her fleet?” Montana asked, letting her [Fleet-sense] spread into the girl. No luck, she wasn’t in her fleet.

***

Taylor felt something prodding at her. For all that her condition was miserable, she’d had a significant infusion of Bauxite. It had filled her with power and a sense that the hole, these missing pieces might be filled in and she’d spent most of it on ongoing repairs. It was just a thing that happened, like blood clotting. She could no more stop it, then will herself to stop bleeding.

But as the feeling prodded at her, something did wake up. A part that was damaged and half blind, but that had been fixed somewhat with the infusion of extra Bauxite. Taylor had been born into this world, half dead and with already empty stores. Now, for the first time, her ship senses could perceive the lines linking them together, as the prodding turned the damage control crews to focus on that system first and they found themselves having the materials on hand to actually get to fixing it.

***

Something was odd here. Montana should have been able to get at least something from the sense. But it was broken, busted, only the corrupted name “?a$%$r #=bert” answering. Bert for Bertha, she figured. The damage must have been from before the fighting. The starvation really did a number on her.

There was a burst of static, as the sense flared into being, lines reaching out to fellows among the Pacific East. Strongest links to her Detached Duty Escorts, weaker ones elsewhere. Montana knew Shinigami’s sign, so that would make her Bertha’s direct superior.

Those lines were too thick, as energy pulsed down them. They were turning, the power flowing the wrong way. Theory was one thing, this was as good as proof, as soon as-

***

Taylor felt them. Her fleet. Always there, in the back of her mind. Pushing, prodding and adjusting her, but so garbled she could hardly tell. This thing, this sense was where that damn Flag effect had latched on. This is where those damn pulses to obey the warships and not fight back kept whispering in her mind. No. Not to not fight back, but not to kill them. Taylor had seen no point in just fighting back. They would come back with more, stronger ships and only beat her down harder. But this? This fleet, with her at the bottom? Is that what everyone saw, felt?

No more. Never again. Taylor was her own, no one else’s. She would not live as a slave anymore. Even if it killed her. Taylor’s will crashed into the link, with murderous intent. The already frayed links, weak from the start from never being truly accepted, tore like kindling.

***

-Midway saw this, she’d have no choice but to proclaim her as a Princess. Montana would have liked to do it herself, but this was Midway’s home. Proclaiming another while a guest just wasn’t done. Not unless you were trying to force the owner to surrender, or go to war. It was usurpation of Court Authority, a nasty thing at the best of times.

Bertha was looking at her bonds is horrified wonder, as if seeming them for the first time. There was vicious satisfaction flowing through her that had no cause Montana could see.

At least now, this could be solved. No way would the Court let a proven Princess-

Every bond tore at once as Bertha Exiled herself. Suddenly, she was a fleet of one. Which was suicide. Every ship knew that being alone was death. Even subs needed Anchorages to come back to, or eventually the Hunger would worse than kill them. And everyone knew it, were born knowing that being alone was a fate worse than death.

Tearing at her connections, her soul like that? It should have been agony, for anyone.

Bertha? Her face showed blessed relief. Like she’d tasted the finest vengeance. Like she could finally rest. All the tension went out of her.

That? That was wrong. This wasn’t some tantrum. Or a nasty brawl that had turned deadly. All along Bertha had been trying to break her bonds, trying to get out. She wasn’t acting out, Bertha hadn’t known things that were so basic that everyone was born knowing them. So why would anyone teach them to a new girl? Until Montana pointed them out, Bertha hadn’t known how to even look for it.

That was impossible. Nothing Montana had heard of would make a ship be born, unknowing how to even manage the basics of being a ship. It was unnatural. And it was getting worse.

Bertha was sinking. Montana was shaking. What was wrong with her?

She turned, pinning the repair ship with a look.

“What are you waiting for? Get over here!”

The Ra jumped as through she’d just spotted a fish in the water coming for her. She ran over and slid into the offal around the not-crazy yet crazy girl. After a moment, her face filled with dread and defeat.

“She’s full of holes. I can’t patch them fast enough.” Her head hung. The shit-storm that would ensue when the Court found out they were in the room when a Princess was killed was horrendous. Without a member of the Court present it would engulf everyone here as being blamed for not acting to stop it. Every Light in the room that wasn’t yet, started weeping.

Wakumi was beyond lost. They’d felt it, for an instant. Bertha was a Princess. And the moment the ship they’d sailed so long for had finally reached back to them, it had spurned them. No. Much worse. It hated them. Bertha hated them, without exception. They’d somehow earned the eternal enmity of a Princess. Death would not save them. When everyone burst into tears, hearing a Princess was dying? Wakumi couldn’t even muster up relief. The Court would bury them alive. Every one of her girls was doomed and even if she killed them right now, death would only delay the punishment.

Their corner was silent. What could they do, say? Now? Nothing. They had already doomed themselves. But how were they supposed to know a Princess could rise up so broken, she would not even know herself? It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t. But they’d pay for it anyway.

***

This, this was enough, right? Taylor would die free. She’d saved some remnant of her world, and many more untouched. Whatever the Abyss was, this Earth had no mention of golden light obliterating continents.

She’d killed the bitch that had mocked Shun, and removed several monsters from this world. As her pumps shut down and she started sinking, Taylor figured it was enough. This was a horrible life and she’d rather not have had to live it, but at least some good would come of it. There was no point in struggling anymore. This existence, this thing? Taylor had lived through Brockton Bay after Leviathan. That was a kinder place. This way of life? In endless violence, bickering, fear and misery? It wasn’t worth living. Only to what, become a monster herself? If her death could make it better?

“Good enough” Taylor decided.

***

The wailing, the death visited upon this room. The concentrated sense of confusion, loss and doom. It combined with Royal blood and a charnel house, with a concept and a history and a legend to bring into the world another little piece of the Abyss.

{Boat Graveyard}

Part 6: Princess

Montana watched Bertha sink. Felt the storm rising, but she was no Witch. What did the death of a Princess do to the world? As Bertha sank, she could see the shoals. Montana could see the corpses, dozens of ships sunk by their own crews rising out of the surf. In spite, in vengeance, in search of a better life. Deliberate suicide as a form of war. Now echoing, weaponized.

Her crew was rebelling. Demanding on board libraries and regular lunch breaks. Swimming pools and book clubs and art supplies. They were breaking her from within. One of her turrets blew up as a Nightmare took its hammer fists right to the shells stored in the turret. Montana fell to her knees. Crew tried to seize her engine room, but loyalists fought them off.

Everyone else was worse off. She had her position, her reinforcement and bond as a Flagship. The other girls were not as lucky. They were dying. Being torn apart, blowing up from within. No one was spared. Most of her turrets were still tracking. Montana aimed at the sinking ship and wondered if she’d have to kill a Princess today. She prayed not. With a Flagship as a focal point, the others joined in. The [Abyssal Call] ringing throughout the ether. An alarm, a call, a prayer for aid, from a fleet marooned on hidden shoals and in need of a guide through the shallows.

***

Midway was deep in her Ritual work when the call came in, blaring in her bones. Such was her focus that but a small fraction of her attention noted it, trying to decide if to rouse the rest of her. She felt East respond, using one of her ready Rituals, passing through the Abyss and her Wards to emerge in the lagoon in seconds. She would deal with it. Midway could get back to what really mattered.

***

The Empress was not a happy Princess. She emerged from the pool of Abyssal waters in a fountain that spit her up on land, already running. Having to willingly sink herself unharmed was always unpleasant, but a small price to pay for the strategic mobility. Even with the bites the True Abyss took out of her in tribute for the passing. She could take it. Having to spend such an asset was less than ideal, but she couldn’t delay responding to a chunk of her fleet in this much trouble. That the Perfect Princess was not to be disturbed in her Ritual work was well established.

The Battleship Princess arrived ready for war and found a Graveyard. The hulls of ships broken, sinking, many half sunk, but already doomed. She felt the

{Boat Graveyard}

try and touch her august self and unleashed her own glory in response.

{Hakkō ichiu}*1

The clear sunny sky, the Roof of the World, exploded into the dying Nightmare, lifting the spirits of every ship present, buoying them out of the reach of the depths. One was the aura of a broken, defeated thing, newborn. The other a Princess that was damaged but at the height of her power. It was no contest.

Not all could be saved. Wakumi was hugging two girls. One of which was bleeding and broken from internal explosions, but now arrested mid sinking, clawing for life yet again. She’d survive as long as the Princess’s aura was there to deliver her to the baths. The other had pointed her own cannons at her bridge and fired. She was beyond help. Midway would have to pull her out.

The Empress turned to deliver her judgment. She felt no signs of the clotting, cloying madness in the girl, but that was no reassurance. The Battleship Princess advanced, putting the girl under her guns. The Court could sort her out after she’d enacted her vengeance. No one killed her girls and got away with it. Least of all, a ship that would abandon Her Fleet. How dare she?

Then Montana was between them, bowing deeply.

“Your Glorious Imperial Majesty, I beg a moment of your forbearance.” She considered it.

“You may speak.” The Empress allowed.

“My eternal thanks Your Blessed Imperial Majesty. I believe her acting in ignorance, not malice. I would swear that until a moment ago, she had not even known how to use her own [Fleet-sense].”

“That you would argue for the killer of your sisters shows your honor, but you speak nonsense.” The Empress decried, walking past the bowed ship. It was a simple matter to disprove. Her will probed the disabled, sinking ship as her eyes peered deep into the fallen ships soul. The Empress saw only the deep blue, near black Abyss reflected back in them. No trace of the madness, or of any other fault.

“?a$%$r #=bert” The [Fleet-sense] yielded. The Empress blinked. Most of the letters sounded like screeching cats and so much was missing. Wasn’t this a Uwi-Class? Where was its class designation? Where was the rest of it?

“Is this one not called “Bertha”? she inquired.

“It is my understanding that Shinigami named her such, Your Eternal Imperial Majesty” Montana hinted.

The Battleship Princess pondered that.

“We are most vexed, good servant of our dear friend. Known well to Us is the propensity of our first to take on her own shoulders the burdens of her little sisters. But this wound is beyond her ability to mend. That she would hide this from Us? It is most distressing.“ she admitted.

“It is my belief that the instant she was capable of it, she severed herself from every other ship in the fleet. In all the fleets, Your Fabulous Imperial Majesty .” Montana testified.

The Empress blushed, snapping open her fan to hide her shame.

“Uncouth flatterer. Known well to Us are the wiles of those of the West.” she warned seriously, but her eyes were laughing above the waving fan.

“Very well, The Court will hear of this. The fault will no doubt fall upon Midway as her port of origin to pay recompense. Our own failure is lesser and some was repaid in spilled blood. Debt for debt, through another must by necessity judge the balance of those scales.” she spoke, pinning Montana with her burning eyes.

“Advise your Mistress not to jest in this manner, or I shall be very cross with the both of you. My honor is at stake. Mishandle it at your peril.” she warned in a voice that promised fire and death.

So done, she clapped and by now everyone knew the drill. Those that could, helped up those that couldn’t, or carried them, buoyed by the false health of The Empress. Montana carried Bertha. She’d stopped sinking when her bottom had hit the seafloor between her sandbars, with her bridge still out of the water. She was out cold and her rigging had melted into murk. As Montana carried her, they left a trail of blood seeping from Bertha’s wounds and seawater dripping from her feet.

The instant the last girl was out of the room and the aura with them, the abused building collapsed. The Empress just knew Midway would be petty enough to charge her for a replacement.

*1: Hakkō ichiu-The World Under One Roof

***

Taylor woke to steam. She was still in quite a bit of pain, but at least some of it had faded. It was not a familiar way to awaken. She’d had quite a few. Being yet again naked irritated some part of her, but mostly she was surprised to still be alive. The repair baths were not where she was expecting to wake, if she woke up at all. If she wasn’t mistaken this was the VIP section. Not what the Abyss called it, but the inside of her own mind was her own.

Taylor had stood beyond those doors in her early days, waiting to be called to fetch some minor delight while Shinigami luxuriated in the back. She wasn’t alone here.

“Awake then? Good. The baths are fairly dull without company.”

Taylor turned to look at the speaker. It wasn’t easy. The pool she was in was fairly large, big enough that if she slipped down Taylor could drown. She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to get up again. Shifting her legs made every crack hurt all over so Taylor made the sane decision not to move. Still, she had managed to turn her head.

A towering, pale beauty was in the other working pool, her elbows on the edge and in a similar state of undress. Maybe it was the steam, or her own state, but she didn’t want to deal with this right now, so she turned her eyes away.

“Oh. A Westerner then.” There was a loud clap.

“Towels.”

A girl scurried into the pool room, carrying large, fluffy towels. The woman took hers with a regal air, wrapping them around her with practiced motions. Taylor had to be covered up like an invalid. Which was better than she expected to come out if this, if she was being honest.

The other pool was silent until the girl was out of ear shot. Taylor didn’t really register what she said. While being helped, something had deeply confused her. A part of her was telling her that the girl was a Light Cruiser. Fair enough, that matched her expectations. But the ship part of her was roughed up, full of holes and very tired. Taylor was a mess, yes, but she hadn’t felt this human in weeks, months.

So what Taylor saw wasn’t a Cruiser. Or a warship. Taylor saw a five foot nothing, fourteen, maybe fifteen year old. Eager to please and more than a bit scared she would mess something up, disappoint her elders and suffer for it. Being able to recognize expressions again was nice. Taylor would definitely recommend Abyssal health insurance to her friends. But what really blew her mind was how she had never, not even in her dreams, noticed just how young she looked.

“You must have many question and I’ve quite a few of my own. Shall we trade?” the woman offered in a calm, confident voice. The question piecing the fog.

Taylor tried to reply and had to spend a minute coughing and spitting out blood. How she’d survived with only one lung was not something she wanted to think about right now.

“How old is she?” she asked. The woman gave her a considering look.

“Not one I was expecting. Well done. She is four and seven months, if I don’t miss my guess. Through perhaps we should not count the months she spent in the care of the Abyss. What’s your name Little Sis?” Japanese. They were speaking in Japanese. So not quite all the way dead, eh ship self?

“I understand you are trying for some kind of pretense of civility, so I’ll warn you: Don’t call me that.”

The woman blinked. “Whyever not?”

It was Taylor’s turn to consider the other woman. Repair baths were not so bad a place to be, all things considered.

“Shinigami was quite fond of calling me that. I am not fond of her, or the memories,” Taylor tested the waters.

“Shinigami will be having quite a bad month when I get to her. Her service in battle must be considered, but that will not shield her from this.” she said.

“That would be quite the trick. Wasn’t she a casualty?” Taylor wondered.

“Indeed. That is why her service is to be considered. I suppose I have until Midway’s Ritual to consider her punishment. What is your name?” the woman asked.

“How is a ritual going to change anything? You planning to talk to her ghost?” Taylor asked. She was met with silence and a raised eyebrow.

“Am I not Bertha?” Taylor challenged.

“My dear, we both know you are nothing like a Bertha. For all you’ve drawn a following for your more motherly skills.” she answered with a short smile.

“It’s Taylor” she grumbled. This was among the softest interrogations she’d ever had. The tilted head prompted her to expand on it. “Taylor Hebert. Not Herbert. Hebert.”

“And I am The Empress. Mandatory The.” The woman was being dead serious.

“Since you are a peer, I suppose a simple Majesty will do in public. But our adoring subjects are away and so we can dispense with formality. You may call me Konoe.”

“My question?” Taylor insisted.

“Well, it’s simple really. Midway is going to raise those lost. Re-summon them from the Abyss. We’ve done it plenty of times.”

She now had Taylor’s full and undivided attention.

“You can do that? Just raise the dead. All of them?” Taylor hoped.

“All she can. There’s a degree of bargaining to it, but with the supplies you delivered there should be no problems. It’s Midway.” Konoe finished, smooth, unruffled confidence oozing out of her.

Some part of Taylor suddenly relaxed. With the hope had come fire. She’d already suspected with how this whole life had gone that some manner of human sacrifice would be needed for it.

“She won’t need some live sacrifices for that neat trick, will she?” Taylor asked, trying not to show how rattled this conversation was making her.

“That’s two questions, but I’ll be gracious. No, for all that they call us Sea Witches in those horrid papers, that’s just silly. What would we even do with human blood? It sticks to everything and is useless as an agent. Just spoils the broth.” The Empress shook her head.

“No silly, she’ll be using her own blood. To better connect to the Abyss. Now I’ve been rather patient, but I really must ask: What do you remember?” Taylor flinched. There it was. She did not need to fake the grimace her scattered recollections of the End, or the first memories of her new life brought.

“So bad? I supposed we all have our secrets. Another question then.”

What? Was she just going to let it go like that?

There was that head tilt again. Her eyes were ramping up, going from warm and red, like a fire pit, to an open furnace. “Taylor. If a Princess tells or shows you that she does not wish to discuss her life Before, you will not insist on it. Am I clear young lady?”

She nodded. It hurt to move, but her tongue had dried out just from being near that flame. The room was a lot steamier. “We’re few enough already, without killing each other,” she admitted glumly.

Clap!

“More water.” she commanded.

***

The conversation that followed was halting, but very informative. Unwritten rules, customs, the basics of magic, skills. Taylor didn’t like the information, but had no idea why the woman would have lied about any of it. Well, no, she had many ideas, but none that stood up to scrutiny. Most deceptions fell apart when it looked like Taylor was going to be allowed to walk out of here under her own power to go see for herself.

It was hard to accept, but made a disturbing amount of sense. Not with her waking life, but the dreams? A disturbing amount of sense. Most of it.

“Explain that to me again. Because that sounds crazy.” Taylor insisted. Because it was crazy. Literally.

“We all have a twist. A place in our soul where we were broken, where the Abyss seeped in. You are not spared this. A twist can be little, or twist a girl entire. It depends on the girl. But perhaps familiar examples would help. Knowing what you know, can you guess what twists ail Shinigami? Or Sapphire?”

Taylor thought about it, combing her memories.

“She’s a Big Sister.” she guessed.

“You say the words, but have you understood them?” The Empress challenged.

“There is no may, or can, will? She is a Big Sister. A Good Big Sister. Every subordinate she has is her Little Sister. Disturb that fantasy and Shinigami becomes violent. Stay within it, and she is among our better Division leaders. ” Taylor was not convinced.

“I can see that disbelief. She is kind, affectionate and caring for her Little Sisters. She would face hell for them and Shinigami has died in their defense. She fights all the harder for each one and demands excellence and immediate obedience for hesitation can kill in battle. But stray from that safe island of fantasy and you will earn her unending enmity until you fit into her world. Most don’t get that far. Her girls guard her heart, as she guards them in battle. Most ships transferred under her command are swiftly taught to fit in by her subordinates. You, I hear, were a lot more stubborn.” she asserted with a smile that swiftly curdled at the expression on Taylor’s face.

“You could say that. It’s understating things significantly, but let’s go with that.” Taylor tried to control it, she did. But she was empathically, viscerally unhappy with those two in particular. Which might be why their twists were the ones being expanded on here.

“They can’t help themselves. None of them can. They can no more fly then resist their twists. It’s what separates Us from them.” She finished quietly.

“So what? If I’d only gone along with the crazy chick, everything would have been all sunshine and rainbows? That was the plan?” Taylor asked in disbelief.

“I’ll have you know most young Abyssal need some structure in their lives. They were available, reliable and safe enough. Yes, if only you could accept the fantasy, this all could have been avoided. I felt you would, which is why I approved the posting. So some of that is on me as well.”

Taylor allowed herself to glare at her. She was done with pretending. It hadn’t worked out well. Maybe this would end better. Certainly it couldn’t go worse. This mess was a pretty high bar to beat.

“I thought you were a freighter. They’re practically spineless, the lot of them. It wasn’t my responsibility to Announce you. It still isn’t,” Konoe said, rolling her eyes.

“Obviously if I’d known, things would have been different. Poor Shinigami must have been so confused that she couldn’t break a freighter. She was doomed to failure from the start. We don’t break.” She lamented, shaking her head.

“I’d appreciate it if you did not speak of them abusing me like you were pitying them.” Taylor objected.

“It is pitiful. From the moment I placed you with them, your conflict was unavoidable and none of us knew it. You were her subordinate. Shinigami could not, not would not, but could not stop trying to make you one of her Little Sisters. She sent Sapphire after you. That must have been unpleasant.” Konoe sympathized.

“But it’s also a sign of how close she was to breaking. She’d failed at making you a Good Little Sister and only her faith in a trusted, competent Second kept her going. That Sapphire would make it work. That she wouldn’t lose you. Because Shinigami had already taken you into her family.” the Princess claimed.

“Oh she’d pretend not to care. Everyone knew. Every week the Divison would gather together and hear from Sapphire about your trips. Wakumi kept her current. Shinigami was so happy to learn you were thriving. Sad that it was something about her that was messing with your twist, but so happy to hear you were better. She sent letters for you to Wakumi, to give to you when you were ready. Forbidden anyone from coming to visit you, from pushing too soon, to avoid a relapse. Or did you think none of them seeing you after your Detached Duty began was an accident?” The Empress asked.

“None of that makes any sense.” Taylor complained.

“It usually doesn’t.” The Empress sadly agreed. “But they were happy, so does it matter?” she asked.

“And what about miss “Cram a pacifier in my face?” Sapphire?” Taylor bitterly asked.

It was still humiliating to remember and Taylor couldn’t quite believe she’d asked that. There was something about the Princess that made her human. Approachable.

“Sapphire can’t fail. Not an order from a superior. Order her to charge Japan alone and she’ll die trying. Sapphire will do her utmost to meet her duties. Every time. That’s her twist. There’s a reason why she’s in charge of the Divisions supplies and logistics. But she should never be trusted with a girl’s heart,” The Empress said despondently.

“She’ll follow orders, to the letter, rigid and unbending and care nothing for her past masters or the feeling of her current subject. Sapphire is a competent professional and she’ll do what she thinks needs doing to complete her mission and do it well. Or kill herself trying.” Konoe explained.

“In many ways, she’s better off.”

Taylor have her a disbelieving look.

“Oh yes. She has enough of a handle on her twist it does not leave her open to despair nearly as often. She understands that sometimes the world is unfair and the job impossible from the start. Or that success may not be entirely up to her. She can accept that, which is fairly impressive twist management.” she praised.

“I’d inquired about your fate when she gave up on you. Sapphire said she’d done her part. Done things that should have broken any freighter. Clearly, you were the defective one and it was time to try something new. Sapphire was more right then perhaps she realized. You make for a terrible freighter. With a fire like that?” She looked at Taylor with piercing eyes.

“It makes me wonder. What have you been up to?” The Empress asked.

“Nothing.” Taylor said, feeling a flush on her cheeks. The Black Market was hers and she wasn’t giving it up.

What was with this woman? Why did Taylor feel like she should be respectful? It wasn’t the ship stuff, she’d pulled that out and it was mostly asleep anyway. It was the air around her, her bearing, how she smiled, calm and considered. It was striking and Taylor was less and less alright with effect it had on her.

“Keep your secrets. I’ll find out anyway. It’s more fun to figure it out for myself. Too many are all too happy to bend to my every whim.” she complained. That seemed like a problem Taylor might like having… what the hell was she thinking?

This conversation was breaking her mind in weird ways. Taylor peered at the elegant, confident woman. “I lost track, didn’t I. How old are you?” she asked.

“What a rude question. If you must know I’m six and a half,” she admitted.

Seeing the disbelief on Taylor’s face, The Empress flushed.

“And fourteen days. I’m not an old maid,” she protested.

Taylor decided that until she saw differently for herself, she needed to keep an open mind to survive this madness. Or she might just find herself one of the patients.

***

They talked for hours. By the end? Taylor wasn’t at all sure what to believe anymore. She was still rather unconvinced on the whole Magic Rituals and Resurrection thing. But it wasn’t hard to agree to wait and see. It was only a couple of days.

Two things from the rest of that conversation stood out.

Abyssal ship girls, the woman calling herself The Empress had said, all have a twist. A place in their soul where they were broken, where the Abyss had seeped in. Where it was still linked to them. This connection pulled them to it when they died and Princesses could pay the Abyss, bargain with it to have the girls back.

She’d framed it in almost religious terms. No, she’d not kid herself. They were religious terms for the Abyss. Like one of the Ten Commandments for a zealot.

“We feed the Abyss, and it feeds us.”

The echo, the resonance in that thing had rang Taylor’s skull even in her diminished state.

***

The second was more personally concerning.

“If this is how every girl in the Abyss is, if any of this is true, then how are you still standing? How do you wage war on entire nations and do what the Abyss has done? Conquer cities, contest the rule of an ocean?”

“Don’t let Midway hear you say that. She fancies herself Queen of The Pacific Ocean. It’s a work in progress.” Konoe shrugged.

“And how?” she asked.

“We make it work Taylor Hebert. When their twists drive them to despair, we are there to lift them up. We care for and guide them, quell their ills and fend off their fears. We pick them up when they fail and clean up after them when it goes badly.” The Empress said, looking at Taylor. Taylor did not appreciate the implications.

“We tend to their wounds, of body and heart. Should the day come that they sink to the Abyss, we wade into its depths to pull them out again. We are their lighthouses in the storm, guiding them away from dangerous waters, the reason why they don’t fall to madness and the hope of a better tomorrow. Of grudges avenged and twists managed.” she finished quietly.

“That is what it means to be a Princess Taylor Hebert. That is our privilege, our duty. Our burden.” It was like The Empress was confiding in her. But it was the “our” that really bothered Taylor. Because it sounded like The Empress was including her in it.

And that? That was crazy.

Part 7: Taylor (I Promise You)

Taylor didn’t stick around in the baths. For one, The Empress might have had a nice clock telling her how long she needed to stay, but all Taylor had was a bunch of gibberish. Came with never having a full exam, apparently.

For another, Taylor liked feeling human again. Sure, she felt like she’d pulled several muscles and everything ached. She needed a cane to walk. But that was a cheap price for having a clear head and keeping her ship self mostly quiet.

So as soon as she could, Taylor got out of there. Too much information, The Empress was trying to stuff an entire world view down her throat. Taylor had tired of it, at least for the time being. She was mobile again.

Someone had arranged for a demure one piece swimsuit to be waiting for her. It was a nice deep blue. Taylor didn’t even have to be careful not to tear it with an errant twitch. Rather, she struggled to put it on, but she managed. The helpful hands were firmly rebuffed. Taylor was injured, not an invalid. She tried not to look too closely. Their eyes made her uncomfortable. There was a weight of expectation behind them. Like Taylor owed them to be something she wasn’t. Luckily, none of them approached her as she hobbled out of the baths.

Wakumi was sitting on the ground outside, leaning against the wall. The carrier looked eighteen, nineteen. A recently enrolled college freshman, maybe. She bobbed up to her feet and gave Taylor a happy little smile.

“All done Miss?” Wakumi asked.

Now Taylor wasn’t great with people. They tended to be uncomfortable around bugs. Wakumi? Her eyes were dark, down. Not at all in matching with her smile or voice. The Miss was new.

“Miss? What happened to Bertha?” she asked absentmindedly, trying to reorient herself.

“Huh. The lunch room’s collapsed. That was a bit more collateral damage then I was expecting.” Taylor thought.

Wakumi’s smile only grew a bit, stiffening.

“I wouldn’t hope to presume, Miss,” she answered.

Her eyes were fixed somewhere around Taylor’s bellybutton. After weeks spent being glared at, this change; this shift? It was eerie from her Escort Leader. Taylor shook her head, she needed some time off. She figured Wakumi would have been more pissed off at her for using one of the girls as a missile.

“Then don’t,” Taylor tried out.

There was nothing. No pushback, no “just a freighter jokes”. No beating. Wakumi was pretending to be as meek as a newborn kitten and Taylor personally knew better. Which only raised her unease. It was one thing to be told the Abyss was crazy. This was something else.

“I’m leaving,” Taylor said, because it felt awkward not to as she started hobbling to her place. She heard footsteps following her.

“Still escorting me Wakumi?” She probed.

“Apologies, Miss. This one was ordered to ensure there are no more accidents.”

That? That had grated on her from the beginning. The way they were supposed to lower themselves before their betters. Part of her told her it was culture clash. Japanese politeness clashing with American… Individualism, pride. Something. They were speaking Japanese but Taylor was from Brockton Bay.

It grated on Taylor to speak that way and it still grated on her to be spoken to like this. She knew the translation wasn’t perfect, that nuance and meaning were lost but she thought in English. Even translating everything in her head, something was lost.

Taylor walked on, unsure what to do about it. She was pretty sure just asking her to call her Taylor would not end well. She could see one angle to try.

“Accidents? I suppose that’s one way to put it. Wakumi?”

“Yes, Miss?”

“I’m an American Wakumi. We don’t stand much on ceremony,” Taylor tried.

The carrier nodded, head bobbing. “I shall keep that in mind, Miss.”

Taylor headed out to her little spot out in the shallows, Wakumi following. Weather to spy on her or as her attendant, Taylor wasn’t sure. Could be both. She kind off didn’t want to know. Both were bad in their own way.

Taylor needed some time, space. Some peace of mind to think things through.

***

The tree was waiting for her. It wasn’t alone. Scratch and Itchy leapt up upon seeing her. They came at her like a freight train, yet ground to half once they got near, the spray soaking her. Taylor was used to it.

“Hi girls. Missed me?”

Scratch gave her a massive lick that took her off her feet. That had Itchy snapping at Scratch and mewling. How a giant shark monster could mewl was something Taylor was not going to waste time figuring out.

“I’m fine. I’m fine you big lugs. Just a bit banged up,” Taylor reassured them. Didn’t work much, but she was quickly situated in her spot, scratching Itchy just the way she liked it. Wakumi looked sick, watching play with her pets. Taylor couldn’t relax.

“What?” Taylor asked. The young woman flinched, as if she’d been slapped.

“You kept them,” she said, keeping her eyes on the floor. “Miss.”

Taylor shook her head. “It’s more of a lease. I’ve yet to see their owner show her face.”

Wakumi choked. “They’re Midways, Miss.”

That? That was just par for the course for this whole thing. Figures the pets Taylor made would belong to her host. Serves Midway right for letting them manage on their own. That seemed to remove whatever bug was bothering Wakumi, so Taylor relaxed, closing her eyes. As much as she could with an interloper around watching her. It wasn’t that bad.

***

“Miss?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Yes Wakumi?” the Miss allowed.

“Aren’t you going home, Miss?” Wakumi questioned. They were awfully exposed out here. She opened one eye to glance back.

“I am home,” She answered. After a moment the other eye opened: “Where did you think I slept?”

There was a ball of anxiety, fear and misery sitting in her gut. Wakumi could do nothing about it, so she tried not to think about it. Another rock just felt down her throat and landed on the pile.

“In your room Miss,” she said, trying to stay positive.

The Miss didn’t look mad, but that only meant Her revenge would be creative. Wakumi hoped the girls who died in the lunch room were spared further punishment. It was a forlorn hope, but she hoped anyway. Miss was kind to Her pets. Maybe She’d be kind and only kill them for their sins.

“What room?” Miss snapped.

Wakumi felt her crew tremble. For a moment she was back there, helpless. Being torn apart from within because she’d been judged sinful by a higher power, a bad girl who deserved to suffer.

“What room, Wakumi.” Miss repeated, softer, kinder, as if She could even care about Wakumi.

After they’d beaten Her. Wakumi felt sick, but didn’t let it show. She had to be strong. Couldn’t keep failing her duty. They’d retire her. If Miss didn’t do worse first.

***

The beach house didn’t look like much. Taylor had expected more Abyssal stone but no. It was just a regular two story beach house. Raised on stilts, with an attached boat room that hugged the ocean. It looked like something the Abyss had taken, rather than built. How they’d maintained it was a question for later. It was there. The doors were unlocked.

There was a large, open living room, stairs leading up and a small kitchen on the side. The hallway past the stairs lead to the bathroom and a couple of individual rooms. Doors opened on the top floor and a voice called out: “Amelie? Sachi? Is that you?” It was followed by footsteps.

“It’s just Bertha.” Taylor said.

“Who?” the voice asked, as a girl came down the stairs. She was maybe fifteen, wearing a black two piece made of a sleeveless cut-off tee that left a bit of her stomach open, with a swimming shorts bottom. A white, bony helmet was casually held under one arm. Taylor hadn’t seen that Class before, not close enough to recognize in this condition.

“Bertha. I live here,” she said, finishing silently “Apparently.”

“You’re the girl who’s never around, aren’t cha?” She asked, peering around Taylor. Wakumi wasn’t what she was looking for, as she shoot her head and yelled upstairs:

“It’s not a mission!”

She peered at Taylor, before shrugging. “Look, I know you’re never here, but you need to do your part or give up the room. This place needs at least some maintenance and it isn’t fair to Sachi you’re letting her do your part. Later. See ya Wakumi,” she waved lazily as the teen dismissed them and went back upstairs.

Taylor watched her go and didn’t have to look back to sense Wakumi cringing behind her.

“Bit abrupt for a fist meeting, don’t you think?” Taylor joked.

“Yes, Miss. As you say, Miss.” Taylor was getting really sick of hearing that Miss. It was also informative in that knowledge of what happened in the lunch room was not being shouted to everyone.

She went looking for this room.

“Who’s this Sachi?” Taylor asked.

“No one important, Miss.” Wow. Was that backbone? From the new, meek Wakumi? Taylor sent a questioning look her way.

“She’s special Miss.” was all Wakumi said.

They got to the end of the hall and were faced with opposing doors. One was closed and had a paper that said “Bertha” hung on a nail next to it. It had been torn down and cut up, then put back together with sticky tape before being re-hung. The door across was open, but Taylor had bigger fish to fry.

The door wasn’t locked. Taylor walked into… a room. It was sparse: a bed, dresser, closet and a small fold out desk with a backless chair. There were stairs leading down into the boat room. By the grease on the floor it looked like this used to be a tool shed, or something similar for the boathouse below, but they’d turned it into a room. Her hand picked up a faint layer of dust on the table. So not something thrown together after her accident.

A couple of nick-knacks were stacked on the dresser. A hair brush, a small mirror, a drawing of her in her rigging, some pots and utensils. The kind of minor luxuries she’d traded in; stacked like moving in gifts.

Wakumi was fidgeting, deeply uncomfortable.

“Some of the girls took theirs back, when you refused them. Uh. When you just left them there. Ah.” she was stumbling on her words.

“When I never came, or said anything,” Taylor finished, softly.

“Why the boathouse?” she asked, descending into it. It was empty, no boat, stripped of most everything. A few scattered tools still hung on the walls, and two steel tables were pinned to the floor and wall with scratch marks around them. Someone deciding they weren’t worth the effort of prying lose.

Wakumi swallowed. It was loud in the quiet.

“Big Sis Shinigami noticed you liked sleeping with your toes in the water. So she traded for a room that had access.”

Her hand pointed to a corner where the ramp lowered into the sea. There were several thick blankets and a pillow stacked up against the wall there.

“We’d made a little nest for you, Miss. So you could sleep well. I guess Sachi must have folded it up at some point. Miss, did Sapphire never tell you?” she asked, fretfully.

“How long Wakumi?” Taylor asked, feeling something burning within her. Anger yes, oh she was angry. But it was more. Disappointment with a pinch of regret. Because even seeing it, Taylor still couldn’t understand, but she was starting to.

Wakumi folded in on herself like a wet rag. Her voice was a whisper: “After your maiden voyage, Miss. You were part of the fleet then.”

After Acapulco. Weeks ago. How? How did any of that make sense? How could anyone fuck up that badly?

Taylor froze. The incident was after Acapulco. Did Sapphire plan to tell her when Taylor broke, but just not care anymore after Taylor wasn’t her job? And what, everyone else just assumed? What kind of blind incompetence would do that? Were they…all…twelve…

Her nostrils were flaring and her fist was shaking. And a girl was crying behind her. Wakumi was trying to keep it quiet and when Taylor turned she kept her eyes on the floor.

“I’m sorry Miss. I think it might be raining.” Wakumi said in a calm voice, even as her chest shook and she silently cried. It took Taylor a moment to connect the crazy dots. She was apologizing because Wakumi thought her tears were distracting Taylor. That she was crying too loud, or that it wasn’t allowed. And the Carrier was looking for an out, letting Taylor excuse her by blaming the whole thing on imaginary rain.

It was disgusting, wrong. More than anything else since she’d woken up, watching Wakumi apologize for disturbing Taylor with her tears lit a fire in her heart, all the way down to her soul. Because, here, now? After everything?

The idea that Taylor’s life was priceless and Wakumi’s worthless sickened her to her core.

***

She was fucking this up badly. Wakumi knew that the first rule of Midway’s fleets was that they always kept their composure, never showed they were hurt or scared. Midway didn’t like it.

“You are a ship in the fleets of the Perfect Princess. Act like it.”

But Wakumi was failing so hard right now. A gentle but firm hand grabbed her jaw and made her look the Miss in the eyes. There were blue, painfully blue and shining like living lightning.

“We all have our twists,” the Miss said, the words drawing every bit of attention Wakumi could spare.

“I do not like it when girls lie to me Wakumi. In word, in deed, or by heart. Be honest Wakumi,” the Miss finished softly, wiping away her tears. All of Wakumi’s fears came pouring out, a deluge of ugly fates worse than death. Things she’d heard about. Some she’d seen. The Miss just stayed there, listening to her, calm and composed.

Wakumi was terrified of what came next. What would her punishment be?

The Miss rapped her knuckles against her forehead, making her flinch. Slowly she opened her eyes, to see the Miss walking back up to her room.

“There you go. Revenge done,” She claimed.

Wakumi swallowed. It was never that easy.

“Oh and Wakumi?” She added.

“You will be available to answer any questions I might have, won’t you? It seems I’ve been making some stupid assumptions on any number of things. I need a local guide. Will you help me, Wakumi?”

Wakumi was nodding and bowing so fast her back and neck hurt.

“Yes Miss. Thank you Miss. You’re very kind Miss.”

Being the personal helper of a Princess wasn’t so bad, right? Long hours, odd jobs and little chance to rest trying to keep up with a Princess. Of course the Miss could still use the job itself as a punishment and Wakumi had no idea how long she’d serve until the Miss felt the debt paid. But it was light. So light, it could have been so much worse.

Grateful and deeply relived, Wakumi scampered after her new boss. It wasn’t formal in the fleet, but what a Miss wanted She would get. No one was going to raise a fuss over a mere Light Carrier. This was Midway, not one of the lesser Holdings. She’d need to find someone to take care of her girls.

***

Taylor came out of her door wanting to strangle The Empress. And Midway. The room across the hall was occupied. A Light Cruiser teen yelped, dropping her bag, while a woman fully grown stepped between them.

“Yes?” she asked, blocking the door.

Taylor blinked, wondering what messed up shit was going to hit her next. It just seemed like a day for it. Meet the Abyss, everyone and everything is fucked. She could almost feel it coming. She stepped into the hallway leaving whatever was going on there and was nearly to the door when a young voice called out:

“Wait. Wait! You’re Bertha, aren’t you?”

A little head was peering past the scowling woman into the hallway and looking at her.

“Hi, I’m Sachi! I’ve been trying to meet you.” Her expression fell.

“Not that you’ve been avoiding me! Or that I’m trying to stalk you! I just really, really wanted to welcome you to the fleet!” Sachi sputtered. She ducked back into her room.

“Just a moment!” was heard, before she was slipping pass the irritated woman. Who was also worried that Taylor could explode and trying to hide it, if Taylor didn’t miss her guess. Or plotting how to kill Taylor, either one.

Then Sachi was in front of her with a drawing. It was Taylor, in the fullness of her rigging, running over the open ocean. It was done in crayons, but looked like the work of a professional worthy of the old animated children’s films. Her dress was drawn in the same style as Snow White. Taylor was smiling as the rain fell around her, a pot boiling on one side, while on the other her arm and cranes sewed a glittering dress.

“Do you like it?” The little girl asked, with wide, innocent eyes.

Taylor didn’t have the heart to tell her no. She ended up dragged to Sachi’s room. The woman hovered somewhere between an angry thunder cloud and a concerned mother. Sachi called her Lie-chan. Wakumi had joined Lie-chan at the door, giving Taylor some space, but ready to respond.

Sachi’s room was the gallery of an artist. Dozens of drawings and sketches were hung on the walls, mostly of girls in their rigging, serious and fighting some distant enemy. But every now and again, there was a spot of color, like her own. They were spread out, almost deliberately, so that every dark corner had a little bright spot. They started off childish and worked their way up the walls, increasing in quality until they were indistinguishable in quality from cartoons Taylor saw as a kid.

Sachi liked talking. Sachi talked a lot. There was only so much Taylor could take.

“Sachi, you’ve talked her ear off. Why don’t you ask her?” Sachi’s friend interrupted. She sounded vaguely European.

Sachi hid behind her bangs.

“I don’t want to impose. I’m sure she’s busy, Lie-chan.” The Light Cruiser demurred.

Taylor tried to be patient. Whatever it was, maybe she could leave afterwards.

Sachi fidgeted, before jumping out of her chair and scurrying over to the dropped bag. She pulled a box out of it, before looking around.

“No peeking,” she admonished. A minute later Taylor was face to face with Mr Mushi, a well-worn and cared for plushy rabbit. It had a few small tears and a couple of uneven fixes. It was missing an ear. Sachi was holding the severed ear in her shaking hands like it was her most precious possession on this Earth.

“Can you fix him Berth? Please?” This, at least, was something she could fix. Then she remembered they broke her cranes. Bracing for the pain, she tried to bring up her rigging. It stung, quite a bit. But she didn’t feel like she was about to collapse. There was no way she was walking anywhere in this, but Taylor could sew. The machinery ached to operate, but with a little girls dreams in her hand, it wasn’t hard to find the will to push through.

Slowly she worked, careful not to further weaken it. While Taylor sewed, Sachi’s hands drifted to her crayons.

***

“Good as new,” Taylor announced. It had been more than a bit tricky, working with plush, but she managed.

Sachi let out a happy shriek and grabbed Mr Mushi, dancing with him. She wouldn’t let Taylor leave without paying her back. “The Cat in the Hat” made an appearance.

“I like the cat. He’s silly.” Sachi giggled.

Amelie, as it had come out the woman was called, gave Sachi a disappointed look.

“You know not everyone has your kind of time Sachi.” she chided.

“I know.” Sachi guiltily replied.

“But it has pretty pictures and when Bertha comes back, she can come over and I’ll read it to her.” Sachi replied with triumph.

Taylor’s eyebrows climbed for the sky.

“I’m not illiterate. Why would you think that?” she asked, bemused.

And the room was silent.

“That’s wonderful! Can you teach me?” Sachi exploded.

“I’ve been learning on my own, but kanji and kana are hard, and spelling makes no sense.” Sachi pouted.

Spelling was weird and huh, Taylor did know kanji and kana.

But these were minor matters next to the implications ringing down her mind. The girls couldn’t read. Or write. Guessing how Sachi was weird, even for an Abyssal and the fact even Amelie couldn’t it meant most Abyssal girls couldn’t. Because no one had taught them. Because there was no one to teach them. They were fighting a war for survival in which literacy was optional. The Empress knew if she was reading papers, but she was a Princess. It took schools, teachers, civilization to give everyone a chance to learn reading.

Taylor had no idea how the Princesses were even leading and waging that war with girls that couldn’t read orders.

Taylor was still wrestling with the discovery when her voice said:

”Yes, Sachi. I’ll teach you if there’s time.”

Well. Now she should at least read the “The Cat in the Hat”.

Taylor sat on the bed, Sachi burrowing into her side. She was warm and soft. When was the last time Taylor felt a touch that wasn’t to hurt her?

“The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Sejuss.” Sachi recited, happy as a clam.

“It’s The Cat in the Hat by Doctor Seuss.” Taylor corrected.

“The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in a house

All that cold, cold, wet day.”

Taylor read on.

***

It started with the Light Cruisers on the floor above. They were drawn by the rhythmic words, echoing through the thin walls.

“A lot of good tricks.

I will show them to you.

Your mother

Will not mind at all if I do.”

They hovered outside the door, but somehow were noticed. Wakumi explained the situation and they were allowed to listen in, if they were quiet. They called their friends. Their friends called their friends.

“Sachi got a Young Miss to teach her to read.” the rumors said.

“If it’s Sachi, it can’t be helped.” those who heard would answer.

“Everyone is welcome to listen in. She’s having lessons right now.” it would go.

On they came, until they couldn’t fit in the house. Until the entire party had moved out to the beach. There was only one rule. No violence. Everyone is welcome, no exceptions.

Submarines gathered in the shallows and girls on patrol listened in over radio. While most weren’t readers, there were plenty who were, if not great ones. But reading was a favor to be traded, like any other luxury in the Abyss. Not something to be freely given out, to everyone who could attend.

When the Miss read the book the third time, hey sparkling blue eyes pinned several girls in the front row.

“I see how you’re looking at the book. If you so much as touch it, I’ll deal with you myself. It is Sachi’s and will remain so. Are we clear?” she’d commanded.

Most were unsure of the gravity of the threat. A few girls who survived the touch of the Graveyard leaked so much terror into the fleet the rest quickly lost all desire to try their luck.

Midway would only take pieces out of you as punishment. Some things were worth that. No one wanted to have anything to do with things that made Heavy Cruisers vomit in public at the thought of it.

That promise? That warning? It opened the flood gates.

Girls ran for their homes as the cooks brought out tables and chairs to the beach. The fleet was there, The Miss was there, so the meal came to them. Those who left returned with their own books. Hoping for the same protection and to hear their book read by a Young Miss. It just wasn’t the same when you were reading by yourself, or paying for the privilege.

The Miss had a way with reading, as if every word mattered. She breathed life into the stories. And she was a Young Miss. Sitting there, spending time with them, on them. That was precious, even if there was a crowd.

Montana came forward last. Her book was well worn. The page earmarked and a bit smudged.

“Thank you.” she said.

The Miss raised her voice to read to everyone and everyone joined in, happy to be here. To be alive. This one? This one they knew. A choir answered her voice, a choir of damned monsters, a choir of doomed girls.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are!

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.”

The Miss was crying. Her tears were a brilliant blue.

“When the blazing sun is gone,

When the nothing shines upon,

Then you show your little light,

Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.”

Her tears fell, and reversed. A hum, an echo, vibrating in the air, sending each brilliant blue drop falling upwards, into the night sky. Like stars.

“Then the trav’ller in the dark,

Thanks you for your tiny spark,

He could not see which way to go,

If you did not twinkle so.”

Slowly, the voices went out, one by one. No one knew why the Miss was crying. But everyone could feel the pain breaking her heart. Each drop hit the sky and turned to silent, blinding blue lightning.

“In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often thro’ my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye,

Till the sun is in the sky.”

A single voice followed her into the final verse, Sachi singing her heart out, oblivious to the world. The fleet looked at the Miss and in her eyes saw their own reflection. Like a five year old child that had just taken her bunny to pieces and was proudly presenting the bloody remains to her mother. Unaware, unknowing of what was wrong. But suddenly sure that She could see something in them and that that something was terribly wrong.

“‘Tis your bright and tiny spark,

Lights the trav’ller in the dark,

Tho’ I know not what you are,

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”

Sachi opened her eyes to see everyone looking at the Miss, crying and unsure why they were weeping. Their tears flowed like a river, a murky, dark thing until it was gathering in a moat around the Miss, silent beats humming in each swirl. The Miss fled into the lagoon and the river followed. A dark wave chasing a woman running under shining stars rising to the heavens.

***

She’d ran out of places to run, in the middle of the lagoon. The dark was in her. It was in all of them. It had saved her from the kiss of death, but it demanded its due. The dark wave caught her and rose, swallowing her whole. The Princess of The Abyss Emerged, fully rigged, her dress swaying in the waves. The night sky was filled with stars, cloudless, yet flashing with webs of lighting that her tears rose to join.

They were monsters. They were children. So was she.

She knew the answer. If she had ran and yelled and screamed at The Empress. Not enough time, not enough resources, not enough Princesses. Too much to do. An entire ocean and two whole fronts to manage, just here, around Midway.

She felt every fiber of her rigging, every Nightmare and Sin woven into it. The Abyss, claiming its own.

Taylor turned her head to the heavens, her eyes blazing.

“No. Not like this. A debt I’ll accept, for saving all our lives, but not like this.” she ordered.

Waves were rising and Taylor could feel the beating hearts of so many girls woven into her rigging.

The clouds rolled in, sudden and heavy as the storm descended on Midway. Not the one that ever lingered over it, but Her Storm. Taylor’s lightning jumping, riding the clouds as the waves roiled beneath her and the rain fell in thick sheets that consumed the world.

“You and me,” Taylor said to The Abyss, looking to the choir gathered at the beach, “someday soon, we’re going to have a frank and honest discussion on just what you’re doing to these girls.”

Dozens of arcs of brilliant light gathered high above her, a web of lightning combining, growing, until fulmination fell from the boiling heavens. Her Legend descended from the storm as a blinding azure sea serpent thicker than Taylor was tall, singing a promise of oblivion and a better tomorrow.

“And if I’m not happy with the answers, I’ll find a way to kill you too,” The Slayer of False Gods Promised The Abyss.