Post by Sophie on Nov 21, 2022 3:17:07 GMT -5
Obsillia 2nd, 1910
Somewhere in the Poheram Ocean
RBS Doryoku, the first battleship in her namesake class, drifted amid a typhoon-level storm. Dim red lights flashed on the bridge and throughout the ship as an alarm blared on and off. Lightning struck a mere thirty meters off the port bow, illuminating a breach torn into the side of the battleship’s armor. Water had flooded the open wound long ago, listing the ship to twenty degrees. Fires raged below deck, filling the ship with smoke and further crippling her beyond repair. The impact had incapacitated all women aboard the bridge. A single sailor with a bit of cloth wrapped around her face struggled with the hatch, scrabbling at the locks that sealed it from the outside. Immediately, smoke gushed out of the room as fresh air from outside replaced it in a blast of cool sea air. Turning back to the interior of the bridge, the sailor grabbed one of the unconscious women on the floor and began shouting. “Admiral!” The sailor screamed as loud as her smoke-filled lungs would allow. “Takayama!” She shook the vessel's commanding officer with all the strength she could muster.
The woman, with a single sakura flower on her shoulder insignia, stayed unmoving on the floor. Her officer’s uniform was charred and coated in blood. “CORPSMAN!” The sailor screamed, though as she tried to stand, she began coughing violently. She slowly stumbled out of the bridge. “CORPSMAN! Officers down!”
Another sailor stumbled up the stairs just outside. The fur on her body was fully matted down as the rain battered her like a violent assault. Two of her right legs were wholly missing, the stubs wrapped in bloody bandages, and a fire had burned one of her left to a crisp. Still, she made her way up the steps, clinging to the railing for dear life. The corpsman dragged herself into the bridge and looked at the litany of ragdolls lying about. Looking to the other sailor who had called her in, “Where’s… the Fleet Admiral?”
Between attempts to hack up her lung, the sailor responded. “The CO, cough takes priority!” In a technicality, she was correct.
The corpsman just shook her head. “Take me to her.” She put an arm around the sailor to support herself and let her lead over to the Rear Admiral’s body. She tried to crouch down next to her but ended up entirely collapsing. Slowly she put her ear right next to the woman’s mouth while placing two fingers on her trachea. One… two… three… four… five… six… Just as a pit began to form in the Corpsman’s stomach, she made a call. With confidence that one could only hear as the emergency lights flashed over her face, she began to give out orders. “Every ten seconds, breathe into her mouth.” Her voice was colder than the rain that continued to batter their vessel.
As the sailor climbed around the Commanding Officer for easier access to her mouth, the corpsman slung her body over her chest. She had to push the Admiral's body back onto her exoskeleton to ensure she’d be on her back. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.” She practically chanted as she pressed both her hands into the officer’s sternum with as much force as the ever-weakening Kumo could muster. At ten, the other sailor breathed into the Admiral’s lungs. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.” Again she forced her hands into the woman’s chest; this time, she felt a rib crack under her palm. Another breath. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.” Another breath. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.” Another. Then another. And another. For two minutes, the duo continued. Until the sailor nearly collapsed from her coughing. “Weak.” The corpsman muttered to herself as she continued resuscitation efforts on her own.
Another three rounds persisted before the Sailor tried to pull the corpsman off. “She’s gone!” Several coughs and a desperate attempt to catch a breath. “We need to help the others!”
“The CO comes first!” She sniped back with a yell, continuing anyway despite medical protocol to stop after two minutes. After another two rounds, as the corpsman began to give up hope on her efforts, the Admiral lurched, wheezing and gasping for breaths.
The Admiral looked around the room, panicked, trying to get her bearings. “What in the realm of madness is going on?” Her eyes tried to focus on the corpsman, but the flashing red light stung her eyes every time it came around.
“Ma’am!” The other sailor answered. “Doryoku was struck by a torpedo thirty minutes ago. Damage control efforts managed to stem the bleeding, but the totality is still unknown.”
The new information flooded the woman’s newly reoxygenated brain and nearly caused her to slip into a coma. Instead, she vomited blood onto the floor. “Ma’am, we need to get you to the medical bay right now.” The corpsman ordered.
“No.” Takayama responded curtly. “Not while my sailors are in danger.” She attempted to stand, and an intense pain flared in her chest. She clutched her side and collapsed to the floor. As the corpsman lurched to lend her aid, Takayama put up a hand. “Go tend to the others. I need to get my ship under control.” Acclimating to the pain, Takayama again attempted to stand. Now under her own power, she stumbled over to the wall hosting a lineup of sound-powered telephones. Three of them had been ripped off the wall, but thankfully the engineering line remained.
Biting to distract herself from the extreme pain, the Admiral clutched the phone and pressed it to her ear. “Engineering! This is your commanding officer. I need a damage report. Now!”
“Admiral!” A voice newly filled with hope cheered. “Thank the Empress you’re still alive!”
“I said now, sailor!” She shouted before coughing away from the receiver.
“Of course, Ma’am!” The voice returned to professionalism. “A torpedo opened a hole midships on our port side. One ballast and three standard compartments have been fully flooded. Water-tight doors have been sealed, and the flooding is currently under control. Several fires have been reported, but we’re unsure of the severity. Aft magazine was intentionally flooded the moment a fire was reported there. Our Staol bunkers still report one hundred percent integrity, but all of our engines have shut down. We’ve been running on battery for a while, and our entire port bank was destroyed.”
“How long ago were we hit?” She demanded.
“About half an hour, Ma’am.” The answer came through quickly over sailors shouting and claxons blaring.
“How much longer will our battery last?”
“There’s no telling. Our gauge readings are beyond erratic. Best estimate is another thirty minutes if we keep on emergency systems only.”
“Can I still make an announcement to the crew?” The Admiral prodded, pleading.
“Yes, Ma’am. If you make it quick.”
Without a goodbye, she slammed the phone back onto the wall and picked up the PA microphone. After a quick coughing session, she spoke with all the strength and confidence she could muster. “Sailors of the Doryoku. This is your Captain speaking. If you can hear me, you have survived a direct hit from a ship killer. You have always given your best, but it has never mattered more than now. Doryoku must live. You must live. For your shipmate. For your Empress.” Thankfully the majority of the PA system was still intact, and her voice not only reached but invigorated the surviving sailors.
With the bridge's air cleared, many knocked-out sailors had begun to recover and stand. Takayama smiled as they all immediately attempted to recover their watch stations as soon as they regained cognizance. She looked to find the corpsman who had rescued her and couldn’t suppress a single twitch of her nose when she saw them helping the Fleet Admiral get back on her feet. “Rear Admiral Takayama.” The woman’s voice was sharp, even after just recovering. “What’s our status?”
“Critical. If our engineers can’t get our engines running again in fifteen minutes, I’m scuttling the ship.” Her voice bounced back the attack at the Fleet Admiral.
“Like hell you will.” She stood fully and approached the ship’s Captain. “Doryoku is the pride of the Empress’s fleet. She will not be scuttled under any circumstance.”
Takayama was baffled, and her face showed it. Much to the ire of the Fleet Admiral. “I’m not going to let my women slowly succumb to a watery grave simply because you refuse to call a dead ship dead.”
“This ship is not dead. My ancestors and the Empress blessed Doryoku. She cannot sink anywhere but in battle.” The Fleet Admiral stated with arrogant confidence.
“I don’t think you understand just how badly we were hit, Admiral.” Takayama shook her head. “Doryoku is rated for three-compartment flooding. Three compartments are flooded. If we take on another meter of water, this ship is done for. And in this storm, that may happen at a moment's notice.”
“We abandon ship when there is no other choice, not before.” The woman continued to argue. “And that’s FLEET Admiral to you, Takayama-kas.”
“Well then, FLEET, Admiral. You ought to know the Captain’s discretion decides when that moment is.” Takayama recited fleet directives right to her face.
“Enough of your blabbering.” The woman dismissed the Captain and walked to the phones, picking one up. “Watch, this is Fleet Admiral Kure. Where the hell is my squadron?!”
“Ma’am!” A panicked voice answered over the whipping winds upon the watch deck. “Unsure. They chased off the Gaelic fleet after we got hit. As far as I’m aware, they are still engaged in combat.”
“Without the flagship?!” Fleet Admiral Riko Kure barked into the phone while shaking her head. With a slam, she hung up the phone and picked up another. “Engineering, this is Fleet Admiral Kure. Prioritize getting our engines online above all else. We must rejoin the fleet.”
“Admiral Kure?!” The woman on the other end questioned. “Containing fires and investigating damage must be our priority.”
“I am the Fleet Admiral, Sailor. My orders supersede all.” She retorted, immediately hanging up the phone.
“Kure!” Takayama shouted, grabbing the Admiral’s hand. “You do NOT have this ship. You cannot go over my head and supersede orders I gave to my crew.”
Kure’s face contorted in anger as she drew back her hand to strike her subordinate when everyone saw a flash beyond the fog. “What on Ouhiri?” Kure stepped forward until she reached the bridge’s glass. Another flash.
Takayama too, dropped the argument to stare. That was until one of the phones began barking with sound. She quickly picked it up. “Conn, Watch! Enemy huk at zero-zero-zero!”
“Watch this is conn! Understood!” Takayama barked into the phone before again slamming it down. “The huk’s come back to finish us off. We need to get the hell out of here.” Once more, Takayama reached for the PA system. “All hands! Ab-”
BOOM.
An intense fireball exploded in front of Kure and all those watching out the front window. “Direct hit on turret two!” One of the officers called out, leaning out the shattered glass of the bridge to get a better look. “No penetration!”
“Understood!” Takayama responded before attempting to return to her announcement.
Just as she began to speak once more, she was shoved aside. “Engineering, this is Fleet Admiral Kure. Divert maximum battery power to turret one!”
“Come again, ma’am?!” The engineer questioned. “We won’t be able to run emergency pumps if we do that!”
“Just fucking do it!” Kure barked before slamming the phone down and grabbing the one labeled ‘Turret One.’ “Fire control, this is Fleet Admiral Kure! Suspend damage control and prepare to fire on enemy huk at zero hour!”
The voice that came back was garbled and panicked. “Kure? Cannot suspend damage control. Passageway fire is nearing the fore magazine.”
“This is a direct order, sailor!” Kure barked, screaming loud enough for the entire bridge. As she did, the emergency lights flickered weakly before giving out. “Do as I fucking say!”
A short hesitation was present before an answer filled with ire came back. “Understood, Ma’am.”
“Kure, what are you doing?! Doryoku is not yours. It is time to abandon ship. She is lost. We cannot survive this.” A panicked Takayama pleaded with the Fleet Admiral as more flashes shone in the darkness of the storm.
Completely ignoring the Rear Admiral, Kure called out to the officers on the bridge. “What’s our range to that huk?”
A watch officer with octoculars pressed to her eyes called back. “About eight cables! She’s moving slow, maybe five knots.”
“AoB?!” Kure again demanded.
“It’s too dark to tell. Give me a moment.” The watch officer returned.
Back on the phones, Kure was barking out orders. “Watch, Conn. Light up that huk.”
“Ma’am?!” The voice barely beat out the wind.
“Now!” Kure ordered as she hung up. Soon a spotlight, sapping the ship’s dregs of battery power, showed brightly upon the enemy vessel.
“Seventy-five Degrees off the starboard bow!” The watch officer answered just as the spotlight died off. Three flashes again showed in the rain. Before the sound of the shells firing could reach them, one exploded on the foredeck.
“Fire on deck!” Another officer exclaimed as a portion of the deck became engulfed in flame.
“Kure!” Takayama screamed. “You are slaughtering my sailors! You are out of line! Back down right now!”
Without even a hint of acknowledgment, Kure reached for the phone once more. “Fire control, conn. Enemy vessel is traveling at five knots. We are seventy-five degrees off their starboard bow, eight cables out, and they are currently at zero-zero-six. Get shells on target, or I will personally ensure you do not survive the day.”
“On the way!” The voice confirmed.
All eyes were now locked on the battleship’s foremost turret as it began to sluggishly turn ever so slightly to the right and up. “What do we have loaded?” Kure demanded to know.
“Armor piercing. It’s going to go right through her without a lick of damage even if we hit.” A sailor answered, fearing, above all else, a meaningless death, in a nameless battle, in an unnamed storm.
BOOM, BOOM. The battleship’s twin turret fired, sending shivers down the spine of the wounded vessel. Everyone on board the bridge said a silent prayer to their ancestors, asking, begging them to guide the shells through the storm and into the hull of the Hunter Killer, threatening their lives.
The shells sliced through the air, arcing above the violent waves below, reaching up, up, up, before they dipped back down towards the waves. They spun as they flew, the wall of dark stormy waves racing up to meet them-
And then, in that black storm of foam and turbulence, the grey metal of a ship slipped into the path of the oncoming rounds, it too dashing across the hellish ocean as its great turrets traversed carefully and methodically upon the smoking shape of another ship in the distance.
The armor that the engineers and shipwrights of Ulster-Gaelia had toiled so hard and diligently to perfect could not stop the shells as they tore through the bulkheads, ravaging the armor like a pencil through paper. But the shells were a bit too good at their ability to tear armor as one tore through the ship from end to end. Detonating haplessly in the brewing waves of the ocean.
But the other shell, whether it was luck, prayer, or the skill of the gunner, rocketed in fractions of a second after the other shell, right into a magazine of cordite bags and high explosive shells. And at that moment, the shell’s timer hit zero- the detonator fired, and the fifteen inches of payload explosive burned.
Seconds later, a massive flash fully illuminated the surrounding sea. Then, a shockwave blew out the surviving glass panes on the bridge. After several moments of stunned silence, a watch officer spoke just loud enough to be heard over the wind. “Hit. We scored a hit!”
“That’s not just a hit!” Another officer cheered. “We fucking split her open!”
Despite their dire situation, extensive injuries, and complete exhaustion, the entire crew cheered together—except Rear Admiral Takayama, who sat utterly stunned on the floor. Kure once more returned to the phones. “Engineering, this is Fleet Admiral Kure. Return all power to emergency systems.”
“Aye aye, Admiral!” The voice returned, and the emergency lights returned to their pulsing red soon after. “We’ve got engine one almost partially functional. We’ll set her to charge the electrics as soon as possible.”
Many had heard the rumors of Admiral Kure from the opening battle for Hawaii. They said that her luck was indelible, that as soon as she set her sights on something, Kure would accomplish it. That her ancestors granted her almost godlike power to influence the results of naval battles, but Takayama had never believed a word of it. She thought Kure was just some commander with friends in high places and an overblown ego with yeswomen eager to please and talk up a story.
But that doubt would now be Takayama’s end. Kure had stolen away her crew’s admiration and respect. Her orders were the ones they would follow now. Much of the bridge was in disarray or destroyed, but the Commanding Officer’s chair remained. Takayama climbed into it and slouched over as Kure sat proudly behind her in the Fleet Commander’s seat.