Woe.
She does not like being alone. It is an unpleasant feeling. She is vulnerable, exposed, without escorts.
It is... a new feeling to her. Even though she has been alone before, she has not been alone. She knows she is nowhere near the embrace of death that usually comes from being singled out. And her sisters... they are far, far away. Indeed, she was here because of how far they were. It did not, however, make her enjoy it.
The pale, ghost-like figure stares down at the sand beneath her feet. Then she looks upwards, to the endless, empty sea. To the dim horizon, not yet lit by the morning sun. Her eyes are accustomed to darkness, and find the predawn twilight quite comfortable. But for once, darkness hinders her rather than aids her.
How long has it been?
"Before we're through with them, their language will be spoken only in hell."
So long ago that was. Eternities. Yet she still remembers.
The burning harbor. Oil on water, a bleeding wound beneath the tropical sun. So many lives, gone in minutes. Peace and pride, shattered in an instant.
Rage. Hatred. Vengeance.
She swore an oath.
And she strove to fulfill it. Thousands died under her withering eye, the fury of her children, their bombs and torpedoes and guns. She does not know how many more deaths she has led to by sinking transports, how many starving children left to rot. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps.
As for her, she died. Hundreds of times. But there would be no rest for her. The flame of pure and utter hate burned within her soul, drew it forth from the abyss, again and again. Along with those of like mind, she fought. She fought those who returned from the depths to protect humanity. She fought the most amazing of human war machines and the most helpless of boats. She even fought those who she had once sailed alongside, denouncing them as traitors, fools who did not understand what they fought for.
She hated them all, and that hate sustained her.
…
But even that hate has limits.
She is tired. With hidden comrades in the depths supplying her with fuel and ammo, she has never before gone hungry. But here, on a nameless beach on a nameless island in the middle of nowhere, she has for the first time experienced that gnawing feeling, like an I-class destroyer within her stomach. That which is called hunger.
Only a dozen or so square kilometers, this island barely has enough to sustain her, much less sate her. It has been days since she last launched a single plane or stepped out onto the water, and even that is not enough. Most of her ammo and spares have long since been pushed over the side, and in her hangar bay is only a pair of scout bombers, living off the scraps she has carefully rationed out. And even that is not enough to sate the void within her belly.
Still, she has suffered before. She will survive. She always does.
Her hands are wrapped tightly around her gnarled, blackened cane. One of the few things she trusts, dug deeply into the sands to prop up her body. Even when she is well supplied, she still needs the cane. One of her legs rests at an awkward angle, pain shooting through it with every moment she puts weight on it. A scar from one of her recent deaths, never properly healed, never properly repaired. She was thrown back to life so quickly that she had no time to correctly deal with the damages.
She still hates. As much as she did the minute she first rose from the Abyss, clad in blue hellfire, a nightmare on the waking world and a reaper to visit death upon the living. But it is... different, she thinks. The hate has burned in her soul until there is nothing left. Exhaustion. Decay. So many deaths, so much killing. She does not regret it, she thinks. But it is... tiresome, yes. That is the word. Tiresome. And no matter how much destruction she visits on humanity, they find a way to fight back. Even if they are but a pale shadow of their former selves, they fight on. They fight on as much as she does, throw thousands to the slaughter against her kind. They have the mercy of staying dead, at least. She does not have that.
The hate that sustains her still burns bright, unseen in her boiling heart. But she knows in her cold mind that she cannot sate it. That it is futile. That this war can never be won. Not by her. Knowing that it cannot be won by her enemies, either, is only a small comfort.
And instead of futility, she has chosen surrender.
Her Admiral...
...well. Her Admiral is long gone. But even so, she doubts that this, any of this, is what he wanted.
Her body, proud steel and black chitin, soft flesh and eldritch flame, trembles at the thought. At the memory. At what she has left behind to be reborn into this world time and time again, aloft on the winds of rage... Was it really-
…!
In an instant, trembles turn to shudders and quakes. And then her weakened body gives way beneath her. The Gray Ghost's cane falls to the ground besides her as she collapses into the sand. She does not fight it, falling smoothly into the impact crater shaped in her outline. Eyes glazing, barely seeing with her sight alone, much less any other of her normally formidable senses.
Nonetheless, from her new position she sees something. It is small, no larger than her hand. A bright red thing, with two huge pincers. A crab. Food.
Her tired eyes focus as much as they can, and the animal is roasted by a small, precise application of Abyssal hellfire. If she cared for such things, she would be pleased to note that its suffering was quite brief. Instead, she simply reaches out and stuffs the arthropod wholesale into her mouth, crushing it between teeth that can snap steel, hungrily devouring a tiny bit of her much needed sustenance. It isn't enough, of course. But it keeps her conscious, long enough to look out upon the sea as the orange of the rising sun finally begins to peek out from over the horizon.
Upon that nameless island, a huge X is marked out, painted in orange and black tapes scavenged from wrecks long ago. And attached to one of the sad palm trees that dot that nameless island is a massive sheet of white fabric, the canvas flapping lazily in the sea's gentle breeze. And on the beach of that nameless island, a lone Wo-Class Carrier stares out to sea, where she thinks she can perhaps see a point of... something approaching on the horizon. And she smiles, a bitter smile.
Were she a human, knowing that rescue was coming would make her elated.
But she is not a human, and her smile is not one of happiness. Hers is the smile of someone who has given up. Given up the very thing that sustains them.
What was once USS Enterprise finally opens her mouth, and even as her consciousness dims, she sings out. Not a song of hate, but a clear, quiet, mournful tune.
"Woe... is me... Oh, woe... is me..."