"A Russian Nightmare"
"The Tall Tale of the Super-Dreadnought Who Never Was"
AN: I wrote a follow-up for-context post about the characters in "Miner's Polka" on SpaceBattles. I'd normally share it here, but FF formatting would make it atrocious to look at. If you're confused about OC shipgirls, just look the thread up under the same name. This one is more of a supernatural horror story than something to be taken at face value, so don't assume everything you read in this episode to be true-to-life (or even to the events that befall the characters for that matter). That said, this Baltic subplot and the events that happen in it are "technically" canon.
KnockKnock. KnockKnock.
[Wake up! Wake up!] An officer boomed as he strolled down the fairy bunks lining Sevastapol's quayside. [Get moving now, no slacking, you hear?]
[Him again?] A stevedore grumbled, rubbing his foot where it had been unceremoniously flattened by the load he had been hauling.
[Never mind that man,] his partner spat, [he's always blustering about trying to make himself important. C'mon, let's get Dvenadsat Apostolov set for her sortie before daybreak.] Unfortunately for the duo, the two fairies made little progress before the blue-jacketed man accosted them.
[Ah, gentlemen,] he smiled broadly. [I see you believe it to be the perfect day for idle chit-chat, no?]
[Does it look like we're dilly-dallying?] the ill-tempered dockworker shot back.
[Mind your tongue,] the officer winked charmingly (though the other stevedore clearly recognized the dangerous look in his eye). [there's plenty to do before the sun is up. Potempkin, Rotislav, and Sevastapol need their ammunition replenished, and that's to say nothing of Moskva, Kronstadt, Tashkent, or Kaliakria. Especially Tashkent,] he frowned. [If you don't give the revolutionaries aboard the 'Blue Cruiser' their needed supplies, you'll have them to answer to, not me.]
[Yes of course,] the stevedore nodded in acknowledgement, wisely stepping in front of his companion before the latter could enrage the officer any further. [What about that shipgirl over there?] he asked, pointing yonder at a curled-up sleeping figure between Potempkin and Sevastapol. [Who's in charge of her?]
[Huh, who?] the officer craned his neck to where the stevedore indicated. [Ah, Nikolai I. No, you don't need to do anything.] For some reason he seemed to tremble uncontrollably at the words "Nikolai I."
[Are you sure, sir?]
[Very sure,] he answered with finality. [Well, don't just stand there, chop-chop,] the fairy clapped his hands.
[Does he think we are idiots?] the worker growled as soon as the pompous fairy walked out of earshot. [Nikolai I is in Vladivostok with other veterans of the Tsar's Foolish War.]
[I think he was telling the truth…did you see his face when he glanced at her? That's not the face of a liar.]
[If he's not a liar, then he's an idiot. Look at her hull form,] the two crouched down and peered anxiously at the shipgirl's torso. [It's really muscular. I bet she could take a beating not even Gangut could stomach and shrug it off.]
[If she's not Nikolai I, then who is she really?]
[Beats me. Why don't we ask her crew?]
[Her crew?] The stevedore grabbed the other and fairy and shook him fiercely. [Are you mad? Do you want to delay us any further in our job? We'll be flayed alive by the entire Black Sea Fleet!]
[We'll be flayed alive if we don't supply all the ships within the fleet,] he fired back evenly. [By the looks of it, that's a battleship, and one of the stronger capital shipgirls at that. Imagine how hard the Ottomans and Greeks will be laughing if we have to sortie out today without her!]
[Fine, but if anyone asks why we're derelicting our duty I'm saying it's all your idea,] the fairy huffed as he tailed the other worker.
They hadn't gotten far before the stevedore put up a halting hand.
[Huh? What is it now, Dmitri?] his companion snapped.
[Listen…don't you find that odd?]
[Find what odd? The silence?]
[Exactly. Where are the watches? The patrols? Even the slightest trace of sleeping seamen for that matter…she's completely…motionless. Something's wrong.]
[I don't see any signal flags warning of plague or other diseases…maybe they're on shore leave?]
[Even the stokers? Look!] Whereas most ship girls silently breathed smoke and steam through their nostrils, not even the slightest puff of cold air billowed from the stillborn-mouth of 'Nikolai I.'
[Perhaps their captain is of the same cloth as that officer and is on his little prank,] the dockworker growled. [Come on, let's climb aboard!]
The stevedore had barely started scaling the mystery shipgirl's golden hair before he found himself shivering uncontrollably and choking back the urge to let out a bloodcurdling scream. He somehow felt an inexplicably cold, all-seeing gaze radiating deep within her boilers. Whatever lurked deep within her holds was something sinister, unnatural, and completely antithetical to his very existence.
Suddenly a dark shadow loomed overhead.
[What's taking you so long, Dmitri?!] the dockworker shouted with crossed arms. [Get up here already!]
Knock. Knock.
[Helloooooooooooooooooo? Anybody here?]
[Hey! I don't know why you all are fucking around with us, but listen, we got a job to do! We're here to deliver supplies; who are you?!]
[Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?] the fairy's voice gave off a tiny rattle as it echoed off the forlorn rafters where throngs of sailors would normally snooze.
[Funny isn't it?] the stevedore laughed feebly. [She's been completely abandoned.]
[Did you check her officers' cabins?]
[Tried. They were bolted shut, and those that weren't had no personal belongings in them. What about you?]
[Nothing.]
The fairy groaned as he felt the terrifying feeling coursing through his body once more. [Are you positive that you didn't see anyone?]
[Positive,] the dockworker grunted. [Maybe she's one of those special summons that the Admiralty talked about.]
Grrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmm.
Both men trembled to their very bones as a feral groan rumbled throughout the entire ship. Galloping noises resounded throughout the deck, then the pitter-patter of footsteps, then…silence.
[I-I think it's t-time to g-go, Pyotr…]
[Pyotr?]
[Pyotr?]
[Damn dockworker…scampering off without me…]
Tap. Tap.
[He didn't scamper off anywhere,] a low voice replied curtly.
[Huh? MMPF! MMPF! HMPF! HMPF! HMPPPFFFF!]
[Don't worry…everything will be perfectly fine.]
Prod. Prod.
"Dead, shot to death."
"Nice shot, Tashkent!" Dzerzhinsky happily thumped the destroyer's back, who humbly offered a modest military salute in reply.
Prod. Prod.
"Took quite a few glancing blows from 305mm shells," Yavuz noted, "but a kill's a kill. Good job Potempkin and…" she trailed off hesitantly as she attempted to decipher the cyrillic on the shipgirl's coattails.
"Twelve Apostles works," the sunglass-clad pre-dreadnought offered appreciatively.
"Good job then, Twelve Apostles."
Prod. Prod.
Sigh.
"I'm not even going to ask how or why there's a sarissa of all things in this destroyer's back."
"I tried ramming our evil foe once I finished her off," Georgios Averof rued as she gave her twin turrets a twirl, "but it seems the ram I made for the occasion broke first."
"Are you sure you're okay?" the battlecruiser tilted her head and gave the Greek a concerned look. "I can lend damage-control teams if you need them."
"Me? Hurt? By a simple maneuver like that?" the armored cruiser huffed as she buttoned up her jacket and gave her Corinthian helmet an affectionate pat. "Dear Turk, I believe you are underestimating the firepower a Hellenic warship can put out!"
"If you say so," she rolled her eyes. "Anyway…"
Prod. Prod.
"Ah, I see your gunnery has made an improvement, Abdül Kadir," Yavuz smiled encouragingly. "Keep up the good work!"
"ThankyouYavuzSultanSelim!"
"Anytime. Now, that means there's only…this…" she stretched her arms out expectantly at the writhing mass of dead and dying abyssals flailing about the sandbars and coasts of Dardanelles, "to sort out. I assume this is your handiwork, Sevastopol, Moskva, Hydra, Spetsai, Parsa?"
"The three special-type elite cruisers are ours," the Project-66 cruiser bobbed her head in confirmation, "but we cannot accept credit for the remainder."
"Oh, then who, pray tell, does that honor belong to?"
"Her," Moskva replied simply, and pointed at blue-cloaked shipgirl in VMF uniform facing away from the fleet, instead intently studying the skies above them.
Ah, the special arrival.
"You did well, today, Imperator Nikolai I," Yavuz chuckled, "it's an honor to fight side-by-side with shipgirls like you."
Crunch.
She had hardly raised her right hand to give the battleship a congratulatory shoulder pat when Nikolai I whirled about with breathtaking speed and caught it, holding the Turkish shipgirl's extremity in a deathgrip.
"Don't even think about touching me," Nikolai I warned, her dead green eyes gazing unseeingly into the depths of Yavuz's own. "Or you'll regret it."
"So we've been re-assigned then?" the destroyer murmured, rifling through the pages once more.
Moskva paused her music player and pulled off her earmuff-like headphones. "According Admiral Amaliji Makarov, yes, we have."
"They gave us quite a short notice," Tashkent frowned, narrowing her eyes at the oddly-specific language used in their orders. "That's most unusual."
"Apparently there was...an 'incident' involving König and Slava again, so the poor Borodino requested to be transferred to the Pacific to be with her sisters. I'm heading off with her actually to make sure Stalingrad doesn't cause any trouble with the Alaskas. They're still a little flustered after the last brush between the two," the cruiser's purplish-black pigtails twitched with mirth in remembrance.
"So I take it then that I'm replacing Slava in the Baltic?" the 'Blue Cruiser' puckered her lips. "Not that I don't mind seeing Gangut and Marat again but the North is cold...and chilly...especially at this time of year."
"You didn't read the notice carefully, did you?" Moskva giggled. "You're not going to the Baltic."
"Thank Lenin for that…"
"You're going to the White Sea."
Tashkent stared. And stared. And stared. And kept staring unmovingly at the cosmopolitan shipgirl. "The White Sea?" she whispered.
"The Norwegians are down a destroyer from some mishap, so it's up to us to take over patrol duties for the next few weeks or so until she's all patched up."
"Why, that senile old-MAKAROVV!" the destroyer thundered, crushing her prized black karakul beneath her boots. "Did she forget most of my career happened in a place that doesn't, y'know, ice over for months at a time?"
"On the contrary, she thought you were the most suited for the job, with your reputation for doing things with speed and all."
"Couldn't she have foisted this on the destroyer or flotilla leaders, even for just a day?" Tashkent pouted.
"Where do you think they are?" Moskva simply smiled back.
"Alright, fine," she sighed in defeat, "I admit I was overreacting. I guess it is a bit too ambitious to assume that a single, state-of-the destroyer could replace an old pre-dreadnought in the battleline. But if I'm not replacing Slava, then who-?"
Wordlessly, the two turned to stare at the other shipgirl sharing the traincar with them. She paid them little heed, instead gazing disinterestedly through the windows at the Russian landscape whizzing by.
"So this is the so-called 'General Winter'?" Nikolai I murmured nonchalantly.
"Not quite," Moskva corrected sweetly. "Apparently the worst months of the season have already past. This is just 'winter.'"
The battleship was about to return with her own reply when she suddenly stood up and began jolting uncontrollably.
"Are you okay, Nikolai?" Tashkent gasped.
Just as swiftly as they had begun, the shipgirl's tremors abruptly ended.
"Oh, I'm fine," Nikolai I replied calmly, strategically pulling down her peaked to cap to hide her demonic grin, "I'm just...getting used to this body."
[Let's go lads!] Whistles blew and bells resounded throughout the bay as launch after launch of fairies rowed to their ships, refreshed and prepared for their next encounter with the enemy.
[Hurry! Hurry!]
[Easy on the oars! That does it!]
"Marat! Gangut!" a battlecruiser shouted, hurriedly buttoning up her officer's jacket as she mounted her rigging. "What's going on? Why the ruckus at this time of night?"
"One of the German patrols spotted some potential abyssal elements off Moon Sound," the latter stated flatly, striking a match to light her pipe. "Makarov thought it best to pursue them while we still have the advantage of surprise."
"But I thought we cleared out that corridor already!" Kronshtadt protested heatedly.
"Gunboats, gunboats," Marat murmured, replacing her usually mischievous smile with a pensive frown. "It's Soborna Ukraina's first night here, no?"
"It is," Gangut puffed.
"What a damn shame that her housewarming party had to be ruined by uninvited guests," the battlecruiser grimaced. "does she know her role in the battlefleet, at least?"
The two dreadnoughts gave Kronshtadt an expectant look. "She's leading the battle line. Makarov's orders."
Kronshtadt took one look at ominously silent battleship and swallowed hard. It struck her as odd how this improved Imperatritsa Mariya, a shipgirl who bore a striking semblance to the Gangut sisters and had never fired a shot in anger, now caused chills to course through her uncontrollably. Her fairies, a skeletal crew of dories, workers, and engineers, seemed to be in agreement.
[Don't get near her, battlecruiser,] a worker warned. [Something's not right about her. A foreman tried to climb aboard her to conduct a boiler inspection, you know, standard procedure for a highly-functional uncompleted warship like yourself, but she shooed him away with the words 'that would be less than preferable' and put up danger flags.]
"So she doesn't even have an auxiliary crew on standby?"
[Absolutely none.]
Gangut paused to take a pinch of tobacco out of her pocket to refill her pipe, then paused again to take some more. She couldn't help but have a sinking feeling about the sortie to come.
"Are you sure that you won't need a hand from some fairies, Nikolai?"
"I'm very sure," she replied, refusing to even tilt her head back slightly to address her comrade."Are you ready to go?"
Gangut glanced backwards where the remainder of the fleet gave her a thumbs-up in confirmation.
"We're ready."
Imperator Nikolai I pulled the brim of her cap down until it concealed everything except her chin.
"Let's go.".
Vaaaan-huuu-de-ruum. Vaaaan-huuu-de-rum.
Gangut shuddered at the battleship's lonesome whistle signalling their imminent departure. As a former member of the Imperial and Soviet Navies, she was well-versed in the various horns and chimes carried both in life and death by her comrades. Nikolai I's was not among them; it rang low and harsh, like a French Horn, as if heralding their impending doom.
"I thought the Baltic was getting warmer not cooler," a Ru-class grumbled, punting a hapless clamshell across the freezing sea.
"Personally I feel that it has done the opposite," the Moon Sound War Demon disagreed, extending an open hand to touch the fresh snow, "but whether it be snow or fire, we must carry on. The Germans are not far behind, and our ragtag squadron won't last long in a pitched battle."
"Funny you say that," a destroyer grunted, uncurling a withered finger to point a faint speck of light in the distance. "Here they come now."
"What?! How in the devil's name did they flank us so quickly?!"
"It's not the Germans," the Moon Sound War Demon corrected calmly. "It's the Russians."
"How can you tell?" Another abyssal demanded.
"Trust me," she smiled softly, "I just know."
"Dead ahead! About twelve kilometers off the port side!"
"Thank you Kronshtadt!" Marat shouted back before tapping her own headset in annoyance. "Still can't see anything on mine…"
"Doesn't matter, we'll make visible contact in spitting distance at this rate," Gangut replied curtly. "Nikolai I, prepare to signal the fleet to line ahead. We'll open fire on the enemy at eight kilometers or when we see them, whichever comes first."
"It's the entire Baltic Fleet!" a voice cried out panickedly as black plumes of smoke emerged on the horizon. "We're surrounded!"
"But not beaten," the War Demon said firmly, whipping out her monstrously-large battlegear. "Focus fire on the lead ship as we pass. I'd love to give those oh so chivalrous boyars a taste of their own medicine," she licked her lips. "Let them see where sacrificing their morality takes them: to the bottom of the ocean!"
"Nikolai, do you want to swap places with me in the battleline? There's no shame if you do."
"Swap places?" The battleship gazed unamusedly at Gangut with unseeing emerald green eyes. "Why would I possibly want to do that?"
"Since you're leading the charge you'll be hammered hard until we can bring our guns to bear. We have more than plenty the range to do that, but for about ten minutes only you will have the firing angles to engage the abyssals. Since you don't have an auxiliary crew to help with damage control, if you take a crippling hit and don't pay attention there's a chance you'll founder."
"Me and you are not the same," Nikolai I replied curtly, "I think you overestimate their chances quite badly."
"Here they come!" an abyssal destroyer shouted as a column of shipgirls materialized through the mist.
"That's a new one," their leader smirked as she carefully calculated the range to charging blonde. "Did they finally realize how weak Gangut and Petropavlovsk were?"
"My lady, it's an Imperatritsa Mariya!"
"So the poor dogs hauled up a battleship from the Black Sea to fight us?" the Demon sneered. "What a sad way to die. All ships, OPEN FIRE!"
"Shit! Nikolai I!" Marat hissed as several cables ahead of her said shipgirl vanished beneath a fireball of smoke and flame.
"Bayern, where the hell are you!" Gangut shouted into her radio. "They've caught up to us, and they're putting up a stiff resistance!"
"Nowhere close."
"What do you mean you're nowhere close, it was your squadron that spotted them!"
"I am not fast, and König broke a shaft. You'll have to pin them down until we can get there."
"Useless Germans...helmsman, turn the rudder hard over to port. Sverdlov, watch out, I'll be adjusting my course into your direction! Kronshtadt, follow me, hurry!"
What a brilliant maneuver! They had caught the enemy entirely off-guard, and before the lead ship even had a chance to reply she had been mercilessly mauled with shells from every direction!
She didn't even have time to fire a return volley before they disabled every armament in her entire body!
"My lady," the Ru-class battleship panted and pointed at her red-hot barrels. "Don't you think we've hammered her enough and should switch targets by now? No shipgirl could survive a bombardment like that."
"That may be true," the Demon conceded, "but if she was sunk, then why is she still showing up as a mass on my sonar, and…" she began shivering uncontrollably as she felt a feeling of dread overtake her.
A similar feeling infected her minions, who stood in stunned silence as the steady beat of cold, hard steps splashing on the water echoed towards them.
"How...why...why is she...still...moving?"
[Because,] a demonic voice groaned in ectasy, [I am not you, and you are not I.]
"Impossible," a destroyer breathed, and began frantically reversing.
As the voice's owner manifested herself before them, the Moon Sound War Demon did her utmost best not to die. There before her was blonde battleship they had been pummelling just minutes earlier, ragged, but unbeaten. But that was not what frightened her.
What frightened her was how the shipgirl's porcelain doll-like face neatly fractured rather than bled, as if something was neatly binding all the pieces together. Her eyes alternated between sickly green and blood red hues, shades that no sane shipgirl (let alone an abyssal for that matter) would adopt. Most terrifying of all, however, her precariously-dangling jaw (which one of the gunboats had shot off in their attacks) parted to reveal a withered, eldritch-like husk with row after row of razor-sharp teeth.
[So, now you know my secret,] "Nikolai I" grinned, neatly snapping her mouth back into place. [What a pity. Now I have to kill you.]
"Wait, no," the Demon begged, falling to her knees as she felt the bile rise to her throat. "You're not my enemy, this was all a misunderstanding! Have mercy, PLEASE!"
[Unfortunately,] she curled her lips into a sick smile, [you are mine.]
"What in tarnation happened here?" Bayern demanded, flashing her signal lamp from one corpse to another. "Did you do this, Gangut?"
"Some may call us Soviets godless heathens, but we have moral standards," the battleship replied stiffly. "Marat and I are not to blame for this excessive usage of force."
"If it wasn't you who caused this carnage, then who is to blame?" Kronprinz countered.
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you. I can barely believe it myself."
"You are lucky to be alive," Krassin scolded as she tugged another ruined 130mm gun from its casemate. "Your rigging is in complete shambles; the dockyard workers will have to toll for weeks to get you back in combat condition."
"Oh," the Black Sea blonde replied simply. "My apologies."
"That's all you say after all this?! I amazed that you don't have cuts all over your face! Battleship-caliber shells don't just buff out, you know!"
"You're right, I wouldn't know because right now I'm in the middle of having a splitting headache," Nikolai I groaned, massaging her temples exaggeratedly for emphasis. "Can you leave me alone right now?"
"You better rest up," the icebreaker warned as she closed the doors in parting. "Let this be a firm reminder that you need to work as a team. Charging in like some samurai or Western stereotypes about Russians won't solve anything."
Nikolai I sighed in relief; now she was all alone and left to her own devices.
Rap. Rap.
Make that herself and one wild-eyed, battle-hungry, crown-and-sceptre carrying battleship who had somehow slipped in unnoticed and was now incessantly poking her.
"You're not Slava," the newcomer pouted dejectedly. "I was hoping that the little Borodino was still around so I could, shall we say," her brown eyes glanced away innocently, "torment her."
"No I'm not," Nikolai I agreed.
"You're not a chatty one, are you?" the intruder carried on, completely oblivious to the evil eye her Russian counterpart gave her. "Ah, right, where are my manners?" she smacked herself reproachfully with her own sceptre before giving a majestic curtsy, "Battleship König of His Excellency's Navy. I am honored to meet a fighter such as you."
"We're hardly on the same level."
"Is that so?" König grinned toothily and gave her a knowing look. "So you're saying that you're a coward? What a shame."
You know little of whom you address, German.
"Brave words from someone," she glanced up and down at the brunette, "who was taken out of commission by losing a propeller."
"Oho, so you are a feisty one. I knew it!" her eyes gleamed brightly. "So tell me Russian," she bent over hungrily, "how did you crack your jaw like that?"
For the first time in her entire existence, Imperator Nikolai I, a Black Sea battleship intended for his majesty's navy but ultimately scrapped after a long period of chaos, gave a genuine smile.
It was the same kind of smile a serial killer in prison makes when, upon scanning the cafeteria and seeing nothing but simple miscreants, he locks eyes with another serial killer.