Chapter 16: 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 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}