Yet Still We Sail
Part 3
Pain embraced Tally as she woke up. Her everything hurt. A headache seemed like it was trying to break out of her skull with a jackhammer, a thousand individual cuts on her torso screamed as if salt had been rubbed into all of them at once, her right leg screamed if she put the slightest bit of pressure on it, and her left arm floated limply at her side, completely numb.
Floated.
Yup. Tally was in a pool, though it felt more like a hot tub. She'd been changed into a well-fitting, if revealing, bikini at some point, and was resting in a hot tub.
"What?" Tally wondered to the world, not expecting a response. The fog in her head cleared up a little bit, and she took in a bit more of her surroundings. Louise was resting next to her, also having been changed into more fitting swimwear. She looked about as bad as Tally felt.
Also in the pool, sitting across from Tally and Louise, was Tally's Evil Twin: Jane Henley. About the only difference between the two was their hair, since Henley wore hers shorter and loose, while Tally preferred her over the shoulder braid. The other girl didn't seem to notice Tally had awakened, she was face first in a book, and humming along with some march or another. Tally didn't recognize it, though a part of her felt like she should.
"Henley!" Tally shouted, grabbing the other redhead's attention. Louise also seemed to stir at the shout.
"Hey you!" Henley responded, putting her book down on the shore. "You're finally awake! You were trying to cross the border right? Walked right into that Abyssal ambush same as us and that cruiser over there," Henley gestured over to where Louise was slowly waking up.
Tally pinched the bridge of her nose with her good hand. "What are you talking about? Where are we?"
"What do you mean where are we? We're in the repair baths," Henley answered, as if that answered everything. Tally gave Henley a look, and the slightly younger girl grimaced. "You two were awesome out there, but you also got shot to shit, so we brought you back here for repairs. Though, it doesn't seem like it actually did anything. You okay, Evans?"
Tally glared at her near mirror image, and Henley had the good sense to shut her mouth. "What. Happened? The last thing I remember is looking out at the ocean from the deck, trying to figure out what was going on."
"You… you don't remember all that?" Henley asked, stuttering slightly.
"All what?"
"Oh. Oh shit. Shitshitshit," Henley swore rapidly. Tally glared at her again, but the redhead sitting across from her had withdrawn into her own little world as she hurriedly talked to herself in a voice low enough that Tally struggled to hear. Then she raised a hand to her ear. Pain stabbed through Tally's head. "Fletcher? It's Henley. Evans is awake, and St. Louis is waking up, and Evans at least doesn't know what happened. Can you get down here ASAP? Thanks."
Next to Tally, Louise blinked her eyes open. "U… ugh…" she groaned softly, still facing the ceiling. "W… what…"
"No idea, Lou. I think we crashed the Jeep." Tally said with a grimace. She turned her attention towards Henley, her grimace intensifying as she looked at her Evil Twin. "Since somebody won't say what's actually going on."
"Tally…?" Lou muttered as she tried to turn her head slowly towards the injured redhead. "Ah!" she yelped in pain before managing to move enough to see the girl. "What is this place…" she asked, only just noticing now that they were in the hot bath.
Attempting to get up, Tuckerman yelped in pain again, immediately relaxing back to where she was. "Aahh…"
"Welcome back to the land of the living, St. Lou. We were worried about you there for a bit," Henley said. "Still are, since neither of you are getting repaired properly."
"Jane Henley..." Lou noticed, greeting with a soft gasp. "The hell are you talking about…?"
"Do either of you remember what happened on Monday?" Henley asked, nodding at Lou.
"Monday…? I-isn't… oh, oh yeah, the shelling…" Lou recalled. "What was that all abou- wait. Why the specific day mention? What's today?"
"It's Wednesday evening. You've both been out for two days," A new voice said, entering the room. Tally craned her head towards the door to see Faye Faith Fletcher step inside. The blonde looked exhausted.
"Trips?" Tally asked. "Do you have answers for us?"
"Maybe. What do you want to know?"
"Oh, shit! My crew!" Lou suddenly shouted in realization, immediately attempting to jump out of the bath before collapsing back in pain. "AAAH! AAAAOOOOOOOW!"
"Easy there, Lou!" Faye Faith said, rushing over to the fallen brunette. "I don't know why the baths aren't working, you should both be able to at least get up by now."
"Faye Faith?" Lou gasped. "You're here too?"
"Take it easy there Lou. We don't need you hurting yourself even worse than you already are," Faye Faith said, helping Lou slide back into the water. "How much do either of you remember?"
"We hit the edge of the deck and were starting to look out over the water, nothing after that til I woke up here," Tally answered.
"I know you saw something," Lou recalled. "You were trembling a bit and you didn't respond when I first asked you about it. I asked a second time, you just gave me your binoculars, I began to take a look, and…" she grimaced. "... That's it."
Faye Faith swore violently. "Tally, how much do you know about the USS Evans? Lou, USS St. Louis."
Tally just stared blankly at her friend.
"Vaguely…" Louise replied, pondering over it. "I know a ship like that existed during World War 2 'cos she's named after my family's hometown. The main branch, that is. I went there earlier this year to bury my Gramps. Right next to Mom and Grandma..." she noted sadly. "But yeah… yeah, that's all I know. I didn't dig up too much about ships, with tanks around and all."
Faye Faith facepalmed gently. "Oh god dammit. What you saw out on the ocean was a fleet of Abyssal ships that had come to try and destroy the school ship. We don't know much about them, beyond that they take the appearances of World War-era ships, and give off an aura of Wrongness to people like us. Shipgirls. Judging by timing, you also saw myself, Capps, Henley, and Hadley rushing to engage said Abyssals, because the two of you joined us not long after that."
"Shipgirl?" Tally asked.
"Abyssal…?" Lou asked in confusion, simultaneous with Tally.
"It's probably easier to show you than try to explain it." Faye Faith said, a hint of defeat in her voice. "Henley, can you get the wheelchairs?"
"Yes ma'am!" Henley snapped a salute and quickly pulled herself out of the hot tub. She pulled a towel from somewhere and proceeded to dry herself before rushing out of the room.
"Where did she…" Lou gaped.
"Oh my god, this is Jane all over again…" Tally muttered to herself.
"Henley pulled the towel from her hold. She stowed her book there when you were looking at me, too," Faye Faith explained. She then pulled a photo album out from somewhere. There was no way she could have hidden it behind her back, especially since been gesticulating with both arms.
Tuckerman blinked. "... What."
"I'm a ship. I also happen to be a girl, but I'm a ship first and foremost. Thus, I have access to my hold and can store things in it. It's incredibly useful for hauling stuff to and from classes," Faye Faith explained, showing off the album some more.
"..."
"Pull the other one, it's got bells on it," Tally snarked.
"Okay," Faye Faith shrugged, right as Henley entered the room with two wheelchairs. "Alrighty then. Let's get you into the chairs and dried off so we can show you two the real magic!"
"Okay, Copperfield," Louise replied sarcastically.
"Nah, that's Nikki. USS Nicholas, rather. She uses this for magic tricks and cheating at poker." Faye Faith said casually as she moved to help Tally into one of the wheelchairs. Henley took the cue, and moved to help Lou into the other one.
Lou winced in pain as she was slowly pulled out. "Why are we in this bathhouse instead of the hospital? I don't think even a jacuzzi can heal… ugh, whatever I have everywhere…" she groaned in pain.
"Yeah, what's up with that?" Tally added. "I mean, it was kind of nice for what is probably a broken arm, but this is just weird."
Henley smirked, and Faye Faith had the good sense to look embarrassed. "Well, you see, we thought you were both shipgirls like us. So, we thought that the repair baths would have you fixed up in no time flat. Clearly, somehow, we were wrong, despite you being right out there with us. We literally hauled you from the well deck to the repair baths."
"Doctor obviously got the bath formula wrong," Tuckerman snarked.
"It worked for me!" Henley said. With both injured girls securely seated in the wheelchairs, Faye Faith led the way out of the room. They were in a section of the schoolship that neither Tally nor Lou had ever seen before. It was only a short walk to where Faye Faith wanted to go, and she pushed Tally into a room that smelled distinctly of salt water. About a foot below the edge of the deck was seawater, flowing in from somewhere.
"Welcome to Well Deck 3," the blonde said grandiosely. "The door there opens to the ship's starboard quarter."
"And what exactly are we here to see?" Tally asked.
"This!" Faye Faith said, jumping off of the deck and into the water. Except she didn't fall into the water, she landed atop it. Her gray blazer and red skirt had been replaced by a blue and white seifuku and skirt combo, and a metal contraption that was vaguely ship-shaped had appeared out of nowhere, wrapping around her.
Tally's jaw dropped.
Lou's eyes widened.
"B-b-but… that's impossible!" Tally exclaimed, stumbling over her words. "You were… and then… what?!"
"I-I'm seeing things…" Lou shook her head, managing to bear with the pain of moving her right arm up so that she could pinch the bridge of her nose.
"USS Fletcher, DD-445 reporting! Flagship of DesRon 73 and the defense squadron for Saunders!" Fletcher said, waving with her free hand. Her other hand was occupied with rifling through her skirt's pockets for something "And now I can finally get those damn photos out…"
"U-uhh…" Lou could only mutter in shock, finally acknowledging that what she saw was not a hallucination.
"I... you… but… ship… how?" Tally stammered.
Fletcher merely sighed. "Well, surprisingly, you're taking this better than Kay did. She just straight up fainted after checking in on you two and then seeing this."
"Trips, I'm friends with Jane Richardson. It takes a lot more than a bit of weirdness and some magic metal to faze me," Tally deadpanned.
"I'm the commander of Ace of Spades, the Easy-Eight of Saunders," Lou added on to Tally's statement, a more-than-slight tinge of pride in her voice when she said that. "You can surprise me, sure, but don't expect me to get knocked over like that."
"Well, then these shouldn't do anything to you," Fletcher said, finally pulling a small stack of photos from her pocket. She passed them to Henley before hopping out of the water, the rigging around her disappearing as soon as her feet met the metal deck. Her clothing also changed back to the standard Saunders student uniform. "I present to you, the shipgirls USS Evans and USS St. Louis."
Henley passed the photos around, and sure enough, there were two very familiar, very prominent figures in the images. A short brunette with her hair held up in a ponytail, dressed in her Sensha-do gear, surrounded by a rigging that looked vastly different than Fletcher's, and a taller redhead, her hair in a braid, also in slightly shredded Sensha-do gear, with a rigging very similar to Fletcher's.
They were very obviously Lou and Tally. As ships.
Tally looked up from the photo she was holding in shaking hands, and locked eyes with a similarly shaken Louise. Then, through some unspoken agreement, both fell slack into their wheelchairs, fainting dead away.
… ep… eep...Beep... Beep...
"Nnnh…"
Louise initially didn't pay much attention to whatever that was beeping away, her eyes still shut as she was comfortably tucked in bed. Too tired to care.
Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep...
As it went on, however, the beeps got clearer, more prominent. So did the light coming down from outside, over her shut eyelids.
Lou was still dazed, but she was woken up enough to slowly open her eyes, allowing the white light to come flooding in.
As it turned out, the source of that was a fluorescent ceiling lamp shining down at her.
An unfamiliar fluorescent ceiling lamp. This wasn't her room at all.
Turning her eyes, Lou checked her surroundings. It seemed like she was in a hospital, with the beepings from the vital signs monitor hooked up to her soft, yet unavoidable and unmistakable.
Why am I… ah, that's right.
The more she woke up, the more the memories came flowing back to her. She must've gotten injured during the shelling, which was why she was currently here.
That conclusion checked out.
Slowly, the girl attempted to get up, wincing as her body continued to ache. But within a minute, she was finally up and sitting, now able to have a good look on herself and her surroundings.
Feeling her arms, she realized both of them were bandaged beneath the long-sleeved hospital pyjamas she was currently wearing, her right arm more so, wrapped up all the way to her right hand. Moving around a bit more, she could feel even more bandages around her body, and there was one pasted over her right cheek. On the other hand, though, her legs felt fine. At least for now; she hadn't had the chance to move it yet.
The stale white hospital room she was in was fortunately air-conditioned, and even more fortunately was the fact that there were only two beds in it, Lou's own and… Tally's.
The unconscious redhead looked worse off than the brunette, her left arm in a cast and secured in position by a sling. She also had a cast over her entire right leg too, held in place over the bed by its own ceiling-hung sling. Her left foot, on the other hand, probably suffered a broken ankle, the cast on it only covering that area.
Tally looked like she was sleeping peacefully, so that was good.
As more memories came back to her, Tuckerman sat there looking down at her legs, pondering about how odd everything seemed.
What's all the shelling about?
Did we see something?
Why am I even in a hospital?
… What's with that weird dream?
That dream, yes, that dream. It was vague but she could piece it together a bit. Waking up in a hot bath. Meeting Jane and Faye Faith at that unfamiliar place, seeing the latter…
… A shipgirl?
Lou frowned. No, that definitely can't be right. Doesn't make sense at all.
She vaguely knew what the USS Fletcher was; as someone who did study the history of the Second World War, she had definitely ran into information about the naval side of things, albeit not paying too much attention to them as she had been more focused on tanks. But she did know that the Fletcher-class was the most-produced destroyer of the United States Navy, with hundreds or so of them built. Or was it?
Either way, she knew they built a whole lot of them. That was it.
Somehow, her mind had apparently linked Faye Faith Fletcher, currently just an acquaintance to Lou, to that destroyer, and all because of a last name. Why that happened she still did not know, but at least there was a correlation. A correlation that her mind might've decided to randomly pick up on and perpetuate that strange, elaborate dream.
And if her memory was correct, Tally and her were shipgirls too. It was very vague, but Louise did remember. She thought. Odd.
But that can wait. How did-
Hearing Tally suddenly cough, Lou immediately turned to look at her friend.
"Hey, you up? How do you feel?"
"Like the morning after shore leave…" Tally groaned.
The young Tuckerman briefly raised an eyebrow. "Yeah… you're beat up. Very beat up. What happened?"
She frowned. "We crashed the Jeep, didn't we?"
"I… think so? It's all sorta blurry right as we reached the edge of the deck," Tally answered uncertainly.
"Likewise, it's a bit convenient we forgot what we apparently saw, isn't it?" Lou frowned. "... I do remember seeing you see something, though," she suddenly recalled. "Don't know what that is."
"I did?" Tally asked. "Everything after we got there feels like a dream, if I can remember it at all. Something about ships? No, it's probably just a dream from being high on pain meds."
Lou blinked in mild surprise. "Huh. Funny, I dreamt about something 'bout ships as well. Maybe it was because the shelling of the schoolship reminded us about naval battles?"
Tally shook her head, as much as her bandages would allow. "But I don't know all that much about ships! Artillery is what I thought about, like that siege mortar at the Battle for Ooarai. All I know about them is from what Faye Faith and her crew have told me."
"Huh. Strange…" Lou muttered, back to pondering again. "If you thought that and had a similar dream to mine… Well, we don't actually know if they align," she shrugged before looking up at the redhead again. "... Do they?"
"I doubt it. There was some nonsense about Faye Faith being a-" whatever Tally was about to say, with air quotes, was cut off when the door to the room suddenly opened with substantial force.
"Where have you been, asshole?!" the familiar voice of Hoga Maiko was unmistakable as she entered the room, followed by the other two members of Team Ace.
"Guys!" Lou's face immediately lit up.
"Oh hey Tally!" Yuki greeted the redhead politely.
"Heyo," Tally said, but her enthusiasm had been wiped out. She slumped back into her bed.
"Oh, Miss Stuart's here too," Lou's gunner noticed. "'Sup. Anyway," she turned back to Lou, "What did you say, 'I won't take long'?! Your 'won't take long' turned out to be three days! We couldn't find you! You didn't even call! We were worried sick!"
"Calm down now, she was unconscious," Yuki calmed her close friend down.
"Yeah, I told her to be careful!"
"Shit, it's Thursday?" Lou blinked in surprise.
"Hello, how are you feeling?" Sayuri asked Tally as she sat down at the side of the redhead's bed, away from the loud conversation at the other bed. "That was quite the nasty hit, wasn't it?"
Tally nodded at the driver. "We don't even know what hit us."
"Yeah, you guys got hit by the shockwave of a shell!" Sayuri nodded. "At least that was what the report said."
"That would make sense. Those fourteen-inch shells have quite the punch."
"They sure do," Ace's driver nodded, not quite noticing something. "Everyone knows it's an attack, that much is obvious to even an ant. But for some reason nobody has made a statement on it yet. Everyone was focused on getting you injured guys off and into hospitals."
"Wait, we're not on the schoolship?" Lou asked, breaking away from her own conversation with her gunner and loader.
"Yep!" was the reply. "We're back in Nagasaki. Docked just last night."
"Huh… I've never been to any of the hospitals on board," the Easy-Eight commander commented. "Oh yeah, Tally," she suddenly asked, "do you have your phone with you?"
"Uh… it was in my jacket when we got hit. I've got no idea if it survived," Tally answered.
"I'll check for you," Sayuri offered as she walked over to the small cabinet beside the redhead's bed. "Can I?"
"Go for it," Tally said with a nod.
Nodding, Ace's driver opened the drawers. "Oh look, you've got mail!" she smiled, bringing it up for the redhead to see. "I'll put them aside first, you should read 'em yourself once you can."
"Who are they from?" Tally asked.
"Well, let's see…" Sayuri checked. "There's the Command Trio here, one from April, one from Jane, a different Jane, Faye Faith, some random names, probably your fans… Yeah, that's that. Hey, Jane chose a really nice combo of blue and white for her card."
"Which Jane? Richardson or Henley?"
"Uhh… Henley. Yeah, Henley."
"Hey, ain't that your twin?" Maiko asked. "The one that looks scarily just like you."
"Yeah," Tally sighed, "she's my Evil Twin. No relation whatsoever."
The gunner of Ace raised an eyebrow.
"Well, want to take a look now?" the driver asked.
"Open it up and pass it over? I've only got the one arm right now," Tally requested. Sayuri nodded and opened it up neatly, passing the contents over to the redhead. As soon as she had it, Tally scanned the card before reading aloud, "Hey Evans! All the best, twin sister! Hope you'll be well enough to come home soon! We'll be waiting for you! Love, J. D. Henley."
"Well, I think that's sweet!" Yuki smiled. "She does treat you like you really are her sister!"
Tally collapsed back onto her bed, letting her arm fall. "If only I knew why…"
"You've got your own stash too, Boss," Maiko noted, checking through Lou's drawer. "The Three, Kay's younger sister, a rose-emblemed letter from... St Gloriana, yeah, you know who that is, Alisa's crew did a collective one, Jane Henley and Faye Faith… Hey, I didn't know you knew the last two."
"I do, I frequent their food truck," Louise replied, a bit confused. "Why would they send it, though?"
"Cos they're nice, silly!" Sayuri laughed. "Alright, Tally opened up Jane's, you do the same too!"
"Yeah!" Maiko nodded, passing the letter over to Lou. Noticing the glare the commander was giving her, she noticed the bandages on the bedridden girl's arms. "... Right. I'll get to it," she nodded nonchalantly as she opened the letter much more messily than the driver.
She passed its contents over to Lou, who held it with her free left hand.
"Dear Louise, get well soon, you absolute saint!" Tuckerman read it out loud. "May the heavens bless you with even more good luck! Love, J. D. Henley."
"... That was a bit cheesy," the gunner commented.
"Yeah… and she drew a cross down here too," Lou noticed. "She spelt my name wrong as well, forgot the E at the back. I'm not a guy…"
Tally's eyes went wide, and she rolled slightly to stare at Lou in shock.
"But of course, all that matters is the heart put into this," Tuckerman smiled appreciatively. "So I thank her for that."
There was a knock at the door.
"Get in," Maiko called out.
Stepping in was Faye Faith, followed by none other than Jane Henley herself. Trailing behind her was Tally's own crew, Jane Richardson and April.
"Hey girls!" Tally said cheerfully. The cheer was a little forced, but she still seemed genuinely happy to see her friends and crew.
April immediately rushed over to her TC's side. "Oh my gosh, Tally! We were so worried about you!"
"Faye Faith and Henley let us know what happened," Jane added.
"Those shells really did a number on the two of you," Henley observed. "You're both lucky it wasn't worse."
"Well, the important thing is that they're here and they're healing properly." Faye Faith nodded at the two injured girls. However, her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and there was a hint of guilt to it.
"Well, thanks for the cards too!" Louise smiled, waving Henley's letter in the air. "Read Henley's already, it's sweet! Though, you did misspell my name."
Tally's Evil Twin froze. "D-did I?"
"Yeah, you forgot the E at the back!" Lou grinned.
"Can I see the card?" Faye Faith asked, approaching Lou's bed.
"Sure thing."
Faye Faith took the card from Lou's hand and scanned it quickly. Her smile turned into an ice cold frown as she moved over to Tally's bed, where the redhead offered up her own card to be read. Finally, the blonde rounded on her friend, gripping her shoulder hard enough that Henley winced. "When we get back to the apartment, you and I are going to have a nice, long talk," she smiled. Though, it was not a pleasant one, but one that would be, by all accounts, described as "dangerously sinister".
"Eep!" Henley eep'd.
"Nah, it's cool!" Louise reassured the two girls. "She doesn't need to be scolded for that."
"Oh, don't worry, that's not what she's in trouble for," Faye Faith said, her smile returning to normal.
"Hmm?" Lou cocked her head to one side, curious.
"It's nothing you need to worry about. Right now, you and Tally should just focus on resting and getting healed."
Tuckerman tried to snap her fingers in response, but quickly realized that her right hand wouldn't be able to do that. So, she switched over to her left hand, frowning in disappointment as the click was nowhere near as loud as it was on her dominant hand. "On it," she replied, giving a small smile.
"Yeah, get back to Ace, damn it!" Maiko agreed vehemently. "I've taken over your spot while you're gone and got a replacement gunner, she's shit!"
"Would you like me to try instead?" April offered.
"Oh?" the gunner raised an eyebrow.
"With Tally injured, we can't run the Stuart, but as a crew of two and a crew of three, we could fill Ace together while our commanders recover," April suggested.
Lou pondered over it while the rest of her team looked at each other in surprise. "Sounds like a plan," she nodded. "April, how familiar are you with the 76 mm M1?"
"I've fired it a few times. I'm more used to the 37mm on Izumi, but I know enough about the 76mm to be able to hit targets," April replied.
"Good enough for me," the commander nodded. "Maiko, teach her the same way I taught you," she instructed, using her bandaged right hand to attempt to point like usual. "Treat her well. I don't want to hear anything about her being intimidated."
"You know me," Ace's main gunner grinned, folding her arms. "You got it."
"Wait, where does that put me?" Jane asked, looking around the room.
"You're going to be the bow machinegunner," Tuckerman replied. "In other words, you'll be testing out the 'second pair of eyes' idea I had been talking to my girls about. They'll fill you in more on the details later."
"But… but that's Ace's seat!" Jane objected.