Hipper

"Seriously… what's up with this weather?!"

Every single second I spent in this semi frozen sea was pure torture. The girls from the Royal Navy and the Sardegna Empire always mentioned how much it could snow on the northern part of Germany, and how cold the days could get. I could, without a shadow of a doubt, confirm that the gulf of Finland was far worse than anything in the Fatherland.

"To have to come all this way… that damn Grossadmiral… Hurensohn!"

The last few months had been a huge mess. Eugen was always being sent here and there, disappearing for days, even weeks at a time and coming back sulkier and sulkier. No matter how much she tried to hide it, or even worse, tease me. I knew better, she was just my little sister after all.

Then I got the news about Blücher.

I didn't exactly know how to react at first. Part of me had seen it coming. And I thought that deep inside, so had Blücher. We both saw what had happened to Spee. Or Bismarck. But there were orders from above, that we weren't allowed to question. And ever since that woman, Friedrich, stepped into the throne, we hadn't had any sort of backbone to fend off the High Command's increasingly ridiculous orders. She just played right into their hands. At least Bismarck showed disapproval.

In the end, it happened. Shot down by shore artillery, cornered inside a fjord…

I shook my head. There were more important things to be doing right now.

Lützow.

Or Tallinn now, according to what little information I got from Odin after she gave me clearance. Considering the state of affairs with the Northern Parliament, the fact that she was able to confirm that she was in good health, and somewhere near Saint Petersburg was impressive on it's own. I still had my doubts about her overworking Eugen to the bone, but someone had to keep my walking insubordination of a sister in check while I was away.

"Damn this freezing… How do they even survive out here? Are they even human? My rigging's gonna freeze at this ra…"

Suddenly, the water below my feet exploded upwards, making me lose balance and falling backwards, hitting my back on something unexpectedly hard. It took me a few seconds to stand back up, massaging my sore behind.

"What the…"

For the first time in recorded history, a mass produced submarine had kamikaze'd into a shipgirl. I took a look at it from it's deck. It was a Northern Parliament sub, that much I could tell. A Dekabrist-class? A Leninit-class? I wasn't too sure about it.

A wave of putrid, burning smell reached me, almost making me vomit. I noticed the faint yellow cloud coming out of the seams of the hatch.

"Scheisse, the batteries!"

I tore a bit of my coat and soaked it in water, wrapping it around my face. I summoned my rigging in an instant, and it started eating away at the submarine's tower. They hadn't really intended to just ram me after all, they were forced to breach after their batteries were soaked in seawater.

After a few tortuous seconds, I saw the first man. He was coughing, but seemed otherwise fine. One after the other, the men started coming out of the submarine, each in worse condition than the one before. There were still men shouting inside.

"Ugh… not going to make it..."

I heard a gunshot and felt a sting of pain in my right arm. I looked at where the sound had come from. Mein Gott, that was barely a man. What was he, eighteen? Nineteen? The terror in his eyes was apparent as well. After all, someone had just tore apart the pressure hull of the submarine he served on. While it was filled tk the brim with chlorine gas. Well, the other men were quick to take his weapon away, and it's not like a normal gun would have any effect on the average shipgirl, other than a bruise at most.

"Scheisse! You, take your men to that floating chunk of ice!"

He probably couldn't understand explicitly what I said, but my frenetic gestures towards my rigging and the ice sheet seemed to be enough. He shouted something down the hole I had carved, and urged his men to leave the deck of the submarine. I nodded and jumped onto the water, rushing towards the bow of the bote.

"I'm telling you again, I do not want to drink that vodka of yours!"

After I blasted open the pressure hull of the submarine, over forty people had crawled out of the damn thing. Mostly men from eighteen to twenty something. Very young men. I had heard the Northern Parliament was becoming desperate and throwing way too many soldiers to the battlefield but… mein gott…

They had been on edge about me for almost half an hour, especially the kid that had shot me. He managed something that sounded like an apology between his stutters. I quickly dismissed him though. Not like his shot did any damage in the end. I couldn't tell if the redness of his face was just from embarrassment or something else. I hoped he didn't get any illusions. Unlike Eugen seemed to think, I DID have a few admirers. Not as many as that mean, cow-titted sister of mine, but a few anyway.

Ah, that train of thought again. It didn't fail to annoy me. And the man trying to shove the vodka bottle in my face certainly didn't help.

"For the last time…" I grabbed the bottle, turned around and threw it away "I don't want your damn alcohol!"

The men watched as the bottle spun around flying into the mist. None of them said a thing though. They probably had never seen anyone decline vodka. Let alone throwing it away. Just a few seconds after throwing the bottle, I started to wonder if it had been a clever choice.

"Look, tovarisch!"

"... don't pick that up, Gangut. Who knows where it comes from…"

Someone was speaking in the mist. I readied my weapons instantly, but the men behind me began to cheer loudly, taking out even more bottles. Did they have more vodka than torpedo fuel on board? Mein Gott…

"The Revolution demands beverages, tovarisch! Come, enjoy it with me!"

"We came here to check on the mass produced submarine that sent a distress signal… let's leave it until we actually find them. I heard someone yell over there."

After what felt like an eternity of the men behind me yelling on top of their lungs, the two voices finally emerged. One of them was vaguely familiar, not personally but from multiple reports. Loud, alcoholic and clingy, that woman was Gangut, one of the dreadnoughts from the Northern Parliament.

The other however… those yes, that white hair with that red bang, those infuriatingly, unfairly big…

I jumped to the water and rushed their way.

Author's notes:

A short one this time, mostly as an excuse to don't leave you all with a month of nothing. I am going through my finals, so I won't be able to practically even touch writing until, at the very least, the 22nd of June, possible even more.

Here we have a bit of Hipper screen time. She won't be a major character in this fanfic, but I wanted to at least mention what she was up to.

Also, detail I forgot to mention in the last Author's notes. The old lighthouse tender is called Edward as a reference to what would have been Prince of Wales's original name, Edward VIII, before the king abdicated to marry a divorced woman and the ship was renamed. Likewise, "Bessie" is the woman the King married after abdicating, Bessie Wallis Warfield.

Anyway, enough historical rumbling. Hope you enjoy this while I am busy with other stuff.