Leningrad, day 0, 2300 hours

"'Come and get it' Who do they think they are to resist us!" Sovetskaya Ukraina, currently at the base of Sevastopol, said by phone.

"Yeah. They think they will resist an invasion. They sure have balls," Sovetskaya Belorussiya, who was not to participate in the attack, said.

The docks of Leningrad were animated as preparation for offensive operations were underway. The destroyers and cruisers were dressing-up for battle as the majestic Soyuz prepared her giant rigging. The ice queen had a rigid expression on her face as their first battle loomed. Belorussiya put down the phone and joined her.

"You are so lucky to be already finished for the war. My riggings still have months before completion."

"Don't you worry," said Soyuz in calm, cold matter, "the war will be finished before long."

"If you reach Stockholm, take a book or two from their libraries! I'll gladly read them."

"I'll get you some Oscar's, okay?"

Belorussiya chuckled. Her sister took everything too seriously and literally. Soyuz left for the water. In total, the Parliament admiralty had assembled 3 battleships, 4 light cruisers and 4 destroyers who had a simple mission of disrupting trade and bombing the facilities of Kalmaria around the Beryozovye Islands. They departed in the snow of November. Tallinn, who had been recently acquired from Ironblood, joined Belorussiya with a faint smile on her face.

"Shouldn't we have sent a bigger force?" Tallinn asked.

"We have modern warships while Kalmaria only fields old hags. So old I wonder if their guns still work… Oh! I forgot we have the four old ladies of the Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya-class (Gangut-class). Why do you care anyway?"

Tallin played with her red string of hair. Why did she care anyway?

London

The city of London was in uproar as the Northern Parliament invaded the Kalmaria Kingdom. Voices from the Commonwealth and the Iris Orthodoxy screamed for intervention on the side of Kalmaria, to defend them against the tyrants of the Red Square. Strong and pro-war voices in the parliament of both countries shared the same sentiment. All the uproar did not interrupt Queen Elizabeth's routine. The teatime was still going as planned while she held the cup in the left hand and the newspaper in her right hand. Kalmaria's name was everywhere. Would her fleet be consulted on the matter? Even if Queen Elizabeth was to be consulted, she had no answer as she did not express any sympathy for both sides involved. Warspite, who was standing behind the Queen, said :

"We are already at war with Ironblood and they might have a special Siren weapon in their possession, why should we even intervene?"

"If they are back on track and they have new weapons, it's thanks to Kalmaria's dealings with Ironblood. Both the Northern Parliament and Kalmaria aren't hiding their deals with our enemies."

"Do you think they are going to send us?" Warspite asked as she wanted a little battle.

"We still have the Sakura Empire and Sardegna to worry about. If they see even a small weakness from us, they won't hesitate to attack. We can't afford that at the moment."

"Let us not follow old doctrines and embrace actions," Warspite said, "a little bit of action would not hurt, especially when WE rule the waves."

"And I want it to stay that way," Queen Elizabeth was serious.

She sipped her tea as a fast man, the eternal enemy of Chamberlain, made its way to her table. The man had a face reminiscent of a bulldog. He had but one objective.

"Can you help me push Operation Catherine?"

Operation Catherine was an ambitious plan to raid the naval supply lines between Kalmaria and Ironblood. The goal was to stop the import of vital war material between the countries.

"Shouldn't we 'help' our Nordic friends combat the red menace?" Queen Elizabeth asked rhetorically.

"Kalmaria will have fallen to the Northern Parliament by the time we arrive. That is why Catherine is a better alternative, and the Revenge-class would be getting a modernisation in the process."

"Men really unveil their true nature that easy, huh…" Queen Elizabeth motion seemed dismissive. "As Pound said anything?"

She referred to the current admiral of the fleet, Dudley Pound, her only superior. The bulldog felt exasperated, like caught in dead end.

"You are the only one who can convince him of taking on such a risking operation."

"This is enough," Queen Elizabeth got up, "we already have to execute R4, then we will see if further naval action is required from us – she stared in his eyes – Ironblood is not our only enemy… and I don't want another Intermarium fiasco."

The Intermarium Federation was sandwiched between Ironblood and the Northern Parliament, where the whole mess started. The bulldog got up and walked away before saying : "Don't lose sight of the true enemy."

The tea had gone cold, and she blamed the cigar smell from the man. Queen Elizabeth thought she was worrying too much about world events, but it seemed that another part of the map was going down in flames once more. Queen Elizabeth and Warspite walked from the garden to the naval dockyard of London. They had fleets ready and, as a Queen, she wanted to see her guests for one last time before departure to the Mediterranean Sea. Three Intermarium destroyers were docked and talking together in Polish.

"Happy to see you in one hull," said Queen Elizabeth. "Ready to serve the Royal Navy!?"

Burza, Blyskawika and Grom answered with enthusiasm, like true members of the Royal Navy. Cheers came from the whole fleet in the port.

"We are so thankful to be given the chance to kick some Ironblood butts!" Burza said.

They laughed together. The same day, all fleets would be gone from London, assigned to different area of the Commonwealth of Britain.

Berlin

Köln had presented the paper to Bismarck. The intercepted message was clear : the independence of Kalmaria was threaten by a joint Iris-Royal Navy uninvited incursion in Kalmaria's territory to help them against the Northern Parliament. Their intent to capture the vital war materials were not hidden. Feeling insulted, Bismarck contemplated the paper. Would they really act on it?

"It seems it would be better to stop the Royal Navy," Tirpitz said.

"We are left with little choices. Kalmaria is in a defensive war, mobilised its resources to the east, thinking it could leave itself undefended in the west because our war does not concern them. How foolish…"

"Maybe, next time," Friedrich der Grosser said, "don't give free candies to strangers or they might bite!"

"Go tell that to the admiral," Bismarck said on a pissed tone. The pact Molotov-Ribbentrop had to be respected and Kalmaria had the bad luck of falling in the Northern Parliament sphere of influence. For now, they hoped that the technological exchange between Kalmaria and Ironblood would bear its fruits. For now, Prinz Eugen had started a gamble with the other girls. The situation was clear : the bets were all stacked against Kalmaria. Would they be able to pull out a miracle?

Kalmaria, day 2 in the Winter War, 1600 hours

A dense freezing fog has set in the Baltic Sea, reducing visibility to mere meters and rendering binoculars useless. The six destroyers from the Northern Parliament were forming a defensive line formation around Soyuz. They were trying to spot the coastal facilities for bombardment. Ahead of the formation, the destroyer Minsk was trying to follow the path made by the aerial reconnaissance. Her hands were not shaking from the cold, but the paper was sticking to her fingers and the compass was acting all over the place. She wished for a little bit of sun, but the fog seemed to become denser by the minutes. An unsettling calm and silence were only disrupted by their engines and movements. Even if it was an opened area, she felt trapped in a cage. The fog acted as though cell bars.

By this point, they should have reached the islands, but nothing except fog was there. She tried finding the rocks marked on the map. They either had disappeared, or they were not at the right place. She guided them closer to the shore where the enemy coastal batteries should be. In position, they fired at the supposed coordinates. The shell clearly landed, but it was to the sound of exploding trees. Minsk looked back at the map.

"Soyuz, I can't find anything in this fog. The map is useless, and the compass seems broken."

"Damnit," Gangut said, "I want to fire at the enemy. Not trees!"

Soyuz took the compass from Minsk's hands. It was acting erratically. Soyuz had never been informed about such a possible problem. Gangut examined it, as she had more experience than anyone on this expedition. Her expression went from preoccupied to a cheerful one. Marat (Petropavlovsk) shared the same thought.

"It seems some head want to be chopped off," Marat laughed.

"The enemies?" Soyuz asked them.

Gangut cleared her dry throat and yelled : "It seems you Kalmarians have to compensate for something! Come and fight!"

Her voice echoed though the Baltic Sea. With no answer, except the sudden agitated movement of the water. As they were all immobile, Soyuz realized what had happened.

"We were not informed that the enemy had Siren technology," Soyuz's cold expression suddenly broke for the first time. A little cold sweat froze on her forehead.

Minsk fears were manifested. The fog's prison was closing in. They were on high alert, forming a defensive perimeter as Soyuz was trying to reach the command base of Leningrad. Minsk's heart was pounding. No amount of training had prepared them for this. Soyuz's voice was breaking as it was getting louder.

"Squadron to HQ, Squadron to HQ! Do you receive me?!"

Static. Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya and Marat had become preoccupied about Soyuz. She was the flagship, but it seemed this baptism of fire would be harder than expected. Gangut rallied the destroyers and cruisers.

"Reverse defensive formations. Loose. Minsk and Leningrad, don't lose sight of us and be prepared to face the offensive head on!"

Sudden canon sound teared through the fog. Coming from the land, heavy coastal guns had opened fire on the formations from the north. Soon, near misses splashed in the water. They tried getting away, but the coastal guns were destabilising the formation.

"Stay in formation!" Gangut shouted.

The light cruiser Kirov was hit by a 254mm shell and set ablaze. The fog was illuminated with a bright orange. The bombing from the coastal batteries stopped. Minsk tried to send them shells as present, but the fog engulfed them like they had never been fired. The black silhouettes in the fog were closing in.

"Leningrad, watch out!"

As they dodged torpedoes, they were tackled by enemy destroyers. As they tried to get back up and retaliate, the destroyers had already disappeared again in the fog. After, shells from the south side started raining. Both Minsk and Leningrad were hit. Luckily, the large caliber shells over-penetrated and detonated in the water. Laughs could be heard in the distance, behind the fog. As Minsk regained her composure, she remembered that the part of Kalmaria, the Storfinland, was not equipped with destroyers according to their reports. There was but one conclusion : against all odds, Kalmaria had answered the call to arm. The Northern Parliament's bet of non-intervention had been compromised and they were now in deep trouble.

A second detonation was heard in the distance. Soyuz's voice could be heard. The group was now immobilized in a tight formation. Gangut and Petropavlovsk were the last one to not express any fear. Their stern expression turned to the two destroyers : "We are going to face Kalmaria head-on. Escort the wounded back to Leningrad."

Minsk, who had always feared Gangut, obeyed without a word. Gangut and Petropavlovsk ordered them to stay in a tight formation. The two battleships disappeared into the fog.

Leningrad, day 3, 1700 hours

To the south of Leningrad laid a large corridor by the name of Neva. This large river was modified by the great geographical changes in the Siren war. This corridor was even larger than before with a difficult stream. Despite this flaw, it had made Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega perfect places for naval infrastructures, docks and testing facilities. Also, it created a direct naval route between the Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea, perfect for military redeployment during the summer, impassable by winter. But it also separated Leningrad from the mainland. Three bridges had been erected to maintain the flow of transportation. Despite these three bridges, troops and material had to be ferried to the other side for maximum efficiency before the winter ice covers the corridor. From a military headquarter, Sovetskaya Belorussiya, in military uniform and sporting her naval hat, was overlooking the thousands of men in movements in the little fog that had settled over the region. Everyone was doing their work, oblivious of the bloody battles taking place on the Kalmarian border.

"We still can't get in contact with the fleet," the Parliament officer said for the third time.

"Has weather gone this bad over there?"

"No. It is static. High command suspects Siren technology being used."

"I wonder where they got it from…" a frustrated Belorussiya said, looking in Ironblood's direction.

A sudden large explosion was heard outside. Belorussiya and the officer were shocked to see the bridge collapsing across the street. Vehicles and men were falling in the freezing water. Other explosion popped all over the harbour. Ferried ships were sinking and docked boat were suddenly capsizing. In matter of second, the corridor had become a graveyard of blood, iron and wood.

A shell landed in the military headquarter. Belorussiya and the officer evacuated from the building as panic ensued. Belorussiya knew such little caliber gun could only scratch her at best. She ran to the dock facing the Baltic Sea. No planes and no ships in visual, even behind the smoke. She ran to the canal's entry and saw large openings all over the kilometer long anti-submarine net. How had they not been alerted? A shell graze her head, taking off her cap.

A Kalmarian submarine sticked out her tongue and disappeared beneath the waves, chassed by patrol boats. Belorussiya never felt this humiliated and powerless. Her eyes went red with rage as she cursed the submarines.

Kalmaria, day 3, 1900 hours

Gangut and Petropavlovsk had been searching for hours to see the Kalmarian fleet, to no avail. Even if the fog had been lifted a little bit, a small snowfall replaced it. In the darkness of the night, Gangut was getting tired. They were constantly harassed by torpedoes at random times from random directions. None hit despite the two battleships lack of dodging manoeuvres. She was getting sleepy.

"How far are we from the main fleet?" she asked for a third time to her sister, not remembering her answer.

"Difficult to judge with the snow, but we are only hours away from Leningrad most likely."

"We haven't seen land in hours now."

If anything, they were tired and even the cold, to which they were accustomed, was getting to their core. It had been an even worse idea to venture alone, thinking the cowards would come out to fight dreadnought battleships. Gangut was cursing the black shadows lurking in the nightly fog. Gangut tried multiple radio frequencies for a hint of Kalmaria in the area and she received nothing every time. Unlucky for her enemies, Gangut had nerves of steel and she refused to be intimidated.

Her curse seemed answered. Another wave of torpedoes, this time in multiple succession appeared on their side. Gangut, tired, tried to maneuver. Routine. Yet, her tiredness made her clumsy. She ate one then two and finally a third torpedo, 2 of them failing to detonate. Still, her leg hurt from the explosion. She had to slow down. She cursed them even more. Petropavlovsk came to her aid.

"You can still make the trip!?"

"This is but a scratch! – as it was said, the darkness started moving, and the shadows closed in – look out!" she shouted.

Pushing her sister aside, Gangut fired in the shadows with a full salvo. It met the sound of the water.

"Too bad!" said a sudden voice coming from below her waist.

Gangut thought she had been fired at by destroyers or cruisers but it was a submarine! She tried to crush the puny creature who dove below the battleship and disappeared. Without ASW weapons, she was powerless. Thinking she had been the cat all along, Gangut realized she had been a trapped mouse where the cat was playing with its food. More torpedoes had to be dodge. After all this action, Gangut realized the shadows had disappeared, and fires could be seen kilometers in the fog, toward Leningrad.

[…]

Minsk had been alert for the past hours, the stress from the day dragging her down and making her tired. Every little detail on the horizon became shadows. The darkness of the night was enveloping her. Search lights had been turned off to make it difficult to spot them in the dark. Despite that, she examined the shadows, and the shadows seemed to be tailing them like it was a sunny day. Why were they only looking without attacking? Was it part of a grand strategy she couldn't comprehend?

Light appeared on the horizon. Hope. A warm meal awaited her with some oil. Their crushing defeats would be swept away. A good night sleep would put them back in action. She still feared the justification of their defeat. What could they have done? The yellow light came closer and closer until the light turned orange and then red. The canal of Leningrad was engulfed in flames, and they could be seen clearly in the darkness of the night. They were mesmerized. Had their plan backfired?

Minsk suddenly heard the water being swept. In a quick turn, she had time to deflect the blade in an empty part of her body.

"Not bad," said the Kalmarian destroyer, who withdrew her sword.

Minsk shouted to her comrades as she was tackled in the water by another destroyer. Trying to recover, a bigger stature appeared fixing her search lights upon Minsk. Cruiser sized; Ceremonial sword in hand; the cruiser with gute rams and sheep ears looked down upon Minsk and said :

"Listen, parliament puppet, you will answer your crimes! Even with your backhand deals, we won't surrender without a bloody fight! Kalmaria stands united and will drag every last one of your kind through the ice to Hel!"

Gotland closed her search lights as patrol boats appeared. They seemed to be chasing after submarines. From the darkness, multiples cannons fired. Salvoes after salvoes, the patrol boats were picked off in explosive fashion. Thousand of screaming voices were heard as the men drown in icy water. Minsk had been selected as the messenger. Around her, shells splashed, the enemy missing on purpuse. The destroyer felt powerless before the floating frozen corpses. The first days had been a disaster. Leningrad appeared with 2 other sisters.

"Minsk! What are you doing! We have been ordered to counterattack!"

She looked behind her.

"To counterattack whom?" Minsk asked, searching the pitch darkness, where the shadows had disappeared. Leningrad knew it was most likely suicidal or useless, but order were orders. Minsk, too tired, sighed. "Let's try to find the submarines."

It had been in vain.

Kalmaria, day 4, 0000

The minelayer submarines, who had been successful in their escape, surfaced in the darkness of the night acclaimed by her comrades from the surface fleet.

"The raid on Leningrad was a success!" acclaimed Gustav V.

"The daring infiltration of Valen, Delfinen, Nordkaparen, Springaren and Flora will be remembered for the ages," Oscar II wrote.

"How was the Ironblood-Sardegnian tech?" Charles XII was eager to know.

Flora answered with enthusiasm : "With the number of magnetic mines laid down and ships destroyed with limpet mines, they will take most likely months to clear the disaster!" Flora wanted to show how easy it was to lay or attached them, but they had gotten rid of their entire inventory. Another submarine surfaced with them : it was Bellona, who was equipped with long range radio.

"I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but our operation doesn't change the fact that we are powerless about the result on land. And it sounds bad."

"How bad?" Sverige asked.

"Without official support from other countries, the Mannerheim line won't hold, a general said."

"Preposterous!" Charles shouted, "we will drive them back to Moscow like in the good old times!"

"If we can stand toe to toe with the might of the Red Fleet, the same cannot be said for our defense forces against the Red Army," Oscar II observed.

"We can do like they tried to do and bomb their troops from the coastal regions," Väinämöinen suggested.

"Despite our doctrine of coastal defence, the Northern Parliament will just send a more massive fleet next time and we don't have the element of submarine surprise." Eidsvold tried to stay as realistic as possible. Only their superior tactics and strategies had won them this battle, but once the enemy would learn from them, the technological advantage of the Parliament would take them over, rendering their effort useless. Drottning Victoria intervened :

"The raid of Leningrad should be enough for the Royal Navy and Iris to intervene on our behalf… sincerely. They can knock-out two major powers at once with us gaining lands in the progress."

"Like it will ever happen!" Oscar abandoned herself to pessimism which annoyed Charles.

"We should do like Victoria said and tell of it as much as possible. So much, even the Parliament won't be able to hide it," Charles said.

"Like they can hide such destruction," laughed Flora, her tongue out.

The Kalmarian surface fleet sailed back to Helsinki without hindrance. As soon as words got out of their accomplishments, people awakened. The defeated expression turned to jubilation. Crowds were chanting as Väinämöinen was giving a speech. A spirit of the Winter War animated the city and soon propagated throughout the kingdom.

Note : sorry for the delay on this chapter! I had IRL stuff to take care of and it took me a long time to finally get around to publishing this chapter.