Chapter 12
In the morning, Sanders woke up to a conversation that echoed from the corridor. He opened his sleepy eyes and watched the bed planking above him. For a moment, the idea that the situation seemed very familiar popped in his mind. However, it didn't last long because he heard a quiet moan on his right side, and someone shifted their position. He turned to look and saw Penny lying next to him, squeezing herself against him. A small panic struck him, and he began to wonder what exactly had happened. Then he heard someone move on his left side and say:
"Good morning. Slept well?"
-"I don't know." He slowly answered.
Sanders sat upright on the edge of the bed. He frowned thoughtfully, but it seemed it did not result in any clarity about what had happened.
That was when the others started to wake up too. Fluffy heads rose from the beds accompanied symphony of curses. In one of the top beds, Hornet dangled her legs down from the edge of the bed. She held her throbbing head and squelched her dry mouth:
-"Yowch my head!" She said "Oh, hello Ari."
Arizona raised her head from the bed behind Hornet and groaned out something vague.
Brown jumped down from the bed and immediately crouched holding his head:
"Ah, my fuckin' head man… Yuck, tastes like someone has eaten shit with my mouth."
-"How do you have a hangover? We didn't even drink much." Helena said.
She jumped down from the bed too. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt with text 'USS' on the chest. Helena crouched down and patted Brown on the back before she walked over to the desk and poured water into glasses.
Sanders, still wondering what had happened the night before, looked around and asked:
"How did it all go?"
Those who remembered the events of the previous night, laughed. Atlanta sat down next to Sanders, giggled and said:
"For the most part, it was great. You just were tied up at headquarters."
-"I was there?"
Hornet leaned to look down from between her legs and said:
"You were! They carried you back here. You had your arms and legs tied."
-"What for?"
-"You started a ruckus there."
-"Right… Okay."
Sanders ran his hand through his hair, grunted and groped his jacket aimlessly. Then his expressionlessness face returned, and he asked:
"Did they say anything? Did anyone get hurt?"
-"Not too badly. Some officer spat out blood, but nothing more."
-"Oh well. It doesn't matter if it wasn't worse. We should probably leave quietly, or does the Admiral know about our whereabouts?"
-"She knows alright. She personally dragged you here. And she didn't seem angry, so you don't need to worry." Atlanta said and grabbed a hairbrush from the desk and started to brush her hair.
-"Should we go and ask Vestal if she could spare any painkillers? This headache is killing me!" Hornet said and leaned against the bedframe. She was drinking her fourth glass of water.
Arizona was still lying on the bed. She peeked down and said:
"Yeah, but we can't mention the hangover. She won't give anything if we do. She'll just say, 'If it's self-inflicted, it's not doctor's job to cure it.' And only one of us has to go. If we all go then she'll get suspicious."
-"That is true. Is there anything wrong with anyone that could act as an excuse?"
-"Well, my throat is a bit sore…" Hornet said and caressed her throat.
-"No way. She knows you too well. Does anyone have any complaint, other than Hornet?" Penny said sharply. It was true. Vestal knew the Yorktown-class sisters all too well.
-"What about you Ari? Don't you have anything?"
-"I-uhm-"
-"Yes she has! Her left side is bruised! Just say you haven't slept well for a few nights and that you need painkillers."
-"It could work… Here, show it to me…" Pennsylvania ordered Arizona to show her bruised side, "Yeah, but it's too faded. Here take Sander's jacket and rub it with it. Its rugged enough to redden it but not to draw blood." Pennsylvania ordered and grabbed Sanders' jacket from his hands.
-"Tell her in this tone: it's not too painful, but when you lie down it hurts."
After dressing and drinking lots of water, they left the room. A few girls walked down the corridor past them. As they walked through the lounge, they saw underwear tossed here and there and some girls piled them up. After walking out and getting some fresh air, they met sullen looking Washington:
"Ah, it's you. Good. Go and look at the Iron Blood dormitories and see what kind of damage there is. Make a note of the rooms that are undamaged and bring it to me."
-"But we were about to-"
-"No buts. Admiral's orders."
XXX
The dormitories all looked the same on the outside. They were just large, pale, gabled cement buildings. Next to the front door there was a metal plate with painted Iron Blood logo on it. However, when they stepped inside, they found that the dorm was way different from the Eagle Union's dorm. The walls were light gray and the floor dark gray with some darker spots on it.
-"Whoa, I've never been inside here."
-"Me neither. There was never a need to."
-"Right… Look there's a map."
On the wall right next to the door was a framed map of the building and its rooms. They gathered around the map and studied it.
-"What the fuck? The rooms aren't numbered?"
The rooms were not numbered indeed, but they had strange writing on them.
-"Okay, right behind us there should be… Putzc- 'Putzschrank?' The hell is that?"
-"No clue, but look at this. It's another map… Here, its named as 'Armadio per le pulize'… It's all gibberish… This must be italian. No other language sounds so weird. 'Armadio. Per. Le. Pulize'?"
They turned around and saw a door with the same weird texts on a nameplate on it.
-"What does that even mean?" Atlanta said and frowned.
-"No clue, but it doesn't sound pleasant to me. 'Putzshrank' sounds a bit like a prison's name to me if I'm being honest." Pennsylvania said and stepped forward. She watched the door for a moment like it would tell her the answer. When no answer came, she shrugged "Well, only one way to find out."
She reached for the handle and turned it. To their disappointment a torture room nor a prison did not open before them, but just an ordinary cleaning closet.
-"Oh…"
-"…"
-"… I don't know what kind of prisons the Iron Blood has, but this seems just extra cruel to me! I mean just look at it. There's no room to move around." Hornet chuckled and closed the door.
-"Yeah, well I just said what it sounded like to me." Pennsylvania frowned and turned back towards the maps, "… Right, if you three go upstairs and start checking the rooms there, we'll start down here. I guess the rooms have the classes name on them. Grab a pencil and a piece of paper somewhere and write them down. Or you can do it the hard way and try to memorize them but good luck with that."
-"Sure, let's do that." Sanders scratched the back of his head and agreed.
Together he, Brown, and Atlanta went upstairs while the others stayed on the ground floor.
-"Do we do this efficiently and start at different ends?" Brown asked as he measured the corridors length with his eyes.
-"Might as well. I guess we won't lose anything by doing it that way." Atlanta said and started to walk toward the end of the corridor.
-"… Are you taking this end or that one?"
-"Doesn't matter."
XXX
Fortunately for them, there were only a few dozen dorm rooms in the entire building and about half of them were downstairs, so it didn't take them long to go through all the rooms. However, they inspected the rooms very differently from each other. When Sanders, Penny, Ari, and Helena examined the rooms carefully. Brown, Hornet, and Atlanta went through the rooms quickly and without much analysis.
Sanders had just left his last room when he noticed a sign that caught his attention: 'Il Potente Littorio'
For a moment he hesitated and looked at the door thoughtfully. However, curiosity took over and he stepped inside the room. He stopped and looked around the room in awe. Compared to Iron Blood's usual spartan styled rooms, this was a room for the queen.
The room had a large double bed with golden trim. The table, armchair, and even the mirror all had golden trims. It seemed the room had two predominant colors: white and gold.
Sanders looked around the room, groaned and said:
"Would ya look at that… wouldn't have guessed."
He spun around the room and watched it with interest. It was as if he had entered a whole new world. To one, where he had never been in.
However, as he was examining the large bed, he saw metallic glint on the table from the corner of his eye. As he approached the table, his eyes fixed on that metal box. He watched it for a moment. Of course, he had immediately recognized it: his cigarette case.
He reached out to grab the case but stopped when he noticed a corner of a paper poking out of it. There was an ink stain on the table and an open ink bottle. The ink inside the bottle was dry.
Sanders opened the case carefully. The case was full of high-quality cigarettes and a letter was attached to the inner lid:
"October 23.
Dear Lieutenant Arthur Sanders,
I hope the case finds you safely. As you may have already guessed, it has been in my custody for quite some time now. I had no intention of confiscating it for such a long time, but I just couldn't come up with a way I could give it back to you. Simply giving it to you would have been too simple and underwhelming. However, things don't always go as planned and before I knew it you had already left the base Azure. So, I decided to wait for your return so I could give the case I borrowed from you personally, but then I started thinking about the possible obstacles for your arrival. You might not come back here again, which would ruin my plan anew. I was already starting the preparations of sending this case for you via mail, but it looks like I cannot do that either. My dear homeland is threatened, and I have been ordered to return to the port of La Spezia as soon as possible. This is a big setback. I hope one the girls in this harbor can give you this case because I can't do it myself anymore. The world works in mysterious ways and it's difficult to change how it rotates, even if the one trying is Littorio.
I'm truly sorry that I am unable to return the case for you myself, but I hope you can forgive me. I had so many plans for you but what can you do. I hope to see you again sometime in the future. At the latest after the war, then we could sit down and share our past experiences with each other over some wine.
Sincerely,
Littorio, Vittorio Veneto-class battleship number two; the Mediterranean's mightiest battleship."
-"Sanders?... Sanders!... There you are!"
Brown and Atlanta appeared at the door:
"Hey, we are done. Let's go!"
-"Hmh? Oh, right. Yeah, let's go."
XXX
-"Oh man! Did you hear that we will get to sortie again soon? I guess the Admiral has gotten things in order for us to start taking commissions again!" Hornet spoke happily as others tried to keep up with her.
-"Really? Well, that is good news. It is getting pretty boring when you can't go and split the waves."
-"Do you have any details when? It would be nice to know when."
Hornet twiddled her cowboy hat's edges and said:
-"Well, I heard that maybe when the first fleet gets back."
-"First fleet, huh? Aren't Enterprise and Essex in that fleet?" Pennsylvania said.
They stepped inside the headquarters and looked around. A few of the windows in the lobby were still broken and they had been temporarily fixed with silicone.
-"Yep, the same one. They have been gone for a long time already, something like two months." Atlanta said and wrote their report onto one paper. "Aight, all done. Let's give this to the Admiral and be done with it."
-"Yeah…" Pennsylvania said. She watched Sanders for a moment before saying:
"Sander? Are you alright? You seem absent-minded."
-"Hah, good one! He's like that always, don't tell me you haven't noticed!" Hornet laughed.
-"No, she's right. You have been away with the fairies ever since we got done looking around the IB dormitory." Brown pointed out and patted Sanders on the shoulder.
-"Yeah… I guess I have been. Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind right now. Nothing you should worry about."
-"Oh come on, you can tell us!" Hornet jumped forward and shook his shoulders. "We won't tell anyone! Come oon! Is it something about us?"
-"Maybe, maybe not."
-"About your family? Are you worried?"
-"Perhaps."
-"Hornet that's enough! Let him be. If he doesn't want to talk about it, you shouldn't force him." Arizona scolded Hornet.
A little worried they looked at that man who again sank into his own thoughts, but they noticed from his vague responses that he did not tolerate them interfering with his affairs.
XXX
-"And here's the report, everything we found is marked on it." Atlanta handed Rear-Admiral Reed their report.
-"Oh, well thank you. Didn't expect you to be done so soon with it, but I don't complain. Was there anything significantly wrong with the building that I should know about immediately?"
They looked at each other for a moment before Pennsylvania cleared her throat and answered:
-"No, Ma'am. Nothing urgent."
-"Okay… well thank you. You're dismissed… except you Sanders. I want to talk to you."
-"Sure."
The others left with little noise and left Reed and Sanders alone in the room.
Sanders stood still, hands clasped behind his back, waiting for the Admiral to begin. However, the Admiral just stared at him for a moment quietly before she leaned back on her chair and motioned for Sanders to sit down. It was not until he sat down when she began slowly:
"How are you feeling?"
Sanders raised one of his eyebrows to the odd question. They had known each other for many months now, but he at least thought their relationship had hardly changed after the first few weeks. Of course, it wasn't unheard of officers to hang out with other officers, but he felt like there was a little too much difference in their ranks for that.
-"I've been better."
-"Of course you have." Admiral Reed chuckled "Anyone would feel the same if they had been as intoxicated last night."
Sanders didn't answer her, and it wasn't until a moment after watching Sanders that Reed realized that he didn't remember anything. She sighed deeply before saying:
"You don't remember anything from last night, do you?"
Sanders grunted: "Yeah… Yeah, I guess I don't."
-"Want me to fill you in?"
-"I heard a little already. And if there was no major harm done then there's no need to bother to."
Reed smiled shortly at him before she stood up and walked in front of the large window and looked outside.
-"I think we as humans worry too much about the little things… Do you know what it says in the Gospel of Luke? 'Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them.' At times, my work feels like clearing a field out of a swamp. Thousands of hours forward, but in the end, it does not matter if the yield deceases for reasons beyond my control. Don't you think we should be more like ravens?"
Sanders was quiet and just watched the Admiral looking out of the window. She turned to look at him over her shoulder.
-"Maybe… Carefree birds… Birds may be carefree, but I have never seen a man having to sweat for his bread like that."
-"Well said!" Reed laughed "But let's end this pointless philosophical conversation before it really can start, because neither of us will do well in it and that wasn't why I asked you to stay. Would you take an important document out of here for me?"
-"If it's an order, then I have no choice."
-"Yes, but it isn't. You can refuse if you want. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't trust you. Actually, I would have preferred to send Allen because you just got here, but I had a different job for him."
-"Where should it be taken to?"
-"To the nearest military base, which happens to be base Lima. I know you live nearby so I thought you could take a few days and visit your home on the same trip."
Sanders grunted: "Agh… Yeah, sure. I'll do it. When do I leave?"
-"I like your enthusiasm," Reed joked "but hold on for a second. I can't send you alone. Normally, well I would normally broadcast these on the radio, but I'm afraid that the Sirens are listening to our frequencies. So, like I was saying normally I would send an entire fleet to take this important of a message, but I can't right now. I need every able girl to be on the base if the Sirens try to take advantage of our weakened state and attack convoys nearby. Take one or two girls with you and I'll see how fast I can get you out of here."
-"So I get to choose any of them?"
-"Well, I can't afford to send some of the strongest one's, but yes, more or less anyone."
-"Right…"
-"No need to choose right now, but I hope you have an suggestion by tonight… One more thing. The airport is in shambles so it can't be used. You have to take a boat from here to the mainland and trains from there." Reed went through some folders on her desk before she found the one, she was looking for "… You probably can take the same ship with which the fallen are taken from here."
-"Yeah, sure."
-"Any questions? No? then you are dismissed."
Sanders waved his hand and left the room. At the same time Washington came inside with a tray from the side room, Reed sighed and sat down in her chair.
-"Well?" Washington asked and placed a teacup in front of Reed.
-"He agreed, like I said he would."
-"Then there should be nothing to worry about." Washington said and sat down on the same chair Sanders had just sat on.
-"Yeah, I guess so…" Reed said and stirred the tea with her spoon.
-"… You have seen the dream again, haven't you."
Reed dropped her spoon and turned to look away. She leaned against her arm and bit her knuckles before saying:
-"Yeah… but this was different."
-"How so?" Washington said and took out a notepad and a pen.
-"This time it was not just the same ones as before but there were more of them now."
-"Did you recognize any of them?"
-"Of course I did." She snorted "Baltimore, Indianapolis, Gneisenau, some of the men, and… and Allen."
Washington wrote everything down before she set the pen aside and flipped through the pages:
"That's bad… But it doesn't necessarily mean they will die, right? I mean you saw Montpelier, but she is still alive though in critical condition."
-"… Do you know how hard is it to talk to someone you know will either die or be badly maimed? Its hard alright." Reed said and bit harder on her knuckle.
-"It really seems like you can see the future… Montpelier made the seventh one you've predicted."
-"Yeah… Even though I try to do everything in my power to protect those I've seen, fate balances it right back making everything I did futile."
-"It does seem that way… But some of them have and had been on the list for months, such as Jamaica. She was on the list about two months even before she was summoned. And there seems not to be any chronological order with the victims… What about the Siren? Was it there this time as well?"
-"Yeah, the same deal: I'm chained to a chair and the Siren seems to be interrogating me or something."
-"Did she say anything out of the ordinary?"
-"I don't think so… Well, she said that twenty million will die before the snow melts but that's about it."
-"That's bad, but nothing we can do about it… What about the location? Was it the void again or the Davy Jones' locker?"
Reed grunted as she tried to remember and massaged her temples:
"… Actually, it was neither one. This was a new one, I think. Like the void but white. Boundless white tiling, but the chairs were black."
-"Anything else?"
-"No, not that I remember."
XXX
-"What?! Really?!"
-"I thought you might be interested."
-"Hell yeah I am! Did she say when we'll leave?" Atlanta asked.
-"No, but probably in the next few days." Sanders said and straightened his jacket.
-"That is great news! How long have I asked you to take me to see your hometown?"
-"For a long time, that's for sure."
Sanders and Atlanta were laying on one of the couches in the mess hall all alone. As their light, they had only one storm lantern.
And on top of that couch, they fell asleep, on top of each other in the light of a fluttering flame. Outside, a full moon illuminated the landscape and a few snowflakes fell down from the sky.
XXX
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A/N: Well, this took much longer than I wanted. Real life problems slowed this one down surprise surprise. My car broke down so that was fun trying to figure out what was wrong with it.
I feel like I say this way too often, but I really feel this chapter is one of the better ones. And it was super fun to write.
Like every time reviews are very much appreciated no matter what ya want to say.
See ya hopefully next time. Some Dood out.