Chapter 13: Submarine Recovery

Kneeling next to the dark haired girl that had come in with the group from France, Megan grimaced in sympathetic pain as the girl heaved again, coughing up another few mouthfuls of some toxic smelling sludge.

Rubbing the girl's back gently, she patted her shoulder, rising long enough to prepare a glass of water from the sink. "Feel like there's anything left?" she asked gently.

The girl coughed, gagging at the smell. "J'ai l'impression d'avoir vomi mes ongles d'orteils," she managed croakily.

Megan made an exaggerated effort to look at the girl's toes, frowning thoughtfully. "No, it looks like all your toenails are still there," she said dryly, drawing a half-amused cough. Passing the girl the water, she let her wash out her mouth before flushing away whatever was in the toilet.

"Ugh… w-where are we?" the girl asked in English. "England somewhere?" she added.

"Yup," Megan replied. "My aunt's house in Plymouth specifically," she expanded, seeing that the girl still looked confused. "How much do you remember of the last few days?"

The girl frowned, swirling water around her mouth before spitting it out into the toilet. "Just… up to Admiral Caillat calling me into his office after sending our subs to meet the British. There was some plant thing there, then nothing."

Megan nodded slowly before offering a hand up. Helping the girl to her feet, she gently pulled one of her arms over her shoulder, guiding her down to the living room and letting her drop onto the couch. "Well, I haven't gotten the whole story from my sister yet, I was up in Edinburgh, and got the quieter run." She shrugged sitting near the girl. "From what I was told, Brest had a rather pissed dryad or something that turned most of the human staff into zombies, shipgirls came out better in that they lived through it, but it still took the shipgirls destroying its tree to take it down. After that, you lot came here."

"Mon Dieu… how…?"

"How many?" asked Megan. "I honestly don't know; I do know that you were never near the tree, but they only got five from that." She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. "Of your actual group… Colette was saved before things could happen and Nikita, while she got the same treatment you did, they got the thing before it could settle into her system so she's back, drained and probably in need of a visit to a trauma counsellor, but at least decent otherwise."

Megan watched the other girl slump and reached over, squeezing her shoulder gently. "Hey, whatever happened, you did what you could with what you knew," she said softly. "From what little I've heard, this was something that had been brewing a while… and I've seen what happens when monsters sneak into things, got some scars from them as well," she admitted.

Sighing, the girl nodded slowly. "So what happens now?"

"Well, have you got a name?" Megan asked. "I didn't get everyone's last night; neither group got back until…" she trailed off with a yawn. "Until like two-three o'clock in the morning."

"Mariette Soyer, French shipgirl Le Mars," Mariette replied. "You?" she asked.

"Megan Jones, Rhyfelwr of Plymouth," Megan answered. "You think you can handle something with a bit more taste to it than plain water, Mariette?"

Mariette frowned before nodding slowly. "I… don't know if I could eat anything, but I at least want to taste something other than whatever that was I threw up."

Nodding, Megan gave Mariette a hand up and guided her to the kitchen, nodding to her sister. "Hey Sally, anyone else moving?" she asked, guiding Mariette to a chair.

"Hey Megan, Mariette, good to see you up," Sally responded, giving a little wave. "As for moving… Aunt Lauren is probably at Devonport, she took Angela with her so I presume they're going to look at what we brought back and see where to put it." She frowned slightly, looking down at the frying pan she was using. "I think Susan and Robyn are out exercising, the rest have been quiet."

"Okay," Megan said, frowning. "We got any juice or anything around?"

"Not much," Sally admitted, "granted there's… seventeen or so of us here now. There's some peppermint cordial in the cupboard, but we're out of pretty much everything else." She snorted softly, shaking her head. "Probably a good thing we're still 'off' from school, we can poke Susan and Angela into shopping. Oh, Megan, check the toaster, should be some nearly done. From the sounds earlier, I'm guessing you're not willing to risk anything heavy Mariette."

"Merci," Mariette responded as Megan dug out a half full bottle of cordial, a cup and a jug of water that she set within reach of Mariette before laying out the toast and setting out a tub of marg.

Letting her sister take over, Sally snagged a stool, letting Mariette pick out and butter a couple of pieces of toast and fill the cup with her drink. "I'm guessing you're a bit short on details of why you girls are here?"

Mariette nodded. "Oui, I remember encountering… the plant, with the admiral, but nothing after."

Sally nodded, frowning slightly. "Well, I don't know everything that happened, but from when we met with your subs, this is what happened," she said, continuing on to explain their encounters, the fight and the aftermath, including the encounter on their trip north.

"That's a lot more ships than we see around Brest," Nikita commented, looking out over the bay at all the ferries, cargo ships, passenger ships and fishing boats still sailing back and forth from the window of The Dock, where she, Sally and Katia had stopped to get some food.

Sally frowned, looking out of the window. "That's actually a lot lower than it has been, granted we've been fairly safe on the border of the Channel so most of the cross traffic hasn't been hit very hard," she commented. "Then again, I don't know how many were lost in the Battle a few weeks back and how many are mostly here because of the Navy, particularly now there's shipgirls at Devonport."

"Still better than our view at Brest," Katia commented, before slurping her banana smoothie. "All we really had were wrecked hulls down the main docking area and barely any traffic."

"It's… honestly a little odd for me," Sally admitted. "I can actually remember there being a much bigger fleet at Devonport, heck, I have two memories of Warspite's last journey."

Nikita arched an eyebrow at Sally over their food. "The one where the ships guided her all the way from Alexandra to Devonport and at the end there was practically every ship in the British fleet there?" she asked.

Sally nodded. "Yeah, I don't know who decided to do that, but someone did," she said, before taking a bite out of her sandwich so she could think. "I know her sister was named for a queen, but I think for Britain, Warspite was our 'Queen of the Ocean' for a fair while and for all her reputation, Hood never took that title, I think Lion or one of her sisters did, but it was something to see the old girl go to her rest, and as much as you hear the 21-gun salute on a documentary, being part of it… or even having it done for you, is something else."

"I remember watching that," Katia admitted softly. "It's probably one of the best ways for a ship to go out, surrounded by her fleet, just returning to the slip and sleeping."

Sally nodded again. "There's a memorial for her in the naval museum… I need to go there again; my hull is there, there might be something useful for figuring things out on it."

Nikita frowned slightly, shifting her attention back to her food for a few moments. "Speaking of that… what's supposed to be happening for us?"

"Well…" that was as far as Sally got before the radios inside all three of them screeched. A moment later a terrific splash sounded, snapping their heads towards the bay where a pillar of water erupted from somewhere near the sea defence wall.

Sharing a look the trio rose and bolted, slamming out of the eatery's door and running towards the Channel, ignoring the yells behind them.

"This is HMS Zephyr to all points, accident in the port. I repeat this is HMS Zephyr to all points; there has been an accident in the port, near the sea wall. Dauphin, Vauquelin and I are moving to investigate," Sally called into her radio, quickly taking the lead both because of her speed and her knowledge of the city.

Hitting the edge of the dock, Sally leapt, summoning her rigging to land on the ocean's surface. Turning, she grunted when Katia jumped down into her arms. "You could travel on your own, you know," she commented.

"You're faster," Katia responded, only to yelp when Sally tossed her into the air, catching her again a moment later. "Hey," she complained when Nikita jumped down to join them.

Sally gave her a look as the pair turned to the harbour wall, accelerating towards it. "If this turns out to be an attack or we get shot at, I'm tossing you in the drink, Dauphin," she stated.

"I'd do it anyway, to be honest," Nikita commented, frowning at the seascape ahead of them. "Katia's done this to most of us from Brest apart from Sonia – for obvious reasons – and Mariette, who tossed her in the ocean as soon as she could."

"Oi!" exclaimed Katia.

Sally snorted softly, looking ahead, frowning at the sea wall. "We'll probably need her, otherwise I would," she admitted.

"OI!" exclaimed Katia, again.

A moment later Sally's radar reported the nearest ship to where the plume had been, bringing a transponder signal. "Okay, got something, the ship closest to the event, according to my radar, is the Armorique, French passenger ferry."

Nikita nodded, raising a hand to her ear as her radio crew dialled in the ship. "Armorique, this is Marine Nationale shipgirl Vauquelin approaching. We detected a radio burst from your location along with a large water plume. Is everything alright? Over," she sent, eyes narrowing slightly as she and Sally raced over the waves.

"Vauquelin, this is Armorique, situation unknown, one passenger missing," the vessel's communications officer replied, her French accent obvious. "We were about to contact the port and the RNLI for assistance. Could you lend aid?"

"Armorique, this is Zephyr on approach with Vauquelin, can you describe both the missing passenger and what happened?" Sally asked, "Particularly where the passenger went missing."

"Zephyr, Armorique, the passenger was last seen on the deck shortly before the plume," the ship's radio operator responded. "I thought we had hit a mine or something when it happened, we found her missing when the staff went to check. Passenger is a Caucasian female, approximately ten to twelve years old, brown hair and wearing a black and green sleeveless dress. Name of Anna Howell, place of residence Plymouth. We're searching for her parents now," he continued.

"Say again Armorique?" Sally asked tightly, feeling the bottom of her stomach drop out. "What was the name of the missing passenger?" She ignored the confused and worried looks from the French girls.

"Passenger's name is Anna Howell," the radio officer confirmed, "Last seen on approach to the Breakwater Fort."

"Harbour wall," Sally muttered, frowning. "Right where the plume looked to be… somehow I get the feeling things are going to be complicated…." Taking a breath, she let it out slowly. "Roger that, Armorique, Vauquelin, Dauphin and I will head there. Please ensure nobody leaves the ship until the police and paramedics have given the green light."

"Roger, Zephyr," Armorique's radio officer replied, "Over and out."

The pair sped past the ship, ignoring the looks and shouts from the people on the deck. As they did, Sally checked her M.A.D. taking a moment to try to filter the area so she didn't need to deal with the headache of that many ships in a small (relatively) area.

"Sally?" Katia asked softly.

Sally shook her head, ignoring the worried tone in Katia's voice to focus on her sensors. "Got something, large mass half a mile from the breakwater, looks like it's six to fourteen thousand tons," Sally replied. "Can't tell well enough what, but it's immobile at the moment."

"How deep?" asked Nikita, looking over at her.

"Thirty feet, periscope depth for most subs," Sally replied. Turning her attention back to the shore, she contacted the base. "Devonport Actual, this is Zephyr."

"Zephyr, Devonport Actual, go ahead," her aunt's voice sounded from their radios.

"Devonport Actual, we have a possible new awakened shipgirl, unknown injuries, but she's floating around thirty feet down," Sally reported. "I'm guessing she's a submarine, probably one of ours, I think only us and the Japanese had submarines in the six to fourteen kiloton range. We're probably going to need medical assistance. We also need police and ambulances to meet the Armorique at her dock, the girl came from there, we don't know if her Awakening knocked anyone around or if there's anything else there."

"Roger, Zephyr, I'll have your sister, Devonport and Le Mars meet the ship, the others will be on standby to assist you, Devonport Actual out," Lauren replied.

Coasting up to the sea wall, Sally put Katia on her feet. "Alright, your show now, she should be around thirty feet down and around half a mile that way," she said, pointing in the appropriate direction. "Looks like…" she frowned, "Map coordinates are fifty degrees north by four degrees west."

Katia nodded. "Dauphin, sortieing," she whispered, turning and diving into the water, ignoring what she was wearing.

Taking a seat in a conference room at HMS Drake, Katia looked around at the half full room, her friends from Brest seated in other chairs along with the local shipgirl trio, their base, Sally's sister, a young girl with electric blue hair and their commander.

The commander and all three younger had faces drawn tight with worry, most likely over the girl in the docks.

"So," Angela started, adjusting her glasses. "Do we know what happened earlier and who is in our new repair docks right now?"

"I'd like to know why a submarine has actual wings," Sonia butted in. "I mean; I know several of us have fins to keep us stable, but I've never seen someone with wings before."

"I know some likely candidates," Lauren responded thoughtfully, "but first I would like to hear what exactly happened. Sally, your report please," she ordered.

"Yes ma'am," Sally responded. Taking a breath to get her thoughts in order, she started her report, explaining what had happened from the point she, Nikita and Katia had heard the static screech from their radios up to the point where they had placed the girl into the docks.

After nearly half an hour to go through the stories of the trio that had performed the rescue, along with questions to ensure everything came out, Lauren turned to Megan. "Megan, did you find anything when you boarded the Armorique?"

Megan grimaced, shaking her head. "I don't know everything, but from what we found, it looks like someone was specifically targeting Miss Howell's family," she replied professionally. "There were a few minor injuries from when she went overboard, mostly bruising from the ship being rocked by that much mass landing near it.

"Unfortunately, that was the best of it," she continued, glancing at her notes. "Anna Howell, twelve years old, goes to the same school Sally, Robyn and I do, took an extended weekend break in France; they were due back today and travelled aboard the Armorique." Frowning slightly, she flicked through the notes she had on hand. "After that, well, it looks like it was mostly a normal journey from Roscoff, starting out around 09:45 this morning; it was business as usual for the Armorique's staff, for the majority of the five and a quarter hour trip.

"Then sometime between 12:30 and 13:30 the Howells, apart from Anna, went to their cabin aboard," she paused, frowning slightly. "I'm not sure why they had a cabin honestly; it wasn't a long enough trip to really require one." Shaking it off, Megan frowned. "Sometime between then and when my sister heard Anna's scream, both adults were murdered."

Several of the people around the table hissed, sucked in breaths or grimaced at that flat statement.

"Shit…" Sally muttered, closing her eyes. "Poor Anna," she sighed.

Megan sighed, shaking her head again. "By the time everything was done and the murderer found Anna, who had gone up to the deck, possibly from the on board game room, the ship had reached the point on her route where she was nearing our harbour wall, only about three miles from her dock." She paused for a moment to let the others catch up. "She was slowing at that point because she needed to weave a bit in our bay, but at her top speed she would have been less than ten minutes out even accounting for a non-straight route.

"When we arrived at the dock with the local police and coast guard, we were shown both where Anna went over," Megan continued. "Which she certainly wouldn't have gone over purely from overbalancing, someone threw her over. The railings were tall enough that they came up to my chest and she's a bit shorter than me." She paused and grimaced. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly.

"The cabin that her parents went back to, once we got there, even from outside smelt of blood. Inside…" Megan shook her head and swallowed. "I don't know what attacked them, but it wasn't human. There were definite claw marks on the walls and what was left of the corpses had been savaged, as if by starved animals. Personally, I'd guess some sort of supernatural just from the damage." She glanced around, seeing shock on the faces of those outside her aunt and sister. "It's likely the supernatural is either multiple or a shifter, or has a pure human ally given nobody mentioned anything or saw anything out of the ordinary."

Lauren frowned, nodding slightly as she cupped her chin. "Angela, can you run through things?"

Angela flicked through her notes, repeating the story from her perspective before Mariette was called to do the same.

"Was there anything you noticed about either scene, Megan?" Lauren asked once both other shipgirls were done talking.

Megan nodded slowly, frowning at the table. "A scent of decay from the room, not the sort you'd expect from freshly dead, even mauled, but from something that's 'ripened'," she said slowly. "There were some messages around as well… I didn't recognise the language though, but if whatever it was could write…."

"Then it might be smart enough to realise that Miss Howell is still alive," Susan realised.

Lauren nodded. "She should be safe enough in the docks, but I actually want her in with Sally, Megan and Robyn," she said, drawing looks from Angela and Mariette. "Once we're done here, I'll call the school and have them on alert, though hopefully even if something reaches Cadet Howell, it'll be something Megan and Sally can counter."

Christine frowned, folding her arms under her breasts. "What about the rest of us?" she asked.

"You, Christine, along with Susan and Angela will be helping me and co-ordinating with the Regulators, Tomas' crew and the coast guard along with continuing to set this place up," Lauren replied. "Angela, I'd like you to keep an eye on the docks as well." She got a nod from the woman. "As for everyone else, anybody still catatonic by tomorrow will be transferred to the docks, the rest of you will be going to school, Sally, Megan and Robyn's school specifically."

"Do we have to?" whined Sonia. "I'd just gotten used to not needing to deal with that mess."

Lauren arched an eyebrow at the submarine girl. "Do you want to be stuck as a low level grunt the rest of your life, or not be able to get any sort of job outside grunt labour if you ever get the chance to retire?" she asked.

"Well no, but do we have to actually go to school? Part of why I Awoke was because one of the others at school got bullied that much she went off the deep end," Sonia admitted sourly. "Hell, another week or month and it might have been me. I was lucky to be 'collateral' because the main bâtards were going after me when Selena went nuts."

Robyn shifted, moving her seat to slip an arm around Sonia. "I doubt anything like that will happen at our school, and if it does, you're not alone, and you're a shipgirl now. We stick together," she said gently, hugging the smaller girl.

Reaching over the table, Sally took Sonia's hand gently, twining their fingers together. "I won't say we'll be completely safe at school – we've had a few hostiles show up there – but if anyone causes you trouble, tell us," she said softly. "The kids at school look up to my sister and me because we've saved their lives before, we tell them to knock it off, and they'll knock it off."

Sonia gave the pair a small smile before Lauren cleared her throat, drawing their attention back.

"There's other reasons for you going to school here," Lauren pointed out. "First, you legally have to until you're sixteen at the youngest unless you are registered for home schooling, and with most of you not living here full time, having you join the school as temporary exchange students makes more sense," she explained. "Along with that, if you're all at the school, should we need you, we can get hold of you all in one place since we can't keep you on base all the time."

Closing her eyes, Sonia sighed and nodded, leaning into Robyn. "Fine… I don't like it, not after last time, but at least I've got friends this time," she allowed.

Lauren nodded. "Alright, tomorrow Mariette, Colette, Nikita, Katia and Sonia will join Megan, Sally and Robyn at school. In the evenings everyone should come here to train and possibly sortie, depending on what happens," she continued. "You should also expect to be called in to see the on call psychiatrist, just because you're shipgirls that doesn't mean you're not capable of being traumatised, particularly given what happened at Brest. That's everyone that was involved, so Susan, Robyn and Sally will also be going."

She looked between each of the girls, meeting their eyes in turn. "If you have any issues while you're here, any of you, then come talk to me. You're not weapons or anything else, you're decent people in a terrible situation and you have the entire world on your collective shoulders, you and the others, if you need something to help ease the burden, within reason, or just an ear, then come to me, alright ladies?" asked Lauren.

There was a round of nods from the group around the table before Lauren dismissed them to their own activities.

Blinking at the ceiling of the room, the girl tried to remember what had happened to land her here. Pushing herself up slowly, she blinked, finding herself in a double bed, with another shipgirl, the room around them painted in the colours of spring.

Hearing the door open, she looked over to see a teenaged girl, dark hair fading to blue as it reached her shoulders. "Was…?" that was as far as she got before her stomach rebelled.

Before she could vomit the contents of her stomach over the bed, a bowl was pushed into her hands, and then she was too busy emptying everything she could remember eating into the bowl.

When her stomach finally calmed enough that she could catch her breath, she couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the smell of rotted plant matter doused in stomach acid. Swallowing, she grimaced, leaning back a bit only to hear the sounds of someone else vomiting and to feel a hand rubbing slow circles on her back.

"Water's on the bedside table if you need it," a gentle voice said.

Looking around, she quickly found the table in question, and swapped the bowl for a bottle of water. After a few minutes of swilling out her mouth and sipping the water to soothe her throat, she finally looked up at her benefactor. "Was… ist passiert? Wo… sind wir?" she asked.

The girl shifted slightly, "While I understand you, English is probably going to be better to use around here," she said, sounding amused. "In answer to your questions, first up, I'm Sally Jones, secondly you're in Plymouth, England reason being you two got screwed and not in a good way," Sally told them.

"H-how bad?" the grey haired girl asked.

"There was a dryad or plant demon or something active at Brest, which we found out about when we went there to gather supplies. We destroyed it, but found that it had basically killed all the human staff at the shipgirl part of the base, shipgirls it couldn't 'digest' or something, but that didn't mean it couldn't put us out, the two of you were among its victims."

"Y-you're a ship-shipgirl… aren't you?" the other girl in the room asked softly.

Sally nodded slowly, confirming the other girl's – a glance past Sally revealed it to be Fiona Siegel, her grey hair out of its usual tails – worry. "And you're German submarines," Sally said. "We have bigger problems than a power hungry hypocrite on a bender for conquest," she added. "So, how about we start with names… real names, leave the ship for on the waves," she suggested.

"You're not going to capture or torture us?" asked Fiona.

Sally blinked several times. "What?" she asked flatly, "No, seriously, what?"

Taking a breath, the German let it out slowly. "It…" the girl shook her head. "Okay… to start with, I'm Nelle Ross," she introduced herself, amber eyes watching her companion worriedly. "Fiona Siegel is on your other side." She paused, taking a breath and letting it out slowly. "I-I don't know where she got the 'torture' thing from, capture… there were at least a few dozen U-boats captured, not counting stealing supplies from our tenders and other things."

"I can see the capture bit, I know U-46, U-47, U-48, U-556 and U-505 were captured," Sally admitted softly. "I was there for the first four, though they did damage to others before they were caught. The Yanks were pretty proud of catching U-505, I don't know about anyone else." She shrugged, rubbing the pair's backs gently.

Nelle shifted and sighed. "I got lucky honestly, I've had more than a few near misses." She shook her head, looking down at her lap. "The last thing I actually remember from that is seeing planes overhead dropping bombs, then something dragging me down."

Sally frowned, chewing her lip. "Are you 96 or 522?" she asked finally.

"U-96," Nelle admitted, "Why?"

"Because I think one of Devonport's yanked a submarine from the Nazis at the end of the war… something about not letting a 'cute little fish' be blown up," Sally replied, blinking as Nelle went stiff. "Something wrong?" she asked.

Shivering, Nelle looked over at the others, seeing worry in their eyes. "It-It's…" she trailed off only for Sally to draw her into a hug. "There was a destroyer that seemed to turn up on most of my patrols… on my first, I tried to sink a large ship, only for a warship half her size to get in the way. Next thing I know, there's torpedoes heading at me and someone calling me a 'cute little fish'. After that, it seemed like every other patrol, she would be there, taking hits for merchantmen, but she never seemed to aim for a straight kill, more often than not it was near misses or damage."

Sally blinked a few times before face-palming. "That sounds like Zest… always teasing the enemy," she muttered. "I would put it against her to have flirted with Eugen during Denmark Strait. I think Hunter was similar, she'd kill, but normally it'd be pushing her opponent to fight."

"That… that's why you torture us," Fiona whimpered.

Turning to her, Sally arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she asked gently.

Fiona shivered. "In the war… I barely managed to escape Madeira. I think the depth charges malfunctioned… but after that, there were several patrols where I had the ship dead to rights, and some warships would cause my torpedoes to explode. Often… they would prowl, like they knew where I was, but were more interested in making me stay down than sinking me."

"Ugh… British convoys sucked for hunting," Nelle grumbled, "Give me an American or European convoy any day. Gottverdammte Geisterschiffe."

Blinking again, Sally frowned. "Wait, so you both remember your lives as ships and both of you had at least several instances of simply being driven around rather than sunk?" Getting nods from both, she groaned and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "So that's what the damned abyssals were playing at when we rescued Dauphin. They must have been trying to emulate some convoy runs where our ships either didn't have time or didn't want to properly engage Nazi subs."

She paused, frowning as she tried to recall the 'fight', only to blink as she got a full playback. Watching it with a half frown, Sally bit her lip. Spotting something, her frown deepened, her crew stopping the replay so she could focus on the cruisers, both of whom looked incredibly bored with everything until they ate torpedoes.

"Sally?" Nelle asked, drawing Sally's attention. "Uh… you kind of drifted off there."

"Yeah…" Sally ran a hand through her hair. "Still learning what particular tricks I have. It's nothing to worry about right now," she said. "What I can say is you're not here because you're captured, we rescued you. That said, U-93, one of you needs to call her to let her know you're back with us. Our commander might also ask you to help out since we're short on people and we've got at least one supernatural around that's been killing, plus you probably need some time with a psychiatrist or trauma counsellor."

Fiona grimaced. "She's probably beside herself," she muttered. "I… we're the only ones of our family left."

Sally nodded, bringing her hand round to take Fiona's and giving it a squeeze. "My sister and I have had more than a few near misses and while our parents are missing, we know where they likely are and they're probably alive." She paused as two stomachs growled, loudly. "Tell you what, I'll get you some fresh made tomato soup, and you can eat then try to sleep until morning."

Getting nods from the pair, she got up, taking the bowls of vomit to clear out.

Sally's eyes snapped open in the dark, a moment later, her night vision optics kicked in, turning the room shades of green. Looking around, she frowned, seeing both Megan and Robyn's heads up. A moment later, she spotted the door open, a group of spooked faces looking into the room.

"Girls?" she asked. "Who's up and why?"

There was a moment before Nikita's voice answered. "Pretty much everyone… can we… can we join you three tonight?"

Sally shared a look with the others before turning back to the group. "Come on in," she said. Watching as they dragged in the mattresses from the other beds, piling them into something bed shaped. "Bad dreams?" she asked.

Nikita nodded, grimacing. "On the good side, everyone's awake; on the bad… well we're probably lucky nobody has rigging here. Liliane… L'Opiniâtre… woke flailing. Only reason she didn't scream is because she threw up."

"Well, we're going to need to wash things tomorrow," Megan muttered softly.

"Similar story with Jennifer and Ilona," Sonia put in, "'cept it was the other end first. We were trying to sort that out when the German girls came in."

"Everyone alright now apart from spooked?" Robyn asked softly, getting nods from the girls. "Did you explain things to Liliane, Jennifer and Ilona?" she asked.

Sonia nodded. "We did," she replied before looking over at Robyn. "Uh… could I… could I join you, Robyn?" she asked. "No offence to the others, but I actually feel safer with you than them."

Robyn blinked a couple of times. "Uh… I… guess?"

That seemed to stop the foreign shipgirls for a moment before most of them split between the three Brits, Sally being joined by Katia, Nelle and Mariette while Fiona and Colette joined Robyn and Sonia and Nikita climbed in with Megan.

Seeing the last three standing, looking shocked at having been left in the middle of the room, Megan sighed. "Hey," she said, getting their attention. Jennifer, Ilona, why don't you two join me, keep the split even. Liliane, take your pick from us, since we're all equally crowded."

When none of the trio moved, Megan sighed, getting out of bed. Making her way over to them, she took the submarine girls' hands and drew them back with her, while her sister moved, picking up Liliane and carrying her back to her own bed.

It took a few minutes for everyone to sort themselves out before everyone was settled. Lying on her back, Katia and Nelle against her, with Liliane and Mariette spooning them, Sally frowned up at the ceiling for a moment. "Hey, Nelle?" she asked, drawing a tired mumble from the sub girl. "Why did you and Fiona go to me and Robyn instead of Megan?"

Nelle shifted slightly to look up at Sally. "You feel safe," she admitted. "I-I know you were an enemy and everything, and having some of your sisters basically torment me and mine, but at the same time… there were times when we tied up next to one another, or on patrols we'd hide beneath a British ship. Like… they knew we were there, but as long as neither side attacked we could just hang out."

"You're protective," Katia added softly. "I could feel it when you carried me. You fought against the Vichy, who I served, yet you don't care. British ships, destroyers, saved French ones during Dunkirk, British troops were the last ones off the beaches. With the tree demon, you protected us." She paused, closing her eyes and snuggling in a bit tighter. "There's reasons why Britain is still a superpower in spite of trying not to be."

"It helps that you're practically a light cruiser and armed and armoured for it," Mariette cut in softly. "I mean, yeah the fights could be vicious, but at the same time, British sailors rescued other nations' sailors more often than not, even when they sunk the ship."

"Their hospitals treated our wounded, and after the war… most of Europe's tech came from Britain, our power, our industry, our electronics… I don't know why, but Britain stopped seeing enemies in Europe and started being more of a big sister," Liliane added. "Heck, a good chunk of the way the JSDF came about is Britain. Your admirals on Conqueror and Thunderer earned a lot of respect from their opposites, and saved their crews, they as much as Yamato became symbols to modern Japan, like the others in the Atlantic and the Med."

Nelle nodded against Sally's shoulder. "Believe it or not, when I first Awoke, I lost myself. It was a British shipgirl, Bulldog, who found me," she said softly. "I was out of things for a week, but she took care of me, stayed with me, and did everything I couldn't do. It was actually seeing her fight an abyssal battleship that shook me out of it." She sighed softly, shaking her head a little. "You've got the same feeling, someone that protects."

Sally nodded slowly. "Then sleep, let us Warriors do our job and protect you," she whispered, getting slight nods from both submarine girls next to her.