Crown of Ice

by MetusR

A follow-up to Crown of Iron, following Tirpitz and a new Commander as they navigate frozen waters. So expect cross over with Crown of Iron in terms of setting and characters.

1. Chapter 1

Frozen over

I was on the weather deck of the destroyer I had been attached to, the Iroquois, trying to track down what happened to the war grave for over thirteen hundred people, the Aurora. I volunteered for this operation, mostly because my ex-brother-in-law had been a weapons officer on her and fought hard to hold the Barrow Strait during the war.

Lighting my cigarette and taking a drag off of it, I thought about this mission, we'd gotten reports that a hull matching her had been seen operating in the North and Norwegian seas, not unusual for a mass production Hipper hull, but when combined with the fact that unusual activity had taken place around the area that the Aurora went down and after we could send a ship up to investigate, we found that she was gone. So that left me and this crew, on our way across the Atlantic and into the North and Norwegian seas to try and find this elusive Hipper mass prod that might be the Aurora. The wind was biting cold as I looked back at our forward single rapid fire three-inch gun, puffing out a bit of smoke as I looked at the ice hanging off the barrel, then looked skyward, and I could see the Aurora's namesake the Aurora Borealis. I had to admit the greens, blues, pinks, and purples in it were awe-inspiring.

Taking the cigarette out of my mouth to shake off the ashes, I kind of find myself wondering what happened to Erik, I hadn't spoken to him, since we put my sister, his late wife to rest at the memorial service. I had heard he'd gone on to serve a term with the Iron Blood fleet, but after that, things became harder to track down what happened, and it's been a couple of years since there. Pulling my cuffs back I check my watch to see the date, make that almost five years since I last spoke to him. Turning back around I look out at the sea ahead of the bow of the Iroquois, leaning against the railing, and take another drag from the cigarette. My brow knits together as I see a dark mass in the water, kind of unusual for this far from shore, in the middle of nowhere.

Tossing the cigarette into the ocean, I go over to one of our M two and spotlights systems and train it on the dark mass in the water, flip on the light to illuminate the object and I feel my stomach drop, it's a fucking sea mine!

Racking the M two, I point it at the mine and open fire, the resulting explosion illuminates the area and I see more of them! Stepping away from the M two, I start to make my way to the bridge, just as I get on the ladders, I feel the ship get racked with an explosion, just as an alarm starts going off. I'm thrown to the weather deck, hard. Pushing myself up against the cold and wet metal, I feel another explosion ripple through the ship, we hit another mine! This time I'm tossed over the side and into the dark water, it takes a moment for me to start to swim to the surface, and as I do so, I see my ship, it's almost like she's attracting more of these mines, more and more start to impact against the hull and I can't do anything but float and watch the death of this ship.

As she starts to slip below the waves, I see a life raft, I swim as hard as I can to get on board it, I won't last long in these freezing waters if I don't. Once I'm on board, I hit with the realization, that I don't really have much of a way to keep warm right now, taking the solar blanket out of the survival supplies, I cover myself with it and turn on the heat source, and start to shiver, and wonder if anyone else made it off.

XXXX

I'm startled awake as I hear the heater starting to give out, shit I fell asleep, not a good idea. Looking out of one of the plastic windows I see that's daylight now, so this means the flexi panels should start to charge the battery for the heater then. The next thing I do is set the locater beacon, and I yawn, I'm tired… Maybe a five-minute nap.

XXXX

XXXX

I slowly come back around, I remember falling asleep again in the lift raft, but I feel warm right now, I guess this must be the afterlife… guess I'll get to see my sister. I force one eye open, and I see that I'm in a white room, that looks a lot like a sickbay. Damn, my eyelids are heavy; I try and look around, but see that I'm covered in blankets up to my neck, rolling my head to the other side I see what looks like a woman from behind in a black shirt, black pencil skirt with white boots that seem to go past her knees with black fur around the top of them. Looking further up, I see she has a white bob of hair that almost brushes her shoulders. Looking around a little more, I see the crest of the Iron Blood by the door.

With great effort, I find I'm able to say, "C...Commander North, Maple Monarchy, serial num... number eight…" before I drift back into the black.

XXXX

When I come back around again, I see the woman from the front this time, she has these amazing blue eyes, and her features while pretty are not giving a hint about what is going on. I watch as she brushes some of her white hair behind an ear, letting me see these dangling silver crosses that she wore as earrings. As I blink at her she takes a data pad off of her lap and speaks German at me, "Guten Abend, Kommandant."

I just kind of blink at her a couple of times, I have no idea what she just said.

Her head tilts to the side and she tries again, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Kommandant?"

Again, I have no idea what she said, but I do hear one word repeated, I wonder what it means, is it a rank, it kind of sounds like Commander, but different.

Her lips compress a little and she tries a third time with a heavy German accent, "Do you speak the English?"

I nod my head up and down. I feel so thirsty right now.

"I see." She says coolly as she taps away at the data pad before continuing, "Well, you are lucky to be found, Commander, you were not in good shape when I brought you a board, you must have been floating for a long time and felt very scared and exhausted."

Moving my arms I pull the blankets back a bit and see that I'm not in my uniform, rather I'm in a medical gown, my brow knits together and I ask, "Am I a prisoner?"

"More akin to an uninvited guest." She says as she crosses her legs, studying me closely before asking, "Tell me, how exactly did you come to be floating in the middle of the Norwegian Sea in a life raft with a locator beacon going?"

I run a hand over my head as it comes back to me the Iroquois sinking, the minefield, the active siren mines. I look off to the side and ask, "Did you find anyone else?"

"Should we be looking?" she countered.

"Yes!" I shout, my fists balling and I hit the bed, "There was a whole crew on that destroyer that stumbled into a siren minefield."

She winces when I say that and she looks away and off to the side as she tells me, "You were near death when we found you five days ago, anyone else is likely dead by now." She pauses to look at her datapad before asking, "The last time you woke up, you said you were Commander North, with the Maple Monarchy, you seem very far from home, Commander, why were you in the Norwegian sea?"

My eyes look back to the door with the Iron Blood crest painted on it in red and I ask, "Where am I?"

"You are on the Tirpitz." She says with a pause to add, "Flagship of the Iron Blood's Northern Patrol fleet."

"Are you the Captain then?" I ask, still looking at the door.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." She says while getting up from her chair and walking around the room.

"In a manner of speaking? How does that work?" I ask.

She moves into my view field again and curtsies as she says, "Second ship of the Bismarck class, Tirpitz."

Oh… oh shit!

My eyes go wide and I say, "You're a kansen?"

She stands upright and fixes me with a sideways look and asks, "Why does that surprise you, Commander?"

"I've never actually met one before." I say as I sit up in the bed a bit more.

Her blue eyes twitch a little before she folds her arms under her bust and asks, "Then what is the Maple Monarchy's fleet filled with?"

I sigh and look off to the side, it's no secret after all, we've got a shoestring budget and Kansen cost a stupid amount to maintain, "Mass prods and several pre-war ships, like the Ir…" I pause and look down at my hands, just as feel a tear fall from my eyes, as I remember watching her die, "The Iroquois, had been."

"I see." She says coolly again.

Looking around a bit more, I start to check for pockets, looking for cigarettes, not finding any I sigh and ask, "Do you know what happened to my cigarettes?"

"They were destroyed in the ocean." She says to me, her nose wrinkling in the process as she adds, "A good end to a disgusting habit."

I lean against the bed and groan, "I could really use a smoke right now."

She sighs and reaches for the door saying to me, "Stay put, I'll see if there is anything in the ship store. I maintain supplies that I would've had on board long, long ago."

When the door close, I get out of bed and start to walk around the room, mostly to get my legs stretching, if I've really been in bed for five days, I need to get moving.

After a few trips around the room, I hear the door open and she comes back in, tossing me a tin and what looks like a zippo as she says, "This is what I found."

Opening the case, I see a collection of ten cigarettes, feeling a little relief, I ask, "Can we go outside for me to have a smoke?"

She shrugs and grabs a blanket off the bed, wrapping it around me before going over to the chair and taking a fur-lined white jacket off the back and doing it up before leading me outside. When we got beside one of her aft turrets, she leaned against it to watch me. Taking out a cigarette and lighting it with the zippo, I take a couple of quick puffs and relax, looking out towards the aft, I see a few ships following in a support formation, but none look like a Hipper class. Taking the cigarette out of my mouth, I ask, "Looks like we're underway, where are we heading?"

"Siegfried base." She says dispassionately before adding, "I'm not well suited to having guests."

Putting the cigarette back in my mouth I take a long drag on it, blowing the smoke out as I ask, "I knew a Commander there, but I don't know what happened to him after that."

"Who?" she asks, it sounds like I piqued her interest.

Leaning over the side and shaking off the ash of the cigarette I say, "My ex-brother-in-law. Erik Winters."

"How does one become an ex-brother-in-law?" Tirpitz asks me, I can tell she has her head tilted to the side, by the clinking sound of an earring against her shoulder boards.

Taking another drag off of the cigarette I say, "By the death of my sister, the woman he was married to."

"I see." She says with a neutral tone.

Taking one last drag, before I toss the butt into the ocean I ask, "You sound like you know him?"

"I know of an Erik Winters, he is involved with my elder sister, Bismarck." She says to me.

Turning around, quickly, I cough as I feel a bit of chest pain from the really cold air that I just sucked in, "What?"

"Ja. They have been together, romantically, for a couple of years now. Does it surprise you to know that we Iron Blood kansen can have a soft side?" she asks as she comes to stand beside me, looking out over the ocean.

I look off to the side as I hang my head and say, "As I said before, to be fair, you are the first kansen I've ever actually met, so, I don't know?"

"I see." She says and turns to place her back towards the water, she asks, "Are you going to tell me why you were so far from home, yet?"

I weigh just how much I can actually say, I mean we're not at war with the Iron Blood, but I wouldn't count them as a first-tier ally either. But then again, they might have a way to help track down a mass-produced Hipper hull.

Fuck it, if Erik is with her sister, then they likely know about the Aurora anyway.

Tugging the blanket around myself a little tighter I say, "Maybe after I get a chance to touch base with Erik Winters."

Tirpitz gives me a sideways look before shrugging and gesturing for me to follow her as she says, "The cold doesn't bother me, but you might suffer."

I follow her back inside and she doesn't take me back to sickbay, rather she takes me to some crew quarters, stopping outside a door as she says, "You can stay in here, but stay out of the Admiral's cabin that is mine."

"Got it, any idea how long before we reach this base?" I ask.

"A few days, I will have a meal brought to you later." She says as she turns and walks away.

My head tilted to the side as I watched her walk away, man she looked human from behind and I kind of wondered how humanlike she was under the clothes. I mean if Erik is involved with one of these kansen, they must be pretty close, right?

XXXX

XXXX

A few days later, I'm walking down the boarding ramp, in the middle of the night onto a snow-covered dock, standing under a light, I see a man in a dark uniform, the markings of an admiral on his uniform, on his chest I see the name, 'Winters', but I couldn't see his face under the officer's cap. Pressing my lips together I walk towards him, once I was close enough I sated, "Commander James North, Maple Monarchy, current on special assignment."

His response was by the book, a crisp salute as the voice that was familiar came out, "Admiral Winters, Maple Monarchy." He paused for just the right amount of time before pushing his cap up and smiling at me as he says, "It's been a while, James."

On the one hand, I hate this guy, he was fucking my sister, but at the same time, she really loved him and he really loved her, so I guess I should let it go. Closing my eyes and sighing, "It has, Erik."

I hear him move a little closer to me as he asks, "What brings you across the Atlantic?"

I look off to the side and ask, "Can we talk in private somewhere? It's kind of state business."

XXXX

Once we'd gotten to his office, I found it was really luxurious, with this great big wooden desk, but it was to the little seating area that he directed me. As he sat down he asked, "What's going on, James?"

I look up to a bookshelf and I see his cap and I see my sister's cap, Aurora and Polaris written across them, with a model Hipper class between them. I gulp and rub my left arm as I say, "I don't know how to tell you this, Erik, it's kind of an ugly deal."

"Just say it." He says to me, as he turns to see where I'm looking.

Fidgeting with my hands I blurt out, "Something happened to the wreck of the Aurora, it's missing and we've gotten reports of a ship that could be the Aurora spotted in the North and Norwegian seas. So, the Iroquois was dispatched to come check it out, but we stumbled into a siren minefield and…"

"Oh." He says to me, knowing exactly what that meant. He reaches across the gap between our chairs to squeeze my shoulder and say to me, "How long ago and how far out?"

"A week ago, according to Tirpitz, I was the sole survivor. Likely because I was blown overboard when the second mine hit." I say as I keep fidgeting.

Erik gets up and makes his way to some double doors and asks, "Do you need a smoke? I know when you start to fidget, you need to."

I get right up and go out on the balcony, taking out the tin Tirpitz gave me and light a new one as I say, "Thanks. Anyway, the important thing is the Aurora, have you seen any reports about her?"

"I have, but it's a bit more complicated than that. What were your orders if you found her?" he asks me.

Leaning over the snow-covered railing and blowing out some smoke I say, "To sink her or bring her home. And capture whoever messed with a war grave."

Erik nods and folds his arms across his chest as he says to me, "Then things are much, much more complicated."

Taking a long drag and shaking off the ash, I ask, "How so?"

"Bismarck brought her back as kansen for me, as a gesture of love for me several years ago." He tells me as he moves to lean over the railing beside me.

"What?" I ask in a low tone of voice and then add, "How is that even possible?"

He shrugs as he says to me, "I don't totally get it, I, mean the one summoning I was there for, I was blown across the room and woke up with a soaking wet, naked kansen on top of me."

"I don't get it?" I say slowly.

"It was the Aurora, they had somehow managed to salvage her off the seabed, repaired her, mostly, then made her kansen." He says and looks off to the side, "Things got really, really complicated with Aurora being here. But she's happy now, being a ranging scout for Tirpitz's group, often heading into Northern Parliament waters, to get a peek being the icy curtain."

"You're fucking with me, Erik." I say with a sideways look, my cigarette hanging out of my mouth.

He shakes his head as he says to me, "Not at all. Officially, Aurora is an Iron Blood ship now, since she was stricken from the Monarchy."

"Well, fuck me." I say before looking back out over his port, I add, "What am I going to tell the brass?"

"Let me deal with that, you rest up and stay here as long as you need." He tells me.

We stand there in silence for a few minutes before I just have to ask, "Since you're with one of them, how humanlike are they?"

"What do you mean, James?" he asks me.

"Like, do they ya'know feel human?" I ask, I was really curious about this after watching Tirpitz walk around.

Erik hangs his head and sighs, "Yes, in every way. But, most importantly, James, they are people, treat them like that. There has been too much abuse done to them by men that didn't understand that, especially on this base, it took me a long, long time to gain the trust of all the girls here."

I put my hands up as I say, "I wasn't asking about sex dolls, I was trying to understand, when I'd watch Tirpitz walk around, I was left wondering how close to human she was under her outfit."

Erik reaches over and punches my shoulder as he says, "That's the sister to my fiancée your talking about, jackass."

I return the punch to his shoulder as I say, "And that's for doing my sister."

Erik turns and looks back into his office, his eyes going to the caps as he says, "I struggled with this for a while, James, but things just kind of happened with Bismarck and I had to come to terms to move on. I miss her every day, but I can't live as an empty shell."

Tossing the butt off the balcony I sigh, "Yeah, I get it. But what am I going to do, when I get back I don't have a ship to back to anymore."

He folds his arms across his chest and thinks, "Then stay here, I'll figure something out, I have a lot of pull with the brass."

I give him a sideways look, fixing my eyes on his shoulder boards, "You are the fucking brass."

He laughs and says, "And don't you forget it. Come inside and I'll get you some assigned quarters for now, then I'll see about arranging for someone to take you shopping in the town to get anything you need."

Hanging my head and pushing off the railing I say, "Thanks, Erik."

"Anytime, James." He says to me as he goes over to the great big desk and a screen is projected out of it and he starts to type away.

XXXX

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A/N: Here we are, the first step in a re-write of my Tirpitz Story, with a direct link to Crown of Iron.