Lazy author's note is lazy.
Kancolle isn't mine. The OCs are. So. Yeah. Whatever.
Oh, right. Just because someone's POV says something, doesn't mean it's true.
"I'm sorry about leaving the two of you behind for this, Fubuki-chan, Bono-chan, but it's an emergency search and rescue mission for an MIA shipgirl," explains Cole between mouthfuls of fuel-soaked food. "You guys haven't been trained up on the proper procedures, search cordons and patterns and the like, but I think you will later."
Admittedly, Cole is mostly bullshitting her Desron-mates. The mission she's resupplying as rapidly as possibly for is less "search and rescue", and more "armed asset recovery". She certainly isn't planning to tell them they're looking for a kanmusu. Letting them assume it's an American ship involved by using the term shipgirl instead makes things easier for everyone involved.
Meanwhile, in the back of Fubuki's mind, she can't help but take note of the sheer amount of food Cole is managing to consume. She had an inkling of an idea of just how much fuel a Gearing-class destroyer could carry, but seeing Cole-san eat enough to be good sized meal for a light cruiser is still slightly surprising.
"Oi, Cole-san, if this is a search and rescue, why are you bringing along two battleships for it?" asks Akebono.
Two? I thought we were just bringing Ev- OH!
"Uh, Horizon isn't a battleship, you know," replies Cole, "she's what our navy calls a Large Cruiser, though others argue she's a battlecruiser. Anyway, we're bringing Everest and Horizon because it's a long trip out to where we last heard the missing shipgirl was, and they're big enough to provide underway replenishment if it becomes needed, especially for the shipgirl we're looking for."
"That makes sense," says Fubuki. "If she's been missing since the last battle like you said, then she'll be in serious need of resupply, and I suppose when you have ready access to supplies, using a larger fighting ship for underway replenishment is more efficient than having a supply ship who needs to be escorted along the way."
"Yeah, not to mention we're going almost out to far limits of my round-trip fuel load into waters which aren't patrolled regularly. There's a pretty high chance of running into enemy ships on the way, and the missing shipgirl might be fighting for her life when we get there," Cole adds grimly, finishing off a pan of cornbread to end her meal. A quick wipe with a handkerchief is all the time she has to clean up before setting back off towards the pier, where the rest of the task force for this operation is waiting
"Yeah, well, good luck, you better come back," says Akebono with slight hesitation.
"Un! Cole-san, ganbare!"
"Are we ever going to let those two in on the real missions we do around here?" asks Cole, her question directed at Midlothian, as the task force sets sail from the pier.
"That's up to the Admiral, but most likely not. If the JMSDF fleet at Yokosuka had sent us some of their own asset recovery personnel, then definitely, but they didn't, and I doubt either of those girls has clearance," replies Midlothian.
Cole is about to say something, but then Midlothian continues with a final part to her thought.
"Though, now that I think about it, Fubuki is supposedly one of the earliest kanmusu to arrive in JMSDF service, so there's a pretty good chance she'll eventually be let in on the secret by the Admiral."
Cutting a bit of power to her turbines, Cole allows herself lag a little until she's alongside Everest.
"Do you think she'll fight when we find her?" asks the battleship.
"Have we ever found anyone who hasn't?" Cole answers Everest with another question.
"Let me rephrase my question. Do you think we'll have to sink her?"
"That's her decision to make," Cole replies, her hand moving to check the fuze on one of her torpedoes.
Shigure is lost. She is lost, frightened and scared. She has run away from the battle; a coward. Worse, she has attacked a comrade; a traitor. Now she is lost, wandering the vast empty waters of the Pacific. She can feel a gaping emptiness inside her fuel bunkers, yet somehow her turbines are still running, driven by some unknown energy encroaching upon her mind and body.
She has never hated anyone before, not like she does now. Why do she and her comrades have to relive those nightmares again? What right do they have to force her to fight alongside the same ones who had slaughtered her friends in the past?
The kanmusu's mind is an angry swirl of emotions, such that she doesn't realize the approach of a group a ships until they've already surrounded her, and one of them speaks.
"Well, it looks like you aren't a complete loss, not yet anyway," the strange ship says, eyeing Shigure with a critical gaze.
Instinctively, Shigure jumps back, away from the speaker. She curses her inattention for allowing a group of ships to ambush her at such close range. As she takes in the situation she's found herself in, she realizes she wouldn't have stood a chance even if she had known the enemy was approaching. By some twist of fate, within the empty stretches of the ocean, visible to both her own eyes and her fatigued fairy lookouts, she has encountered a combined group of Princess-class abyssals. It had always been believed there was potential for the intelligent classes of abyssals to work together and cooperate both in and out of combat and the theory had been just about confirmed by cases of paired Princesses and Demons working together in combat. Now, however, the lost destroyer is seeing something unprecedented, but she doesn't stand any chance of escaping, not when she is surrounded by the enemy, not when she has betrayed her comrades already.
"Alright, if you aren't going to speak with us, if you're even still able to, that's okay. You can just listen to what I've got to say to you, assuming you can understand me," says the apparent spokesman for the abyssal ships. "You have two options at this point. One: you can return to Japan as you are, we'll even escort you back, and you can face whatever consequences are waiting for you. Two: you can come with us and we can help you."
The destroyer, aware of her empty torpedo launchers, their reloads expended during her betrayal, and with less than half a load of ammunition, knows she can't fight to escape the ships surrounding, but she doesn't, there's no way she could, trust these abyssals to actually let her go back to Japan. At the same time, she's heard rumors about what kind of horrific things happen to kanmusu who are captured by the enemy.
But is it being captured if I go along with them willingly? No! What am I thinking? But I've already betrayed my comrades; maybe this would be for the better. Could I ever risk facing my old friends in the future? No. I can't go back. I can't go with the enemy. I deserve to sink. I deserve to sink. I deserve to sink.
Shigure clenches her hands tightly, taking stock of her own position compared to the enemy's. A heavy cruiser princess and a destroyer princess are the closest to her, with some kind of battlecruiser or battleship sort of princess slightly farther away. With her lookouts informing her of another two still unidentified ships off in the distance, the kanmusu acknowledges that she is guaranteed to sink in the coming fight. A single destroyer against 5 princesses, and not a single one of her comrades was at risk.
Maybe this is atonement?
"She going to fight," says the destroyer princess. "What's the plan?"
"The usual," responds the heavy cruiser princess, "destroy the weapons, then the propulsion if we have to, we'll tow her back if it's necessary, just like always."
They've captured other kanmusu before… I won't let them take me!
The enemy heavy cruiser makes the first move, slamming her turbines to full power and pushing her rudders the entire way aside to get herself broadside to the exhausted kanmusu. If Shigure had any torpedoes, the enemy heavy cruiser would have been signing their own death warrant, with no chance of dodging a spread of torpedoes, but with her torpedoes exhausted, the kanmusu is instead faced with a broadside of 8-inch guns at near point-blank range. Before she can attempt to decide her best choice of direction for dodging, her attention is divided by the sound of the enemy destroyer's guns opening fire.
Shigure drops low and pushes her tortured turbines to their limit, avoiding the majority of the enemy's salvo, but feeling burning pain as a single shell strikes the side of her face, adding to the agony coming from her exhausted muscles and empty fuel bunkers. Continuing along her low dodge she makes a hurried return shot with her own back mounted cannons, her eyes going wide as she catches sight of the heavy cruiser's guns finishing their traverses to aim at her. In response, the kanmusu makes a brutal crash stop, forcing her turbines far too quickly into full reverse and throwing her rudder all the way to port. The thunder of nine 8-inch guns firing comes almost simultaneously as the sensation of wind passing by her face.
Almost in passing, Shigure takes note of the fact that rather than closing to join the fight, the enemy battlecruiser is instead apparently moving at top speed to intercept the distant pair of ships her lookouts had spotted, not identifiable as a battleship and another heavy cruiser. There isn't any time to think on the abnormality though, as the enemy destroyer continues to pour fire towards the kanmusu. With her turbines screaming in displeasure, Shigure attempts another forced dodge, only for her left foot to slip out from under her as one of her boilers overpressures and steam lines burst. The 5-inch shells tear into Shigure's rigging, destroying the right barrel of her back-mounted cannons, and throwing her off her feel and onto her knees. She flinches as the explosion throws fragments into her face, snarling to return fire herself and finally scoring a hit, striking the enemy destroy in the face and causing a visible spray of blood and oil as the shell tears through her eye.
"Fuck! That hurts!" shouts the destroyer princess, and for a moment, Shigure allows herself to feel some satisfaction.
Her elation is killed almost as quickly as it's born, as the enemy heavy cruiser dashes in and closes the range before she can react. Shigure feels a rib crack as the cruiser drives a knee into her side, before a hand grabs her by the throat, lifting her into the air and throws her bodily several meters across the ocean's surface.
"Everest, you know the drill, stay back unless the situation gets out of hand," warns Horizon after steaming at near top speed to intercept the battleship and Autumn. "Cole and Midi can handle themselves."
"I'm aware. I'm not some mindless killing machine, you know," replies Everest with a wry smile. "I'm a perfectly mindful killing machine."
"Oh… it looks Cole just got hit…" Autumn notes quietly.
"Eh? Knowing Cole, it should be fi-…" Horizon's voice trails off.
"Well shit. She finally snapped," says the battleship, not taking the situation quite as seriously as she should. "But this is Midi we're talking about, it's not like she's going to-"
Everest's words are cut off by the sound of a full salvo of 8-inch gunfire and the ensuing explosion.
"Everest, Autumn, follow me, now!"
As the smoke clears on the water, the rest of the task force looks on with varying expressions: Everest bearing a pained expression of disappointment, Autumn and Horizon with looks of horror, and Cole making an expression of grim acceptance while staunching the blood flowing from her wounded eye. Barely afloat, missing her legs from just above her knees, Shigure stares in frozen terror past the barrels of Midlothian's guns, into the heavy cruiser's eyes where a ghostly blue flame wisps from her left eye.
"Midi," says Cole, "that's enough. It's just a scratch, and the target has been subdued."
The American destroyer turns to Horizon. "Grab the target and hook her up for towing back to base. Per discretionary orders issued by the Admiral, I am taking command of this operation.
She then returns her attention to Midlothian, who has finally lowered her weapons. "In accordance with Special Order Eight, Cruiser Midlothian, you are to immediately surrender your weapons and stand by to be escorted under armed guard for return to base. Will you comply?"
The flickering blue light from Midlothian's eye fades away, leaving behind what could be mistaken for just a trick of the light.
"Understood," says Midlothian with a melancholy sigh. "In accordance with Special Order Eight, I, Cruiser Midlothian, will comply."
Everest pulls alongside the heavy cruiser, deploying a boarding party of fairies to take control of the other shipgirl's weapons, and prevent her from lashing out if she attempts to resist. At the same time, with assistance from Autumn, Horizon sets about preparing the gravely injured kanmusu for return to Rotuma. Armed fairy boarding teams are sent to seize control of all critical systems still intact within Shigure's rigging. Even if the now barely conscious destroyer had wanted to continue to fight, now she wouldn't even be able to so much as attempt to scuttle herself.
Cole stands over Shigure's body, eyeing the kanmusu for several seconds before speaking.
"You know, if any other group of shipgirls had found you in the sorry state we did, they would have sunk you on sight," the American says coldly. "Whether you get hard scrapped or not once we get back to base will be up to you."
Shigure doesn't bother to meet the other destroyer's eyes, instead seeming to retreat within herself and becoming even more unresponsive than before.
"I see," states Cole, disappointment thick in her voice. "I'm sorry it had to be this way. I hope it doesn't end the same way."
Cole then turns her attention to her long-range radio set.
"Admiral, this is Cole. Cruiser Midlothian has been declared unfit for duty in accordance with Special Order Eight, and I have assumed command in place of Cruiser Horizon, at my discretion, per your standing orders. The target has been subdued with critical damage, and friendly forces have only sustained superficial damage. Please have Vulcan standing by for our arrival."
There is a long pause before Admiral Carter responds.
"Roger. Complete the operation as required. Once the target is handed over the Vulcan with Horizon and Autumn as escorts, you and Everest are to escort Midlothian to me office. Understood?"
"Yes sir, understood."
"So Midlothian was the first one to actively show signs of abyssalization?" asks Vulcan, looking up from her notebook. "Damn, looks like I lost the bet. My money was on Everest."
"Vulcan, when we made that bet, I was joking."
"Tch, you're no fun, Endeavour."
AN: Yeah. I still got nothing.