Watched "The Great Escape" recently. Good flick.

Anyways, I know that Japanese POW treatment was another dimension entirely from this, but…

The entire building was brand spanking new. The ocean and salt air wouldn't let it stay that way, but for now, it was almost pristine. Now if only he could leave his lovely beachside house without getting shot.

"You alright, Phoenix?"

"Good as gold. You're the one who got hurt."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't give me that. You did the best you could."

"And yet we're prisoners."

"So we just have to get out." Phoenix shrugged, before rising to her feet. "I'll go ask around. You just sit there and keep on lookin' pretty, alright?"

"Sure. Don't do anything stupid."

"Stupid? Me? Rich, who do you think you're talking about?" Phoenix grinned, kissed him on the cheek, and left to see how the hell they'd get out.

"You haven't tried to escape?" Phoenix asked, shock on her face.

"Escape? Are you insane?" San Juan hissed, looking around for eavesdroppers.

"It's a more productive use of our time than staring up the at the sky all day."

"If you had taken the time to look up, you might have noticed the surveillance planes." San Juan whispered. "Normal guards are bad enough, but Akagi?"

"Is your Commander as milquetoast as you?"

"Not quite…"

"Oh?"

"They damn near cut his arm in half when he tried to escape."

"Shit."

"No kidding."

San Juan sighed. "My Commander… he'll be on board if you ask him. I know he will. But I won't let him get hurt anymore for something stupid."

Phoenix smirked. "Then the plan just needs to be perfect."

—-

"Say Bogue, how far can you throw?"

"How far?" Bogue looked toward Phoenix, eyebrow raised. "I'm more about speed, you know? Fastballs?" She idly tossed a ball into the air and caught it.

"But how far?" Phoenix could see it, a thick, borderline impenetrable wall of green behind a stretch of sparse ground. Burnt foliage, maybe?

Bogue hummed for a moment. "At least a couple hundred?" She kept on tossing and catching.

"Could you reach the forest outside the fence, you think?"

She nearly dropped the ball. Nearly. "Yeah. It's… hundred and fifty from the fence, I'd reckon?"

"Can you test it?"

"With my only ball?" Bogue gasped. "Over my dead body!"

"Is it worth that much?"

"The Red Cross don't exactly send us sports gear, do they?"

"Thanks anyways, Bogue."

"You should play with us sometime," Bogue suggested.

"And run the risk of losing your precious ball when I hit a home run?"

"Like you'd even touch it." Bogue snorted.

Phoenix walked away and proceeded to pace the perimeter of the prison camp a few times, cheerfully waving at the guards in their towers.

(The fences looked to be… fifty or so feet from the nearest dormitory?)

"How'd it go?"

"Nobody's plotting anything yet. I was thinking tunnel?"

"How long?"

"Two hundred feet from here, looks like."

"Okay, so if we get out, then what?"

"Grab our rigging and a Wisdom cube and get the hell out."

"Easier said than done."

"Yeah, yeah." Phoenix shrugged. "But it's a start, Rich."

"I suppose."

"You sure you're good?" Phoenix asked, coming over to sit on his bed, letting a hand rest on his uninjured leg.

"Been better."

Phoenix chuckled. "How about I make you feel better now?"

"Here?"

"Unless you'd prefer outside? I always knew you were brave, Rich…"

"Here is fine!"

For a few days, that's how things went. Commander Richard- lovingly and perpetually referred to as Rich- recuperated and Phoenix hopped around the base, plotting and talking with the others.

The shipgirls all agreed there was a sort of tug, a feeling that drew them to their rigging, and since it all seemed to be in the same direction, they suspected one holding place, probably for research. That place might have Wisdom Cubes as well, but they weren't sure. That was another problem: they didn't know anything about the island beyond the prison.

(Phoenix had jokingly suggested that one of the Fletchers could be thrown bodily over the fence.)

She would actually end up playing a few games of baseball with Bogue and her friends. Gave her an excuse to wander around, dipping into other dorms and such. She had picked out a decent spot under some bathroom tiling…

Still, that was only a piece of a larger puzzle. She needed a sense of who their wardens were. There were a few normal humans who manned the guard towers, but the shipgirls here seemed a lot more autonomous. They were clearly in charge of this joint, even if they had their goons overseeing minor business.

For what it was worth, they weren't treated terribly as prisoners, and even got to pursue wholesome recreation. Gardening like some of the other girls would absolutely drive Phoenix insane, but there was some use for it. As surely as flowers attracted bees, their plots attracted Hanazuki.

Of course, she kept her rigging, meaning she was at no risk as she knelt to look at the struggling flowers and their dull blooms.

Deciding to risk it, Phoenix approached her. Well, with prior warning. "Hello?"

She turned with a gentle smile. "Oh, you're Phoenix, right? The cruiser?"

"One and only." Phoenix grinned.

"Well, I wouldn't say that. We've got phoenixes of our own. It's an odd name for an American ship, isn't it?"

"Phoenix, Arizona."

"What?"

"Phoenix, capital of Arizona." She clarified.

"Oh." Hanazuki smiled and carefully adjusted one of the flowers, lifting a leaf to see its underside. "It's rather dry, isn't it?"

"That's what they say."

"You've never seen it?"

"Nah. And you? Whatever Hanazuki is?"

"I have seen the month of March, yes."

"Hanazuki means march?"

"It's another way of saying it, yes. Flower moon." Hanazuki sighed. "Your Commander is Graf, yes?"

"Why?" Phoenix asked, her eyes narrowing.

"For your own sake, don't get in Akagi's way."

"What?"

"She's not someone you want to anger."

"No- what's her connection to Richard?"

"I couldn't begin to explain Akagi, Phoenix," Hanazuki whispered as she worked away at the soil.

"Well, aren't you a big help," Phoenix muttered, rising to her feet.

While heading back to her dorm to check in on Rich, Phoenix found herself blockaded. "San Juan?"

"Phoenix." She smiled.

"Would you mind letting me inside my dorm?"

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"Akagi requested no interruptions."

For a moment, Phoenix was silent. "I'm sorry, is Akagi visiting my Commander?"

"Yes."

"Shit. Hanazuki…"

"Hanazuki?"

"She warned me about Akagi. Bad news."

"No, really?" San Juan scoffed.

"Oh, so you do have some sass in you?"

Akagi finally left, and Phoenix got a good look at her: she was definitely a looker, she would admit that, but there was something about the eyes…

(Phoenix comes inside and talks to Richard about the sudden interloper in their relationship.)

"If I start thinking about it seriously…" she sighed. "I know you'd never do it normally, but… she's valuable."

"Are you saying I should… indulge her? Akagi?"

Phoenix managed a half-hearted, humorless chuckle. "Talk about riding a tiger."

"Is now really the time for jokes?"

"No, it's not… but if you could get her to like you a bit more, it would help."

"And if I don't want her anywhere near me?"

"We'll… figure something out," Phoenix said.

Unfortunately, it seemed that something as minor as Richard's opinion regarding Akagi wasn't relevant to the carrier's plans. She made another visit a few days later, and Phoenix was exiled.

"I suppose we can't dig the tunnel in my dorm." Phoenix sighed.

San Juan groaned.

"What?"

"My dorm is the same distance to the fence as yours."

"That it is, San Juan."

"You get something for my boy's arm, and maybe."

"I'll see what I can do."

(Richard is visited by Akagi.)

"Holy shit." Phoenix's eyes widened, seeing livid scratches all across his skin. "Your back."

"My back indeed." He groaned.

—-

"Three collapses! Three! We need more wood."

"What about the wood from those supply crates?"

"Used it."

"Used it? Good God, how far are we?"

"Bout a hundred past the fence, probably one fifty total?"

"You sure you're a boat and not a tunnel bore?"

"How's it going, Phoenix?"

"We need more wood." Phoenix's glance flicked over to the bed.

"What are you thinking?"

"If you broke the bed…"

"That can't be efficient."

"Seriously! If we score a few of the planks, they'd probably be weak enough."

"But then they'd just replace those, and all we'd have is a couple of weakened planks."

"Could you sweet talk her? A glorious bed for the glorious Akagi?" Phoenix crooned.

"She doesn't talk like that."

"What, does she just bark?"

"She's very intelligent-"

"She's very intelligent?" Phoenix's brows furrowed. "She's a bitch!"

"And you shouldn't underestimate her." Richard clarified. "I know you don't like her. She knows you don't like her, and the feeling is definitely mutual. That's… that's bad, Phoenix."

(They attempt to work around Akagi as they work towards escape.)

Hanazuki smiled serenely. "I've appreciated our talks, Phoenix. You all deserve better than this."

"Thanks." Phoenix prodded at some dirt, horrified to realize she was starting to recognize the various plants and the signs of their health.

"You should take this." Phoenix looked up to see Hanazuki holding an adze- a sort of odd relative of the ax and the hoe, the blade perpendicular to the handle. It was certainly a step above a trowel. Her eyes narrowed. It wasn't the sort of tool you'd offer a prisoner, at least not one who wasn't actively working with trees.

"... Thanks." Phoenix said, taking it carefully.

Hanazuki smiled and leaned in close to whisper. "The soil trick was clever, but I wouldn't have tried it when one of the guards was helping with the gardening."

Richard Graf's name is taken from the cast of Great Escape: Attenborough provided first name, Robert Graf last.