Kent woke up on a forest floor in recovery position.

With a groggy groan, she reached to feel the side of her head. She rubbed it gently before rolling on her back. With her arms stretched out, she stared at the blue sky through the forest's emerald canopy.

"Where am I?" she asked aloud.

"Did you hear something?" a different voice asked.

Kent shot up into a sitting position and glared in the direction the voice came from.

A blue-haired woman and a blonde woman looked back at her. The two were pulling a wooden cart. After staring at each other for a moment, the blonde spoke. "Ya new here?"

"I..I was exploring a cave. And then a big rock fell and hit me hard in the head, and then I woke up here. Where is this place?"

"I can't tell you that until we get back to the village. How 'bout you come with us? We'll fill you up with some food."

Kent stood up, brushing the dirt and leaf litter off her dress. "That's all you needed to say."

The blonde laughed. "It usually is."

Kent trotted up to the women. "My name is Kent, by the way. What're yours?"

"I'm Hornet. My friend here is Helena"

"Hello, Kent." Helena gently waved at Kent.

Kent looked the two up and down. "Now that you say it, you look just like the Hornet and Helena I saw pictures of in the newspapers."

"Yes we do," Hornet responded.

"So are we going to some sort of Kansen enthusiast convention? Your costumes are great."

"I can't tell you until we get there."

"Well then if that's the case, I'd like to let you know this is not a costume, I actually am HMS Kent."

"Yes, you are."

Kent interpreted Hornet's response as sarcasm. "I don't know when I got out of my caving clothes and back into uniform, but this is actually my uniform that I wore in the Maid Corps."

Hornet chuckled. "And this is the uniform I wore at Midway."

"What would it take to convince you I'm telling the truth?"

"Nothing, I believe you."

Kent got a bit more aggravated by Hornet's response.

Helena decided to change the topic. "I forget, what did you say we're having for supper tonight?"

"We're grillin' out," Hornet answered. "Deer with Hoel's special berry sauce."

"Deer?" Kent tilted her head.

"It sounded strange to me too, but trust me, it's good" Helena reassured.

After nearly 20 minutes of walking, they approached a village consisting of several log cabins. The village sat where the forest transitioned into grasslands. A wooden guard post sat on the dirt path coming into the village, but it was unoccupied. Kent immediately noticed the smell of smoke and the lowering sun glaring into her eyes.

A silver-haired woman half-jogged from the porch of one of the nearby buildings. "Hey, you were running late so I got the fire started without you. Is that okay?"

"Not a problem," Hornet responded. She tilted her head towards Kent. "We have a newcomer with us. While I cook could you sit down with her and have 'the talk'?"

"Certainly." The woman turned back to the porch she was sitting on. "Sims! Hammann! Would you please help Helena unload the cart?"

Two girls who were on the porch reluctantly stopped playing checkers, stood up, and slowly marched toward the cart.

The silver-haired woman grabbed Kent's hand and shook it. She stared into Kent's eyes and smiled warmly. "I am Yorktown. Welcome to New New England. Follow me, I'll get you a seat."

Kent followed Yorktown into the center of the village. "New New England? That's about two 'new's away from where I just was."

"I thought you looked British." Yorktown led Kent into a central clearing of the village. The natural grass in the clearing was replaced with a sand-gravel mix. Picnic tables were scattered throughout the clearing and its center was decorated with a tall obelisk. Several large buildings surrounded the clearing, most of them being two stories with shop fronts facing the clearing. Ropes were tied between the top of the obelisk and the major buildings and colored cloths hung from the ropes. Yorktown sat at one of the picnic tables adjacent to the obelisk. She gestured for Kent to take the seat across from her.

Kent complied.

"I'm sorry." Yorktown leaned forward. "I didn't ask for your name. What is it?"

"My name is Kent."

"Well, Kent, you are dead."

Kent blinked. After processing the information for a moment, she spoke. "I guess that makes sense..."

"Oh really?"

Kent scratched the back of her head, chuckling nervously. "Yeah, the last thing I remember was a really big-looking rock falling towards my face. At least it was painless."

"That's good to hear."

"Why didn't Hornet just say that earlier?"

"Well," Yorktown explained, "Some people had much more traumatic experiences dying and others don't take the news well, so we've made it custom to at least bring them into a town first so hopefully there's someone emotionally available to them. Hard to play therapist when you just stumble on someone in the woods. So what was the deal with that rock?"

"I was exploring a cave, got lost, called for help, and apparently that unsettled a rock."

"Why were you exploring the cave?"

"I dunno. As a kid, it always sounded fun, and when they confiscated my pet tiger I needed something to fill the void."

Yorktown ignored the tiger in the room. "...I think that makes you the first person here, at least that I know of, that died during a 'normal' retirement accident. I suppose that makes you the least lucky of the lucky ones. We had a lot of Kansen operators join us during the war, and then a wave of post-war suicides, and then we didn't get anyone new for quite a while."

"So is this palace heaven?" Kent asked.

"There is strong and spirited theological debate on that subject. I can tell you that it seems only Kansen rigging operators end up here, and once you're here you can die again."

"I could die again? Where do I go after that?"

"You wake up wherever you fell asleep last."

"So if I get lost in a cave again, I just have to kill myself and I'll end up back home?"

Yorktown winced. "I wouldn't rely on that strategy. It's really easy to get tired while exploring and just doze off for a little bit. And if you don't recognize where you woke up, you can be lost for quite a while. We don't know quite how big this land we were given is, but it's certainly too big for someone to navigate on her own."

"I see…" Kent thought for a second. "So if this is where dead Kansen operators end up, do you know if my sisters are here."

"I might. What are their names?"

"The two that died are Canberra and Cornwall."

Yorktown's face lit up "Oh, those two. Yeah, they live in the next village over. New England."

"I thought this was New England"

"New New England. New England was settled by a handful of British Kansen operators who died earlier in the war, either not knowing or not caring that New England was a region in the states. Then when we Americans started showing up we ran with the joke and named this place New New England. We have a small trade expedition going to New England tomorrow, they can escort you."

"I could just go tonight, how far is it?"

"It's not very far, but a contingent of German submarines has been stalking the woods between here and there, so it's not really safe to go alone, especially for a newcomer."

"Ah, so we're still at war with Jerries here. This must be hell then…"

"We're not at war with the Germans or Japanese as a whole anymore," Yorktown corrected. "A lot of them had a change of heart after dying and are cooperating with us. Others are still trying to prove their racial superiority by force though. In all fairness, some of the Allied Kansen operators still think we should be attacking all the former Axis operators, and others switched sides entirely. It's no longer Allies vs Axis anymore so much as it is pro-cooperation and anti-cooperation."

"The war has been over for over a decade though."

"For you, it has been. For us, it hasn't been that long."

"What do you mean by that?" Kent asked.

"Time in this place seems to pass slower than in the realm of the living. It seems that just a year goes by for us and three pass on Earth."

"Huh. How did you figure that out?"

"By asking people the day they died and comparing it to the days that pass here."

"Oh."

Hornet walked up to the table, Sims and Hammann by her side. "Hey, Yorktown," she interrupted.

"Is everything alright?" Yorktown responded.

"Yeah. These two just had a question for you."

Hammann held a light-colored wooden box with Japanese calligraphy on it to Yorktown. "Can we have some because we helped Helena unload the cart?"

Yorktown accepted the box. "Sure. But one each. I don't need the two of you spoiling your appetite."

As Yorktown slid the lid of the box open, Sims and Hammann sat down on the picnic table on the same side as Yorktown. Hornet took a seat next to Kent.

Kent straightened her back and craned her head to look into the box. "What're those?"

"Maple candies," Hornet answered as Yorktown distributed a candy each to Sims and Hammann.

Yorktown resealed the box and sat it on the surface of the table. She pushed it to Kent. "You can have the rest of these if you want."

Kent inspected the box. "Are you sure? They look a bit fancy to give away."

"They aren't that fancy. we all have a little too much free time here, so it's not uncommon to decorate packaging or bake elaborate things out of boredom."

"How do you get bored? Aren't you still at war with the anti-cooperation people?"

"We are, but they only pose a sporadic threat. They infight too much for this to be a peer conflict. Usually we take turns going on guard duty and then if they decide to attack the rest of us can grab a bow or a sling from the armory to defend the town. Even just that poses too much of a threat for them most of the time, so that's why they're mostly attacking travelers between villages instead of raiding like they used to."

"I guess that makes sense. Even during the war, we had some downtime."

"So," Yorktown changed the topic, "You now know where your sisters are. In return, do you have any news about our sister?"

Kent's eyes darted between Yorktown and Hornet. "Sorry, who's your sister again?"

"Enterprise"

"Oh right! Yeah, I was at her wedding."

"She got married?" A smile slowly crept across Yorktown's face as she internalized the information. Energy built until she needed to release it with a giggle. "I knew things would get better for her! We should celebrate this news!"

Sims and Hammann traded concerned glances with each other, then stared at Hornet. "Please don't let her start drinking again," Sims pleaded.

"Heya…" Hornet butted in, "Maybe we can celebrate some other time. Kent here just died and joined us for the first time. Today should be about her, some other day can be about Enterprise."

"Fine, but just a few more questions. What is her husband like?"

Kent paused briefly. "She has a wife."

"Oh. Are lesbian marriages legal now?"

"No, they made an exception specifically for her."

Hornet laughed. "She worked so hard during the war without expectation of anything in return, I'm glad she finally had the courage to make the government give her something. What is her wife like?"

"She married Belfast," Kent answered.

"HMS Belfast, head of the Maid Corps Belfast?"

"Well, 'head' for propaganda purposes, but yeah, that Belfast."

"Good for her! That's a decent catch alright."

"She's the only maid that really put up a challenge for me during the propaganda maid-offs we had to do between deployments. I was a little disappointed when she didn't pick me as best maid," Kent smiled proudly, "but when she asked the Maid Corps to organize the wedding, I think I worked hard enough that there were no disputes over who was the real best maid."

Yorktown blinked. "I'm not sure you understood the role of the best maid in a wedding."

"What is there to misunderstand? The title is 'best maid'. You get it by being the best maid."

"Have you even been to a wedding before‽" Hammann shrieked as she stood up and slammed her palms into the table.

"My parents dragged me and my siblings to a few before the navy took us, but they were all boring and I fell asleep. Their best maids were not good enough."

"That's not how any of that works!"

Sims smirked. "If you feel so strongly about it, Hammann, maybe we could have a model wedding."

"Yeah? Between who and who?"

"How about you and Cushing?"

"I don't like Cushing like that! Where did you even get that idea‽"

"Sims, stop bullying Hammann!" Yorktown barked.

"I'm not bullying her, I'm just trying to find a way to help Kent understand the role of best maid." Sims stood up and started walking away from the table. "But since Hammann is so confident in her feelings about Cushing, I think it might be best to let Cushing know because everyone else seems a little confused about that."

"Wait!" Hamman screeched before fumbling out of the picnic table seating and falling face-first on the ground. She got up with all the grace of a cat trying to sprint on a slippery tile floor and ran after Sims.

Yorktown sighed.

Helena approached the table, her head fixed on Hammann. Her gaze then snapped to Yorktown. "What got into them?"

"Adolescence."

"Should've guessed. ...Anyway, Kent can stay in one of the spare rooms in my house, assuming you don't already have plans for her."

Kent raised an eyebrow "One of your spare rooms?"

"I built my house big on the assumption that my sisters would join me here someday." Helena took the now free seat next to Yorktown. "It's taking them a while…"

"And it's not an inconvenience for you two?"

Helena cocked her head. "Us two?"

"You asked Hornet about dinner plans earlier, I assumed you two lived together."

"Oh," Helena's pitch raised with her realization. "No, we don't, we all have a big dinner together as a community every night."

Kent looked around the town center. "Well, that explains all the picnic tables."

"You're more than welcome to join us."

"Don't mind if I do. Would you need anything in return?"

"Food's abundant here year-round, it's really not a burden for us."

"How about help with cooking and clean up? You have the Maid Corps' best at your disposal."

"It would be rude to make a guest do work," Hornet countered.

Helena led Kent into a room on the east side of her house. The room was dark. The only light was the orange sunlight that spilled in from the house's western windows. "You can stay in here tonight. Or another room if you want, this is just the one that's most ready for someone to move into."

Kent ran her hand up and down the wall next to the door.

"We don't have electricity here. I can get you a candle if you want."

"That would be nice, thank you."

"Just one minute." Helena left the room.

In the low light, Kent could make out the bed she was going to sleep in. It was against a window. The distant forest and mountains were illuminated by the setting sun, but the ground in the shadow of Helena's house was dark. Along the western wall of the room, there was a desk. Kent could tell there were some books on it, but it was too dim to make out any covers.

Helena returned holding a metal dish with a lit candle and a primitive pair of scissors. "Something that I didn't know until I came here was that someone had to invent candles that just kept burning on their own. Our candles aren't like that. You'll need to trim the wick every once in a while so the flame can stay close enough to wax to keep burning."

"Huh, I never thought about that."

"There are a lot of things you don't think about until you have to reinvent them yourself." Helena set the candle dish on the tray, illuminating the books. "You said you were Canberra's sister, right."

Kent nodded. "Yes ma'am."

Helena pointed to one of the books on the desk. "She wrote that book."

"Good for her. She always talked about how she wanted to be an author after she retired." Kent picked up the book and opened it to a random page. As her eyes skimmed back and forth, her face reddened. "I didn't know she wrote smut!"

Helena sighed. "It's a 150-page book, you just opened it to the one scene like that. Perhaps you should start from the beginning."

Kent set down the book. "I don't feel like reading right now. My mind is too scattered."

"That's fair. Is there anything else you need?"

"Do you have a shower?"

"No one has a shower. We might get one eventually because someone in this town knew how to do plumbing before the war, we just need to find the time for the smith to produce enough piping to make it work. But in the meantime, we have a waterfall we use. It's also where we wash our clothes. I can show you in the morning."

"That'll work. Thank you so much for your help, Helena."

"You're welcome. If you need anything else I'll be upstairs"

Kent laid awake, staring at the ceiling. She would occasionally squirm around in hopes that she would find a comfortable sleeping position, but even through her clothes and a thick quilt, the texture of the straw mattress was too irksome. She rolled on her side to look out the window at the moonlit mountains. The stars were unfamiliar to her. They didn't match any of the star charts she memorized for any latitude or season.

Suddenly, a blood-curdling cry originated somewhere from outside.

Kent jolted into a seated position. Her heart raced as she looked out the window for the scream's source. If it came from within the window's line of sight, it was too dark to tell.

A couple of shouts came from outside. Kent couldn't quite make out what they said. She wasn't even entirely sure if they were in English. Then Kent felt her bones rattle as the sound of a bell resonated throughout the village.

Helena, wearing a simple white nightgown, threw the door to Kent's room open. "We are under attack! Follow me."

Kent jumped out of bed and followed Helena into the living room. Helena ordered Kent to hide in a corner while she scanned the surroundings through her house's front windows. After ensuring the coast was clear, the two sprinted towards the center of the village.

After they passed through the next row of houses, Kent spotted the attackers. Two tall women with thick, leather armor stood with their backs to Kent. Both had a bouquet of fox tails that idly waved back and forth. One woman with darker hair looked like she was trying to drag something. The other woman had white hair and was holding a halberd. The white-haired woman was standing over a bloodied body and the dark-haired woman was trying to drag another person away.

Kent changed her running direction towards the two attacking women. As she was turning, she grabbed a small stone off the ground and threw it at the dark-haired woman.

The woman flinched slightly but didn't lose her grip on her struggling prisoner.

"Oi, ya cunts!" Kent shouted. "Leave them the fuck alone."

The white-haired woman turned around and stared at Kent. Her scowl intimidated Kent into slowing down and almost tumbling to a stop. She raised her weapon over her head and screamed as she heaved its head down on Kent like her head was a log she was spitting for firewood.

Kent narrowed her eyes on the halberd's blade; the blood from its previous strike glistened in the moonlight. Then she felt something get a strong grip on the back of her shirt's collar. It pulled hard, sending her flying backward. As Kent fell, she felt the tip of the halberd graze her skirt just before she hit the ground. She landed on her tailbone, sending a jolt through her entire spinal column

The white-haired woman's halberd embedded into the ground between Kent's legs.

Kent exchanged a confused glance with the white-haired woman. When the woman started to tug her halberd out of the ground, Kent scooted backward, turned over, and took off sprinting in the direction she came from.

Helena was sprinting just in front of her.

"Thanks for the tug!" Kent shouted

"Please keep following me," Helena pleaded between breaths. "Don't be a hero!"

"Sorry," Kent shouted back. She looked over her shoulder. To her relief, the white-haired woman wasn't chasing her.

Eventually, the pair made it into the center of the town, where they saw most of the other residents leaving.

A squad of three women approached them. The three of them had crude metal helmets and chest plates. Two of them carried polearms and one of them carried a bow. The woman holding the bow spoke "Glad to see you two are okay. Meet at the south bug-out spot."

"We saw Akagi and Kaga in front of Portland's house," Helena reported.

The bow wielder thanked her. "I was wondering where those two would be. They must've attempted a feign." The bow holder nodded at her squadmates, and then the armored women started jogging in the direction Kent and Helena came from.

Kent and Helena followed the crowd out of the village and through the woods. Several women carried lanterns to navigate through the woods in the dark. Eventually, everyone reached a short cliff with a waterfall. The waterfall itself and the pond of water that collected beneath glowed cyan. Hornet was at the front of the crowd. She stopped and counted heads as people walked past her. She stopped once she got to Helena. "We're short eight. We had six on guard duty, do you have any idea who the other two are?"

"Did you see Portland and Indianapolis?" Helena asked.

"I haven't."

"It looked like Akagi and Kaga were targeting their house."

"Strange." Hornet pulled a quiver of arrows over her head and offered them to Helena. "Would you please stand guard while I go back and check on the guards?"

"Yes ma'am."

As Helena accepted the arrows, Hornet picked a bow off the ground and handed that over. Hornet then jogged back in the direction of the village. "I'll be just a few minutes."

Helena watched Hornet run off, then turned to Kent. "Sorry that your first night here has been like this."

"It's fine, it's out of your control. How often do attacks like this happen?"

"It used to be almost monthly, but it got a lot less frequent over the past year. I think the last attack on our town was six months ago." Helena pointed at the glowing water. "That water is safe to drink if you need any."

"I'll pass for now. Why does everyone gather like this?"

"Huh?"

"Why does everyone group together like this? Doesn't that make us an easy target to pick off?"

"We did some wargaming with small bands and this is the best tactic we could come up with against small band raids. When they only focus on the town, it keeps most of the citizens who aren't ready to fight out of harm's way and makes it easier for the women assigned patrol duty. If the band comes after us instead, anyone they kill will wake back up in the town and can stop by the town armory on their way back to the fight. If they split up, the group that's in the town is clearly outmatched by the guards and the group that leaves will only generate more soldiers to fight against, just like they would if they came after us. They mostly care about the town anyway because most of the time they're just here to steal stuff." Helena paused momentarily, then added "We don't know if these tactics would work in a bigger raid, but that hasn't happened yet. We've been trying to organize multi-village wargames to simulate that scenario but it's hard to find a day that works for most people."

"And what do you think the threat of a larger raid is?"

"I think it's pretty low. None of the groups that conduct the raids ever agree with each other enough to work together. But we don't see what they're up to most of the time so I think it's worth preparing for anyway, just in case this is all a ruse."

Eventually, Kent ran out of questions for Helena. She meandered through the crowd of women and girls gathered around the glowing pond and crouched down at the edge. Slowly, she cupped her hands and dipped them into the water. After staring at the water, she violently splashed her face with it and rubbed her hands around her face to spread it around. She then scooped another handful and hesitantly took a small sip. To her surprise, it tasted like ordinary water, not like an American soft drink like she was expecting.

When Kent was done rehydrating and washing the sweat off her body, she returned to Helena's side. The two chatted for a while until they saw a group of eight women approach. Hornet led the group, carrying a lantern in one arm and wrapping her other around a distraught, white-haired woman. Behind those two marched six armored women, three of them were the ones Kent and Helena met earlier.

Helena spoke once Hornet and the troubled woman were a few meters away. "Did you find Indianapolis?"

The distraught woman looked at the ground to the side of Helena. She sniffled and rubbed the corner of her eye.

"We did not," Hornet answered.

The distraught woman took a deep, uneven breath.

Hornet pulled the woman closer and rubbed her upper back to soothe her. "It's okay, Portland. Indy probably had trouble falling asleep and woke up in New England. She'll just come back with their trade party tomorrow."

Portland stammered. "B-b-but I won't be able to have breakfast with her tomorrow." The pitch at the end of her sentence increased as her utterance turned into a sob.

"There there, it's okay." Hornet patted Portland's back. "You can have double breakfast with her the day after." She then turned to Helena. "It's safe to return everyone to the village."

Helena and the guards behind Hornet dispersed to let the crowd know it was safe to leave.

Kent followed Helena throughout the process. After they were done notifying everyone, they walked side by side at the end of the crowd. Kent broke the silence. "Are those two lovers?"

Helena's face scrunched up with disgust. "No! They're sisters. Though Portland's obsession with Indianapolis can get a bit creepy at times…"

"Ah." Kent walked in silence alongside Helena for several seconds. "I think if I committed, I could've prevented Indianapolis from dying."

"No, you couldn't have. You would've been split in half."

"I don't need to live. If I would wake up elsewhere, then all I would need to do is create a window where Indianapolis would've escaped."

"It's been years since you fought, and all your combat experience has been in your rigging. An unarmed novice isn't just going to take on someone trained with a polearm."

"Again, I don't need to win, I just need to create a window for-"

Helena interrupted. "You aren't going to juke past a woman with a six-foot-long spear positioned in the middle of a fifteen-foot-wide street. Especially not unarmed. Maybe if you get really lucky with a shield you could get past, but then you would have no way of knowing if there were more of the raiding party to contain you and Indianapolis after you freed her."

"Fair, but I still think it would've been worth a shot."

"For all we know, Indianapolis should've woken back up in her house. You had a very high chance of dying anyway and waking back up in the forest in the middle of the night and getting lost."

"You don't know that I didn't fall asleep in your guest bed yet."

"Newcomers rarely fall asleep easily on their first night." Helena sighed. "Indianapolis waking up in the next town over is probably the best outcome."

"I still think I could've taken them on."

"Dying still hurts! A lot! You got really lucky with that rock taking you out instantly".

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body".

Helena rolled her eyes.

The pair eventually made it back to Helena's house. Kent's eyes hadn't yet readjusted to the lanternless house, so she clumsily flailed her arms around to find objects until she found the bed. She clambered in, hitting her head against the headboard in the process. After, she laid on her side and stared out the window at the stars and distant moonlit hills. She compressed the quilt into a single mass, clenching it close to her chest. "I could've stopped them."