Rule courtesy of AngryAmerican
7409: No matter what someone did, do not try and recreate The Cask of Amontillado. Or any other Poe stories for that matter.
Portland had passed mere anger. She had scrimped and saved for weeks to get enough cash to buy some proper French wine from Jean Bart, that greedy frog. The real deal, direct from Europe, and all but impossible to get with the war on.
Then her idiot roommate Macon had stolen it and drank all of it.
But now she would get even! She'd show Macon what happened to thieves!
It took another week to get ready, the main component was as much bottom of the bin swill that she could lay her hands on. Portland grinned. Macon, the simpleminded fool, had taken the bait and gotten hammered on the hooch. The heavy cruiser was totally impaired.
"Hey, Macon?"
"Wha?"
"I've got some good stuff stashed if you'll follow me. We'll have a good old time."
The drunken Macon smiled, "You're the best Porty!"
Bristling at her hated nickname, Portland took Macon by the arm and led her out of their room, towards where she had gotten everything ready.
Properly enchanted shackles would have been too hard to come by, but a trip to a hardware store had supplied the parts for some improvised restraints. Macon was too drunk to notice as Portland attached the chains to her arms and legs, and even when she wrapped a couple loops around her body.
With the drunken fool chained to the concrete walls of the basement, Portland started with the cinder blocks. She had closed more than half the hole before Macon even realized that she was trapped.
"What? What are you doing?"
"I thought you looked cold, so I'm going to close off the draft," Portland said evenly.
"No, you're lying!" Macon stumbled as she tried to get to the opening.
"Smart girl. Have fun in there!" Portland said cheerfully as she started on the last course of bricks.
"For the love of God Portland!"
"For the love of God indeed!" Portland replied as she slid the last cinderblock into place. She stepped back and admired her handiwork. The wall didn't look out of place at all down in the basement, meaning that no one would notice.
Humming a cheerful tune, Portland sauntered out of the basement and back to her room. She poured herself a small glass of wine, some decent stuff from California. Then she raised it to the ceiling.
"To Macon! May she rest in peace!"
Trapped men were screaming. Imprisoned in the dark, struggling to escape…
Pennsylvania awoke with a jolt. She sat up and rubbed her head, "Stupid nightmare…" The battleship reached for her glass of water, then she froze.
There was screaming.
She looked down towards the floor, where the sound seemed to be coming from. Pennsylvania got up and walked over to her roommate, Tennessee. She shook the other battleship awake, "Tennessee!"
"Uhhh… What do you want Pennsy?"
"Listen!"
Tennessee groggily sat up and looked around, "Sounds like screams."
"Yes! From downstairs!"
Tennessee grunted and got to her feet, "Alright, let's go see what's going on."
The two battleships left their room only to find an annoyed Nevada already in the hall. She turned to face the other battleships, "You hear it too?"
"Yeah," Pennsylvania replied as the three girls headed towards the stairwell. "I had a nightmare about Pearl that woke me up. Is Okey alright? I know she's had trouble with nightmares."
"Nah, her boyfriend got her some headphones that have been helping. Jeeze whoever this is has a set of pipes!"
The screams were much louder now, and were accompanied by what sounded like… chains?
Now they were in the basement. Tennessee switched on the lights and the battleships split up to search. After a few minutes, Pennsylvania stopped in front of a bare cinderblock wall. The screams had switched to sobbing, sobs that were coming from behind the wall. Pennsylvania brought her arm back and punched through the cinderblocks. In just a few seconds she had demolished the wall and could see inside.
"Macon?"
The heavy cruiser was down on her knees, chained to the wall by her arms, legs, and by chains around her waist. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked up at Pennsylvania. "Help me…"
"Jeeze," Pennsylvania said as she started working on removing the chains, "Who did this to you?"
Sniffling, Macon said, "I-it was Porty. A while back I s-stole some wine from her. I didn't know h-how important it w-was to her. I was going to get her more, but it was g-going to take me a while."
By now, Nevada and Tennessee had gathered outside the hole in the wall. Tennessee cleared her throat, "I'll get some MPs and deal with Portland. I'll let you two figure out what to do with Macon here."
"I'll get her to the docks, she needs to sleep this off I think," Pennsylvania said as she positioned herself to help Macon walk. "Nevada, would you give me a hand?"
"Yeah."
A short while later,
Portland looked up as someone knocked on her door. Who could be here at this hour?
"Come in!"
She blanched as Tennessee stalked in, rigging on, and flanked by a pair of humorless MPs. The battleship glared down at the cruiser, "You're coming with us. Admiral Briggs will hear about this tomorrow, and until then you're going to the brig."
Portland nodded, eyes glued to the barrels of Tennessee's 14'' guns. She raised her hands.
Briggs could feel his blood pressure rising as Tennessee told him what had happened the night before. On one hand, Portland had apparently tried to kill Macon. On the other, once she sobered up, Macon could have gotten out with a trivial effort.
"What does Portland have to say?"
"She claims that she only did it to teach Macon a lesson. And she would have to know that Macon could get out pretty easily."
Briggs sighed, "You know what? She's going to stay in the brig for a week, and I'm going to rescind her alcohol privileges. Kerstin?"
"Yes?" Brigg's secretary ship, the auxiliary ship Kerstin poked her head in.
"I'll need the phone numbers and addresses for every liquor store around you can find. Every place that even sells the stuff. Portland won't be getting any for a while."
"Alright, sir!"
Briggs nodded at Tennessee, "Alright, dismissed."