If the hints aren't obvious:
Patrie = Veneto
Honneur = Littorio
Mirabeau = RN Enterprise
Be not against me, to desire that I should leave thee and depart:
for whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go:
and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell.
Thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God.
-Ruth 1:16
The French Republic in exile was rather lacking in shipbuilding capability, at least to start with. Tunisia and Algeria were not exactly the bustling metropoles they once knew, and in a straight, one-on-one comparison of production, the Syndicalists would have them beat, even with the last-minute sabotage of various dockyards in mainland France.
If it was just a simple competition like that, their ambitions would have really been doomed, but it wasn't that simple. The Syndicalist states were pariahs, the fear of all the old regimes of Europe, and one-time enemies were sometimes willing to lend France a hand if it meant Syndicalist power would not wax even greater. The Austrians had sold them submarines and the shipyard of Trieste was open to them… for a fee. They bought British ships as well, before the fall of Britain.
And that was how Mirabeau ended up cooking in the hot Algerian sun. On the bright side, she fared a lot better than some of the other transfers to the French Republic: she actually managed to tan. She deserved a lucky break after being separated from her sister Emerald, at least. It was definitely hard, leaving behind the homeland she knew- being literally sold away wasn't good for the ego- but the French had a proud tradition of accepting foreign fighters into their ranks.
(Alongside her were the newly named L'Infernets. Pale-eyed Danae was now L'Infernet herself, while bold Dauntless was now Montcalm. They had learned French together, had slowly gotten used to their new names together, remembered Britain together, and read the papers about the English Civil War together… That and all the Siroccos. It wasn't too lonely for an Anglophone, but Algeria was no Albion.)
Her old outfit, the maid uniform she had worn when she was called Enterprise, was long gone. Now, she wore the blue coat, red trousers, and white kepi of a Foreign Legionnaire. She could have gone for more personalization if she wanted, but it was simple and effective. Despite rumors to the contrary, she was not stuffed into a habit or anything like that; in fact, the girls in the Navy were actually quite strict about not doing that unless you really meant it.
Démocratie- flagship of the French fleet in exile- was a consecrated laywoman, and a few of the other girls were sworn virgins. Mirabeau supposed she respected the devotion, even if she was a little too sold on the idea of eventually finding a special someone to settle for vows of chastity.
She shook her head and tried to clear her mind of such worries. Looking out to the sea, northeasterly, she could see ships approaching, the setting sun casting them in a warm orange glow. Her new assignment was coming in from Trieste: Patrie. She would be the battleship's aide-de-camp and escort indefinitely, and Algerie had a similar assignment with Honneur.
"Nervous, Mirabeau?" Algerie asked.
"I'll do my best."
"That's not an answer," Algerie tsk'd.
"A bit worried," she admitted, before sighing. "And why are you the one comforting me?"
"Because you need a bit more confidence, Mirabeau. They picked you because they knew you could do the job." That Mirabeau was picked at all was a bit of a shock, when there were other, properly French cruisers sitting around. She had earned this with hard work.
While they talked, the two Patrie class battleships had gotten closer. There was cheering and celebration now, the human figures guiding those mighty hulls now visible. The two sailed alongside each other, neither taking the lead. Silver hair and green hair, uniforms in vivid crimson, a sword at one's hip while the other held a… rose?
(Certainly a far cry from Démocratie's heavy liberty pole, a vicious spearpoint piercing through a Phrygian cap.)
The green-haired one grinned. "I am Honneur, you've all gained an indomitable ally!"
The other one– presumably Patrie– rolled her eyes, but smiled. "And I am Patrie. With your help, I hope to forge a bright future for France."
Mirabeau could have sighed with relief. Of course, she would have served Honneur if that was her duty, but her personality seemed a bit… stronger than what Mirabeau was used to, even when she served 'royalty' in Britain. But she had business to get to!
She stepped up to Patrie, and made her introduction with a little bow: "Mirabeau class Mirabeau, at your service, ma'am."
Looking up, she could see that Patrie was smiling at her. "It's my pleasure, Mirabeau. I have a feeling we'll do great things together."
"And this vision of loveliness must be Algerie?" Honneur asked, sidling up to Algiere, who giggled.
Mirabeau fell in behind Patrie, following her for a day of parties and ceremonies devoted to the two battleships who would, hopefully, reclaim the homeland. No pun intended. They met Petain and the other ministers, and were the subject of no small number of toasts; Patrie was a hesitant drinker while Honneur was discussing mouthfeel with Algerie.
She learned a bit about the two, as the day went on. Honneur was bold and decisive– confident but with real skill to back it up– while Patrie was more hesitant, cautious but certainly devoted to the cause. A lover of the homeland she was named for, even if she had never seen it.
Eventually, the introductions and celebration came to an end, and it was time for them to retire for the night, retreating into the little quarter of Algiers set aside for shipgirls. If you were particularly bold- and in an Orientalist mood- you could technically call it a harem, in the traditional sense of being the place where women lived, without much male interaction. Of course, calling it a harem was also likely to get you in trouble.
(There had been several sex scandals in other countries centering on shipgirls, and the last thing the emergency military government needed at the moment was extra scrutiny. They couldn't afford that sort of look or even rumors of it, and that wasn't even counting how shipgirls might feel about such a statement.)
Regardless, it was a lovely place of whitewashed walls, horseshoe arches, and swirling arabesques, where they could sit back and relax for a bit. The Sirocco class girls who whirled through the arcades and gardens stopped to give salutes, and most everyone else had gotten to bed at a reasonable time.
It was at this point that Honneur and Algerie parted ways with Patrie and Mirabeau, each heading off to their rooms. Mirabeau rushed ahead to open the door, saying "Apologies, my lady. It may not be what you were hoping for…"
Patrie peered inside, looking at a room whose most remarkable feature was the delicate geometric tiling that covered the lower walls. There was a bed, no chairs, and a few sparse shelves… somehow, it felt beneath Patrie's station. Algeria had always been a bit humbler than her old station in England, but it never felt embarrassing until now. At the very least, it was clean.
She frowned. "It could be better… but we bear what we must, for France."
Mirabeau nodded along. "For France. May I take your sword, ma'am?"
The sword was carefully laid on one of the low-lying shelves– Mirabeau resolved to learn how to maintain the blade– and the mighty cape was hung up on a stand that Mirabeau grabbed from another room. Still, Mirabeau lingered.
"There's no need to wait on me, my dear." Patrie smiled again.
"It's my duty, ma'am."
"Your duty can't be fulfilled without a good night's sleep. Rest."
"Just… call if you need anything. Anything at all, ma'am!"
Patrie laughed. "I think you've already told me everything I would need to know to make it through tonight. Sleep well, Mirabeau."
She excused herself, retreating into the little attached room that she would live in. Servant's quarters. How fitting, that she ended up there despite everything. You could take a girl out of the maid uniform, but it seemed you couldn't take the maid out of the girl.
The first thing she did when she awoke was knock on Patrie's door. "Good morning, ma'am. May I help you with anything?"
"I can manage to dress myself, thank you." She laughed, "But get ready. We have a busy day today."
Her uniform was immaculate and her boots were polished to a sheen, but she made sure to doublecheck regardless. Her glasses needed a quick polish, though. By the time she was finished with all that, Patrie was also ready to start the day, clad in the same brilliant clothes as yesterday.
"Are these the same clothes you wore yesterday, ma'am? I can wash them for you–"
"No," Patrie cut her off, suddenly serious.
"Ma'am–"
"You're to be my secretary, not some household servant. I will not have you wasting your time."
"Of course. Did you have an itinerary in mind for today, ma'am?"
"I believe today was for rest and relaxation after my first voyage… but I would like to see Notre-Dame d'Afrique."
Mirabeau knew of the site in question, a lovely domed church that sat on a cliff overlooking the bay. "I've heard the view is lovely. I'll arrange for some guards."
With that, Mirabeau, Patrie, and a small group of Zouaves set out to see the city's sights. There was a cable car they could have taken up the cliff, to get to the church quickly, but the idea of losing two ships– including a brand new capital ship– in one freak accident meant they did it the long way. In a car, though. There had to be a bit of a barrier between them and the public, what with politics these days.
While she couldn't name the exact style, the church was beautiful. The outside was impressive, but the inside– which she had never seen before– practically exploded with detail: delicate Moorish tiling here, a splendid painting in the apse, stained glass. She knew it was probably less than seventy years old, and yet it felt so much older.
Patrie looked up at an inscription on the wall. "Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims…" she read, taking a seat in a pew and observing a statue of the Virgin Mary at the front of the church. After a moment of hesitation, Mirabeau sat down next to her.
"There was a lovely cathedral in Trieste," Patrie said. "I had scarcely been alive a week when they brought me there. I was still marveling at my own existence, how could I possibly resist something as splendid as this?"
Mirabeau didn't know how to answer that.
"Do you what they had there, in a little side chapel? A mausoleum for Carlists. I had to ask what they were."
"The Spanish claimants?" Mirabeau asked, almost certain that she was remembering incorrectly.
"The very same. Buried hundreds of kilometers from home, forever divorced from the fatherland."
Was… was Patrie aware of where Mirabeau came from, the name she bore before this? Giving the whole homeland spiel to the girl sold by her government felt a bit rich. Still, Mirabeau listened.
"There are some things greater than the nation. The same faith they hold in Trieste is held in Spain. There's something… ancient there. Something older than France as a concept."
That was another thing the government liked stressing. The French Republic was traditional. When the communards came and reenacted 1871, the republic kept the faith, kept belief in… in a republic sixty years old. Perhaps there was a reason they turned to the faith when it seemed so much more stable than the third republic they were on. (If it was even a republic anymore.)
That was also the probable reason behind the monarchists. The moment you started decrying the mainland revolutionaries, you were sabotaging your own position, a similar upheaval that brought the republic into existence. There were die-hard republicans as well, but monarchism was being taken more seriously.
In times of upheaval…
Visiting every week was a recipe for disaster– kidnapping, assassination attempts, whatever– but there was a smaller church attached to the shipgirl quarters. For the first time, Mirabeau attended, lost herself in heady incense and Latin she struggled to translate, and felt like she could have been living in 1436 and not 1936.
They didn't let her take communion, though.
It was easy to get cut off from the world. Despite the training trips in the broad ocean and the occasional meetings with officers, the shipgirl's quarters in Algiers were isolated. Big news was something like Honneur and Algerie getting a cat, not Petain spurning de Gaulle.
(Admittedly, Honneur's beloved Napoleon IV was a very cute cat.)
It was a problem that she suffered from, admittedly. Getting lost in her work was an easy thing to do, especially when the higher-ups were anxious to see Patrie projecting power. Writing the battleship's thoughts down, transcribing letters, and the very real concerns of a cruiser escort… that mix left her incapable of doing anything other than limping to the bath after a mission.
She left the bath to hear that apparently. the vice-president had resigned and was replaced by Mordacq when she was gone. It was like an ice-cold splash of reality after the warmth and friendliness of the baths.
Maybe that was why she went straight back in to inform Patrie. Immediately, her glasses fogged up, but she could still find her way back to Patrie. There was only one thing that smudge of silver next to that smudge of green could be. Well, unless it was Algerie.
"Forget to wash your back, Beau?" Honneur asked
"No. Is that Patrie with you?"
"You can't-? Ah. What a shame, to be before Honneur without seeing her properly." She sighed. "My sister is right here."
Mirabeau turned to the unreactive silver smudge as Honneur snapped her fingers in front of Patrie's face. "Patrie? Mademoiselle? Someone's here to see you!"
After a moment or two, Patrie woke up. "Honneur?"
"You shouldn't fall asleep here, you know."
"My apologies. Did someone…?"
"Beau?"
Mirabeau gulped. "Ah, I just got some news about politics I wanted to discuss with you."
After a moment or two, Patrie stood up and made for the exit. Mirabeau rushed to get her a towel and her clothes, and once she was properly dressed, they began to talk.
"The news?"
"Mordacq was made vice president."
Patrie thought for a moment. "The man supporting the unified branch?"
"Yes."
Patrie hummed, contemplating the potential implications of the 'Bear' gaining primacy in the military. "They'll still need us." She concluded.
"I suppose…"
"Would you prefer if we talked alone, Mirabeau?"
"I would appreciate that, ma'am."
With time, Patrie had decorated her room, filling up the sparse walls and shelves. She had a pair of icons hanging over her bed: Joanne of Arc and Martin of Tours. A crucifix hung on another wall and a few paintings and photographs on another. The bookshelves were practically stuffed to bursting now: Mirabeau could see de Gaulle's writing on the war sitting next to Mordacq's.
"What has you so worried, Mirabeau?" Patrie sat down on her bed and patted the mattress next to her. Worries of impropriety stalled her, but Mirabeau did sit down next to the battleship.
"I'm…" she couldn't even bring herself to deny it. "I'm just… afraid. That they'll mistreat us, that we'll be caught off guard."
"They mistreat us at their own peril."
"Yes, but…" She had trouble putting it into words. The whole thing still felt offensive. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be bothering you with my problems, ma'am."
Before she could stand up, Patrie laid a hand on her shoulder. "Your problems are my problems, Mirabeau. We are one fleet, sharing a bond of… not fraternity, but certainly sorority."
Sisters?
Patrie was really trying to comfort her, but it felt like she said exactly the right thing. Suddenly, she thought of Emerald, and she couldn't hold back tears.
"Mirabeau?" Patrie pulled her close, and Enterprise sobbed into her uniform like a child. Her hair smelled strongly of lilies, and warm hands sat on her back. "Shh… shh…"
It was tremendously embarrassing. Patrie was a person she would be working with, serving, for an indefinite amount of time, perhaps even the rest of her naval career, and Enterprise was making a fool of herself! Her cheeks burned with embarrassment and no small amount of shame.
(How could she have gone so long without thinking of Emerald?)
"I'm sorry, my lady," she hiccuped, falling back on honed Royal Navy habit. "This is unbecoming…"
Patrie made no comment on the unusual form of address– even if it raised some questions– instead saying: "You can't survive without breaks, Mirabeau. We should have talked about this earlier…"
She felt a chill, despite herself. "I'll do better, I swear it."
"I don't want you to do better, I want you to take care of yourself. How can you help the fleet if you can't even manage yourself?"
"Right, yes. My apologies, ma'am." How long had it been since she was held by someone, someone who really, genuinely cared? She had grown apart from the other British transfers, even before she was assigned to assisting Patrie.
"Would you mind telling me why you were so worried?" Patrie asked her.
"You… you know I'm a transfer?"
A moment of silence. "I didn't, but it certainly makes sense."
"I was British before. Before the Civil War, even. But they… they sold me to France. Sold the Infernets and the Siroccos. No one stopped them, no one complained."
For a few moments, Patrie was silent. "What was your name? Your original name."
"I was Enterprise, ma'am." How did her own name feel so strange, falling from her lips?
"I swear to you, Enterprise, that I will never allow such a thing. Any who attempt to part us shall face my cannons."
Perhaps she would have said something similar for any other member of her fleet, any other member of their grand naval sisterhood. Nevertheless, Enterprise could not have imagined words any sweeter.
There were parts of Patrie's maintenance that were below even Enterprise: washing clothes, cooking, and maintaining the big hull, the one that sat in the harbor. These could be passed off to civilians or sailors… but some things were handled by shipgirls. Mostly, it was rigging maintenance, considering they'd have a better feel for it than any human would.
But there was one thing a human could do that Enterprise insisted she do herself. The occasions were rare, but she took a special sort of pleasure in it when the time came. Part of it was the simple pleasure of a skill honed; this was thanks to the kind help of many a spahi and officer.
For a few months, there was a time when all you needed to do to get a date with a shipgirl was let her sharpen your sword. Not in a lewd metaphor sense, but in a genuine sense of going at a blade with a file and whetstone. The first few had awkward stories to tell their logistics officers, but Mirabeau was a cute (if oblivious) girl, and after a while she got genuinely good at it. Unfortunately, when she was reaching true mastery, she stopped sharpening soldier's blades.
The whole exercise was just to make sure that she could take proper care of Patrie's sword. It was a more practical piece than you might think, without ostentatious lettering or designs. Made sharpening simpler.
For a few hours, there was no sound but the rasp of a file or whetstone. It was almost soothing. Enterprise could have gone at it for longer, but she did remember that making a blade too sharp would make it lose its edge almost immediately.
"Thank you, Enterprise," Patrie walked towards her, smiling. "I couldn't ask for a harder working assistant. No. A harder working friend."
She felt heat pool in her cheeks but kept herself under control. After a final check of the blade's edge, she sheathed it and presented it to Patrie. She bent her head a little, some long-buried memory from Britain coming back to mind as she held the sword out for Patrie to take.
After a quick test, Patrie concluded that the weapon was fit for her use, sheathed it, and put it on her hip. The two walked off, Enterprise falling into a subordinate position a little behind Patrie. "How is that dress coming along?"
"It will be ready for your meeting with the president." The new one, Mordacq. Petain had settled into a comfortable retirement, hoping that he might be buried at Verdun.
In private, Patrie had voiced her opinion about the Lion of Verdun. She wasn't exactly burning with republican zeal like Démocratie did, but she didn't like the pretense. "I would respect honesty more than continually peddling that lie." Patrie would say that in public, but she was hesitant to exercise her political sway without careful consideration.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the world was completely willing to give her the time for careful consideration and weighing her options. ("I respect my sister's decisiveness.") The riots never got bad enough that they could be heard from their quarters, but they certainly heard the news. De Gaulle took issue with the government, there was grumbling in the army… there were times when separation from politics seemed good, at least to Enterprise. Honneur would probably disagree.
Something of a reputation still stuck around the shipgirl quarters in Algier. Crass comparisons to a seraglio or harem were annoying, but there was perhaps a nugget of truth in them, in a roundabout sense. Not because of any debauchery or escapades (well, perhaps there was something with Honneur and Algerie, but that was a complex story) but in the sense that there was a lot of political power held by women who all lived in one spot. At times, the Turkish harem influenced the politics of the whole empire, and it wasn't filled with shipgirls.
When Enterprise heard shouting and the stomping of boots outside, she rushed ahead of Patrie and looked out. Soldiers were swarming around the place, closing up the exits. A shipgirl could have gone straight through them, but their presence…
It implied that politics were happening. Serious, serious politics, the sort that obligated a decisive seizure of a key building in Algiers…
"My lady… I think we should gather the fleet."
At long last, the day had come. There would be no more stand-offs near Corsica, no more division in the Italian peninsula, no more contention over the mastery of Europe. She couldn't dare predict the victor, but one way or the other, they would get a final answer.
In the sky, Entente planes and Syndicalist planes tore each other into pieces, looping and whirling and occasionally tumbling down into the sea, trails of smoke following behind them. Anti-air guns made a constant chatter, and larger naval guns rumbled like thunder in the distance.
Patrie inhaled and steeled her resolve for the fight. "Stay with me, Enterprise."
"Until the bitter end, my lady."
The land that shall receive thee dying,
in the same will I die: and there will I be buried.
The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also,
if aught but death part me and thee.
-Ruth 1:17
Kaiserreich as a setting is so good at exploring weird character matches/relationships. The French genuinely do have two Littorio analogs in construction at game start in Kaiserreich, and they really did buy an Emerald class from the Brits.