"Anything on radar?"

"Nothing."

"Sonar?"

"Nothing." That fact alone made Menges worried, let alone imagining what Roe was feeling as the convoy commander.

The silence was appreciated, yet the fact that other convoys were getting hit, and they were seemingly clear, made the paranoia worse. Why were the attacks being targeted to the other convoys? Why was it so quiet, after the panic of the past few days? Why, why, why? There were too many questions to be asked, and not enough answers.

Intellectually, Menges knew that it was probably chance, that they just so happened to be clear of Abyssals, that maybe they were out of the hunting grounds. Yet, something felt off. Something was wrong, she felt it.

And the worst part was, she didn't know if it was paranoia or if she was right.

Roe didn't like this.

They'd been sailing for hours, and had no attacks in that time. There were no sightings of periscopes, nothing on the sonar… hell, there wasn't even a school of fish.

It was too quiet. Even normally, there would be a few things on the sonar, biologicals cluttering the screens.

But there was nothing at all. Even the animals in the sea were hiding from them.

'Or maybe I need rest.' Roe thought. She had been on convoy duty for weeks now, and it was soon time for her to be rotated out. Originally, she was supposed to be moved to fleet duty a convoy or two ago, but she'd volunteered to go longer; an idiotic impulse from an idiotic fight with her sisters.

She regretted that now. Right now, she wanted to see Wainwright , and argue about her with idiotic things, like that damned turn-of-the-century rock she blasted on the speakers every time they were in the room and scream at her to turn down the volume and her shoddy taste in literature and get yelled at by Buck about them arguing and-

No. She had to focus. Pinching herself lightly, she turned her thoughts away from her sisters, and towards the threats.

Commander O'Brien had given her a brief on the submarines of WW3. The biggest issues she'd identified then were the much lower acoustics compared to the ones they'd faced so far. It was one problem to be too slow to attack, it was another entirely to fail to detect them entirely until it was too late. Anechoic tiles weren't on all of the submarines that had fought in the war, but enough of them had, and all the nucs had them. The Soviet ones, at least.

'Another issue. I shouldn't focus too much on the Soviet threat.' Just because so far, all the Abyssal subs matched up with Soviet sub types, didn't mean they would all be Soviet. Some Princesses had been American, Brit, and French too.

She held her head as she felt the migraine hit. 'Damn, why is this so hard?'

The radio buzzed. It was Porter . " Roe, we've got something on the sonar. Northwest, about three kliks from your position."

The sun was setting, and it seemed the sharks were circling. "Roger." Roe radioed, switching channels. " Menges, on me. We're hunting this SOB."

"Got it, hoss." She and Roe were taking the starboard side of the convoy, while Powell and Mason took port. "Any idea what this fella could be?"

That was a great question, and one that Roe sent to Porter. "No clue, Roe. Right now, we're assuming it's a diesel on batteries."

That didn't narrow it down at all. "Well, I guess we'll find out." She did hope it was a diesel. They'd be able to catch it then.

That hope slowly died the longer it took for them to find the sub. For two hours, they got nothing but faint blips and blobs on the sonar as they slowly combed the waters for the sub, until Menges slowly looked out to the west. Darkness had fallen, and now the stars lit up the night.

"Think I've got'em." Speaking in a hushed whisper, like the Abyssal could hear them, Menges stared into the water. "West, one and a half miles. Yeah, that's a diesel noise. I think they're out of juice."

"I don't have them, so you guide me in." Menges gave her a thumbs up, and Roe sailed towards the given direction, her turbines slowly gaining speed as her boilers gave their all. The seconds counted down, before she saw movement on the surface.

Quickly, she radioed Menges. "She's on the surface! Firing at her!" Her 5-inch guns trained out as she slew to present a broadside to the surfaced sub. "I think we caught her recharging her batteries!" Her director crew adjusted the inputs, her director moving to aim at the surfaced sub, and fired…

Right as a missile flew out.

"Shit! MISSILE!" It flew past her, and past Menges.

Inside, her thoughts were working overtime. 'Surfaced to launch missile, diesel sub- crap!'

She radioed in. "Porter ! Mark sub as Juliett-class! Firing at her now!" Her first salvo had missed, and her director crew adjusted their aim for a second salvo and fired.

The shells hit the sub. The explosions showed the Abyssals face, a small heart-shaped face, a scowl marring a face of otherwise unearthly beauty, and snow-white hair.

Without realising it, Roe was screaming over the radio. "Enemy submarine is an Abyssal Princess, I repeat she's a goddamn Princess over!"

The Princess was staring at Roe, hate in her eyes, and she could see the hull slowly turning to face her. Turning all of her AA guns on the Princess and praying it sank her, Roe started aiming her torpedoes.

Princesses had, even with the magical bullshittery ongoing in the Abyssal-Human war, a level of magic bullshit that no one could explain. Even when nominally of the same type, Abyssal Princesses had a sturdiness beyond normal Abyssals, firepower beyond normal Abyssals, and a level of capability that ought to have been impossible given standard technology of the period that they were nominally based on, without even counting their ability to create new Abyssals. A Princess and her fleet took weeks and months of preparation, and now Roe was staring at one with Cold War technology, and she had just pissed it off.

An explosion rang behind her, reminding her that yes, it could get worse in minutes. Her AA-guns started firing, and she started the fight for her life.

Menges stared in mute horror as Roe engaged the Princess, her senses barely keeping themselves in check long enough for her to fire a starshell into the air.

Then training took over, and she immediately started broadcasting over all lines. "Mason, Powell ! On me! Porter , how long will it take to launch ASROC?"

Two clicks sounded off, marking the other DE's acknowledgement while the Commander came over the radio.

"We've got your position and can fire at any time. You're too close though, the torpedo might lock onto you."

"Roe 's in close combat with this thing, I'll try to help her-."

Her world lit up in flames.

Fear. Fire. Anger.

The girl was familiar with those sensations.

'Why?'

She didn't know why… but it seemed important. Why did she know that?

She heard the sound of the explosion, the scream of the ship ancestor comrade.

Why was she familiar with it?… more to the point, why was she here, instead of fighting?

Roe registered the missile as it skimmed past her face, and the scream behind her from Menges.

She couldn't help her right now. The moment the starshell lit up the sky, the Princess had leapt towards her, sharp claws masquerading as hands trying to rip her throat out. Quick reflexes meant they only landed on her forward 5-inch, but the claws had torn straight through the splinter-proof armour and the barrel, putting it out of commission.

She had heard of some shipgirls preferring melee, but this was the first time Roe had ever gotten tangled in a situation like this, and the Princess was putting her on the back foot.

The submarine outweighed her by over a thousand tons, and she moved like none of that additional bulk meant anything to her. If the Princess had thrown a punch rather than using those claws, or even body slammed her, she'd be in trouble.

Yet instinctively, Roe knew that creating distance didn't help her either. Torpedoes and missiles both had a minimum range, and as long as she stayed within that minimum range, a Juliett had no weapons to defend with. She had the advantage in this fight.

Of course, as she ducked underneath the scything claws, as her screws frantically reversed her from the advancing Abyssal, that was purely from a steel hull point of view. Her rear 5-inchers barked again, sending another salvo of HE directly into the Princesses belly, and like the last few rounds she had sent, did nothing to slow the rampaging Abyssal. A submarine had no business tanking rounds like that, showing off just how bullshit the Abyssal Princess magic was.

'If that's the case…" The Princess moved to swipe again, letting Roe step forward and toss the handheld rigging of her ruined 5-inch mount at the claw. While the Princess swiped at it instinctively, Roe took advantage of the lapse in concentration it caused to fire her K-gun at the Princess, hitting her right in the face and sending torpex all over the sputtering Abyssal.

Roe didn't have hedgehogs, a byproduct of the overweight nature of the Sims -class, but she had a lot of depth charges. And while the torpex within them was stable, they still burned. Quickly, she fired another two K-guns, both catching the Abyssal in her stomach, sending her to the ground.

Then she fired.

The torpex within the depth charges went off, creating a cloud of smoke and knocking the Abyssal flat on her ass.

"Alright, NOW LAY IT ON HER!" Her voice cracked as she screamed at her gunners, every single gun on her firing into the cloud of smoke where the Princess had been, all while she prayed that this was enough to put her down.

Then the Princess ran out of the smoke, claws drawn.

"Something's burning there!" It had taken Mason and Powell ten agonisingly long minutes as they rushed from one side of the screen to the other, and what they saw wasn't good.

The moment the gunfire stopped, they expected the worst. When they started seeing fire, they overworked their boilers. And when they could see the source of the fire, they blanched.

Menges was settling in the water, with the chunk of metal that used to be her bridge gone, leaving debris and metal. The hull below had a semicircle where the base used to be, scorched metal surrounding it, while fairies scrambled to keep her afloat.

Her human body showed the damage through the massive hole in her head.

"Oh, hell." Rushing to assist their compatriot, the only thing that comforted the two of them was that they could see fairies running about on her hull.

A fairy came out to brief them, the senior surviving officer on board. Menges had lost all control and command facilities, but the fires had been contained and she had working machinery. She was seaworthy.

"Desu-desu-desuuuuuuuuuuu!" Instead, the fairy screamed at them to help Roe , pointing out where their leader was currently in a melee battle with the Abyssal Princess .

The two Destroyer Escorts looked on with horror as their leader was being mauled. Mason snapped back into action first. " Powell, you have torpedoes, go in for a torpedo run!"

Powell's mouth was aghast. "The leader is too close to that thing! It's too dangerous!"

"There isn't much else we can do!" Eyes transfixed on the sight in front of them, they watched as the Abyssal cut Roe across the chest. "I'll try and get Menges out of here, and you try to create an opportunity for the leader to get out of that mess. Work with the helicopter to distract that thing, hell, that's already a victory if we get out of this mess alive."

A beat passed, before Powell sailed off, determination on her face.

Pain

The ancestors were in pain.

She didn't like seeing them in pain.

Nor did she like the enemy.

When would she get to fight?

Her ASROCs were itching to be used.