They were three days out of Midway when Taylor was forced to take a break from her break. Not that she hadn’t been working, training and drilling. Flight school was no joke and fresh cooking remained popular. But for the most part, Taylor had let the other girls just be while she was decompressing. Watched them quietly, unwilling to ask or order too much before she knew more about them. Apart from her own issues with four, there wasn’t another clear problem.

Shun and Wakumi didn’t get along, but no more than Lisa and Regent, near the start. They argued, squabbled and had very different ideas about how things should be. But they could work together. Itchy was always underfoot, daring her shoals and splashing the other girls when they got lost in their own heads. Almost playful. Much more energetic than he was when sliding up to Taylor for pets. Which usually coincided with moments just after Taylor would start to dwell on things, her mood plummeting.

Taylor was on to him. She approved.

“Itchy deserves all the scratches.”

Simply thinking that had the destroyed sliding up to her for his reward. [Fleet-sense] was weird, beyond useful and terribly intrusive. But she just had to figure it out and how to live with it.

“Pretty sure it comes with the whole “Fleet” thing.”

Some control was obviously possible. The recovery time was another new thing. It can take a while for a human to fully recover. Shipgirls seemed able to recover while sailing. Which was the one good thing about their relaxed pace. They should have been on a beach by now.

Taylor herself couldn’t rest quite as much with how she ran on the waves, but the other girls were not at all strained. It felt more like they were out for a relaxed stroll. Like they could sleepskate all the way to Hawaii. All but one. What was true for teams with parahumans was true for fleets with shipgirls: a fleet only moved as fast as its slowest member. And that wasn’t Taylor anymore.

It was a simple and obvious thing, yet none the less galling if Taylor wanted to actually go anywhere. Shun was a submarine. They were meant for stealth and diving, not speed. Taylor could do 24 knots on a good day.

“Sorry.” Shun apologized, yet again.

“Not your fault.” Taylor reassured her.

But she couldn’t quite stop leaking a bit of irritation over the entire situation. 13 knots was unacceptable as a cruising speed. Shun could go faster but would start wasting fuel quick. Combat speed was not meant for traveling, not only for the fuel but for the stress and wear it put on the engines. A trip that should have taken a bit less than two days was now at the end of a third. They were just coming up on the first island. Over oceanic, continental distances? Even without knowing much about strategy at sea, Taylor understood speed. What it meant to get there too late. This was a problem. One Taylor hoped had a solution she could stomach.

***

Taylor could see Hawaii. Or at least her planes could see the first two islands. It wasn’t pretty. Her maps called them Ni’ihau and Kauaʻi and their route took them right between them through a Kau-kaulak-

“Kaulakahi Channel. Which, I’m sure the name makes sense in Hawaiian, but that doesn’t really help me. How did we even get these maps?” Taylor asked the crew.

Some part of her was aware that the response sounded like something out of an undead horror movie: “Argh! Gragh-clack, blaurgh, rahg!”

Taylor was getting better at noticing all these fun little distortions in her standards of what was normal. What she saw and heard. It was like some mix of a person drowning and screaming underwater distorted through a faulty speaker and filled with extra insectoid clicking.

But Taylor understood them just fine. The answer left her frowning.

“Don’t just take things that other crews give you without at least talking to me.” The frown got worse.

“Oh so the captain said it was fine, did she?” Taylor grumbled. She felt like it needed repeating: being a ship was weird. And ok, thinking about it, she wasn’t sure how or why taking on maps would be bad, especially what looked like regular, human geographical maps, but still.

“You’d think someone would ask me about it when they want to bring something on board.” Taylor quietly complained to herself.

“Miss?” Wakumi asked, a note of polite confusion clear in her voice.

“Let her be.” Shun advised.

“Her crew is weird.” The submarine stressed, looking at the First Mate on Taylor’s shoulder. Which, alright, it was a tiny upright squid. Or octopus. Or whatever the First Mate was wearing today.

.

So it was just her crew, they weren’t just regular weird, she got the extra special kind.

“Wonderful. Just wonderful.” Taylor concluded.

“You’d think if I was a Princess I’d have fairy godmothers or something, but no. Nightmares and demons for this one.” Taylor complained in the safety of her head.

Her skirts shook. “I can hear you laughing!” She threatened, not sure what she was actually threatening. Just that it would hurt. The Imps settled down, but still. Weird.

“Where was I?”

“Kaulakahi Channel, Miss.” SaPH!-Four.

Four reminded her. Taylor was getting better at that. She turned to face the fourth ship in her fleet, the Heavy Cruiser obliviously sailing on. Or uncaring of the waves Taylor made in the common pool any time she spoke.

“I wonder if Four can even help herself from answering. Not her fault Taylor. Not her fault.”

She kept reminding herself that. But the explanation, the excuse? It was really wearing thin. There’s only so many times you can say something before it stars sounding like so much static. Maybe focusing all her hatred on one person wasn’t such a good way of coping. Who’d be stupid enough to put them together, right?

Taylor had thought that before she knew The Empress would just give Her over like a docile cow to slaughter. Like death and worse than death for one of hers was a worthy price for a new Princess. That idea? It sickened her.

“Almost as much as what I want to do to Sapphire. Good thing she isn’t here.”

And that would stay that way until Taylor could at least rest a bit and recover. Gather herself up for facing all the ugly shit boiling in her gut.

Because Taylor’s early observations were still true. Abyssals loved to hate. It brought them real, genuine joy. Not even the act of doing something with it, just… just hating. Like acting on it wasn’t even needed and just dreaming about what they would do to their target was enough for a hit of sweet, sweet happiness. That was a nasty way to train someone. And another question for her promised talk.

“Because why? What possible reason could there be for something that messed up?”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

And now? So did she. As she was discovering, to her guilty pleasure.

“If I can’t get rid of that, I really need a better target for it.”

“Girls,” Taylor said. Every head turned her way.

“Why are the islands… how to put it? Dead? Dead works. Why are they dead?” It wasn’t adequate, but it worked.

That brought the mood right down, plummeting almost as fast as her plane had. For Wakumi. And oddly enough Itchy, who’d taken everything else with ease. The rest perked up. Even Four.

“It’s proof of the power of the Court.” Shun answered.

“It’s where the world was shown our might.” Kaede said.

“It’s one of the two debated starting points for Raven’s Grand Progress. It is said-” Four claimed.

There was a beat of Silence that cut her off. Not from Taylor, from Wakumi. Before the argument could start, Itchy whined. The sound was low and deeply pained, almost like someone was killing his brother right in front of him.

“It’s a mark of our shame and you’d do well to shut up about things you know nothing about.” Wakumi almost growled out and Taylor felt something rip out of her across the fleet pool. A wave of regret, anger and shame. Disgust so deep, it welled out of her in the beyond. A wave that struck the other three like a minor tsunami. All three shook, reeling, pale-faced, almost tripping over their own feet, bleeding invisible pain as thunder rang in the clear skies.

“Wakumi!” Taylor snapped. She could see the Light Carrier deflating, not just from the rebuke but from the effort of whatever it was she’d done.

“Sorry.” Wakumi replied tiredly and she meant it. She was sorry. Sorry Taylor had to see that.

“What the hell is going on?” Taylor insisted. Because what?

Wakumi looked away. “It’s not our place. The matter is under Court Seal.” She said, not willing to face her.

Wakumi instead turned to the others: “You will not misinform the Young Miss with rumors and speculation on Court Matters. Get it?” The Flagship [Order]-ed.

Wakumi wasn’t Taylor’s [Flagship], she abruptly realized. She didn’t have one. Because whatever this was went right to her, asking, looking for her [Flag]. But Taylor didn’t have one and wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, so she let it go. Taylor was part stunned, as this came out of nowhere; and a bit afraid of stepping in. With how much power she had over each of the girls and how little she knew how to use it, it would be easy to fuck up. Thin lines of force struck each of the three and as every one of the girls complied in their own way, the lines sank into them.

Kaede did what looked like a salute, smashing her right fist into her chest near her left shoulder, so hard it rang. Shun bobbed in place, sinking up to her ankles while Sapphire simply inclined her head. None of them showed any sign that this was unusual, or particularly cruel. As Taylor silently counted to a hundred, the pain and surprise they’d suddenly flooded the common pool with were rapidly retreating. Taylor watched them, trying to judge just how hard a punishment that was.

After almost two minutes of sullen silence, from what she was getting from the three girls? It felt mostly like they’d gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar and gotten rapped on the fingers for it. Yes, all three were still bleeding, Shun and Kaede much worse than Four. But even as Taylor watched, the wounds were closing. Shun shuddered in pain. It took Taylor a moment to figure out she was the one hurting Shun. With how closely Taylor was looking at the bleeding wound in the subs spirit. Like just looking at it too hard was as if she’d prodded it with a finger.

“What the hell?”

“Wakumi.” Taylor started, significantly less hostile but still not happy. Really not happy.

“Next time, ask permission first.” She stressed.

Taylor could almost see Wakumi looking around. Like asking “who else was supposed to do it?” Her eyes slid right past Taylor before locking on to her, incredibly embarrassed and fully reddening in the face.

“Sorry, Miss. You’re just so quiet.” The Light Carrier apologized.

“I forgot I wasn’t the [Flagship] here. Habits.” She said, with a contrite smile.

Clearly, it was time for Taylor to get off her ass and get back to work. At least until they got to Hawaii. This shouldn’t be that hard, right?

“Oh who am I kidding.” Taylor sighed.

“All right, bring it on. I can take a bit more horror today. Explain it.” After a moment she added. “Slowly. Like you were taking to…”

“Well I was going to say a child, but that doesn’t work, does it?”

“Like you were explaining it to Bertha.” Taylor tried, defeated. She needed new words for this whole mess.

Wakumi balked. “I could never, Miss!” She retreated, boiling with shame.

“Great job Taylor, just. Just perfect.”

Shun came to her rescue. “Explain it to her like she’s a newborn.” She quietly advised.

Wakumi blinked, several times. “I can do that,” she all but jumped on the alternate solution. But she still looked to Taylor for permission to implement, execute. To actually do it.

“Damn it.”

“What she said.” Taylor approved. This was going to be a long day, she just knew it.

Wakumi took a moment to think about it. “Which part?” she asked, helplessly.

Face tentacles just didn’t feel the same as a double facepalm.

“The islands Wakumi. What happened? We’ll get into all this, in a moment.” Taylor promised.

Wakumi frowned, before adopting a faraway look, reciting: “Raven’s Progress was a response to The Enemy and their allies using and threatening to use nukes: weapons of war that draw on the power of the Sun.” Wakumi recounted and Taylor felt certain someone had drilled it into her.

“So basically “They started it?” That’s the official line?” Taylor drily asked. The look she got back was new. Not obedient, or eager. It was the most serious look she’d gotten since Wakumi had entered her service.

Her voice was deadly serious, almost defiant: “Yes. The Abyssal First Princess Raven ended it before we all inherited a world of glow-dust and ash. I was there. I saw it.” Wakumi kept going, completely untouched by Taylor’s tone.

“Humans,” She spat, “are like insects. Some are like bees and make Bauxite, at least useful. They can be taught, trained. Most just get underfoot, but don’t bother you if you don’t bother them.” Wakumi explained, some of the venom fading, before it all came back in a flood: “Others are locusts and need to be cleansed from the world before they ruin it for everyone. Rapists. Slavers.”

That last word? It was a curse and a promise of violence without limit or restraint.

“Well. At least now I know Wakumi’s.” Taylor dismally figured.

“But who’d even be stupid enough to try?”

…

“Never mind.”

Taylor had a feeling, sooner or later, with how the Abyss and the average Princess was? How much power they could use and abuse over their Fleets?

This would blow up in her face.

But she had a nearly feral girl to calm down, and borders and triggers for the condition to figure out.

If this was a mine she was carrying with her, Taylor wanted to know exactly what would trigger an explosion.

Or if she could? How to disarm it.

Something told her it wouldn't be that easy.