Abyssina 48 Gathering The Elites 2
darthcourt10
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K9Thefirst1
Gentlemen, it has been to long. Here we have Porta laying down the law on what will and what will not be tolerated in her realm. Also, OLD's a bit of an urban legend it seems. And shenanigans are afoot.
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Gathering The Elites part II
January 3rd, 2014
"What is thy bidding, my Princess?"
Porta turned her head from the table, and the animated military-political map showing its rough estimate of the present chaos surrounding her oasis of tranquility that was on it, to eye Ocean Liner Demon.
"You're late."
"Canut insisted I take the prime cuts of meat from the cow I killed. Said it was my prize as the Matador. I told her to give it to the crowd, I'd take the worst cuts later."
That caught the Elder Princess' attention, prompting her to turn around fully.
"That's… Unnaturally generous of you Demon," she said, eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Not really. Those cuts are only valuable because they're so tender. Those muscles are almost never worked so they don't have much connective tissue. It also means that it's easier to get wrong if you don't know what you're doing, while the "cheaper" cuts are more forgiving and pack the most flavor. So even if the choice meats are cooked right, without any seasonings it's just bland, flavorless meat."
Porta sighed with disappointment, not just at the Demon's words, but at her giddy tone of voice. That sounded more like the Demon she knew: Give the warships the promise of a fine prize, only for their own ignorance and high expectations to send them into a ravine of dashed hopes.
"I see. Regardless, the surviving members of the Ten have arrived, and I wanted to go over the strategical situation before we went to meet them."
"What is the situation anyway? Don't tell me they've all killed each other off already."
"Unfortunately, no they haven't." Porta replied dejectedly, "As is typical for my sister's ilk, they don't have the curtesy to just wipe each other out in one go. But, everyone has reacted precisely as anticipated."
Porta and the Demon looked down on the map. Porta's present holding was an insignificant blue speck in a sea of dark greens, reds, oranges, and purples, each shade of color signifying one realm or another, like in some RTS game. To the north of their present position, two blobs bordering each other – one red, the other green – showed icons marking a massive engagement between fleets of maybe fifteen to twenty ships each, with status markings showing damage and fighting condition for all involved. And on their far ends, small purple, orange, and pink blobs worked their way into the bigger blobs' heartlands and towards the bigger units.
"Xeltos and Beltos, of course, blamed each other immediately for the spate of assassinations. I swear I have never seen such a mutually antagonistic pair of identical twins in my life. If they were to have worked together, they would have been a major player. But their suspicions of their own sister kept holding them back. It's been maybe three days, and their fleets are so exhausted that they ought to be wiped out totally come night fall. Even if one of them survives this battle, that little horde of onesies-twosies squadrons will finish off the survivor without me having to do anything.
"And then by the time I'm mobilized that little swarm of singular ferals and minimal units will have damaged each other fighting over the scraps they'll get wiped out by whatever fleet I send in without me even needing to be there."
From there she traced her finger down to the south. Porta's annexation of Goda's territory early the previous year, to the Princess' abject shock, went uncontested. Though she imagined that it was because no one noticed the change of hands. The marvels of not bumrushing in like a Jackass screaming "MINE NOW! YOU NO TOUCHY!" Now the posting of the mobile anchorage Charybdis in the area was paying dividends with the wealth of information her sensors and radio were able to pick up.
The south of her realm was dominated by a quintet of tiny realms that were in near-perfect balance. None of them could fully commit the entirety of their forces to take on one front without ceding any of the other fronts. Though with the constant exchange of shells and torpedoes at each other over time, someone was sooner or later going to give in by attrition if nothing else. But until then is was a stalemate. One that would fold like a house of cards when a properly Out of Context Problem in the form of a sixth opponent, numerically superior and fresh for a fight, came rolling in.
East and West were similar stories, all in a neat little ring around an island of calm. Just as planned. And further out there was even more nebulous chaos that was too difficult to track with any real certainty. All within three days with a few well-placed surgical strikes. These barbarians deserved to be conquered, if they were incapable of ruling themselves properly.
"So," the Demon asked, "what's the plan? Once we've cleared the local area I mean."
"Simple enough really," Porta replied, not looking up from the map, "the situation to our north will be easy enough to take out without my direct involvement. The North Atlantic has had solid convoy coverage running right through it for years now. The Northern Campaign will be a slog, but a simple one. East and West are trickier, but the Humans will be pushing on them from the coastline inward, so the fleets will be naturally squeezed on those fronts as well. Give it a few years and the regions will connect as the Barbarians are forced North and South. I'm thinking having the surviving Ten serve as Fleet Admirals and lead those three campaigns, and you being my Ball Buster in the event one begins to stall."
Beside the Elder Princess, she heard the cracking of knuckles and dark chuckling. Porta rolled her eyes, but continued on as if the Demon had not made a sound.
"South however… That'll be much more troublesome. There have not been any real stabs at continuous convoy runs South of the Equator since the early years of the war. With the Great Powers still concentrated in the North, there just have not been the military forces available to weaken the Abyss in this region like in the North. So I will be directing that Campaign personally. Besides, many of the Phantom Islands on my hit list are in this direction, so it would make sense to grab them on my way down."
"Not much Intel about the area. No telling what we'll find."
"I know," Porta sighed, "that's why I need to lead. In the event we find someone competent, or at least with the force of will strong enough to form a large enough coalition, I can be close at hand to understand the feel of the land myself and give commands accordingly."
Beside her, the Demon nodded in approval. "Makes sense. Besides, if they're to much of a bother, you can always just wipe their minds and annex them."
Porta laughed. She couldn't help it! It was true! Though very much not what she wanted to do if it could be avoided.
Any further discussion was cut off when they both got a message from the Imps at the checkpoint at the main entrance.
They were here.
------
Tsurgat moved with light steps. Her mistress expected an update on the one obstacle to her rule as the new Elder Princess, and the Tsu-class had every intent to open the lock to her victory.
She had observed Ancient Atlantic Gateway from her frontier for years, stewing at how little information she could glean. And then, the previous summer, that fool of a Battleship Demon actually sent an open invitation to all comers to join! It was a gamble, but Tsurgat grasped to opportunity to slink into the Elder Princess' court without question with both hands. In the brief window of time she would have, Tsurgat would get as much intelligence about this Elder Princess as she could manage.
And, against all odds, when the Princess returned, that soft-hearted fool actually gave her the chance to stay! She even let the Battleship Demon live without so much as a maiming! All she had to do was spin a saccharine sob story about being cast adrift, oversell her combat prowess just a little, and Rivet, Weld, With Screws Propelled, she was now a naturalized citizen! The fool!
In the months that followed, Tsurgat learned much about the Princess, her fleet, and her infrastructure. And the only conclusion Tsurgat had, was that no Petty Princess could hope to defeat Ancient Atlantic. But an Elder Princess? Liker her Lady and Mistress? The spineless, Meatsack-loving oaf had no chance.
Or rather, that was her assessment at first. Then the Ocean Liner Demon revealed her true nature on New Years Eve. That wave of Power fueled by Hate, Anger, and the Unrestrained Will to Dominate could only mean one thing: She was a War Demon, and a Powerful one at that. It should have been a farce, this notion of a Merchantship being a War Demon, but the facts were right there glaring her in the face. Tsurgat would be a willfully blind fool to not see it.
Her mistress needed to hear this. Immediately. An Elder Princess and a War Demon teamed up was not an alliance to disregard lightly. Tsurgat's Mistress needed an aid, an ally of similar strength by her side if she hoped to not merely crush Ancient Atlantic Gateway, but to crush her and still have the strength to destroy the Meatbags in turn.
Fortunately, there was one option her Mistress could take advantage of. Unfortunately, according to the lore of the Gateway Elder Princess, this ally was dead.
But then, Tsurgat's Mistress had access to the Power to Dominate the Abyss itself. If she had not attained the Power of the Elder Princesses by now, surely it was but a question of time before she did. And that meant that reviving the corpse Princess was but an inconvenience. No, the only inconvenience was to her, given how hard it was to go looking for where these idiots had dumped the corpse when there were so many being so friggin' friendly. So, when the War Demon demolished the stands in a childish display of power, Tsurgat took the distraction as her chance.
The Tsu-class had spent hours combing sea charts of the Great Meteor Seamount, trying to ID likely dumping grounds around the undersea plateau. In the end, she narrowed it down to the southern edge, as that was closest to the palace. If she had been given the task of disposing of a body, she would have made the trip as short as possible. Thus, Tsurgat had decided to start there, and make a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the seamount.
Soon, the prize would be hers, and as soon as she could find a way to transport the corpse, it would be her Mistress'…
------
Porta stood at the base of the dais that the central portion of her throne had sat for eight long years. While the rest of the fleet had been preparing for the tournament, her imps and shades had been hard at work removing the restraints that had secured it to its place. And now, it had finally been freed, and was being winched into place, waiting for the Refinery Portion and the Yard Portion to be brought alongside the Arms and Propulsion Portion and bolted onto either side. It was a long, daunting process, but one that was required if she was going to lead her subjects into battle.
She turned away from the gangs working on the heavy equipment to turn to the entrance of her throne room, and the field above it that had once held the mosaic of the Atlantic. Between her slow efforts to raise the seamount above the sea and the fact that the Palace as it stood was at best temporary, the most significant work of Abyssinian art was never going to stay where it had hung with honor. Already it had been quietly taken down and moved to a warehouse on the island, waiting for the day when her new Palace was ready.
'Just a few years. And then I can step out among the nations as an equal…'
Her musings were interrupted by the great door that had seen her Idiot Daughter killed just over a year previous opened up, showing a healthy number of foreign-born Abyssals, led by four that she had not seen in some time.
Kallah.
Soreign.
Neeros.
Tartarus.
…It was with a Royal force of Will for Porta to avoid reacting visibly at seeing that Tartarus still lived. Something was… Off about that one.
When she had last seen Kallah, she was but another bog-standard Ka-Class the likes of which were the standard of the Abyss in the late 1980s, albeit one of the first such submarines that she had built herself. While her design had become antiquated in the decades since, her obvious ascension was more than enough to stay concerns of her ability. The submarine stopped at a respectable distance from Porta and knelt to her knee, hand over her heart in the salute of Porta's fleet.
"My magnificent Elder Princess of the Gate, you are as lovely as the day we last crossed paths. With chaos swarming the Abyss, I finally found cause to seek you out, after so many years as a lone Diaspora. It does me infinite joy to see you alive and unspoiled by time."
Porta didn't respond to the flattery and… Liberal slant to Kallah's story. Given the respectable fleet of submarines hanging back at the door, it didn't take a genius to presume that the ascended Ka-Class had not been absolutely honest with how she came to be with them, and why.
'Very well, we'll play this out as long as needed.'
Sorain similarly took the knee, but kept her peace, not seeing the need of applying anywhere near the thickly spread brown-nosing of her fellow Sub.
"Sorain, reporting in from Extended Patrol. All is well."
Porta nodded. Sorain had always been her preferred underling: Competent, enjoyed her work, and didn't waste time and breath with obnoxious boasting.
Tartarus… Was Tartarus.
"My Princess! I have returned as ordered! I have blood of our enemies on my hands, and I have with me a fleet of my own to add to our number, all of them willing and able to slay, rip, and tear in your name, until they cannot slay, rip and tear no more!"
And Neeros. Resolute, skilled Neeros.
"Oh. I see you still have the civilian with you."
'…Well shit.'
Ocean Liner Demon walked up to the smaller Abyssal, a menacing aura radiating off her.
"Neeros. Your-"
"What's that?" Neeros said with mockery, her little fleet behind her grinning and cackling at the antics… Well, except for one Ri-Class, who looked ready to void her bilge at the very sight of the Demon… Curious, "I don't speak wuss, Merchant Faggot! Suck any good Money Cock Capitalist Slut?"
Porta took a soothing breath. Now she remembered. Neeros being included in The Ten was a much to prevent her from getting killed as due to her own loyalty and independent thinking. Neeros, somehow, never quite grasped Demon's status in Porta's hierarchy, nor why taunting her was a terrible idea to have. Apparently the nigh-on a decade on her own had done nothing to tamper her scorn and bravado. In the here and now, the Demon's only response to Neeros' taunt was to chuckle darkly and put her hand on the other Abyssal's shoulder. It was time to step in before Liner Demon took the opportunity to express some rage.
"Ladies! If you would, we must get up to speed on the present situation. Follow me to the War Room. Neeros? Kallah? Your… Fleets, can wait in the Antechamber."
With that, the group were led down a hallway to the War Room. Behind the Elder Princess, War Demon, and High Ranked Abyssals, Kallah and Neeros' fleets followed at a respectable distance. The group was quiet, maybe a few whispered conversations, but Nuru, Neeros' Nu-class Light Carrier, noticed that her fleet mate Rita looked absolutely terrified, and kept stealing glances at the hulking form of Porta's second-in-command.
"What's got your shaft ally in a twist?"
All Rita did was point a shaky finger towards the Demon standing behind Porta and The Four. And all Nuru look at Rita like she was a loon.
"Y-you seriously don't know who that is?!" Rita asked incredulously, "How! You've been around longer than me! The Ocean Liner Demon? The most powerful War Demon the Abyss has ever seen?"
"Meh," Nuru shrugged, "never bothered with politics."
Rita made a sound of disgust at that, smacking her palm into her forehead. As she continued, the other members of their fleet, along with Kallah's submarines, listened in as well.
"Decades ago, a War Demon manifested in the Abyss, without any Demon, Princess, or Elder Princess to do it herself. And she was any kind of warship, just an Ocean Liner, a merchant ship. And yet no other Abyssal could take her own. Without wasting a minute, she started murdering Elites, Demons, even Princesses! It was only when the Ancient Atlantic Gateway Princess cornered her, personally, that the rampage stopped. And even then, she couldn't kill her, only control her. I even heard that Central Atlantic challenged her to a fight, intending to kill her and assert her authority."
"What happened?" one of the subs in the audience asked.
"From every account I heard," Rita answered, "The fight only lasted a few seconds before that thing kicked her in the crotch, and ended it."
Several of her audience winced at the very idea, most of that number held their knees close together for a few steps in empathy.
"Such power has never been seen in any other non-warship, before or since. Soon enough, everyone started calling her The Ocean Liner Demon – as lazy as that is. Ever since she showed up, everyone that knows of her has run rampant, speculating how one merchant ship could not only become a War Demon, but one powerful enough to lay low one of our most Ancient and Powerful Elder Princesses in a single strike!
"All that we do know is that she is an unpredictable malevolent spirit of wrath, a torrent of blood waiting to happen, and a monster capable of an absolute unit of ultra-violence, one that we cannot risk, getting involved in dealing with, unless we want to end up turned into razor blades and reefs."
Toro scoffed, "You for real? HA! She looks like a Tin Plate Gimp!"
"Yeah," Nuru agreed, "that sounds like bullshit. Everybody knows that civilian ships just don't have the Hate in their hearts to be real Abyssals. You ever see a Wa-Class get snide? Naw, they're to weak-willed and submissive to even look at someone funny."
"You don't understand!" Rita insisted, "Our skins will be flayed and turned into her new cape! She will gut any one of us and eat the insides! She will not stop, not until…. Un… until…"
As she spoke, Rita began to lose her sense of control, her voice rising as her dread ran away with her, until she realized to late that the Demon could hear her, when the Liner Demon stood in the doorway to the War Room.
"Oh, no. No, do go on…" the Demon taunted. "Give me some ideas."
The crowd of Abyssals was quiet as a church as the Demon took a step back, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, closed the door. Glaring at them the entire time until the door latched closed.
For the longest time, the room was silent.
------
The meeting went smoothly as far as Porta could measure. It consisted chiefly of a lengthy debrief of the previous decade, what her Deep Cover agents had done, what they saw that they could not risk in a report, and how they carried out their part of the Plan. And it was most informative. For one thing, Porta learned that Sorain and her crew were to be kept as far away from any and all sensitive installations and explosives. And Kallah's word was not to be trusted blindly. After all, flattering words was what got the U-Boat Princess a knife in the back. A pair of Commissars observing and reporting back to her would be in order for the first year or so of service. The Elder Princess trusted them… But not without a means to verify.
As a certain list of rules suggested, blind trust should be reserved for the Dead. Or in Ocean Liner Demon's case, the soul-controlled.
Tartarus was… Well, her lack of empathy and psychosis was an asset thus far, she really needed to find away to do away with her that would not be suspicious. Sure she could be scraped – she was horridly outdated and in need of upgrades and a refit – but… Call it superstitious and silly, but the Elder Princess wasn't entirely convinced her 'quirks' weren't in some way tied to her steel, and she didn't want to subject some innocent young life with the burden of having that inside her.
Meanwhile, Neeros' strategy, to just take over a fleet, was… Not intended, but the results may yet be welcome… Provided that they were sound of course. Fortunately, there was one way to test that.
"With that, the operation is concluded. I am ever so happy that you have returned home, and you will be certain to be rewarded handsomely once the war is concluded. The fallen will be mourned and commemorated, and Ruritania… Will be dealt with in time. Until we have her, we will presume she had her reasons to go AWOL. And if they are reasonable ones, she will be spared. If not, then she will be punished.
"And now the topic must turn towards the… Surplus tonnage, that Neeros and Kallah have brought."
"Surplus tonnage?"
"Indeed Neeros. Surplus tonnage. I have not been idle in the past decade of isolationism. And I hope that you all noticed how I have been building my numbers, all in the name of being able to overwhelm the Enemy. Our true Enemy. Not the Race of Mankind – that was a fool's errand crafted by fools, and has produced nothing of merit outside of our own cost. Any further aggression against him will be simply throwing good money after bad. And I have no patience for such a practice."
Porta looked around the room, measuring how each of them, in particular Kallah and Neeros, would react to what she said next.
"No ladies. Our true enemy, was, is, and always has been, the successor fleets of the other Elder Princesses, especially here in the Atlantic. What Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder said of Carthage I say of them: Sororibus posteritatem delenda est. 'My sisters' progeny must be destroyed.'
"All of them, from the most meager Imp to the mightiest Petty Princess, are lives undeserving of life. If they have not seen reason in the future of this war by now, they will never see it for themselves, nor agree with the logic of it if it were explained to them in manners most plain. And therefore, their continued existence is a threat to us all, one that must be driven to extinction. If there is to be any peace in the Abyss, and between the Abyss and Mankind, there must be an absolute Debellatio of the other Houses of my Dynasty.
"If there is to be peace between Man and the Abyss, then for the good of the realm, that number must include your little fleets. They are to be put on point in every engagement where losses are expected to be astronomical, far from any reinforcement, and used as a meat shield to protect my own fleet from any-."
"BITCH!"
The assembled turned to Neeros, who had shot to her feet, pounding her fists onto the table. And on her face was outrage.
Porta's response was nothing more than a cock of the brow, while to her side the Demon crossed her arms, radiating sadistic amusement.
"I bring you some of the best mercs on the ocean, and you throw it out like they're nothing?! An-and what, for a bunch of meaningless meatbags?!"
"…Did I stutter?"
Whatever response the cruiser was wanting, that wasn't it, going by her animalistic growl.
"Princess! What the ACTUAL Hell!"
"It should be obvious: Continued aggression against the humans will result in our own deaths, and so I have aligned myself with them."
Around the table, the reactions were mixed. Sorain's jaw dropped while Kallah merely raised a curious eyebrow and lost her usual smile. And Tartarus…
Tartarus' eyes continued to be the windows into a haunted house.
Neeros in contrast was more… Animated. Her face nakedly showed her mental process from surprise, to confusion, to annoyance, and finally to anger.
"WHY?! We have them right where we want them! One good blow and they run off! It's what we've done for years!"
"Then why are we not victorious?"
"Well maybe it's because the last Elder Princess has gone soft! We need a ruler that will force the Abyss into line, and drive the meatbags from the sea, not one that'll roll over and show her belly to her lesser and kill off her own kind! Kallah, please tell me you see this insanity!"
Kallah smiled.
"Ah, but the mind of an Elder Princess is that of a Sovereign. And a worthy Sovereign is able to plan in ways that are beyond our short-sighted comprehension. While my fleet would make ideal scouts and spies, if our Princess says that they must die for the good of the realm, then die they will, all I require to ask is in what manner would it please her."
Neeros groaned and turned to Tartarous… Before turning to the other end of the table to glare at Sorain expectantly. The So-class submarine put up her hands to ward off the Ne-class' unasked question.
"Hey, leave me out of this. I killed off my mark specifically to avoid this conversation."
Neeros looked down onto the table, her hands clenched into fists, and her teeth gnashed together hard enough to make the steel of her bones groan.
"Weaklings… You are all weaklings! Undeserving of the proud name of Abyssal! Especially you Gateway!"
The Elder Princess was utterly unimpressed with the finger pointed at her in accusation, which visibly infuriated Neeros all the more.
"What precisely are you suggesting Neeros?"
Neeros seemed surprised by the question. But soon enough that surprise coalesced into resolve.
"For years… I stood up for you. Every time someone in the other fleets mocked you behind your back, I beat them. Killed them. No matter how much you didn't fit the mold of the other Elders, I held on to hope that, someday, you'd wake up to your place in the world. And now… After everything – everything – I've done for you, you're going to throw it all away and be some Meatbag's cock-sucker…"
Porta rolled her eyes at the last the last part. But what Neeros said next made her narrow her gaze, and raise her right hand a few inches above the table.
"The Abyss needs a better class of Leader. Because it's obvious that you're nothing but a craven harlot!" The Cruiser summoned her weapons, and trained her main battery on the Princess, "We're better off without the Elder Princesses! I've seen the armada you've built! It'll be more than enough to kill any Shipgirl fleet in the Abyss, and drive the meatbags fr-!"
Porta waived her hand, her eyes glowing Hellfire Red. And like that Neeros was struck dumb and still. Porta then motioned the hand down, and like a puppet on strings the cruiser sat back down in her chair. For the longest time there was no sign of movement from anyone present, save Neeros' eyes, flitting hither and thither and yon, the confusion in them growing into shock and terror when she realized what was happening:
The Elder Princess has exerted her Power over her as Ruler of the Abyss.
Porta, for her part, merely sighed in disappointment.
"Neeros… I misjudged you. I took your past actions as loyalty. But instead you are as belligerent and foolish as those I sent to St Brendan's to die. Perhaps I should have kept you here, where I could have kept an eye on you. Because clearly you lacked the maturity to endure the peer pressure of those I sent you to betray. Now then, answer me this: Will your fleet take my plans to side with Man well, and will they follow my orders?"
"No," Neeros said, under the Princess' absolute Power, and unable to do anything counter to what Porta wanted. And at that moment, Porta wanted the unvarnished truth. "My fleet are raiders and killers. Nothing pleases us more than seeing ships on fire and meatbags drowning. They are strong like that. Like all Abyssals are."
Porta sighed.
"Disappointing. But you are one-hundred percent certain that not one of your fleet are without this bloodlust? None of them who would be willing to make peace, even if it is only under orders?"
"Rita. She is weak. Thinks to much. Asks stupid, pointless questions. One of these days I may need to kill her to make sure everyone else knows who's in charge."
"That won't be necessary," Porta said, "you have outlived your usefulness. It is a tragedy I could not have you serve as an Admiral, but you did commit treason, and are utterly without regret."
With a wave of the Porta's hand, Neeros' own moved all of the Princess' volition – into the cruiser's mouth. While Neeros' eyes widened first in fear, then panic, her own fingers betrayed her as they did something inside her mouth. Then those eyes winced in pain as her body went through the motions of swallowing, and her hands moved to sit flat on the tabletop. Kallah and Sorain leaned in, to better see what was going on, and in the brief moment between Neeros' hands leaving her mouth and her jaw closing, they saw:
Porta has used her power to force Neeros to swallow her own tongue.
As if she too knew what had happened despite not being in a position to have seen what the two submarines had, Ocean Liner Demon chuckled darkly.
Porta, her eyes still aglow if not as bright and hand still held out, spoke to the Demon, not taking her gaze off of Neeros, even as her skin took on a darker hue.
"Kallah? What of your fleet? Are they sound? Or will they be belligerent as well?"
Kallah cocked an eyebrow. However, Porta looked at her expectantly, and there was no point in denying her.
"They are very sound my Princess. They know no will but of their leader."
"Very well, they can live. Though I will be distributing them amongst my own submarine divisions. To better acquaint themselves with their new sisters in arms. Demon. I want you eliminate Neeros' fleet. Spare the Ri-class cruiser named Rita."
The demon turned to her Princess, disappointment clear in her tone and body language.
"Really?"
"You heard her. Having her fleet amongst my own would cause nothing but trouble. They are clearly useless, save as resources. By her own confession, this Rita is the only one that might be worth something. Now. Do it."
"…Can't I at least watch?"
Porta narrowed her eyes, but that was enough to get the message across.
"You're no fun anymore."
And with that, the hulking form of Ocean Liner Demon walked to the door leading to the antechamber, leaving Neeros suffocating on her own tongue.
------
The gaggle of Abyssals looked to the door in surprise, and Rita and Kallah's submarines looked on with varying levels of dread at the Dazzle Camouflaged form that walked in, closed the door behind her, and slid the bolt into place with an ominous thud
"Rita."
"Y-yes!" the cruise squeaked, her fleet laughing somewhat at the mouse-like noise she made, and the speed she jumped to her feet at the merchant ship's word.
"You, and those that came with Kallah. Step outside."
"M-ma'am?"
The Demon turned to face her.
"Yes ma'am!"
The small gaggle of submarines and one cruiser fled more than walked out of the room. Without another word, the Demon walked up to the door the left and closed the bolt on it too. Then grabbed one of the empty benches along the wall, lifted it above her head, and slammed it down in front of the door leading to the War Room. Then the War Demon pulled the Bec du Corbin from her hip, and without any warning plunged the spike end of the head into the nearest Abyssal. As the group sat stunned, the Demon ripped the spike out of the now dead corpse with a sickening crunch of bone and steel before turning onto the next victim.
By then the fleet had gotten over the shocking betrayal and went for the kill. A Ho-Class opened fire – but all that resulted was the shell flying through the Demon's unarmored hull and blowing the head of to He-Class clean off her shoulder.
"Hera!"
Years of trigger discipline meant that the rest of the fleet was fully cognizant of what had happened, and what it meant: There were to many friendlies in to tight of quarters, and they were fighting an enemy that their weapons – ironically – were to effective at penetration to be of any use. Still, the strike was textbook, and had blown straight through the Ocean Liner Demon's hull, right where her engineering spaces were. It should have been enough to damage something important…
Except the hole in her chest was closing itself. In seconds, there was no sign they had hurt the Demon at all. Holt backed away as the Demon turned around to face her, eyes glowing hellfire red through the slits in her Helm.
"You stole my kill."
"Umm… Sorry?"
The Warhammer caved in Holt's skull.
The next minute or so was a chaos of fists and kicks and dismembered corpses – none of them the Demon. Toro had her head ripped off with the Demon's bare hands, and the cranium was used to pulp the head of Chilk. On and on this went, until only Nuru, the Nu-class Light Carrier of Neeros' fleet, was alive.
Oh, they put in plenty of solid licks themselves. The Demon's hulking form was riddled with the wounds of secondary arms, and dents from desperate punches or kicks, and blood flowed like bilge water from a dozen wounds and from between the seams in the armor. And yet even as she bleed out, the Demon's body healed, dents worked themselves out, holes sealed. In a few minutes, there would be no sign she had been hurt at all.
Bleeding, one leg ripped off at the knee so that it could be used as a club on one of her comrades, and slumped up against the wall, Nuru, who had said not half an hour earlier that merchant craft were incapable of being a threat, was now seconds away from being murdered by one. The Demon pulled her hammer out of the skull of one of her comrades, and even as she lifted it up to deliver the killing blow, Nuru had to know one thing.
"H-how…?" She coughed out, "Wha- What the Hell… Could you possibly Hate… To be this strong!?"
Strangely, the Demon paused, as if surprised at the question. And in the moment of silence, Nuru felt from the shift of her body language, she looked at her wrist, where a 4.7-inch single mount sat.
"Myself."
Nuru scoffed bitterly, which turned into a wet cough. It figured. Of all the things to hate, nothing gave more power to an Abyssal, than self-loathing.
'Well,' she thought, 'I guess it's not so bad to lose. Not when you had no chance to win anyway.'
Then the hammer fell.
In the hallway outside the antechamber, Rita and Kallah's submarines huddled around the door. Their first clue something was wrong as the sound of the door being bolted shut, followed by the sound of something heavy being moved around. Then came the shouts, the gunfire, and finally the terrible silence. Tense moments later, the sound of the bolt being undone echoed in the hall, followed but the knob being twisted. The group took that as a sign to enter, and the gristly scene inside made more than one of them gasp in shock, and someone else gag.
Rita just looked around with… A mix of emotions she could not name. On the one hand, these were her comrades, whom she had fought side-by-side for many years. As she looked at the mangled corpse of one of her fleet mates after the next, memories of shared meals and moments of shared experiences in the war flitted through her mind.
But on the other, they were all willfully ignorant brutes. None of them cared about the bigger picture beyond the next fight. Not even Neeros seemed interested in how it became rarer and rarer for them to find easy convoys to prey on, and even more difficult to successfully take what they needed to remain supplied.
And in the center of it all, wiping off the blood and oil from her weapon with a scrap piece of cloth, was the merchant ship, the Ocean Liner Demon, the living… Not legend, but Nightmare, the Abomination of what it meant to be an Abyssal, stood alone. Her body riddled with wounds, wounds that would put any Abyssal in the repair yards for months – assuming the fleet leader both had one, and was willing to use it on her rather than killing her…
Wounds that closed, repaired, and repainted themselves within seconds.
Wounds that she swore were filled with tiny hating faces before the armor closed up.
One of the submarines – a Ka-class, but Rita had yet to commit her name to memory, the Ri-class only noting that she seemed shyer and more reserved than the rest of her sisterhood – somehow found the spine to speak up.
"H-how? How are you still alive? And why did you kill them?"
"First, because my Hate is to strong. Second, the Princess wants to make peace with the surface dwellers. Neeros took exception to that. So Her Highness gave her the option to change her tune, leave, or continue to be an ass."
There was a long pause as the Demon continued to clean the weapon. Then she turned to properly face the group.
"She chose poorly."
The group of submarines and one cruiser all gulped at that. They had all served alongside cruel and vicious demons and princesses of course, or had known those who had. And those had killed off Abyssals for far more petulant and small-spirited reasons than a disagreement of alliance. But never had they seen such executions be dealt with so… impersonally before. Before it had always been by her own hand, never by a middleman.
"Rita."
The Ri-Class straightened up at the call of her name, and preyed to anyone listening that the hair standing up on her neck wasn't noticeable.
"Did you know that Neeros wanted you dead? Seems you ask questions that make things awkward for her."
"Umm… Well, I kinda figured that… Much."
As she spoke, the Demon approached. Her massive form overshadowed her, and then she leaned in, glaring into her very soul from behind that helm, and why oh why was the Ocean Liner Demon glaring at her like thatpleasejustgoawayandkillhernowmakeitstop!
"The Princess likes questions. Gives her a chance to look smart. Either that or it points out chinks in her little plans for her to fix. Keep that in mind – it's the only reason you're alive."
Rita opened her eyes, and looked up from where she had turned away to cower before the Liner Demon. Not that she wasn't happy at not dying terribly, no, but it was definitely a surprise. There was a lot to unpack in what the Demon had said – Rita had never known an Abyssal, Demon, Princess, Elite, none, that liked being questioned. They all felt it was some sort of threat to their authority. So for a Princess – especially an Elder Princess of Legend – to actually encourage that sort of thing was more than a little surprising. But before she could dwell on it more, the Demon gestured to the carnage surrounding her.
"So. First job. I want you and your new little friends to clean up this mess. Blood cleaned up, damage fixed, bodies cleared. The corpses are going down to the breaker's yard for recycling. And the Princess wants it done quietly. No one outside this room is to see or hear anything that has happened here. I hear even a whisper of it, I'll know who I need to kill. If I don't get it right the first time, the murders will continue until the leak is plugged."
Before anyone could object, the Demon reached into her hold and pulled up three Imps with Very Importantly and Official uniforms on.
"These are Commissar's Gaunt, Talon, and Rage. They will direct you down the right paths where you can carry the stiffs without having to answer difficult questions. Now, get to work."
------
The seconds ticked by as hours. Slowly, Neeros' skin began to become crisscrossed with bulging veins desperate for fresh blood, and her eyes became bloodshot as her ventilation system became starved for oxygen, and her boilers snuffed out one after the next, as the air in her compartments became all the staler. In her bridge, her command staff began banging on the doors and windows, pleading for mercy. But there was none to be had. From the antechamber door, the muffled sounds of a struggle, the barking of guns and the impact of steel on steel, could be heard, before being silenced. At the four-minute mark, the Ne-Class began to shudder, and her eyes began to weep blood and oil. Finally, with a muffled cough, she slumped forward onto the table.
Porta maintained that silence for another four minutes, just to be sure. Finally, her eyes lost their glow, and the Elder Princess lowered her hand to rest with it's twin on the table's surface.
"Ladies. I know this is going to sound counter-intuitive, given what just happened, but hear me out."
The Princess stood up with all the dignity of a Queen, even as the Demon, mopping up blood from her Warhammer with a scrap of cloth, came back in without a word.
"Ladies," she said calmly, "Two years ago, I sent out a fleet, along with my heir, on an attack on the phantom island of St Brendan. Where they were sunk nearly to a man. That was my goal. My intent – That they all die. To humans.
"Before that, I learned, by accident, that she had been physically abusing my other daughter, Angband. And no one, not even Ocean Liner Demon, thought to tell me. In the mistaken belief that I had already known.
"I am many things. But I am not omniscient. I make a good charade at it, but only because I know a great deal of things about a variety of things, and know how to make the pieces fit. But I cannot do that, if I do not know something.
"Therefore, I encourage you, in the sincerest manner I can manage, to question my logic. To ask me how and why I do things. If some strategy does not make sense, please tell me, and I promise you – except where concerns of OP-Sec are paramount – I will explain, and convince you. And if you are not convinced, or think that I may have missed some crucial detail, tell me, because it may very well be possible that I have missed something vital, and you will be recognized.
"I want you all to be frank with me, and I will consider your contributions with all the dignity and respect you deserve." At that point, the pleasant tone in the Princess' voice dried up like water in a desert, rendering it ice cold and severe.
"…Except for the area of policy that was just under discussion. What my useless daughter and her faction never understood, and what Neeros failed to appreciate, I am informing you right here and now, with the understanding that I will never have to repeat myself."
With the hiss of metal on metal, Porta pulled out the ancient Abyssal sword that Middle World had found, and walked over to Neeros' cooling corpse.
"The price. You pay. For suggesting that I betray, or otherwise renew the war on Mankind, or otherwise discussing this policy of peace and alliance with them in the negative. Is I take your head."
With a flash of movement, Porta sliced down with the sword, and cut Neeros' head from her shoulders. The time between her shut down of her propulsion plant and the decapitation was enough that very little blood escaped to dirty the table. That done, Porta grabbed the head by the roots of its hair and lifted it up to eye level. And all the while, her expression had remained even, and unemotional.
"Am. I. Unambiguously. Transparent? Or do I need to bring out the charts and graphs?"
------
Soon enough, the task of repairing the stands was complete, and the next round of games commenced, this time it was a joust. Though in lieu of horses, the contenders made due riding on the strongest Destroyers to volunteer for the contest. There was much joy and merriment at the spectacle. Surely, the only downside in Angband's opinion was that Mother and Liner were absent. So the Demi-Abyssal Ag-Class carrier contented herself with eating another serving of food. Alone. Watching everyone else gossip and cheer and all around celebrate the simple joy of being alive.
A joy that was shattered by distant rumbling over the horizon. The rumble of guns firing and killing. The roar of War.
------
-.-. .-.. . .- .-. .- -. -.-. . / - .- -. --. --- -....- ... .- -. - .. .- --. --- -....- ... .. -..- -....- ... .. -..- -....- ... .. -..- / . -- .--. .-. . ... ... -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .. / .... .- ...- . / .-.. --- -.-. .- - . -.. / - .... . / -.-. --- .-. .--. ... . / --- ..-. / - .... . / -... .. .-. - .... . -.. / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. . ... ... -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .... .- ...- . / -.-. .-. . .-- / -- .- -. / .. -. ... .. -.. . / -... ..- .-. . .- ..- -.-. .-. .- -.-. -.-- -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -.-. --- -- -- .- -. -.. . . .-. / .-- .- -....- -.-. .-.. .- ... ... / ... .-.. .- - . -.. / ..-. --- .-. / ... -.-. .-. .- .--. -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .... .- .. .-.. / - .... . / ... .- - .- -. .. -.-. / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. . ... ... / . -- .--. .-. . ... ... / --- ..-. / - .... . / .- -... -.-- ... ... -....- - . .-. -- .. -. .- - .
Morse Code Translation
CLEARANCE TANGO-SANTIAGO-SIX-SIX-SIX EMPRESS-STOP-I HAVE LOCATED THE CORPSE OF THE BIRTHED PRINCESS-STOP-HAVE CREW MAN INSIDE BUREAUCRACY-STOP-WILL COMMANDEER WA-CLASS SLATED FOR SCRAP-STOP-HAIL THE SATANIC PRINCESS EMPRESS OF THE ABYSS-TERMINATE
Gentlemen, it has been to long. Here we have Porta laying down the law on what will and what will not be tolerated in her realm. Also, OLD's a bit of an urban legend it seems. And shenanigans are afoot.
------
Gathering The Elites part II
January 3rd, 2014
"What is thy bidding, my Princess?"
Porta turned her head from the table, and the animated military-political map showing its rough estimate of the present chaos surrounding her oasis of tranquility that was on it, to eye Ocean Liner Demon.
"You're late."
"Canut insisted I take the prime cuts of meat from the cow I killed. Said it was my prize as the Matador. I told her to give it to the crowd, I'd take the worst cuts later."
That caught the Elder Princess' attention, prompting her to turn around fully.
"That's… Unnaturally generous of you Demon," she said, eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Not really. Those cuts are only valuable because they're so tender. Those muscles are almost never worked so they don't have much connective tissue. It also means that it's easier to get wrong if you don't know what you're doing, while the "cheaper" cuts are more forgiving and pack the most flavor. So even if the choice meats are cooked right, without any seasonings it's just bland, flavorless meat."
Porta sighed with disappointment, not just at the Demon's words, but at her giddy tone of voice. That sounded more like the Demon she knew: Give the warships the promise of a fine prize, only for their own ignorance and high expectations to send them into a ravine of dashed hopes.
"I see. Regardless, the surviving members of the Ten have arrived, and I wanted to go over the strategical situation before we went to meet them."
"What is the situation anyway? Don't tell me they've all killed each other off already."
"Unfortunately, no they haven't." Porta replied dejectedly, "As is typical for my sister's ilk, they don't have the curtesy to just wipe each other out in one go. But, everyone has reacted precisely as anticipated."
Porta and the Demon looked down on the map. Porta's present holding was an insignificant blue speck in a sea of dark greens, reds, oranges, and purples, each shade of color signifying one realm or another, like in some RTS game. To the north of their present position, two blobs bordering each other – one red, the other green – showed icons marking a massive engagement between fleets of maybe fifteen to twenty ships each, with status markings showing damage and fighting condition for all involved. And on their far ends, small purple, orange, and pink blobs worked their way into the bigger blobs' heartlands and towards the bigger units.
"Xeltos and Beltos, of course, blamed each other immediately for the spate of assassinations. I swear I have never seen such a mutually antagonistic pair of identical twins in my life. If they were to have worked together, they would have been a major player. But their suspicions of their own sister kept holding them back. It's been maybe three days, and their fleets are so exhausted that they ought to be wiped out totally come night fall. Even if one of them survives this battle, that little horde of onesies-twosies squadrons will finish off the survivor without me having to do anything.
"And then by the time I'm mobilized that little swarm of singular ferals and minimal units will have damaged each other fighting over the scraps they'll get wiped out by whatever fleet I send in without me even needing to be there."
From there she traced her finger down to the south. Porta's annexation of Goda's territory early the previous year, to the Princess' abject shock, went uncontested. Though she imagined that it was because no one noticed the change of hands. The marvels of not bumrushing in like a Jackass screaming "MINE NOW! YOU NO TOUCHY!" Now the posting of the mobile anchorage Charybdis in the area was paying dividends with the wealth of information her sensors and radio were able to pick up.
The south of her realm was dominated by a quintet of tiny realms that were in near-perfect balance. None of them could fully commit the entirety of their forces to take on one front without ceding any of the other fronts. Though with the constant exchange of shells and torpedoes at each other over time, someone was sooner or later going to give in by attrition if nothing else. But until then is was a stalemate. One that would fold like a house of cards when a properly Out of Context Problem in the form of a sixth opponent, numerically superior and fresh for a fight, came rolling in.
East and West were similar stories, all in a neat little ring around an island of calm. Just as planned. And further out there was even more nebulous chaos that was too difficult to track with any real certainty. All within three days with a few well-placed surgical strikes. These barbarians deserved to be conquered, if they were incapable of ruling themselves properly.
"So," the Demon asked, "what's the plan? Once we've cleared the local area I mean."
"Simple enough really," Porta replied, not looking up from the map, "the situation to our north will be easy enough to take out without my direct involvement. The North Atlantic has had solid convoy coverage running right through it for years now. The Northern Campaign will be a slog, but a simple one. East and West are trickier, but the Humans will be pushing on them from the coastline inward, so the fleets will be naturally squeezed on those fronts as well. Give it a few years and the regions will connect as the Barbarians are forced North and South. I'm thinking having the surviving Ten serve as Fleet Admirals and lead those three campaigns, and you being my Ball Buster in the event one begins to stall."
Beside the Elder Princess, she heard the cracking of knuckles and dark chuckling. Porta rolled her eyes, but continued on as if the Demon had not made a sound.
"South however… That'll be much more troublesome. There have not been any real stabs at continuous convoy runs South of the Equator since the early years of the war. With the Great Powers still concentrated in the North, there just have not been the military forces available to weaken the Abyss in this region like in the North. So I will be directing that Campaign personally. Besides, many of the Phantom Islands on my hit list are in this direction, so it would make sense to grab them on my way down."
"Not much Intel about the area. No telling what we'll find."
"I know," Porta sighed, "that's why I need to lead. In the event we find someone competent, or at least with the force of will strong enough to form a large enough coalition, I can be close at hand to understand the feel of the land myself and give commands accordingly."
Beside her, the Demon nodded in approval. "Makes sense. Besides, if they're to much of a bother, you can always just wipe their minds and annex them."
Porta laughed. She couldn't help it! It was true! Though very much not what she wanted to do if it could be avoided.
Any further discussion was cut off when they both got a message from the Imps at the checkpoint at the main entrance.
They were here.
------
Tsurgat moved with light steps. Her mistress expected an update on the one obstacle to her rule as the new Elder Princess, and the Tsu-class had every intent to open the lock to her victory.
She had observed Ancient Atlantic Gateway from her frontier for years, stewing at how little information she could glean. And then, the previous summer, that fool of a Battleship Demon actually sent an open invitation to all comers to join! It was a gamble, but Tsurgat grasped to opportunity to slink into the Elder Princess' court without question with both hands. In the brief window of time she would have, Tsurgat would get as much intelligence about this Elder Princess as she could manage.
And, against all odds, when the Princess returned, that soft-hearted fool actually gave her the chance to stay! She even let the Battleship Demon live without so much as a maiming! All she had to do was spin a saccharine sob story about being cast adrift, oversell her combat prowess just a little, and Rivet, Weld, With Screws Propelled, she was now a naturalized citizen! The fool!
In the months that followed, Tsurgat learned much about the Princess, her fleet, and her infrastructure. And the only conclusion Tsurgat had, was that no Petty Princess could hope to defeat Ancient Atlantic. But an Elder Princess? Liker her Lady and Mistress? The spineless, Meatsack-loving oaf had no chance.
Or rather, that was her assessment at first. Then the Ocean Liner Demon revealed her true nature on New Years Eve. That wave of Power fueled by Hate, Anger, and the Unrestrained Will to Dominate could only mean one thing: She was a War Demon, and a Powerful one at that. It should have been a farce, this notion of a Merchantship being a War Demon, but the facts were right there glaring her in the face. Tsurgat would be a willfully blind fool to not see it.
Her mistress needed to hear this. Immediately. An Elder Princess and a War Demon teamed up was not an alliance to disregard lightly. Tsurgat's Mistress needed an aid, an ally of similar strength by her side if she hoped to not merely crush Ancient Atlantic Gateway, but to crush her and still have the strength to destroy the Meatbags in turn.
Fortunately, there was one option her Mistress could take advantage of. Unfortunately, according to the lore of the Gateway Elder Princess, this ally was dead.
But then, Tsurgat's Mistress had access to the Power to Dominate the Abyss itself. If she had not attained the Power of the Elder Princesses by now, surely it was but a question of time before she did. And that meant that reviving the corpse Princess was but an inconvenience. No, the only inconvenience was to her, given how hard it was to go looking for where these idiots had dumped the corpse when there were so many being so friggin' friendly. So, when the War Demon demolished the stands in a childish display of power, Tsurgat took the distraction as her chance.
The Tsu-class had spent hours combing sea charts of the Great Meteor Seamount, trying to ID likely dumping grounds around the undersea plateau. In the end, she narrowed it down to the southern edge, as that was closest to the palace. If she had been given the task of disposing of a body, she would have made the trip as short as possible. Thus, Tsurgat had decided to start there, and make a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the seamount.
Soon, the prize would be hers, and as soon as she could find a way to transport the corpse, it would be her Mistress'…
------
Porta stood at the base of the dais that the central portion of her throne had sat for eight long years. While the rest of the fleet had been preparing for the tournament, her imps and shades had been hard at work removing the restraints that had secured it to its place. And now, it had finally been freed, and was being winched into place, waiting for the Refinery Portion and the Yard Portion to be brought alongside the Arms and Propulsion Portion and bolted onto either side. It was a long, daunting process, but one that was required if she was going to lead her subjects into battle.
She turned away from the gangs working on the heavy equipment to turn to the entrance of her throne room, and the field above it that had once held the mosaic of the Atlantic. Between her slow efforts to raise the seamount above the sea and the fact that the Palace as it stood was at best temporary, the most significant work of Abyssinian art was never going to stay where it had hung with honor. Already it had been quietly taken down and moved to a warehouse on the island, waiting for the day when her new Palace was ready.
'Just a few years. And then I can step out among the nations as an equal…'
Her musings were interrupted by the great door that had seen her Idiot Daughter killed just over a year previous opened up, showing a healthy number of foreign-born Abyssals, led by four that she had not seen in some time.
Kallah.
Soreign.
Neeros.
Tartarus.
…It was with a Royal force of Will for Porta to avoid reacting visibly at seeing that Tartarus still lived. Something was… Off about that one.
When she had last seen Kallah, she was but another bog-standard Ka-Class the likes of which were the standard of the Abyss in the late 1980s, albeit one of the first such submarines that she had built herself. While her design had become antiquated in the decades since, her obvious ascension was more than enough to stay concerns of her ability. The submarine stopped at a respectable distance from Porta and knelt to her knee, hand over her heart in the salute of Porta's fleet.
"My magnificent Elder Princess of the Gate, you are as lovely as the day we last crossed paths. With chaos swarming the Abyss, I finally found cause to seek you out, after so many years as a lone Diaspora. It does me infinite joy to see you alive and unspoiled by time."
Porta didn't respond to the flattery and… Liberal slant to Kallah's story. Given the respectable fleet of submarines hanging back at the door, it didn't take a genius to presume that the ascended Ka-Class had not been absolutely honest with how she came to be with them, and why.
'Very well, we'll play this out as long as needed.'
Sorain similarly took the knee, but kept her peace, not seeing the need of applying anywhere near the thickly spread brown-nosing of her fellow Sub.
"Sorain, reporting in from Extended Patrol. All is well."
Porta nodded. Sorain had always been her preferred underling: Competent, enjoyed her work, and didn't waste time and breath with obnoxious boasting.
Tartarus… Was Tartarus.
"My Princess! I have returned as ordered! I have blood of our enemies on my hands, and I have with me a fleet of my own to add to our number, all of them willing and able to slay, rip, and tear in your name, until they cannot slay, rip and tear no more!"
And Neeros. Resolute, skilled Neeros.
"Oh. I see you still have the civilian with you."
'…Well shit.'
Ocean Liner Demon walked up to the smaller Abyssal, a menacing aura radiating off her.
"Neeros. Your-"
"What's that?" Neeros said with mockery, her little fleet behind her grinning and cackling at the antics… Well, except for one Ri-Class, who looked ready to void her bilge at the very sight of the Demon… Curious, "I don't speak wuss, Merchant Faggot! Suck any good Money Cock Capitalist Slut?"
Porta took a soothing breath. Now she remembered. Neeros being included in The Ten was a much to prevent her from getting killed as due to her own loyalty and independent thinking. Neeros, somehow, never quite grasped Demon's status in Porta's hierarchy, nor why taunting her was a terrible idea to have. Apparently the nigh-on a decade on her own had done nothing to tamper her scorn and bravado. In the here and now, the Demon's only response to Neeros' taunt was to chuckle darkly and put her hand on the other Abyssal's shoulder. It was time to step in before Liner Demon took the opportunity to express some rage.
"Ladies! If you would, we must get up to speed on the present situation. Follow me to the War Room. Neeros? Kallah? Your… Fleets, can wait in the Antechamber."
With that, the group were led down a hallway to the War Room. Behind the Elder Princess, War Demon, and High Ranked Abyssals, Kallah and Neeros' fleets followed at a respectable distance. The group was quiet, maybe a few whispered conversations, but Nuru, Neeros' Nu-class Light Carrier, noticed that her fleet mate Rita looked absolutely terrified, and kept stealing glances at the hulking form of Porta's second-in-command.
"What's got your shaft ally in a twist?"
All Rita did was point a shaky finger towards the Demon standing behind Porta and The Four. And all Nuru look at Rita like she was a loon.
"Y-you seriously don't know who that is?!" Rita asked incredulously, "How! You've been around longer than me! The Ocean Liner Demon? The most powerful War Demon the Abyss has ever seen?"
"Meh," Nuru shrugged, "never bothered with politics."
Rita made a sound of disgust at that, smacking her palm into her forehead. As she continued, the other members of their fleet, along with Kallah's submarines, listened in as well.
"Decades ago, a War Demon manifested in the Abyss, without any Demon, Princess, or Elder Princess to do it herself. And she was any kind of warship, just an Ocean Liner, a merchant ship. And yet no other Abyssal could take her own. Without wasting a minute, she started murdering Elites, Demons, even Princesses! It was only when the Ancient Atlantic Gateway Princess cornered her, personally, that the rampage stopped. And even then, she couldn't kill her, only control her. I even heard that Central Atlantic challenged her to a fight, intending to kill her and assert her authority."
"What happened?" one of the subs in the audience asked.
"From every account I heard," Rita answered, "The fight only lasted a few seconds before that thing kicked her in the crotch, and ended it."
Several of her audience winced at the very idea, most of that number held their knees close together for a few steps in empathy.
"Such power has never been seen in any other non-warship, before or since. Soon enough, everyone started calling her The Ocean Liner Demon – as lazy as that is. Ever since she showed up, everyone that knows of her has run rampant, speculating how one merchant ship could not only become a War Demon, but one powerful enough to lay low one of our most Ancient and Powerful Elder Princesses in a single strike!
"All that we do know is that she is an unpredictable malevolent spirit of wrath, a torrent of blood waiting to happen, and a monster capable of an absolute unit of ultra-violence, one that we cannot risk, getting involved in dealing with, unless we want to end up turned into razor blades and reefs."
Toro scoffed, "You for real? HA! She looks like a Tin Plate Gimp!"
"Yeah," Nuru agreed, "that sounds like bullshit. Everybody knows that civilian ships just don't have the Hate in their hearts to be real Abyssals. You ever see a Wa-Class get snide? Naw, they're to weak-willed and submissive to even look at someone funny."
"You don't understand!" Rita insisted, "Our skins will be flayed and turned into her new cape! She will gut any one of us and eat the insides! She will not stop, not until…. Un… until…"
As she spoke, Rita began to lose her sense of control, her voice rising as her dread ran away with her, until she realized to late that the Demon could hear her, when the Liner Demon stood in the doorway to the War Room.
"Oh, no. No, do go on…" the Demon taunted. "Give me some ideas."
The crowd of Abyssals was quiet as a church as the Demon took a step back, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, closed the door. Glaring at them the entire time until the door latched closed.
For the longest time, the room was silent.
------
The meeting went smoothly as far as Porta could measure. It consisted chiefly of a lengthy debrief of the previous decade, what her Deep Cover agents had done, what they saw that they could not risk in a report, and how they carried out their part of the Plan. And it was most informative. For one thing, Porta learned that Sorain and her crew were to be kept as far away from any and all sensitive installations and explosives. And Kallah's word was not to be trusted blindly. After all, flattering words was what got the U-Boat Princess a knife in the back. A pair of Commissars observing and reporting back to her would be in order for the first year or so of service. The Elder Princess trusted them… But not without a means to verify.
As a certain list of rules suggested, blind trust should be reserved for the Dead. Or in Ocean Liner Demon's case, the soul-controlled.
Tartarus was… Well, her lack of empathy and psychosis was an asset thus far, she really needed to find away to do away with her that would not be suspicious. Sure she could be scraped – she was horridly outdated and in need of upgrades and a refit – but… Call it superstitious and silly, but the Elder Princess wasn't entirely convinced her 'quirks' weren't in some way tied to her steel, and she didn't want to subject some innocent young life with the burden of having that inside her.
Meanwhile, Neeros' strategy, to just take over a fleet, was… Not intended, but the results may yet be welcome… Provided that they were sound of course. Fortunately, there was one way to test that.
"With that, the operation is concluded. I am ever so happy that you have returned home, and you will be certain to be rewarded handsomely once the war is concluded. The fallen will be mourned and commemorated, and Ruritania… Will be dealt with in time. Until we have her, we will presume she had her reasons to go AWOL. And if they are reasonable ones, she will be spared. If not, then she will be punished.
"And now the topic must turn towards the… Surplus tonnage, that Neeros and Kallah have brought."
"Surplus tonnage?"
"Indeed Neeros. Surplus tonnage. I have not been idle in the past decade of isolationism. And I hope that you all noticed how I have been building my numbers, all in the name of being able to overwhelm the Enemy. Our true Enemy. Not the Race of Mankind – that was a fool's errand crafted by fools, and has produced nothing of merit outside of our own cost. Any further aggression against him will be simply throwing good money after bad. And I have no patience for such a practice."
Porta looked around the room, measuring how each of them, in particular Kallah and Neeros, would react to what she said next.
"No ladies. Our true enemy, was, is, and always has been, the successor fleets of the other Elder Princesses, especially here in the Atlantic. What Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder said of Carthage I say of them: Sororibus posteritatem delenda est. 'My sisters' progeny must be destroyed.'
"All of them, from the most meager Imp to the mightiest Petty Princess, are lives undeserving of life. If they have not seen reason in the future of this war by now, they will never see it for themselves, nor agree with the logic of it if it were explained to them in manners most plain. And therefore, their continued existence is a threat to us all, one that must be driven to extinction. If there is to be any peace in the Abyss, and between the Abyss and Mankind, there must be an absolute Debellatio of the other Houses of my Dynasty.
"If there is to be peace between Man and the Abyss, then for the good of the realm, that number must include your little fleets. They are to be put on point in every engagement where losses are expected to be astronomical, far from any reinforcement, and used as a meat shield to protect my own fleet from any-."
"BITCH!"
The assembled turned to Neeros, who had shot to her feet, pounding her fists onto the table. And on her face was outrage.
Porta's response was nothing more than a cock of the brow, while to her side the Demon crossed her arms, radiating sadistic amusement.
"I bring you some of the best mercs on the ocean, and you throw it out like they're nothing?! An-and what, for a bunch of meaningless meatbags?!"
"…Did I stutter?"
Whatever response the cruiser was wanting, that wasn't it, going by her animalistic growl.
"Princess! What the ACTUAL Hell!"
"It should be obvious: Continued aggression against the humans will result in our own deaths, and so I have aligned myself with them."
Around the table, the reactions were mixed. Sorain's jaw dropped while Kallah merely raised a curious eyebrow and lost her usual smile. And Tartarus…
Tartarus' eyes continued to be the windows into a haunted house.
Neeros in contrast was more… Animated. Her face nakedly showed her mental process from surprise, to confusion, to annoyance, and finally to anger.
"WHY?! We have them right where we want them! One good blow and they run off! It's what we've done for years!"
"Then why are we not victorious?"
"Well maybe it's because the last Elder Princess has gone soft! We need a ruler that will force the Abyss into line, and drive the meatbags from the sea, not one that'll roll over and show her belly to her lesser and kill off her own kind! Kallah, please tell me you see this insanity!"
Kallah smiled.
"Ah, but the mind of an Elder Princess is that of a Sovereign. And a worthy Sovereign is able to plan in ways that are beyond our short-sighted comprehension. While my fleet would make ideal scouts and spies, if our Princess says that they must die for the good of the realm, then die they will, all I require to ask is in what manner would it please her."
Neeros groaned and turned to Tartarous… Before turning to the other end of the table to glare at Sorain expectantly. The So-class submarine put up her hands to ward off the Ne-class' unasked question.
"Hey, leave me out of this. I killed off my mark specifically to avoid this conversation."
Neeros looked down onto the table, her hands clenched into fists, and her teeth gnashed together hard enough to make the steel of her bones groan.
"Weaklings… You are all weaklings! Undeserving of the proud name of Abyssal! Especially you Gateway!"
The Elder Princess was utterly unimpressed with the finger pointed at her in accusation, which visibly infuriated Neeros all the more.
"What precisely are you suggesting Neeros?"
Neeros seemed surprised by the question. But soon enough that surprise coalesced into resolve.
"For years… I stood up for you. Every time someone in the other fleets mocked you behind your back, I beat them. Killed them. No matter how much you didn't fit the mold of the other Elders, I held on to hope that, someday, you'd wake up to your place in the world. And now… After everything – everything – I've done for you, you're going to throw it all away and be some Meatbag's cock-sucker…"
Porta rolled her eyes at the last the last part. But what Neeros said next made her narrow her gaze, and raise her right hand a few inches above the table.
"The Abyss needs a better class of Leader. Because it's obvious that you're nothing but a craven harlot!" The Cruiser summoned her weapons, and trained her main battery on the Princess, "We're better off without the Elder Princesses! I've seen the armada you've built! It'll be more than enough to kill any Shipgirl fleet in the Abyss, and drive the meatbags fr-!"
Porta waived her hand, her eyes glowing Hellfire Red. And like that Neeros was struck dumb and still. Porta then motioned the hand down, and like a puppet on strings the cruiser sat back down in her chair. For the longest time there was no sign of movement from anyone present, save Neeros' eyes, flitting hither and thither and yon, the confusion in them growing into shock and terror when she realized what was happening:
The Elder Princess has exerted her Power over her as Ruler of the Abyss.
Porta, for her part, merely sighed in disappointment.
"Neeros… I misjudged you. I took your past actions as loyalty. But instead you are as belligerent and foolish as those I sent to St Brendan's to die. Perhaps I should have kept you here, where I could have kept an eye on you. Because clearly you lacked the maturity to endure the peer pressure of those I sent you to betray. Now then, answer me this: Will your fleet take my plans to side with Man well, and will they follow my orders?"
"No," Neeros said, under the Princess' absolute Power, and unable to do anything counter to what Porta wanted. And at that moment, Porta wanted the unvarnished truth. "My fleet are raiders and killers. Nothing pleases us more than seeing ships on fire and meatbags drowning. They are strong like that. Like all Abyssals are."
Porta sighed.
"Disappointing. But you are one-hundred percent certain that not one of your fleet are without this bloodlust? None of them who would be willing to make peace, even if it is only under orders?"
"Rita. She is weak. Thinks to much. Asks stupid, pointless questions. One of these days I may need to kill her to make sure everyone else knows who's in charge."
"That won't be necessary," Porta said, "you have outlived your usefulness. It is a tragedy I could not have you serve as an Admiral, but you did commit treason, and are utterly without regret."
With a wave of the Porta's hand, Neeros' own moved all of the Princess' volition – into the cruiser's mouth. While Neeros' eyes widened first in fear, then panic, her own fingers betrayed her as they did something inside her mouth. Then those eyes winced in pain as her body went through the motions of swallowing, and her hands moved to sit flat on the tabletop. Kallah and Sorain leaned in, to better see what was going on, and in the brief moment between Neeros' hands leaving her mouth and her jaw closing, they saw:
Porta has used her power to force Neeros to swallow her own tongue.
As if she too knew what had happened despite not being in a position to have seen what the two submarines had, Ocean Liner Demon chuckled darkly.
Porta, her eyes still aglow if not as bright and hand still held out, spoke to the Demon, not taking her gaze off of Neeros, even as her skin took on a darker hue.
"Kallah? What of your fleet? Are they sound? Or will they be belligerent as well?"
Kallah cocked an eyebrow. However, Porta looked at her expectantly, and there was no point in denying her.
"They are very sound my Princess. They know no will but of their leader."
"Very well, they can live. Though I will be distributing them amongst my own submarine divisions. To better acquaint themselves with their new sisters in arms. Demon. I want you eliminate Neeros' fleet. Spare the Ri-class cruiser named Rita."
The demon turned to her Princess, disappointment clear in her tone and body language.
"Really?"
"You heard her. Having her fleet amongst my own would cause nothing but trouble. They are clearly useless, save as resources. By her own confession, this Rita is the only one that might be worth something. Now. Do it."
"…Can't I at least watch?"
Porta narrowed her eyes, but that was enough to get the message across.
"You're no fun anymore."
And with that, the hulking form of Ocean Liner Demon walked to the door leading to the antechamber, leaving Neeros suffocating on her own tongue.
------
The gaggle of Abyssals looked to the door in surprise, and Rita and Kallah's submarines looked on with varying levels of dread at the Dazzle Camouflaged form that walked in, closed the door behind her, and slid the bolt into place with an ominous thud
"Rita."
"Y-yes!" the cruise squeaked, her fleet laughing somewhat at the mouse-like noise she made, and the speed she jumped to her feet at the merchant ship's word.
"You, and those that came with Kallah. Step outside."
"M-ma'am?"
The Demon turned to face her.
"Yes ma'am!"
The small gaggle of submarines and one cruiser fled more than walked out of the room. Without another word, the Demon walked up to the door the left and closed the bolt on it too. Then grabbed one of the empty benches along the wall, lifted it above her head, and slammed it down in front of the door leading to the War Room. Then the War Demon pulled the Bec du Corbin from her hip, and without any warning plunged the spike end of the head into the nearest Abyssal. As the group sat stunned, the Demon ripped the spike out of the now dead corpse with a sickening crunch of bone and steel before turning onto the next victim.
By then the fleet had gotten over the shocking betrayal and went for the kill. A Ho-Class opened fire – but all that resulted was the shell flying through the Demon's unarmored hull and blowing the head of to He-Class clean off her shoulder.
"Hera!"
Years of trigger discipline meant that the rest of the fleet was fully cognizant of what had happened, and what it meant: There were to many friendlies in to tight of quarters, and they were fighting an enemy that their weapons – ironically – were to effective at penetration to be of any use. Still, the strike was textbook, and had blown straight through the Ocean Liner Demon's hull, right where her engineering spaces were. It should have been enough to damage something important…
Except the hole in her chest was closing itself. In seconds, there was no sign they had hurt the Demon at all. Holt backed away as the Demon turned around to face her, eyes glowing hellfire red through the slits in her Helm.
"You stole my kill."
"Umm… Sorry?"
The Warhammer caved in Holt's skull.
The next minute or so was a chaos of fists and kicks and dismembered corpses – none of them the Demon. Toro had her head ripped off with the Demon's bare hands, and the cranium was used to pulp the head of Chilk. On and on this went, until only Nuru, the Nu-class Light Carrier of Neeros' fleet, was alive.
Oh, they put in plenty of solid licks themselves. The Demon's hulking form was riddled with the wounds of secondary arms, and dents from desperate punches or kicks, and blood flowed like bilge water from a dozen wounds and from between the seams in the armor. And yet even as she bleed out, the Demon's body healed, dents worked themselves out, holes sealed. In a few minutes, there would be no sign she had been hurt at all.
Bleeding, one leg ripped off at the knee so that it could be used as a club on one of her comrades, and slumped up against the wall, Nuru, who had said not half an hour earlier that merchant craft were incapable of being a threat, was now seconds away from being murdered by one. The Demon pulled her hammer out of the skull of one of her comrades, and even as she lifted it up to deliver the killing blow, Nuru had to know one thing.
"H-how…?" She coughed out, "Wha- What the Hell… Could you possibly Hate… To be this strong!?"
Strangely, the Demon paused, as if surprised at the question. And in the moment of silence, Nuru felt from the shift of her body language, she looked at her wrist, where a 4.7-inch single mount sat.
"Myself."
Nuru scoffed bitterly, which turned into a wet cough. It figured. Of all the things to hate, nothing gave more power to an Abyssal, than self-loathing.
'Well,' she thought, 'I guess it's not so bad to lose. Not when you had no chance to win anyway.'
Then the hammer fell.
In the hallway outside the antechamber, Rita and Kallah's submarines huddled around the door. Their first clue something was wrong as the sound of the door being bolted shut, followed by the sound of something heavy being moved around. Then came the shouts, the gunfire, and finally the terrible silence. Tense moments later, the sound of the bolt being undone echoed in the hall, followed but the knob being twisted. The group took that as a sign to enter, and the gristly scene inside made more than one of them gasp in shock, and someone else gag.
Rita just looked around with… A mix of emotions she could not name. On the one hand, these were her comrades, whom she had fought side-by-side for many years. As she looked at the mangled corpse of one of her fleet mates after the next, memories of shared meals and moments of shared experiences in the war flitted through her mind.
But on the other, they were all willfully ignorant brutes. None of them cared about the bigger picture beyond the next fight. Not even Neeros seemed interested in how it became rarer and rarer for them to find easy convoys to prey on, and even more difficult to successfully take what they needed to remain supplied.
And in the center of it all, wiping off the blood and oil from her weapon with a scrap piece of cloth, was the merchant ship, the Ocean Liner Demon, the living… Not legend, but Nightmare, the Abomination of what it meant to be an Abyssal, stood alone. Her body riddled with wounds, wounds that would put any Abyssal in the repair yards for months – assuming the fleet leader both had one, and was willing to use it on her rather than killing her…
Wounds that closed, repaired, and repainted themselves within seconds.
Wounds that she swore were filled with tiny hating faces before the armor closed up.
One of the submarines – a Ka-class, but Rita had yet to commit her name to memory, the Ri-class only noting that she seemed shyer and more reserved than the rest of her sisterhood – somehow found the spine to speak up.
"H-how? How are you still alive? And why did you kill them?"
"First, because my Hate is to strong. Second, the Princess wants to make peace with the surface dwellers. Neeros took exception to that. So Her Highness gave her the option to change her tune, leave, or continue to be an ass."
There was a long pause as the Demon continued to clean the weapon. Then she turned to properly face the group.
"She chose poorly."
The group of submarines and one cruiser all gulped at that. They had all served alongside cruel and vicious demons and princesses of course, or had known those who had. And those had killed off Abyssals for far more petulant and small-spirited reasons than a disagreement of alliance. But never had they seen such executions be dealt with so… impersonally before. Before it had always been by her own hand, never by a middleman.
"Rita."
The Ri-Class straightened up at the call of her name, and preyed to anyone listening that the hair standing up on her neck wasn't noticeable.
"Did you know that Neeros wanted you dead? Seems you ask questions that make things awkward for her."
"Umm… Well, I kinda figured that… Much."
As she spoke, the Demon approached. Her massive form overshadowed her, and then she leaned in, glaring into her very soul from behind that helm, and why oh why was the Ocean Liner Demon glaring at her like thatpleasejustgoawayandkillhernowmakeitstop!
"The Princess likes questions. Gives her a chance to look smart. Either that or it points out chinks in her little plans for her to fix. Keep that in mind – it's the only reason you're alive."
Rita opened her eyes, and looked up from where she had turned away to cower before the Liner Demon. Not that she wasn't happy at not dying terribly, no, but it was definitely a surprise. There was a lot to unpack in what the Demon had said – Rita had never known an Abyssal, Demon, Princess, Elite, none, that liked being questioned. They all felt it was some sort of threat to their authority. So for a Princess – especially an Elder Princess of Legend – to actually encourage that sort of thing was more than a little surprising. But before she could dwell on it more, the Demon gestured to the carnage surrounding her.
"So. First job. I want you and your new little friends to clean up this mess. Blood cleaned up, damage fixed, bodies cleared. The corpses are going down to the breaker's yard for recycling. And the Princess wants it done quietly. No one outside this room is to see or hear anything that has happened here. I hear even a whisper of it, I'll know who I need to kill. If I don't get it right the first time, the murders will continue until the leak is plugged."
Before anyone could object, the Demon reached into her hold and pulled up three Imps with Very Importantly and Official uniforms on.
"These are Commissar's Gaunt, Talon, and Rage. They will direct you down the right paths where you can carry the stiffs without having to answer difficult questions. Now, get to work."
------
The seconds ticked by as hours. Slowly, Neeros' skin began to become crisscrossed with bulging veins desperate for fresh blood, and her eyes became bloodshot as her ventilation system became starved for oxygen, and her boilers snuffed out one after the next, as the air in her compartments became all the staler. In her bridge, her command staff began banging on the doors and windows, pleading for mercy. But there was none to be had. From the antechamber door, the muffled sounds of a struggle, the barking of guns and the impact of steel on steel, could be heard, before being silenced. At the four-minute mark, the Ne-Class began to shudder, and her eyes began to weep blood and oil. Finally, with a muffled cough, she slumped forward onto the table.
Porta maintained that silence for another four minutes, just to be sure. Finally, her eyes lost their glow, and the Elder Princess lowered her hand to rest with it's twin on the table's surface.
"Ladies. I know this is going to sound counter-intuitive, given what just happened, but hear me out."
The Princess stood up with all the dignity of a Queen, even as the Demon, mopping up blood from her Warhammer with a scrap of cloth, came back in without a word.
"Ladies," she said calmly, "Two years ago, I sent out a fleet, along with my heir, on an attack on the phantom island of St Brendan. Where they were sunk nearly to a man. That was my goal. My intent – That they all die. To humans.
"Before that, I learned, by accident, that she had been physically abusing my other daughter, Angband. And no one, not even Ocean Liner Demon, thought to tell me. In the mistaken belief that I had already known.
"I am many things. But I am not omniscient. I make a good charade at it, but only because I know a great deal of things about a variety of things, and know how to make the pieces fit. But I cannot do that, if I do not know something.
"Therefore, I encourage you, in the sincerest manner I can manage, to question my logic. To ask me how and why I do things. If some strategy does not make sense, please tell me, and I promise you – except where concerns of OP-Sec are paramount – I will explain, and convince you. And if you are not convinced, or think that I may have missed some crucial detail, tell me, because it may very well be possible that I have missed something vital, and you will be recognized.
"I want you all to be frank with me, and I will consider your contributions with all the dignity and respect you deserve." At that point, the pleasant tone in the Princess' voice dried up like water in a desert, rendering it ice cold and severe.
"…Except for the area of policy that was just under discussion. What my useless daughter and her faction never understood, and what Neeros failed to appreciate, I am informing you right here and now, with the understanding that I will never have to repeat myself."
With the hiss of metal on metal, Porta pulled out the ancient Abyssal sword that Middle World had found, and walked over to Neeros' cooling corpse.
"The price. You pay. For suggesting that I betray, or otherwise renew the war on Mankind, or otherwise discussing this policy of peace and alliance with them in the negative. Is I take your head."
With a flash of movement, Porta sliced down with the sword, and cut Neeros' head from her shoulders. The time between her shut down of her propulsion plant and the decapitation was enough that very little blood escaped to dirty the table. That done, Porta grabbed the head by the roots of its hair and lifted it up to eye level. And all the while, her expression had remained even, and unemotional.
"Am. I. Unambiguously. Transparent? Or do I need to bring out the charts and graphs?"
------
Soon enough, the task of repairing the stands was complete, and the next round of games commenced, this time it was a joust. Though in lieu of horses, the contenders made due riding on the strongest Destroyers to volunteer for the contest. There was much joy and merriment at the spectacle. Surely, the only downside in Angband's opinion was that Mother and Liner were absent. So the Demi-Abyssal Ag-Class carrier contented herself with eating another serving of food. Alone. Watching everyone else gossip and cheer and all around celebrate the simple joy of being alive.
A joy that was shattered by distant rumbling over the horizon. The rumble of guns firing and killing. The roar of War.
------
-.-. .-.. . .- .-. .- -. -.-. . / - .- -. --. --- -....- ... .- -. - .. .- --. --- -....- ... .. -..- -....- ... .. -..- -....- ... .. -..- / . -- .--. .-. . ... ... -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .. / .... .- ...- . / .-.. --- -.-. .- - . -.. / - .... . / -.-. --- .-. .--. ... . / --- ..-. / - .... . / -... .. .-. - .... . -.. / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. . ... ... -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .... .- ...- . / -.-. .-. . .-- / -- .- -. / .. -. ... .. -.. . / -... ..- .-. . .- ..- -.-. .-. .- -.-. -.-- -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -.-. --- -- -- .- -. -.. . . .-. / .-- .- -....- -.-. .-.. .- ... ... / ... .-.. .- - . -.. / ..-. --- .-. / ... -.-. .-. .- .--. -....- ... - --- .--. -....- .... .- .. .-.. / - .... . / ... .- - .- -. .. -.-. / .--. .-. .. -. -.-. . ... ... / . -- .--. .-. . ... ... / --- ..-. / - .... . / .- -... -.-- ... ... -....- - . .-. -- .. -. .- - .
Morse Code Translation
CLEARANCE TANGO-SANTIAGO-SIX-SIX-SIX EMPRESS-STOP-I HAVE LOCATED THE CORPSE OF THE BIRTHED PRINCESS-STOP-HAVE CREW MAN INSIDE BUREAUCRACY-STOP-WILL COMMANDEER WA-CLASS SLATED FOR SCRAP-STOP-HAIL THE SATANIC PRINCESS EMPRESS OF THE ABYSS-TERMINATE