Work Text:
[Helm]
281/HGF
The small destroyer laid anchored in the light blue water, the waves hitting the steel sloppily. The cloudless blue sky above was overhead, making the light shine bright into the few round windows of the bridge, making the small space look like it was somewhere else. Everything was quiet, only the sobbing of the shipgirl was audible. Nothing else was disturbing the eerie peace, the peace that had been bought with a high price. A price that no one would never be able to fully grasp.
Helm leaned on the wall of the bridge, looking at the small thing she held. It had been her anchor once, it had been her connection. But now, it was nothing more than a small medal in her hand. A small medal that reminded her of so many things she had done, and endured. Now, it was so far away. Her life before the war, her life before she had been bound to the machine she had called home. Now, it was so far away that it seemed like a completely different life. A life where not she, but another person had lived.
Back then she didn’t know what her future would be. Being alone in the orphanage had seemed like a normal thing, she had never seen how other children - those with parents - were living. She could only imagine. She wasn’t overly beautiful so the boys would ignore, she wasn’t sporty and particularly skilled with her hands, she was normal through and through but she was good at thinking. The math teachers at the orphanage had been fairly impressed with her results and would give her sometimes more complicated tests. That was when the Navy knocked on the door of the orphanage, that she realized for the first time that she was someone special. The tests the officer gave her showed that.
She had been the only one in the entire orphanage to successfully pass the tests, the only one who was able to please the Navy. The Navy. A thing which was so far away for her like the moon now. She had never thought about them, the force which was supposed to protect them in the case of a war. But she was a small girl. Why should she care about this at all? There was nothing which might be in her interest, nothing which would have made a connection to the Navy. After all, the Navy needed young and strong men, not little girls. This changed when she passed the test without breaking a sweat. Following that, she had become enlisted and received the rank of Candidate.
The following years had been turbulent, no chaotic. She had gone through normal school in a span of a few months, thanks to the more than quick program the Navy had. They were well equipped to educate young shipgirls, they were watching over everyone. The goal was to separate the Candidate from the Cadets. She managed to get with the Cadets. And after many months of waiting and uncertainty, Command had told her that her ship would be built soon. Happiness had filled her now that the final step was getting closer. Soon, she would be able to fulfil her job. And so it had been.
The keel of her ship had been laid in 1935, as one of many of the class. Only then she had gotten her new name. Helm. Named after a famous admiral who once had stood strong for the Union, and like him, she was destined to shield the Union on the sea to repel any attacks. It hadn’t been the only thing which had kept her awake at night though. Feeling the uncertainty after seeing her ship get built, she had fear that she might do something wrong. After all, she was just a small girl steering a giant warship into an eventual war.
But Command had calmed her down. That she would fit into her role just fine, that she would love to do her duty with her crew once the ship was in the water. From that day on, she had been waiting for her ship to get finished, to finally be in service. It had been a long time. Over two years of waiting, of learning and improving. She had learned how to command a ship, how to manage a crew under all situations, to steer all of the machinery, to relay commands and plan ahead. It was something only grown up men were supposed to learn normally, even though she was only a small girl.
And then, her ship finally had been launched. Finally, after so many years she had been able to prove that she was able to fight, that all of the money and time put into her was well spent. She wanted to prove herself. She was the one who would fight the enemy, she would be the one to save the world so to say. A few months later, she entered service officially, and became a shipgirl at last. Finally, she had been the thing she wanted to be, from the moment where the man of the Navy had told her about the Shipgirl Program was.
She had never thought about being in battle, at least not fully. Of course she knew that she would fight, that it could end in her death. But on the other hand, she kept these thoughts in the back of her head. She, the crew in the bowels and the Captain on the helm were one union. As long as this union would stand they would overcome anything. Eventually, she forgot that it was indeed a possibility. But then, one day, it all had come back. On that one fateful day which would shape the lives of so many men, not only on her ship, but on the entire globe. That one day had been the starting point of her story, the point where chaos had begun once more. A single, so peaceful day. December 7th, 1941.
Helm glanced upwards, her eyes filled with tears. Her whole body was shaking under her bawls. She held the small medal tight in her hands, not letting go at any cost. The blue of the sea and the sky was shining into the bridge, lighting her face from one side, wet from her many tears. She had been crying for almost an hour now. She couldn’t stop. Her heart was stumbling in her chest, her breath shaken by her bawls. Her face had turned red and her eyes had become swollen, her hair was messy and in streaks, her once so beautiful uniform smudged by the dirt on the ground and wet from tears. She looked miserable. Just like that day. The Day of Infamy.
She had been working on some buoys. But then, hell had broken loose. From one moment to the other, planes had filled the sky, their engines roaring in the air. She had looked up in horror and immediately, all of her senses had started ringing like a fire alarm. The planes bore the colours of the Sakura Empire on their wings. And before she had been able to react, the first bombs had dropped. Pillars of smoke had risen from the entire naval base, fireballs had been shining on the water. She was shaking with fear. All of these years of training and practicing. None of that could have prepared her for the first time in a real battle. The Captain had given the order to attack these planes, to down them. But her ship hadn’t been ready.
The morning before was peaceful, so her crew had been kept at an absolute minimum. She didn’t have enough men to keep all of the guns firing. But that hadn’t been a problem. As a shipgirl, she could man the guns herself. No, the real problem had been the ammunition. The sky was filled with so many planes that she didn’t have enough bullets to stop them. Nonetheless, she had fired her first shots in the war. The first shots of so many. Her cannons had roared for minutes, the clouds of her flak bursting into large explosions, until they had run dry. The few men onboard had fought hard, doing their best to stop the Empire on their own. But it nothing. She was a mere destroyer, so the enemy didn’t see her as a priority. Their objective was the Battleship Row.
In only a few minutes, the proud battleships had been completely wrecked. Arizona had been eviscerated by a shrapnel when her ship exploded. Oklahoma had drowned in the bowels of her very own ship, unable to escape whilst her ship capsized, trapping hundreds of men in her bowels. Nevada had beached herself to avoid suffering the same fate. Maryland only suffered light wounds, but her sister West Virginia had lost a finger, rendering her hand useless for months. Tennessee was completely shell shocked and California was gravely wounded. Pennsylvania, even though her ship was still afloat, was not fit for combat from the trauma she had gotten. It had been catastrophic. And she could just watch from her small destroyer.
After that, she herself had taken part in every single major battle which had been fought. Every single one. Wherever battleships or heavy cruisers had been in action, she had been there to help them. Even though the crew feared that she might bite off more than she could chew one day, she had pressed on. She had been there when the big force left for Midway, hoping that they could catch the foxes on the run. And indeed they had. Even though they lost one, it was a brilliant victory. And the Empire had been shoved back into their territory.
Command had decided to transit her to the Australian forces, to get her moving with a force of heavy cruisers. And that had been the moment where she had let her guard down. The entire force was anchored in the middle of the Savo Islands, she and her ship had been tasked to monitor the area to ensure that not a single plane would slip through, fearing that they would get spotted. But it came worse. Way worse.
It hadn’t been a single plane which had slipped through, it had been an entire fleet of the Empire. They had sneaked in at night like the foxes they were, inflicting devastating damage on the anchored and helpless cruisers. She had only been able to watch how they suddenly turned into flames, how they were shredded to pieces one by one. And once their sinister task had been completed, the foxes left, leaving only corpses and debris on the surface.
A small mistake had cost the lives of hundreds of men and several ships. If she had watched more carefully, everything would have worked out just fine. But now, she had blood of her own country on her hands. She had killed her fellow countrymen.
Her bawls got even more as she remembered the horrible conversations she had afterwards, the horrible things she had to endure. Command had threatened to scrap her ship and sent her into prison for making that mistake, she had been the sole reason why that attack had been possible. But seeing the more than tight situation in the Pacific, they had decided to let her live and fight. It had been a good decision. But even after the greatest victories which had followed, she had always feared that Command might just throw her out again.
The following battles had been great, at least for the Union. One day, she used nearly all of the ammunition for the Flak, continuously firing until her barrels were glowing in the air. The Great Turkey Shoot, so had her crew called it. The planes of the Sakura had been flying over them like turkeys, only waiting to be shot down. Then there had been the battle of the Surigao Strait. She could still see the two lone battleships over her bow, the shells whizzing through the air. It had made her blood pump to see the massive ships head right for her, burning fiercely. In the end, the Empire had lost two battleships, one going down with full speed.
After that, she had been there to stop one of the giant super-battleships the Empire had at hand, one of the biggest two ever built. The fire of its cannons had shattered the calm of the sea, the trajectory of its shells seemed to cleave the sky in half, only to be broken again by the thundering of the battle. One mistake, and she would have been done for. But the Union had prevailed and slowly, it had gone at the bottom of the ocean. And with it, so did the nation. With only a small fraction of the naval forces remaining, the Empire had been forced into the defensive. She had assisted the landing of Marines, she had seen how these men claimed one island after the other, forcing the Empire back onto their own island. She was there to see the countless planes of the Navy taking off to bring down the Sakura’s last battleship. And in the end, the Empire had given up, broken by the incessant air raids led by the Air Force.
She had survived the war. Even though she had been in danger so many times, she had survived. And in the moment were nothing bad could happen to her, Command decided to get rid of her. Now, she was here. In the middle of the Pacific, anchored in a small atoll. Operation Crossroads was the name. The name under which her ship would die. The name under which her life would end as well.
Her connection was already broken, the remains laying in her hand. And she would break also. Because the Navy had kicked her out at last. Because they had not only decided to scrap her ship, but to sink it in the most cruel way possible.
But it would get them nothing. She had sworn to stay with her ship, at all cost and at all times. And that promise still stood. She would stay on her ship. She would be with it until the end. And an atomic bomb would not stop her.