Diego Garcia

January 21st, 2003 - Waters off Diego Garcia - Southern Expanse

Deep below the waves, a silent sentinel lurked, waiting, for its target. The sea was quiet, and the wind calm. A lone sonar ping repeated itself at regular intervals, breaking the silence. But there was no one else nearby to hear it. A few whales, and thinned-out schools of fish were the only things that shared the poisoned waters with the submarine. And then...

The ping bounced off of a ship's hull.

***

Myōkō had been on edge ever since they had passed through the strait. She tried to tell her that it was just her imagination, or, if it had been real, just a coincidence, but in the end, she couldn't deny that Fuji's guns had been pointing right at her. Fuji had also been acting strange since that day. She was often tired, and hardly ate. Salem had checked her for a fever, but she was fine. 

Myōkō didn't want to mistrust Fuji, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that Fuji couldn't have done it on purpose. She remembered when Fuji had mercilessly Kongō, Ise, and Hyūga, who had been Myōkō's comrades for decades. She also remembered what Fuji had said at the time, about how they no longer had any ties to Yamato, and that their only goal was to protect Hasegawa. 

Myōkō knew that if Fuji decided that either Salem or Myōkō was a threat, she would probably kill them just as easily as she had the Imperial battleships. While Myōkō had followed Hasegawa out of a sense of loyalty and duty, Fuji followed him in pure idolatry, almost religiously.

When Yukikaze had arrived at Guam, telling them to go to Diego Garcia, Fuji had been opposed, while Myōkō had been in favour of it. Maybe that was another reason why Fuji had aimed her guns at her; she thought that Myōkō might be working with Yukikaze for some secret goal.

Whatever the truth was, she would find out once they docked at Diego Garcia. If Fuji really wanted to kill her, then the knowledge would do Myōkō no good other than grant her peace of mind. After all, Fuji could kill her in an instant if she really wanted to.

***

Fuji could barely gather her thoughts. Ever since Malacca, she had had voices in her head, three of them, asking her if she understood death, and criticizing her for her weakness. She had tried to escape them in her sleep, but to no avail. They haunted her dreams, filling her head with visions: she felt her body split into countless pieces, burned from the inside; she felt her body being crushed by its own weight, flattening herself until there was nothing left; and she felt her body be torn apart, her legs separating from her torso, while her hull broke into two pieces.

The result? She could barely sleep, and was constantly exhausted. She had almost collided with Myōkō and Salem several times along the course of the journey, and spent most of the day and night lying in a cabin in her hull, using drugs she had stolen for Salem's medical supplies to induce a half-asleep state where she was safe from the voices. She knew what the voices were, or at least, she thought she did. As far as she could tell, they were the spirits, or ghosts, or whatever sort of remnant it was was of the three Imperial battleships that she had killed back in Yokosuka. 

That wasn't supposed to be possible though. 'Ghosts' and 'spirits' only existed in children's stories, and there were no medical or scientific records that suggested that this kind of thing was possible. There wasn't any proof of an afterlife, either. The only option left was that she was just completely crazy. 

Burdened by these thoughts, she had stayed away from the the Admiral and the two cruisers. She knew that they were worried about her, but she couldn't bring herself to be around them, especially Myōkō. After all, the voices had started when she had considered killing Myōkō, and they only got worse whenever she was around her.At Diego Garcia, Fuji would probably be able to get away from Myōkō completely, the way she had been doing at Guam. Luckily, they were only a few hours away from the island.

***

Something felt wrong. Salem couldn't put her finger on it, but she knew that something was not how it was supposed to be. The water was quiet...too quiet. They were less than twenty kilometers from the island now, and for the past few hours, she had seen nothing but a single whale breaching the calm water. There were no birds flying overhead, no schools of fish passing them by, no clouds in the sky. The water had a purple tinge, and extended to the horizon in such an uninterrupted way that it looked more like carpet than a body of water.

On a whim, she began to do intense radar and sonar checks of the area, something that she hadn't done since her days in the naval academy fifty years prior. 

Nothing...

Nothing...

...Still nothing...

...There!

Deep below them, almost perfectly beneath Fuji's hull, and following them at a quick speed, was a submarine. It had to be. The area was too barren for it to be some sea creature, and even if it was, its movements were too precise. She quickly called general quarters, using signal lights to inform Myōkō and Fuji of the situation. 

Immediately, she and Myōkō had planes in the air, loaded with depth charges, with Fuji's planes not far behind them. But the submarine was gone. 

"Impossible..."

They had given no sign that they knew of the submarine's presence, and it would have been impossible for it to tell that they had launched aircraft. Yet somehow, it had either predicted or noticed their attempted attack, and had retreated. 

***

"I think we should continue to the island. What do you two think?"

Hasegawa had made his opinion clear. He still believed in Yukikaze, and that she was telling the truth. Myōkō and Salem were a little more sceptical. 

"Someone is  hunting us. It's too risky to stay in one place now that they know where we are."

Myōkō was firm in her opposition, and Salem nodded along thoughtfully, before adding her part.

"Also, this means that we are being pursued by a force other than Yamato or Westaria. Yamato doesn't have a large submarine force, so they couldn't spare any to send here, and Westarian submarines would never get that close to their target. Besides that, there's something about this island that unnerves me."

"If someone was hunting us," proposed Hasegawa, "It would've taken them longer than this to find us. The way I see it, someone was waiting here already."

Myōkō nodded her agreement, her hand on her chin. "Which means that either Yukikaze knew that they were here, and still decided to send us here, or, they came here quite recently, and without Yukikaze knowing."

Salem sighed. "The only question then is, who are they? This might be an Oceanic territory, but considering how small the force at Malacca was, it seems quite unlikely that they would have any forces here."

"There's no way to answer that," agreed Hasegawa, "unless we go to the island. For all we know, they could help us."

Myōkō stood up, stretching her back. "Why don't we take a vote?" she offered, adjusting the jacket of her uniform.

"What about Fuji?" questioned Salem, nodding in the direction of the battleship's massive hull.

Myōkō gave a light chuckle. "Doesn't matter. If she was here, she'd probably just agree to whatever Hasegawa said."

Salem laughed a bit at that, and Hasegawa just shrugged his shoulders.

"All right then!" Myōkō said in an energetic voice, "All in favour of proceeding to dock at Diego Garcia?"

Her hand shot up in the air. Hasegawa raised his arm as well, in a more conservative movement. Salem kept both of her arms crossed across her chest and sighed.

"All against?"

Myōkō and Hasegawa both put their arms down, and Salem lifted hers. 

"2 to 1, we will make landfall!" announced Myōkō triumphantly. She and Salem immediately altered their courses, heading towards the northern end of the island.

Later, Salem came to Myōkō's prow to talk to Hasegawa, who was watching the island as they approached it. 

"What is it, Salem?"

Her face contorted, as if she were a child who had done something that they weren't supposed to say. "Hasegawa... have you noticed that Myōkō is acting strange?"

Hasegawa turned to stare at her, and she quickly took a step back, her cheeks flushed. 

"Of course, I might be wrong! After all, I haven't known her for very long, so I..."

She quickly defended herself, but stopped when she saw Hasegawa's expression. 

"I was right?" she ventured.

Hasegawa nodded. "She has been acting especially upbeat and enthusiastic. Both her behaviour and Fuji's...it's starting to worry me."