Relics

January 21st, 2003 - Diego Garcia - Southern Expanse

Diego Garcia was a small, uninhabited island in the middle of the southern expanse. For a short time, Gaul had ruled over it, later losing it to Oceanica, who, after a few decades, abandoned the island. For the past two hundred years, it had been uninhabited, and an Oceanic territory in name only. Physically, the island was a thin stretch of dirt and sand that wrapped around a shallow lagoon and looped back to itself, creating a stretched shape. There were several openings into the lagoon at the north end of the island, and there were two small forests, located at the west- and east-most points of the island.

The Free Fleet, with Myōkō in the lead, entered the lagoon, heading towards the western forest. Several aircraft flew around them, on the lookout for other ships or submarines. The three ships dropped anchor a few hundred meters off of the beach, and a small skiff launched by Fuji went to shore with the four of them onboard. After that, they wandered into the forest, unknowingly escaping view of the woman watching them.

U-47 sighed, getting to her feet. She had been lying as still as a rock for the past few hours, her rifle trained on the Builder's head ever since he had appeared on deck. She stretched her arms and legs, dusting off her khaki pants. They had originally been olive, but after years of being in the field, they, like the rest of her uniform, had faded considerably. U-47 picked up her rifle and began the half-hour long walk back to her camp. 

The rest of the island was devoid of life, as the soil and water were too poisonous to sustain life, but, for some reason, the west- and east-most points on the island could sustain whole forests. U-47 didn't know why, and didn't really care. Her only job was to keep an eye on the Builder and kill him if necessary. Now that he was out of her sight, though, there was nothing for her to do but make a report. 

She fought her way through the trees, hacking through vines with her knife, until she reached the clearing where she had made camp. It was nothing special, just two tents, a pile of sandbags surrounding a machine gun, and a bladder filled with water, all surrounding a small fire pit. 

"Hey, Bull,"

A voice called out to her from the machine gun. Lying on her back and resting her head on the sandbags was  another young woman, U-703. 

"Thanks for saving my ass back there," she said, standing up and yawning. Her uniform was the same as U-47's, but she was wearing the standard Niemec black-and-silver cap instead of the olive one that U-47 had. "I'm surprised that they did a sonar sweep. I didn't think I had done anything to make myself noticeable."

U-47 sighed. The younger U-boats were far too impatient. The older ones, like her, were far better suited to waiting.

"It's because you got too close. They probably didn't notice  you, and only used their sonar as a precaution, but if you were further away, then they probably wouldn't have found you," U-47 said, leaning her rifle against the sandbags. 

"C'mon Bull, that can't be it!" U-703 groaned, extremely annoyed by U-47's response. 

Bull was a nickname that U-47 had picked up in her time in the Navy. She had had it longer than most of the submarine fleet had even been alive, which was why a lot of the younger ones looked up to her so much. U-703 was an especially bad case. She was far too quick to jump to conclusions, which was a real problem. it meant that whenever she did well, she would get overconfident, and do things like what she had just done, where she had gotten too close to her target, and as soon as things went wrong she would start seeing problems everywhere. 

"Hey, 703," Bull called, entering the larger of the two tents.

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to report back to HQ. I want you to get back to your hull, and get in touch with the rest of the patrol net. Set up a picket line around the north end. Don't let anything in or out of the lagoon. You got that?"

"Yup, sure thing!"

As she ran off towards the shore, U-47 began to send a telegram to their headquarters at the Southern Point.

***

The forest was deathly silent. From the lagoon, it had seemed like a place vibrant with life, but that was probably just in comparison with the desolate emptiness of the rest of the island. They had been wandering around the forest for several hours now, looking for a place to make camp. In that entire time, they hadn't seen a single animal. It was quite similar to Guam in that respect, but at a far larger scale. Unlike Guam, there was no life in the waters around Diego Garcia, and the forest was made entirely of one species of tree. They were tall and thick, and their leaves and branches crowded out the sun. Long vines hung down from the branches, seemingly a part of them, blocking their path. What at first had seemed like bushes turned out to be smaller versions of those same trees. There didn't appear to be anything edible on the island either.

At first glance, the forest had seemed like a sole place of life on the otherwise desolate island, but after a bit of exploring, they had realized how wrong they were. Fuji had told them that her head hurt, so she had gone back to her ship. Salem, suggesting to Hasegawa that it would be best to keep Fuji supervised, decided to go back with her. Hasegawa and Myōkō kept going through the forest, searching for some sort of shelter. It may have been abandoned for centuries, but Diego Garcia had once been an active base. Most of all, they didn't think that Yukikaze would have sent them to a barren island in the middle of nowhere. There had to have been a reason that she had sent them to this specific island.

It was getting close to sunset, and they still hadn't found anything. Myōkō didn't seem to care, and was fine to stay in the forest longer. Hasegawa, on the other hand, had some concerns. Salem and Fuji would get worried if they weren't back by nightfall, and it was too risky to stay apart for long, especially if someone else was here hunting them. Most of all, Hasegawa didn't think that Myōkō was thinking things through. It wasn't so much that she wanted to stay in the forest, but that she didn't want to go back to the ships. The only explanation that Hasegawa could think of was that something had happened between Fuji and Myōkō at Malacca, and that was why they had both been acting so strange ever since.

"Myōkō?" Hasegawa called out to Myōkō, who was walking a few feet in front of him.

"Hmm? What is it, Admiral?" she stopped and turned around, a rifle in her hands.

"It's going to get dark soon. Let's head back to the fleet."

"All right Admiral," Myōkō sighed, giving a wry smile.

The two of them began to walk towards the ships. 

Click

A small metal canister rolled along the ground in front of them. In an instant, Myōkō had pushed Hasegawa into some bushes, before diving for cover. 

***

Myōkō had expected to hear an explosion when she dove for cover, but, when she didn't hear one, she looked up, only to see the whole area around her filled with smoke. The canister was releasing a large amount of thick smoke, which was merging with the smoke from a number of other smoke grenades. She couldn't see Hasegawa anywhere, and had only a rough idea of where he was. Suddenly, a foot appeared out of the smoke, and a steel-toed boot collided with Myōkō's side, sending her rolling down a small hill. 

She came to a stop on her stomach, coughing as she struggled to regain her breath. Several of her ribs had broken from the kick, and her arms and face had been scratched by vines, rocks, and small branches that she had hit on her way down. It was too dark to see anything well, and there was smoke here too, rendering her vision useless. She groped around in the dark for her rifle, before realizing that it was still at the top of the hill. 

Her mind was losing control. The mix of adrenaline from her injuries and the helplessness and fear that she felt was just too much for her to process. 

"Myōkō-class heavy cruiser Myōkō, formerly of the Yamato Empire's Imperial Navy."

A cold voice pierced through the confusion in Myōkō's mind. She turned around, and stood to face a woman in an olive drab uniform, with a red-and-white vest over her jacket. She wore a Niemec green field cap, and held a pistol in her hand.

"Who...Who are you?" Myōkō asked, panting and shaking in fear.

"Lützow."

"What do you want with us?" Myōkō demanded. She could feel her mind starting to numb. All of the shock was just too much for her take. 

"Don't know," answered Lützow in a matter-of-fact voice, "I was just told to keep an eye on you. That's all."

"Why?"

"So that the Boss could talk to the Builder alone," she said, shrugging her shoulders. 

"What!?"

The shock cleared from Myōkō's mind in an instant. Hasegawa was in danger. Where was Fuji? Didn't she have some sort of telepathic sense that let her know when Hasegawa was in danger? 

"How did you find us?"

Lützow gave a small laugh. 

"It wasn't hard. After all," she said, narrowing her eyes, "you came to us."