“I will not accept the Rite of Trade, but…” The Submarine Princess turned to face the aviation cruiser.
Under the hungry gaze of those two sapphire eyes, Ulyanovsk barely restrained himself from dumping his entire airborne payload on both Himes.
He had enough ordnance loitering in the sky to glass the area.
Hell, he was tempted to pepper them with his anti-boarding heavy machine guns just to be sure.
The only thing stopping him was a piece of advice he’d gotten from Murzai—the Pacific Abyssal Submarine Princess who had shown him an entirely different, terrifyingly complex side of the Abyssal Fleet.
She had warned him: killing a Hime after formal parley had begun meant permanently voiding any right to negotiate.
While the Abyssals ruthlessly enforced the law of the strong, they zealously honored their few customs and brutally punished oathbreakers.
Any faction that broke a parley would be permanently blacklisted by every other pack in the ocean.
A stab in the back after a sealed deal guaranteed you’d be torn apart by your own subordinates.
And even if you left no witnesses, Murzai claimed the others would simply know.
Whether it was an inherent survival instinct or some bizarre karmic feature of the Abyssal Fleet, the guy had no idea.
Whenever he had tried to dig deeper, Murzai just waved him off, muttering something about a “mark of the dezgra” without elaborating.
Ulyanovsk had absolutely zero desire to throw away his only ‘get out of jail free’ card.
He actually harbored plans to slowly leak this intel to other Kanmusu, provided he could vet it properly.
But to do that, he first needed to survive this cozy little meet-and-greet with two apex predators.
“…If you can deal with some pests in my waters, I will allow you, your kin, and their masters to leave unharmed,” the blonde Hime continued, a faint smirk playing on her lips.
“Those under my command will not attack you within the borders of my ulus, until you have twice set foot on land.” “Solo?” the guy asked.
A guaranteed free pass for the convoy and its Kanmusu escort sounded insanely tempting.
But given the source, Ulyanovsk wasn’t eager to jump headfirst into the shark’s jaws.
“I know how to read the currents, just like my sister,” the Hime swiped her hand horizontally, levitating a small sphere of water into the air.
“I saw her death…” The hovering sphere shifted, taking the crude shape of a little man being torn apart from the inside.
Crushing the water with a clenched fist, the Hime let it splash back into the ocean.
“This trial will not be a problem for you,” the blonde stated confidently, meeting his eyes.
“Your target is hiding in the strait that splits the Great Arc in two.
Destroy her, and your end of the bargain is fulfilled.
Yotu and her keshig,” she pointed behind her, “will serve as your tumen for the duration of the trial.” “Khane Varla?” the brunette Battleship Hime spoke up, clearly offended.
“The Blood Right demands a price, and as Khane, I have the right to set it,” the Submarine glanced back at her.
“Your will shall be done.” The battleship leaped off her demon’s palm and offered a stiff, formal bow, pressing her right fist into her left palm.
The whole exchange raised a mountain of questions Ulyanovsk desperately wanted to ask, but given the tactical situation, he kept his mouth shut.
He made another mental note to hunt down a certain chatterbox in the Pacific later.
For now, he needed concrete intel.
“What exactly is the target?” “The Guardian of the Crags,” the submarine answered simply.
“She’s alone in the strait.
You won’t miss her.” Because that explained everything perfectly.
The aviation cruiser knew the Abyssals used their own tribal classifications, but it wasn’t like anyone had handed him a Rosetta Stone.
“Are you and your tumen ready to undertake the trial of the Blood Right?” she asked the guy.
“Yeah,” Ulyanovsk sighed heavily.
It wasn’t like he had a choice anyway.
The Submarine Princess turned back to the Battleship Hime.
The brunette frowned petulantly but gave a silent nod.
“Then begin,” the blonde Abyssal pointed toward the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.
Ulyanovsk rapidly processed the tactical map in his head.
There was only one strait in that direction: Matochkin Shar.
It was a narrow, jagged nightmare, an absolutely miserable choke point for smoking out entrenched Abyssals.
With towering, rocky shores and dozens of hidden coves, walking into it was borderline suicide.
Even if he were a heavily armored battleship—like the unbuilt German H-39 project—he would think three times before strolling into a fatal kill box.
Then again, if he pushed in from the Kara Sea, the target could easily slip out the back door into the Barents Sea and play hide-and-seek with him until the end of time.
Ideally, he needed an anvil to smash her against, but Ulyanovsk didn’t have the assets to block the far exit.
Then he glanced at the Battleship Hime glaring daggers at him.
“This tumen…
it’s under my command?” he asked the Submarine Princess.
“Never!” the Battleship Hime snarled, stomping her foot.
The water rippled violently outward, like a localized earthquake.
“For the duration of the trial, yes,” the Submarine nodded, adding with a stern look at the brunette.
“But only Yotu issues orders to her keshig.” The Abyssal in the black dress gave a jerky, dissatisfied nod, submitting to her ‘boss’.
“Then order this…
keshig of hers to blockade the far side of the strait,” the guy told the Submarine.
“I’ll push from this side.” Two glowing crimson eyes drilled into the aviation cruiser with an unreadable gaze.
Yet, a deeply smug, satisfied smirk spread across the brunette’s lips.
“Khane, allow me to escort the outlander personally,” the Battleship requested.
“Your actions are your own.
Just coordinate with our guest,” the Submarine agreed with a nod.
“Understood,” the Battleship bowed.
“I will be waiting,” the Submarine told Ulyanovsk.
Slipping beneath the waves, she vanished from his sonar sweeps at a terrifying speed.
Miles away, near the Kara Gates, the remaining Abyssals began diving.
Dozens of them hugged the coastline of Yuzhny Island, breaking off to maneuver around the archipelago.
Ulyanovsk correctly assumed this was the keshig the Himes had mentioned.
The deeply suspicious parallels between their terminology and real-world history always made Ulyanovsk’s tinfoil-hat itch.
Tonight just added a few more rocks to his grand ‘global conspiracy’ scales.
“How fast can your grunts reach the far mouth of the strait?” he asked the brunette, still staring at where the Submarine had vanished.
He mentally facepalmed a second later.
No human actually knew how Abyssals measured time, if they even did.
He’d never exactly had a chance to ask during an active firefight.
“Hmm,” the Battleship Hime mused.
“Three or four beats, and the vanguard will be at the entrance.” “Beats of what?” “The soul of the sea, obviously,” she smirked.
“Right.
Let’s just match your speed,” Ulyanovsk offered a more practical solution, realizing constructive dialogue about their bizarre concept of time was a lost cause.
“Lead the way.” Radiating sheer arrogance, the Abyssal seated herself on her symbiote’s offered palm and lazily waved toward the islands.
The colossal monster grunted and began gliding across the water with a terrifying, lumbering swagger.
The aviation cruiser fell in beside her, putting enough distance between them so neither got too nervous, and began recovering his air wing.
He needed to cycle out his airborne ordnance for the new tactical profile.
Or, at the very least, make sure his loitering planes didn’t provoke the moody Battleship currently hovering off his starboard side.
Much to his regret, he hadn’t packed any thermobaric, fuel-air explosive (FAE) munitions in his current deck.
The mission brief never mentioned striking hardened coastal targets, so Ulyanovsk had focused exclusively on ASW and anti-ship capabilities.
A standard high-explosive FAB bomb was still a serious weapon, but in the tight confines of a rocky gorge, a thermobaric payload of the same weight would’ve been utterly devastating.
The reflected shockwaves bouncing off the cliff walls would vaporize unarmored Abyssals in a massive blast radius.
“The Guardian of the Crags,” Ulyanovsk called out to the Abyssal on his right.
“Who is she?” He didn’t really expect a useful intel briefing, but it never hurt to ask.
“Sluggish.
Moves poorly on the water,” the battleship answered surprisingly, keeping her glowing eyes fixed on the island.
“She can step onto the shore and strike from the rocks.
Very proficient at swatting flyers; an assault by one or two Hives wouldn’t bother her.
Plus, she brings her own.
That is all I care to say.
The Arc has never held my interest.” Against all odds, she actually fed him solid intel.
Her description instantly narrowed his suspect list.
Very few Abyssals were capable of launching attacks from dry land.
Those that could belonged strictly to the highest echelon of the hierarchy and usually required massive, multi-national strike fleets to take down.
Only the US and Japanese navies had the specialized firepower to neutralize a land-based Abyssal installation solo.
“What does she look like?” “An ordinary Guardian,” the Hime shot the overly curious carrier a sour look.
“White horns, white garments instead of black—that distinguishes her from the Guardian of the Reef.
Aside from that, their abilities and habits mirror each other.” Ulyanovsk filtered the descriptions through his mental databanks.
Only three official classifications matched: Harbor Princess, Midway Princess, and Airfield Princess.
Airfield Princess was out—she had no organic surface-attack cannons, relying purely on bombers.
Midway Princess was out too, as she didn’t have a known palette-swapped twin.
That left only Harbor Princess.
“Her escort?” Ulyanovsk asked, mentally shuffling his air group loadouts.
“Just her keshig.
The Khane stripped her of the rest,” the Battleship Princess smirked bloodthirstily.
“The lower thralls disobeyed the Mistress of these waters.
Their reckoning will be horrific,” she licked her lips.
“Your only task is to destroy Seina.
Do not concern yourself with the rest.” “Gee, thanks,” the guy noted her razor-sharp fangs.
His first AWACS took to the sky with a low drone.
Matochkin Shar wasn’t that far off.
Ulyanovsk desperately hoped he could resolve this entire freak show with a single, overwhelming alpha strike.
The Hime watched the Yak-44 with genuine curiosity until it disappeared into the clouds.
Ulyanovsk held back from launching a second AWACS right away, paranoid that the Abyssal might have sensors capable of tracking his active radar pings in this “peacetime” environment.
Even extrapolating Kanmusu capabilities, he doubted she packed the hardware for electronic warfare tracking.
Still, he played it safe, ordering the fairy pilots to perform near-vertical climbs straight out of the catapults.
“I suggest we keep our distance from the mouth of the strait.
There’s a picket line,” Ulyanovsk warned his temporary partner, slowing his advance.
Squinting into the distance, she raised a hand to her ear, as if listening to a frequency he couldn’t hear.
“Tch.
Her flank is guarded on the far side, too,” she muttered in annoyance.
“Your pack is already in position?” Ulyanovsk asked, mildly impressed.
“My keshig is larger and vastly more experienced than Seina’s unwashed rabble,” Yotu-Hime practically hissed.
“They don’t need to babysit me all at once.” The confirmation of an abundance of elite Abyssals operating in the North hit the guy like a bucket of ice water, though he took it stoically.
Until now, Command firmly believed the Arctic Ocean was ruled exclusively by Anchorage Princesses and packs of stealthy submarines.
The revelation that a Battleship Princess staked her claim over the northern seas was going to cause a massive aneurysm for the Brass—even ignoring the whole ‘negotiating with a Super-Hime’ detail.
The surviving turret on the shoulder of the brunette’s gargantuan demon jerked sharply, aiming its triple barrels directly toward the strait.
Meanwhile, the stump of the second turret—the one Ulyanovsk had previously turned into slag—began violently frothing with thick, black foam.
“Hold it!” he halted the Abyssal.
“Blow up the sentries, and she’ll know we’re coming for her.
Better to—” “Why scurry in the shadows?!” the brunette laughed, a chilling, vibrating sound.
“Leave cowardly strikes to those who cower in the dark.” The air around her hummed, and blood-red sparks danced across the barrels of her active turret.
“And how long exactly do you plan to hunt for her in a claustrophobic maze?” the aviation cruiser countered sarcastically.
“A day?
A month?
A year?” The cannon blast never came.
Instead, the Hime stared at the guy beside her as if he were scum scraped off the bottom of a harbor, muttering something incoherent under her breath.
But she didn’t pull the trigger.
“Your strategy, then?” she demanded.
“Give me a minute to find this…
Guardian, whatever you called her.” “Seina,” the Battleship corrected tightly.
“Yeah, whatever,” Ulyanovsk waved it off.
“I locate her, relay her exact position to you, and eliminate her.” “You?” She sized the guy up with open disbelief.
“By all means, proceed.” She pointed dismissively toward the coast.
His AWACS had already painted several suspicious blips inside the strait.
But to ID them properly, the plane would have to drop to a lower deck.
Meaning, blow its stealth cover and potentially fly right into an anti-air kill zone.
‘Guess we’re working blind,’ Ulyanovsk bit his lip.
Running mental math on how to neutralize every painted target in one simultaneous strike, the aviation cruiser deeply regretted that his flight deck wasn’t long enough to launch something heavy like a Tu-22M.
A bomber that size could carpet-bomb the entire canyon from an altitude completely untouchable by Abyssal AA.
But lacking the ultimate tool for the job, Ulyanovsk had to make do with what he had.
Deafening the immediate area with the heavy roar of their engines, his over-encumbered Su-57 stealth fighters began taking off in pairs.
Because of their heavy ordnance, they couldn’t use the standard ski-jump ramp, slowing down his deployment times significantly as they spooled up on the lateral catapults.
But drawing things out was exactly what he wanted.
He had less than ten minutes left before his VLS silos finished reloading.
That fact alone filled him with extreme confidence regarding the eventual outcome of this circus.
Hitting their designated echelon, the strike force split into four wings.
The first group banked in a wide arc toward the Kara Sea entrance of the strait, purposely keeping the black-haired Hime securely inside their targeting reticles.
Ulyanovsk figured eight Moskit missiles would be enough to crack the Battleship Princess and soften her up for a payload of gravity bombs if she decided to act up.
The other three groups pushed into the canyon.
Forty kilometers before reaching visual range, the squadrons released their payload of standoff anti-ship missiles toward the largest radar returns, immediately dropping into a steep dive for their follow-up bombing runs.
“Gotcha,” an involuntary smirk spread across Ulyanovsk’s face.
The Hime was holed up in a tiny inlet stretching northward, exactly twenty kilometers deep into Matochkin Shar.
One of the strike groups was already on an attack vector directly above her; the other two immediately adjusted course to join the party.
“Are you certain?” the Battleship Hime asked skeptically.
She didn’t even look at the guy.
Instead, she seemed completely entranced by the beautiful orange flashes lighting up the horizon as his missiles found their marks.
“White cloak.
Demon rigged on two massive arms with a triangular head.
Twin twisted white horns about the length of my forearm,” Ulyanovsk rapidly relayed what the targeting pods managed to snap before the Harbor Princess vanished inside a hellstorm of explosions.
The Battleship Princess vaulted gracefully off her symbiote’s palm, dropped to one knee on the ocean surface, and plunged her hand into the water.
The resulting pulse that blasted through the sea, bouncing off the shoreline and ricocheting back, hit the aviation cruiser like someone actively drilling into his skull with a blunt jackhammer.
Whatever this localized sonar replacement was, it completely ignored physics, temporarily scrambling even the advanced radars on his aircraft overhead.
“Hmm, verified indeed,” the Abyssal purred with absolute satisfaction, pulling her hand from the freezing water.
Crimson arcs of pure electricity danced across the massive barrels of the demon turret facing the strait.
“I, Yotu, Guardian of the Great Gates, confirm the completion of the Trial of the Blood Right, and honor its terms,” the Hime turned fully to face the aviation cruiser.
“The bond is forged,” she finished, extending her pale right hand toward him.
Ulyanovsk stared dumbfounded at the pale gray palm hovering in front of him.
Was he supposed to give her a high-five?
Kiss it?
Thankfully, a lifeline appeared from the deep.
“Do exactly as she does,” the Submarine Princess whispered, surfacing right next to him.
The guy could only shake his head.
His entire acoustic suite was still ringing with white noise from the Battleship’s literal mind-drilling pulse, so the sub had slipped right past him.
The phrase “bull in a china shop” had never felt so painfully accurate.
Lacking better options, Ulyanovsk extended his hand.
The second he touched the brunette’s freezing palm, a sudden wave of pleasant, shivering cold washed over his entire body, like stepping through an ice-water waterfall.
The Submarine Princess glided perfectly between the Kanmusu and the Battleship Hime, wrapping her own small hands around their clasped palms.
“The bond is forged,” the Submarine echoed, shooting the aviation cruiser a deeply curious look.
A barrage of fleeting whispers immediately filled his mind, then vanished.
This wasn’t the maddening, hostile hum he endured during months-long deep deployments.
There was no icy malice, no suicidal urge to plunge into the abyssal trenches.
Instead, Ulyanovsk felt like he had just stepped into a massive library, where students at distant tables were frantically whispering to each other so as not to provoke a strict librarian.
It felt cold, utterly indifferent, yet profoundly packed with ancient, incomprehensible data.
Flexing her fingers dramatically, the Battleship Hime reached behind her back.
There was a sickening, brutal crunch of breaking bone or cartilage.
The brunette lowered her hand, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at her ‘superior’.
The second Ulyanovsk lost physical contact with the Abyssals, he took a very quick step back.
“Your token,” the blonde-haired Hime said softly, pressing a small, jagged black spine threaded with glowing blue veins directly into his palm.
“I will honor my oaths.
The word of a Khane is absolute.
Go in peace.” “You can handle the rest yourselves?” Ulyanovsk thumbed toward the smoking island.
“A stupid question,” the Submarine answered coolly, holding up a hand to stop the brunette from lunging at his throat for the insult.
“Then…” The cruiser slipped his shiny new trophy directly into his specialized cargo rigging.
“Farewell.” “Uncultured barbarian,” the Battleship Hime huffed with disdain.
“May the eyes of the Abyssal Mother guide you through the treacherous currents of water and wind,” the Submarine Princess intoned cryptically.
Turning her back, she smoothly glided toward the island, signaling that the audience was officially concluded.
Shooting a final, withering glare at the aviation cruiser, the Battleship Hime pressed her index and middle fingers together against her chest, drawing them upwards to her neck and letting them separate.
Ulyanovsk mirrored the strange sign off completely on instinct.
Flashing the brunette’s bloodthirsty grin a mocking smile, he finally turned his back on them.
It was time to RTB and officially confirm the survival of his escorted convoy.
The Himes might physically honor their sacred vows, but that didn’t do jack shit to prevent random, unaligned feral packs from taking a bite.
“Nomad calling HQ,” he finally keyed the comms once he was a comfortable distance away.
“Sitrep?!” the Brass barked instantly.
“Threat neutralized.
Expended payload: twelve P-700s, two-and-a-half wings of anti-ship payloads, one ASW package,” Ulyanovsk reeled off his ammo reserves perfectly.
“Convoy is cleared to proceed.” Dead silence reigned over the encrypted channel for a few seconds.
“We are re-routing the convoy back to its original heading,” the operator finally relayed the good news.
“Thank you for your service, Nomad.” *** “Why this elaborate theater?” the Battleship Hime asked, trailing closely behind her Khane through the heavily scarred strait.
The canyon walls were absolutely butchered from the recent bombardment.
Scorched cliffs, pulverized Abyssal corpses, and oil slicks choked the waterway.
Below the surface, packs of rabid destroyers were pacing like starved hounds, waiting for the alpha’s signal to begin the victorious feast.
“You could have crushed that overgrown polyp yourself.
Just vacuumed the water right out of the strait and left her to suffocate in the mud like a beached guppy,” Yotu continued.
“And don’t you dare give me that tired excuse about wanting to avoid a conflict with the Il-Khane’s emissary.
If that were true, you never would have corralled her into this dead end by personally tearing her keshig to shreds.” “Weren’t you the slightest bit curious?” the blonde Abyssal glanced over her shoulder.
“I admit, up until this very moment, I firmly believed Philira’s fairy tales were absolute delusional garbage,” the battleship crossed her arms.
“For the Il-Khane herself to permit the existence of a Taboo…” “This has nothing to do with the Taboo,” Varla shook her head, her bare feet finally stepping onto the rocky shore.
Approaching the blown-out chunks of the slain Harbor Princess’s mangled symbiote, the Submarine Khane picked up a heavy plate of scorched black chitin and examined it thoroughly.
“He possesses the sight to pierce my veil, and the sheer power to crack your armor.
And he is being actively educated in our sacred customs…
Unheard of, isn’t it?” She casually lobbed the heavy slab into the nearest pack of ravenous destroyers.
Taking that as the dinner bell, the monstrous pack swarmed the strait, savagely wiping the canyon clean of the fallen guardian’s remains.
“Iande-Batu can easily breach my armor, if we are discussing the capabilities of Hives,” Yotu mused after a short pause.
“Which is exactly why you sicked him on a Guardian akin to the Il-Khane.” “Do not insult the Il-Khane by comparing her to this trash!” the Submarine’s eyes flared dangerously.
“A grounded, pathetic Hive like her isn’t fit to scrape the barnacles off the Keeper of Winds.” “Noted,” the battleship surrendered with a sigh.
“But that doesn’t explain why you felt the need to initiate the Blood Right of Seven?” “Curiosity,” the blonde replied.
“Curiosity,” the battleship repeated flatly.
“You have very bizarre interests, Khane Varla.
Could it perhaps just be good old-fashioned blood vengeance?” “That factored into my calculations, yes,” the Submarine Princess didn’t try to deny it.
“If a foreign rival sees fit to dispatch her titled heralds into my domain, she should bloody well ensure they adhere to basic hospitality constraints.” “You are holding cards back,” the brunette shook her head slowly.
“You and I may be friends, Yotu, but there are certain games playing out where you shouldn’t dare stick your nose.” *** The house greeted Ulyanovsk with eerie tranquility and the soft strumming of a guitar coming from the bedroom.
Suspecting something was very wrong, the guy dropped his duffel bag in the hallway and hurried toward the source of the noise.
But the moment he stepped into his bedroom, he froze in his tracks.
Several tripwires had been meticulously rigged right outside the cursed wardrobe, guaranteeing that anyone stepping out of it would immediately faceplant.
On both sides of this fatal choke point stretched extensive defensive trench lines, complete with rows of barbed wire, dugouts, and pillboxes.
The barrels of several miniature howitzers poked ominously out from under the bed.
Right in the middle of this absolute mayhem, Kubik was fast asleep on shredded scraps of red silk—silk that looked incredibly expensive.
Off to the side, safely behind the defensive perimeter near the bedroom door, the fairies were kicking back around a small campfire.
That would have been perfectly fine, except they had built their morale-boosting bonfire inside a red woman’s high-heeled shoe.
“What the hell did you guys do in here?!” Ulyanovsk barked, trying to process the tactical madness.
The fairy sprites instantly scrambled up and snapped to attention.
The senior Marine, throwing a crisp salute, began squeaking and gesturing wildly as she delivered her sitrep to her host ship.
“What do you mean this is the second shoe?
Why did you burn Formidable’s heels?!” The fairy let out an indignant squeak.
Ulyanovsk squinted at one of the dugouts, suddenly realizing its strangely specific, pointy shape.
The tiny Marine commander’s explanation quickly cleared things up.
“Then what is this one for?
And where did those silk rags on the deck come from?” The fairy spread her tiny arms apologetically.
As it turned out, the wardrobe had opened a portal to a completely new location.
Kubik, apparently catching sight of whatever was hanging on the other side, had attempted to go AWOL and was forcefully detained by the perimeter guards.
During the high-stakes tactical operation to retrieve the cat, the Marines had snagged a silk dress and knocked over a pair of red high heels.
One shoe was immediately requisitioned to reinforce their fortifications; the other was repurposed to boost troop morale.
They had barely managed to drag the furball back across the border and shut the doors before the owner of the clothes came over to investigate the commotion.
“Good job, Marines,” Ulyanovsk praised his tiny grunts.
“Alright, dismantle your trenches.
Time to RTB and get some rest.” The fairy commander saluted happily and began squeaking out teardown orders to her squad.
Double-checking the wardrobe just in case—and finding nothing suspicious inside—the aviation cruiser finally headed for the shower.
In a rare display of unprecedented generosity, Command had granted him twenty-four hours of downtime before his official after-action debriefing.
But the guy knew perfectly well that the upcoming meeting promised him absolutely nothing but a massive headache.