Stormclouds mask the stars overhead, rendering celestial navigation impossible. Our universe reduced to rain slashing at our rigging, spray washing our decks, waves pounding against our hulls, wind tearing at our sails. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Longitude irrelevant. The mid-atlantic has no reefs, no outcroppings. The storm can’t possibly have blown us far enough to wreck against the Florida coastline.

I shudder, and tell myself it’s merely from the saltwater soaking my uniform.

We crest, and I lean back to keep my feet, keep my heel-rudders in the water, to keep control as we hurtle down the side of the wave, the next already towering overhead. There’s a moment of terrifying relief, as its bulk half-shields my sails from the painful pressure of the wind, threatening to leave me stranded in this watery canyon that could so easily become our grave. “Hold tight!” I shout into the quietest moment for a while, wrapping my arm more tightly beneath Vicky’s. I really don’t want to be lost out here, alone.

I tilt into the oncoming wave, rising up the slope on momentum and buoyancy alone. It won’t be enough, and then I feel the terrible weight of the wind crushing me forwards, propelling us on and up. We make it ten, twenty feet up the slope before our own weight begins to pull us back. More sail would break my back, part the mainstay and snap my masts like twigs, even this much hurts, so badly, and it’s too little. My toe-bows dig in, and green water crashes over them, raking me from stem to stern. Wet sailcloth slaps painfully against my breasts, loosed ropes lash me as the wind whips them. Spray stings my face. Vicky, straggling beneath my arm, takes it full in the face. Then the moment passes, and she spits out water as we dive down into the trenches once more.

“Swift,” Vicky says, “we’re waterlogged, swamping.” Another wave cuts off her words, and it's just as bad as the last. How long has this been going on? It feels like there’s no world left, beyond sea and storm, like we might be the last two left alive, anywhere. “I’m dragging you down,” she paused, as I prayed she wouldn’t say- “You have to cut me loose.”

“Never going to happen,” I snap back, for all the terrible sense it would make. Victory is holding me back, her scorched masts and burned rigging unable to bear the weight of sail necessary to drive her up the mountainous waves without my support, yet she’s half-again my tonnage, and our waterlogging only makes it worse. There’s plenty of wind - far too much - but even my healthy masts can’t support enough sail to capture it. “Whether we’re bound for Nassau or the Abyss, we’re going there together.”

I won’t leave Vicky. I’m not sure if it’s bravery or cowardice, but, being alone is more than I can bear.

“Are we really demons, then?” Vicky screams over the howl of the wind, “quickened by the death of good men on good ships, hellish shadows sent to tempt honest sailors to sin before sending them to watery graves?”

Who had she been listening to? Well, I knew who, and I’d thought them the worst a shipgirl could face. I’d been so naive. The bowels of Admiralty House held far worse things, till I’d excised that gangrenous poison with fire, and who knew whether I’d gotten it all, whether that sickness would return to blight my sisters.

“I’m going to shift to the full shipform,” I reply.

“Without a crew?!” Vicky shouts, horrified. “You’ll broach for sure, and once you’re broadside-on to the waves, you’ll capsize in minutes. You can’t save me - don’t throw your life away trying.”

“I’ll set trysails fore-and-aft before I shift,” I snap, “then all you’ll have to do is keep my bows pointed into the waves.” I pause. “It’s our only chance.”

Victory nods, and I know I have her.

“I’ll see you again,” I shout, already cutting sail, “beneath the stars.”

Then I shift, eschewing my girlness in favour of shipness, and knew no more.

---

I woke, gritty sand beneath my cheek, wet sailcloth rough against my skin, cinched and fastened by tarred rope and wood. Through my one open eye, I could see a boy lying on the beach besides me. He was dead, his eyes glassy, tongue extending from his gaping mouth, face pale and gray, all alike to a fish in every way except swimming like one, swimming well enough to survive.

A man leaned in, touched him. Checked his body for breath, then his pockets for coin. Then he stepped over the boy, towards me. My one good eye tracked him haphazardly, and his widened. “Got a live one here!” I heard a masculine voice shout, felt a hand against my shoulder. “Sweet Jesus, she’s a girl!” I felt his hands grip me, try to lift me. “Bloody Mary, she’s heavy. Help me!”

More hands, lifting. Getting my feet under me. Staggering from the beach, under heavy storm clouds, and soon enough there was a chair, and a crackling fire, and a warm blanket, and hot soup, and a voice rich in motherliness saying: “You poor dear, you’re half-drowned, what’s your name, darling, what were you even doing on one of those awful navy ships?”

“Swift…” I murmured… “sure…”

“It’s alright, darling,” the woman’s hand brushed my hair. “You’ve come through an ordeal no girl should have to face, by the grace of God. A little rest will recover your wits, and you’ll be sure of yourself and your name when they do. You don’t need to worry about anything now. Not a thing. Just focus on getting better.”

But her glance at the man was worried, and his matched it in return.

“How did she even survive,” the man whispered, “when so many strong sailors perished?”

They brought in two more girls, the next day, both worse-off than me. One, red-haired and soft-spoken, gave her name as Sion, and would not speak thereafter. The other had no name at all, calling herself only Gal. I felt as if I knew them, should know them, and her especially. Maybe if she’d been able to say her name, I would’ve recalled…

“I do not know them,” Captain Percy said, who had saved a quarter of his men, and lost three-quarters along with his ship. “I do not believe they sailed aboard Association or Eagle or Swiftsure, although only the Admiral or their Captains would know for sure, and they are lost.”

“How did they survive, these three slips-of-a-girl,” the whispers ran, “when only the Quartermaster of the Swiftsure was saved from Bishop Rock by the Grace of God, and he a fat and lusty man yet battered near to death by the sea,” then their eyes would fall on silent, red-headed Sion, and the word unspoken would be: ‘Witchcraft’.

“The Admiral,” the cry went up, before they brought him in, battered by the sea and unrecognisable as a man. “They have found the Admiral!”

“It is the Admiral,” said Captain Percy, holding up his hand, which bore a glittering emerald ring. “See this is his ring, a rich gift from Captain James Lord Dursley. Admiral Shovell,” he asked, “do you know these girls? They were pulled from the water or laid upon the beach with many fine sailor’s bodies besides them. They are suspected of witchcraft and murder, and if you condemn them then your word can be the spade that sees them buried, before the reasonable men of Whitehall who have never known the sea can intervene.”

“Nay!” the Admiral cried, and coughed, coughing up water. “That is Swiftsure,” his fingertips shifted towards me, “and Eagle,” they tilted limply towards the nameless Gal, “and my Association,” for Sion, his lips almost curved to a smile, “and they are in my care for so long as I live. So,” and seawater trickled from the corner of his mouth, “the prize is bought at the terrible price. Forgive me, sons of my wife who live now in heaven; bound though I am for hell. Forgive me, able seaman of Scilly who hung for knowing the danger of these waters,” he coughed again. “Forgive an old man’s betrayal, the three of you,” his eyes widened, a little, and his knuckle worked against his ring, “take this,” he offered to Sion, “please. In exculpation. Give it to them,” he commanded Captain Percy, who turned, eyes wide, and fled, and it fell to me, with Sion frozen and whilst the nameless Gal huddled, to take it from his fingers. Then his breath rattled, and he died, and for a time, we were alone with the corpse.

When I gave the ring to Sion, I noticed, for the first time, that it’s deep sea-green was a perfect match for her eyes.

---

It was days, before another officer came, with a young leftenant besides him, and it wasn’t until she removed her cap I realised she was a girl.

“I am Charles Norrington, and my rank is Commodore” he said, and gestured to the girl. “This is my flagship, Her Majesty’s Ship-Girl Restoration. You are her sister-ship-girls.”

“Oh Swiftsure, Eagle,” she said, dashing forwards, wrapping us in her arms. “It’s so good to see you again! We were together at Barfleur! Red-squadron, remember? I was Red Seventeen? Oh, it doesn’t matter! I’m so glad you’re here! Apart from me, it’s all Blue-squadron girls - but not anymore!”

Commodore Norrington’s ship wasn’t much more than a yacht, HMS Weazle, a ten-gun Bermuda-rigged sloop with a crew of nine, just enough to sail her in fair weather, and not a hope in a fight - if you discounted Restoration and the three of us.

We could sail her better than the crew. I… knew, somehow, just what to do. Moreover, I knew the sea - and I was strong, strong enough to hoist alone a sail that should’ve required two men using block and tackle. Heavy enough to pull up a weight of cloth that ought to have lifted me from the deck.

Norrington’s claims were utter nonsense. Yet as time passed, I couldn’t help but come to accept them as utterly true.

“The contemporary era of shipgirls within her Majesty’s navy begins with the Great Storm of 1703,” Commodore Norrington explained, as Weazle beat east up the Cornish coast. “Searching the Goodwin Sands-bank for any fortunate enough to survive, I came upon Northumberland, Stirling Castle, Mary, and,” he nodded to her, “Restoration.”

“He saved us,” she smiled, “Char- Commodore Norrington. Then, and after.”

“It took me some while to realise they were not passengers, but the ships themselves. The part of a ship that is a girl. Her… soul, made flesh by the Grace of God. The Kentish boatmen of Deal - no less superstitious than the Scilly Islanders - were both more right, and more wrong, than they knew. There were more things in the world than dreamed of in my philosophy,”

‘Shakespeare, Hamlet,’ Restoration mouthed, as her hand slipped into his.

“Yet shipgirls are no cackling witches, but rather a blessing of angels,” Norrington continued, as Restoration shook her head in denial. “Defoe wrote the storm as England’s punishment for our armies’ failures against the Catholic cause, and the good men of the Church agreed. God is not so vengeful, when goodness beats at England’s heart. The storm was his messenger, delivering to us the instrument of our victory!”

Restoration coughed. “A shipgirl’s needs are extreme, by human standards, but a fraction those of a man-o-war and a full crew. Skating across the waves, we are far nimbler than any wooden-hulled ship.”

“With a broadside no less devastating,” Norrington interrupted. “Moreso, if she can maneuver through the line-of-battle to rake enemy ships.”

“Later,” Restoration continued, “we found HMS Newcastle, lost at Spithead, who had been taken in by a family on the Isle of Wight, and HMS Reserve, who foundered off Yarmouth and had wound up in the workhouse there. We recovered both-”

“-to a new Navy Dockyard designed with ship-girls in mind and located in the privacy offered by Foulness Island,” Norington finished. “On receiving word of foul weather, and having little to fear from it ourselves, we sailed immediately to hasten to your rescue-”

“Land-ho! Sail-ho!”

There wasn’t much inside to a small ship like the Weazle, so we got up on deck pretty quickly - then I wondered how I’d known to do it.

“She’s a frenchman,” Norrington said, peering through his spyglass over the starboard bow. “Fourth-rate, fifty-guns, maybe.”

“What, here?” Restoration snapped. “Off the Cornish coast? We’ll run her off - if she runs. Up for a little excercise girls?” She asked, and her smile was… predatory. I realised, then, that Association had stayed below.

“Sail-ho!”

“Heard you the first time!” Restoration shouted back.

“Second set! Portside bow!”

Norrington spun.

“She’s the Ruby,” he called.

“Another Red Squadron girl,” Restoration practically beamed, “chasing the frenchman. Sir,” she implored, “let us go to her aid! Between us and her we can quarter and catch him for sure!”

“The Ruby’s just a ship, Restoration,” Norrington replied.

“Yessir,” Restoration paused, “She’d hardly need our help if she was awaken.”

“Go,” Norrington sighed. “Don’t sink him if Ruby’s crew can’t take him. We don’t want to find a French femmenavire opposing you someday.”

“There isn’t room for that in Catholic philosophy Sir,” Restoration smiled, “and the Papists are as nailed to their dogma as Christ to his cross.”

“Restoration.”

“Aye sir - take her or spare her,” she replied, and slipped nimbly over the side. Her shipness was more visible under full sail, fore and mainsail billowing from her hips, topsails from her shoulders. As I watched, topgallants sprouted from her head, and jibsails blossomed from her chest. Water was lapping around my feet before I realised I’d followed her as Weazle wore-away behind us. Only a manic would believe her crew of nine could take even a fourth-rater like the frenchman, yet, I wondered if Norrington had backed precisely to remove that temptation from Restoration’s mind. Even on a day’s acquaintance, she seemed… aggressive.

Not that that was a bad trait for a warshipgirl, I thought, as I set t’gallants and jibs of my own and raced into her wake.

A stern chase is a long chase.

“What in Neptune’s name is she doing?” Restoration said, some time later, as the frenchman turned away from us. “That puts her right into the Ruby’s path.”

“Almost perfectly taking her out of ours,” I said.

“If they can even see us,” Restoration continued, “or recognise the threat we pose if they could.”

“But they’re perfectly positioned to quarter Weazle between them and the Ruby,” I said.

“The Ruby,” Restoration paused. “You don’t think-” Then Ruby hoisted the tricoloure over her stern. “It-it’ll be alright,” Restoration said, “Association’s still aboard the Weazle. The Ruby’s no match for her.” Behind us, the dull boom of Ruby’s cannon’s rang out, and water splashed around the Weazle.

Restoration’s eyes flickered back and forth, between the frenchman ahead and the Ruby, closing in on the Weazle behind.

“Our orders were to aid the Ruby in taking the frenchman - and to let him go, if he couldn’t be taken,” I said.

“Yes,” Restoration nodded, and her smile spoke of her relief as we turned.

But there’s no fast way to beat upwind, and the Ruby bore down on the Weazle faster than we could close with either. Within minutes, chainshot was tearing through her rigging, tangling her sails, and she wasn’t running anymore.

“Sion, what the hell are you doing!” Restoration snarled, as if Association could hear her. “C’mon, c’mon.” Then Assocation appeared on Weazle’s deck. “Finally,” Restoration breathed. Despite the distance, I heard the rattle as Sion’s gunports opened. “No, wait!” She screamed, but the breeze took the words downwind, and cast them away.

Association held fire until Ruby was almost on top of Weazle, then the forty great guns of her broadside blazed, and the heavy cannonballs ripped across Ruby’s decks in a wash of french blood - and their recoil smashed Association into Weazle’s hull and flipped the little sloop like a toy in a bathtub, till what was left of her sails slapped against the surface.

“Charles!” Restoration screamed, turning to open her broadside. The range was extreme, but she was an excellent shot, and only one of her cannonballs hit Weazle’s sinking hull rather than the Ruby. Under continuing fire - if Association’s broadside alone hadn’t done it - the Ruby turned to run.

It took us fifteen minutes to beat upwind to the Weazle, during which time our fire reduced the Ruby to a burning ruin. As we reached her, pulled Association from the wreck of the rigging, as Restoration tore the hull apart with her bare hands to reach Norrington - then the Ruby’s magazine exploded.

---

“Apologies,” Norrington said, as his leg thumped wood-on-wood against the desk. “Elevating it helps.” He paused. “I’ll never walk a quarterdeck in battle again, of course.”

“Wooden ships are just carriages now,” I said. “Despite everything, I think that’s been proved. Fighting is for-”

“Shipgirls,” Admiral Norrington finished for me. “Perhaps it pains me less to agree now than it once would have,” he thunked his leg, “now that I can no longer have it. Though the promotion is a compensation. The future belongs to you,” he paused, “and the prizes. However that will work going forwards. For which you will receive a further eighth share, as Commodore of Red Squadron.”

“Sir- Restoration-”

“Restoration is a fine, aggressive warship,” he sighed, “but it’s past time for me to admit I can’t command her. Risking her… my fear of risking her leads me to doubt the instinct to reign her in - and she needs to be reigned in. Besides, she hates paperwork - and if we are to find further shipgirls, and protect them, it will all be paperwork.”

I paused, as I was leaving. “Ruby?” I asked.

“Doing fine,” he answered.

---

“Sion,” I said softly. She didn’t look up. “Sion.” I paused. Touched her shoulder. “Association.”

She started, too sharply, sails unfurling, gunports along her flanks banging as they opened. My touch tightened to a grip, and as she turned to bear despite it I recognised the difference between a third-rate of seventy guns like me and a second-rate of ninety like Association. “Sorry,” I said, and let go.

“Huh?” She replied, and blinked. “Oh. Swiftwind. You’ve come to see me?”

“Yes,” I said, rubbing my wrist. “To make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m… fine,” she said. But her gaze turned to her bed.

“How are your dreams?”

“I don’t remember,” she half-smiled, “all of them.” I took her hand, squeezed it gently. She twitched, and I rubbed my thumb across her knuckles. “They wake me, sometimes.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “You can tell me.”

“I remember hitting the water,” when the Weazle had rolled. “I remember hitting the rocks,” when she’d sunk. “I remember the sailor, screaming I was in the wrong place, to hold fire,” a warning, cried in the moment before her broadside had rolled the tiny sloop. “Screaming at me. Screaming at the admiral that he knew these waters, that we were bound for the rocks…” On deck, as a ship, before the Scilly Isles disaster. Admiral Shovell’s dying words had hinted at it…

“I remember hanging from the rigging,” Weazle’s, probably where we’d found her tangled. “I remember the Scillian, the sailor, hanging from the rigging, from the yardarm. By his neck.”

Navy ships enforced discipline brutally. I didn’t make Shovell a monster.

I hugged her, tightly. Stroked her hair. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”

“I know,” she said. Whispered. “Shovell - the sailor - Shovell didn’t kill him because said Shovell was wrong. Shovell killed him because he knew he was right.” Association smiled. Patted my cheek. “Thank you for coming. I feel better.”

I left, feeling worse.

---

There was a phenomenal amount of paperwork, as it turned out. “I still think you’re missing Resolution, Stirling,” I said.

My opposite number, Commodore-ship of blue squadron, tilted her head in response. “You hope we’re missing Resolution,” she agreed. “It’s frustrating that in the sole case we have complete testimony from a surviving crew,” she gestured to the teetering Resolution file, which towered like a mountain, “we didn’t get the girl to go with the ship we lost.”

“Shipgirls don’t stay missing for near a decade,” Stirling countered, an argument that had been growing more persuasive as the years passed. “Either she didn’t rise, or didn’t survive it. How easy would it have been for you to die on the shores of Scilly - or I on Goodwin Sands, if Captain Norrington’s rescue had been tardy.”

“If we knew which…” I shook my head. “At least it’s inconceivable you’d not have found Vanguard, sunk in Chatham Harbour,” I agreed.

“Sunk at harbour, and raised a year later,” Norrington broke in. He could move surprisingly quietly, despite his peg-leg, although his trim figure was running to a slight paunch now. Restoration’s cooking was, slowly, improving. “No-one expected… for all the little we know about why shipgirls arise, it certainly requires the loss of a ship. Although if instead we’d put a stop to her salvage…” he shook his head. “It’s not like we have ships to spare on experiments, in time of war. Perhaps once there is peace. If there is peace…”

The next day, HMS Edgar burned at Spithead with all her crew, and a new shipgirl joined Stirling’s squadron.

---

Eventually, the war ended, the Spanish Succession settled, great power balanced in europe.

Within the year, HMS Victory burned, and when they broke the hulk, they found amongst the charred remains of ship and crew the still-living form of a shipgirl. A badly-traumatised shipgirl.

I found the orders in Norrington’s desk.

He found me there.

He went for the sword at his hip. I was faster.

With Victory mine, I fled, ahead of Restoration’s screams of pain, of vengeance.

Then, the storm.