Senior Lieutenant Sergei Bondarenko was dressed for the Arctic conditions normal to the Northern Fleet submarine base at Polyarny. But despite five layers of wool and oilskin, he still felt a marked chill caused by the brisk wind blowing in from the bay. He trudged forward through the snow. Silently cursing both the frigid weather and the reason for leaving his heated room at this ungodly hour.

Said reason was currently standing at the end of a pier. Her long hair was carried by the breeze, whipping behind her like a live thing. She appeared lost in thought, staring out at the black water of the Polyarny inlet. The woman who had been both his friend and the source of most of his headaches for the last four months. The world had become a rather strange place over the last ten years. So much so that the fact that this woman was also a submarine didn't even phase Bondarenko.

He let out a loud cough as he walked behind her. "You're up early."

Her head snapped around, a look of surprise crossing her face for only an instant before being replaced by a stony expression. "I could say the same thing about you, comrade Lieutenant."

"Your roommate was worried when you left in the middle of the night. She woke me up in order to relay her concern. I am the barracks officer after all," Bondarenko replied by way of explanation.

"I needed to clear my head," she replied. "I've been stuck in this base for so long that I'm beginning to forget what the ocean looks like." She let out a long, dejected sigh.

Bondarenko quickly brushed a layer of snow from a bollard, then lowered himself to a seat. He had become something of an expert dealing with the emotional state of the submarine girls lately, but it didn't take an expert to decipher this girl. Her situation was unique amongst the other girls on the base, and it was caused by a situation that she was powerless to change.

Finally, Bondarenko broke the tense silence, "Do you miss it?"

"Of course I do." She wrung her hands together, letting a look of desperation cloud her face. "I was born from the sea, Lieutenant. I can hear it calling to me, even now."

Her hands dropped back to her sides and her shoulders slumped, and her voice grew quiet. "Do you sometimes wonder if you shouldn't just take matters into your own hands?"

Bondarenko spine went stiff, and his eyes snapped up to meet hers. The uncertainty of before was gone. Replaced instead by steely determination. "What are you talking about?" he asked with a carefully measured tone.

"If you were ever given an order that you knew to be morally reprehensible to carry out, would you still do it?"

"I would question it," Bondarenko replied with a hesitant voice.

"But if there was no other option, you would carry it out?" she pressed.

"Yes, it is my duty, after all."

She nodded silently, then sank to the pier. Oblivious to the layer of snow still coating the concrete. "That is my curse." Her voice was flat and emotionless. "I yearn to return to sea. But doing so would mean potentially performing the one thing I could never do, the duty I was built for." She slumped backwards leaning her entire weight against the bollard as sudden tears filled her eyes.

Bondarenko let the silence hang over the pier. There were times when he cursed this duty, cursed the fact that he was here and not at sea with the fleet. But that hatred did not extend to the girls. They were as nuanced and complicated as anyone. It was sad to see people lose sight of that. Perhaps it was because the Abyssals were long gone. It was easy to forget that a ship girl was a human being when she was also a tool of national security. A line of reasoning that ultimately resulted in a scared, emotional girl bawling her eyes out on a pier in northern Russia.

"You mentioned taking matters into your own hands," Bondarenko said once her sobbing had ceased. "Are you planning something?"

"Nothing I could share with you, comrade Lieutenant." She raised a hand to dab at her eyes. "The consequences of my actions are mine alone." The determination from before was back in her eyes, and now there was steel in her voice as well.

Bondarenko placed a hand on the girl's head. It was a simple gesture really, but it signaled that he would support the girl no matter what she tried. Whatever happened next, Sergei Bondarenko refused to ignore the feelings of the people in his charge, no matter who they were. He couldn't know that his decision had set a series of events into motion. Soon two nations would be dragged into conflict, and the shipgirls would be thrust into the center of everything. But all Bondarenko could do now was to let out a sigh.

"Whatever you decide to do, I wish you good luck, missile submarine Red October."

So, context. I decided to brush off my whole Red October as a shipgirl idea, but turn it into an actual story instead of disjointed snips. This is the prologue for that new story. I'm going to attempt to have more soon, but decided I would post this here as a preview.