Molti nemici, molto onore, part 1

No Axis submarine was ever a quiet place - they'd grown so large over the decades of war that only diving to truly incredible depths could muffle their truck-sized propeller blades enough to let them slip past enemy sonar. But the submarines under the command of the Mediterranean Fleet were alive with more than the sounds of sailors at work or their shared harem being used. There was always music, or excited conversation and frivolous arguments. During battle - and before battle, and after battle - the men would shout curses and threats at the enemy as if they were in a bar fight.

"Nurse" Dr. Miriam Pichler was in the sick bay as usual, standing in front of the bed, looking down at a pad and paper, occasionally sighing and pausing to rub her temples. The noise was driving her mad faster than the stress of her own likely impending mortality. And she had no way of knowing if any of what she'd said earlier had gotten through.

A short, petite woman who looked younger than the 30 years she had, Miriam had dyed her flowing, wavy chest-length hair a smokey grey in an attempt to create the appearance that she was past her prime (of course, her face and body made it clear the grey was unnatural, so it just made her look strikingly odd), and her intense green-grey eyes were accented by very heavy eyeliner and shadow, as well as thick black-rimmed glasses. The strapless zip-up leather corset she worse over her chest lacked much in the way of curves to fill it out, and jet-black latex gloves covered her hands and arms nearly up to the shoulder. Beneath her belt, the black miniskirt and laced up thigh-highs she wore were almost conservative. Resting atop her head was a small black nurse's cap, marking her supposed role.

Dressing in such attire was a daily humiliation for her - not so much because it was revealing (the female cooks and laundresses aboard wore considerably less), but because that stupid black cross made her out to be so much less than she was. She wasn't a medical doctorate, for fuck's sake - she was a Doctor of Energetic Physics from the University of Graz. With the engines of new u-boats being further overengineered with every fresh model (they were well into the 50s, by now), the ranks of engineers and technicians had grown thin... the 500 ordinary sailors and officers that went down when a u-boat was sunk could be easily replaced, but the half-dozen nuclear technicians among them couldn't. Miriam dreamed of being back in a nice, clean, quiet university lab every day, but she had fallen victim to peer-pressure; inspired by the example of Air Marshal Victoria, every woman to graduate in the sciences from the University that year had volunteered their service, and if need be their lives, to the Stadt, and she had been swept along with the group, unwilling to be the only one not to make the offer.

It was an amazing thing really - there she had been, a woman, under a state which taught from the earliest _kindergarten _that woman's place was in the vegetable garden, the kitchen, and the nursery, and Miriam felt she'd had to step forward for military service out of fear for being thought a coward. Oh, she wouldn't have gotten put on any official list or had her loyalty questioned for such a refusal. She was supposed to want nothing more than to find a well-bred husband and keep his house for him, after all. But she'd never really cared what those political lackeys thought anyway. It was the thought of disappointing her peers that she couldn't face.

So here she was - on an opulent, chaotic, continually-mismanaged u-boat in the Mediterranean Fleet, the latest to be launched with a supposedly new and improved high-acceleration engine system, able to push about the biggest class of u-boat yet. But instead of torpedo or aircraft storage, all of the extra room in the new thick, salami-shaped hull was given over to amenities. A cinema, a gymnasium, a coffee bar, a bigger kitchen than that of a pre-war luxury cruise ship... even the ballast tanks were designed to be usable as heated swimming pools.

The Italian vice-admiral she had been assigned to had just laughed when he was told she was there as a technician, and said she could join a ship's nursing staff if she was a "doctor", even though the very crew she was placed with was short-handed and under-qualified in the engineering department. Miriam had spent the first few weeks cooped up in the medical bay, little more than a glorified comfort-girl, and knowing painfully well that the finicky reactor design the Italians had chosen for this vessel could result in a catastrophic boiler explosion if mismanaged.

Mismanaged... the lower-ranking crew were competent enough at their jobs, though a bit unreliable. But the officers... Miriam could scarcely believe that the Stadt hadn't already lost the war at sea if they were the norm in a full third of its naval forces. Not once in the 4 months she'd been at sea on this vessel had she heard them discuss operations or drill except to announce capricious, often-conflicting orders. When they weren't making snap decisions and arguing with each other for the sake of arguing, they treated their commissions like tickets aboard a pleasure cruise. Oh, there was always an element of that in the Stadt... while she'd been at the University, once it became known that war demands had left a student body that was majority-female, it was a common occurrence for soldiers on leave to come around the dormitories and lecture halls to bother the girls there. But those soldiers were so eager that it was usually over quickly. They just wanted to fire off in as many women as possible before going back to the hell of the front. Here with the Mediterranean Fleet though - the men seemed to be determined to waste as much of their time (and hers) as possible on sex (alongside eating and drinking their coffee).

It seemed like practically every officer on this damned sub considered himself a Casanova and was obsessed not so much with breeding the women with them as winning their affections, and expecting to be doted on by them. The other (younger and emptier-headed) nurses often gushed about how lucky they were to be assigned to a command where the men with rights to them wanted to treat them like girlfriends instead of toys. But from Dr. Pichler's experience, it wasn't that they were more generous lovers - just that they took longer. Oh, how she regretted that her charming, erudite professor hadn't managed to seed her before she marched off to the service - her genes were far too good for these oafs.

Standing in front of Miriam was a tall, wavy-haired, clean-shaven young man who had ripped open his white uniform jacket (the male officer's dress usually omitted any undershirt), exposing his hairy, powerfully-muscled chest. The overwhelming smell of cologne assaulted Miriam's senses and made her nose twitch. Nice, prominent cheekbones and a beefy jaw... a perfect officer's face, which would probably get him promoted further than an officer's brain. His initially confident grin was turning a little nervous at her underreaction. "Did... did you hear me baby?"

"I am sorry." Miriam said curtly. "I couldn't hear you over the string quartet warming up a few corridors down. Say again?"

"I said, I need to check myself in under your care, because..." he slapped his chest, "My heart! You have broken it. I thought we were together. Oh, I know that some other guys might come in here to give you a kiss from time to time and make me jealous, but you said that you'd only come to visit me! Ohh, but this morning when I'm just reporting to duty, I see you walking out of the captain's quarters! You think he cares about you? Ohhh, Miriam, you just know that he's got more than you. You must let me win you back!"

"What is your name again?" Miriam asked with a raise of her eyebrow, cocking her head to the side.

The officer made an exaggerated, anguished expression and rubbed his cheek, miming being slapped in the face. "Oh, now I remember. Anatoli." she said flatly.

"Why do you gotta do me like this, baby? Don't you remember our first date, up under the stars?" He said, stepping closer to her.

Miriam swallowed heavily and looked down. Damn it all, someone was always guilting her into playing along - first her sisters, then her classmates, and now all these men with their childishness. It wouldn't do any good cutting him down, he was just doing what he thought he was supposed to. With conscious effort, Miriam softened her expression and sighed.

"Yes, it was wonderful. I remember that I was cold and you gave me your jacket. You even agreed to use the illegal condom that I happened to 'find'... a perfect gentleman." she said softly. "Oh, but you must believe me, Anatoli - I was only giving the captain some technical - err, medical - advice when he needed my expert opinion on a matter of..." she managed to resist rolling her eyes, "great importance. He's never slept with me. He probably doesn't think I'm attractive." Miriam said matter-of-factly. "Compare me to, say, his serving girl, Bella... she has certain attributes that I lack."

"Oh!" the lieutenant beamed and rested a hand atop his forehead, looking up. "My mind says, I cannot trust what you say... but my heart, my heart says I must! Oh, my sweet little Miriam, you are so cute. Oh please, my angel of medicine, tell me you're my girl."

"You realize that just because the captain hasn't had me," Miriam said in a nonplussed tone, "doesn't mean that I haven't been fucked on that very cot by a dozen different men since that 'date' of ours? And don't tell me you haven't had your hands on other women?"

"Ahhh, don't talk about such things! It's different when you are on duty, anyway!" the brash young man said, walking up to Miriam and wrapping his strong hands around the small of her back, pulling her closer to him."

"Wait..." Her mind flicked back to the insane plan that had been floated at the briefing earlier that morning and her ploys to convince the captain and vice captain try something that might actually work, facing so much Yankee firepower, a stone's throw away from the monstrous Diesel City's coastal tentacles. A sudden idea struck her like a falling apple. "You should take me to the bridge... I am sure that celebrations will already be in full swing there. See, listen; the musicians have finished tuning up, and I think I can already hear the wheels of the food carts being rolled up there. Why don't you..." she gave a little sigh as she used the preferred euphemism, "'give me a hug and a kiss' up there, where everyone can see? Say that you came up to deliver a status report, no one will ask why. That will give a chance to... inquire about something. And it will show the captain and the other officers that you've chosen me."

Anatoli made a pleased-sounding murmur and gave her corseted waist a hard squeeze to signal his assent.

The whole way there, the amorous lieutenant walked just behind Dr. Pichler, resting one hand on her stomach and the other squeezing her shoulder firmly. Whenever someone was in sight, that upper hand slid down to give her chest a firm rub, teasing her nipples even through the thick leather of her zip-up corset. Pragmatically, the doctor-playing-nurse reached down to rub herself through her skirt, wiggling her finger back and forth against her clit to get herself ready. Before she could start to smell herself, when she opened the door to the bronze-bedecked bridge - walls decorated with plundered masterpiece artworks from France as well as instruments and gauges - an overpowering smell of perfume, cologne, garlic, and fresh seafood washed over her. That last scent came in two equal parts - some from the mahogany-paneled dining carts with covered dishes of baked oysters and pesto, the other half from the 10 women in maid's clothes, or nurse outfits like Miriam (which most of them filled out better than Miriam did - when they were still wearing them, that is) with the hands of officers buried between their legs.

It seemed like an orgy was indeed starting. Miriam wondered if that meant that the kampfschwimmer raid had been successful... and if the little plan she had deceptively suggested had amounted to anything. But before she could consider that any further, a door behidn them swung dramatically open.

"What's this??" Everyone turned as Captain Volta bellowed for attention. The enormous, 6'1, bearded bear of a man - a bit thick around the middle, but driven by vanity to maintain the bronze swells of muscle in his biceps, shoulders and thighs - was wearing nothing but a lime green pair of undersized swim trunks, his flowing velvet-trimmed cape, and a pair of tinted sunglasses. "All of you guys, come on - hurry up and pop your corks. And I don't just mean the champagne. The head nurse," he pointed to Miriam, who her 'boyfriend' was dragging onto a leather divan, "said that I'm gonna be as pale as raw calamari if I spend another day in the dark. I'm gonna need you all to keep things together on the bridge. I looked through the periscope, and the plan Signorina Pichler helped me come up with worked - there's a hole in the stormclouds and beautiful sunshine a'coming down! I think an hour should be enough to save my tan, and hey, we've already got the Yankees on the run."

"Ahhhhh, Giorno!" Another of the officers - the vice-captain - piped up in a plaintive voice. "Come on, we just started celebrating! I don't even have my pants off yet, I was waiting for the music to start. Why don't you grab a nice cute thing and relax with us? Besides, it would be better to be sure that cruiser isn't coming our way...?"

Miriam allowed herself half a smile and shook her head. Anatoli was clutching her very tightly now, his jealousy clearly flaring despite the fact that Captain Volta had only given her, and him, a cursory glance and showed no reaction. He had actually done as she asked, and tried what the Kriegsmarine high command had been too hidebound and frightened of retaliation to even consider - testing the potential of the atomic bomb as a tool of mass disruption rather than destruction. Were those fools afraid that the Americans would escalate to apocalyptic war over an atom bomb that had (directly) destroyed nothing but a few clouds? More likely they simply didn't want to try anything she and the other researchers suggested on sheer principle, on the grounds that they hadn't been the ones to come up with it.

In fact, all of the officers lounging on their couches seemed quite pleased with the women that they had in hand... even the ones who looked like they were getting ready to share one. None of them looked much at Miriam. She was, after all, rather average, by the artificial standards that now held sway... flat-chested, skinny, bespectacled, and with an overbite that made her front teeth stand out a bit too much. But still, the amorous lieutenant's grip on Miriam tightened ever harder, before slithering down to start lifting up her skirt. "Hey, um, my brave, handsome man..." Miriam said, half-turning to give Anatoli a kiss on the cheek. He immediately turned into it and tried to lock lips with her, but she pulled away. "We don't want to be rude and crowd them... at least not a first, yeah? Why don't you carry me over to those consoles over there, so I can appreciate the beautiful scenery outside?" ...and see if you imbeciles are overlooking any radio or radar contacts while you focus on enjoying yourselves... she silently added to herself.