Attack on Titan Fanfiction – Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Chapter 2

Like a Broken Record

No shouting… No cussing… No swearing… No eye-rolling… ABSOLUTELY NO PUNCHING… Will arrive tomorrow… Until then be on your best behaviour… I beg of you…

AA

Jean couldn’t help but snort at Armin’s telegram. What did he mean, no punching? What did Armin think he was, a kid? The last person he ever punched was Reiner Braun, and that was when he was still a teenager. He’s moved past the walloping phase a long time ago. Armin’s being his usual anxious self, he thought with an amused little smile. 

He put the telegram in his breast pocket and read the next one. Again from Armin.

Journalists can be exasperating… but must NEVER be yelled at… No fist slamming on table… sit on your hands if you have to… Try not to look bored… Yawn and they’ll skewer you…

AA

Now Jean was chuckling. On to the next telegram. Still from Armin.

Think of something funny right before the presscon… You need to relax your facial muscles… Otherwise you’ll look like a villain… Keep a neutral face… NO SMART ALECK COMEBACKS… foreign press will not appreciate your wit…

AA

Thanks to you I’m now laughing to myself, thought Jean. Really, his old friend was a worrywart. But it was Armin who was the real pro at press handling. As their Foreign Affairs minister, Armin traveled around the world and consumed press conferences as part of his daily fare. Sometimes foreigners threw eggs at him, or cheap wine, or tomatoes, even shoes, and often called him very nasty names, but through it all Armin never blinked, never got mad, never lost it. He was the epitome of patience, the poster boy for long-suffering. Jean admired him for that.

And speaking of foreign press, Jean peeked into the conference room and nearly whistled. It was jam-packed. There were cameras everywhere, the hum of foreign tongues filling the air. He’d never seen this many foreigners on Paradian soil since Yelena brought her volunteer cavalry force. Nowadays foreigners come to their ports but they are usually merchant marines. Today there were all these civilians, foreign press people. How many of them swore they’d never set foot on the island but now find themselves in its capital because the Aniastulia incident was simply too big a scandal not to investigate? 

Now he’ll have to face them. The atmosphere was far from friendly. He could smell their suspicion, taste their mistrust. 

Jean’s current plight was brought about by the happenings in the huge landmass northwest of Paradis. The whole continent was torn apart by war, not just in the military sense of the word but most especially in the political and ideological sense. Cistidu headed a group of four nation-states against Noblain that was allied to six. But in terms of military force both sides were more or less equal, resulting in a stalemate on the ground. Three years had passed since their declaration of war on each other, but there was no resolution in sight. Both sides were bogged down to a bloody battlefield. 

Through it all Paradis maintained a neutral stance; they couldn’t afford to be involved and, from Jean’s perspective, they needed both Cistiduan and Noblainian technologies to build the Paradian Royal Navy. Cistidu and Noblain were in the midst of a naval arms race and Paradis preserved its neutrality by continuing to trade and maintain diplomatic relations with both sides.

Because the island was not rich in natural resources they had to import plenty of raw materials, along with slavishly copying ideas because they were in a great hurry to catch up with the rest of the world. Even their current flagship, HMS Erwin Smith, was obsequiously patterned after a Noblain dreadnought battleship, the only difference being that it underwent a refit, including a conversion from coal-run engines to a natural gas version that utilizes iceburst stone.

“HMS Erwin Smith is flagship of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron fleet patrolling the central Kauhoki Sea, conducting sweeps and training manoeuvres off the Zenda50 Atoll. She was returning to port on sixteen Windume-manud after the conclusion of the exercises. That was when her crew witnessed incident in question,” Jean sat at the press briefing and explained what he could. ‘Incident’ was the understatement of the decade. It was total mayhem. Windume-manud is the name of the month equivalent to October on Planet Earth.

The journalists continue with their questions. 

“Do you know why the ocean liner was attacked?” asked a man with a pair of giant bifocals and an extraordinary handlebar moustache. He was scowling at Jean as if to say, “Whichever way you answer the question, I won’t believe you.”

“No, we don’t know why Cistidu torpedoed a passenger ship. We are currently investigating the matter, and are cooperating with both Cistidu and Noblain in their investigation.” 

The why questions piled up. Jean himself wished someone would actually tell him why this all happened in the first place. 

“Do you know what caused the second blast?” this time from a lady reporter wearing a stiff pompadour and the largest shoulder pads he’d ever seen. The know-it-all look on her face said that she had already come to a conclusion. 

“No, we don’t know what caused the second blast. We are currently investigating…”

“Did the Cistiduan submarine fire a second torpedo?” was the inquisitive question from a Cistiduan journalist.

Jean paused. He was going to tell them the truth and nothing but. “No, from where my crew and I stood, it did not. If a second torpedo was fired we would have seen it.”

“Was there another submarine?” 

“Negative. Not to my knowledge. This matter is also currently under investigation.”

“Then where did the second blast come from?” 

“We honestly don’t know. As I’ve been saying, the matter is currently under investigation.”

“Why would Cistidu fire at an unarmed civilian ship?” someone shouted from the back of the room. 

The same question, all framed differently, but still the same question. Over and over. Jean answered the same way. “We don’t know. We will issue a statement after the conclusion of our investigation.” 

Were you the first to the scene? “Yes. We were the first responders arriving at the scene within 50 minutes.” More questions about the rescue. At last! Questions he can answer. 

Then the question he dreaded the most, the one that made him want to bash his head against the table. 

“Was it the HMS Erwin Smith that fired the second blast?” It was that lady reporter again, the one who’d already made up her mind. Her tone was accusatory. Jean knew that in her eyes, he was guilty until proven innocent.

“Negative. We have absolutely no reason to attack the RMS Aniastulia. It goes completely against our morality and best interest,” Jean tried to reason with her. 

“Your morality?” the lady laughed derisively. “That’s rich, coming from an Eldian who decimated Liberio!”

What was he supposed to say to that? Liberio will haunt him for the rest of his life. Thankfully Herman Strauss, their Navy’s press relations officer, promptly moved on to the next question.

“Is Paradis allying itself with Cistidu?” asked a Noblainian journalist.

“No. We hold a position of neutrality on the continental war.” Now they’ll want proof, Jean thought. Proof that a Paradian battleship did not cause the second blast. Well, he had proof. 

“Did you or did you not fire at the Aniastulia?” insisted another reporter, a young man peering at him from underneath a deerskin cap, all dressed up like a stereotypical private investigator.

Didn’t I answer that question already? Jean gritted his teeth, remembering Armin’s pleadings. “No, we did not fire at the Aniastulia. That is a most preposterous supposition. The Erwin Smith’s armament does not enable her to fire her guns and hit a target from a distance of 34,545 yards, which was how far we were from the RMS Aniastulia when the blasts occurred.” 

“What kinds of guns are on HMS Erwin Smith?” 

“Our ship mounts ten 45-calibre BL 12-inch Luke X gun in five twin Luke BVIII gun turrets. Three turrets are located along the centreline of the ship, and two wing turrets are located port and starboard of the forward superstructure. The guns could initially be depressed to −3° and elevated to +13.5°, providing a maximum range of 16,250 yards.  Secondary armament consists of twenty seven 12-pounder Luke I guns positioned at the superstructure and on the turret tops. Maximum depression of −10° and a maximum elevation of +20°, with a maximum range of 9,200 yards,” Jean replied, adding with emphasis, “Note that I am speaking about maximum range here.” 

“So did you fire those guns?” 

“We did not,” Jean answered with confidence. “Not a single one of these guns were ever fired on sixteen Windume-manud. Not a single one of them could have reached the Aniastulia from our position during both blasts. To fire near the hull where the second blast originated we would have had to fire at depression, decreasing our firing range to less than half and forcing us to sail much closer to the Aniastulia. As hundreds of eyewitnesses have stated, the Erwin Smith was nowhere near the ocean liner when the second blast occurred. At her maximum speed of 21 knots it took the Erwin Smith approximately 50 minutes to reach the Aniastulia. Had our ship been close enough to fire her guns it would have taken half that, approximately 24 minutes.”

“How do we know you are telling the truth?” someone shouted from the middle of the room. 

“We have no reason to lie to you…”

“Goddamn lying scheming conniving warmongering Eldian!” someone shouted.

Rabble-rousers, agitators, instigators. They were having a field day. You’d think that after all the abuse Jean took while in Noblain he’d be immune to their taunts. But they still made him twinge a little. To keep himself in check he forced his mind to think: What would Marco do? Marco would be even-tempered, forbearing, tolerant. 

“All relevant ship’s logs have already been made public. Both the rough log and smooth log have been made available. The Paradian Royal Navy stands by the accuracy of our ship’s log,” Jean stated. A rough log contains the preliminary draft of the ship’s course, location, speed and other data. A smooth log is an official transcription of the rough log, and is considered permanent. Erasures are not permitted. Alterations or corrections must be initialled by the authorised keeper of the logbook. Whatever original data entries that have been corrected remain legible.

“Malicious revolting depraved hideous perjurer Eldian!” 

Jean tried to hide his sigh of frustration. How could anyone think Paradis would fire at a passenger ship? Then he remembered once again the Battle of Liberio. Well of course the world was suspicious of them. He grimaced inwardly. You can’t really blame them, he thought. He could imagine the headlines they wanted to write: 

“Island Devils of Paradis Team Up with Cistidu and Sink Unarmed Civilian Ship” 

or 

“Cistidu & Paradis Destroy Cruise Liner Carrying Innocent Women and Children.” 

The things the media can cook up. I’ll just have to prove we didn’t, Jean thought determinedly. He looked at the roomful of journalists. “Let me make this very clear,” he said. “Paradian Royal Navy flagship Erwin Smith did not fire at the RMS Aniastulia. The Erwin Smith was armed but she did not fire at any point in her journey from port and back again.”

“Why should we believe you?” 

Oh bugger it! “Because I am telling the truth and nothing but the truth,” Jean said as evenly as he could muster. “Let us go through this again. First you need to look at the Aniastulia’s ship’s log. Had she been within firing range of our battleship, she would have duly sighted us and recorded the sighting. As I explained earlier, in order to fire and reach the target the Erwin Smith would have been forced to bridge the distance, thus enabling the Aniastulia to sight our ship at least 15 minutes before receiving fire, and make a log entry. There is no such entry. Again, let me repeat that.”

Very slowly, deliberately, he said, “It would have been physically impossible for the Erwin Smith to sail within firing range, without the Aniastulia sighting her. Am I making myself clear?”

The silence in the room said that no one thought so.

But Jean wasn’t finished yet. “The second thing I need for you to do is that you interview the Aniastulia’s captain, who mercifully survived. Any captain and his crew worth their salt will tell you that a battleship sailing within firing range will be highly visible to the naked eye, despite the fog. And lastly, Paradian Royal Navy rescued 682 of the Aniastulia’s passengers, who are all eyewitnesses to the incident. I am certain enough of them have seen us sailing towards the ocean liner from a great distance.”

“The fog hid your ship from sight! You were crouching in wait, ready to pounce!” someone declared.

Jean shook his head explaining, “The fog that morning was thick but low-lying. A superliner like the Aniastulia would have spotted a battleship like ours from her bridge.”

As if to prove that no one was listening to anything he said some reporter piped up: “Do you intend to go to war with Noblain?”

Absofuckinglutely not. “Absolutely not.” Really, what kind of a question is that? He couldn’t think of a single island nation that would wish to go up against the might of Noblain. They’d be like lambs to the slaughter. Only prosperous continental nations like Cistidu and its allies, with their superior submarine warfare technology, had the audacity to take on Noblain & Co.

He was really tired. Bone tired. He was answering the same questions with the same answers over and over again. They’d been at it for hours now. There was nothing worse than being accused of something you did not do. Not to mention the mammoth rescue effort had taken its toll and he was exhausted. A full investigation by all sides was underway but Jean was fearful of the truth behind the two warring nations’ actions. The more he thought about it the more he felt the entire incident to be incredibly fishy. 

He kept fielding questions. There seemed to be no end in sight, until thankfully Strauss managed to call the briefing to an end. Jean could finally grab a bite to eat. And maybe rest a little.

Not. The presscon took all of his morning hours. Now the afternoon was waiting for him to tackle the regular day’s work. Just because someone decided to sink a passenger ship near Paradian’s northern shores didn’t make all their other problems go away. There were decisions to make, hearings to attend, papers to sign, people waiting patiently in the lobby wanting an audience with him. Exhausted or not, Jean had an entire Navy to look after.

Thank you so much for reading! Please take a moment to share a thought or two in the comment section below. Your comments give me life and are a real source of encouragement. xoxo, hana

Next – Chapter 3: Affairs of State

Back – Chapter 1: In a Flash