- Location
- Usa
Or she becomes the bouncer for the club cause you just do not screw with a carrier in hand to hand. Even is she is a bad guy.
All Wo-rk and No Play: An Abyssal's Trials in the Job Market (KC)
- Thread starter PyrrhicSteel
- Start date
- Location
- Warszawa Polska
yup, that what I meant about things getting creepy.
Let's not go there, please, pretty please, with sugar on top.
Better!
But how do you get that gig without even having a library card to your name?
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That would depend on how anime the story is. In an anime a petite, 5-foot nothing girl tossing around drunken bikers and college students works, in RL that would cause a lot of comment and bring the Navy down on her quicker.
How much does her crew know about machinery? Could she get a job as a repairman?
- Location
- Mi
Almost certainly, any American capital ship (and possible the escorts as well, IDK) had it's own machine shop to help make odds and ends and do repairs underway. I can think of no reason for the abyssals to have gotten rid of such a useful ability. Trin will likely have dozens of skilled machinists that she could call on.
- Location
- Usa
As for my comments, it was just random thought. I am not following it up at all. Though the bouncer could work with her tossing a couple of ducks around. It would not be out of place. They would just think matiarl arts or something.
18: Friendly Advice
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
How did the enemy's society function at all? Given the amount of success Trinitite had seen so far, everyone should have collapsed from exhaustion long before getting a job! The Carrier didn't have much of a problem walking so far, and her supplies were fine for now, but she started five hours ago!
Online this, online that. When the frustrated Abyssal finally asked what online even meant, the woman at the front of the desk laughed her out of the building!
At least she'd learned something from the experience. Passing up the Microsoft Fleet's other buildings in Redmond saved the Carrier a lot of time. There were so many of them, Trinitite was starting to think they owned this town!
Thinking further on the topic, avoiding those buildings was probably for the best. If such a thing as a Microsoft Princess existed, she would be here, and if Trinitite's encounter with the enemy's ships were such a disaster she couldn't imagine how catastrophic meeting a hostile princess would be.
Again, if she existed at all. It didn't feel like there was a Princess in Redmond, but with humans? Who knew?
That was a question to look into later. Maybe when she found a building with a library she'd look for a manual on the subject. That, along with what happened to her princess. Or, what exactly "Online" was. Deep, a guide to getting one of these elusive jobs would be welcome, too!
She was sure she'd run across one eventually, but going out of her way to find one didn't seem wise. For now?
"A brewery, huh?"
Obviously Trinitite didn't know what that was, but it had a help wanted sign, so it interested her. Not everyone used this strange line, right?
- - -
This was worse.
The bench sat at the side of the road, shaded from the sky by a metal overhang. A few hours ago and the structure would have been a welcome respite from the sun's glare, but another cloudfront had obscured the sun and rendered the roof redundant.
The defeated Carrier pouted, her rangefinders boring into the set of papers resting in her lap.
APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT
She'd been prepared for the oddity of two names. That was about it, though. Address? E-mail address? Telephone? This was the first section, barely a quarter of the first page, and Trinitite was completely stumped! On top of that, what Trinitite could understand she knew she'd have to fake, but the Abyssal had no chance of doing so convincingly. They wanted contact information of the last people she'd worked for, except she didn't even know what a proper address even looked like, let alone what salary or supervisor she'd had. What even was a salary, let alone a convincing one?
To add insult to injury, Trinitite was certain those 'Online Applications' she'd been pointed to were going to be just as complicated.
The task of finding a library was becoming more important by the hour.
Trinitite sighed, stowing the paper and stepping back into the open. Almost immediately, she was greeted by the periodic pinprick of rain against her hull.
At least this place had the weather going for it. A light storm was nothing compared to her Mother's mist, but it kept the sun away, and didn't overwhelm her with wind and noise like she'd seen around many Abyssal installations. She'd remove her hat so she could enjoy the rainfall fully, but her camoflauge didn't seem particularly waterproof.
The humans around her didn't seem to agree, huddling in on themselves as their paces quickened. Apparently they weren't such fans.
Whatever. She had so much to worry about already that acting like the rain, the only thing she was actually enjoying, bothered her? Let them be suspicious. It didn't seem like they were paying attention, anyways.
She had a library to find. Trinitite would keep fumbling through jobfinding, but it was starting to get more apparent that this wasn't going to go anywhere.
- - -
The town had seemed to be coming to an end, and Trinitite was considering turning around, before the buildings around her suddenly thickened again. That a town would suddenly thicken didn't surprise the Abyssal, given how close Seattle, Redmond, and other towns in the area were, but the sudden change in architecture certainly did.
With the possible exception of central Seattle and some of the destroyed cities she'd seen, human structures appeared to be fairly spaced out, the stone and concrete of the large buildings separated by enough space to park her hull between them. Even in the large cities, the underlying architecture had a certain sturdiness to it, the base supports hidden under decorative plaster or stone.
Not true for these new buildings, however. Businesses were crammed together like enlisted bunks, colorful signs displaying more languages than Trinitite knew existed. The buildings themselves were rickety conglomerations of lumber, concrete and plaster, giving Trinitite a strong impression of "good enough." Even the motor pools set in front of the businesses seemed hurried, cars and young trees sharing space with the prefabricated structures she'd occasionally seen towed behind larger vehicles along highways.
The Wo-class hadn't realised she'd gotten used to anything human, but to Trinitite's surprise, the sudden change in architecture seemed off putting. Different.
Perhaps that was a good thing?
Trinitite recognized the language on a lot of these signs from south-pacific ruins she'd passed. Were these run by humans who'd retreated from abyssal territory?
The regular American fleets clung to their applications and regulations, refusing the give Trinitite any more attention than was absolutely required, unless she had some of that money everyone was obsessed with. These might not have found the procedures the Americans used as alien as Trinitite had, but there was a chance they wouldn't cling to them as ridgedly.
Trinitite turned, leaving to road to approach one of the businesses at random. She wasn't entirely sure what every sign said, but one's display was mostly English.
"Luzon Blues."
The building was further labeled a 'Filipino Market' by text set at the bottom of the sign, but Trinitite could already guess to it's nature. In her two years on the oceans, She'd passed the island of Luzon more than she could count, sailing offshore during supply runs for the Depot Princess and the other Fleets that lived and bickered around the Philippines.
As such, she knew the island well. The dark but calm Manilla bay, a maze of structures ashore flooded by permanent storm surge. The Crane Princesses's former abode in the Casiguran Sound, the base of the bitch who threatened her mother calm, now the enemy had sunk her for good. The turbulent currents of the San Bernardino Strait, several Princesses's unique storms crashing to create eddies and currents no one could predict.
That wasn't the Luzon the shop owner had known, was it? The abyssal felt a tightening in her chest as she approached, the pressure in her running boiler rising slightly. She wouldn't say she felt guilty, as neither she nor her fleet had participated in the taking of the island, but the Wo could already feel some form of connection with whomever dwelled here. The war had driven them out of their home, just like it had done to her.
The building's windows were cluttered with sheets of paper, displaying text and images about one fleet or another. She could recognize one for the Navy, of course, but that of others as well. Apparently the nations which used to occupy Abyssal territory hadn't died with their cities. Above the mass of paper, three stars had been placed against the window. Two silver, and one gold. More importantly, a pair of signs hung against what little space on the windows was available.
"Come in, we're OPEN!"
"HELP WANTED."
She'd seen those before, and they always signaled an available job. With a moment to collect herself, the Carrier opened the hatch.
No sooner had the door opened than a bell chimed, the tingling noise catching the Carrier off-guard again. Many of the buildings she'd entered had this kind of alarm attached to it, but it's suddenness still caused the carrier to jump.
Outside, the soothing rain served to keep people occupied. The light downpour had kept them looking downwards, and almost no one had given Trinitite a glance, let alone detailed scrutiny. In here, the sudden noise, combined with her startled reaction, meant every pair of eyes in Luzon Blues were focused squarely on her.
Trinitite froze.
One of the women smiled.
"Welcome! Anything you're looking for?"
The Abyssal jerkily returned the woman's smile, her eyes darting over the Market itself. It was like the Fred Meyer's Warehouse in microcosm. The front of the building, where the human who'd greeted her stood, was crammed with food, vegetables and fruits piled like shells in a magazine. Glass-topped refrigerators filled the store with a low buzz, pink and red meats lit by the machine's internal lighting. Even some ice cream was visible, while further back several canned goods and less glamorous MREs were displayed. Beyond that, several T-shirts were hung against the walls. Besides the sigils of several nation's navies, most displayed symbols and phrases whose meanings which were one again beyond her.
"And if this world runs out of lovers,
"We'll still have each other!
"Nothing's gonna stop us,
"Nothing's gonna stop us now!"
The Abyssal suppressed a wince as the faint music echoed against the crowded building's walls. Did humans actually like this stuff?
Trinitite suddenly realized she was still standing in the doorway, the Human still expecting an answer.
"Oh! Uhh, yeah." The Wo replied, stepping out of the entrance as the door drifted shut. "I saw your help wanted sign."
"Ahh!" The human exclaimed, turning to another woman in a store uniform. To the Abyssal's shock, she started barking out commands in an entirely different language.
It shouldn't have been, as the multitude of signs decorating the new set of buildings were in all sorts of languages, but the store owner was speaking exactly like the Supply Depot Princess. As a security precaution, Her Mother's occasional ally forced her fleet to speak in Fillipino while tending to the Princess's warehouses. As the language was almost unique among the predominantly English and Japanese-speaking fleets surrounding her, any ship trying to steal her precious goods would be found out as soon as any member of their fleet tried to talk to them.
Trinitite had always thought the move unnecessarily, as the Paranoid Logistician's fleet was small enough everyone should have been able to recognize each other, but if the Wo-class regularly told Abyssal Princesses how to run their own fleets, she would have sunk a year ago.
Still, the way she spoke almost mirrored the mannerisms of Trinitite's occasional commander. She even had braided hair! It was like she was looking at a more subdued version of the Abyssal, excluding her dark skin, human clothes, and black hair.
She turned, directing a smile at Trinitite. Come to think of it, if she'd added a pair of glasses…
"Follow me. Let's get you an interview, eh?"
A what?
Well, she'd find out soon enough. Trinitite nodded, following the human to the rear of the shop. So far she wasn't facing the same kind of failure, so had she made progress?
Taking an unassuming door between a rack of dresses and several necklaces, the two found themselves in a much smaller backroom. Mysterious lights were set into the ceiling, releasing a buzzing noise almost quiet enough for the carrier to ignore. Several storage lockers were set alongside the top of a counter, with a few mysterious devices and what Trinititie was starting to recognize as a human refrigerator.
"I'm Ineng Palad. I run this place." She turned, raising a hand and letting it hang in front of her.
The first person she talked to was their commander? That was convenient.
"Elizabeth." Trinitite replied, some long-absent confidence making a resurgence. "Elizabeth Groves."
The Carrier wasn't sure what made a good human second name, but unlike things like email she actually knew what one looked like. Her fleet's destroyers had been given human names, the name 'Groves' in particular was one Trinitite wasn't going to forget.
Only one destroyer had sailed between Trinitite and a torpedo, after all. Using her name to help in the search of their lost Mother wasn't the finest honor the Carrier could give the late abyssal, but she wouldn't have taken offense.
The woman was still holding her hand out. Confused, the Carrier matched her, holding her hand out in the same manner. After another half-second's pause, Ineng suddenly moved. The Abyssal jumped, but not before the human's hand had wrapped around her glove. There was a brief shake, and the contact was suddenly released. The Wo's reaction must have caught the human off guard, as she lingered for a moment after releasing her grip.
"Take a seat." The human offered, motioning to one of the metal chairs scattered across the room. After the Abyssal did so, the oddly familiar human slid another chair in front of her. With several feet between the two, the human folded her hands in her lap.
"So, Elizabeth. Tell me about yourself."
"Alright…" Trinitite nodded, internally rehearsing the story she'd constructed over the past few days. "My name is Elizabeth Groves. I used to live in the Marshalls, but with the war…" Trinitite shook her head, allowing the human to finish her sentence.
"Pardon me for saying this," She nodded understandingly, "but you don't look like an islander."
"My mom's from New Jersey."
"Ahh." Ineng nodded. "You ever held a job before?"
"No." Trinitite admitted, fighting down a sudden rise in boiler pressure. She knew so little about jobs in general that pretending she knew what she was talking about was picking a battle Trinitite had no chance in. Still, admitting she had no experience might sabotage her chances.
"I can see that." Ineng nodded solemnly, before smiling. "Well, it's everyone's first job at some point, right?"
"Yeah." The Carrier nodded back, forcing a laugh. Unlike an Abyssal Princess, this human couldn't snap Trinitite's stern if the Carrier made her angry, but sucking up a little couldn't hurt too much.
"So," the human continued, "why do you want a job here?"
"Well," Trinitite started, unsure of the question. Wasn't it obvious? "I need one, and I saw your sign."
Ineng's face fell, and she leaned back in her chair. The Abyssal's shoulders stiffened as her own seat suddenly felt much less comfortable. Had she done something wrong? That was more likely than not, but in this case she had no idea how her response couldn't be correct. What kind of answer was she expecting?
"Have you ever been here before?"
'Uh…" Trinitite's mind raced, but try as she might she couldn't think of any response besides the obvious. "...No."
"Alright." The woman brought her hand to her head, absent-mindedly wiping her forehead. "I hate to say this directly, but you deserve to know: I don't think you're a good fit for my market."
"What?"
The abyssal felt like she'd been struck. She hadn't thought she'd set high expectations, but with how well things had been going, she was feeling some hope that she'd realize when things were going wrong, and at least have a chance to perform damage control, but her conversation had gone wrong so quickly.
"First: you don't seem fit for a service job. You didn't talk to a lot of people growing up, did you?"
The Abyssal fought down her resurgent pride, shaking her head.
"Yeah. If you need a quick job, I hear a lot of warehouses need hands around here. They don't need social experience, and you can develop some while you work."
"Okay." The Wo replied, remembering the last two warehouses she'd checked. She really needed to figure out this online stuff.
"Second: Practice doing interviews with a friend. There's a few programs in place in Seattle, they should help walk you through the process."
She nodded, remembering the State Trooper's advice. Where were these stupid libraries, anyways? Everyone talked about them but she hadn't seen one so far.
"Third: Lay back a little on the makeup. You're trying to accentuate your features, not paint new ones, and people can notice if you're obvious."
That caught her by surprise. Had her paint-and-chip detail messed up again? That was the second time! From now on, they focused on her hull. No more, no less!
Hey!
"Oh." Trinitite responded, hesitantly pointing towards her face. "Anywhere I can re-do this?"
"Not yet." Ineng replied, before standing. "Elizabeth, I'm also a refugee. I know what you must be feeling right now. Getting let down is hard, but I'm chewing you out to help you, alright? Get some practice, talk to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and things will get better, okay?"
"Oh, okay." The Abyssal numbly replied. Office of Refugee Resettlement? She'd have to look into that once she reached a library, as well, although telling the United States where she was didn't seem particularly wise.
"Alright." Ineng stuck her hand out. This time Trinitite knew to grab it, but to her surprise the woman instead pulled the carrier to her feet. "Restroom's over there, alright? If you need any help, let me know."
"Aye aye." Trinitite responded, moving towards the hatch indicated. She wasn't entirely sure what a 'restroom' was, beyond this one bearing a label indicated it belonged to employees.
Still, that ranked very low on her problems. This interview might not have been a success, but it certainly gave her a lot to worry about.
Wait, this was just a head! Did humans have special words for everything?
- - -
Online this, online that. When the frustrated Abyssal finally asked what online even meant, the woman at the front of the desk laughed her out of the building!
At least she'd learned something from the experience. Passing up the Microsoft Fleet's other buildings in Redmond saved the Carrier a lot of time. There were so many of them, Trinitite was starting to think they owned this town!
Thinking further on the topic, avoiding those buildings was probably for the best. If such a thing as a Microsoft Princess existed, she would be here, and if Trinitite's encounter with the enemy's ships were such a disaster she couldn't imagine how catastrophic meeting a hostile princess would be.
Again, if she existed at all. It didn't feel like there was a Princess in Redmond, but with humans? Who knew?
That was a question to look into later. Maybe when she found a building with a library she'd look for a manual on the subject. That, along with what happened to her princess. Or, what exactly "Online" was. Deep, a guide to getting one of these elusive jobs would be welcome, too!
She was sure she'd run across one eventually, but going out of her way to find one didn't seem wise. For now?
"A brewery, huh?"
Obviously Trinitite didn't know what that was, but it had a help wanted sign, so it interested her. Not everyone used this strange line, right?
- - -
This was worse.
The bench sat at the side of the road, shaded from the sky by a metal overhang. A few hours ago and the structure would have been a welcome respite from the sun's glare, but another cloudfront had obscured the sun and rendered the roof redundant.
The defeated Carrier pouted, her rangefinders boring into the set of papers resting in her lap.
APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT
She'd been prepared for the oddity of two names. That was about it, though. Address? E-mail address? Telephone? This was the first section, barely a quarter of the first page, and Trinitite was completely stumped! On top of that, what Trinitite could understand she knew she'd have to fake, but the Abyssal had no chance of doing so convincingly. They wanted contact information of the last people she'd worked for, except she didn't even know what a proper address even looked like, let alone what salary or supervisor she'd had. What even was a salary, let alone a convincing one?
To add insult to injury, Trinitite was certain those 'Online Applications' she'd been pointed to were going to be just as complicated.
The task of finding a library was becoming more important by the hour.
Trinitite sighed, stowing the paper and stepping back into the open. Almost immediately, she was greeted by the periodic pinprick of rain against her hull.
At least this place had the weather going for it. A light storm was nothing compared to her Mother's mist, but it kept the sun away, and didn't overwhelm her with wind and noise like she'd seen around many Abyssal installations. She'd remove her hat so she could enjoy the rainfall fully, but her camoflauge didn't seem particularly waterproof.
The humans around her didn't seem to agree, huddling in on themselves as their paces quickened. Apparently they weren't such fans.
Whatever. She had so much to worry about already that acting like the rain, the only thing she was actually enjoying, bothered her? Let them be suspicious. It didn't seem like they were paying attention, anyways.
She had a library to find. Trinitite would keep fumbling through jobfinding, but it was starting to get more apparent that this wasn't going to go anywhere.
- - -
The town had seemed to be coming to an end, and Trinitite was considering turning around, before the buildings around her suddenly thickened again. That a town would suddenly thicken didn't surprise the Abyssal, given how close Seattle, Redmond, and other towns in the area were, but the sudden change in architecture certainly did.
With the possible exception of central Seattle and some of the destroyed cities she'd seen, human structures appeared to be fairly spaced out, the stone and concrete of the large buildings separated by enough space to park her hull between them. Even in the large cities, the underlying architecture had a certain sturdiness to it, the base supports hidden under decorative plaster or stone.
Not true for these new buildings, however. Businesses were crammed together like enlisted bunks, colorful signs displaying more languages than Trinitite knew existed. The buildings themselves were rickety conglomerations of lumber, concrete and plaster, giving Trinitite a strong impression of "good enough." Even the motor pools set in front of the businesses seemed hurried, cars and young trees sharing space with the prefabricated structures she'd occasionally seen towed behind larger vehicles along highways.
The Wo-class hadn't realised she'd gotten used to anything human, but to Trinitite's surprise, the sudden change in architecture seemed off putting. Different.
Perhaps that was a good thing?
Trinitite recognized the language on a lot of these signs from south-pacific ruins she'd passed. Were these run by humans who'd retreated from abyssal territory?
The regular American fleets clung to their applications and regulations, refusing the give Trinitite any more attention than was absolutely required, unless she had some of that money everyone was obsessed with. These might not have found the procedures the Americans used as alien as Trinitite had, but there was a chance they wouldn't cling to them as ridgedly.
Trinitite turned, leaving to road to approach one of the businesses at random. She wasn't entirely sure what every sign said, but one's display was mostly English.
"Luzon Blues."
The building was further labeled a 'Filipino Market' by text set at the bottom of the sign, but Trinitite could already guess to it's nature. In her two years on the oceans, She'd passed the island of Luzon more than she could count, sailing offshore during supply runs for the Depot Princess and the other Fleets that lived and bickered around the Philippines.
As such, she knew the island well. The dark but calm Manilla bay, a maze of structures ashore flooded by permanent storm surge. The Crane Princesses's former abode in the Casiguran Sound, the base of the bitch who threatened her mother calm, now the enemy had sunk her for good. The turbulent currents of the San Bernardino Strait, several Princesses's unique storms crashing to create eddies and currents no one could predict.
That wasn't the Luzon the shop owner had known, was it? The abyssal felt a tightening in her chest as she approached, the pressure in her running boiler rising slightly. She wouldn't say she felt guilty, as neither she nor her fleet had participated in the taking of the island, but the Wo could already feel some form of connection with whomever dwelled here. The war had driven them out of their home, just like it had done to her.
The building's windows were cluttered with sheets of paper, displaying text and images about one fleet or another. She could recognize one for the Navy, of course, but that of others as well. Apparently the nations which used to occupy Abyssal territory hadn't died with their cities. Above the mass of paper, three stars had been placed against the window. Two silver, and one gold. More importantly, a pair of signs hung against what little space on the windows was available.
"Come in, we're OPEN!"
"HELP WANTED."
She'd seen those before, and they always signaled an available job. With a moment to collect herself, the Carrier opened the hatch.
No sooner had the door opened than a bell chimed, the tingling noise catching the Carrier off-guard again. Many of the buildings she'd entered had this kind of alarm attached to it, but it's suddenness still caused the carrier to jump.
Outside, the soothing rain served to keep people occupied. The light downpour had kept them looking downwards, and almost no one had given Trinitite a glance, let alone detailed scrutiny. In here, the sudden noise, combined with her startled reaction, meant every pair of eyes in Luzon Blues were focused squarely on her.
Trinitite froze.
One of the women smiled.
"Welcome! Anything you're looking for?"
The Abyssal jerkily returned the woman's smile, her eyes darting over the Market itself. It was like the Fred Meyer's Warehouse in microcosm. The front of the building, where the human who'd greeted her stood, was crammed with food, vegetables and fruits piled like shells in a magazine. Glass-topped refrigerators filled the store with a low buzz, pink and red meats lit by the machine's internal lighting. Even some ice cream was visible, while further back several canned goods and less glamorous MREs were displayed. Beyond that, several T-shirts were hung against the walls. Besides the sigils of several nation's navies, most displayed symbols and phrases whose meanings which were one again beyond her.
"And if this world runs out of lovers,
"We'll still have each other!
"Nothing's gonna stop us,
"Nothing's gonna stop us now!"
The Abyssal suppressed a wince as the faint music echoed against the crowded building's walls. Did humans actually like this stuff?
Trinitite suddenly realized she was still standing in the doorway, the Human still expecting an answer.
"Oh! Uhh, yeah." The Wo replied, stepping out of the entrance as the door drifted shut. "I saw your help wanted sign."
"Ahh!" The human exclaimed, turning to another woman in a store uniform. To the Abyssal's shock, she started barking out commands in an entirely different language.
It shouldn't have been, as the multitude of signs decorating the new set of buildings were in all sorts of languages, but the store owner was speaking exactly like the Supply Depot Princess. As a security precaution, Her Mother's occasional ally forced her fleet to speak in Fillipino while tending to the Princess's warehouses. As the language was almost unique among the predominantly English and Japanese-speaking fleets surrounding her, any ship trying to steal her precious goods would be found out as soon as any member of their fleet tried to talk to them.
Trinitite had always thought the move unnecessarily, as the Paranoid Logistician's fleet was small enough everyone should have been able to recognize each other, but if the Wo-class regularly told Abyssal Princesses how to run their own fleets, she would have sunk a year ago.
Still, the way she spoke almost mirrored the mannerisms of Trinitite's occasional commander. She even had braided hair! It was like she was looking at a more subdued version of the Abyssal, excluding her dark skin, human clothes, and black hair.
She turned, directing a smile at Trinitite. Come to think of it, if she'd added a pair of glasses…
"Follow me. Let's get you an interview, eh?"
A what?
Well, she'd find out soon enough. Trinitite nodded, following the human to the rear of the shop. So far she wasn't facing the same kind of failure, so had she made progress?
Taking an unassuming door between a rack of dresses and several necklaces, the two found themselves in a much smaller backroom. Mysterious lights were set into the ceiling, releasing a buzzing noise almost quiet enough for the carrier to ignore. Several storage lockers were set alongside the top of a counter, with a few mysterious devices and what Trinititie was starting to recognize as a human refrigerator.
"I'm Ineng Palad. I run this place." She turned, raising a hand and letting it hang in front of her.
The first person she talked to was their commander? That was convenient.
"Elizabeth." Trinitite replied, some long-absent confidence making a resurgence. "Elizabeth Groves."
The Carrier wasn't sure what made a good human second name, but unlike things like email she actually knew what one looked like. Her fleet's destroyers had been given human names, the name 'Groves' in particular was one Trinitite wasn't going to forget.
Only one destroyer had sailed between Trinitite and a torpedo, after all. Using her name to help in the search of their lost Mother wasn't the finest honor the Carrier could give the late abyssal, but she wouldn't have taken offense.
The woman was still holding her hand out. Confused, the Carrier matched her, holding her hand out in the same manner. After another half-second's pause, Ineng suddenly moved. The Abyssal jumped, but not before the human's hand had wrapped around her glove. There was a brief shake, and the contact was suddenly released. The Wo's reaction must have caught the human off guard, as she lingered for a moment after releasing her grip.
"Take a seat." The human offered, motioning to one of the metal chairs scattered across the room. After the Abyssal did so, the oddly familiar human slid another chair in front of her. With several feet between the two, the human folded her hands in her lap.
"So, Elizabeth. Tell me about yourself."
"Alright…" Trinitite nodded, internally rehearsing the story she'd constructed over the past few days. "My name is Elizabeth Groves. I used to live in the Marshalls, but with the war…" Trinitite shook her head, allowing the human to finish her sentence.
"Pardon me for saying this," She nodded understandingly, "but you don't look like an islander."
"My mom's from New Jersey."
"Ahh." Ineng nodded. "You ever held a job before?"
"No." Trinitite admitted, fighting down a sudden rise in boiler pressure. She knew so little about jobs in general that pretending she knew what she was talking about was picking a battle Trinitite had no chance in. Still, admitting she had no experience might sabotage her chances.
"I can see that." Ineng nodded solemnly, before smiling. "Well, it's everyone's first job at some point, right?"
"Yeah." The Carrier nodded back, forcing a laugh. Unlike an Abyssal Princess, this human couldn't snap Trinitite's stern if the Carrier made her angry, but sucking up a little couldn't hurt too much.
"So," the human continued, "why do you want a job here?"
"Well," Trinitite started, unsure of the question. Wasn't it obvious? "I need one, and I saw your sign."
Ineng's face fell, and she leaned back in her chair. The Abyssal's shoulders stiffened as her own seat suddenly felt much less comfortable. Had she done something wrong? That was more likely than not, but in this case she had no idea how her response couldn't be correct. What kind of answer was she expecting?
"Have you ever been here before?"
'Uh…" Trinitite's mind raced, but try as she might she couldn't think of any response besides the obvious. "...No."
"Alright." The woman brought her hand to her head, absent-mindedly wiping her forehead. "I hate to say this directly, but you deserve to know: I don't think you're a good fit for my market."
"What?"
The abyssal felt like she'd been struck. She hadn't thought she'd set high expectations, but with how well things had been going, she was feeling some hope that she'd realize when things were going wrong, and at least have a chance to perform damage control, but her conversation had gone wrong so quickly.
"First: you don't seem fit for a service job. You didn't talk to a lot of people growing up, did you?"
The Abyssal fought down her resurgent pride, shaking her head.
"Yeah. If you need a quick job, I hear a lot of warehouses need hands around here. They don't need social experience, and you can develop some while you work."
"Okay." The Wo replied, remembering the last two warehouses she'd checked. She really needed to figure out this online stuff.
"Second: Practice doing interviews with a friend. There's a few programs in place in Seattle, they should help walk you through the process."
She nodded, remembering the State Trooper's advice. Where were these stupid libraries, anyways? Everyone talked about them but she hadn't seen one so far.
"Third: Lay back a little on the makeup. You're trying to accentuate your features, not paint new ones, and people can notice if you're obvious."
That caught her by surprise. Had her paint-and-chip detail messed up again? That was the second time! From now on, they focused on her hull. No more, no less!
Hey!
"Oh." Trinitite responded, hesitantly pointing towards her face. "Anywhere I can re-do this?"
"Not yet." Ineng replied, before standing. "Elizabeth, I'm also a refugee. I know what you must be feeling right now. Getting let down is hard, but I'm chewing you out to help you, alright? Get some practice, talk to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and things will get better, okay?"
"Oh, okay." The Abyssal numbly replied. Office of Refugee Resettlement? She'd have to look into that once she reached a library, as well, although telling the United States where she was didn't seem particularly wise.
"Alright." Ineng stuck her hand out. This time Trinitite knew to grab it, but to her surprise the woman instead pulled the carrier to her feet. "Restroom's over there, alright? If you need any help, let me know."
"Aye aye." Trinitite responded, moving towards the hatch indicated. She wasn't entirely sure what a 'restroom' was, beyond this one bearing a label indicated it belonged to employees.
Still, that ranked very low on her problems. This interview might not have been a success, but it certainly gave her a lot to worry about.
Wait, this was just a head! Did humans have special words for everything?
- - -
Whooh, this took a little bit of time, for two reasons: One, college stuff, and two, dialogue is always difficult for me. I hope the conversation near the end came off as naturally awkward, rather than just stilted writing, as it was done in a lot of short bursts.
Next one's gonna be another military interlude, while after that we're going to see some actual success on Trinitite's part. "And then she failed" is only interesting for so long, after all.
Next one's gonna be another military interlude, while after that we're going to see some actual success on Trinitite's part. "And then she failed" is only interesting for so long, after all.
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- Location
- Castle Drakenhof
Damn, poor Trinitite. She's the very definition of a stranger in a strange land. It's only by luck, and presumably the grace of whatever god watches over Abyssals, that she hasn't managed to fuck up sp terribly she's found out. Luckily, that strange human society our Wo has been commenting on has advanced to the point where socially awkward messes are only unusual, not utterly unheard of.
- Location
- at my computer
Oof. This chapter was a bit of a punch in the gut. I grew up in Manila and I'm Filipino, and the image of my home city being destroyed sent a bit of a chill down my spine. At least the nation, the culture isn't dead yet. I liked it overall!
I love her name. It's very Filipino! Ineng tends to be used as either a nickname, as 'lass' or sometimes as a proper first name out there in the province. City-dwellers' names tend to be more Western in bent, as do many provincials. But the further you gravitate from Metro Manila, the more often you'll find someone carrying a native name. Palad is also a very native name. She sounds to be either an older lady, or from a family that is very close to her roots.
A minor nitpick, but this is a common Americanism:
Filipino is the language, but also the adjective you use to describe something from the Philippines. But I guess it's alright if the sign isn't written by a Filipino, or a second or third generation Fil-Am.
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Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
A good chapter! Could use some proofing tho.
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
Thank the deep for the weirdness censor, amirite?
Good to hear! I've been approaching cultures I don't know very well kinda like the military in my story so far: I'm not going to become an expert, and shoehorning stuff into the story is going to hurt the overall narrative, but they deserve respect in how I portray them, especially considering the shit south pacific nations go through in the setting.
Glad you enjoyed the "not yet lost" angle I was going for there, as well.
Fixed! I remember being on the fence of which spelling to use, so a native's input is very helpful there.
Thank you very much! Looks like my old capitalization habit crept up on me again... maybe I should hold my chapters for a little longer before publishing them.
Interlude: Revelation
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
/File: Battle.jpeg
Anonymous (ID: a8g4eB68) 09/14/22(Wed)13:24:26
Hey all,
I'm not used to the chans, but I've heard you guys love a good mystery, and sense the Media and the national parks service are being silent I think I should post this anonymously.
I work at Kalaloch Lodge, a hotel just North of Queets along the cost. We run a few cabins on the beach, where people have lodging conveniently close to several bridges and the rest of Olympic National Park. Of course, we lost a lot of business after Pearl Fell, but as we haven't seen a West Coast repeat of La Palma business has been steadily picking back up.
Anyways, this Monday, something really weird happened. In the afternoon, I heard a commotion, even though I was inside. Sounded like several thumps, as well as some kind of shrieking noise. Here's the video I took after rushing out: (https: //youtu. be/ EhqCC1tjSA6).
I think there's some kind of battle here, but I'm not sure. Any ideas, /k/?
- - -
Nashville leaned back, rereading the… webpage? Post? The cruiser wasn't entirely sure what to call the thing on Murray's laptop, but it couldn't be good. There was a lot more text after this, but judging by the formatting it had been written by other people. The Cruiser turned her attention away from the screen, focusing on the stoic spook standing behind her.
"Who wrote this?"
At the question, the Lieutenant solemnly shook his head.
"We don't know."
What? That didn't seem right.
"How don't you? This is a serious leak!" Everything was on the internet, right? What was the point of the Fleet Cyber Command if they couldn't track down some random civilian's webpage? "Can't we, like…" Her mind raced, grasping for an unfamiliar term "...triangulate where the page came from?"
"Computers don't work like that, Nash."
"Demand a list of everyone at the lodge, then!" Someone had seen their failure in the Battle off Kalaloch! This was a serious leak! A rogue abyssal was enough of a problem, but there was no way they could handle the information about her already bouncing around the internet.
"Not our job." The officer replied, reaching into his laptop bag and producing a file folder. "Hook that thing into the projector, will you?" He didn't wait for Nashville's response, instead dropping the folder onto the table. Its contents poured across its surface, a deluge of images, freeze frames, and written reports.
"We need to make something out of all this. If we can tell CINC-North where our Wo came from and what she wants, it's going to make finding her much easier."
"You'll be able to keep your commission, too." Nashville added, busy fumbling with a cable. How were these supposed to go together? There was only one cable sticking out of the conference table, so this must have been what Murray wanted to plug into his laptop, but where? "This cable hooks into the projector, right?"
No response.
The Cruiser looked up to find the Lieutenant still, his gaze focused on files in front of him.
"Shit, I said that out loud, didn't I?"
"Nashville," The analyst sighed, looking looking up from his documents. "That doesn't really matter. Not when there are so many lives at stake."
The cruiser pursed her lips, searching the man's face. He was technically correct, but the Cruiser had spent far too much time around sailors to know it wouldn't affect him. The shame for failing the Battle off Kalaloch still burned in her gut, and she couldn't imagine the human wouldn't be second-guessing himself as well. Still, if he didn't want to talk about it…
"Sorry," Nashville relented, returning her attention to the laptop. "That was out of line."
"Let's just focus on this, alright?" Murray replied, also returning to his duties.
By the time they spoke again, Nashville had figured out the projector, their laptop surrounded by an array of reports and images.
"So…" Nashville started, staring at the projection. "Is there a reason you asked me to project a random webpage?"
"The post doesn't have anything new, but I haven't seen the linked youtube video yet." He stood, bumping Nashville's shoulder as he clicked on the blue text. To the cruiser's surprise, the view suddenly changed, and she was suddenly watching a film of the gun battle. One of these days, she was going to have to sit down and figure out this tech stuff. "There could be useful information here."
On the wall of the conference room, a dark blotch sat on the horizon, the column of smoke trailing behind it barely visible against the overcast sky. Catching abyssals, or shipgirls like her, for that matter, on film was always a little tricky. According to a presentation she'd been forced to listen to during her recommissioning, a shipgirl in enough water to fit her hull existed in a dual state, simultaneously possessing the mass and profile of a humanoid and a steel hull. Shine a laser on her, illuminate her with RADAR, or point a camera at her, and you wouldn't know if you'd get the returns from a ship, a woman, or something completely incomprehensible.
Such a state felt natural to Nashville when she was on the water, but watching the dark blotch in the film flicker in and out like a dying lightbulb was bound to give her a headache.
"We're trying to figure out where she's from, right?" Nashville started, the echo of distant guns repeating in the room's speakers.
"Yeah." Murray replied, ignoring the video as someone near the camera started speaking. "I was hoping for a hull number or flag, but this camera isn't nearly as good."
"They have those?" Nashville replied, feeling a little better about being seen. No wonder the poster didn't know what she'd witnessed. This made the the spotty drone feed she'd used during the battle look like professional photography. Speaking of which…
"You know, didn't the drone feed show a big hole in her deck?"
"I think so." Murray paused, pausing the video and searching the table. "I think there's a good screenshot here, somewhere." In moments, he'd grabbed a frozen frame from the Drone footage, placing the image in front of the pair.
Even if the drone's feed had properly captured the enemy carrier, it wouldn't have been a good shot. Smoke curled away from her funnel, obscuring nearly half her hull. What was visible, however, wasn't particularly useful. The Abyssal's silhouette was further muddled, as a good portion of the ship's bow seemed to fade away. The ship also seemed to be surrounded by faint duplicates, partially-formed sensor ghosts Nashville didn't think anyone had explained yet.
"It's not terrible…" The spook mused, tracing the abyssal's hull with his pen. "We've got her flight deck here, with several AA positions visible below." The enemy ship was outlined now, a broad rectangle that trailed off in the smoke. "The island is here, while just to port…" His pen settled on the center of the carrier's hull. "This is what you noticed, right?"
"Yeah." Nashville nodded. "Looks like half her deck caved in." It was impossible to judge the extent of the damage because of the ship's smoke, but it what they could see of the Wo's dark deck was clearly warped, several broken and jutting planks visible even in the distorted image.
"That is some serious damage." Murray replied. "I'm not sure how it could happen, though. You're the ship, Nash. Can a deck just collapse like that?"
"Not on it's own." Nashville replied. "It has to be pretty reinforced if you want it to survive the stress of landing aircraft. Either we're looking at the first Abyssal invalid, or a patch job for a lot of damage gave out."
The cruiser let herself smile for the first time in days. At last, some good news. "She's going to need serious yard time before she's threatening any cities."
Murray nodded, but continued staring at the printout. Or, more accurately, through it. Something was going on behind that distant stare, and once again Nashville wasn't privy to it.
For once, that didn't bother her. What was he seeing? The Cruiser's attention drifted back to the image. Abyssals were strange by their nature, but if this image had him thinking so hard there must have been something particularly strange. The damage didn't seem like it was quite as bad as it had been on the Franklin, but that wasn't saying much.
"She's supposed to have another elevator here, right?" She guessed, pointing port to the Abyssal's amidships. Was this what had him so distracted?
"One of our Essexes would, but whoever's building the Alpha-Sierras likes to play around with their design." He traced his finger along the port side of the carrier's flight deck. "See how the deck's still standing along here? The Wo's hull where the elevator should be is solid enough that she probably didn't, err, come with one."
"Why handicap yourself like that? That's going to seriously hurt her launch and recovery cycle, right?"
Murray dismissed the question with a shrug, before turning to his laptop. In a moment, he'd minimised the video they'd been ignoring, instead diving into the laptop's more obscure settings.
"I'm connecting to NMCI." The spook added, guessing the cruiser's still-forming question. "ONI maintains a database of known abyssals, using intelligence gathered from submarines. There aren't many Wo-Class carriers with a long-hulled Essex's form, is missing her port elevator, who also participated in a recent fleet action."
As the Spook opened… some kind of program? An ensign had walked Nashville through this process when she'd first returned, but she'd immediately forgotten all of it. "That drone footage might have given us all the information we needed."
It almost seemed like the analyst was excited.
"That can't be reliable." The cruiser replied, remembering the wartime intelligence reports on the Yamato. 16-inches? My aft.
"For anything smaller than a Ne? Yeah." The Lieutenant admitted, "But the number of Wo's we've seen in the Pacific is only int the double digits. Of those, there can't be more than twenty of them with an Essex's hull, and sense she's a flagship, she's had plenty of time for one of our subs to find her."
It wasn't pretty, as far as webpages went, but its basic colors and simplistic style seemed to work well enough for Murray. The room fell into silence as the spook poured over entries, filtering a list of hundreds of hostile ships down to two or three.
"There." The spook finished, clicking on one of the three.
Wo-E6: "Caisson"
Nashville studied the projection, intending to check some of the older photos with the printout they'd been studying, but instead her gaze focused on the Abyssal's status.
"That can't be right." The cruiser exclaimed. "She's dead!"
"We thought she was" the Spook corrected, hovering his cursor over a date. "Sunk by an evolved sea sparrow during the battle of Bikini."
"That would explain her deck…" Nashville admitted. "...but didn't the Japs clear Bikini with surface ships?" She'd remembered her first battle after her return pretty well, after all. "You'd think it would be hard to miss an Aircraft Carrier."
The cruiser shouldn't have been surprised, though. How many times had they sworn Big E was on the bottom of the ocean?
"The ship, yes, but we know she'd be hard to spot if she crawled ashore."
Nashville grimaced. Yeah, that was understandable.
"Point taken." She didn't need a reminder she'd fucked up as well, but it seemed to be increasingly common. "So. She survives the battle. What's with the infiltration stuff? That's very different from…" Nashville scanned Wo-E6's service history. "...convoy escort."
"'Looking for someone,' huh?"
"What?" Nashville questioned, but Murray remained quiet. The abyssal had said that, hadn't she?
"Well." Lieutenant Murray replied, standing suddenly. "I think we figured out her motive."
"We did?" Nashville questioned. Sometimes she forgot why the Lieutenant annoyed her, but then he'd make her feel stupid again and it all made sense.
"Yeah." He nodded, "The abyssal was damaged, witnessed the Jellyfish princess turn back into Saratoga, and-"
"WHAT?"
Nashville felt like she'd been hit. The light cruiser remembered their battle with the Jellyfish princess well. The haunting transmissions they'd heard on their approach were nearly impossible to forget, especially as that creature's brand of nuclear nihilism was much better at getting under the cruiser's armor than Midway's impotent threats. To think that thing was the same as the sweet converted battlecruiser… Nashville had to have misheard him.
"She saw the Jellyfish Princess became Saratoga."
Oh, damn it!
The cruiser cradled her head in a hand, her mind racing as she leaned against the table.
"So we beat her up and she's suddenly on our side? Just like that?"
"Not… exactly, but I can give you the details later." Murray shrugged. "Isn't this an open secret among you shipgirls? We keep it quiet from the public, but there's no point in hiding it from you."
"If my sisters knew, they didn't tell me. I alway thought princesses were like- demons wearing ship's skins, or shadow clones, or-"
She stopped herself, a terrible thought dawning on her. Abyssals constantly talked about traumatic parts of their old lives. Two of the Brooklyns hadn't come back yet. Why wouldn't any of her sisters tell her about this?
"Brad."
"Hmm?" The intelligence officer's face hardened at the mention of his first name.
"Who owns the Falklands?"
Lieutenant Murray looked away from the Cruiser, sighing and sitting down. If Humans still held the island, it didn't disprove anything, but the alternative…
"Contact with the british garrison was lost a few days into the war." Murray started, pausing for a second to collect his thoughts. "It's been an Abyssal stronghold ever sense."
So that was it. The dream of getting all the Brooklyns together, of everyone in her class finally meeting for the first time, seemed to crumble like bread cast into a stormy sea.
"Now, there's no guarantee one of your sisters took the Falklands." Murray rationalized. "The Admiral Graf Spee hasn't returned yet, and there's plenty of Argentenian…" The officer's comforting words fell apart at Nashville's glare. There was no way he believed that.
Phoenix...
When the HMS Conqueror sunk her sister, she was heartbroken, of course, but the news had come with a bittersweet lining. At times, war between Argentina and her own nation, Chile, seemed inevitable. She was gone, yes, but Nashville no longer had to worry about facing her sister in battle.
Now? That possibility had returned like an unexpected torpedo, and it felt even worse. In the 80s, Nashville and her sister worked for different totalitarian regimes, and if a war started it would have been for traditional politics. Not pleasant, but the kind of thing Nashville was built for.
Now? She might have to put her sister down like a rabid dog. Not because of some political issue, but because she'd simply gone mad.
"I think we've earned a break." Murray stood again, making his way towards the door. "How do you like your coffee?"
The cruiser forced herself to focus on the question. They had a job to do, anyways? She could worry about her sister later. Still…
"With whiskey."
The Lieutenant nodded grimly. "I'll see what I can do."
Anonymous (ID: a8g4eB68) 09/14/22(Wed)13:24:26
Hey all,
I'm not used to the chans, but I've heard you guys love a good mystery, and sense the Media and the national parks service are being silent I think I should post this anonymously.
I work at Kalaloch Lodge, a hotel just North of Queets along the cost. We run a few cabins on the beach, where people have lodging conveniently close to several bridges and the rest of Olympic National Park. Of course, we lost a lot of business after Pearl Fell, but as we haven't seen a West Coast repeat of La Palma business has been steadily picking back up.
Anyways, this Monday, something really weird happened. In the afternoon, I heard a commotion, even though I was inside. Sounded like several thumps, as well as some kind of shrieking noise. Here's the video I took after rushing out: (https: //youtu. be/ EhqCC1tjSA6).
I think there's some kind of battle here, but I'm not sure. Any ideas, /k/?
- - -
Nashville leaned back, rereading the… webpage? Post? The cruiser wasn't entirely sure what to call the thing on Murray's laptop, but it couldn't be good. There was a lot more text after this, but judging by the formatting it had been written by other people. The Cruiser turned her attention away from the screen, focusing on the stoic spook standing behind her.
"Who wrote this?"
At the question, the Lieutenant solemnly shook his head.
"We don't know."
What? That didn't seem right.
"How don't you? This is a serious leak!" Everything was on the internet, right? What was the point of the Fleet Cyber Command if they couldn't track down some random civilian's webpage? "Can't we, like…" Her mind raced, grasping for an unfamiliar term "...triangulate where the page came from?"
"Computers don't work like that, Nash."
"Demand a list of everyone at the lodge, then!" Someone had seen their failure in the Battle off Kalaloch! This was a serious leak! A rogue abyssal was enough of a problem, but there was no way they could handle the information about her already bouncing around the internet.
"Not our job." The officer replied, reaching into his laptop bag and producing a file folder. "Hook that thing into the projector, will you?" He didn't wait for Nashville's response, instead dropping the folder onto the table. Its contents poured across its surface, a deluge of images, freeze frames, and written reports.
"We need to make something out of all this. If we can tell CINC-North where our Wo came from and what she wants, it's going to make finding her much easier."
"You'll be able to keep your commission, too." Nashville added, busy fumbling with a cable. How were these supposed to go together? There was only one cable sticking out of the conference table, so this must have been what Murray wanted to plug into his laptop, but where? "This cable hooks into the projector, right?"
No response.
The Cruiser looked up to find the Lieutenant still, his gaze focused on files in front of him.
"Shit, I said that out loud, didn't I?"
"Nashville," The analyst sighed, looking looking up from his documents. "That doesn't really matter. Not when there are so many lives at stake."
The cruiser pursed her lips, searching the man's face. He was technically correct, but the Cruiser had spent far too much time around sailors to know it wouldn't affect him. The shame for failing the Battle off Kalaloch still burned in her gut, and she couldn't imagine the human wouldn't be second-guessing himself as well. Still, if he didn't want to talk about it…
"Sorry," Nashville relented, returning her attention to the laptop. "That was out of line."
"Let's just focus on this, alright?" Murray replied, also returning to his duties.
By the time they spoke again, Nashville had figured out the projector, their laptop surrounded by an array of reports and images.
"So…" Nashville started, staring at the projection. "Is there a reason you asked me to project a random webpage?"
"The post doesn't have anything new, but I haven't seen the linked youtube video yet." He stood, bumping Nashville's shoulder as he clicked on the blue text. To the cruiser's surprise, the view suddenly changed, and she was suddenly watching a film of the gun battle. One of these days, she was going to have to sit down and figure out this tech stuff. "There could be useful information here."
On the wall of the conference room, a dark blotch sat on the horizon, the column of smoke trailing behind it barely visible against the overcast sky. Catching abyssals, or shipgirls like her, for that matter, on film was always a little tricky. According to a presentation she'd been forced to listen to during her recommissioning, a shipgirl in enough water to fit her hull existed in a dual state, simultaneously possessing the mass and profile of a humanoid and a steel hull. Shine a laser on her, illuminate her with RADAR, or point a camera at her, and you wouldn't know if you'd get the returns from a ship, a woman, or something completely incomprehensible.
Such a state felt natural to Nashville when she was on the water, but watching the dark blotch in the film flicker in and out like a dying lightbulb was bound to give her a headache.
"We're trying to figure out where she's from, right?" Nashville started, the echo of distant guns repeating in the room's speakers.
"Yeah." Murray replied, ignoring the video as someone near the camera started speaking. "I was hoping for a hull number or flag, but this camera isn't nearly as good."
"They have those?" Nashville replied, feeling a little better about being seen. No wonder the poster didn't know what she'd witnessed. This made the the spotty drone feed she'd used during the battle look like professional photography. Speaking of which…
"You know, didn't the drone feed show a big hole in her deck?"
"I think so." Murray paused, pausing the video and searching the table. "I think there's a good screenshot here, somewhere." In moments, he'd grabbed a frozen frame from the Drone footage, placing the image in front of the pair.
Even if the drone's feed had properly captured the enemy carrier, it wouldn't have been a good shot. Smoke curled away from her funnel, obscuring nearly half her hull. What was visible, however, wasn't particularly useful. The Abyssal's silhouette was further muddled, as a good portion of the ship's bow seemed to fade away. The ship also seemed to be surrounded by faint duplicates, partially-formed sensor ghosts Nashville didn't think anyone had explained yet.
"It's not terrible…" The spook mused, tracing the abyssal's hull with his pen. "We've got her flight deck here, with several AA positions visible below." The enemy ship was outlined now, a broad rectangle that trailed off in the smoke. "The island is here, while just to port…" His pen settled on the center of the carrier's hull. "This is what you noticed, right?"
"Yeah." Nashville nodded. "Looks like half her deck caved in." It was impossible to judge the extent of the damage because of the ship's smoke, but it what they could see of the Wo's dark deck was clearly warped, several broken and jutting planks visible even in the distorted image.
"That is some serious damage." Murray replied. "I'm not sure how it could happen, though. You're the ship, Nash. Can a deck just collapse like that?"
"Not on it's own." Nashville replied. "It has to be pretty reinforced if you want it to survive the stress of landing aircraft. Either we're looking at the first Abyssal invalid, or a patch job for a lot of damage gave out."
The cruiser let herself smile for the first time in days. At last, some good news. "She's going to need serious yard time before she's threatening any cities."
Murray nodded, but continued staring at the printout. Or, more accurately, through it. Something was going on behind that distant stare, and once again Nashville wasn't privy to it.
For once, that didn't bother her. What was he seeing? The Cruiser's attention drifted back to the image. Abyssals were strange by their nature, but if this image had him thinking so hard there must have been something particularly strange. The damage didn't seem like it was quite as bad as it had been on the Franklin, but that wasn't saying much.
"She's supposed to have another elevator here, right?" She guessed, pointing port to the Abyssal's amidships. Was this what had him so distracted?
"One of our Essexes would, but whoever's building the Alpha-Sierras likes to play around with their design." He traced his finger along the port side of the carrier's flight deck. "See how the deck's still standing along here? The Wo's hull where the elevator should be is solid enough that she probably didn't, err, come with one."
"Why handicap yourself like that? That's going to seriously hurt her launch and recovery cycle, right?"
Murray dismissed the question with a shrug, before turning to his laptop. In a moment, he'd minimised the video they'd been ignoring, instead diving into the laptop's more obscure settings.
"I'm connecting to NMCI." The spook added, guessing the cruiser's still-forming question. "ONI maintains a database of known abyssals, using intelligence gathered from submarines. There aren't many Wo-Class carriers with a long-hulled Essex's form, is missing her port elevator, who also participated in a recent fleet action."
As the Spook opened… some kind of program? An ensign had walked Nashville through this process when she'd first returned, but she'd immediately forgotten all of it. "That drone footage might have given us all the information we needed."
It almost seemed like the analyst was excited.
"That can't be reliable." The cruiser replied, remembering the wartime intelligence reports on the Yamato. 16-inches? My aft.
"For anything smaller than a Ne? Yeah." The Lieutenant admitted, "But the number of Wo's we've seen in the Pacific is only int the double digits. Of those, there can't be more than twenty of them with an Essex's hull, and sense she's a flagship, she's had plenty of time for one of our subs to find her."
It wasn't pretty, as far as webpages went, but its basic colors and simplistic style seemed to work well enough for Murray. The room fell into silence as the spook poured over entries, filtering a list of hundreds of hostile ships down to two or three.
"There." The spook finished, clicking on one of the three.
Wo-E6: "Caisson"
Nashville studied the projection, intending to check some of the older photos with the printout they'd been studying, but instead her gaze focused on the Abyssal's status.
"That can't be right." The cruiser exclaimed. "She's dead!"
"We thought she was" the Spook corrected, hovering his cursor over a date. "Sunk by an evolved sea sparrow during the battle of Bikini."
"That would explain her deck…" Nashville admitted. "...but didn't the Japs clear Bikini with surface ships?" She'd remembered her first battle after her return pretty well, after all. "You'd think it would be hard to miss an Aircraft Carrier."
The cruiser shouldn't have been surprised, though. How many times had they sworn Big E was on the bottom of the ocean?
"The ship, yes, but we know she'd be hard to spot if she crawled ashore."
Nashville grimaced. Yeah, that was understandable.
"Point taken." She didn't need a reminder she'd fucked up as well, but it seemed to be increasingly common. "So. She survives the battle. What's with the infiltration stuff? That's very different from…" Nashville scanned Wo-E6's service history. "...convoy escort."
"'Looking for someone,' huh?"
"What?" Nashville questioned, but Murray remained quiet. The abyssal had said that, hadn't she?
"Well." Lieutenant Murray replied, standing suddenly. "I think we figured out her motive."
"We did?" Nashville questioned. Sometimes she forgot why the Lieutenant annoyed her, but then he'd make her feel stupid again and it all made sense.
"Yeah." He nodded, "The abyssal was damaged, witnessed the Jellyfish princess turn back into Saratoga, and-"
"WHAT?"
Nashville felt like she'd been hit. The light cruiser remembered their battle with the Jellyfish princess well. The haunting transmissions they'd heard on their approach were nearly impossible to forget, especially as that creature's brand of nuclear nihilism was much better at getting under the cruiser's armor than Midway's impotent threats. To think that thing was the same as the sweet converted battlecruiser… Nashville had to have misheard him.
"She saw the Jellyfish Princess became Saratoga."
Oh, damn it!
The cruiser cradled her head in a hand, her mind racing as she leaned against the table.
"So we beat her up and she's suddenly on our side? Just like that?"
"Not… exactly, but I can give you the details later." Murray shrugged. "Isn't this an open secret among you shipgirls? We keep it quiet from the public, but there's no point in hiding it from you."
"If my sisters knew, they didn't tell me. I alway thought princesses were like- demons wearing ship's skins, or shadow clones, or-"
She stopped herself, a terrible thought dawning on her. Abyssals constantly talked about traumatic parts of their old lives. Two of the Brooklyns hadn't come back yet. Why wouldn't any of her sisters tell her about this?
"Brad."
"Hmm?" The intelligence officer's face hardened at the mention of his first name.
"Who owns the Falklands?"
Lieutenant Murray looked away from the Cruiser, sighing and sitting down. If Humans still held the island, it didn't disprove anything, but the alternative…
"Contact with the british garrison was lost a few days into the war." Murray started, pausing for a second to collect his thoughts. "It's been an Abyssal stronghold ever sense."
So that was it. The dream of getting all the Brooklyns together, of everyone in her class finally meeting for the first time, seemed to crumble like bread cast into a stormy sea.
"Now, there's no guarantee one of your sisters took the Falklands." Murray rationalized. "The Admiral Graf Spee hasn't returned yet, and there's plenty of Argentenian…" The officer's comforting words fell apart at Nashville's glare. There was no way he believed that.
Phoenix...
When the HMS Conqueror sunk her sister, she was heartbroken, of course, but the news had come with a bittersweet lining. At times, war between Argentina and her own nation, Chile, seemed inevitable. She was gone, yes, but Nashville no longer had to worry about facing her sister in battle.
Now? That possibility had returned like an unexpected torpedo, and it felt even worse. In the 80s, Nashville and her sister worked for different totalitarian regimes, and if a war started it would have been for traditional politics. Not pleasant, but the kind of thing Nashville was built for.
Now? She might have to put her sister down like a rabid dog. Not because of some political issue, but because she'd simply gone mad.
"I think we've earned a break." Murray stood again, making his way towards the door. "How do you like your coffee?"
The cruiser forced herself to focus on the question. They had a job to do, anyways? She could worry about her sister later. Still…
"With whiskey."
The Lieutenant nodded grimly. "I'll see what I can do."
So, this chapter's a little more technical than normal, especially as I tried to describe some stuff I've talked about in threads but never mentioned in-story. I hope there was enough good moments you found it entertaining.
Note, CINC-North should be named CINC-USNORTHCOM, but I'm unsure if anyone actually calls him that and it didn't seem natural to say.
Reading over my description of the picture of Trinitite, I'm not sure if I'm channeling Clancy or Lovecraft while writing. That doesn't feel like a good combo, and I hope the result was fun enough to read.
I also can't remember what Lieutenant Murray's first name is. I'm sure I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't find it. Therefore, his first name's Brad now. If I actually did mention it earlier (I looked, couldn't find anything), let me know so I can fix the inconsistency.
Note, CINC-North should be named CINC-USNORTHCOM, but I'm unsure if anyone actually calls him that and it didn't seem natural to say.
Reading over my description of the picture of Trinitite, I'm not sure if I'm channeling Clancy or Lovecraft while writing. That doesn't feel like a good combo, and I hope the result was fun enough to read.
I also can't remember what Lieutenant Murray's first name is. I'm sure I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't find it. Therefore, his first name's Brad now. If I actually did mention it earlier (I looked, couldn't find anything), let me know so I can fix the inconsistency.
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- Location
- Chile
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Never expected my country's nane to come up in a fic or somewhere around the english speaking interwebs
I think the description of trinitite wad good. It wasn't creepy, mostly just like something wrong but that has been partially ecplained, thus it has lost part of the fear of the unknown.
Despite reading that her name is Trinitite, I still just keep calling her Trinity on my head. That name just stuck.
I think the description of trinitite wad good. It wasn't creepy, mostly just like something wrong but that has been partially ecplained, thus it has lost part of the fear of the unknown.
Despite reading that her name is Trinitite, I still just keep calling her Trinity on my head. That name just stuck.
- Location
- Australia
Well, now they know her motivation. Now to convince others and maybe get Saratoga on board.
Poor Nashville though, got kicked in the guts.
Also, she has no elevators? Or only one?
Poor Nashville though, got kicked in the guts.
Also, she has no elevators? Or only one?
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Channeling a combination of Clancy and Lovecraft is a pretty good method for describing Abyssals; they are basically what happens when you take Lovecraftian deep sea horrors and arm them with excessive amounts of modern military hardware.
- Location
- Warszawa Polska
So the Navy and the Ship-Girls know what our protag is after?
So the eventual confrontation between the MC and the military will not start with: "Carpet bomb the area! MOAR DAKKA!!!! WAAGH!!!!"
I think it is for the best.
So the eventual confrontation between the MC and the military will not start with: "Carpet bomb the area! MOAR DAKKA!!!! WAAGH!!!!"
I think it is for the best.
- Location
- Kansas
Actually that brings up a question of how much do the converted shipgirls remember of their time as Abyss? If she remembers some, I wonder what sort of memories she has of her loyal Wo-chan that is out looking for her?
esseresse
R'lyth Power Make-up
- Location
- divorceville, state of depression
- Pronouns
- They/Her
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
Nothing wrong with a Nickname, right?
I don't want to brag about name-dropping other countries, but the horn of south america is pretty strategically important, especially with the Abyssals's largest stronghold being Antartica. I'll probably be talking about Chile and Argentina again in the future.
NotAKobold
Retired "High-Elven" Revolutionary
- Location
- Florida, the giant aligator.
Not really?
Unless I'm missing something, they know what she's doing, but not why.
For all they know, this could be an assassination attempt.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
She's going to get drunk and wake up buried in a Destroyer and Submarine cuddle-pile.
'Ahm ay battulsheep!' *hic* 'Fiahen mah gunses! Boom!' *Slowly falls over*
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19: Slump
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
Rain sounded different here. It hadn't picked up yet, content to remain at a steady drizzle, but the familiar patter she'd gotten used to over her two years of life was different. Uncanny. She'd first noticed it after landfall, but hadn't had an opportunity to dwell on it. Compared to the new sights and sounds, the immediate danger the military posed, and the sea of radio transmissions she'd discovered, the noise of slightly different rain didn't bear contemplating. Now, with nothing else to divert her attention other than her food and passing humans, it was becoming impossible not to.
Trinitite knew why, of course. Raindrops against concrete, leaves, and grass produced a much different sound than against sand and sea. The real issue, however, came from what was conspicuously absent: No rain fell against her deck, rolling off her rigging and running in rivulets down her tentacles. By its absence, rainfall changed from a comforting familiarity to something else she'd have to get used to. It hadn't bothered her until now, but after the failure at Luzon Blues she couldn't ignore it.
A job just wasn't going to happen, was it?
Sure, she learned a lot from her encounter with Ineng, such as a summary of the full job process: job applications, resumes, interviews, and many more technical things that flew over her deck completely. It felt pointlessly complicated, but maybe one of those library programs she kept hearing about would explain it better.
Makeup, too. It took five tries in the Luzon Blue's Head and several hours, but by the time she left the market, her disguise had Ineng's approval.
"Well, you don't look like a mannequin anymore…"
Given she'd started using makeup a few hours before, Trinitite took the human's comment as glowing praise. She still didn't know what half the stuff she grabbed from the Fred Meyers Fleet's stockpile actually was, but given a mirror she could at least make herself look human.
Not that it didn't come with drawbacks, however. With how fragile it was, Trinitite would have to avoid water if she wanted to maintain her disguise, an irony that wasn't lost on the abyssal. Her current hat, thick and sporting a wide brim, kept the rain from ruining her disguise, but Trinitite would have to be careful to defend against splashes. This also meant camouflaging her hands was out of the picture. Any job she found would need a reason to wear gloves, and often.
To summarize her situation, not only did Trinitite need to find a job, but she would also have to ensure it wouldn't require taking her gloves off or work around a lot of running water. All of this so she could secure her supplies and begin a real search along a tiny fraction of the US coast.
The abyssal sighed, turning her attention back to her meal. She wasn't exactly sure what 'beef sausage' was, and what it had to do with summer, but it's convenient size (about that of one of her 40mm shells) and savory taste was growing on her. It was a little dry, but the 'frappuccino' recovered from her refrigerator offset that. The dark, sweet drink came as a surprise to the Wo, and she still wasn't sure what she thought about it.
The meal wasn't bad, but still different. Trinitite was sick of different. She always thought of herself as the calmest of the fleet's Wo sisters, but she felt her limit approaching. If she didn't get a job soon, she'd-
Tear one of those human vehicles apart? Raid another warehouse? Walk into the woods and scuttle herself? Trinitite wasn't sure.
Her meal half-finished, the Abyssal stood. Perhaps dwelling on this wasn't healthy. Trinitite could handle the stress caused by weeks of constant air raids, stalking submarines, and unexpected rocket bombardments. She knew she could stay calm under pressure, and as tiring as things seemed it hadn't gotten as bad as her last convoy to the Solomons. She wouldn't fall apart, not unless things got much worse. Her experience, determination, and curiosity could hold her together.
The Wo-class began walking again, alternating between a bite of sausage and swig of the dark drink. She just had to find a library. That shouldn't be too difficult, right? Her current strategy, tracing a relatively straight line northeast from Redmond, didn't seem to be working, but there were other ways to look for buildings. A grid search would be tricky with just herself, but a library wasn't going to try and evade her, either.
At least, she thought it wouldn't. Given her current luck, who knew?
Maybe, like with her own library, the libraries she was searching for were simply sections of the larger buildings. In that case, it was no wonder she hadn't found any yet. The Abyssal wasn't going to be forcing her way into any more random buildings, though. Not without much more experience. She was lucky with the Fred Meyers, but randomly entering more buildings in search for a library was risky, to put it lightly. She needed to gather more information, which might take a while.
Trinitite stopped again, taking the time to examine the buildings around her. Luzon Blues, and the shops around it, were half a mile behind her, several similar clusters of buildings lining the road between her and the market. Several also had their own help wanted signs posted, but Trinitite wasn't particularly interested: At this point, she didn't expect to learn much another failure.
The only unique building she'd passed was the one she'd had her meal in front of: A simple establishment labeled "US Postal Service." Sure, eating in front of a US-aligned building was a risk, but this fleet wasn't particularly threatening. She wasn't sure how they expected to safely deliver their supplies without armed escort, but it seemed to be working for them so far. Maybe the Navy, Army and Firebringers were good enough at keeping enemies out of the country they didn't feel the need.
It had become impossible to determine where she was, exactly. Would this city end in two more miles, or ten? The map she carried wasn't particularly helpful. According to the road map, the Abyssal was standing in an uninhabited wood, which was obviously not the case.
"Outdated charts…" The carrier muttered, suppressing a curse. Out of every problem that would follow Trinitite from the Abyssal Fleets, of course it would be this one.
Trees obscured any signs of human civilization beyond the nearby buildings. The only exception would be a steel tower that stood out from canopy, yellow paint highlighting it against the clouds. Trinitite had been watching it during her meal, her thoughts wandering as she watched it twist to and fro. It wasn't along her planned course northwest, but a detour wouldn't hurt anything.
The abyssal looked ahead, mentally mapping out the town around her. No guarantee, but these streets were probably arranged in the same manner she'd seen throughout the rest of human territory. This might not be a library, but some reconnaissance couldn't hurt, right?
- - -
To the Aircraft Carrier's surprise, the tower that had attracted her was familiar. Trinitite herself didn't have any external cranes, but plenty in the Crossroads fleet had them. This one wasn't designed for floatplanes, but its mechanics seemed almost identical. The crane, mounted on a vehicle, sat in a lot cluttered with other vehicles, supplies and people. The field, devoid of vegetation and protected by a bright fence, was dominated by four partially-formed structures. Each in its own stage of development.
Let's see, from here she could make out the steel rods that reinforce the structure, meaning those foundations, and perhaps the walls they were planning on adding, had to be concrete of some kind. Trinitite knew a few things about construction, although almost all of it was second-hand. Bikini Atoll had already been covered in usable structures when they had first arrived, but it wasn't a functional naval base. While she was out on expedition, the rest of the fleet was working to make sure Trinitite returned with somewhere to store her newly-found supplies. The results of their labor didn't compare well to the buildings the humans had left from before.
Come to think of it, why was their island empty to begin with? Plenty of other Abyssals she'd talked to mentioned fighting over their current homes, and almost every human settlement she'd seen displayed battle damage of one kind or another.
Did it have something to do with the Fire? But if it had scoured the Bikini Atoll completely, why did they bother setting up new buildings anyways? There were over a dozen structures on Bikini, something the Crossroads Fleet had done their best to maintain. That couldn't have been built quickly.
Another question for the library, she supposed.
More delicate facilities, such as the fuel tanks and magazines, needed outside help. There weren't many installations her Princess was willing to do the needed favors for, making the base Trinitite had razed one of the hardest-earned in the Pacific.
Was destroying all of that a little extreme?
Eh, probably not. It hurt a little, knowing her home wasn't gone until she'd personally burned it down, but without her Princess? Without the rest of her fleet? It was just another rock in the pacific. Once she'd found out exactly what her mother had become, she could think about where a new home would be.
The Wo took a step back, leaning against another building as she watched the humans work. A man guided the mobile crane, waving its operator through lifting a steel grate as wide as her deck. Clustered around the event, several other humans watched and worked, their bright helmets and vests dotting the rain-darkened landscape. Someone crouched next to an array of metal poles, thin and tightly packed together, the half-formed skeleton of a tower joining several others in the structure.
Dozens of other tasks were being performed in front of her, the humans darting to and fro like a disturbed school of fish. For half an hour, the Carrier watched, observing the workers as they continued her duties.
Come to think of it… some of this stuff didn't seem too hard. She could tighten a nut or dig a hole, and given time she was sure she could operate that crane. Compared to fighter direction, air traffic control, and anti-submarine doctrine, none of this could be too complicated, right?
First: you don't seem fit for a service job. You didn't talk to a lot of people growing up, did you?
Ineng's words returned, unbidden. To be honest, Trinitite still wasn't exactly sure what any job entailed, let alone what qualified it as a service job, but this seemed about as far as she could get from the human's market. She didn't have to act particularly human, memorizing the invisible protocols that dominated human trade and communication. Wear a big hat and quietly follow someone's orders? Trinitite had a lot of experience in that.
You know what? The library, wherever it was, could wait. Trinitite was going to try for a job one more time, except now?
If you're reacting, you're losing.
A common phrase among the abyssal fleets, and one she heard a lot from ships who didn't have experience in submarine warfare. It didn't apply everywhere, but here?
She was going to have to be a little more proactive.
Trinitite knew why, of course. Raindrops against concrete, leaves, and grass produced a much different sound than against sand and sea. The real issue, however, came from what was conspicuously absent: No rain fell against her deck, rolling off her rigging and running in rivulets down her tentacles. By its absence, rainfall changed from a comforting familiarity to something else she'd have to get used to. It hadn't bothered her until now, but after the failure at Luzon Blues she couldn't ignore it.
A job just wasn't going to happen, was it?
Sure, she learned a lot from her encounter with Ineng, such as a summary of the full job process: job applications, resumes, interviews, and many more technical things that flew over her deck completely. It felt pointlessly complicated, but maybe one of those library programs she kept hearing about would explain it better.
Makeup, too. It took five tries in the Luzon Blue's Head and several hours, but by the time she left the market, her disguise had Ineng's approval.
"Well, you don't look like a mannequin anymore…"
Given she'd started using makeup a few hours before, Trinitite took the human's comment as glowing praise. She still didn't know what half the stuff she grabbed from the Fred Meyers Fleet's stockpile actually was, but given a mirror she could at least make herself look human.
Not that it didn't come with drawbacks, however. With how fragile it was, Trinitite would have to avoid water if she wanted to maintain her disguise, an irony that wasn't lost on the abyssal. Her current hat, thick and sporting a wide brim, kept the rain from ruining her disguise, but Trinitite would have to be careful to defend against splashes. This also meant camouflaging her hands was out of the picture. Any job she found would need a reason to wear gloves, and often.
To summarize her situation, not only did Trinitite need to find a job, but she would also have to ensure it wouldn't require taking her gloves off or work around a lot of running water. All of this so she could secure her supplies and begin a real search along a tiny fraction of the US coast.
The abyssal sighed, turning her attention back to her meal. She wasn't exactly sure what 'beef sausage' was, and what it had to do with summer, but it's convenient size (about that of one of her 40mm shells) and savory taste was growing on her. It was a little dry, but the 'frappuccino' recovered from her refrigerator offset that. The dark, sweet drink came as a surprise to the Wo, and she still wasn't sure what she thought about it.
The meal wasn't bad, but still different. Trinitite was sick of different. She always thought of herself as the calmest of the fleet's Wo sisters, but she felt her limit approaching. If she didn't get a job soon, she'd-
Tear one of those human vehicles apart? Raid another warehouse? Walk into the woods and scuttle herself? Trinitite wasn't sure.
Her meal half-finished, the Abyssal stood. Perhaps dwelling on this wasn't healthy. Trinitite could handle the stress caused by weeks of constant air raids, stalking submarines, and unexpected rocket bombardments. She knew she could stay calm under pressure, and as tiring as things seemed it hadn't gotten as bad as her last convoy to the Solomons. She wouldn't fall apart, not unless things got much worse. Her experience, determination, and curiosity could hold her together.
The Wo-class began walking again, alternating between a bite of sausage and swig of the dark drink. She just had to find a library. That shouldn't be too difficult, right? Her current strategy, tracing a relatively straight line northeast from Redmond, didn't seem to be working, but there were other ways to look for buildings. A grid search would be tricky with just herself, but a library wasn't going to try and evade her, either.
At least, she thought it wouldn't. Given her current luck, who knew?
Maybe, like with her own library, the libraries she was searching for were simply sections of the larger buildings. In that case, it was no wonder she hadn't found any yet. The Abyssal wasn't going to be forcing her way into any more random buildings, though. Not without much more experience. She was lucky with the Fred Meyers, but randomly entering more buildings in search for a library was risky, to put it lightly. She needed to gather more information, which might take a while.
Trinitite stopped again, taking the time to examine the buildings around her. Luzon Blues, and the shops around it, were half a mile behind her, several similar clusters of buildings lining the road between her and the market. Several also had their own help wanted signs posted, but Trinitite wasn't particularly interested: At this point, she didn't expect to learn much another failure.
The only unique building she'd passed was the one she'd had her meal in front of: A simple establishment labeled "US Postal Service." Sure, eating in front of a US-aligned building was a risk, but this fleet wasn't particularly threatening. She wasn't sure how they expected to safely deliver their supplies without armed escort, but it seemed to be working for them so far. Maybe the Navy, Army and Firebringers were good enough at keeping enemies out of the country they didn't feel the need.
It had become impossible to determine where she was, exactly. Would this city end in two more miles, or ten? The map she carried wasn't particularly helpful. According to the road map, the Abyssal was standing in an uninhabited wood, which was obviously not the case.
"Outdated charts…" The carrier muttered, suppressing a curse. Out of every problem that would follow Trinitite from the Abyssal Fleets, of course it would be this one.
Trees obscured any signs of human civilization beyond the nearby buildings. The only exception would be a steel tower that stood out from canopy, yellow paint highlighting it against the clouds. Trinitite had been watching it during her meal, her thoughts wandering as she watched it twist to and fro. It wasn't along her planned course northwest, but a detour wouldn't hurt anything.
The abyssal looked ahead, mentally mapping out the town around her. No guarantee, but these streets were probably arranged in the same manner she'd seen throughout the rest of human territory. This might not be a library, but some reconnaissance couldn't hurt, right?
- - -
To the Aircraft Carrier's surprise, the tower that had attracted her was familiar. Trinitite herself didn't have any external cranes, but plenty in the Crossroads fleet had them. This one wasn't designed for floatplanes, but its mechanics seemed almost identical. The crane, mounted on a vehicle, sat in a lot cluttered with other vehicles, supplies and people. The field, devoid of vegetation and protected by a bright fence, was dominated by four partially-formed structures. Each in its own stage of development.
Let's see, from here she could make out the steel rods that reinforce the structure, meaning those foundations, and perhaps the walls they were planning on adding, had to be concrete of some kind. Trinitite knew a few things about construction, although almost all of it was second-hand. Bikini Atoll had already been covered in usable structures when they had first arrived, but it wasn't a functional naval base. While she was out on expedition, the rest of the fleet was working to make sure Trinitite returned with somewhere to store her newly-found supplies. The results of their labor didn't compare well to the buildings the humans had left from before.
Come to think of it, why was their island empty to begin with? Plenty of other Abyssals she'd talked to mentioned fighting over their current homes, and almost every human settlement she'd seen displayed battle damage of one kind or another.
Did it have something to do with the Fire? But if it had scoured the Bikini Atoll completely, why did they bother setting up new buildings anyways? There were over a dozen structures on Bikini, something the Crossroads Fleet had done their best to maintain. That couldn't have been built quickly.
Another question for the library, she supposed.
More delicate facilities, such as the fuel tanks and magazines, needed outside help. There weren't many installations her Princess was willing to do the needed favors for, making the base Trinitite had razed one of the hardest-earned in the Pacific.
Was destroying all of that a little extreme?
Eh, probably not. It hurt a little, knowing her home wasn't gone until she'd personally burned it down, but without her Princess? Without the rest of her fleet? It was just another rock in the pacific. Once she'd found out exactly what her mother had become, she could think about where a new home would be.
The Wo took a step back, leaning against another building as she watched the humans work. A man guided the mobile crane, waving its operator through lifting a steel grate as wide as her deck. Clustered around the event, several other humans watched and worked, their bright helmets and vests dotting the rain-darkened landscape. Someone crouched next to an array of metal poles, thin and tightly packed together, the half-formed skeleton of a tower joining several others in the structure.
Dozens of other tasks were being performed in front of her, the humans darting to and fro like a disturbed school of fish. For half an hour, the Carrier watched, observing the workers as they continued her duties.
Come to think of it… some of this stuff didn't seem too hard. She could tighten a nut or dig a hole, and given time she was sure she could operate that crane. Compared to fighter direction, air traffic control, and anti-submarine doctrine, none of this could be too complicated, right?
First: you don't seem fit for a service job. You didn't talk to a lot of people growing up, did you?
Ineng's words returned, unbidden. To be honest, Trinitite still wasn't exactly sure what any job entailed, let alone what qualified it as a service job, but this seemed about as far as she could get from the human's market. She didn't have to act particularly human, memorizing the invisible protocols that dominated human trade and communication. Wear a big hat and quietly follow someone's orders? Trinitite had a lot of experience in that.
You know what? The library, wherever it was, could wait. Trinitite was going to try for a job one more time, except now?
If you're reacting, you're losing.
A common phrase among the abyssal fleets, and one she heard a lot from ships who didn't have experience in submarine warfare. It didn't apply everywhere, but here?
She was going to have to be a little more proactive.
Here's another chapter! If it feels a little small, that's because this is the first part of a block over 4k words I initially wrote for this update. My current policy is, if I do write something over 4k for an update, I'll edit the first part, release it, and go on to release the second one once editing's done. I'll also have to do some fact checking as well as editing, so no guarantee the next chapter will come out tonight.
Also, for some reason the formatting came out differently than normal when I copy-pasted it over from my Gdoc. If the formatting seems borked in any way, I blame that.
Also, for some reason the formatting came out differently than normal when I copy-pasted it over from my Gdoc. If the formatting seems borked in any way, I blame that.
Bad_kobold
Seeker of the Orb of Zot
- Location
- Seattle
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Where exactly is Trinitite in Redmond?
Also, I really liked the chapter.
- Location
- Christchurch, NZ
So how long until she's lifted an I-beam one-handed with "where do you want it?", and what reasons will they come up with for why a ship-girl is taking construction work?
Find out next time,same time, same thread!
Find out next time,
20: Visitor
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
Dan Pratt was a practical man. When he got his first management job, the Manager invested the majority of his new salary into a college fund for his future kids. When his family outgrew his Boston apartment, Dan moved into an older suburb west of the city, where house prices were lower and they wouldn't have to spend as much on maintenance.
When a Tsunami warning interrupted his sleep at three in the morning, he quietly guided his kids into the house's attic. When explosions silhouetted the Boston skyline and brought attention to an occasional line of tracers, Dan ventured back downstairs and killed the house's power. After day had come, the abyssals had withdrawn, and the tidal wave had lost its steam, he packed whatever he could and put his relatively undamaged house up for sale. Boston needed rebuilding so business was booming, but if the abyssals came back…
The media, of course, tried to keep him from leaving. On the TV, geologists said another landslide Tsunami, like the one which had lead the Abyssal assault along the east coast, couldn't happen again. Pundits said the fragile web of alliances that held the Abyssals in the Atlantic had shattered, and another attack on that scale wouldn't happen any time soon. The Military swore that abyssals wouldn't be able to hit the east coast again, rambling about the activation of this air wing or the redeployment of that carrier.
He ignored all of them. Let the young rebuild Boston: Dan had a family to take care of.
The Tykes were just entering kindergarten. In Washington, where there was plenty of work and a lot more land, metal and water between him and those white-skinned bitches. Maybe Colorado would have been safer, but they weren't having a refugee crisis. There were a lot more jobs for those who built on the coasts, like this one.
Situated outside Redmond's city limits, the Union Hill Affordable Housing Project found itself in the center of new urban sprawl. When the buildings would be complete, someone standing atop the fifteen-story buildings would see themselves in patchwork of freshly-built buildings the ran east until the Snoqualmie River, contrasting sharply with the checkerboard of wealthy subdivisions to the immediate west. On the other side of the river, an array of hospital-white FEMA tents marked the buildings' future residents.
That is, if this ever got finished. With the persuasion of the State of Washington and several Governments-in-exile, the County had been forced into greenlighting the project. The Council was still bitter about it, and they were constantly trying to push him over-budget with unending code inspections and attempts to revise the blueprints. He was close to giving the inspectors a little extra to ensure they didn't waste so much of his time, but a part of him suspected that's exactly what the bureaucratic pricks wanted.
That wasn't the worst of his problems, either. Their clients wanted simple, fast housing, and a lot of it. The tent city on the other side of the river was developing into a traditional slum, but the natives who knew fire season around here said it would be a tinderbox. That somewhere with this much rain had a fire season was a surprise to him, but given how well evergreens burned, he guessed he could see it. That meant his clients had dictated a fairly strict deadline, rendering his budget a little optimistic, but making things work was why he made over 80k.
In order to meet this deadline, he had to hire more workers than he'd initially expected, specifically cheap ones. Of course, that came with its own set of problems.
LOST TIME INCIDENT REPORT
14 Sep 2022
McCally Construction Group
Thankfully, it hadn't been serious. Someone had lost control of their mallet while removing post-tension framework, accidentally hitting a coworker with the tool. The victim's arm was only bruised, but this was the latest in a string of small accidents he'd been dealing with ever since he started this job. Maybe it was all this damn rain, or perhaps he was pushing his crews too hard, but he honestly believed it was growing pains. A lot of refugees from the south pacific knew their way around a construction site, but they weren't the ones walking into his office for a Construction Labor job, and those that did needed to reteach themselves around the imperial system!
Wasn't that a headache and a half!
Beyond that, the war had given several of his employees a pre-existing injury. Many were illiterate. Half his labor force didn't speak English.
Still, when someone stumbles into his Site Office, poor, broke, and desperate, after narrowly escaping the same eldritch horrors that had hit his hometown, he was at least going to give them a chance.
A buzz interrupted the Manager's thoughts, and Dan's attention was abruptly drawn from his laptop. Speaking of which…
He checked his schedule to confirm his suspicions, before rising and approaching the door. He felt fairly certain it was another perspective employee, looking for work in exchange for some cash and a roof over their head, but he hadn't seen anyone from OSHA in a while.
The door opened, and Dan started his canned greeting before what he was seeing actually registered in his brain.
"Can I help you, uh… Miss?"
The first thing that greeted him was a bright cowboy hat. On someone else, he probably would have ignored it, but on the slender woman in front of him it looked comically out of place despite her height. Under that, an unruly white mop of hair framed a young face which Dan might have found pretty if he was younger. She was soaked, the constant rain permeating her clothes and her hat's brim still dripping with water. Her sky-blue shirt and soft orange scarf clung to her, contrasting with the girl's dry hair and face to give Daniel the impression of a cat who'd just suffered through a bath.
Sure, the weather was bad, but it hadn't been raining this hard. Either his guest had detoured for a dip in the Snoqualmie River, or she'd been outside for hours.
"Hello!" The soaked girl abruptly smiled, a trickle of water pouring from her hat's brim as she spoke. "Are you in command here?"
Dan blinked.
That wasn't what he was expecting anyone to ask, but it did clear some things up. Judging by her age, this was some college student from a nearby, probably a military brat who hadn't done a minute of honest work in her life.
In short, a naive idiot.
"I… am, yes." The Manager replied, and took a step away from the door. "Why don't you come in?"
She didn't show it, but she had to be miserable, soaked to the core like that. Even if the kid didn't mind, somehow, the threat of hypothermia wasn't to be taken lightly.
"Ah, thank you!" The girl replied, her boots squelching as she followed Dan inside.
"Pretty wet out there." Dan added as he closed the door, noting as his guest barely paused on the doormat. He needed to find some towels before all that water that was dripping of the newcomer created a tripping hazard.
"Yeah." She replied. "Is it always like this?"
"Not always," Dan answered, turning the office's space heater up a little. "But I'm told we can expect this for the rest of the year. Guess that's why they call this place a rainforest. Coffee?"
"Huh?" The girl was standing in the middle of the room, suddenly unsure of herself. "Okay?"
Dan sighed, surprised he'd ever have to ask this question.
"Ever had coffee before?" With most people, he'd consider that question a patronizing insult, but with this girl? He was getting the same impression he got from his own kids, just older.
If his own kids acted like this at this age, he'd be terrified.
"No."
Some times, he hated being right.
"You probably won't like it at first, but this stuff grows on you." Grabbing a styrofoam cup, he filled it using the office's constantly-heated carafe and handed it to the girl. "Besides, you look like you need warming up."
"I'm fine." She replied, accepting the coffee with her left hand and taking a cautious sip.
"You sure?" Unless she was hiding a personal heater under her shirt, there was no way she was enjoying that. "Let me dry your scarf, at least."
The kid finally relented, unwrapping her scarf to handing it over. He rung the cloth out over the office's sink, he threw the garment in front of the office's space heater. A bit of a fire hazard, but as long as he kept his eye on the situation shouldn't be a problem.
"Now." Dan added, having gained that small victory. "How can I help you?"
"Oh!" She almost jumped, as if she'd forgotten something vitally important. "I'm Elizabeth Groves." Jerkly, she rose a gloved hand, holding it out in front of her.
A moment passed. After placing the scarf in front of his space heater, Dan was over four feet from his visitor. Still, if she was going for a handshake…
"Dan Pratt." He replied, covering the distance between the two to take the girl's hand. "I'm the Manager here."
For the first time since meeting her, Dan was impressed. Her gloves, dark and smooth looking, felt remarkably coarse in the Manager's hand, gripping his skin like ultrafine sandpaper. Must be pretty expensive material, but he could see the utility. The handshake itself was just as timid as person giving it. The fancy glove had dried of already, but her lackluster handshake still gave Dan the impression of a dead fish.
"Alright, Dan." She started, unaware she'd completely failed the handshake. "I'd like a job."
What?
"Excuse me?"
Elizabeth paused, a confused expression visible from under her cowboy hat.
"I… would like a job."
She didn't have to repeat herself. Dan understood perfectly well what she was saying, but why? He could count the number of female construction laborers he'd worked with his fingers. Even then, they were usually built differently. The potential employee might make a good swimmer or gymnast, but her arms looked like they'd snap if she lifted too much.
"Are you sure?" He finally replied. "You look more suited for another job, like serving tables or-"
"No!"
Dan jumped, surprised at the girl's sudden energy. Where did that come from?
"I can't! I've been trying to get a job like that, but they say I'm not good enough with people!" Well, Dan guessed he could see that. She was pleading now, her eyes… what kind of color were they supposed to be, anyways?
"Just give me a chance, sir! I can work!"
"Hey, I never said I wouldn't let you try!" Dan needed to cut this girl off before she started pouring her heart out to him. The war had devalued sob stories, and he didn't need to hear another one.
He paused, looking over the girl's attire again. Her jeans seemed useful enough tougher than most he'd seen, but while her hiking boots were more utilitanian than he'd expect from the girl, they wouldn't cut it on a job site. "Do you have steel-toed boots?"
"Uh- yeah." She nodded.
"Good." He didn't think he had a spare in her size. "You start tomorrow. See me in this office at 6:30. If I'm not here, tell whomever you see you're here for the new employee orientation. They should be able to start briefing you on how we do things. After that, we'll give you your gear and start putting you to work."
Her face suddenly lit up, like he'd just bought her ice cream. God, she really acted like his kids.
"Ever done this kind of stuff before?"
"No, not really." Her smile fell as she shook he head, but only for a moment. "But I've watched a lot of construction!"
Let's see her keep that energy after an hour of bending rebar.
"That probably won't help," He replied. "But if you follow your senior's orders you should do fine. If it's too much, you can leave at any time and I'll pay you for the work you've done so far, but at six PM, I can guarantee you one hundred and fifty dollars, cash. That sound good?"
She nodded. "It does."
"Alright." He replied, turning towards his laptop. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Thank you!" Thankfully, she understood the informal dismissal. The woman tapped her cowboy hat in a loose salute, before turning and leaving for the door.
"Uh, your scarf-"
"Right!" She pivoted on one foot, snapping the scarf from the portable space heater and turning to leave again.
"You know, a waterproof coat would help a lot on the jobsite, too." He added as the woman curled the scarf around her shoulders. You'd think that someone who thought they needed a scarf would carry a windbreaker, at least.
"Aye Aye!" She called, shutting the door behind her as she left.
Dan fell into his chair, turning his attention back to the incident report. Weird girl.
Then again, not just any woman would ask for this kind of job, especially in a city with so many new businesses. He'd work her, like he did every other new employee, and if she came back the next day?
Well, there was plenty of uses for someone as light as she was.
When a Tsunami warning interrupted his sleep at three in the morning, he quietly guided his kids into the house's attic. When explosions silhouetted the Boston skyline and brought attention to an occasional line of tracers, Dan ventured back downstairs and killed the house's power. After day had come, the abyssals had withdrawn, and the tidal wave had lost its steam, he packed whatever he could and put his relatively undamaged house up for sale. Boston needed rebuilding so business was booming, but if the abyssals came back…
The media, of course, tried to keep him from leaving. On the TV, geologists said another landslide Tsunami, like the one which had lead the Abyssal assault along the east coast, couldn't happen again. Pundits said the fragile web of alliances that held the Abyssals in the Atlantic had shattered, and another attack on that scale wouldn't happen any time soon. The Military swore that abyssals wouldn't be able to hit the east coast again, rambling about the activation of this air wing or the redeployment of that carrier.
He ignored all of them. Let the young rebuild Boston: Dan had a family to take care of.
The Tykes were just entering kindergarten. In Washington, where there was plenty of work and a lot more land, metal and water between him and those white-skinned bitches. Maybe Colorado would have been safer, but they weren't having a refugee crisis. There were a lot more jobs for those who built on the coasts, like this one.
Situated outside Redmond's city limits, the Union Hill Affordable Housing Project found itself in the center of new urban sprawl. When the buildings would be complete, someone standing atop the fifteen-story buildings would see themselves in patchwork of freshly-built buildings the ran east until the Snoqualmie River, contrasting sharply with the checkerboard of wealthy subdivisions to the immediate west. On the other side of the river, an array of hospital-white FEMA tents marked the buildings' future residents.
That is, if this ever got finished. With the persuasion of the State of Washington and several Governments-in-exile, the County had been forced into greenlighting the project. The Council was still bitter about it, and they were constantly trying to push him over-budget with unending code inspections and attempts to revise the blueprints. He was close to giving the inspectors a little extra to ensure they didn't waste so much of his time, but a part of him suspected that's exactly what the bureaucratic pricks wanted.
That wasn't the worst of his problems, either. Their clients wanted simple, fast housing, and a lot of it. The tent city on the other side of the river was developing into a traditional slum, but the natives who knew fire season around here said it would be a tinderbox. That somewhere with this much rain had a fire season was a surprise to him, but given how well evergreens burned, he guessed he could see it. That meant his clients had dictated a fairly strict deadline, rendering his budget a little optimistic, but making things work was why he made over 80k.
In order to meet this deadline, he had to hire more workers than he'd initially expected, specifically cheap ones. Of course, that came with its own set of problems.
LOST TIME INCIDENT REPORT
14 Sep 2022
McCally Construction Group
Thankfully, it hadn't been serious. Someone had lost control of their mallet while removing post-tension framework, accidentally hitting a coworker with the tool. The victim's arm was only bruised, but this was the latest in a string of small accidents he'd been dealing with ever since he started this job. Maybe it was all this damn rain, or perhaps he was pushing his crews too hard, but he honestly believed it was growing pains. A lot of refugees from the south pacific knew their way around a construction site, but they weren't the ones walking into his office for a Construction Labor job, and those that did needed to reteach themselves around the imperial system!
Wasn't that a headache and a half!
Beyond that, the war had given several of his employees a pre-existing injury. Many were illiterate. Half his labor force didn't speak English.
Still, when someone stumbles into his Site Office, poor, broke, and desperate, after narrowly escaping the same eldritch horrors that had hit his hometown, he was at least going to give them a chance.
A buzz interrupted the Manager's thoughts, and Dan's attention was abruptly drawn from his laptop. Speaking of which…
He checked his schedule to confirm his suspicions, before rising and approaching the door. He felt fairly certain it was another perspective employee, looking for work in exchange for some cash and a roof over their head, but he hadn't seen anyone from OSHA in a while.
The door opened, and Dan started his canned greeting before what he was seeing actually registered in his brain.
"Can I help you, uh… Miss?"
The first thing that greeted him was a bright cowboy hat. On someone else, he probably would have ignored it, but on the slender woman in front of him it looked comically out of place despite her height. Under that, an unruly white mop of hair framed a young face which Dan might have found pretty if he was younger. She was soaked, the constant rain permeating her clothes and her hat's brim still dripping with water. Her sky-blue shirt and soft orange scarf clung to her, contrasting with the girl's dry hair and face to give Daniel the impression of a cat who'd just suffered through a bath.
Sure, the weather was bad, but it hadn't been raining this hard. Either his guest had detoured for a dip in the Snoqualmie River, or she'd been outside for hours.
"Hello!" The soaked girl abruptly smiled, a trickle of water pouring from her hat's brim as she spoke. "Are you in command here?"
Dan blinked.
That wasn't what he was expecting anyone to ask, but it did clear some things up. Judging by her age, this was some college student from a nearby, probably a military brat who hadn't done a minute of honest work in her life.
In short, a naive idiot.
"I… am, yes." The Manager replied, and took a step away from the door. "Why don't you come in?"
She didn't show it, but she had to be miserable, soaked to the core like that. Even if the kid didn't mind, somehow, the threat of hypothermia wasn't to be taken lightly.
"Ah, thank you!" The girl replied, her boots squelching as she followed Dan inside.
"Pretty wet out there." Dan added as he closed the door, noting as his guest barely paused on the doormat. He needed to find some towels before all that water that was dripping of the newcomer created a tripping hazard.
"Yeah." She replied. "Is it always like this?"
"Not always," Dan answered, turning the office's space heater up a little. "But I'm told we can expect this for the rest of the year. Guess that's why they call this place a rainforest. Coffee?"
"Huh?" The girl was standing in the middle of the room, suddenly unsure of herself. "Okay?"
Dan sighed, surprised he'd ever have to ask this question.
"Ever had coffee before?" With most people, he'd consider that question a patronizing insult, but with this girl? He was getting the same impression he got from his own kids, just older.
If his own kids acted like this at this age, he'd be terrified.
"No."
Some times, he hated being right.
"You probably won't like it at first, but this stuff grows on you." Grabbing a styrofoam cup, he filled it using the office's constantly-heated carafe and handed it to the girl. "Besides, you look like you need warming up."
"I'm fine." She replied, accepting the coffee with her left hand and taking a cautious sip.
"You sure?" Unless she was hiding a personal heater under her shirt, there was no way she was enjoying that. "Let me dry your scarf, at least."
The kid finally relented, unwrapping her scarf to handing it over. He rung the cloth out over the office's sink, he threw the garment in front of the office's space heater. A bit of a fire hazard, but as long as he kept his eye on the situation shouldn't be a problem.
"Now." Dan added, having gained that small victory. "How can I help you?"
"Oh!" She almost jumped, as if she'd forgotten something vitally important. "I'm Elizabeth Groves." Jerkly, she rose a gloved hand, holding it out in front of her.
A moment passed. After placing the scarf in front of his space heater, Dan was over four feet from his visitor. Still, if she was going for a handshake…
"Dan Pratt." He replied, covering the distance between the two to take the girl's hand. "I'm the Manager here."
For the first time since meeting her, Dan was impressed. Her gloves, dark and smooth looking, felt remarkably coarse in the Manager's hand, gripping his skin like ultrafine sandpaper. Must be pretty expensive material, but he could see the utility. The handshake itself was just as timid as person giving it. The fancy glove had dried of already, but her lackluster handshake still gave Dan the impression of a dead fish.
"Alright, Dan." She started, unaware she'd completely failed the handshake. "I'd like a job."
What?
"Excuse me?"
Elizabeth paused, a confused expression visible from under her cowboy hat.
"I… would like a job."
She didn't have to repeat herself. Dan understood perfectly well what she was saying, but why? He could count the number of female construction laborers he'd worked with his fingers. Even then, they were usually built differently. The potential employee might make a good swimmer or gymnast, but her arms looked like they'd snap if she lifted too much.
"Are you sure?" He finally replied. "You look more suited for another job, like serving tables or-"
"No!"
Dan jumped, surprised at the girl's sudden energy. Where did that come from?
"I can't! I've been trying to get a job like that, but they say I'm not good enough with people!" Well, Dan guessed he could see that. She was pleading now, her eyes… what kind of color were they supposed to be, anyways?
"Just give me a chance, sir! I can work!"
"Hey, I never said I wouldn't let you try!" Dan needed to cut this girl off before she started pouring her heart out to him. The war had devalued sob stories, and he didn't need to hear another one.
He paused, looking over the girl's attire again. Her jeans seemed useful enough tougher than most he'd seen, but while her hiking boots were more utilitanian than he'd expect from the girl, they wouldn't cut it on a job site. "Do you have steel-toed boots?"
"Uh- yeah." She nodded.
"Good." He didn't think he had a spare in her size. "You start tomorrow. See me in this office at 6:30. If I'm not here, tell whomever you see you're here for the new employee orientation. They should be able to start briefing you on how we do things. After that, we'll give you your gear and start putting you to work."
Her face suddenly lit up, like he'd just bought her ice cream. God, she really acted like his kids.
"Ever done this kind of stuff before?"
"No, not really." Her smile fell as she shook he head, but only for a moment. "But I've watched a lot of construction!"
Let's see her keep that energy after an hour of bending rebar.
"That probably won't help," He replied. "But if you follow your senior's orders you should do fine. If it's too much, you can leave at any time and I'll pay you for the work you've done so far, but at six PM, I can guarantee you one hundred and fifty dollars, cash. That sound good?"
She nodded. "It does."
"Alright." He replied, turning towards his laptop. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Thank you!" Thankfully, she understood the informal dismissal. The woman tapped her cowboy hat in a loose salute, before turning and leaving for the door.
"Uh, your scarf-"
"Right!" She pivoted on one foot, snapping the scarf from the portable space heater and turning to leave again.
"You know, a waterproof coat would help a lot on the jobsite, too." He added as the woman curled the scarf around her shoulders. You'd think that someone who thought they needed a scarf would carry a windbreaker, at least.
"Aye Aye!" She called, shutting the door behind her as she left.
Dan fell into his chair, turning his attention back to the incident report. Weird girl.
Then again, not just any woman would ask for this kind of job, especially in a city with so many new businesses. He'd work her, like he did every other new employee, and if she came back the next day?
Well, there was plenty of uses for someone as light as she was.
itshappening.gif
...And the rest of the chapter is up, and faster than I expected! I haven't worked in construction (at least, not on a construction site), so thank you to MarekGutkowski for advice on this and the direction of the upcoming arc, but he didn't have a preview of this chapter so don't blame him for any mistakes I make.
Speaking of mistakes, feel free to correct me on any inaccuracies in depicting this. I try my best with research on the topic, but I've already gotten my research wrong once at the Battle of Kalaloch, so I have no problem going back and fixing serious mistakes.
That being said, the next chapter in the pipeline is going to be another interlude, this time much farther south than normal.
...And the rest of the chapter is up, and faster than I expected! I haven't worked in construction (at least, not on a construction site), so thank you to MarekGutkowski for advice on this and the direction of the upcoming arc, but he didn't have a preview of this chapter so don't blame him for any mistakes I make.
Speaking of mistakes, feel free to correct me on any inaccuracies in depicting this. I try my best with research on the topic, but I've already gotten my research wrong once at the Battle of Kalaloch, so I have no problem going back and fixing serious mistakes.
That being said, the next chapter in the pipeline is going to be another interlude, this time much farther south than normal.
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