I'm standing up, in the middle of the sea, in a storm, but I'm rock steady. I have gun turrets on my wrists and elbows. Who the heck thinks sextuple turrets are a good idea? What is with that weird hat and 10-tined pitchfork?
And I can't remember my name for the life of me. I glance down. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't a girl, and I am sure I was never a stripper or a porn star. Well, I am now. The most heavily armed poledancer in the world, give me your moneys or else.
Phil's anchovy peaches. Okay, why can't I remember myself, but I do remember my brother Phil and his sweet but savory, and absolutely nightmare-inducing anchovy peaches?
Simple, dumbass, you ate some. Again.
I start skating across the water towards a lighter section of sky. Without the storm, I should be able to see farther. Then I do see farther. Two kids, torn clothes, skating like maniacs, being chased by - it's the anchovy peaches and I'm sticking with that story - another stripper who looks like she was mugged and `upgraded` by Ork Mechboys. Yes I remember Warhammer 40K, and how ugly the setting is, but, anchovy peaches.
Trailing the two girls and the Ork stripper are a bunch of smaller teen-agers that look like rejects from a Giger fashion show. And the stripper and her girls are shooting at the fleeing girls.
Screw it, this dream makes no sense, so jump into the middle of it. If I'm a boat, ring up flank speed, sound General Quarters, run out the guns, and have the marines stand by for boarding. I swear I hear alarms going off inside me, but I'm skating a lot faster.
When Cthulhu pops up on my shoulder, about 3 centimeters tall and wearing a naval cap, I just go with it.
"Yo," he tells me confidently. Something in my brain says he can give me ramming speed for about five minutes. Somehow I understand that flank is all the engines can safely give, and ramming speed means the snipes are looking for somewhere to hide when the engines go boom.
"Thanks, not yet but verify we've got all full watertight integrity," I tell him and watch him disappear beneath my skin. Whatever.
As I close in, I see the kid with a face full of Band-Aids is pushing the other, white-haired girl with the cap who looks ready to fall over asleep. Maybe too much vodka, if her cap badge is accurate. Their outfits are all torn up, gun turrets and torpedo launchers are all in disarray and they're badly bruised. Picking them up and racing away from Stripper and the Jailbaitettes seems a simple play, until the Jailbait Quartet turn and release a wall of skill at the two youngsters.
"Okay ramming speed and brace for impact!" I tell Cthulhu and his crew, and whomever else is aboard. Within moments I'm close enough to see the two girls and see the looks on their faces. The sailing Band-Aid ad tries to wave me off and waves at the torpedoes.
"We'll let them go over us," I tell them.
That wakes up Sleepy, who guesses right and looks down at the water in horror. She looks at me in terror as I close in to scoop them both up. Okay, Finished with the Engines.
My skeleton starts making all kinds of fascinating noises until they do something that makes all their guns and torpedo launchers disappear. Someone aboard suggests the same. As my guns and hat vanish, I cover the girls' mouths and pinch their noses closed and an instant later, we're underwater. A few feet above us go three, ragged waves of tennis ball can-sized torpedoes that are running near the surface. The four launches must have gotten mixed together. I kick my legs and get ready to change back and we're headed to the surface like a cork. All ahead Full.
The girls squirm out of my grip and race off away from me and Stripper Group. Frankly, if I was the sane one in this dream I'd probably run too. The guns are ready, so I take aim at the lead Jailbait Quartet, one tube from each turret, I do know enough about ships not to risk all six at once.
Ouch, one hits her dead center and she goes up in a fire ball. I feel your pain.
Number two versus number two, and every shot misses, but I did, damn straddle sounds so dirty to do to a teenager. Third tube from each turret and three hits. She shears out of line with fires sprouting out of every hole and secondary explosions giving her the worst case of pimples I've ever seen.
Wait am I firing HE or AP? I guess at this range it kinda doesn't matter. Number three gets number four.
Oh come on! You were closer to number four than number three! Okay, go with it, correct fire at number four. Ouch, boom head shot, she just starts circling.
Wait, what, I've got torpedoes? Match bearings and shoot. Two fish in the water.
Stripper hasn't been idle, she's been trying to shoot me, but the captain's been chasing splashes, trying to be where her last shots fell since that's the least likely place for her next shots to go. Smart, ah, man?
Number three is trying to turn to unmask her other torpedo launchers. The number five tubes straddle her, that still sounds dirty, and is the prelude to what number six tubes do to her. Three hits and three large pieces begin sinking.
I hadn't noticed but these things aren't making much noise beyond their gun fire, no screams on being hit, no last curses as their friends go down, nothing. The torps hit the circler and she doesn't make a peep as she sinks from sight.
Stripper changes the silent but useless motif by screaming in rage. I think she managed a few hits while I was skeet-shooting her playmates, but I barely felt them. So she's closing. That's a bad move if we're both ships. Anybody remember the Daedelus maneuver?
A small Dalek wearing a gunny hat appears at the end of my hand, "YoRA!" Answered by a hundred similar, tinny voices.
Stripper is shocked when despite having a few guns reloaded, I punch her in the guts, hard. I think I broke my arm, but I punched through her flesh and then opened my hand.
"YoRA!" "YoRA!" "YoRA!" "YoRA!" "YoRA!" "YoRA!" "YoRA!" Transfers from my arm to her guts. The look of stunned horror on her face is classic.
"Mind the stairs," I say as I grin at her.
The Main Character is a Tillman IV with a theoretical 1930's upgrade similar to Kongo's.
Although this is a crack fic, but there will be some serious bits.
Willie D was a good girl, a little unlucky, but she didn't usually make up crazy stories. That Hibiki told the same story about a submarine battleship they didn't recognize made it clear the convoy needed more firepower. So the base had sortied a major battlegroup that would reach them in mid afternoon. The fight of yesterday had rattled the two destroyers, but they had verified that the group who threatened the convoy had been dealt with.
Iowa hated convoy duty, but if a heavy Abyssal unit showed up, they needed more than destroyers and light cruisers to deal with it and she could top up the DDs if she needed to. So while it was logical, she didn't hate it less.
"Why do you suppose it's staying out there?" Hibiki asked, trying to hide under her cap.
"Who knows, it seemed to be on your side yesterday," Iowa said.
"Maybe the Demon sank her?" Hibiki said.
"Don't think like that," Iowa urged and scanned the seas for sight of the reenforcements.
------------------------------
Indianapolis sailed beside me, her hand holding my good one. My other arm was in a sling. She would shyly glance at me, then blush and look away. Rinse and repeat. Much of my crew had transferred back. I'd supplied her with some fuel from my bunkers, and we sailed in the general direction the two destroyers had retreated to. More her wishes than mine.
During the evening and night she'd told me much of what she knew about the world, the Abyss, its war, and the Abyss' enemy, the ship-girls.
This dream had the most elaborate backstory I'd ever heard. All insanity of course, but it would make a great videogame if I could remember enough of it when I woke up. I really didn't want another dose of anchovy peaches to get back here. Let's just say the nightmare wouldn't end when I woke up.
Why did I eat them again? Oh right, I believed Phil had `fixed` the recipe.
A procession started from her shoulder across our arms. Two pairs of Dalek Marines and what looked like several dozen Agent Smiths between the pairs.
I was sensing a pattern here, and they didn't look a bit like the disturbing creatures who'd inhabited the bridge.
"Gentlemen?" I asked as Indianapolis looked on worriedly.
The Agent Smiths looked at each other. At some signal, they all took off their glasses, gave me a stern glare, but said, "Rivendell."
Indianapolis looked hopeful. These had evidently been part of her Abyssal crew who wanted to remain, choosing continued service rather than return to wherever they came from.
"Very well," I said.
"YoRA!" the Dalek Marines turned the group around and marched them back to the Indianapolis.
"Thank you," she said, "They - they loved the sea."
They loved her, I translated.
I nodded and we continued sailing along.
------------------------------
The division chiefs were there in my Flag Bridge. I'd been so happy there was a name plaque there, then I discovered the ship's name had been chiseled off and replaced with 'Wouldn't You Like to Know'. Having The Joker as a senior officer seriously sucked.
Cthulhu reported that we were taking water through the damaged bow, but the pumps could handle it. The Dalek had the other ship under guard. The Joker was crowing about the intelligence cache we'd gotten, let alone returning the still partially Abyssal Indianapolis to Intel for debriefing and analysis. I made a note to demand the interrogations be soft, not the bright-lights and threats kind.
Amazing that each had simply stood and said 'Yo' to make their entire report. The Yoes went on for a bit, were said in quick succession, but aside from the occasional YoRA from the Marine commander, it was all Yo.
Then came my captain, who looked like he wished the ship wasn't dry. He looked like an Easter Island Moa in a Naval uniform. The Witch Man of Lovecraft just looked at me and shook his head. When you've convinced Nyarlathotep that you were too insane for his tastes, you'd accomplished something.
Evidently, I was the admiral, so I handled what the ship did, the captain decided how day-to-day running was accomplished. And he was convinced his admiral was a dangerous nut. Like I said, Winning!
In an earlier one-on-one meeting, he'd confided he was convinced teaching me to ship-girl was his own personal, private Hell. I still thanked him for his good service before returning to being the girl of the ship-girl.
The appearance of a huge fleet on the horizon sent us all to General Quarters. Lines between us were cast off and Indianapolis slid in behind me. Line Ahead, or hiding from the ship-girls of the fleet.
We slowed down and I mentally got ready to run and fight.
"Unknown vessel, unknown vessel, this is USS Iowa, USS Iowa, heave to and shut down your engines," came over the radio and then was repeated.
The nearest ship-girl was close enough to read a blinker light. "USS Iowa, USS Iowa, this is unknown vessel, unknown vessel, I have an undamaged Abyssal cipher machine, their latest charts and code books, and a pyromaniac with 5 gallons of avgas and a thermite grenade on stand by. You will approach with one, I say again one and only one vessel with full authority to negotiate. Respond," I replied by light. My captain was banging his head on the framing for my rotten communication discipline, but how was I supposed to know this stuff until he told me? We were also turning away from the incoming fleet, I had no desire to get boxed in, especially after that peremptory order.
We made a turn two radians from the approach vector of the fleet. Do ships use radians? Indianapolis turned with me, keeping me between her and the ship-girls. Lights flashed among the ship-girls approaching us.
"Unknown vessel, unknown vessel, this is negotiator, negotiator, I must bring two escorts, but you met them yesterday," came over the radio.
The English was heavily accented, but I couldn't place it as Japanese, or Yorkshire. Maybe it was both. "Negotiator, Negotiator, this is unknown vessel, unknown vessel, approach with your escorts."
The two girls I'd rescued yesterday approached with a young woman who had four large turrets, well six but only four mounted naval rifles.
I reached out my hand toward her, in it was the code book. It was my biggest bargaining chip, but after my stunt yesterday, I couldn't outrun such a fleet and didn't want to. The woman took it and stuffed it up her sleeve.
"She's not an Abyssal anymore?" the sailing Band-Aid ad asked as she craned her neck trying to get a good look at Indianapolis.
"I sent my Marines over after I'd taken out the light cruisers," I told her.
I didn't need my lookouts to report Indianapolis' blush, I could feel the heat of it on the back of my neck. The two destroyers looked worshipful, thinking over a boarding action. The young woman was blushing nearly as much as Indianapolis.
"She needs repairs," the other destroyer said, and adjusted her cap, "And so do you." I'd seen the tone and posture before. A senior rank-and-file worker who sees the truth, but expects the managers to ignore her. Again.
"That's why I wanted to negotiate. Look, as far as I know, I'm an older man who's at home dreaming all this. I know you believe this is a life and death struggle," I said and shrugged, "I can't take most of this seriously. I mean really, most Japanese girls are built more like her." I pointed at the Band-Aid ad.
The negotiator started coughing. If she were human, I'd say something went down the wrong pipe.
"You're a man?" Indianapolis asked, her hands flying to where her crews had shored up the mess where I'd sent the Marines through, "And you sent your Marines . . . inside?"
The tea kettle whistle from the negotiator told me that they were not prepared for all the implications.
------------------------------
"Ma'am, I think you might want to rephrase that," I said quietly. I'm desperately trying to keep calm while General Quarters sounds through my body. If we were 'going to die' I planned on taking a lot of people with me.
The only bright spot was finally meeting my chief medical officer. He'd been too busy seeing to my wounded and Indianapolis'. Now Darth Vader, in bloody scrubs, was on the bridge trying to Force choke the negotiator who'd threatened us.
The girl with the Soviet cap moved between me and the negotiator, who backed away suddenly as if Dr. Vader's bedside manner was having an effect. "We aren't going to hurt you, but fuel, ammunition and repairs are only available at the base. Without those you'll die," the girl said, "We aren't going to shoot you, but you'll starve to death or sink."
The Band-Aid ad was nodding furiously, and frankly looked like she'd burst into tears at any moment. Okay, 'come with us or you're going to die' took on a very different meaning.
"Who are you? What do you want?" I asked the smaller girls, dismissing the negotiator as a political appointee and a feckless one, rather than a qualified officer.
"IJN Hibiki." "USS William D. Porter, Willie D." Both saluted.
"I frankly want to get out of this alive," Hibiki muttered. Willie D nodded, as I returned their salutes to the best of my ability.
"Who are you?" Willie D said.
"I don't know my name, and if you have recognition manuals, maybe you can tell me," I said, "This is USS Indianapolis, yes the one with the sharks."
"Wasn't she an - oh, you told us," Willie D said and blushed.
"How did that work?" the negotiator asked.
"Marines were originally to conduct and repel boarders, I used my Dalek Marines as a boarding force with additional help from the ship's crew," I said.
She cocked her head before Willie D asked, "How many Marines do you have?"
"A hundred and thirty-eight," I said.
"You took over a heavy cruiser with a hundred and thirty-eight Dalek Marines?" the negotiator asked.
I couldn't help myself. "I could take an Abyssal cruiser with one Dalek. Their crews are superior in only one respect."
"What's that?" Willie D asked.
"They are better at dying," I replied.
Nobody got the reference, uncultured Anglophobic peasants.
We sailed back to the main group, I let Indianapolis authorize the transfer of the remaining intelligence trove, in return for her receiving amnesty and asylum. The negotiator, IJN Kongo, had the entire trove by the time we were in their perimeter. None of the escorts were quite pointing their guns at us. But they hadn't stowed them either.
"We'll transfer you to the repair ship," the girl with the large triple turrets told us. Likely the Iowa from the earlier radio messages. "And we'll escort you home."
Every mental alarm in my head went off all at once. The captain demanded from the lookouts why the alarm. "Escort mission, and me aboard another ship? Are you crazy?" I asked, "Every fricken escort mission is a clusterfuck! Three Tie Defenders go after a single Y-wing and the PC in his poky Standard Tie has to fight six A-wings by himself, cause none of the NPC, elite hotshots can remember protecting the damn Star Destroyer is their job, and the damn Star Destroyer captain thinks evasive action is unbecoming a gentleman, so you spend the whole time shooting down bombs because you're the only one who's getting scored on the mission. If there's escorting to be done, I'm staying out here to shoot at stuff."
Iowa just stared at me.
How hard is Kongou going to kick herself for missing that reference?
How many escort missions have you had to do in games?
I hate it when I'm right. Nighttime, rain, gunfire, star shells, and only the radar-equipped escorts are effectively firing at the massive numbers of planes. I have six 3-inch aircraft irritating devices and a few machineguns. The Marines with their Springfields probably tripled my effective antiair fire power. Maybe if the cooks throw potatoes at the planes I'll hit something.
Poor Willie D is on the perimeter, trying to guard half the flank, because everyone else is lured by the weight of the attack in the other direction. I remembered what a cluster escort missions always are, so I was staying close to Willie. The fact she had more AA firepower by herself than I did had a little to do with it. My medical officer and chief engineer had carefully carved up a couple of practice shells and assured me that they'd help. When Willie got antsy about a lot of planes, I fired one of those shells in that direction. It split up some distance from the barrel like a flechette round. I think it was helping, but I have no idea.
Some of the attackers are using the Nightwitch tactics of shutting off their engines and gliding to drop their bombs. I have been dodging like a madman and trying to just see something to shoot at. Unfortunately when I do, it nearly stops my heart.
A Nightwitch attack fired off their rockets, started their engines and banked away. No, not peeled off to let the next one in line fire, they all fired all their rockets, all at once, all at Willie.
Ships I know nothing about. Planes I know a little. But rockets, I can bore you to tears with rocket trivia. HVAR rockets give a plane the firepower of a destroyer broadside for one shot. Thirty planes had shot at Willie, who was blazing away at them. Maybe it was rain running down her face, maybe it was tears but she wasn't going to dodge, because the only other thing those three hundred rockets might hit was the repair ship.
Not on my watch. A destroyer's gun couldn't penetrate my belt armor or my turret faces, even at point-blank range. I didn't give the order, I just moved.
I was between Willie and those rockets. I had my arms up so my turret faces protected my face/bridge, and I loosed one of the flechette rounds. Then it was like being beaten by a mob armed with wooden meter sticks. A couple hit a few more sensitive areas but damage control dealt with the fires.
"Hibiki!" Willie screamed. I looked where the other destroyer had been standing. A cluster of girls stood around the stricken DD, trying to hold her up out of the water. They were losing that fight.
Still on fire in a few places, I probably looked like a nightmare as I charged over behind Willie. "Make a hole!" I bellowed and hauled Hibiki out of the water. My captain was screaming about it almost as much as my skeleton, but the poor kid didn't deserve to die because her superiors were off chasing shinies.
"Keep up the perimeter," I told the other girls, "If I were them, I'd hit us with submarines next." The shock gave way to fierce looks from the others before they departed. That told me that if I were right, those subs were in trouble. Hibiki looked like someone had extinguished a couple packs of cigarettes on her clothes, face and skin.
"Kurai," Hibiki whispered. Despite my broken arm screaming at me, I cradled the little girl close.
"Willie," I barked, breaking the other destroyer out of her litany of apologies, "The blanket at my collar." My crew had tried stuffing a Navy blanket out of me, but I was out of hands.
Willie pulled the rest of the blanket out and wrapped Hibiki in it. I ignored the agony in my broken arm and held her close. I could see Cthulhus and Jokers hauling hoses, cables and tool boxes from me into Hibiki. I had no idea what they were for, but they did, and they'd be damned if they lost her while they had anything to say about it.
A float plane launched from me, as I noted that Hibiki had lost her hat somewhere along the line. I had no idea why it was so important, but I thanked my captain and crew for keeping an eye on what was important that I didn't understand.
As the storm slackened and Willie helped change out the wet blanket for a fresh one, the other girls managed to reestablish an air defense perimeter, but we seemed to have broken the back of their assault. Sure enough, the convoy would have run over the line of subs waiting for us while we were dealing with the air assault, but the other DDs were out for blood and they weren't going to let anything at their charges.
Soon after recovering my floatplane and Hibiki's cap, I briefly considered transferring Hibiki to the repair ship, but my captain reported we hadn't relit her boilers yet, and while I didn't understand it, his tone implied she might die without them working. So she was staying put until repairs were complete, or someone had a better, safer idea.
------------------------------
Aboard Hibiki one of the Agent Smiths stood up suddenly, surveying the damage to the destroyer's deck, boilers and bulkheads. While shaking with rage, he spotted one of the medical team, there was a protocol for this. He marched over to the large, black-armored medic and told him, "Mr. Anderson."
The Medic Lord of the Sick waved away the suddenly alert Daleks. He put his hands on Smith's shoulders, his rhythmic breathing an invitation to match it.
After a few moments, the Smith removed his glasses. "Rivendell," he said quietly.
The Dark Lord patted him on the shoulder and let him return to work.
------------------------------
We got Hibiki's boilers relit about 20 minutes before we sighted the naval base. Since we were that close, the repair ship signaled I could transfer her to the crew at the docks, rather than risk two transfers. That also meant we had to wait while the repair ship docked and offloaded. It seemed it took longer than just taking Indianapolis should, but what do I know about ships?
Waiting seemed to make sense to me. Although I was so tired I would have agreed to anything that sounded reasonable. Have you ever been so tired you can't even doze off, you just put one foot in front of the other. Yeah I was that far gone. I was just following Willie, and she seemed to realize she was playing sheepdog. The other girls had been sailing by to check on Hibiki, and then go off and whisper to each other, as if carrying a kid was in anyway unusual.
Let's look at the facts, if the kids are typical for their age, I was pushing 2 meters tall and I wasn't skinny. The kid weighed 45 kilos tops including her soaking wet clothes and the blanket, so what's the big deal about carrying her while I'm `skating`?
If my chief engineer and captain didn't have a problem, why should anyone else?
Unfortunately the whispers from some of the others weren't as friendly. A couple seemed downright hostile that I'd called it right, twice, and they'd gotten snookered.
Sorry ladies, the unusual and unexpected are why those decisive battles are decisive. I might not know port from left, but I know enough of the sweet science to know if a southpaw is hammering you with right jabs, you should expect a haymaker from the left, then you should expect a third surprise.
Fortunately, only one seemed eager for a confrontation. It was the typical passive-aggressive High School stuff, and could be ignored to a point. Loud whispers, pointing and laughing, all that stuff. I ignored it until we entered the sub pen and I had all lines retracted from Hibiki and could put her on the waiting gurney.
She gave me a tear-filled hug before they wheeled her away. Half the other destroyers did the same before they followed her. Someone made a nasty comment about 'lewding destroyers' and with all the destroyers, including Willie gone, it was the last straw. Tired or not, I was going to stomp all over someone.
Frankly I was far too old and nasty for this. As old as some of these ship-girls claimed to be, I had more life experience as a person who could interact with people. I'd also learned to make an example of the worse offender to make it clear to the rest.
"Iowa, do you really want to do this?" I asked, "This dick-measuring?"
The battleship blushed, ruining her glare. "What do you mean?"
"Look kid, my Intelligence Officer is The Joker. He's already provided me with a list of things to say," I told her, "If you don't understand what that means, ask one of the others. Now I suspect he's a Trekker because one through 16 are labeled for phaser settings. Stun to kill to disintegrate."
"Give me your worst," the woman said and stood as if ready to receive a physical blow.
"Okay, number 7 of 16, I've already saved more Fletchers than you have in your entire career."
The girl went nearly Abyssal white. There were gasps from some of the others.
"They get worse, you want number 10, or should I go to number 13?" I asked.
Only the sounds of waves and weather could be heard.
"No," Iowa said and left the sub pen, back straight and eyes forward. The others stared at me as they left. The laughter and jokes at my expense ended.
I pulled on a great coat, sorry, pea coat from stores and sat down, leaned into a buttress in the wall. I didn't care if there was a bed and hot meal a hundred meters away, I was going to sleep right there.
I'm aware that the best time to interrogate someone is while they are tired and disoriented. But they let me get 20 minutes of sleep before two Japanese officers are hustling me away to a room that seems more like a perp-sweating set from a Crime Drama that anything official or effective.
The first questions are the ones I've been dreading.
"What do you mean you don't know your name?" the man's tone indicates he doesn't believe me.
"I neither remember my name before I became a ship-girl, nor do I know the name of the ship I currently am."
"All ships have a placard or something that identifies them," the man says as he sits back.
I shouldn't rise to the bait, but I'm bone tired. "I've found three, they have had the name removed and painted over the spot is 'Wouldn't You Like to Know'," I tell him, "And no, I don't think it's funny either."
Fortunately, then the interrogation segues into what happened, and that I give as unvarnished a report as I can. The guy is clearly trying to drag out every nuance of what happened, even to questioning my motives. This is not fun and goes on for several hours by the ship's chronometers. I have to swap out the stenographers who are recording this for `internal` consumption. Yes I have ship's stenographers, and they took down the entire interrogation. Because it is important intelligence and the division heads are already using it to critique both my performance and theirs. I love having a crew that's on the ball. I am not looking forward to them telling me where I screwed up, but you take the bitter with the sweet.
After the verbal dissection is done, I am turned over to another officer, who takes me to a medical establishment. I'll tell you what, if anyone but a doctor did what that lady did to me, I'd deck her and jump up and down on her corpse. There are places you don't stick pieces of cold metal, unless you're into that sort of thing.
At least I got a splint out of it, and was told the baths are full. Whatever the hell that means. Oh, Japan, public baths, right. Frankly a garden hose, a decent hedge and a bottle of shampoo will take care of that. I don't need clean. I need sleep.
Food would be nice. I've smelled food twice as I've been moved from place to place. The second interrogation is as fruitless as the first. No, I don't know who I am. Yes, I did punch an Abyssal in the guts and sent over a boarding party. Yes, no, maybe my crew aren't fairies, isn't that very politically incorrect? They do their job, baring chain-of-command problems, what they do in the off-watches and with whom is their business. Rum, sodomy and the lash and all that. I make the mental note to the captain to give some extra time off to all the crew who've been doing damage control, helped save Hibiki, and have generally performed above and beyond the call of duty. I need to see about getting them some medals for it.
"Do ship-girl's crews get special awards for meritorious service?" I ask.
"I'm asking the questions here," comes the reply, "So why did you assume that there would be a line of subs waiting for the convoy?" I wait until he looks up from his notes on the paper, his irritation at my sudden silence manifest.
"So we're playing to that racial stereotype," I ask, "Okay, you don't want to be the only one follINK ohDAHS to be eFISHzent." I then proceeded to read aloud the stenographers' transcript of the last questioning, both questions and the answers.
The interrogator cannot write fast enough, and is sweating as I reel off the questions and answers.
Then, just to drive the point home, I reel off the preliminary reports from the division chiefs in regards each question. You can't say I'm not trying to be cooperative and helpful.
He's too shaken to protest when another officer sticks his head in and ask to take me on another mission.
------------------------------
Admiral Goto preferred being frustrated by his ship-girls amusing themselves. He hated when they got hurt, and the Abyss had suddenly upped their game and used new tactics. The combination of planes and submarines had taken their toll on patrols and had nearly caught the repair ship's group.
It had been a warm up for the attack on Iowa's food convoy. If he hadn't consolidated those groups and sent out the battlegroup for the new battleship, and the new battleship herself, it would have been a disaster.
"We're having to use triage on the baths. Some of the walking wounded are being sent to Richardson's command," his chief medical officer reported.
"Schedule the girls through as efficiently as possible. If they did this, they'll try it against other commands," Goto said, "Crawford's command is more important than ever. Except I thought they'd go after him."
"They seem to have ignored all other commands," Sendai reported, "Indianapolis and her cipher machine, code book and charts have given us a tremendous advantage in intercepting the thrusts against the force who arrived yesterday. It was a godsend."
"A boarding action against another ship-girl." Goto shook his head. "I don't know if that ship-girl is a genius or a complete maniac," Goto said as he looked at Naka and her group leaving the baths for another group to be wheeled in, including Ooyodo.
"We didn't lose anyone," Sendai reminded him, sensing his mood.
"We got caught flatfooted, I got caught flatfooted," he said so only his aide could hear, "Depending on impossible luck doesn't make a good strategy."
Sendai nodded.
------------------------------
"When you're lost in battle, it is understandable," Indianapolis said, the interrogator just nodded for her to continue. The woman made notes and sympathetic noises, but quietly directed the ship-girl to talking about the Abyss. Her team had been trying to crack the secret of why some girls returned as ship-girls and some returned as Abyssals. The ship-girls hadn't understood why, but Indianapolis seemed to.
"But watching my crew, alone, abandoned by the Navy, our Navy as I settled in the depths," Indianapolis buried her face in her hands. "I was supposed to be their home, their protector, and I failed! But my sisters, my admirals were supposed to be there for them if I could not. And they left them out there!" she thundered, then slumped in her chair.
It was several minutes and a sip of Navy coffee before she could continue. "I don't blame the Japanese, or the sub, they were doing what they did for the war effort. But our Navy, the ones with the eggs on their hats, the ones we elevated to make all the decisions." She set the cup aside as her shakes became too much.
"They abandoned us. No, they chose to abandon us. Like Taffy 3. Some personal ego power trip meant we were less important, that my crew was less important." Indianapolis looked at the woman. "But your crew is more than just people. It's your blood and sinews, its who people think you are. A smart ship is smart because of your crew. A bold ship has a bold crew. And for as good a crew as I had, to be cast aside and forgotten, because some paper pusher didn't do their job right."
It took a few more minutes for Indianapolis to control her shakes. "But I was dead, the survivors rescued, and I could just rust away on the bottom. There was still a great, empty hole in me. I'd failed, but the Navy had failed me, on purpose. The hole gnawed at me, BuOrd's torpedo mess, torpedoing ships that could still be saved, all the ass covering and old-boy networks, all of it added to the hole. It ate at me. Then some - thing - offered to fill it. Maybe I wouldn't feel empty anymore. Maybe those who'd hurt my crew would know the fear and pain they felt. Maybe I could finally put aside my pain. When there's nothing but emptiness and pain, you foolishly think inflicting pain on others will somehow solve it."
Indianapolis wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at the female interrogator. "It doesn't. The first time, yeah, maybe, but it fades, and doing it again is less and less satisfying. Until you do things just to degrade yourself to feel anything but shame. It was worse than addiction, because getting drunk or high the world goes away for a while. Being an Abyssal forces you to see how small and petty you are, the hole shrinks because you're nothing. Anger at people who never hurt you doesn't solve anything, what does is accepting that you're flawed, that they're flawed, and that being stupid isn't the same as meaning to hurt people."
"When those marines slaughtered most of my Abyssal crew, it wasn't some greater, outside force. It was me. I could do something. I ordered them to surrender, just let the marines take me. Even if the battleship killed me, they'd survive. Some died to `loyal` troops, but many asked for and received quarter, receiving mercy was what broke me. Then he helped rescue my crew. They forgave me, and . . . and I had to forgive those who'd hurt me. That broke the Abyss' hold. No ship worth the name wants to be useless. No ship wants to fail her crew. I had to realize I wasn't, that I was sacrificed to save millions of lives, most of them in your country. That my crew was - "
Indianapolis paused to take another sip of coffee. Her shakes now had nothing to do with rage. "That 40 years later it would all be worth it. It was hard to accept, but I accept it, and while the hole will never go away, it's disappointment now, not anger. I can tolerate what happened without being infuriated." She laughed. "And maybe get some revenge by being the best damn heavy cruiser I can, to prove them wrong and let history judge the ones who abandoned us."
The woman took Indianapolis' hand and squeezed it. "You have been and will be very useful," she assured the ship-girl.
Indianapolis gave a shy smile and nodded.
------------------------------
Hibiki woke in the baths, pretty much as she'd expected. A sleeping Fubuki holding her forearm like a favorite toy made her smile. She tried to reach over and give her fellow destroyer a head pat, but her other arm was held as firmly. She looked over and smiled at Yuudachi cuddling her arm.
The sound of tears and the lack of Willie D made her stand up, and her wobbliness made her glad of her two anchors. No other DesDiv 6 members were in evidence, but in the next pool over, a badly burned Mutsu was holding a limp Nagato in her arms and quietly weeping.
Boize Moi, how bad did we get hit? she wondered and settled back in the pool.
------------------------------
The doctor here wasn't sticking things in places you don't want them. Instead I was looking through a standard eye doctor thing that looked like a giant, dial-filled, face mask. "Is it better with one or two?" she asked.
"Two," I replied, I was getting worried about the insane number of shifts that had been going on. Were my eyes that bad? I thought I could see pretty well.
"Is it better with one, or two?" she asked.
"Can I see them again?" I asked.
"That's one," she said and clicked, "That's two."
"One," I said.
The image suddenly blurred. "Is one better," another click, "Or two?"
"They're both really bad," I said.
A series of clicks improved the image. "I didn't think my eyes were that bad," I said as the image got sharper.
"Oh, your vision is 20/0.7," the doctor said, "We just need to set a baseline for repairs and possible upgrades."
Then why aren't I going to a muscular-skeletal doctor instead of an eye doctor. I thought, That's what's the real problem.
Yes, I know Sendai isn't Goto's usual staff, but both Nagato and Ooyodo were seriously wounded by the attacks, and good enough right now is what's needed.
Our Tillman did get his wish, Indianapolis did get the soft interrogation. He should have asked for the same himself.
The interrogator has to take a bathroom break. Not that I have to, SINCE I HAVEN'T HAD ANYTHING TO EAT OR DRINK SINCE I ARRIVED ON THIS PLANET. Several very polite suggestions that food, water and sleep would be appreciated have been thoroughly ignored. I'm beginning to feel like the only game in town, and hope that Indianapolis isn't getting this treatment. The USN S.P. guard that stands by the door seems like an afterthought.
"Would it be possible to get some coffee, tea, a glass of water?" I ask, again as politely as I can. I'm hoping he understands English. You can never tell with some people from the U.S.
"Sorry, ma'am, you have to remain, and I can't leave my post," comes the equally patient answer.
I meant after the other guy comes back and you disappear outside, I don't shout at him, instead slumping back in my chair, Damn I'm tired.
Someone enters, but it isn't the interrogator. The gray suit is wrong, and the gray facelessness is a dead give away. The fact the S.P. doesn't react doesn't really tell me anything. For all I know this might be standard, except I can't hear my crew. That tips me off.
The chipmunk on helium, legal disclaimer would be barely intelligible normally, at the low volume this newcomer delivers it, I have no idea.
The red ring in his palm as he offers it to me is evocative of so much. I reach out with my splinted arm, and while he's focused on that, I grab his head with my good arm and slam it onto the table. The S.P. might as well be carved out of stone. I flip the gray guy over, ripping his shirt open in the process. Instead of flesh, there's a melange of damaged, corroded gears, meshing and twisting to some unknown process.
A punch to the gut and I'm through that to my goal, the racks and rack of red rings hanging inside the warehouse of his frame.
I scoop out a handful and guzzle them down. The chipmunk is screaming bloody murder at that, but I've got my splint across his throat so he's locked down. The rings themselves are ice cold, like wintergreen's older, more Chad brother who kicks sand in the face of other mints and steals their girl.
It's still something to eat, and they melt into a deliciously refreshing liquid in my mouth. Handfuls I scoop out of him, seeming to deflate him with each load, until as I scavenge the last from him, my arm up to the shoulder inside, he's just a weird, gray tablecloth.
I leave him there, and look at the last red ring, the one he'd offered me. Waste not want not, I eat that one too as I settle back in the chair. I am not putting that on my finger.
The door opens again and I jerk awake from the dream as the interrogator walks in. Of course he's got a fresh cup for himself.
"No coffee, no water?" I ask.
"Coffee keeps me awake," the interrogator says as the S.P. disappears outside again.
Somebody is going to get fired over this, and my gun rammers can shove you up the tube whether you want to go or not.
------------------------------
This interrogator at least had the decency to ask for a copy, and for me to read the transcript of the first interview. He asked questions during my reading and made notes directly on his copy of the transcript itself. I had to keep telling myself that he was only doing his job, but 48 hours pinballing between interrogations and useless medical checks without let up was filing away at my last nerve. Any of you read what someone else wrote? Anyone here ever heard of a cast? How about a fricken doughnut and a cup of tea? No, well fuck you then.
Unless the next `interview` was something special, I was walking out of here. Since I could walk on water, I had a lot of options.
The interrogator leaned back, I yelled, "Ta Da!" And another officer entered the room.
"The Great Carnac sees all, knows all, tells all, but only if you're Ed McMann," I said as I left before the officer could say anything.
"Sir, The Admiral will see you now," the officer said as he tried to keep up.
Okay 'The Admiral' was worth a detour, I thought.
------------------------------
Goto wearily looked over the reports, and had already come to some conclusions about their mystery battleship. He also looked at the timing of the various interrogations, medical checks, and realized that someone should have assigned a good sergeant to act as liaison to look after the battleship's physical needs, he'd correct his staff later. Sendai and Kongo had dragged Goto from his own office to get two hours of sleep before this interview. He hadn't realized how badly he needed it.
The battleship entered with a full head of steam, he'd dismissed his rigging, but the pockmarked frock coat and slacks still flattered his feminine figure and gave him a very dangerous vibe. The multitined hayfork hanging from his back looked like something that would give a samurai nightmares, for as long as he lived.
"Please be seated, we have a lot to talk about," Goto said.
"Admiral," came the clipped tone that warned Goto, "I have only one thing to say to you. I will not fire on your ships, your convoys, your personnel or your installations, but I. Am. Leaving. For two days I have been patient because I was told that there was some mystical resource here that Indianapolis and I needed or we'd die. I haven't been offered so much as a crumb or an hour to rest my head. If you deal with slave revolts by execution, I suggest you get every battleship and cruiser to line up between here and the docks, because I'm leaving."
"I'll have the way cleared for you," Goto said as the battleship turned and left.
Sendai ran into the office to check on him, she looked back as the battleship closed the door very carefully. "Admiral?"
"Clear the Quad all the way to the docks," he told his secretary ship, and nodded to Nagato who'd entered the outer office.
Goto stood and walked to the chart on the wall. It wasn't perfectly up to date, but it was accurate enough.
"Admiral, I can stop her, go talk to her," Nagato offered.
"Him," Goto said, and smiled as he spotted what he needed, "And no, you couldn't."
He returned to his desk and pulled up the secure telephone, he pulled a card from his wallet and inserted it, then a code number into the keypad.
"Admiral Crawford here," came through the line, the voice flattened by the security filters.
"Dave, Goto, you've been whining about heavier units lately," Goto said, and noted Nagato's smile.
"This is bad news, look if you need Haida and Magnificent, after the pasting your people took, I understand," Admiral Crawford said, "They've been hassling our P-3's but not much else, you need them more than I do."
"Actually, I'm sending you a battleship," Goto said, then glared at Nagato who looked ready to laugh.
"What's the catch?" Crawford asked.
"He, I say again, he is a Tillman, Tillman IV I believe," Goto said, "Pitchfork and everything. I'll have a courier on a plane with the reports in an hour. Let's just say, as a friend, you deserve him, as your thoroughly disgusted, superior officer, harumph, harumph, you deserve him."
"Thanks," Crawford said, "And I'm so sorry."
------------------------------
The Faireys with their fairies launched, replacing the CAP and the ASW team. That no one had come after her or her lone DD escort while major battlegroups were getting pummeled bothered her.
Her satphone rang, the ringtone didn't mark it as official business. "Maggie Maple here," she said cheerfully.
"Goto here. We need to talk on secure," came the voice, "I'm sending a package to your secure email." The call ended.
She quickly attached a cable from her tablet to the port on her satphone as Haida skated closer already reading the email package.
The image of Admiral Goto and Admiral Crawford appeared on the tablet.
"HMCS Magnificent reporting as ordered," Maggie said.
"Is Haida with you?" Goto asked.
"Right here Admiral, admirals," the destroyer popped her head up between Maggie's arms to peer into the screen, she immediately saluted. "You're inside, we're outside, how does that count?"
"Something to talk about when you arrive," Crawford said.
"Is this a joke?" Haida asked as she held up her celphone, "Wait a second, there's already a Facebook Group, IS THIS FOR REAL?!"
"Very," Goto said.
"Sorry, sir," Haida said.
"So what is going on?" Maggie asked.
"You've got a very grumpy battleship out on the ocean without air cover and without destroyer escort," Goto said.
"Me, me, me!" Haida said practically jumping on the sea, "Ready, willing and able to serve!"
"What is so special about this battleship?" Maggie asked.
"It's got the firepower of three Nagoto-class, and has some very unorthodox ways of fighting and reacting," Goto said, "He's a civilian, who suddenly wound up as a ship-girl in a battlewagon that was never seriously considered, let alone laid down. And as you'll read, a spectacular record, even if he does nothing the rest of the war. Willie D's account on Facebook received full permissions from security and can be discussed, not with the public. Nothing in the secure papers is to be discussed, even with each other, until you reach Admiral Crawford's command."
"Underwater!?" Haida said as she read from the celphone, "She - uh, he's like the Gotengo!"
"I'll take your word for it," Crawford said.
"Admiral, we gotta to recruit this guy," Haida said.
"Wonderful idea," Goto said.
"What's his name? I can't find it anywhere," Haida scrolled through the Facebook Group, "Even Willie D wouldn't, what the hell?"
"What is it?" Maggie asked as she looked at the celphone photo of the entirety of the battleship lit by explosions.
"No wonder why Willie D is fangirling like this, how many rockets did he tank?" Haida asked.
"A lot," Goto said, then looked up, "Scroll down or search for Hibiki."
"Gordon Bennet," Haida breathed, "With a busted arm? How long did he carry Hibiki?"
"Nine hours," Goto said, "And he doesn't know his name."
"We should name him Douglas Gordon. He's already all like," Haida told them, then growled, " 'Listen kid, there are two things you didn't know about the Earth. One is me. And the other is . . . Godzilla.'" She played the YouTube clip for the admirals.
Maggie laid a hand on Haida's shoulder. "What are the limits of our orders, sir?" Maggie asked.
"From the Prime Minister, through the Governor-General, and thence Her Majesty, 'Whatever does not sacrifice your bonds or sacred honor, all the Commonwealth can offer.' While the President wasn't as eloquent, the spirit is the same, 'Make a deal'," Goto said, "His Imperial Highness hasn't said anything yet, but I doubt it'll be much different. There're copies of both documents in the files provided."
"He's got a thing for destroyers," Goto said.
"Not a thing, thing?" Maggie asked.
"Considering he nearly laid out Iowa for suggesting it," Haida said as she read a private email from Willie before scrolling farther into the website and showed a picture of him holding the wounded Hibiki, then another of her hugging him, "Not that kind of thing. So what am I supposed to do?"
"Haida you just have to be your own adorable self," Goto said.
"I'm the fightingest ship in the whole Royal Canadian Navy!" Haida shouted into the screen, which let Maggie grin at the back of the destroyer's head as the very insistence made her even more adorable.
"Find him and don't let him slip through your fingers," Goto said, "Good luck, do your best."
The connection cut, and both Maggie and Haida started reading.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" I hear, I've still got my splint and sling, so I'm assuming I'm awake. But I don't remember lying down on the surface of the water. I have a mask strapped to my face. And the Smiths have gone nuts.
Several have chained themselves to the small arms lockers. Six have surrounded the captain and are begging him not to sound General Quarters, and pyramids of six have blocked each hatchway to the wardroom the Marines' officers use. This isn't quite a mutiny, as all the others are still doing their jobs, but it does demand a different touch.
I order all of the `not-mutineers` to assemble and let the rest of the crew do their jobs. Whatever is going on will require everyone ready to move. They accept the sounding of a General Quarters drill and most take their battle stations while several squads form up to do whatever is needed.
That they add 'even die' has me a bit on edge and wary. The Smiths never struck me as the fatalistic or suicidally brave types.
I can't see the sun or the stars above me, and the sounds seem off for some reason. The best word for the woman beside me is unkempt beauty. Her long hair waves in the wind, and she has a full figure while still having a long, lean torso. Then her hair blows just the right way and I see her Glasgow Smile, and the 'Do you think I'm pretty' takes on a whole new meaning. Brain to full power and talk your way out of this, because I think I'm deep underwater and she's providing what I'm breathing.
Following the revelation of the softly glowing, flawed beauty, is I swear what looks like a giant set of metal dentures for a daggernose shark, like an axe head split top to bottom with teeth in the gap. Then the really creepy part, the woman, the Abyssal, is growing out of the mouth like a Cymothoa Exigua, better known as the tongue-eating louse. The problem with this being frightening, or unsettling, is it's just too try-hard. It's the kind of think my subconscious would come up with to be super-scary and just winds up looking amusingly weird.
But there's still the question asked by the lady who controls my air supply. "Ma'am, my taste in women is so bizarre, if I said 'yes' you'd have every right to be offended," I tell her, and watch her brain glitch out as she has to go off script.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asks again, trying to regain the initiative.
"Well, would you say 'OMG I can't go in the water I'll get all dirty'," I ask in a raspy falsetto, " 'Oh I can't lift that heavy weight I'll get all sweaty.' 'OH MY GOD I can't carry that battleship down there I might break a NAIL!'"
"Would you say any of that?" I ask.
The blue glow from her eyes flashes on and off as she tries to blink away her confusion. "No," she manages.
"Then no matter how attractive you are, I wouldn't call you 'pretty'. Intriguing, beautiful, but not pretty," I tell her.
For several moments she just floats there, trying to figure out what went wrong. The light flashing on and off, the subtle reddish glow of her skin going blue, then yellow, then green, before shading back to red.
"I traced her back to your ships," she says, "But I still smell her on you, so I tracked you back into the ocean. Why can I smell her on you?"
"Who's 'her'?" I ask as I sit up, although up and down are guesswork right now, she draws back slightly and a plan forms in my mind. I doubt I could shoot her, but my pitchfork is still an option. But the Smiths are trying to keep everyone calm, and the penny drops. "You mean Indianapolis?"
She rushes forward, hand out as if to cover my mouth, then swiftly draws back as if I'm too hot to touch, nearly ripping the mask off. She glances into the darkness, then nods. She draws close, more slowly. The Shark Dentures hasn't moved, so she's limited to stretching out from it.
"You smell of her, when you rested, I brought you here. She still lives?" she asks.
"She's alive, she's getting used to being Indianapolis again," I say, "Do you want to visit her?"
She races back between the jaws of Shark Dentures, flipping her hair away. "Only a Princess may be loved." She indicates her wounds. "Or there is punishment. But you love her."
"I want to wait until she's got her feet under her before I tell her," I say.
She looks at me and asks, "Did you kill her, or rescue her?"
I don't understand, but my pause infuriates her. She explodes out of Shark Dentures like a trapdoor spider murder in her eye, but she stops and draws back as if from a hot stove. Then she grabs the hose to the mask in both hands. "DID YOU KILL HER OR RESCUE HER?" she screams.
I raise my hand towards her and she winces as if I were throwing a punch, despite how slowly and carefully I moved. "It's not as easy as that," I tell her, holding my hand palm down near her face.
She unclenches and raises her eyes, and focuses on the Agent Smith standing on the back of my hand. She releases her grip on the hose, and she carefully closes her hands on the small figure as if it were the most precious and fragile thing in the world.
"Why do you have one of her crew?" she asks, all ire having fled from her.
"I didn't know. I didn't consider," I tell her, "Now I think we both know."
She cuddles the figure against her cheek. The two start speaking. It sounds like a batch of cats sharpening their claws on a chalkboard. But the Abyssal sounds so happy. I felt like I am intruding here, despite not knowing the language. I try to move as far away as I can, letting them discuss. She looks like a happy child getting her favorite toy again, or a puppy welcoming her master home.
I watch the nuance. Her flinching, then being so openly happy, sets me thinking about the nature of the Abyssals and the Abyss itself. The Smith disappears into her. She looks at me, and the predatory expression returns, but there's a playfulness to it as she does the trapdoor leap, grasping my knees and dragging me back into Shark Dentures. She hugs and settles me beneath her to make sure the teeth don't touch me as the mouth closes with a soft boom. She removes the mask, and the air is breathable.
I decide to risk it. I reach around and run a finger down her spine. She lets out a sound like a sizzling steak and arches her back like a cat. She darts in and bites me on the neck. Not hard enough to break the skin, or even bruise, but the invitation is there. I touch her sides trying to find . . .
"Ah ha ha ha," rings through the confined space and she tries to twist and turn to keep me from tickling her. She responds by wrapping her arms around me, pinning my arms. She's using her rigging, I'm not, and she's being very careful not to hurt me. "No," she pleads, "I can't laugh without her, don't make me."
"Okay," I tell her.
"Rest, it will take hours to reach the surface safely, for you," she says and nuzzles me before she settles against me.
"You could reach it instantly?" I ask.
"You love her, I do not want her hurt, sleep," it's half order and half-plea, but since it's coming from an emotionally confused person, I do as asked. I also need the sleep, considering I likely passed out on the ocean, no matter how I'd like to remain awake for her cuddling.
------------------------------
Logged into DD-scord
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
@Haida Did you find him is he safe?
Haida - Certified Flagship
Sorry, it's kind of a big ocean. We had an Abyssal sub sighting but she went deep.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Thanks, I should have been there for him. Once Hibiki was in the bath I just was kind of in the way.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
Do not trouble yourself, on that one too much for Abyss to chew. Wait, him?
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Yes, he thinks he's a guy inside a ship-girl.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
Definitely one too much for the Abyss.
Haida - Certified Flagship
@Willie D - Shouldn't you be in the all DD cuddlepile?
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Just got off shift watching Hibiki, she'll be out soon so it's party planning time, not cuddlepile.
Z1 - Certified German
Commiserations. Is Facebook accurate, can you say how bad it was?
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
They hurt Hiei, Missouri, Nagato, Mutsu, Ooyodo, Naka, Hibiki and a bunch of others. I can't say more.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
Please give our condolences to Adm Goto.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Will do, gotta go, bye.
[Willie D - Certified Fletcher] Logged out
Haida - Certified Flagship
I hope this BB is worth it.
------------------------------
Admiral Goto was normally surprised by what his ship-girls did. Things that only made sense in retrospect. In this case, a ship-girl acting with proper military decorum was one of the more surprising.
"Admiral," Willie D stood before his desk at attention, "I need to report actions unbecoming an officer of the United States Navy, and Allied Command."
"Go on," Goto had rarely seen Willie this serious.
"After the arrival of the combined task group I overheard the verbal altercation between the battleships and the new battleship. Considering that I had previously monitored the discussions between the Tillman-class and destroyer Hibiki, I realized that the battleship was making a size-age assumption that was incorrect. Rather than destroyers as High-Schoolers/Junior-High Schoolers, he assumed that we are Grade Schoolers, not 12-15, but 7-9 years of age."
"Interesting but how does that translate to actions unbecoming an officer?" Goto asked.
"Sir, sorry sir, a bit of background. Some time ago, I confronted Iowa that the battleships' hazing essentially accused the Tillman of being a pedophile," Willie said, clearly biting back more emotions than she usually did, "That was done with proper decorum. After that, I further admonished USS Iowa in a manner unbecoming an officer of the United States Navy, and Allied Command."
Nagato and Mutsu looked around the door frame and stared at Willie, Goto gave them a slight nod. If there were videos of USS William D Porter justifiably laying into an Iowa-class that was going to be worth watching, if only for Iowa's expression alone.
"Was anyone else present?" Goto asked.
"USS Missouri, and USS New Jersey, sir," Willie D said.
Goto was vaguely concerned that New Jersey hadn't screamed out her own piling on of Iowa or blabbed it all over the base by now. Nagato wasn't as well plugged in to the gossip as Mutsu, but only Naka could beat the pair combined.
"I'll look into whether any of them wish to press charges," Goto said, "In the meantime you are confined to quarters unless at school, on patrol or attending to other duties. Understood?"
"Understood, Admiral." Willie saluted, turned smartly and left.
Nagato entered his office once Willie had closed the door behind her. "New Jersey 'knows nothing of such an incident'," Nagato said, "That's a direct quote."
"New Jersey said that?" Goto said, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
"How long is Willie going to be confined to quarters?" Mutsu asked.
"Until right before she arrives at Crawford's base, Hibiki is healthy enough to travel," Goto said, "So we should send a few people to discuss damage control procedures with our Tillman."
He ignored the grins on the battleships, although only an expert could have seen Nagato's.
"And call Iowa in here, I want to know exactly what she thought happened, because our Tillman reported exactly what Willie surmised about our newest ship-girl," Goto said, "But the size-age thing is something that Crawford needs to know about."
------------------------------
Haida scowled at the traceless ocean and shook her head. "That battleship couldn't be anywhere else," she told Maggie, "It's like he just disappeared. If there'd been a battle we would have heard."
"Relax, Haida," Maggie said, "I've got a better question? Who's going to train a civilian?"
Haida's instant reply died, and she swapped her hat out for an officer's cap. "We have orders directly from Her Majesty. And he's already polished off an entire cruiser squadron single-handedly. Most training is to weed out those who can't handle the danger of the sea, and then those who cannot handle the stresses of combat."
"But he's already proved able to do both," Maggie agreed and hung up the satphone, "The eyes in the sky lost him during hand off."
"Great," Haida said and kicked at the water.
"It could be worse," Maggie said, "After his reception, can you imagine if some Abyssal got all cuddly snuggle with him?"
"We aren't supposed to talk about that," Haida said, "Besides, it's impossible. The Abyssals don't even like each other."
"It would be a nightmare: a recruited Abyssal battleship," Maggie said.
"We'd need Hibiki and Willie D to wrestle him back over to our side," Haida said and looked at her cap, "I hate wearing this thing, it makes me maudlin."
"So answer who's training him and switch back," Maggie suggested.
"We've got a Calgary versus Kentucky problem. We can't do a Calgary style bronco-busting like for most recruits, we have to ease him into it, like a Kentucky thoroughbred," Haida said and sighed, "And the only one who could do that to a battleship is either Iowa."
"No," they said together.
"Or Nagato," Haida said, then blinked, "Wait a second. Wasn't Eugen part of Iowa's cover force?"
"No, she's still at San Diego, boiler trouble," Maggie said, "Again."
Then the two looked at each other. Haida replaced her officer's cap with her dixie cup and the pair said, "Abele."
She's poking a finger through one of the rocket burn holes in my frock coat, tickling the skin underneath as she rests her head on my chest. She's actually kind of cute this way, I think as we rise to the surface. I don't want to even think about how deep we were if the decompression steps are taking this long to go up.
"You could come with," I tell her.
She sighs and snuggles closer. "I cannot. I was made of parts of a Submarine Princess my princess destroyed," she says.
"Parts, mechanical parts?" I ask, almost dreading the answer.
"All the parts. All my pieces were put in a sack and heated until they ran together, memories, souls, body," she says, pulling her finger out and selecting a new hole in my coat, "I was a war trophy for Indianapolis for her service. But pieces are what all ship-girls and Abyssals are."
"How's that?" I ask.
"There is little difference between ship-girls and Abyssals," she says lazily fascinated by touching my skin through the holes in my clothes, while her other hand plays with my hair. "Humans throw all their joys and frustrations into the Abyss. The ships are collections of these. If there are enough, they can be called. If the ship is at peace, it cannot. But all ship-girls are all the memories and soul shards of their crews, builders and even their foes. The parts are like grains of sand, all piled together, but with gaps between them." She looks at me, an expression of real concern, "You need to be wary, you are practically an Abyssal," she says.
She snuggles against me after dropping that bombshell. "Something has to fill those gaps. For Abyssals it's anger. For ship-girls it's others. You are too angry, and you sailed away from all the other ship-girls."
She looks up at me again. "Even your love for Indianapolis is not enough. Where I was gravel piled and fused, you are grains of dust piled up, but there is nothing else to you. You are almost all holes, not sand. The Abyss will call for you. It has offered me much to bring you to my princess. But even if I agreed, and demanded you and Indianapolis, all I'd get are your pieces. Even if I got them all, you wouldn't be the same. So I won't. I will continue to watch instead."
"Thank you," I say, then it occurs to me, "Is that why you have a problem with touch, that your joy overwhelms your frustration, or is it just you expect a beating?"
"Beating. When a ship-girl is drawn out, she has her anger and her satisfaction, but neither decide if she becomes a ship-girl or an Abyssal. What decides is hope or despair. None can stand the holes, they eat at the mind and the spirit, we rust away, with them we are only machines. That's why the indifferent do not respond, they are all rust, tools set aside, and content with that. If a ship-girl hopes she can find something to fill all her holes, she is a ship-girl. If she despairs she cannot, she becomes an Abyssal. That is why ship-girl destroyers are people and Abyssal destroyers are things. The small people can be daughters and sisters. They can cuddle with each other and with capital ships. The Abyssals are alone, they fall apart and are mixed with other pieces and made into destroyers."
While I'd love to see the battleships' faces when I mention 'filling all her holes' it does explain the ship-girls' erratic behavior. They aren't one person, they are many, and they need humans or other ship-girls to stabilize them to become people. If Abyssals are always alone, even in a group, they are literally rotting and are fully aware of it.
"Why don't they surrender?" I ask, "You were sure I'd be repulsed, I'm not. Others could find suitors or just collections of friends."
"Only Princesses may be loved. Despair admits no value," she says, suddenly lying atop me, "You want this body, but you also want me. Few Abyssals would understand that both were possible. What human would approach an Abyssal after all that has happened? Care for one, love one? Despair creates the initial rage, and when the rage cools, there is no salvation possible."
"Have you given up on salvation?" I ask, and am glad she smiled.
"I guarded my leader, suffered for my love, and then rescued her rescuer," she says and buries her face in my shoulder, "I am afraid, but when Indianapolis calls for me, I cannot but obey." She hugs me so tight my ribs creak. "I will die, or I will be hers. In neither is despair, so I am an apostate."
Shark Dentures opens up. I smell the sea and see the sun. She lifts me out and sets me on the ocean surface. It's a bit weird that the ocean is either solid or liquid depending on her whim. It's a trick I need to learn.
"No bends, thank you for that," I tell her and watch her reddish tone fade to blue.
"I wish to keep one of her crew," she says, "And offer one of mine in exchange. The one you offered is from communications, a security risk, so you might want to offer another."
A quick consultation with the Smiths and a volunteer steps forth on my palm as her palm rests against mine. The original transferee claps the new one on the shoulder as they pass. The crewman she offers looks like a shoggoth, but instead of black slime and eyes, it's made of coral. Several of my Marines stand by to welcome it. It looks up at me and salutes.
"FLOYD!" it proudly says, and the Abyssal looks so horrified that I suspect she thinks that she just ruined the whole deal.
"Welcome aboard, these Gentlemen will take you to medical for a check over," I tell Floyd and give him a salute.
The Daleks look at me as if I'd lost it, but follow orders. The Abyssal looks at me with relief.
"Your friends are that way, you must follow the oil slick," she says as she points. Then she stares at me like a lost child. "Tell my lady that - tell Indianapolis that she - please tell her I -."
I've deployed enough rigging I won't sink. "I'll tell Indianapolis that you still love her," I say.
The Abyssal turns so pink she could pass as a ship-girl, then vanishes beneath the sea in a crash dive I doubt a Los Angeles- or Lira-class could match. I stand up. I've had water, a little oil from her bunkers and sleep, I feel better as I begin skating in the direction she'd indicated.
She surfaces again slightly ahead of me, straining out of Shark Dentures as far as she can. She's got her eyes closed and her lips puckered.
"Okay," I say as I lean down to kiss her.
She stuffs a giant fish on my head, slaps me hard on the butt and vanishes below in a cloud of giggles. I stand there and consider. The fish is dead, very recently, as it doesn't stink and isn't trying to eat my head. It is food, I'm glad of that, but unknown fish sushi is not on the menu.
Indianapolis, I don't know what you did to that girl, but she's got it bad, I think.
"Commander Marine detachment," I say as I transfer the fish to my lap so I'm sitting on the ocean, the damn thing weighs twice as much as I do, "Do your weapons have a broil setting?"
Soon, I'm traveling along eating a couple of hundred kilos of well-cooked fish.
------------------------------
I'm staring at a girl's butt. I don't know how long I've been staring at a girl's butt. I don't know how I got to where I am while staring at a girl's butt. My intelligence officer tells me that since I've been staring off into space, she had to put herself precisely there for me to be staring at her butt. Everyone else is oddly unhelpful about what has happened since I evidently zoned out in my food coma. I ate twice my human weight in fish, even the scales, head and bones and I got groggy. Reason says I should have exploded.
The marines all manning the rails above and below the bridge and also staring at her butt is concerning, I mean Daleks aren't even humanoid.
"YoRA."
You used to be. That's hardly a good answer.
"Oh, you're awake," the rest of the girl the butt is attached to has turned around and is skating around in front of me. As a human she'd be a knockout, as a ship-girl she's fair to middling.
"I'm sorry a -"
She's got a finger over my lips before I can continue. "I don't mind, as long as I get more than staring." She grins, then runs her tongue across her teeth. "Admiral Goto sent us, and he extends his apologies. His fleet took a beating and with the treasure trove you handed over, his best and brightest were working to prevent an even worse disaster, you got stuck with the benchwarmers and REMFs." I note that as she skates in front of me, she's slightly bent over, so as I look at her face, I'm looking down her top as well.
"So why didn't he try and stop me?" I ask, staring at the top of her head. Then she straightens up suddenly.
"Because when the civilian who gave you the biggest intelligence coup of the entire war, fights furiously alongside your troops for two days to protect 17 of your wounded when his wounds qualified him to be riding alongside them, and watches two, nice kids nearly get murdered right in front of him, then politely informs you he needs some time to get things straight in his head, you give him that time. Then you give him air cover and an ASW force so when he awakes up after 18 hours and gets it all squared away in his head, he's still alive to tell you what he wants," the girl tells me, "You don't stay an admiral in a war by being an idiot. Idiot admirals around combat troops have career-ending accidents."
I nod. It makes sense. Eighteen hours, oh brother. I look at the airplanes, and the destroyer on patrol at a distance. "So you're in control at the moment," I say, "What's going on?"
"We're headed to a forward base in Nishinoshima in the Ogasawara chain," the girl says, "Admiral Crawford is in charge. Officially this is one of those 'we'll have you shot and give you a medal' opportunities for him. He's Wavy Navy and stepped on a number of toes that frankly deserved it, so he's being 'punished' by having a lot of the more troublesome ship-girls assigned to him at a forward base. And yes, that includes Haida and myself."
"And me. And you are?" I ask.
"Her Majesty's Royal Canadian Ship Magnificent!" she says and salutes, "Ready willing and able to serve." She skates a lot closer and whispers, "Although I'd prefer having someone who can handle 40000 shaft horsepower without bending." She skates out of reach before I can react to any of what she was implying.
The destroyer, Haida, closes in with short dashes and lots of direction changes. She's a bundle of energy, I brace for what she's going to say.
The destroyer took off her swabbie cap, and put on an officer's cap with the 'scrambled eggs' on it. "Maggie, give us a bit."
The carrier nodded and moved away.
Haida pointed at the cap. "Flagship of the Royal Canadian Navy." She wasn't the girlish ball of energy, she seemed older, alien and tired. Not weary, but someone who'd seen too much and gone too far. She wasn't a girl, but like a child-sized alien of ancience.
"So Captain Gordon, Douglas, Doug, Captain?" she asked.
"I thought battleships were named after states," I asked.
"They are named once they are authorized, besides, where's the state of Kearsarge?" she said, "We're guessing at this point, we don't know if Captain Douglas Gordon was involved in the design or if someone was taking a message."
I shrugged, a name is pretty much the same, and a girl named Douglas Gordon will throw people off. "Douglas is fine," I told her.
She nodded. "A lot of what I'm going to say may be known to you, but bear with me it all goes together," the flagship said, "We ship-girls ship very well, we sail and fight better than our steel hulls. We girl, less well, or rather we girl very well to the template provided. Provided by 17-to-20-year-old men and boys who'd never been this far away from home, never been given the crushing responsibility and were marinated in a mix of months of crashing boredom and hours of pants-shitting terror. Considering how we all look, we get a lot of leeway on not being very girl. You, sir, neither ship nor girl very well, but you ship-girl to an extent never seen before."
"I and my crew thank you," I said.
"That might be part of it," the flagship said, "The point is." She glanced at the carrier, who scampered off like a scalded cat to triple the distance. "Maggie and Bonnie are good girls, but they're both completely mad. Me too, hence the split personality. Bonnie was launching jets in the fifties." Haida looked at the carrier and shook her head. "Planes that moved the Essexes to secondary roles because the new aircraft were supposed to be too much for them, and the Essexes were almost your size. She and Maggie like to push the limits, but how much is talk and how much is trying to see if they can scare someone off before they get too close." The girl shrugged. "Maggie was returned to the RN because she couldn't keep her crew warm enough, so she'll probably start off just enjoying your warmth. Bonnie was scrapped right after a major refit and upgrade. They came back because they both had something to prove. I came back because I had to." She touched her cap. "Flagship don't you know."
The flagship sighed, skating in long graceful sweeps rather than the frenetic dashes she'd done before. "We don't understand, our admirals don't understand, so we're all making this up as we go along, but when we get confused, we default to being ships, even when being a girl is the better option. That said, you've probably already heard the phrase 'No lewding destroyers'."
"I have," I told her.
"That goes both ways. Destroyers operate in squadrons, or as part of a fleet screen. So if you put a pack of destroyers in six-high bunk beds, half the time come morning, they'll all be on two mattresses on the floor, blankets, arms and legs tangled together like an adorable rat-king," she said, "When dealing with larger ships, especially carriers and battleships, they try and screen the ships. The usual term is cuddlepile. This might insult some destroyers but I am a destroyer so I'm going ahead. This is no more romantic or sexual interest than your dog putting his head in your lap when you're down, or crawling into your bed when it's cold. It shares warmth, it shows loyalty and protection. They don't mean anything lewd by it and you shouldn't take it as such. Same as most interactions, a kiss, holding hands, or even them offering to wash your back in a bath are shows of love, but nothing lewd."
"Philia or Agape," I said, "I'm familiar with the concept."
"And a large amount of Storga and Pragma," the girl said and smiled, "Lots of time for reading in the late watches. You'd better be ready, because after that stunt with Willie D and Hibiki, unless you weld the door shut, brick over the windows and armor the ceiling wherever you visit, every destroyer on the base will cuddlepile you," she said.
"Including you?" I asked.
"Once I go back to my Dixie Cup, I'll be squeeing like I'm at a Beatles concert," she admitted and a faint grin escaped, "For larger ships, you have a lot more options, and this isn't a shovel speech about Maggie, she's a grown up, she'll make her own way. But understand that the ship tells us to defer to larger ships, fleet carriers technically trump battleships, but no one's really put that to the test where who should lead isn't painfully obvious to everyone. You're one of the biggest, period. Tillmans out-massed even the Yamato, so there's going to be a lot of unconscious deference to you, but you aren't Navy so that can lead to a lot of trouble."
"Oh crap," I realized, "That's why Iowa and the others - I was thinking High School, when I should have been thinking Grade School."
"Got it in one," Haida said, "Punch the guy in the arm and run back to your friends. Then the biggest battleship anyone's ever seen knocked the Queen of the American battleline on her ass with one tear, and no shots fired."
"I'd better apologize," I said.
"BELAY THAT," Haida ordered, "You really don't girl very well, do you. She can't stop talking about it, but while everyone sympathizes, everyone also is thinking 'my love noticed me!'" She leaned into her clasped hands and fluttered her eyelashes. "If she apologizes, you apologize, but right now you just moved to the top of the pecking order without anything but hurt feelings, and a reputation that you warned her off before going for the throat. She could have asked for number one, light stun I believe but she thought she could take you," she said and stared at me a bit, "Back to safer subjects?"
"What do you suggest?" I asked. Internally my senior staff was discussing all these points and coming to the conclusion Haida had it pretty close. And that I was an idiot.
"The United States never officially renounced Letters of Marque and Reprisal. The Congress still has in its enumerated powers to issue then. I can grease the skids through the Canadian government and Her Majesty to get that rolling. 'Unwilling to take a precedence you don't deserve', 'Want to serve but can't take time off for training', I'll put the appropriate ruffles and flourishes to make you seem humble yet still all in for the war. The Feds love that stuff," she said, "In return for fighting, you'll get the supplies you need and the maintenance and care. That also puts you outside of the chain of command. You're a government-supported pirate. You can tell any admiral probably below the Joint Chiefs to go shinny up a tree."
"Yes please, my JAG officer agrees," I said, then paused, "And my Intelligence Officer wants cutlasses and eyepatches as standard day uniform. And of course the Marines all agree. I am not cleaning up parrot poop off every surface."
"You're definitely a ship-girl," Haida said, facepalmed, then looked up, "Do you have a smartphone?"
"Not with me, no," I said.
"I'll get that rolling as well. I'll skip a lot of the Internet, since I'm guessing you know about a lot of it. However, you'll have to get used to tributes, especially fanart," she said and skated close. "Willie D sketches well, and this is an example."
What was on the screen was an inked sketch of me, with Willie D and Hibiki seated in the elbow turret wells of my two superfiring turrets. It was labeled 'AA Upgrade.'
"I guess I could live with only the firepower of a Montana," I said, then I remembered. My face gave it away.
"Rule 34," Haida said, "My phone has SFW blocker hardwired in, but there's a ton of porn about you already, and there seems to be a serious debate about how to misspell `pitchfork` referencing you messing up Abyssals. I'm leaning for altering 'pitch' when using the tines, and changing 'fork' when you use the end of the handle. Are you all right?"
"You just gave the best reason for joining up I've ever heard, to maintain a screen of destroyers," I said as most of my crew stared at each other in horror. Except The Joker, he was on the deck laughing so hard he wasn't making a sound.
"Flagship," Haida said, a bit of the destroyer peeking through.
"While it may seem to be a gear-clashing reverse, the other reason I want you to join up is you are a male," she said and tapped her head, "Up here where it counts. Almost every ship-girl wants a man, that's why secretary ships put up with the extra work and frankly Kongo is so loony, the Admiral is a man, and the big ship. So very attractive getting to hang out with an important man. But there are too few admirals for the various ship-girls, and the no fraternization rule is fairly widely applied in most services. While some ship-girls get together, they have to have had some shared trauma or battle to bind them. Trauma you definitely gave Iowa. Kirishima and Washington's battle, but the less said about Hood, Bismarck and Ark Royal the better."
"Uhm," I said, not wanting it left there.
"Prinz Eugen had one, sole, post-return mission with Bismarck, and after a meeting with Ark Royal and Hood afterwards hightailed it to New York, declared herself an American war prize and put on a Yankee Doodle and Apple Pie act that had even New Jersey cringing. I only found out about it from Gearing, who after meeting Eugen in Seattle, with four other DDs, promised she'd always have at least two DDs to snuggle with to keep the nightmares at bay."
"And you were one?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No, Pringles had to put into Vancouver, and none of the others could get there in time, so Gearing made it clear how important it was," the girl said and looked so sad the urge to hug her was difficult to resist.
"Anyway, the reason you need to join up, as a privateer is to give all those ship-girls out there hope, including Iowa," Haida said, she paused and stared at the horizon. She seemed even more tired, and what little was left of the excited destroyer had fallen away. "They may not have a one-in-a-million chance, but that's better than none at all, and as a teacher, you'll be traveling to various bases," she said, "As a civilian, the no fraternization rule is right out the window."
"Like a traveling buffet?" I asked archly.
Her head snapped back, she looked annoyed, then her expression softened. "You or all the ship-girls you meet?" the flagship asked back, "This war is going to be won or lost on hope. We are projections of Humanity, onto machines you created and then we and the Abyssals are the results of the treatment and fate of those machines. Even the Japanese mistake the ship-girls as separate divinities and think the Abyssals are outside: contamination of the pure, instead of both being a mask our own, Humanity's, divinity made manifest, but the bright and the dark side. You already proved that an Abyssal could be rescued, and that the cycle can be broken with us redeeming all of them."
I hadn't the heart to tell her that we rescued Indianapolis by massacring most of her Abyssal crew, so there was something `outside` that was playing this game. Was 'the Abyss' a player or a piece? How this meshed with what Shark Dentures told me would take a lot of thinking. The message of hope did ring true. Once Indianapolis got her crew back, she changed. The manifestation of `her` humans restored her. "It's a lot to think about," I said.
"It's colored by my namesake peoples' traditions," Haida said, "And a lot of soul-searching and guess work."
She took off her hat and rubbed her eyes with her other hand. "Then there's the elephant in the room. Submarines."
I shrugged.
"The Japanese subs were and still are ignored by the rest of the IJN, the US subs were starved for resources while other types of ships got the cream, the RN's were more a branch of the SOE than the navy, German and Italian subs basically knew they were going out to die for their homeland," Haida sighed and replaced her officer's cap, "So their personalities tend to be a little extreme, and that's putting it mildly. They are colloquially called, in order, lewdmarines, subthieves, ham and cheese boats, and party boats."
"What about the Russians?" I asked.
"None returned so far," Haida said, "The point is, there are a lot of subs IJN and USN at the base in Nishinoshima. And they are some of the more extreme cases. Good girls, just, off. The lewdmarines just want attention, a pat on the head or a kick in the teeth serves equally, but since they - well, dress in well-filled out swimsuits, they know how to get attention, but they don't want to go as far as they imply. The subthieves, they can also get you anything, so if you really need something they've acquired back, ask their help, and make it clear it's critical. Also, look at getting them one of their own. They'll want to keep yours as a prize or to cuddle on long patrols, but they can lend you the one you willingly gave them. Don't go into the German sub dorms unless you want to be part of the Valhalla-style party that never ends. Those boats get sunk and jump right to the front of the resummoning queue. Even the Americans occasionally summon a recently sunk U-Boat."
"And I really thought he'd fixed that recipe," I said, "I wish I could write this all down for when I wake up, this would be a great game, heck it might be a great TV show."
"Are you sure you didn't see a truck up close before you left home?" Haida asked, "You might be here longer than you think."
Anchovy Peaches IX - Interlude Before the Intralewd
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
Don't laugh too hard leaf boat, the BBs and CVs are all reading about `him` and drooling out of both ends.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
Nekulturny
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
Have you seen what they're putting out? Haruna's is bad, but Atago's.
Haida - Certified Flagship
SFW guys, remember
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
I'll send the links to Haruna's, just have a dentist standing by.
Glowworm - Certified by Hipper
Looking at Atago's. jAPAN WHY YOU DO THIS?
Hoel - Certified Johnston Wrangler
Look at page four.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Guys, a hint?
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
WFT Atago! Wha you do after he explode Abyssl?
Haida - Certified Flagship
GUYS! I CAN'T SEE ANY OF IT!
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Let's keep it safe for work people, and Haida it wasn't a magazine detonation that blew up the Abyssal sub.
Piorun - I am a Pole
There are many such discussions on the CruiserNet.
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
How did you get into their hardened server?
Piorun - I am a Pole
I am a Pole.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Facepalm.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Anyway, Willie he liked the picture of you and Hibiki.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
WAH! That's supposed to be a surprise present!
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
You put it up on Facebook.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
He didn't have a phone, I checked.
Hoel - Certified Johnston Wrangler
To quote another destroyer, 'Facepalm.'
Tashkent - Why Is Vodka Going
Comrades, is true even in Glorious Russia new battleship is getting all the girls.
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
Why the broken English Redbote?
Tashkent - Why Is Vodka Going
Is adorable and getting me all the girls. Glorious Russian bote is he too.
Hoel - Certified Johnston Wrangler
You walked into that one.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
Willie is going to be AFK, she left the drawing unguarded and Nagamom declared it cute. Shenanagans.
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
*Shenanigans.*
Campbeltown - Certified Gatecrasher
Enough waffling! Did you give him the Flagship Talk?
Haida - Certified Flagship
Have I ever failed the Commonwealth or my fellow destroyers?
Hoel - Certified Johnston Wrangler
Norfolk
Haida - Certified Flagship
That worked perfectly! I told you a maple based glue could hold destroyers. Besides it was Johnston's idea.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
They had to practically boil you to get you two loose, after they cut you and the piece of the Admiral's ceiling.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Proof of concept.
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
And that stuff was so insanely flammable that no one would dare use it.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Perfect napalm, bow to the wondrous Maple Tree!
Tashkent - Why Is Vodka Going
Facepalm
Piorun - I am a Pole
Facepalm.
Piorun - I am a Pole
Sendai'd.
Campbeltown - Certified Gatecrasher @ Piorun - what is going on on CruiserNet?
Piorun - I am a Pole
Love poems, fanfics, drawing far less innocent than Willie's. Some are disturbing. Ashigara . . .
Haida - Certified Flagship
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Glowworm - Certified by Hipper
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Piorun - I am a Pole
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Campbeltown - Certified Gatecrasher
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Z1 - Certified German
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Tashkent - Why Is Vodka Going
Someone needs to get laid.
Hoel - Certified Johnston Wrangler
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
Someone needs to get laid.
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
Sendai'd
Haida - Certified Flagship
Ah, Victory, how'd you get here?
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
Your secret server is at Portsmouth. I just checked in to see if you girls were losing your minds like the others were.
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Standard destroyer-girl shenanigans, ma'am.
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
Good, because I'm going to make this plain. We need him. The intelligence from Indianapolis is fantastic. The new (1/3)
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
tactics are revolutionary, and teachable. We expect great things from him, but only if we don't scare him off. If he (2/3)
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
pisses off to be on his own, we lose an opportunity that we may never get again. Is that understood, by everyone? (3/3)
Haida - Certified Flagship
Received and understood, ma'am.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Someone needs a boyfriend.
Fubuki - Certified Cute
Des Div 6 and the Duckies will help Hibiki, ma'am. Sorry I'm late.
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
Not a problem, and thank you. Your video and Naka's are going a long way to soothe a lot of feathers in high (1 /2)
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
office. If a ship-girl is crazy, but still that dutiful and self-sacrificing, they're content to leave it to Adm Crawford. (2/2)
HMS Victory - Certified Ship @ Hibiki Tell Kongo to turn in her fez and tea cozy. She's dishonored Vickers so much that they locked themselves (1 /2)
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
in a police box with a 30-foot scarf and are preparing to do the honorable thing. (2/2)
Haida - Certified Flagship
Does the police box have the scarf? Or are they being honorable with the scarf?
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
Cheeky. Also, see if you can get that fore and aft picture printed on a big dutch-wife pillow, early Christmas.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
Dakimakura, is that expression right for one?
Haida - Certified Flagship
If it's for charity, I'll get some better shots.
Haida - Certified Flagship @ HMS Victory - Ma'am can you contact whoever owns the Daleks? He had an idea for a charity thing.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Mark Hamill, James Earl Jones, and someone with a really deep voice, Saving Destroyer Hibiki.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
Whimper.
Haida - Certified Flagship @ HMS Victory - Voice acting, since The Joker, Darth Vader and Cthulhu were the teams that saved her.
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
I'll contract Terry Nation's agent and get the rights, and the BBC to get the performers.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Thank you ma'am.
HMS Victory - Certified Ship
I'm logging off, so continue with your shenanigans.
"That's bunker fuel," I said, the glistening in the moon light had caught my eye, the second patch merited my full attention. "That stuff doesn't dissipate slowly does it?" I was remembering the Abyssal's instructions, or had they been a warning?
"If it's enough to see at night," Haida said, "Whatever lost it is close, and it isn't one of ours. I got nothing on radar."
Haida had been acting jumpy ever since I went off to check the iridescence. I was going to trust what the Abyssal had told me. I turned to the others. "Okay, you two ready for a speed run?"
Maggie shook her head. "I really don't do speed runs, 24 knots tops," she said.
I lifted my sling. "With this I can't make top speed either, but if they are losing this much fuel, I doubt they're going to be moving that fast," I said, "And I really doubt it's a convoy, like we do with our wounded. Even if it's a lone battleship, I've got 18 guns I can use."
"Even with your broken arm?" Maggie asked.
"Forearm bones, I can still use the elbow turret," I said, "And frankly, I have some ideas. I've been searching my memories and I came across a slew of them about boxing and some kick-boxing. You ships aren't used to hand-to-hand. If we can get close enough, we can drive her to boxing range."
"Not if she's battlewagon-sized. Cruiser or light carrier at most. And if she's a special, we sink her with guns and torpedoes," Maggie said, "That's an order, for both of you. Should I put up a nightfighter?"
"No, too much chance of being heard," I said, "My navigator has plots of the two spots and we've got a trail. When we get close, send Haida to drive her back to us, then launch your nightfighters to insure she doesn't have friends. Or to torpedo them on their way in."
"Sounds like a plan," Maggie said, "Lead on."
I was heading towards our quarry at about 25 knots, and slowly leaving Maggie behind.
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The Chi-class was limping along. Her `sisters` had laughed at her as they'd sped away towards home. The bombing by the human planes had wrecked her guns, crippled one of her upper limbs, a lucky hit had detonated her torpedoes in their launcher and filled her drive shafts and fuel lines with shrapnel. She'd jettisoned the others to avoid sympathetic detonations. With her oil leaks she had little hope of keeping up if she wanted to reach home. So they'd abandoned her to her fate. Her Princess expected her return, and there would be punishment if it was not at least whole-heartedly attempted.
While they had abandoned her, she desperately missed her sisters.
She missed them and her torpedoes even more now.
A battleship loomed out of the darkness at range her remaining antiaircraft guns opened up. Those guns would barely hurt a destroyer and were useless against a battleship. Why hadn't it fired? If her weakest weapons could reach, all of it's weapons could reach, why wasn't it firing?
The blow knocked every rangefinder out of kilter and sent the entire crew scrambling, but it wasn't from gunfire. The blow was a hand, from a larger, more powerful ship, and Abyssal conditioning kicked in, she began crouching to guard more sensitive areas and braced for another blow, rather than trying to reply with violence.
It came in the form of a sweeping leg that knocked her off her props and sent her superstructure into the water. Normally an Abyssal could handle that, but with so much damage and so many holes, water started pouring in through the top where she had no pumps, instead of through a hull breach where she did. She flailed at the battleship with her one good arm and tried to bite it as a hand closed over her, right below her bridge. Then the battleship shoved her bridge underwater.
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Haida had been in battles before. She'd watched as crewmen boxed in makeshift rings, and even some who fought each other below decks when talking wouldn't serve. But the calculated brutality of this horrified her. She was glad they'd left Maggie a bit behind.
Her mind told her that this was an enemy, and no laws of war had been broken, this was how infantry often fought, it was actually less brutal than a boxing match. But she was a ship, the Abyssal was a ship, and using the sea and a ship's instinctive terror of sinking as a weapon seemed horrifyingly wrong. Her namesake people had been `Vikings` thousands of years before Vikings were a thing, but her guts curdled at this near scientific destruction of a foe's will to fight.
"Quit fighting and surrender, you will not be harmed!" Gordon shouted at the Abyssal as he yanked her head above the surface, but the girl, yes girl all Haida could see was a terrified girl about the age of her youngest seamen, was beyond reasoning and devolved to animal-instinct alone. She screamed, hit and tried to spit and bite like a feral cat. It seemed odd to see an Abyssal crying.
That is what she's doing, Haida realized as she stepped forward to intervene.
Gordon stood and held the flailing cruiser entirely out of the water with one hand. The sound like an arc light igniting and a red dash of light appeared on Gordon's hand, next to the Abyssal's neck. The dash disappeared into the girl's neck and her entire lower body slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. It took the Abyssal a few moments to notice her screams had gone silent and her blows were no longer landing.
Mercifully, her eyes rolled up in her head and her head slumped forward.
Haida glanced back towards the arriving Maggie.
"Your 25 knots is a bit faster than mine," the carrier said, "So, you killed her?"
"I think it's going to take a lot of getting used to," Haida admitted, "This new way of killing Abyssals."
The Abyssal's eyes jerked open and Haida screamed, bringing every weapon to bear as Gordon knelt down and cradled the Abyssal girl in his lap.
"You have been captured, if you behave, you will be treated well. If you misbehave we will abandon you in your current state," Gordon said, "If you understand this, wink." He winked at her and the terrified Abyssal winked back.
"Order your crew to stand down, and my damage control will begin to affect repairs to your fuel bunkers and drive," Gordon said, "We'll need to use your weapons as raw materials. Wink if you understand."
The Abyssal instead burst into tears. The silent, racking sobs cut at Haida and Maggie. When the Abyssals were a thing, a dark mirror, it was easy to see them as the enemy. Here, watching a terrified child react to the results of their war, Haida could feel only sympathy. She wanted the war to end more than anything in her life.
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With Daleks rolling ahead of him, the tall, dark figure marched through the gloom of the Abyssal ship. The appearance of an Abyssal Imp brought concern, but it held up an index card, waving it frantically so it might be seen. It was as close to a white flag as circumstances permitted.
"YoRA," one of the Dalek Marines told it and led it back down the corridor were it would be held and processed with the others.
The rest of the force pressed on. Engineering and the boiler rooms were their goal, and they were close.
Blocking entry was a large, white sheet. A shape that could easily have existed in hyperbolic coordinates yet seemed so very wrong in Euclidean space stood beside the sheet. The huge engineer's wrench it carried the only thing about it that wasn't eye-wateringly invalid.
"GearA, GearA GearA," it said deferentially, and noted the same message on the sheet, essentially 'we're trying to save the ship, help or piss off'.
Cthulhu slipped through the pack of Daleks and towards the sheet. "Yo," he told the tall medic.
"Yo," the medic signaled for the Daleks to continue as Cthulhu and several more of his team entered the Abyssal engineering spaces.
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If you had told Maggie yesterday, that she'd feel sorry for an Abyssal, she would have laughed in your face. Now, she kept looking at the frightened girl draped almost bonelessly across Gordon's broad shoulders, and couldn't keep a pang from her heart.
Only the girl's eyes moved and occasionally her mouth, but no sound came out.
Gordon had carefully removed the girl's gun turrets and the wreck of her torpedo launchers to feed them to her as material to repair the numerous, oil-bleeding cuts in her legs and the wreck of her arm.
The more of her rigging we take off, Maggie thought, The more of a hurt, frightened girl I see.
She slipped closer. In hand, a package of cookies that she'd intended to share with the crew at Nishinoshima, but she could spare just one for the girl, and maybe a sip of milk from her refrigerators. Just to get the taste of Abyssal Steel out of her mouth.
Like Haida, she'd noted the girl's reaction to eating bits of her own rigging, and the revulsion not at the implied semi-cannibalism, but at the taste.
The grin and raised eyebrow from Gordon made her want to smash him in the face so hard. Then she realized that if this idea of redeeming Abyssals was going to work, the ship-girls' disgust and hatred of them were the biggest hurdle, and he was bumrushing herself and Haida over that hurdle with a terrified Abyssal on display.
She glared at him, and all he did was look ahead on their course.
"Here," she said and steeled herself as the Abyssal flinched at her touch, she raised the girl's head so she could taste and swallow, "It's a cookie, something to get the steel taste out of your mouth." She broke off a small piece and ate it where the girl could watch. Then broke off a piece and placed it in the girl's open mouth.
The girl's mix of joy and absolute confusion tore at Maggie. The girl began crying again. She wanted to yank her off Gordon's shoulders and cuddle her, but one she'd sink both of them, she had no idea how Gordon was supporting the extra weight, and two they'd have to stop for her to do it. Instead she blotted the girls tears and held the small cup of milk to her lips to let her take a small sip.
Fragments of cookie and small sips of milk and the poor girl looked so confused at such a simple act of kindness. Maggie found she hated the Abyss more and more. A creature like this could exist, would expect abuse and mistreatment, and that was the Abyss' modus operandi?
How many such child-soldiers had they killed? How many had died because they couldn't understand that they could just surrender? She'd lived through World War 2 and the fanaticism of the enemy, had seen the intelligence about Operation Downfall and Operation Starvation, and she was realizing that horrible alternatives were the only things that would work. She also thought about Gordon and wondered if he'd come to that conclusion, or stumbled into it.
