Anchovy Peaches XXI - Toys In Godland
Anchovy Peaches XXI - Toys In Godland
Gotengo wrapped herself in Haida's blankets and read another of the cartoons that Haida thought she'd cunningly hidden. But light cruisers were for hunting destroyers, rooting out the hiding places of destroyers was easy. Another chapter in Atago's Adventures. Gotengo admired the artwork, but the physics and tensile strength of materials were clearly being ignored.
She winced as she got to the last panel. "I'll never be able to see Jessie and James blasting off again the same way," she grumbled, "Thanks, Atago." She wrapped herself in the blankets and tried to go to sleep amid Haida's scent. Despite how tired and bored she was, she found she was more worried and thus sleep evaded her.
She'd been forbidden weapons and long-range transmitters, so she'd concentrated on receivers and sensor equipment. But the sortie had turned into a sweep, and they had moved beyond the range of her radios, and they weren't going to livestream a battle so that form of inclusion was gone. She didn't want the alarms going off, but she wanted something to happen. The sound of thunder and pouring rain hardly qualified.
------------------------------
I'm getting radar in my next upgrade, Captain Gordon thought as he cruised near Maggie and the Shoukaku-Zuikaku division. He couldn't provide anti-air, but he had splashed a trio of cruisers who'd been lying in wait for the carriers.
"Why do you fire one gun at a time per turret?" Shoukaku said, trying to make conversation to override her nervousness.
"I tried firing a complete salvo of all guns," Captain Gordon said, "I got cramps so bad I'd rather have been set on fire. So one shot from each turret. It also allows one shell per second to head down range. Not exactly a machinegun, but enough to keep ships honest."
U-489, Ecchi-Nein, and H41 surfaced a short distance away, Captain Gordon grimaced at the reaction of the two IJN carriers to the almost unarmed and thus unthreatening sub. "I understand her, but weren't you sunk by aircraft," he said to the carriers as he closed in on the subs, the thermos of workman's tea appearing in his hand. He was careful to stay at arm's reach from the girl.
"I found where they've been hiding," H41 said, "And something weird." She greedily downed the hot, strong tea and held out her cup for a refill. Ecchi-Nein was enjoying her own coffee.
"We're the living personification of ships, weird comes with the territory," Captain Gordon said as he refilled her cup.
"This is beyond that level of weird," H41 said, "Kushi and Goya are guarding the place, but we aren't strong enough to break in, and from what we've already found, torpedoes aren't the answer."
Gordon nodded. "Kirishima, the subs have found an anomaly, they need me to check it out," Gordon said through the radio, "Request some screening forces for the carriers."
"Tenryuu and Tatsuta are on their way," the battlecruiser replied by radio, "Tell the subs not to enjoy buddy breathing too much."
H41 blushed so hard it looked like her red lead undercoat had been exposed. Ecchi-Nein merely waggled her eyebrows at both of them.
------------------------------
The steel of the door was strong, but against the horsepower I was carrying, it was a bunch of stacked heavy boxes. The reason the torpedoes were not the solution to the issue was the small figure in the oversized egg near the door, and the half-dozen that were embedded in the wall of the corridor leading to the door.
They would occasionally move slightly, so they were alive, or exquisite animatronics, so blowing out the entire corridor with a torpedo was out. Goya led the way through the opening while I enlarged it enough for the other subs and finally myself to pass through. Ecchi-Nein stayed near. I still hadn't overcome the diaphragm spasming, although I could stay down a long time, as long as I could occasionally breathe in and out. The jokes about me inflating an Abyssal sub to bursting made the rounds, and considering the run of Atago's Adventures using my mouth to do that was the only novel thing about the jokes.
Inside I nearly collided with the three subs who were staring at the collection of spheres that lined the walls of the corridor leading to a pocket of air. I slipped past them and headed to that air pocket. Above the water was a massive lab. I couldn't have named a tenth of the equipment on the first tray of utensils I saw, let alone all the other material. None of it was the Hollywood electric arcs and flashing lights, it was all clean, well-organized, although the raised walkways in front of some of the taller gear indicated that whoever the operator was, they were the size of a child.
The subs followed me out of the water. I was headed towards several large tubes that had several, more adult forms within them. One I recognized immediately as pieces of a Yamato fused with an angled-deck carrier. It wasn't the typical Abyssal 'shove the pieces together and fill the gaps with monster' technique, she looked like the more careful fusing that ship-girls used. The second was a massive woman, taller and wider than me, but plusher, like building Ecchi-Nein or Kushi at my scale. The last was the shocker, it was me, paler skin, dark, violet hair, and empty, green eyes. She floated there as if a corpse, but occasionally a bubble escaped from her mouth. I could see the places where rigging would go, and that instead of my four turrets, she'd have five.
"It's not their fault," came from behind us. I turned around to see a young girl in a white sundress out of the corner of my eye, then the floor leapt up at me. I was unconscious before it hit me.
------------------------------
It was unusual to see Admiral Crawford in a wet suit, more that he and several ship-girls I'd never seen before hovering over me. "I'm going to guess this isn't normal," I said as the trio helped me to a sitting position. I was off the ground on a table, a multi-bulb lighting fixture, mercifully off, was overhead.
"Are," the ship-girl said, then whispered the rest when I winced, "All right, do you feel dizzy, anything out of place?"
"A lot," I said as I shaded my eyes, "Everything's too loud and bright. I swear I can hear where the walls are. Other than that, I'm just ducky. What the Hell is going on?"
"We were hoping you could tell us," Crawford said, "Your crew has been rather reticent about what happened over the last two days, and while they've been otherwise exemplarily in their help with the other 106 subjects, they've been closed-lipped about you."
"Are Ecchi-Nein and Kushi all right?" I asked, the phrase 'two days' matching the ship's chronometers.
"For a given value of all right," the ship-girl said, "You don't know who I am?"
"I'm glad I still know who I am at this point. Jokes about waking up in an ice bath missing a kidney notwithstanding, I'm assuming I had surgery, an upgrade or both."
"That's a very good way to put it," Crawford said, "Kushi and Ecchi-Nein are fine, if they don't mind being almost as tall as you are and their entire pressure hull replaced with titanium. They haven't had a chance to test it, but I suspect their crush depth and cargo capacity are increased enormously. H29, Goya and H41 weren't resized, but reskinned in HY-130 steel, which regular ships are just mastering the use of. Although their fuel tanks have been considerably increased, much to I-19's amusement," Crawford said, "But from what they told us, you got ambushed by a small child who rendered you all unconscious."
"That's something we'd like to understand," the ship-girl with the forest of cranes as crown rigging said, "Anesthetics are almost unknown to ship-girls. It's no fun having to take an angle grinder to a cute, little destroyer girl to do some repairs and have to ask her to be brave rather than jerk around and scream like a rational being would."
"Not my proudest moment," I replied, "A hundred and something, there's something in Asian mythology about that." It bugged me that the information should have been right there, but wasn't. Then something else distracted from the recall of obscure mythology. "You think I was made here."
"Considering your twin sister is hanging in a tube over there," Crawford said, "It's hard not to."
Another distraction came from the report my captain presented to me. "The Abyssals weren't protecting this place, they were hunting for it."
"So would we be," the ship-girl whose name escaped me said.
"No, I was speaking very precisely. We'd search for it. They were hunting for it. Hunt as in to kill it when they found it," I said and looked at the Admiral, "I assume Admiral Beale has been informed?"
"She's never been happier," Crawford said, "Divers from your crew and Vestal's confirm what the note pinned to your chest said, 'They're good girls, they just need a good crew.' Getting them back to Nishinoshima has been a high priority. The tubes they're in aren't plugged into anything, like a ship in mothballs, it's as if they are just awaiting a crew and commissioning."
Vestal, now that I made the connection, looked at me. "Do you remember this place?"
"My first memory is realizing I was in a nightmare," I told them, "Why would an Abyssal be experimenting with new ships?"
"How much do you know about the Silmarillion?" Crawford asked.
I shrugged. "Read it, what Tolkien fan hasn't?" I replied.
"Feanor could create, take things and make new ones, Morgoth could only corrupt and destroy," Crawford said, "The Princess working here wanted to be able to create new ship-girl types, but aside from the fixed templates and corrupting ship-girls, the Abyss cannot create new. If the Abyssals have a Repair/Construction Princess, it overturns the whole dynamic of the Abyssal power structure. Having the Abyssals able to live without the Abyss is a greater threat than we are."
"Hey, hold the heavy philosophy, I just woke up," I admonished, "So, the upgrades. A bribe to us to rescue her children, proof of concept before we awaken them, just someone who can't leave imperfection alone, what?"
"We'll have to talk to her to guess, but we also need you to get some tests, and be ready to escort the cargo ship back to base," Crawford said.
"My God!" I said, "That's what the upgrades are for. Kushi and Ecchi-Nein can transport them all back, while H41, H29, Goya and I escort them."
"Well, change of plans," Crawford said, "We aren't contenting ourselves with just the ship-girls here. We aren't on a hit-and-run raid. We're taking the whole lab right to the walls."
I received a transmission as did every ship-girl in sight. "I hope your cargo ship is fast, because someone's out to steal your prize."
Gotengo wrapped herself in Haida's blankets and read another of the cartoons that Haida thought she'd cunningly hidden. But light cruisers were for hunting destroyers, rooting out the hiding places of destroyers was easy. Another chapter in Atago's Adventures. Gotengo admired the artwork, but the physics and tensile strength of materials were clearly being ignored.
She winced as she got to the last panel. "I'll never be able to see Jessie and James blasting off again the same way," she grumbled, "Thanks, Atago." She wrapped herself in the blankets and tried to go to sleep amid Haida's scent. Despite how tired and bored she was, she found she was more worried and thus sleep evaded her.
She'd been forbidden weapons and long-range transmitters, so she'd concentrated on receivers and sensor equipment. But the sortie had turned into a sweep, and they had moved beyond the range of her radios, and they weren't going to livestream a battle so that form of inclusion was gone. She didn't want the alarms going off, but she wanted something to happen. The sound of thunder and pouring rain hardly qualified.
------------------------------
I'm getting radar in my next upgrade, Captain Gordon thought as he cruised near Maggie and the Shoukaku-Zuikaku division. He couldn't provide anti-air, but he had splashed a trio of cruisers who'd been lying in wait for the carriers.
"Why do you fire one gun at a time per turret?" Shoukaku said, trying to make conversation to override her nervousness.
"I tried firing a complete salvo of all guns," Captain Gordon said, "I got cramps so bad I'd rather have been set on fire. So one shot from each turret. It also allows one shell per second to head down range. Not exactly a machinegun, but enough to keep ships honest."
U-489, Ecchi-Nein, and H41 surfaced a short distance away, Captain Gordon grimaced at the reaction of the two IJN carriers to the almost unarmed and thus unthreatening sub. "I understand her, but weren't you sunk by aircraft," he said to the carriers as he closed in on the subs, the thermos of workman's tea appearing in his hand. He was careful to stay at arm's reach from the girl.
"I found where they've been hiding," H41 said, "And something weird." She greedily downed the hot, strong tea and held out her cup for a refill. Ecchi-Nein was enjoying her own coffee.
"We're the living personification of ships, weird comes with the territory," Captain Gordon said as he refilled her cup.
"This is beyond that level of weird," H41 said, "Kushi and Goya are guarding the place, but we aren't strong enough to break in, and from what we've already found, torpedoes aren't the answer."
Gordon nodded. "Kirishima, the subs have found an anomaly, they need me to check it out," Gordon said through the radio, "Request some screening forces for the carriers."
"Tenryuu and Tatsuta are on their way," the battlecruiser replied by radio, "Tell the subs not to enjoy buddy breathing too much."
H41 blushed so hard it looked like her red lead undercoat had been exposed. Ecchi-Nein merely waggled her eyebrows at both of them.
------------------------------
The steel of the door was strong, but against the horsepower I was carrying, it was a bunch of stacked heavy boxes. The reason the torpedoes were not the solution to the issue was the small figure in the oversized egg near the door, and the half-dozen that were embedded in the wall of the corridor leading to the door.
They would occasionally move slightly, so they were alive, or exquisite animatronics, so blowing out the entire corridor with a torpedo was out. Goya led the way through the opening while I enlarged it enough for the other subs and finally myself to pass through. Ecchi-Nein stayed near. I still hadn't overcome the diaphragm spasming, although I could stay down a long time, as long as I could occasionally breathe in and out. The jokes about me inflating an Abyssal sub to bursting made the rounds, and considering the run of Atago's Adventures using my mouth to do that was the only novel thing about the jokes.
Inside I nearly collided with the three subs who were staring at the collection of spheres that lined the walls of the corridor leading to a pocket of air. I slipped past them and headed to that air pocket. Above the water was a massive lab. I couldn't have named a tenth of the equipment on the first tray of utensils I saw, let alone all the other material. None of it was the Hollywood electric arcs and flashing lights, it was all clean, well-organized, although the raised walkways in front of some of the taller gear indicated that whoever the operator was, they were the size of a child.
The subs followed me out of the water. I was headed towards several large tubes that had several, more adult forms within them. One I recognized immediately as pieces of a Yamato fused with an angled-deck carrier. It wasn't the typical Abyssal 'shove the pieces together and fill the gaps with monster' technique, she looked like the more careful fusing that ship-girls used. The second was a massive woman, taller and wider than me, but plusher, like building Ecchi-Nein or Kushi at my scale. The last was the shocker, it was me, paler skin, dark, violet hair, and empty, green eyes. She floated there as if a corpse, but occasionally a bubble escaped from her mouth. I could see the places where rigging would go, and that instead of my four turrets, she'd have five.
"It's not their fault," came from behind us. I turned around to see a young girl in a white sundress out of the corner of my eye, then the floor leapt up at me. I was unconscious before it hit me.
------------------------------
It was unusual to see Admiral Crawford in a wet suit, more that he and several ship-girls I'd never seen before hovering over me. "I'm going to guess this isn't normal," I said as the trio helped me to a sitting position. I was off the ground on a table, a multi-bulb lighting fixture, mercifully off, was overhead.
"Are," the ship-girl said, then whispered the rest when I winced, "All right, do you feel dizzy, anything out of place?"
"A lot," I said as I shaded my eyes, "Everything's too loud and bright. I swear I can hear where the walls are. Other than that, I'm just ducky. What the Hell is going on?"
"We were hoping you could tell us," Crawford said, "Your crew has been rather reticent about what happened over the last two days, and while they've been otherwise exemplarily in their help with the other 106 subjects, they've been closed-lipped about you."
"Are Ecchi-Nein and Kushi all right?" I asked, the phrase 'two days' matching the ship's chronometers.
"For a given value of all right," the ship-girl said, "You don't know who I am?"
"I'm glad I still know who I am at this point. Jokes about waking up in an ice bath missing a kidney notwithstanding, I'm assuming I had surgery, an upgrade or both."
"That's a very good way to put it," Crawford said, "Kushi and Ecchi-Nein are fine, if they don't mind being almost as tall as you are and their entire pressure hull replaced with titanium. They haven't had a chance to test it, but I suspect their crush depth and cargo capacity are increased enormously. H29, Goya and H41 weren't resized, but reskinned in HY-130 steel, which regular ships are just mastering the use of. Although their fuel tanks have been considerably increased, much to I-19's amusement," Crawford said, "But from what they told us, you got ambushed by a small child who rendered you all unconscious."
"That's something we'd like to understand," the ship-girl with the forest of cranes as crown rigging said, "Anesthetics are almost unknown to ship-girls. It's no fun having to take an angle grinder to a cute, little destroyer girl to do some repairs and have to ask her to be brave rather than jerk around and scream like a rational being would."
"Not my proudest moment," I replied, "A hundred and something, there's something in Asian mythology about that." It bugged me that the information should have been right there, but wasn't. Then something else distracted from the recall of obscure mythology. "You think I was made here."
"Considering your twin sister is hanging in a tube over there," Crawford said, "It's hard not to."
Another distraction came from the report my captain presented to me. "The Abyssals weren't protecting this place, they were hunting for it."
"So would we be," the ship-girl whose name escaped me said.
"No, I was speaking very precisely. We'd search for it. They were hunting for it. Hunt as in to kill it when they found it," I said and looked at the Admiral, "I assume Admiral Beale has been informed?"
"She's never been happier," Crawford said, "Divers from your crew and Vestal's confirm what the note pinned to your chest said, 'They're good girls, they just need a good crew.' Getting them back to Nishinoshima has been a high priority. The tubes they're in aren't plugged into anything, like a ship in mothballs, it's as if they are just awaiting a crew and commissioning."
Vestal, now that I made the connection, looked at me. "Do you remember this place?"
"My first memory is realizing I was in a nightmare," I told them, "Why would an Abyssal be experimenting with new ships?"
"How much do you know about the Silmarillion?" Crawford asked.
I shrugged. "Read it, what Tolkien fan hasn't?" I replied.
"Feanor could create, take things and make new ones, Morgoth could only corrupt and destroy," Crawford said, "The Princess working here wanted to be able to create new ship-girl types, but aside from the fixed templates and corrupting ship-girls, the Abyss cannot create new. If the Abyssals have a Repair/Construction Princess, it overturns the whole dynamic of the Abyssal power structure. Having the Abyssals able to live without the Abyss is a greater threat than we are."
"Hey, hold the heavy philosophy, I just woke up," I admonished, "So, the upgrades. A bribe to us to rescue her children, proof of concept before we awaken them, just someone who can't leave imperfection alone, what?"
"We'll have to talk to her to guess, but we also need you to get some tests, and be ready to escort the cargo ship back to base," Crawford said.
"My God!" I said, "That's what the upgrades are for. Kushi and Ecchi-Nein can transport them all back, while H41, H29, Goya and I escort them."
"Well, change of plans," Crawford said, "We aren't contenting ourselves with just the ship-girls here. We aren't on a hit-and-run raid. We're taking the whole lab right to the walls."
I received a transmission as did every ship-girl in sight. "I hope your cargo ship is fast, because someone's out to steal your prize."