Or they could be playing to the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villian trope to be in position to betray them at a critical time. After all the Treasure Island loot will be coming to Nishinoshima! Who am I kidding? Their Battleship Water Demon lost a fight to a well-trained Chi-class who lacks guns and torpedoes.It's still stupid!
Stupidity does not preclude function and plenty of stupid things work; just look at evolution.
Anchovy Peaches [Kancolle][Crackfic]
- Thread starter NK-33
- Start date
- Novella Alt. History
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Honestly, considering some of the ways certain ships have been sunk throughout history, a torpedo cruiser without guns and torpedoes sinking a battleship wouldn't even be close to the most improbable outcome that has ever happened.
Anchovy Peaches XXIV - The Payoff Begins
Anchovy Peaches XXIV - The Payoff Begins
One of the things I hated about this universe since I became Captain Gordon was that many of the front line fighters were small, charming, cute, little girls. The wounded I-47 in my arms had almost her entire side as a massive bruise as dark as her swimsuit from a near miss by a depth charge that still forced her to the surface. A snapshot in the battle had prevented the cruiser from gunning or running her down, but she needed a repair bath soon. Half her crew were in my sickbay and the other half were keeping her alive, nothing they could do would make her seaworthy.
The other sub, U-3008, was held on by cables, her fuel tanks were ruptured and her engines would go out if she had to diesel back to base. I had little diesel to spare and transferring from the other sub was fraught with problems in these seas. The destroyer, Ushio, was trying to keep a weather eye, but had shipped enough water to nearly sink before I'd forced her to dismiss much of her rigging and hauled her out of the water and onto my shoulders. She was doing her level best to keep U-3008 squared away as I raced through the mounting seas at a speed that exceeded unwise and shaded into desperate.
The snippets of transmissions hadn't added to my equanimity. I wasn't sure if the transmission was about a squadron between Crawford and home, and meant his command was surrounded, bad, or if they were between my flotilla and home, worse, which would require a fight in seas where nearly every hand was needed to keep the ship afloat and the two subs alive.
Radar was almost useless, I thought as I tried to see past the waves and spray, I would give my eye teeth for a towed sonar array or a friendly Los Angeles-class.
I calculated how hard I could push and avoid swamping my charges or running out of fuel myself. The sea state was worsening, forcing a reduction in speed, which would mean a worse sea state as more of the storm overtook us.
A secondary concern was ammunition status. Seventy rounds of HC and APCBC combined per gun seemed plenty, until I'd fought three enemy squadrons as the only major gunboat in the force. A fourth force without the subs and airpower to support me was chancy.
"Multiple targets, 285 relative," Ushio said from her higher placed radar, "They're moving away. HOLY SHIT ONE RIGHT ON TOP OF US!"
Stupid, I thought the instant I executed the sharp turn, You're a warship, why dodge a collision with an enemy?
The small carrier still was sent flying from the glancing impact. She looked a bit like a Gambier Bay-sized Wo-class, and she bounced off the waves a few times before she sat amid the seas. I swung the guns around at the small figure rubbing her head. The only weapon she appeared to have was a single mount that looked like a parody of a battleship turret. I could have crippled her with the secondaries, but they were in a worse ammunition state than the main batteries, and one HC shot was all it would take. The look of joy on her face as she looked at me gave me pause as the lookouts checked for an ambush closing on me or braced for a massive detonation from her magazines.
"IT'S CAPTAIN GORDON AND IT'S GOT CHAMPAGNE!" blared out from her radios on a dozen frequencies in the clear, "FLEE, SAVE YOURSELVES!" She then knelt in the water in front of me. "Depth charge, depth charge," she said and gestured back towards the radar bearing Ushio had give me earlier.
"I'm out of depth charges," Ushio admitted, a lone gun pointed at the figure in the water.
"Coward!" came the transmission in reply, "Sell yourself dearly!"
"Mine," U-3008 mumbled and handed a hand grenade-sized sea mine to me. "Seven, six."
I got the clue and threw it on the indicated vector as far as I could. The explosion was impressive.
"I was wrong," came from the carrier over the radio, "It's all so clear to me now. Come join us."
If she was parodying a blissed-out hippy, she couldn't have done better with a Coexist bumper sticker on her cooking oil-powered VW van.
"We've got something coming in, and it's big," Ushio said, she pointed with her free hand.
"Got torps still," I-47 said, "Pu' me inna water."
"I've got torps too," I reminded her and got a glimpse of what looked like an Abyssalized Iowa, only with a Colorado or Nagato style and sized rig. Then a wave came between us. When it cleared the woman was a lot closer, but she'd dismissed her armament rig, I couldn't tell if she was naked or wearing a throat to toes bodysuit, but she slowed and knelt beside the carrier.
"Mine, mine, mine," the carrier said, sounding the way the Seagulls from ~Finding Nemo~ wished they could sound.
As U-3008 counted down from eight, another mine was sent back along the vector, and resulted in another impressive explosion. I was desperately hoping that U-3008 had the rest safed, or that was her last one.
"They're retreating at high-speed," Ushio reported, "What's going on?"
"You don't have stickers?" the battleship asked, "I have acetate sheeting and a grease pencil. And a staple gun."
A quick consultation with the crew gave me no clarification as to what was happening. The carrier had taken my inaction as an excuse to pull the items from her sleeve, and extend them towards me. She'd dismissed the gun mount, but her hat remained.
"I know you're supposed to pick the names, but I'm Furious," the carrier said.
"I'm a little out of sorts myself," I replied as I accepted the items and let I-47 hold the staple gun while I wrote Furious on one sheet. The girl leaned forward. "I am not stapling this to your forehead, for one thing you wouldn't be able to see."
My crew had provided me with a more normal stapler as I handed the staple gun back to her, wary she'd fire it at me. But both seemed quiescent. I stapled the name tag to her collar, and she grinned so much she reminded me of Shark Dentures.
The battleship had a stricken expression. I was already writing Joshamee Gibbs on the second sheet. Yes she was wearing a bodysuit, and I stapled the acetate to her clothes. She beamed at me.
What's going on? I sent by signal light to Ushio where they couldn't see it.
If you're asking about champagne and stickers, Ushio sent back the same way, I haven't the faintest idea.
"Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon, this is Blackjack, Blackjack overhead," came over the scrambled radio.
"Blackjack, Blackjack, Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon," I sent back, "Are you declaring an emergency, are you -"
The laughter at the other end interrupted me. "In Mother Russia, bomber plane rescues battleship," the voice said, "There are multiple Abyssal signals at 20 kilometers, but they are heading away. There were two that were closer, I say again two that were closer, do you need assistance, do you need assistance?"
"Blackjack the two close in have been dealt with, the two close in have been dealt with. Can you verify vector to Nishinoshima? Can you verify vector to Nishinoshima?"
They gave the vector which matched our charts and assured us their plane was both above the bulk of the storm and made from recycled T-34s so would withstand any storm. What they relayed was more than troubling. "Admiral Beale requests you make best speed, a squadron of Swedish ship-girls arrived, drunk and she wants more resources to deal with it," the plane's radio operator sent, "At least they aren't Finns."
"Any reports on damage?" I asked.
"None, Gotengo kept them under wraps," came back, "Comrade, it's not the drunk, it's the hangover in the morning believe me."
"Swedish? Other than Swede Momsen do the Swede's have a blue-water navy?" I asked my charges. Most seemed to think not. I then looked at the pale-skinned blondes before me and it dropped into place. "Please tell the Admiral we found the other two Swedish ships and are bring them in," I said aloud as I transmitted.
"Bork, bork, bork!" the Furious said happily.
I-47 groaned as she covered her face. "Where's my home? It was around here a few minutes ago."
"All right," Ushio said, taking the position of the Exec, just getting things done, "Furious stand up, Gibbs, stay where you are. Furious put your arms up. We'll never make home if we have to depend on you, or us other little ones sailing in this."
The carrier did as she was ordered as I drew closer. I realized Ushio had read the reports about Gotengo's conversion and she was following a similar pattern. I took the carrier's wrists and ignored her horrified expression. Physical contact between rank-and-file Abyssals was always violence, and pain. "Dismiss all your rigging, I won't let you sink," I told her.
The seconds ticked by, the storm forgotten, the war was on the face of a little Abyssal carrier. The reality of her situation, her most treasured hopes and her deepest terrors flashed across her face. The encouragement from the battleship mattered not, she had only the legends and whatever stories she'd heard.
She bowed her head, accepting her death, and I had merely the weight of a young girl hanging from my arms. Her hat remained and patted her shoulder. I was glad of the vote of confidence as I lifted her clear of the water, and the battleship underwent her own crisis of faith as she realized I was lowering the carrier onto her shoulders. Two terrified faces stared from the depth of the ultimate Abyssals' hell as the carrier settled on the battleship's shoulders her head between the carrier's legs. Both were suddenly at the total mercy of the other. If the carrier summoned her full rigging she would crush the partially manifested battleship. The battleship could tear the carrier girl to pieces with trivial effort.
"You were willing to die for each other, now you must live for each other," I told them, "This isn't the easy path you imagined, but the hard way is far easier than the easy way."
Ushio and I reached over in unison, sending both girls into a flinch. I carefully tousled the carrier's hair, while Ushio did the same with the battleship.
The frightened whines from the pair changed slightly to a happier sound as the contact continued.
"Let's get going," I told them. The battleship nodded as she stood. She craned her neck to look at the carrier perched on her shoulders. The frightened carrier put her arms around the battleship's forehead and settled atop her head.
"Okay, manifest only your radar, from up there you've got better range than your battleship, drier too," Ushio said.
The battleship fell in behind me, she very carefully reached out and touched U-3008, rubbing her head gently as she'd received.
"The Great, TransPacific Cuddlepile," I whispered, causing Ushio and I-47 to laugh.
As we got to maximum safe speed, a dozen or more Abyssal destroyers began porpoising out of the water around us.
"That's just our screen," Furious shouted, "They don't understand but will follow orders."
"Who do they think is whose prisoner?" Ushio asked.
The perplexed silence didn't help. "Admiral Beale is going to have a fit when we come ashore."
"If the seas get much worse, I think she'll be amazed we made it," Ushio said.
I was inclined to believe her.
------------------------------
One of the things I hated about this universe since I became Captain Gordon was that many of the front line fighters were small, charming, cute, little girls. The wounded I-47 in my arms had almost her entire side as a massive bruise as dark as her swimsuit from a near miss by a depth charge that still forced her to the surface. A snapshot in the battle had prevented the cruiser from gunning or running her down, but she needed a repair bath soon. Half her crew were in my sickbay and the other half were keeping her alive, nothing they could do would make her seaworthy.
The other sub, U-3008, was held on by cables, her fuel tanks were ruptured and her engines would go out if she had to diesel back to base. I had little diesel to spare and transferring from the other sub was fraught with problems in these seas. The destroyer, Ushio, was trying to keep a weather eye, but had shipped enough water to nearly sink before I'd forced her to dismiss much of her rigging and hauled her out of the water and onto my shoulders. She was doing her level best to keep U-3008 squared away as I raced through the mounting seas at a speed that exceeded unwise and shaded into desperate.
The snippets of transmissions hadn't added to my equanimity. I wasn't sure if the transmission was about a squadron between Crawford and home, and meant his command was surrounded, bad, or if they were between my flotilla and home, worse, which would require a fight in seas where nearly every hand was needed to keep the ship afloat and the two subs alive.
Radar was almost useless, I thought as I tried to see past the waves and spray, I would give my eye teeth for a towed sonar array or a friendly Los Angeles-class.
I calculated how hard I could push and avoid swamping my charges or running out of fuel myself. The sea state was worsening, forcing a reduction in speed, which would mean a worse sea state as more of the storm overtook us.
A secondary concern was ammunition status. Seventy rounds of HC and APCBC combined per gun seemed plenty, until I'd fought three enemy squadrons as the only major gunboat in the force. A fourth force without the subs and airpower to support me was chancy.
"Multiple targets, 285 relative," Ushio said from her higher placed radar, "They're moving away. HOLY SHIT ONE RIGHT ON TOP OF US!"
Stupid, I thought the instant I executed the sharp turn, You're a warship, why dodge a collision with an enemy?
The small carrier still was sent flying from the glancing impact. She looked a bit like a Gambier Bay-sized Wo-class, and she bounced off the waves a few times before she sat amid the seas. I swung the guns around at the small figure rubbing her head. The only weapon she appeared to have was a single mount that looked like a parody of a battleship turret. I could have crippled her with the secondaries, but they were in a worse ammunition state than the main batteries, and one HC shot was all it would take. The look of joy on her face as she looked at me gave me pause as the lookouts checked for an ambush closing on me or braced for a massive detonation from her magazines.
"IT'S CAPTAIN GORDON AND IT'S GOT CHAMPAGNE!" blared out from her radios on a dozen frequencies in the clear, "FLEE, SAVE YOURSELVES!" She then knelt in the water in front of me. "Depth charge, depth charge," she said and gestured back towards the radar bearing Ushio had give me earlier.
"I'm out of depth charges," Ushio admitted, a lone gun pointed at the figure in the water.
"Coward!" came the transmission in reply, "Sell yourself dearly!"
"Mine," U-3008 mumbled and handed a hand grenade-sized sea mine to me. "Seven, six."
I got the clue and threw it on the indicated vector as far as I could. The explosion was impressive.
"I was wrong," came from the carrier over the radio, "It's all so clear to me now. Come join us."
If she was parodying a blissed-out hippy, she couldn't have done better with a Coexist bumper sticker on her cooking oil-powered VW van.
"We've got something coming in, and it's big," Ushio said, she pointed with her free hand.
"Got torps still," I-47 said, "Pu' me inna water."
"I've got torps too," I reminded her and got a glimpse of what looked like an Abyssalized Iowa, only with a Colorado or Nagato style and sized rig. Then a wave came between us. When it cleared the woman was a lot closer, but she'd dismissed her armament rig, I couldn't tell if she was naked or wearing a throat to toes bodysuit, but she slowed and knelt beside the carrier.
"Mine, mine, mine," the carrier said, sounding the way the Seagulls from ~Finding Nemo~ wished they could sound.
As U-3008 counted down from eight, another mine was sent back along the vector, and resulted in another impressive explosion. I was desperately hoping that U-3008 had the rest safed, or that was her last one.
"They're retreating at high-speed," Ushio reported, "What's going on?"
"You don't have stickers?" the battleship asked, "I have acetate sheeting and a grease pencil. And a staple gun."
A quick consultation with the crew gave me no clarification as to what was happening. The carrier had taken my inaction as an excuse to pull the items from her sleeve, and extend them towards me. She'd dismissed the gun mount, but her hat remained.
"I know you're supposed to pick the names, but I'm Furious," the carrier said.
"I'm a little out of sorts myself," I replied as I accepted the items and let I-47 hold the staple gun while I wrote Furious on one sheet. The girl leaned forward. "I am not stapling this to your forehead, for one thing you wouldn't be able to see."
My crew had provided me with a more normal stapler as I handed the staple gun back to her, wary she'd fire it at me. But both seemed quiescent. I stapled the name tag to her collar, and she grinned so much she reminded me of Shark Dentures.
The battleship had a stricken expression. I was already writing Joshamee Gibbs on the second sheet. Yes she was wearing a bodysuit, and I stapled the acetate to her clothes. She beamed at me.
What's going on? I sent by signal light to Ushio where they couldn't see it.
If you're asking about champagne and stickers, Ushio sent back the same way, I haven't the faintest idea.
"Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon, this is Blackjack, Blackjack overhead," came over the scrambled radio.
"Blackjack, Blackjack, Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon," I sent back, "Are you declaring an emergency, are you -"
The laughter at the other end interrupted me. "In Mother Russia, bomber plane rescues battleship," the voice said, "There are multiple Abyssal signals at 20 kilometers, but they are heading away. There were two that were closer, I say again two that were closer, do you need assistance, do you need assistance?"
"Blackjack the two close in have been dealt with, the two close in have been dealt with. Can you verify vector to Nishinoshima? Can you verify vector to Nishinoshima?"
They gave the vector which matched our charts and assured us their plane was both above the bulk of the storm and made from recycled T-34s so would withstand any storm. What they relayed was more than troubling. "Admiral Beale requests you make best speed, a squadron of Swedish ship-girls arrived, drunk and she wants more resources to deal with it," the plane's radio operator sent, "At least they aren't Finns."
"Any reports on damage?" I asked.
"None, Gotengo kept them under wraps," came back, "Comrade, it's not the drunk, it's the hangover in the morning believe me."
"Swedish? Other than Swede Momsen do the Swede's have a blue-water navy?" I asked my charges. Most seemed to think not. I then looked at the pale-skinned blondes before me and it dropped into place. "Please tell the Admiral we found the other two Swedish ships and are bring them in," I said aloud as I transmitted.
"Bork, bork, bork!" the Furious said happily.
I-47 groaned as she covered her face. "Where's my home? It was around here a few minutes ago."
"All right," Ushio said, taking the position of the Exec, just getting things done, "Furious stand up, Gibbs, stay where you are. Furious put your arms up. We'll never make home if we have to depend on you, or us other little ones sailing in this."
The carrier did as she was ordered as I drew closer. I realized Ushio had read the reports about Gotengo's conversion and she was following a similar pattern. I took the carrier's wrists and ignored her horrified expression. Physical contact between rank-and-file Abyssals was always violence, and pain. "Dismiss all your rigging, I won't let you sink," I told her.
The seconds ticked by, the storm forgotten, the war was on the face of a little Abyssal carrier. The reality of her situation, her most treasured hopes and her deepest terrors flashed across her face. The encouragement from the battleship mattered not, she had only the legends and whatever stories she'd heard.
She bowed her head, accepting her death, and I had merely the weight of a young girl hanging from my arms. Her hat remained and patted her shoulder. I was glad of the vote of confidence as I lifted her clear of the water, and the battleship underwent her own crisis of faith as she realized I was lowering the carrier onto her shoulders. Two terrified faces stared from the depth of the ultimate Abyssals' hell as the carrier settled on the battleship's shoulders her head between the carrier's legs. Both were suddenly at the total mercy of the other. If the carrier summoned her full rigging she would crush the partially manifested battleship. The battleship could tear the carrier girl to pieces with trivial effort.
"You were willing to die for each other, now you must live for each other," I told them, "This isn't the easy path you imagined, but the hard way is far easier than the easy way."
Ushio and I reached over in unison, sending both girls into a flinch. I carefully tousled the carrier's hair, while Ushio did the same with the battleship.
The frightened whines from the pair changed slightly to a happier sound as the contact continued.
"Let's get going," I told them. The battleship nodded as she stood. She craned her neck to look at the carrier perched on her shoulders. The frightened carrier put her arms around the battleship's forehead and settled atop her head.
"Okay, manifest only your radar, from up there you've got better range than your battleship, drier too," Ushio said.
The battleship fell in behind me, she very carefully reached out and touched U-3008, rubbing her head gently as she'd received.
"The Great, TransPacific Cuddlepile," I whispered, causing Ushio and I-47 to laugh.
As we got to maximum safe speed, a dozen or more Abyssal destroyers began porpoising out of the water around us.
"That's just our screen," Furious shouted, "They don't understand but will follow orders."
"Who do they think is whose prisoner?" Ushio asked.
The perplexed silence didn't help. "Admiral Beale is going to have a fit when we come ashore."
"If the seas get much worse, I think she'll be amazed we made it," Ushio said.
I was inclined to believe her.
------------------------------
A134A US Maximum BB 1934A (Max Fast Battleship)
120N FURIOUS (1) 1917
120N FURIOUS (1) 1917
Anchovy Peaches XXV - The Play of Gods and Demons
Anchovy Peaches XXV - The Play of Gods and Demons
Gotengo didn't mind getting wet, and a storm while ashore was of little concern. What she had to do was intercept her friend before he did the logical and obvious thing. The subpens had a protected cove, and a 4 meter climb into the pens themselves. All that would ease the effect of storm surge, but it also meant that the base's human population was crammed in there with the subs looking after them while a typhoon exceeding anything on record lashed the oceans and anything within them.
It hadn't taken a genius to realize that the `Swedish` ships that Captain Gordon had located could not be allowed into the subpens, that Captain Gordon's cargo needed to go directly to the repair baths had given only one course of action. Someone with the weight and armor to survive the storm would have to lead them to the standard baths where only a few damaged ship-girls waited out the storm that had battered them. Delaware was the only heavy ship they had, and only Gotengo was crazy enough to risk standing on the shore with a wagon to haul the destroyers to the repair baths.
The appearance of two, laden battleships gave her a twist in her guts she vaguely recognized as jealousy. What am I jealous of? she wondered as she made sure her searchlights were still all lit, A new battleship would be of little interest compared to the one who's already shared his bed and driven away his nightmares.
"The subpens are out, so we need to get them to the standard baths," she shouted over the noise of the storm. She drew the wagon near the shore and began loading the Abyssal destroyer flotilla into the large wagon.
"Where's the rest of the Swedish squadron?" he asked as he leaned close, stealing a kiss on her ear. Then the other battleship began loading the total of fifteen destroyers into the wagon.
"The brig," Gotengo said, "With this weather I think they're content to stay there. Only the mad would go out in this."
"Glad you're crazy," Captain Gordon said, as the two subs and the destroyer tried to snuggle against him, staying dry had long been abandoned but there was security to being firmly attached. "The carrier is Furious, and the battleship is Joshamee Gibbs."
Gotengo tried to tell him what she thought of his idea of wit, but finally just rolled her eyes. "Of course they are. We'll get them situated, then I'll talk to them."
The Battleship dismounted the carrier and drew the wagon along with them, with Gotengo helping occasionally, but mainly leading.
The rest of the fast walk went without incident, other than Gotengo's incredulity that two Abyssals would ride piggyback without trying to knife or worse to each other. Or would do manual labor side by side. The destroyers acting like dogs on a car ride was sufficiently disturbing that she tried to block it out of her mind.
"What's communication like?" Ushio asked, "We tried to transmit."
"Ah, let's get the Swedes settled, then talk shop privately," Gotengo said, suitably embarrassing the destroyer for her lapse in OpSec, "You can chat with your friends later."
There were a few, battered girls in the baths, and a few SeaBees and Mister Smiley looking over them. The building wasn't as strongly built as the subpens, but it was still steel-reinforced concrete, and the Sea-Bees had build it on isolators so if the island sank, they'd float away.
The two Abyssals watched as Gotengo lowered I-47 into the baths. What shocked all was when Furious climbed into the bath and just held I-47 from the unwounded side. She knew what was going on, and gave a knowing look to Captain Gordon. Then Joshamee added about half the destroyers to the bath. They moved into a semi circle then just floated about like grotesque bathtoys, absolutely quiescent.
Placing U-3008 into the next bath had Joshamee and the rest of the Abyssal bathtoys joining her. Cuddling the sub, who very much appreciated it.
"I'll keep an eye on things," Ushio said, "Besides, I like giving battleships head pats.
Gordon squatted down to receive his, before Ushio climbed into the bath, the Gurkha gave both a knowing smile and Gordon left with Gotengo.
Once they were back out in the storm, their false cheer fell away. "I sometimes wonder if my crew's action made you an emotional mirror image of me," Gordon said.
"Or if I'm just being a chameleon," Gotengo said, "I don't know either."
"So what commo gear do they have left?" Gordon asked, depending on the storm to keep any eavesdropping impossible.
"The land line to Yokosuka, we've lost everything else. The planes are at alternate landing sites and the subs are our only patrol line, those girls in the baths tried to stay out and the weather battered them to uselessness," she said.
Gordon put his arm around Gotengo and enjoyed her snuggling close. "How about you?"
"Better now that you're here, but I'd rather have the whole US battleline, I was worried with nine, now there are eleven," she said, "And those destroyers."
"How many did you take on?" he asked and got a snort from her.
"Only one, but it was a Battleship Water Demon," Gotengo said, "Abyssals sometimes forget that while they don't have to breathe underwater, there are consequences when they try."
Gordon smiled and almost laughed at that.
"She didn't expect a mere cruiser to approach as anything other than a suppliant, and her poor knees were exposed," Gotengo said, "And the beast that's her rigging didn't act without orders which were suddenly too chaotic to make an effective battle order."
"I realize I've created a monster," Gordon said.
"She gasped and laughed, then raced for the surface as I got to her waist and she left a steady stream of bubbles as she made it to the surface," Gotengo said, "Then I got creative." She gave the 'Vulcan Salute' and folded down her ring finger.
"You didn't," Gordon asked coldly.
She pulled away and confronted him. "I did, I am well aware that had I done that to a human, there would be a very different consequence, but for Abyssals? Most of us think we have those parts so Demons and Princesses can torture us without damaging our weapons, rangefinders or propellers. If pleasure in touch comes, it comes from or goes to a Princess, even Demons don't, lesser ranks don't. The friendliest touch between the ranks is a punch light enough that it doesn't mar your paint too much. You're thinking too much like a human poured into a ship-girl suit. Touch and no threat of violence is such an alien concept I have no idea how you arranged that carrier to ride the battleship's shoulders without them murdering each other." She pointed back to the building. "You saw them in the bath, the idea they could cuddle another ship and it would be accepted and rewarded with safety is better than any high you can imagine." She narrowed her eyes. "Would it have been better to shove my knife in there open her up like a can and rip her boilers and turbines out? That's the other way I could have won that fight. This is either a war where we use the enemies' programing against them or we don't and lots on both sides die. I chose to give her the option of living. You want to refer me for charges, fine, I don't regret what I did and without orders to the contrary, I'll do it again, unless the girl objects."
"We'll bring it up with Richardson, when he gets back," Gordon said, "It's a really complicated area, and very easy to misconstrue."
"Fine, I'll go back to killing them," Gotengo said, and stalked off.
------------------------------
H41 found Gotengo in the `mausoleum` where the rescued girls remained serenely in their tubes and eggs, waiting for when they could awaken. The sub-girl had fled when the other four got zapped, and then had to figure out another way to get the massive door open to rescue her friends. Then she'd been captured and reskinned. That all of them had changed so markedly made Gotengo's sudden decent into sullen isolation so hurtful.
"Are you all right?" she asked, careful to approach the girl from the front where she could be easily seen.
"I screwed up, and am considering my options," the cruiser said, "Maybe I'm not fit to be out and about without a keeper."
H41 hated seeing Gotengo so sad. The cruiser was one of the few who understood a ship-girl that hated to be touched. She loved talking, telling jokes and being with other ship-girls, but they always had to touch her: head pats, rubbing against her and driving her crazy. She'd been slaughtered in safe harbor at the dock by a friendly ship right after a refit. When she was at her safest and most relaxed and happy, she'd been butchered by a friend.
The most Gotengo had demanded was that they sometimes held hands, with their arms outstretched. It had made being with the other girls a bit more bearable. H41 felt an obligation to help Gotengo.
She laughed bitterly. "I told the other Abyssals that confusion would hurt worse than anything," Gotengo said as she drew her legs up under her chin, "How little did I know."
"Maybe if you talk about it?" H41 offered.
"I told Captain Gordon, and he said I should wait and talk about it to Admiral Crawford," Gotengo said, "Sometimes I wonder, you ship and sub-girls are alive, the Abyssals that come from ship-girls are alive, am I just an artificial intelligence? I can copycat being a person, but is that just the simulation? You all do things automatically, I have to think about it all the time, and I get it wrong so often it's ceased being funny."
H41 extended a hand, and after a moment's hesitation laid it on the cruiser's shoulder. "You are a person, we all make mistakes, we all are here because we don't fit in with normal ship-girls," H41 said, "Making mistakes is what kids do all the time, you're just having to go through it as an adult."
"But none of the kids on the base are given the level of responsibility being an adult requires, they make a mistake they only hurt themselves, if I make a mistake it can hurt a lot of people." She looked up at the figure in the tube. "You carry all that experience with you. You have it automatically. Even Captain Gordon who was never a ship before. Maybe it's that an Abyssal cruiser and below doesn't have it."
"No one who'd be asking those questions is not a person," H41 said, "Asking those kinds of questions, feeling what you're feeling is kind of what being a person is all about."
"I think it would be easier if I just cracked this tube open and sent my crew over there. Another battleship is of more use than a cruiser, especially when the cruiser doesn't know all the rules of humans. Maybe a battleship would know them all. My crew deserves better than me. Transfer them over and use the husk for supplies."
"We are not scrapping you because you made a mistake," H41 insisted. She was terrified of what would happen when she got this close to an undirected cruiser, but she knew what was needed. She settled her head on Gotengo's chest and hugged her tight. "We love you and will help you with anything."
------------------------------
Walking into the brig had been a strange experience. Gordon knew he should be thinking Gotengo out of her mess, but he had too many things on his mind and all of them were getting short shrift.
"These are them," he said of the collection of terrified to worshipful Abyssals. He wanted to tell them he was no messiah. If he were he'd be with Gotengo and her vexation. Instead, he was here doing a job that wasn't even his. Then he realized it might be. He recognized many of them, and many of their injuries. He'd inflicted them after all.
But those were dreams, he thought, They didn't really happen. But the match up was too close to be faked. Both Southern War Demons, and both Destroyer Water Demons have head injuries. The Aircraft Carrier Water Demon and Anchorage Demon had scarred over belly wounds where I'd driven my pitchfork through the former, and ripped open the latter. The clincher was the terrified expression on the Light Cruiser Demon. It matched the creature I'd 'let live' thinking I'd killed the others.
It hollowed out what Gotengo had done. She hadn't tried to murder her opponent, just forced them to surrender. Then again how the Hell did my dreams inflict actual injuries on them?
"You'll have to be checked, and unless your crew is different than most Abyssals we've seen, as you advance along the process you're going to lose some." They seemed very surprised by that. "The odd thing is you'll get new crew members, we don't really understand all the nuance of it and you'll be learning it as we go along. We'll get you to the repair bathes so your injuries can be healed."
"Is the cruiser all right? They said she went to the baths," the Battleship Water Demon asked, "Why isn't she with you?"
"There are things you don't need to know yet, and she's fine, she was escorting two more Swedes to the baths," he said, "There are questions about you, and there's going to be a lot of discussion. When I turned her, it was much the way you were turned, a defeat. The rest of you are defectors and that begs a whole lot of questions. The most important is how to treat both sides fairly. I need to know what you want to do. Do you want to give up war and just live?"
One of the Southern War Demons nearly threw herself at the barred door. "The deep with that! I wanna fight like that paper promised, I wanna see how I can beat my foe, and know I'm better!" she looked at the others before continuing, "But you'll make us give up our weapons, how am I supposed to fight when I don't have a gun or torpedo, and no guff about fighting with my mind or putting stickers on others. If I can't lay fire on target, what's the point."
"Did you like fighting the seas to get here?" he asked.
"Yeah, I could live with fighting through that," the Abyssal said.
"Then I'll have you talk with Lieutenant Christopher," Gordon said, remembering the Coast Guard officer, "Before he got hurt, he was part of an organization whose motto was 'You have to go out, you don't have to come back.'"
"Okay, I'll listen," the Abyssal said.
"What's this about champagne and stickers?" he asked, and the Battleship Water Demon handed him a drawing by Willie D.
Gotengo didn't mind getting wet, and a storm while ashore was of little concern. What she had to do was intercept her friend before he did the logical and obvious thing. The subpens had a protected cove, and a 4 meter climb into the pens themselves. All that would ease the effect of storm surge, but it also meant that the base's human population was crammed in there with the subs looking after them while a typhoon exceeding anything on record lashed the oceans and anything within them.
It hadn't taken a genius to realize that the `Swedish` ships that Captain Gordon had located could not be allowed into the subpens, that Captain Gordon's cargo needed to go directly to the repair baths had given only one course of action. Someone with the weight and armor to survive the storm would have to lead them to the standard baths where only a few damaged ship-girls waited out the storm that had battered them. Delaware was the only heavy ship they had, and only Gotengo was crazy enough to risk standing on the shore with a wagon to haul the destroyers to the repair baths.
The appearance of two, laden battleships gave her a twist in her guts she vaguely recognized as jealousy. What am I jealous of? she wondered as she made sure her searchlights were still all lit, A new battleship would be of little interest compared to the one who's already shared his bed and driven away his nightmares.
"The subpens are out, so we need to get them to the standard baths," she shouted over the noise of the storm. She drew the wagon near the shore and began loading the Abyssal destroyer flotilla into the large wagon.
"Where's the rest of the Swedish squadron?" he asked as he leaned close, stealing a kiss on her ear. Then the other battleship began loading the total of fifteen destroyers into the wagon.
"The brig," Gotengo said, "With this weather I think they're content to stay there. Only the mad would go out in this."
"Glad you're crazy," Captain Gordon said, as the two subs and the destroyer tried to snuggle against him, staying dry had long been abandoned but there was security to being firmly attached. "The carrier is Furious, and the battleship is Joshamee Gibbs."
Gotengo tried to tell him what she thought of his idea of wit, but finally just rolled her eyes. "Of course they are. We'll get them situated, then I'll talk to them."
The Battleship dismounted the carrier and drew the wagon along with them, with Gotengo helping occasionally, but mainly leading.
The rest of the fast walk went without incident, other than Gotengo's incredulity that two Abyssals would ride piggyback without trying to knife or worse to each other. Or would do manual labor side by side. The destroyers acting like dogs on a car ride was sufficiently disturbing that she tried to block it out of her mind.
"What's communication like?" Ushio asked, "We tried to transmit."
"Ah, let's get the Swedes settled, then talk shop privately," Gotengo said, suitably embarrassing the destroyer for her lapse in OpSec, "You can chat with your friends later."
There were a few, battered girls in the baths, and a few SeaBees and Mister Smiley looking over them. The building wasn't as strongly built as the subpens, but it was still steel-reinforced concrete, and the Sea-Bees had build it on isolators so if the island sank, they'd float away.
The two Abyssals watched as Gotengo lowered I-47 into the baths. What shocked all was when Furious climbed into the bath and just held I-47 from the unwounded side. She knew what was going on, and gave a knowing look to Captain Gordon. Then Joshamee added about half the destroyers to the bath. They moved into a semi circle then just floated about like grotesque bathtoys, absolutely quiescent.
Placing U-3008 into the next bath had Joshamee and the rest of the Abyssal bathtoys joining her. Cuddling the sub, who very much appreciated it.
"I'll keep an eye on things," Ushio said, "Besides, I like giving battleships head pats.
Gordon squatted down to receive his, before Ushio climbed into the bath, the Gurkha gave both a knowing smile and Gordon left with Gotengo.
Once they were back out in the storm, their false cheer fell away. "I sometimes wonder if my crew's action made you an emotional mirror image of me," Gordon said.
"Or if I'm just being a chameleon," Gotengo said, "I don't know either."
"So what commo gear do they have left?" Gordon asked, depending on the storm to keep any eavesdropping impossible.
"The land line to Yokosuka, we've lost everything else. The planes are at alternate landing sites and the subs are our only patrol line, those girls in the baths tried to stay out and the weather battered them to uselessness," she said.
Gordon put his arm around Gotengo and enjoyed her snuggling close. "How about you?"
"Better now that you're here, but I'd rather have the whole US battleline, I was worried with nine, now there are eleven," she said, "And those destroyers."
"How many did you take on?" he asked and got a snort from her.
"Only one, but it was a Battleship Water Demon," Gotengo said, "Abyssals sometimes forget that while they don't have to breathe underwater, there are consequences when they try."
Gordon smiled and almost laughed at that.
"She didn't expect a mere cruiser to approach as anything other than a suppliant, and her poor knees were exposed," Gotengo said, "And the beast that's her rigging didn't act without orders which were suddenly too chaotic to make an effective battle order."
"I realize I've created a monster," Gordon said.
"She gasped and laughed, then raced for the surface as I got to her waist and she left a steady stream of bubbles as she made it to the surface," Gotengo said, "Then I got creative." She gave the 'Vulcan Salute' and folded down her ring finger.
"You didn't," Gordon asked coldly.
She pulled away and confronted him. "I did, I am well aware that had I done that to a human, there would be a very different consequence, but for Abyssals? Most of us think we have those parts so Demons and Princesses can torture us without damaging our weapons, rangefinders or propellers. If pleasure in touch comes, it comes from or goes to a Princess, even Demons don't, lesser ranks don't. The friendliest touch between the ranks is a punch light enough that it doesn't mar your paint too much. You're thinking too much like a human poured into a ship-girl suit. Touch and no threat of violence is such an alien concept I have no idea how you arranged that carrier to ride the battleship's shoulders without them murdering each other." She pointed back to the building. "You saw them in the bath, the idea they could cuddle another ship and it would be accepted and rewarded with safety is better than any high you can imagine." She narrowed her eyes. "Would it have been better to shove my knife in there open her up like a can and rip her boilers and turbines out? That's the other way I could have won that fight. This is either a war where we use the enemies' programing against them or we don't and lots on both sides die. I chose to give her the option of living. You want to refer me for charges, fine, I don't regret what I did and without orders to the contrary, I'll do it again, unless the girl objects."
"We'll bring it up with Richardson, when he gets back," Gordon said, "It's a really complicated area, and very easy to misconstrue."
"Fine, I'll go back to killing them," Gotengo said, and stalked off.
------------------------------
H41 found Gotengo in the `mausoleum` where the rescued girls remained serenely in their tubes and eggs, waiting for when they could awaken. The sub-girl had fled when the other four got zapped, and then had to figure out another way to get the massive door open to rescue her friends. Then she'd been captured and reskinned. That all of them had changed so markedly made Gotengo's sudden decent into sullen isolation so hurtful.
"Are you all right?" she asked, careful to approach the girl from the front where she could be easily seen.
"I screwed up, and am considering my options," the cruiser said, "Maybe I'm not fit to be out and about without a keeper."
H41 hated seeing Gotengo so sad. The cruiser was one of the few who understood a ship-girl that hated to be touched. She loved talking, telling jokes and being with other ship-girls, but they always had to touch her: head pats, rubbing against her and driving her crazy. She'd been slaughtered in safe harbor at the dock by a friendly ship right after a refit. When she was at her safest and most relaxed and happy, she'd been butchered by a friend.
The most Gotengo had demanded was that they sometimes held hands, with their arms outstretched. It had made being with the other girls a bit more bearable. H41 felt an obligation to help Gotengo.
She laughed bitterly. "I told the other Abyssals that confusion would hurt worse than anything," Gotengo said as she drew her legs up under her chin, "How little did I know."
"Maybe if you talk about it?" H41 offered.
"I told Captain Gordon, and he said I should wait and talk about it to Admiral Crawford," Gotengo said, "Sometimes I wonder, you ship and sub-girls are alive, the Abyssals that come from ship-girls are alive, am I just an artificial intelligence? I can copycat being a person, but is that just the simulation? You all do things automatically, I have to think about it all the time, and I get it wrong so often it's ceased being funny."
H41 extended a hand, and after a moment's hesitation laid it on the cruiser's shoulder. "You are a person, we all make mistakes, we all are here because we don't fit in with normal ship-girls," H41 said, "Making mistakes is what kids do all the time, you're just having to go through it as an adult."
"But none of the kids on the base are given the level of responsibility being an adult requires, they make a mistake they only hurt themselves, if I make a mistake it can hurt a lot of people." She looked up at the figure in the tube. "You carry all that experience with you. You have it automatically. Even Captain Gordon who was never a ship before. Maybe it's that an Abyssal cruiser and below doesn't have it."
"No one who'd be asking those questions is not a person," H41 said, "Asking those kinds of questions, feeling what you're feeling is kind of what being a person is all about."
"I think it would be easier if I just cracked this tube open and sent my crew over there. Another battleship is of more use than a cruiser, especially when the cruiser doesn't know all the rules of humans. Maybe a battleship would know them all. My crew deserves better than me. Transfer them over and use the husk for supplies."
"We are not scrapping you because you made a mistake," H41 insisted. She was terrified of what would happen when she got this close to an undirected cruiser, but she knew what was needed. She settled her head on Gotengo's chest and hugged her tight. "We love you and will help you with anything."
------------------------------
Walking into the brig had been a strange experience. Gordon knew he should be thinking Gotengo out of her mess, but he had too many things on his mind and all of them were getting short shrift.
"These are them," he said of the collection of terrified to worshipful Abyssals. He wanted to tell them he was no messiah. If he were he'd be with Gotengo and her vexation. Instead, he was here doing a job that wasn't even his. Then he realized it might be. He recognized many of them, and many of their injuries. He'd inflicted them after all.
But those were dreams, he thought, They didn't really happen. But the match up was too close to be faked. Both Southern War Demons, and both Destroyer Water Demons have head injuries. The Aircraft Carrier Water Demon and Anchorage Demon had scarred over belly wounds where I'd driven my pitchfork through the former, and ripped open the latter. The clincher was the terrified expression on the Light Cruiser Demon. It matched the creature I'd 'let live' thinking I'd killed the others.
It hollowed out what Gotengo had done. She hadn't tried to murder her opponent, just forced them to surrender. Then again how the Hell did my dreams inflict actual injuries on them?
"You'll have to be checked, and unless your crew is different than most Abyssals we've seen, as you advance along the process you're going to lose some." They seemed very surprised by that. "The odd thing is you'll get new crew members, we don't really understand all the nuance of it and you'll be learning it as we go along. We'll get you to the repair bathes so your injuries can be healed."
"Is the cruiser all right? They said she went to the baths," the Battleship Water Demon asked, "Why isn't she with you?"
"There are things you don't need to know yet, and she's fine, she was escorting two more Swedes to the baths," he said, "There are questions about you, and there's going to be a lot of discussion. When I turned her, it was much the way you were turned, a defeat. The rest of you are defectors and that begs a whole lot of questions. The most important is how to treat both sides fairly. I need to know what you want to do. Do you want to give up war and just live?"
One of the Southern War Demons nearly threw herself at the barred door. "The deep with that! I wanna fight like that paper promised, I wanna see how I can beat my foe, and know I'm better!" she looked at the others before continuing, "But you'll make us give up our weapons, how am I supposed to fight when I don't have a gun or torpedo, and no guff about fighting with my mind or putting stickers on others. If I can't lay fire on target, what's the point."
"Did you like fighting the seas to get here?" he asked.
"Yeah, I could live with fighting through that," the Abyssal said.
"Then I'll have you talk with Lieutenant Christopher," Gordon said, remembering the Coast Guard officer, "Before he got hurt, he was part of an organization whose motto was 'You have to go out, you don't have to come back.'"
"Okay, I'll listen," the Abyssal said.
"What's this about champagne and stickers?" he asked, and the Battleship Water Demon handed him a drawing by Willie D.
Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
I'm still wondering what the Abyss itself thinks about all of what's going on. Is there an Abyssal bar where all the primordial darkness deities go when nothing in the world makes sense again?
When USS Olympia shows up, and Magma Abyss' old boss has seen what's going on and decided to send help. Shark Dentures gave the best explanation she could:
The Abyss is not happy that the game has twisted out of its control. Only it was allowed to cheat, but it thought it was the fox in the henhouse, it's quickly discovering that some wolves wear chicken suits.
Anchovy Peaches XXVI - When Is a Demon a Savior?
Anchovy Peaches XXVI - When Is a Demon a Savior?
The arrival of Admiral Crawford and the entire force should have been the subject of a party considering the enemies and the storms they'd survived, and the treasure trove of equipment, knowledge and intelligence they brought. Instead, he called an all hands in the large aircraft hangers that normally housed the patrol squadrons. When he ordered the SeaBees and the Swedish Squadron to attend, as well as every civilian contractor on base, we all knew this was to be no ordinary briefing.
"That typhoon hasn't gotten weaker, it's gotten worse," Crawford had whiteboards with the projected course of the storm and the likely places it would make landfall. "Best estimate, in 96 hours, it will hit Okinawa, cut right through the center of the island. They are preparing for it, but this far out of typhoon season, no one is ready for it." Crawford looked at his command.
"The relief efforts will need ports or airports to arrive, nothing is going to sortie out of the Japanese main islands while that storm is out, so that means three days we'll be on our own. I say we, because we are going to chase it, stay on the outer edge and follow it in. Because we won't need anything to come ashore but a beach."
The maps of the likely landing sites depended on where the storm hit, and where the rescue efforts would have to be concentrated. He looked at the Swedish Squadron. "Normally it takes the better part of a thousand hours to train up EMTs and heavy equipment rescue workers. By my estimate, we'll have 64 before we put to sea. Then we'll have the transit time, but that's going to limit what we can do to classroom only."
"Captain Gordon, Mister Gibbs, can you manifest your hulls? We'll need them after we make landfall, and frankly, we'll need them to make passage."
"I think I can," Gordon said.
"I can," Gibbs replied, "I've gone through the crew exchange so I'm good, but why do you need our hulls now?"
"Because we're taking everything, lass," Edwards, the head of the SeaBees said, "We're taking everyone, every piece of equipment, all the food and medicine we might need and that's going to need a lot of heavy-lift seapower, and two, fast battleships are our best transports."
"I've already talked to Richardson, they can fly in destroyers to put a cordon around this island tomorrow," Crawford said, "But they can't sail anything because this storm isn't following a normal course. There's never been a typhoon in May and if it makes land fall on Formosa or Japan, Goto and Richardson are going to need their heavies to do what we'll be doing on Okinawa."
"What do we do if it misses Okinawa and heads for the mainland?" Angie asked, she'd already guessed that 'everyone' meant everyone, or all the kids wouldn't have been at the briefing as well.
"We chase it to where it lands. Like I said it'll take a while to get help and if we arrive first, so much the better," Admiral Crawford said, "For those of you who've never been through something like this, don't think 'Oh, I'm only' there'll be work for every set of hands, we'll need your crews as well. Once we make land fall, my plan is to position Gordon and Gibbs near the surviving hospitals to provide additional surgical suites and power. Yes, Kushi?"
"The treasure trove? We wake them up too?" the sub asked. She looked more like a comic book valkyrie now, not quite as well upholstered, and a lot taller. But little else had changed.
"We'd need crews, and your crews are going to be spread thin maintaining a steaming watch and acting as shore parties," Crawford said, "And we can't guarantee they'll be like Furious and Joshamee."
"Any other questions? As I said, once we make landfall, we'll work with the civil authorities, to fit in to the plans they'll have in place, or if it's as chaotic as the response to the Kobe Earthquake was, we'll pass out the parrots and peglegs, and run up the Jolly Roger, because we're doing it anyway. Northampton, dismiss the formation."
"Department heads, attend to your departments, fall out!" Northampton ordered.
------------------------------
Being completely a ship is weird. My crew are strapping down bulldozers, road graders, and trucks on my deck while more material is being stored below. Maggie and Furious are being used as barrack ships for the people, Northampton has the command staff and will be the place the ship-girls can go on break. The plan is after the first two days, it'll be 20 hours on, 4 hours to get food, a wash and a cuddlepile, before going back in. I briefly wonder why this is coming so easy to Crawford, that he's done this before? And he's planning this to be a marathon, not a sprint.
The Abyssals are already looking haunted. This is not what they signed up for. They've all been issued t-shirts with the red cross emblazoned on the front, and a Swedish flag on each sleeve, not the Swedish Naval ensign. As powerful as I am, I can't simply sail into the middle of the typhoon and shoot it. I'm not used to feeling helpless, waiting for the disaster to strike. I think that's what's getting to the Abyssals. They're used to hit it back or hit it first. This can't be hit, the Red Princess and her coterie whistled up this storm, and we all have to wonder, can they do it again. Frankly hurricanes and typhoons would be more effective weapons than fleets of ship-girls, if they could be created and drift towards their targets. Maybe that's why they haven't done it before, too much chance of it looping back on them.
------------------------------
Crawford looked across his office desk at the Battleship Water Demon and then to Gotengo. "Do you wish to press charges?" he asked, having heard Gotengo's confession about the manner of her subdual of the much stronger Abyssal.
The Battleship Water Demon stared at him. "Admiral, as far as most Abyssals know, we've got those bits so more powerful Abyssals can hurt us so it doesn't affect our rangefinders and weapons. It's usually called inflicting noncombat damage."
"That's a particularly unpleasant euphemism," Crawford said.
"It was surprising," the Abyssal said, while Gotengo would not lift her eyes to look at either of them, "But it was not worthy of charges. I'd barely count it as wrongdoing. More like an opened door." She took Gotengo's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I understand you must protect the strong from preying on the weak, but this is the weak showing the strong that there are ways of interacting that do not require violence. Maybe there is a fancy word for it, but it was not rape nor assault by any standards I recognize. It was an overture, one I accepted. If I had objected, I would have torn her into pieces."
"Very well, I consider the matter closed," Crawford said, "Lieutenant Danuvanta, although no one seems to be able to pronounce it to his satisfaction so he goes by Mister Smiley, gives a rape-prevention course, once we're underway he'll brief you and the others on what is and isn't allowed. And as an Abyssal, I'd recommend limiting yourself to breaking fingers, one to start with, it's usually all that's required."
"I understand we're supposed to divest ourselves of our weapons," the Demon said, "That might be difficult and might have been why Gotengo had such a problem when she transitioned and we haven't yet."
"I'll consider it," Crawford said, "Otherwise, this matter is concluded, no official record or reprimand required. Just be careful Gotengo, a lot of people will never understand the Abyssal mindset."
"Yes, Admiral," Gotengo said, her expression lighter than it had been. She actually blushed when the Demon kissed her cheek.
------------------------------
The little human looked down at the Anchorage Demon whose head was still ringing from her hard impact with the padded floor. "It's all about leverage," the smiling man explained, "Same for moving heavy things, and debris is just as hard to predict how it moves."
The Anchorage Demon knew that with her rigging, she could flatten the little man, but the skills he had to teach them had to come fast and memorably.
"All right, do not laugh at our friend, learn," the man said.
"Yes, Mister Smiley," the other Abyssals said as they looked at the demon towering over the man in the coveralls. Who'd just flipped her off her feet without breaking anything or even straining.
"Now we give you some quick lessons in how to fall so you don't hurt yourselves," the Gurkha told them.
The group lined up, and tested the technique he was teaching. None were sure how that would affect what they were to do, but they were used to taking orders.
------------------------------
Edwards wasn't sure if he was training dogs, or ships' crews. Seventeen Abyssal destroyers, each prominently painted with the Red Cross flag, stood in a half circle with part of their crews `dismounted`. The chief of the SeaBees was pretty sure that Furious and Gibbs had arrived with fifteen, but he could have remembered wrong.
"The key to search and rescue is to find the people who are still alive. Your hydrophones and sonar are a good way of determining if there is a hollow for the people to be in, and to determine if they are alive or not," he said, "This isn't the same as the ping and listen. It's a much more difficult technique called Ultrasonic Testing. You have to be able to detect the weaknesses in material you're moving. If a slab has a big crack that doesn't penetrate to the visible side, when you start moving it, it'll break and fall right back down on the people you're trying to rescue."
The destroyers looked at each other nervously.
"We aren't sending you out on your own, we'll have experienced people with you, but you have to understand what they are doing to help them," Edwards said.
------------------------------
Watanabe Kanji looked at the ruined office building and realized that as Ministerial Secretary to the Deputy Minister of the Interior he was now one of the few who remembered the emergency plans for storm surge and earthquake that had been thrown together to deal with a powerful typhoon arriving completely out of the typhoon season, and the mainland withholding supplies for fear of it landing there in the next few days.
His superiors were dead or trapped and injured, and the fury of the storm hadn't even hit. He had been at Kadena trying to convince the Americans to keep some of their personnel at the base to deal with the disaster. He had expected to arrive here with a triumph that only the planes, pilots and the dependents had left. If the Marines and Air Force had given in more easily, if he had arrived an hour earlier, he would be within the twisted ruins, instead of bearing this terrible responsibility. Without the authority of the senior officials or the seeming of authority, he feared a repeat of Kobe. He offered a prayer for their safety and their souls, but turned back to the young men and women who suddenly looked like a pack of confused children to him.
"Secretary-san, what do we do?" asked the most senior, a young woman younger than his own granddaughter.
"We will remember what was discussed, and we will take charge," he said.
"Without the ministers?" another asked.
He nodded. "The ministers will be rescued or mourned, but we know their plans, and Tokyo cannot send us replacements. The Americans will help, and I will not turn away any hand offered. We must move whatever we will need in the coming days to more secure places." He looked up at the storm front that dominated the sky. "And we'll have to hurry."
The arrival of Admiral Crawford and the entire force should have been the subject of a party considering the enemies and the storms they'd survived, and the treasure trove of equipment, knowledge and intelligence they brought. Instead, he called an all hands in the large aircraft hangers that normally housed the patrol squadrons. When he ordered the SeaBees and the Swedish Squadron to attend, as well as every civilian contractor on base, we all knew this was to be no ordinary briefing.
"That typhoon hasn't gotten weaker, it's gotten worse," Crawford had whiteboards with the projected course of the storm and the likely places it would make landfall. "Best estimate, in 96 hours, it will hit Okinawa, cut right through the center of the island. They are preparing for it, but this far out of typhoon season, no one is ready for it." Crawford looked at his command.
"The relief efforts will need ports or airports to arrive, nothing is going to sortie out of the Japanese main islands while that storm is out, so that means three days we'll be on our own. I say we, because we are going to chase it, stay on the outer edge and follow it in. Because we won't need anything to come ashore but a beach."
The maps of the likely landing sites depended on where the storm hit, and where the rescue efforts would have to be concentrated. He looked at the Swedish Squadron. "Normally it takes the better part of a thousand hours to train up EMTs and heavy equipment rescue workers. By my estimate, we'll have 64 before we put to sea. Then we'll have the transit time, but that's going to limit what we can do to classroom only."
"Captain Gordon, Mister Gibbs, can you manifest your hulls? We'll need them after we make landfall, and frankly, we'll need them to make passage."
"I think I can," Gordon said.
"I can," Gibbs replied, "I've gone through the crew exchange so I'm good, but why do you need our hulls now?"
"Because we're taking everything, lass," Edwards, the head of the SeaBees said, "We're taking everyone, every piece of equipment, all the food and medicine we might need and that's going to need a lot of heavy-lift seapower, and two, fast battleships are our best transports."
"I've already talked to Richardson, they can fly in destroyers to put a cordon around this island tomorrow," Crawford said, "But they can't sail anything because this storm isn't following a normal course. There's never been a typhoon in May and if it makes land fall on Formosa or Japan, Goto and Richardson are going to need their heavies to do what we'll be doing on Okinawa."
"What do we do if it misses Okinawa and heads for the mainland?" Angie asked, she'd already guessed that 'everyone' meant everyone, or all the kids wouldn't have been at the briefing as well.
"We chase it to where it lands. Like I said it'll take a while to get help and if we arrive first, so much the better," Admiral Crawford said, "For those of you who've never been through something like this, don't think 'Oh, I'm only' there'll be work for every set of hands, we'll need your crews as well. Once we make land fall, my plan is to position Gordon and Gibbs near the surviving hospitals to provide additional surgical suites and power. Yes, Kushi?"
"The treasure trove? We wake them up too?" the sub asked. She looked more like a comic book valkyrie now, not quite as well upholstered, and a lot taller. But little else had changed.
"We'd need crews, and your crews are going to be spread thin maintaining a steaming watch and acting as shore parties," Crawford said, "And we can't guarantee they'll be like Furious and Joshamee."
"Any other questions? As I said, once we make landfall, we'll work with the civil authorities, to fit in to the plans they'll have in place, or if it's as chaotic as the response to the Kobe Earthquake was, we'll pass out the parrots and peglegs, and run up the Jolly Roger, because we're doing it anyway. Northampton, dismiss the formation."
"Department heads, attend to your departments, fall out!" Northampton ordered.
------------------------------
Being completely a ship is weird. My crew are strapping down bulldozers, road graders, and trucks on my deck while more material is being stored below. Maggie and Furious are being used as barrack ships for the people, Northampton has the command staff and will be the place the ship-girls can go on break. The plan is after the first two days, it'll be 20 hours on, 4 hours to get food, a wash and a cuddlepile, before going back in. I briefly wonder why this is coming so easy to Crawford, that he's done this before? And he's planning this to be a marathon, not a sprint.
The Abyssals are already looking haunted. This is not what they signed up for. They've all been issued t-shirts with the red cross emblazoned on the front, and a Swedish flag on each sleeve, not the Swedish Naval ensign. As powerful as I am, I can't simply sail into the middle of the typhoon and shoot it. I'm not used to feeling helpless, waiting for the disaster to strike. I think that's what's getting to the Abyssals. They're used to hit it back or hit it first. This can't be hit, the Red Princess and her coterie whistled up this storm, and we all have to wonder, can they do it again. Frankly hurricanes and typhoons would be more effective weapons than fleets of ship-girls, if they could be created and drift towards their targets. Maybe that's why they haven't done it before, too much chance of it looping back on them.
------------------------------
Crawford looked across his office desk at the Battleship Water Demon and then to Gotengo. "Do you wish to press charges?" he asked, having heard Gotengo's confession about the manner of her subdual of the much stronger Abyssal.
The Battleship Water Demon stared at him. "Admiral, as far as most Abyssals know, we've got those bits so more powerful Abyssals can hurt us so it doesn't affect our rangefinders and weapons. It's usually called inflicting noncombat damage."
"That's a particularly unpleasant euphemism," Crawford said.
"It was surprising," the Abyssal said, while Gotengo would not lift her eyes to look at either of them, "But it was not worthy of charges. I'd barely count it as wrongdoing. More like an opened door." She took Gotengo's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I understand you must protect the strong from preying on the weak, but this is the weak showing the strong that there are ways of interacting that do not require violence. Maybe there is a fancy word for it, but it was not rape nor assault by any standards I recognize. It was an overture, one I accepted. If I had objected, I would have torn her into pieces."
"Very well, I consider the matter closed," Crawford said, "Lieutenant Danuvanta, although no one seems to be able to pronounce it to his satisfaction so he goes by Mister Smiley, gives a rape-prevention course, once we're underway he'll brief you and the others on what is and isn't allowed. And as an Abyssal, I'd recommend limiting yourself to breaking fingers, one to start with, it's usually all that's required."
"I understand we're supposed to divest ourselves of our weapons," the Demon said, "That might be difficult and might have been why Gotengo had such a problem when she transitioned and we haven't yet."
"I'll consider it," Crawford said, "Otherwise, this matter is concluded, no official record or reprimand required. Just be careful Gotengo, a lot of people will never understand the Abyssal mindset."
"Yes, Admiral," Gotengo said, her expression lighter than it had been. She actually blushed when the Demon kissed her cheek.
------------------------------
The little human looked down at the Anchorage Demon whose head was still ringing from her hard impact with the padded floor. "It's all about leverage," the smiling man explained, "Same for moving heavy things, and debris is just as hard to predict how it moves."
The Anchorage Demon knew that with her rigging, she could flatten the little man, but the skills he had to teach them had to come fast and memorably.
"All right, do not laugh at our friend, learn," the man said.
"Yes, Mister Smiley," the other Abyssals said as they looked at the demon towering over the man in the coveralls. Who'd just flipped her off her feet without breaking anything or even straining.
"Now we give you some quick lessons in how to fall so you don't hurt yourselves," the Gurkha told them.
The group lined up, and tested the technique he was teaching. None were sure how that would affect what they were to do, but they were used to taking orders.
------------------------------
Edwards wasn't sure if he was training dogs, or ships' crews. Seventeen Abyssal destroyers, each prominently painted with the Red Cross flag, stood in a half circle with part of their crews `dismounted`. The chief of the SeaBees was pretty sure that Furious and Gibbs had arrived with fifteen, but he could have remembered wrong.
"The key to search and rescue is to find the people who are still alive. Your hydrophones and sonar are a good way of determining if there is a hollow for the people to be in, and to determine if they are alive or not," he said, "This isn't the same as the ping and listen. It's a much more difficult technique called Ultrasonic Testing. You have to be able to detect the weaknesses in material you're moving. If a slab has a big crack that doesn't penetrate to the visible side, when you start moving it, it'll break and fall right back down on the people you're trying to rescue."
The destroyers looked at each other nervously.
"We aren't sending you out on your own, we'll have experienced people with you, but you have to understand what they are doing to help them," Edwards said.
------------------------------
Watanabe Kanji looked at the ruined office building and realized that as Ministerial Secretary to the Deputy Minister of the Interior he was now one of the few who remembered the emergency plans for storm surge and earthquake that had been thrown together to deal with a powerful typhoon arriving completely out of the typhoon season, and the mainland withholding supplies for fear of it landing there in the next few days.
His superiors were dead or trapped and injured, and the fury of the storm hadn't even hit. He had been at Kadena trying to convince the Americans to keep some of their personnel at the base to deal with the disaster. He had expected to arrive here with a triumph that only the planes, pilots and the dependents had left. If the Marines and Air Force had given in more easily, if he had arrived an hour earlier, he would be within the twisted ruins, instead of bearing this terrible responsibility. Without the authority of the senior officials or the seeming of authority, he feared a repeat of Kobe. He offered a prayer for their safety and their souls, but turned back to the young men and women who suddenly looked like a pack of confused children to him.
"Secretary-san, what do we do?" asked the most senior, a young woman younger than his own granddaughter.
"We will remember what was discussed, and we will take charge," he said.
"Without the ministers?" another asked.
He nodded. "The ministers will be rescued or mourned, but we know their plans, and Tokyo cannot send us replacements. The Americans will help, and I will not turn away any hand offered. We must move whatever we will need in the coming days to more secure places." He looked up at the storm front that dominated the sky. "And we'll have to hurry."
Anchovy Peaches XXVII - Orpheus from the Sea
Anchovy Peaches XXVII - Orpheus from the Sea
Ogashira Hiromi stood under her umbrella and watched the ships approach. The two, massive battleships, heavy cruiser and two, light carriers seemed both vastly powerful, and too small to deal with the disaster that had unfolded behind her. The winds and rain were dying down enough that it wasn't a threat to life and limb to merely be standing out in the open.
The massive vessels seemed too graceful as they slowed and stopped short of the shoreline. People, presumably people, jumped from the decks to walk across the water towards her.
"HMCS Haida, we need to know where we're needed," the girl said as she handed over a large briefcase, "The plan is to get the Kadena airfields open, and a port. Then deploy the battleships to provide power and personnel to the most important hospitals."
Hiromi nodded. "When your Admiral comes ashore, I'll take him to the command center."
------------------------------
A dozen Abyssal destroyers got under the slab, and lifted. Several, smaller sub-girls wormed between the ground and the slab and began pulling the people out of the hole they'd been trapped in for days. The sonar kept a weather eye out of any growing cracks in the slab. There were none as the subs moved deeper in to collect the frightened and injured. Most didn't acknowledge the appearance of the creatures making their egress possible.
------------------------------
The generator received a solid kick, and Gordon's Chief Engineer gave a thumbs up to the poor kid who'd been assigned to get this beast working. The poor kid looked in amazement as the backup for the hospital sprang to life.
"Yo," the Chief Engineer made a slicing motion and the generator fell silent. With the Captain Gordon providing power, the back up was back to being a back up. All they had to do was be sure it would function if they needed it.
------------------------------
The road grader pushed rubble off the surface of the runway. Further down, the kids were already doing a FOD walk away from where the work was happening. Even six-year-olds could walk in a line and pick up anything that was on the concrete, and they were doing that, proudly. A small group of sub-girls were overseeing it, verifying if something dangerous or heavy was found. They also kept the line from getting too close to the heavy machinery. Once planes could actually take off or land, no child would be anywhere near the flight-line, but now you just needed the eager and some diligence. It also kept them away from the hospitals, the blood and the terror.
Vladivostok was now nowhere near the expected landfall of the storm. The Russians' planned response of ten construction battalions and two field hospitals were ready to go where needed, but even Russian aircraft needed half-way decent runways, especially heavily laden as they were. The SeaBees and their helpers would have this landing strip available before night fall.
------------------------------
Gotengo walked with the clipboard. Those who could not be saved asked her to record their names, some last thoughts for their families and data that would assure they would not simply disappear into an unmarked grave. She knew that the Japanese were famous for not being troublesome, but this beggared the imagination. She took down the words, took a photo of the person's face if they weren't injured there, a set of their fingerprints, and recorded all of it in a growing database of those they couldn't save.
At least I'm not having to deal with the dead, she thought as she moved. She saw another nurse dealing with sobbing children as their deceased mother was taken away. She knew she would have no skill dealing with that, fortunately she was tasked with dealing with the singletons who had no one.
------------------------------
At any other time, Callahan would be having words with the sergeant who'd led them here. Right now, he was trying to figure out why the Yakuza seemed so ashamed. Twenty of Captain Gordon's medical team deciding to travel with them hadn't made any of this make any more sense.
"It's there," the local `Don` of the area pointed at a cave-in that only an expert would pick out of the cliff, unless you knew where it was. "We've tried to dig it out, but it just collapses more."
What are you trying to dig out? Callahan wanted to shout at either the Don or his own sergeant. The two of them had been talking in circles, in Japanese, and it was wearing on the Major.
The fairies marched towards the cave-in and assembled in a semi-circle with three ranks. Seven in the outer and middle, six in the inner. Something like static or St. Elmo's fire started to dot the rocks and fallen trees. As Callahan watched, the tiny figures extended their hands and the debris began lifting away, rocks, trees, boulders you'd need a bulldozer to dislodge just floated up and away. Some lifted slightly, supporting the rest of the hillside.
Callahan followed the Don and the sergeant. Inside the small cavern were large, plastic barrels. The major helped the pair to remove the barrels as quickly as they could before the fairies tired and would be forced to let gravity and the loosened soil reassert itself. All twenty-five barrels later, the fairies let the hillside slump.
"They are truly divine," the Don said as he looked at the exhausted medics, "But, this is yours. About twenty-six hundred kilos of uncut heroin, and fourteen hundred kilos of pure cocaine. Your doctors may find that more useful than our customers."
"Do you want credit, or did Scotty beam this down from the Enterprise?" Callahan asked.
"They will know, but no one can prove anything," the man said.
"Thank you," Callahan turned to the sergeant, "Lets get these all back to the doctors."
The sergeant nodded and he rolled the barrels to the back of the truck, while Callahan plucked up the exhausted fairies.
------------------------------
The last thing Crawford expected to hear as he walked through the Captain Gordon was laughter. But from the modified berthing spaces that housed several thousand, homeless people, he heard the laughter of children. Intrigued, he wandered over and spotted Kanji using a support pillar to obscure himself as he watched Floyd ineptly doing magic tricks, and getting the young ones to laugh at its antics.
"I had lost heart," Kanji said, "But you Americans will not even allow laughter to die without a fight."
"We have to have our happy ending, or the world isn't right," Crawford said quietly.
The children laughed again as Floyd looked for the card, which was bigger than it was, yet the kids could see it was somehow stuck to its back.
Crawford smiled at that, and then headed off to ensure that the ship-girls were getting their rest, food and cuddletime. He knew if he lost even one of them, they were in serious trouble.
------------------------------
Nagato and Mutsu led the fleet from Yokosuka towards the port of Kadena City. It had been opened by the heroic efforts of the SeaBees and their Russian counterparts. Five days had passed since 'Crawford's Problem Children' had landed, and the communication had been spotty since the storm had dissipated as it missed Taiwan and would be a cleansing rain when it made landfall in China. Whatever hateful magic had powered the storm had broken up as it left Okinawa, the storm had followed suit. A half-day behind them were the slower ships of Richardson's fleet, Standards and the subs of both forces. As well as tons of supplies that had been held for a disaster on the main islands.
The welcoming party appeared small, she had expected Admiral Crawford to be present, but a transmission from Willie D had said he'd been called away, the food and fuel situation had 'gone from worrying to dire', and he had to deal with it. Nagato was also carrying an order she wished she didn't have to deliver. Watanabe-san deserved a medal, not official censure, but he and Crawford had vastly overreached their authority. The US Navy would be hard-pressed to attack the man who'd charged into the teeth of a storm, conscripting uncertain allies to save the lives of proven allies. Even Admiral Beale was pushing for Crawford to get his second star for the operation.
But no one was speaking for the Ministerial Secretary of a dead Deputy Minister.
Nagato froze as she spotted the honor guard, not because it was small, that was expected. But Willie D and a Ru-class Battleship both with their rigging out stood on the pier, side-by-side, saluting as the fleet arrived. Both had the thousand-yard stare of those who had seen Hell for far too long. The Abyssal's female section wore a t-shirt marked clearly with a Red Cross, so she was not to be fired on, but Nagato almost didn't want to know what was happening here.
The pitch pipe shocked her out of countenance. "Yokosuka Fleet arriving," Willie D called, "Apologies, we are forbidden to fire the signal guns to avoid making people believe an air raid was occurring."
Nagato saluted. The Admiral was aboard Kongo, much farther back in the fleet.
"Nagato," the Battleship said, "If you have sent ships to reinforce the pickets, please inform them that additional Swedish Red Cross volunteers will filter in," the battleship turned to show the Swedish flag on her sleeve. "There were eleven when the force landed, there are now twenty-seven of us, not counting screening destroyers."
Nagato only numbly nodded as she sent the inconceivable message. She glanced over at Mutsu, having heard no clever or embarrassing asides from her sister, she wanted to verify that the battleship was still there. Mutsu was staring at the Ru-class who seemed not weary, but worn down.
"If you'll follow us, the teams will help with the unloading," Willie D said. She led the arriving battleships and heavy cruisers off the ramps and towards the headquarters.
Kirishima rushed up and looked at Nagato and Mutsu, as if to ask if she should open fire. Willie D stumbled, the Ru-class caught her and pushed her back on her feet. "What happened here?" Kirishima asked as she lowered her weapons.
"The Great Kanto Earthquake," Mutsu said and shivered, she glanced at Nagato who remembered it and shivered herself.
------------------------------
"Do you understand?" Nagato asked as she burned with shame. She had orders to deliver the message, it made her feel unclean in ways she didn't know how to deal with. She'd forbidden Yamato and Mutsu to accompany her for just that reason.
"Is Admiral Goto going to relieve me? The rescues have fallen to almost nothing, but the survivors must be housed, fed, and kept warm," Kanji said, a polite and respectful smile on his face.
"I am unaware of any such orders," Nagato admitted.
"Well, then I must inform Admiral Crawford and General Chuikov that they will be taking up the mantle," Kanji said, and let Nagato imagine the furor in the parliament that news of an American Admiral and a Russian General were heading the Japanese relief efforts. "I suspect that Admiral Richardson will get orders similar to those, but I suspect he'll take the Nelsonian tack, put his blind eye to the telescope and not see the signal."
Nagato quietly wished an Abyssal would walk up behind her and just shoot her.
"I was ordered to deliver the message, and assure myself that you understood it," she said, "I have no further orders beyond that point."
Watanabe-san nodded then stood and bowed. Nagato returned it, then left the office. She nearly got her wish, a Destroyer Demon wearing what was practically their uniform, a Red Cross-emblazoned t-shirt, waited in the anteroom.
"I've been ordered to take you to the new headquarters," the Abyssal said, she had the same haunted expression as all the other ship-girls Nagato had seen, `Swedish` or not. Nagato could only nod and follow.
Ogashira Hiromi stood under her umbrella and watched the ships approach. The two, massive battleships, heavy cruiser and two, light carriers seemed both vastly powerful, and too small to deal with the disaster that had unfolded behind her. The winds and rain were dying down enough that it wasn't a threat to life and limb to merely be standing out in the open.
The massive vessels seemed too graceful as they slowed and stopped short of the shoreline. People, presumably people, jumped from the decks to walk across the water towards her.
"HMCS Haida, we need to know where we're needed," the girl said as she handed over a large briefcase, "The plan is to get the Kadena airfields open, and a port. Then deploy the battleships to provide power and personnel to the most important hospitals."
Hiromi nodded. "When your Admiral comes ashore, I'll take him to the command center."
------------------------------
A dozen Abyssal destroyers got under the slab, and lifted. Several, smaller sub-girls wormed between the ground and the slab and began pulling the people out of the hole they'd been trapped in for days. The sonar kept a weather eye out of any growing cracks in the slab. There were none as the subs moved deeper in to collect the frightened and injured. Most didn't acknowledge the appearance of the creatures making their egress possible.
------------------------------
The generator received a solid kick, and Gordon's Chief Engineer gave a thumbs up to the poor kid who'd been assigned to get this beast working. The poor kid looked in amazement as the backup for the hospital sprang to life.
"Yo," the Chief Engineer made a slicing motion and the generator fell silent. With the Captain Gordon providing power, the back up was back to being a back up. All they had to do was be sure it would function if they needed it.
------------------------------
The road grader pushed rubble off the surface of the runway. Further down, the kids were already doing a FOD walk away from where the work was happening. Even six-year-olds could walk in a line and pick up anything that was on the concrete, and they were doing that, proudly. A small group of sub-girls were overseeing it, verifying if something dangerous or heavy was found. They also kept the line from getting too close to the heavy machinery. Once planes could actually take off or land, no child would be anywhere near the flight-line, but now you just needed the eager and some diligence. It also kept them away from the hospitals, the blood and the terror.
Vladivostok was now nowhere near the expected landfall of the storm. The Russians' planned response of ten construction battalions and two field hospitals were ready to go where needed, but even Russian aircraft needed half-way decent runways, especially heavily laden as they were. The SeaBees and their helpers would have this landing strip available before night fall.
------------------------------
Gotengo walked with the clipboard. Those who could not be saved asked her to record their names, some last thoughts for their families and data that would assure they would not simply disappear into an unmarked grave. She knew that the Japanese were famous for not being troublesome, but this beggared the imagination. She took down the words, took a photo of the person's face if they weren't injured there, a set of their fingerprints, and recorded all of it in a growing database of those they couldn't save.
At least I'm not having to deal with the dead, she thought as she moved. She saw another nurse dealing with sobbing children as their deceased mother was taken away. She knew she would have no skill dealing with that, fortunately she was tasked with dealing with the singletons who had no one.
------------------------------
At any other time, Callahan would be having words with the sergeant who'd led them here. Right now, he was trying to figure out why the Yakuza seemed so ashamed. Twenty of Captain Gordon's medical team deciding to travel with them hadn't made any of this make any more sense.
"It's there," the local `Don` of the area pointed at a cave-in that only an expert would pick out of the cliff, unless you knew where it was. "We've tried to dig it out, but it just collapses more."
What are you trying to dig out? Callahan wanted to shout at either the Don or his own sergeant. The two of them had been talking in circles, in Japanese, and it was wearing on the Major.
The fairies marched towards the cave-in and assembled in a semi-circle with three ranks. Seven in the outer and middle, six in the inner. Something like static or St. Elmo's fire started to dot the rocks and fallen trees. As Callahan watched, the tiny figures extended their hands and the debris began lifting away, rocks, trees, boulders you'd need a bulldozer to dislodge just floated up and away. Some lifted slightly, supporting the rest of the hillside.
Callahan followed the Don and the sergeant. Inside the small cavern were large, plastic barrels. The major helped the pair to remove the barrels as quickly as they could before the fairies tired and would be forced to let gravity and the loosened soil reassert itself. All twenty-five barrels later, the fairies let the hillside slump.
"They are truly divine," the Don said as he looked at the exhausted medics, "But, this is yours. About twenty-six hundred kilos of uncut heroin, and fourteen hundred kilos of pure cocaine. Your doctors may find that more useful than our customers."
"Do you want credit, or did Scotty beam this down from the Enterprise?" Callahan asked.
"They will know, but no one can prove anything," the man said.
"Thank you," Callahan turned to the sergeant, "Lets get these all back to the doctors."
The sergeant nodded and he rolled the barrels to the back of the truck, while Callahan plucked up the exhausted fairies.
------------------------------
The last thing Crawford expected to hear as he walked through the Captain Gordon was laughter. But from the modified berthing spaces that housed several thousand, homeless people, he heard the laughter of children. Intrigued, he wandered over and spotted Kanji using a support pillar to obscure himself as he watched Floyd ineptly doing magic tricks, and getting the young ones to laugh at its antics.
"I had lost heart," Kanji said, "But you Americans will not even allow laughter to die without a fight."
"We have to have our happy ending, or the world isn't right," Crawford said quietly.
The children laughed again as Floyd looked for the card, which was bigger than it was, yet the kids could see it was somehow stuck to its back.
Crawford smiled at that, and then headed off to ensure that the ship-girls were getting their rest, food and cuddletime. He knew if he lost even one of them, they were in serious trouble.
------------------------------
Nagato and Mutsu led the fleet from Yokosuka towards the port of Kadena City. It had been opened by the heroic efforts of the SeaBees and their Russian counterparts. Five days had passed since 'Crawford's Problem Children' had landed, and the communication had been spotty since the storm had dissipated as it missed Taiwan and would be a cleansing rain when it made landfall in China. Whatever hateful magic had powered the storm had broken up as it left Okinawa, the storm had followed suit. A half-day behind them were the slower ships of Richardson's fleet, Standards and the subs of both forces. As well as tons of supplies that had been held for a disaster on the main islands.
The welcoming party appeared small, she had expected Admiral Crawford to be present, but a transmission from Willie D had said he'd been called away, the food and fuel situation had 'gone from worrying to dire', and he had to deal with it. Nagato was also carrying an order she wished she didn't have to deliver. Watanabe-san deserved a medal, not official censure, but he and Crawford had vastly overreached their authority. The US Navy would be hard-pressed to attack the man who'd charged into the teeth of a storm, conscripting uncertain allies to save the lives of proven allies. Even Admiral Beale was pushing for Crawford to get his second star for the operation.
But no one was speaking for the Ministerial Secretary of a dead Deputy Minister.
Nagato froze as she spotted the honor guard, not because it was small, that was expected. But Willie D and a Ru-class Battleship both with their rigging out stood on the pier, side-by-side, saluting as the fleet arrived. Both had the thousand-yard stare of those who had seen Hell for far too long. The Abyssal's female section wore a t-shirt marked clearly with a Red Cross, so she was not to be fired on, but Nagato almost didn't want to know what was happening here.
The pitch pipe shocked her out of countenance. "Yokosuka Fleet arriving," Willie D called, "Apologies, we are forbidden to fire the signal guns to avoid making people believe an air raid was occurring."
Nagato saluted. The Admiral was aboard Kongo, much farther back in the fleet.
"Nagato," the Battleship said, "If you have sent ships to reinforce the pickets, please inform them that additional Swedish Red Cross volunteers will filter in," the battleship turned to show the Swedish flag on her sleeve. "There were eleven when the force landed, there are now twenty-seven of us, not counting screening destroyers."
Nagato only numbly nodded as she sent the inconceivable message. She glanced over at Mutsu, having heard no clever or embarrassing asides from her sister, she wanted to verify that the battleship was still there. Mutsu was staring at the Ru-class who seemed not weary, but worn down.
"If you'll follow us, the teams will help with the unloading," Willie D said. She led the arriving battleships and heavy cruisers off the ramps and towards the headquarters.
Kirishima rushed up and looked at Nagato and Mutsu, as if to ask if she should open fire. Willie D stumbled, the Ru-class caught her and pushed her back on her feet. "What happened here?" Kirishima asked as she lowered her weapons.
"The Great Kanto Earthquake," Mutsu said and shivered, she glanced at Nagato who remembered it and shivered herself.
------------------------------
"Do you understand?" Nagato asked as she burned with shame. She had orders to deliver the message, it made her feel unclean in ways she didn't know how to deal with. She'd forbidden Yamato and Mutsu to accompany her for just that reason.
"Is Admiral Goto going to relieve me? The rescues have fallen to almost nothing, but the survivors must be housed, fed, and kept warm," Kanji said, a polite and respectful smile on his face.
"I am unaware of any such orders," Nagato admitted.
"Well, then I must inform Admiral Crawford and General Chuikov that they will be taking up the mantle," Kanji said, and let Nagato imagine the furor in the parliament that news of an American Admiral and a Russian General were heading the Japanese relief efforts. "I suspect that Admiral Richardson will get orders similar to those, but I suspect he'll take the Nelsonian tack, put his blind eye to the telescope and not see the signal."
Nagato quietly wished an Abyssal would walk up behind her and just shoot her.
"I was ordered to deliver the message, and assure myself that you understood it," she said, "I have no further orders beyond that point."
Watanabe-san nodded then stood and bowed. Nagato returned it, then left the office. She nearly got her wish, a Destroyer Demon wearing what was practically their uniform, a Red Cross-emblazoned t-shirt, waited in the anteroom.
"I've been ordered to take you to the new headquarters," the Abyssal said, she had the same haunted expression as all the other ship-girls Nagato had seen, `Swedish` or not. Nagato could only nod and follow.
Anchovy Peaches XXVIII - Death of Eurydice
Anchovy Peaches XXVIII - Death of Eurydice
Yamato looked around the mess hall nervously. Then at the huge bins that were there for her, Musashi, and the four Iowas. The voice of Captain Gordon echoed through the hall from the speakers. "I already tested it, it works," he assured his fellow battleships, "Nothing wrong with it."
"Well, I," Yamato said, trying to be lady like, "I'm not sure."
"Look," he said quietly, "You want to ditch the 'Hotel' moniker? I know what that feels like despite being hospital and power plant at the same time. You want to sortie regularly to protect your homeland and the little ones?"
Yamato nodded, her initial irritation overwritten with fiery purpose.
One of the attendants opened the lid of the bin full of shredded paper with occasional chopped up staples, paper clips and even some aluminum binder clips. "Then eat the expired red tape. Occasionally I'd season it with some scramble eggs or a biscuit."
The old chief stood by to verify the 'destruction' of the contents of the bins had been fulfilled.
------------------------------
Goto hadn't met Floyd before, so when the former Abyssal had requested a meeting with the three admirals about a 'situation' he was not filled with joy. The meeting room was in a building at Kadena, and no ship-girls were invited.
The coral-like fairy had a very thin packet prepared, in Japanese for Goto, in English for the Americans. "Floyd Floyd Floyd," the fairy explained that the survey to verify all crews were present or accounted for, was to make sure they hadn't lost anybeing trapped in rubble or some other minor to humans mishap.
"Floyd Floyd," the fairy explained that when the numbers came in, it hid them and brought the data to the admirals. "Floyd Floyd," it said as it literally walked down the list of numbers.
"Did you mislay a decimal place?" Crawford asked, "No Iowa had 7000 crew, let alone 70,000."
"Floyd," said it hadn't.
"Kongo never had a crew even a twentieth this size," Goto said of the enormous numbers he was seeing.
"Floyd."
They flipped to the next page and saw that Bismarck was only 12% over strength.
"They're drawing in all their historic crews," Richardson realized, "The need for shore parties is so great, so every hand that arrives is welcomed."
"Floyd," the fairy said and flipped to the last page, photos of the treasure trove back on Nishinoshima.
"Admiral Beale is going to be over the moon about this," Crawford said and grinned to his fellow admirals.
------------------------------
It was 0204 hours when the alarms sounded. Captain Gordon's crew got all the thousands of civilians bunking aboard calmed down as all the watertight doors were closed. Not to prevent sinking, being on the flat ground, well inland assured that, but so blasts would be limited to one area.
All of the five-inch and about a third of the six-inch could bear on the incoming targets. The destroyers who'd spotted the incoming had brought them under fire as they passed overhead. He could have brought the sixteen-inch antiair shells to bear, but this close to the hospital they would do more harm than good.
Eleven Abyssals of Elite rank or higher used the vast bulk of Gordon's manifested hull as a noise wall as they brought all their antiair to bear. They began scoring hits on the incoming aircraft, but there were a lot of them.
In the flag bridge, Admiral Richardson watched, depending on his eyes and binoculars, while Admirals Goto and Crawford fought the battle from the ship's CIC with radar and radios. Richardson had never been aboard a ship-girl, it was weird having the ship-girl there, yet spread throughout the ship.
"How many?" Richardson asked, more to himself than anything else.
"Can't tell, lots," Captain Gordon's answer came crisply, "Best guess 150, reports are that Gibbs is under similar attack, but she can use her main batteries safely."
"Yo," one of the watch-standers reported, one-hundred confirmed targets. The weapons were having an effect.
"Sixty," a human officer said as he held a phone to the CIC, "Forty. Twenty. Ten. That's it. Gibbs reporting they splashed all their attackers."
The silence at the cease fire and the fading echos of the gunfire seemed almost as `loud` as the gunfire had been. "Report," Richardson practically whispered but those around him jumped at the noise.
"They came straight in, no evasive action, but they came in on a vector that only about a third of my six-inch could reach. That's either a very good guess, or . . . "
"Second raid incoming," one of Richardson's staff reported, "Aimed at the airfield. Kadena."
"They'll hit the bulk of the Swedes and the Fletchers," Gordon reported, "They'll just be in range of our heavy AA."
"Engage," Richardson ordered.
Why aren't they pulling back? Richardson wondered as the attackers melted away. He saw the Anchorage Demon had taken a position on Gordon's stern and fired methodically. The repeater for the radar let him watch the air raid diminish, then fall to nothing well short of the perimeter.
If we hadn't been packed in wall to wall, Richardson thought of the size and inexorable nature of the raid, Even Abyssal kamikazes aren't that relentless. But they approached on a vector that limited Gordon's antiair, but not Gibbs' or the forces at Kadena. A bit better coordination and many of his support ships would have been drawn away to the other targets. Or they knew about his weak antiair, but not about all his upgrades.
"Sir, they've picked up the wreckage of one or two," his aide reported, "They're Fi-103's, not baka bombs. V-1's sir, likely air-launched."
"We really did invent most modern weapons in World War 2 didn't we," Richardson muttered.
------------------------------
"Kongo," the fast battleship heard as the door ahead of her and behind her spontaneously closed. She knew technically she could do the same inside herself, but she rarely manifested her whole hull, so she was surprised that Captain Gordon could do it so easily.
"I appreciate that you and your sister-ships are known for pranks and such, but aboard Northampton, don't. With what's going on, every ship and sub needs one place to feel completely safe and that's aboard Northampton. You want to tell jokes or the like, that's fine, but the practical jokes are over. And you owe Northampton a formal and public apology."
"I don't know what you mean," Kongo protested.
Gordon sighed. "Kongo, all four of you were there when I practically laid out Iowa. I could have fired at her with my main battery and not hurt her as badly, do you really want to see how - creative - my crew and I can be?"
"You don't have the authority," Kongo said, "We aren't even in the same chain of command."
"I don't need a chain of command to sponsor a contest on the destroyer's discord for pictures of The Belgian Congo, you know, where all the gorillas are," Gordon said, "I just need lots of ice cream." The doors ahead and behind opened. "Maybe Atago takes commissions, she owes me for The Atago Adventures."
Kongo covered her face with her hands. "You wouldn't send those to Goto-chan, would you?" Kongo asked.
"No, I'll send them to Kaga and Fubiki, with the explanation you'd been tormenting the reformed Abyssals," Gordon said, "Then, I'll trickle them out to your sisters. Just imagine what they'll do with a steady stream of those pictures."
"no," Kongo whispered as she dropped her hands.
"NO!" She sprinted down the corridor and off the ship.
"You're scary," Northampton said on the webcall that had recorded it all.
"Only to my enemies, to my friends, I'm cuddly," Captain Gordon said.
------------------------------
The arrival of both the SecNav himself, and the State Minister of Defense would have required every available ship- and sub-girl, but the Crown Princess of Sweden arriving demanded it, and the cloud of fighters that sheparded the VC-25 all the way to touch down. The ship-girls' carrier planes taking over when the speed dropped below what was safe for the jet fighters.
The three admirals stood at the podium under the pavilion. While a minimum of ruffles and flourishes had been requested, if you weren't there as an official guest, you were there as a guard.
"I think they are going to ignore you drafting Watanabe-san, Admiral Goto," Crawford said, "And I hope they're going to concentrate on the christening ceremonies."
"They will, at least in public, but that is why it's the State Minister, and not the Minister himself. A slap in the face to me," Goto replied, "I'm just hoping for your insanity field to just be interesting, rather than how it often works out."
"It's worse, with Colbert ill, they're talking about Beale, me, and young Crawford there all getting another star," Richardson said as the mobile stairway was moved into place, "That will be, interesting."
"We live in interesting enough times," Crawford said. The others agreed as the door opened and politics came to the fore.
------------------------------
Gordon's Chief Engineer was checking on the Abyssals since they were all together for the first time in a long time, most had gone through some of what Gotengo had gone through, but without their own names, they hadn't suffered the collapse and restart. Part of the Chief Engineer's concern was Floyd's silly survey, as if he'd allow somefairy to be misplaced on a rescue. The other part was the Destroyer Water Demon worried him the most, her sister-ship was taking things hard, as most of the destroyers did when human children were involved, but this one reported no problems. In his experience that predicted a boiler explosion because the gauges were stuck, misread or ignored.
A poorly concealed splice into a communication line, led to a transmitter in the Destroyer Water Demon's chief engineer's office, and the Chief Engineer suddenly was glad Floyd and a squad of marines was with him.
"Yo Yo YoYo," he told the Dalek Marine he wanted a hundred engineers here quietly, but NOW.
The speed at which the troops arrived heartened him, and he noted a few Smiths and Jokers with them, as well as a few more specialist marines. He needed it and them. Finding the Destroyer Water Demon's chief engineer wasn't hard, once you started thinking like a saboteur.
------------------------------
Floyd didn't know what had so agitated the Chief Engineer. It'd seen him all the colors of the rainbow, even multiples, except violet, until now. Then it heard the Chief Engineer ask a question that could only result in a fight. But Floyd had dealt with the engineering crew, and now that the Chief Engineer had mentioned it, it saw the signs of sabotage all around.
The Demon's chief engineer laughed as it stood, it was twice as tall as the Chief Engineer and it laughed at the size difference, and admitted the entire engineering crew were saboteurs, proclaiming that since the Destroyer Water Demon had abandoned the Abyss, it would be forced to unwitting service or be destroyed.
Floyd had heard stupidity before, but this was insanity. The Chief Engineer had been in the second wave of a boarding action to save Indianapolis, had led the teams to save Hibiki, worked with and against the crew of Gotengo to save her. Had been working on stabilizing the `Swedish` ships and a thousand other rescues. And this idiot had just threatened the survival of a ship and crew in front of him.
Floyd watched the Chief Engineer turn a uniform shade of teal. Floyd moved a limb to the lightsaber, then realized what surrounded it and prepared a number of coral pseudopods instead. The chief saboteur grinned as the Chief Engineer wound up for a roundhouse, he was too far away to even connect.
The smile was literally driven from the saboteur's face as a long, spud wrench extended from the Chief's sleeve. There was no signal, but every engineer sprang at the saboteurs.
------------------------------
The introductions to the Russian flag-ranked officers, the secretary-ships and the battleships were complete. Nothing's gone wrong, Goto thought, I might just -
The sound of a bugle rang over the loudspeakers, not the portable ones playing various patriotic airs of the countries involved, but the bases' emergency systems.
"You two are going to break my sword, but after 'Attention to Orders', I don't recognize that one," the SecNav said.
"It's new, sir, 'All-Engineers Call'," Crawford offered, "With difficult rescues or critical engineering casualties occurring, it was easier than trying to round up everyone by radio."
The SecNav glanced to the other two VIPs and got slight nods from both. "Well, I'm an old cop, and you answer an All-Hands, because yours might be the next."
"Have all forces fall in, escort formation," Goto ordered. Secretary ships and battleships closed in, cruisers formed a distant screen while the destroyers divided between close escort and formation screen. The formation headed towards the large hanger where the `Swedish Squadron` had been assembled.
Yamato looked around the mess hall nervously. Then at the huge bins that were there for her, Musashi, and the four Iowas. The voice of Captain Gordon echoed through the hall from the speakers. "I already tested it, it works," he assured his fellow battleships, "Nothing wrong with it."
"Well, I," Yamato said, trying to be lady like, "I'm not sure."
"Look," he said quietly, "You want to ditch the 'Hotel' moniker? I know what that feels like despite being hospital and power plant at the same time. You want to sortie regularly to protect your homeland and the little ones?"
Yamato nodded, her initial irritation overwritten with fiery purpose.
One of the attendants opened the lid of the bin full of shredded paper with occasional chopped up staples, paper clips and even some aluminum binder clips. "Then eat the expired red tape. Occasionally I'd season it with some scramble eggs or a biscuit."
The old chief stood by to verify the 'destruction' of the contents of the bins had been fulfilled.
------------------------------
Goto hadn't met Floyd before, so when the former Abyssal had requested a meeting with the three admirals about a 'situation' he was not filled with joy. The meeting room was in a building at Kadena, and no ship-girls were invited.
The coral-like fairy had a very thin packet prepared, in Japanese for Goto, in English for the Americans. "Floyd Floyd Floyd," the fairy explained that the survey to verify all crews were present or accounted for, was to make sure they hadn't lost anybeing trapped in rubble or some other minor to humans mishap.
"Floyd Floyd," the fairy explained that when the numbers came in, it hid them and brought the data to the admirals. "Floyd Floyd," it said as it literally walked down the list of numbers.
"Did you mislay a decimal place?" Crawford asked, "No Iowa had 7000 crew, let alone 70,000."
"Floyd," said it hadn't.
"Kongo never had a crew even a twentieth this size," Goto said of the enormous numbers he was seeing.
"Floyd."
They flipped to the next page and saw that Bismarck was only 12% over strength.
"They're drawing in all their historic crews," Richardson realized, "The need for shore parties is so great, so every hand that arrives is welcomed."
"Floyd," the fairy said and flipped to the last page, photos of the treasure trove back on Nishinoshima.
"Admiral Beale is going to be over the moon about this," Crawford said and grinned to his fellow admirals.
------------------------------
It was 0204 hours when the alarms sounded. Captain Gordon's crew got all the thousands of civilians bunking aboard calmed down as all the watertight doors were closed. Not to prevent sinking, being on the flat ground, well inland assured that, but so blasts would be limited to one area.
All of the five-inch and about a third of the six-inch could bear on the incoming targets. The destroyers who'd spotted the incoming had brought them under fire as they passed overhead. He could have brought the sixteen-inch antiair shells to bear, but this close to the hospital they would do more harm than good.
Eleven Abyssals of Elite rank or higher used the vast bulk of Gordon's manifested hull as a noise wall as they brought all their antiair to bear. They began scoring hits on the incoming aircraft, but there were a lot of them.
In the flag bridge, Admiral Richardson watched, depending on his eyes and binoculars, while Admirals Goto and Crawford fought the battle from the ship's CIC with radar and radios. Richardson had never been aboard a ship-girl, it was weird having the ship-girl there, yet spread throughout the ship.
"How many?" Richardson asked, more to himself than anything else.
"Can't tell, lots," Captain Gordon's answer came crisply, "Best guess 150, reports are that Gibbs is under similar attack, but she can use her main batteries safely."
"Yo," one of the watch-standers reported, one-hundred confirmed targets. The weapons were having an effect.
"Sixty," a human officer said as he held a phone to the CIC, "Forty. Twenty. Ten. That's it. Gibbs reporting they splashed all their attackers."
The silence at the cease fire and the fading echos of the gunfire seemed almost as `loud` as the gunfire had been. "Report," Richardson practically whispered but those around him jumped at the noise.
"They came straight in, no evasive action, but they came in on a vector that only about a third of my six-inch could reach. That's either a very good guess, or . . . "
"Second raid incoming," one of Richardson's staff reported, "Aimed at the airfield. Kadena."
"They'll hit the bulk of the Swedes and the Fletchers," Gordon reported, "They'll just be in range of our heavy AA."
"Engage," Richardson ordered.
Why aren't they pulling back? Richardson wondered as the attackers melted away. He saw the Anchorage Demon had taken a position on Gordon's stern and fired methodically. The repeater for the radar let him watch the air raid diminish, then fall to nothing well short of the perimeter.
If we hadn't been packed in wall to wall, Richardson thought of the size and inexorable nature of the raid, Even Abyssal kamikazes aren't that relentless. But they approached on a vector that limited Gordon's antiair, but not Gibbs' or the forces at Kadena. A bit better coordination and many of his support ships would have been drawn away to the other targets. Or they knew about his weak antiair, but not about all his upgrades.
"Sir, they've picked up the wreckage of one or two," his aide reported, "They're Fi-103's, not baka bombs. V-1's sir, likely air-launched."
"We really did invent most modern weapons in World War 2 didn't we," Richardson muttered.
------------------------------
"Kongo," the fast battleship heard as the door ahead of her and behind her spontaneously closed. She knew technically she could do the same inside herself, but she rarely manifested her whole hull, so she was surprised that Captain Gordon could do it so easily.
"I appreciate that you and your sister-ships are known for pranks and such, but aboard Northampton, don't. With what's going on, every ship and sub needs one place to feel completely safe and that's aboard Northampton. You want to tell jokes or the like, that's fine, but the practical jokes are over. And you owe Northampton a formal and public apology."
"I don't know what you mean," Kongo protested.
Gordon sighed. "Kongo, all four of you were there when I practically laid out Iowa. I could have fired at her with my main battery and not hurt her as badly, do you really want to see how - creative - my crew and I can be?"
"You don't have the authority," Kongo said, "We aren't even in the same chain of command."
"I don't need a chain of command to sponsor a contest on the destroyer's discord for pictures of The Belgian Congo, you know, where all the gorillas are," Gordon said, "I just need lots of ice cream." The doors ahead and behind opened. "Maybe Atago takes commissions, she owes me for The Atago Adventures."
Kongo covered her face with her hands. "You wouldn't send those to Goto-chan, would you?" Kongo asked.
"No, I'll send them to Kaga and Fubiki, with the explanation you'd been tormenting the reformed Abyssals," Gordon said, "Then, I'll trickle them out to your sisters. Just imagine what they'll do with a steady stream of those pictures."
"no," Kongo whispered as she dropped her hands.
"NO!" She sprinted down the corridor and off the ship.
"You're scary," Northampton said on the webcall that had recorded it all.
"Only to my enemies, to my friends, I'm cuddly," Captain Gordon said.
------------------------------
The arrival of both the SecNav himself, and the State Minister of Defense would have required every available ship- and sub-girl, but the Crown Princess of Sweden arriving demanded it, and the cloud of fighters that sheparded the VC-25 all the way to touch down. The ship-girls' carrier planes taking over when the speed dropped below what was safe for the jet fighters.
The three admirals stood at the podium under the pavilion. While a minimum of ruffles and flourishes had been requested, if you weren't there as an official guest, you were there as a guard.
"I think they are going to ignore you drafting Watanabe-san, Admiral Goto," Crawford said, "And I hope they're going to concentrate on the christening ceremonies."
"They will, at least in public, but that is why it's the State Minister, and not the Minister himself. A slap in the face to me," Goto replied, "I'm just hoping for your insanity field to just be interesting, rather than how it often works out."
"It's worse, with Colbert ill, they're talking about Beale, me, and young Crawford there all getting another star," Richardson said as the mobile stairway was moved into place, "That will be, interesting."
"We live in interesting enough times," Crawford said. The others agreed as the door opened and politics came to the fore.
------------------------------
Gordon's Chief Engineer was checking on the Abyssals since they were all together for the first time in a long time, most had gone through some of what Gotengo had gone through, but without their own names, they hadn't suffered the collapse and restart. Part of the Chief Engineer's concern was Floyd's silly survey, as if he'd allow somefairy to be misplaced on a rescue. The other part was the Destroyer Water Demon worried him the most, her sister-ship was taking things hard, as most of the destroyers did when human children were involved, but this one reported no problems. In his experience that predicted a boiler explosion because the gauges were stuck, misread or ignored.
A poorly concealed splice into a communication line, led to a transmitter in the Destroyer Water Demon's chief engineer's office, and the Chief Engineer suddenly was glad Floyd and a squad of marines was with him.
"Yo Yo YoYo," he told the Dalek Marine he wanted a hundred engineers here quietly, but NOW.
The speed at which the troops arrived heartened him, and he noted a few Smiths and Jokers with them, as well as a few more specialist marines. He needed it and them. Finding the Destroyer Water Demon's chief engineer wasn't hard, once you started thinking like a saboteur.
------------------------------
Floyd didn't know what had so agitated the Chief Engineer. It'd seen him all the colors of the rainbow, even multiples, except violet, until now. Then it heard the Chief Engineer ask a question that could only result in a fight. But Floyd had dealt with the engineering crew, and now that the Chief Engineer had mentioned it, it saw the signs of sabotage all around.
The Demon's chief engineer laughed as it stood, it was twice as tall as the Chief Engineer and it laughed at the size difference, and admitted the entire engineering crew were saboteurs, proclaiming that since the Destroyer Water Demon had abandoned the Abyss, it would be forced to unwitting service or be destroyed.
Floyd had heard stupidity before, but this was insanity. The Chief Engineer had been in the second wave of a boarding action to save Indianapolis, had led the teams to save Hibiki, worked with and against the crew of Gotengo to save her. Had been working on stabilizing the `Swedish` ships and a thousand other rescues. And this idiot had just threatened the survival of a ship and crew in front of him.
Floyd watched the Chief Engineer turn a uniform shade of teal. Floyd moved a limb to the lightsaber, then realized what surrounded it and prepared a number of coral pseudopods instead. The chief saboteur grinned as the Chief Engineer wound up for a roundhouse, he was too far away to even connect.
The smile was literally driven from the saboteur's face as a long, spud wrench extended from the Chief's sleeve. There was no signal, but every engineer sprang at the saboteurs.
------------------------------
The introductions to the Russian flag-ranked officers, the secretary-ships and the battleships were complete. Nothing's gone wrong, Goto thought, I might just -
The sound of a bugle rang over the loudspeakers, not the portable ones playing various patriotic airs of the countries involved, but the bases' emergency systems.
"You two are going to break my sword, but after 'Attention to Orders', I don't recognize that one," the SecNav said.
"It's new, sir, 'All-Engineers Call'," Crawford offered, "With difficult rescues or critical engineering casualties occurring, it was easier than trying to round up everyone by radio."
The SecNav glanced to the other two VIPs and got slight nods from both. "Well, I'm an old cop, and you answer an All-Hands, because yours might be the next."
"Have all forces fall in, escort formation," Goto ordered. Secretary ships and battleships closed in, cruisers formed a distant screen while the destroyers divided between close escort and formation screen. The formation headed towards the large hanger where the `Swedish Squadron` had been assembled.
Anchovy Peaches XXIX - Passing Muster with Cerberus
Anchovy Peaches XXIX - Passing Muster with Cerberus
The SecNav was well aware of his near deific status among ship-girls, but entering the hanger, he was unprepared for what he saw. The Abyssals were there, a pair hugging while one was in tears, the rest looking uncertain. And he'd seen fairies, but the idea that ship-girls' crews would be out in the open save to fly planes was a new experience. There seemed to be a small number assembled in front of the bulk of the Abyssals. Despite being bits of disturbing abstract art, they were as discernibly uncertain as the Abyssals they were the crews of.
Farther was the cordon of `troops` who seemed a mix of suit and sunglasses types who wouldn't have looked out of place as Secret Service, and the odd peppershaker looking ones. That the suit and sunglasses were carrying M14's with a proportional lightsaber as a bayonet, and the peppershakers also had a properly proportioned lightsaber mounted underneath their plungers gave a sense of real menace. The ones they were guarding were nauseating bits of something that shouldn't be able to exist, save the one, blanket-wrapped figure near the edge of the cordon.
It also didn't escape him that the stain on the blanket matched the color of the stain on the end of the long wrench the cthulhoid character was carrying as he remonstrated the crews of the other Abyssal ships and the prisoners under guard. The image of a preacher who truly believed couldn't be shaken. He was glad that as the 'All-Mighty SecNav' he didn't hear the 'desu', 'eh', ja', or other national variations, he heard the words clear and concise.
He had the irrational urge to take his hat off, had he been wearing one. He noted that the three admirals, the general and every ship-girl had all uncovered. They realized as he did the 'All-Mighty SecNav' had wandered into the temple of a very different god, and while worshipers and supplicants had sanctuary, other powers would be tolerated here, but that was all.
"Oh Lord, thou hast made this world the shadow of a dream and taught by time I treat it so - exceptin' always Steam," the figure spoke, his hands describing a reality he wanted to share. Holding the bloodied tool by the clean head to diagram the nature of creation. "From coupler flange to spindle guide, I see the hand of God. Predestination in the stride of yon connectin' rod."
He gestured to the surrounding ship-girls. "The Captain rules upon the bridge," then tapped the ground with the bloody spike, "And I reign here below. He sends his orders down the line, and I'm pleased to have it so."
He stepped up to the collection of crew near the Abyssals. "For though his word be iron law, as ancient rules decree," his wrench rang on the ground to emphasize his words, "I know. What. Truly. Moves. This. Ship. Are my engines, Lord, and me!"
The tiny figure looked at the collection of people, then focused on the still teary-eyed destroyer demon. He was a older parent soothing a frightened child, "I know thy seas are very, very wide, and the ship in truth is small, and those who dwell within her hide, I care for one and all." He looked at the entire assembly, somehow catching each eye before telling them, "Their safety rests upon my skill, their lives are in my hand. I take it for a sacred trust, and they rarely understand."
The figure marched over to the cordon, and even the battleships stepped back from his expression. Those within cringed. Whether he was high priest, or demi-god, his was a god of terrible wrath. He gestured to the ship-girls surrounding them with the bloodied spike rather than the wrench's head. "Behold these purring engine hearts that keep the ship alive. I know them down to their atom's parts, that I and mine may thrive." He pointed to the blanket-wrapped heretic. "And fools they be, who fail to see, why I hold my engines dear."
He thundered the last his rage apparent to all, "For the engine room is a temple raised to the God of the engineer!"
He stepped away from the cringing mass, walking toward the center of the circle of ship-girls. This time he spoke tenderly, as to a beloved friend or lover, "Oh Lord, thou hast made this world the shadow of a dream, and taught by time I treat it so - exceptin' always Steam. From coupler flange to spindle guide, I see thy hand, oh God. Predestination in the stride of yon connectin' rod."
The last, tiny, cynical bit of the SecNav's soul asked when the collection plate would be passed. Then the figure removed his cap and looked around. "She's a good girl, she just needs good engineers."
The Abyssal who'd been crying tears of abject misery was now crying tears of joy as from many of the surrounding ship-girls, in ones and twos and fives, sixty fairies approached. The Chief Engineer picked out one of his cthulhoid shipmates. He shook his head at his fellow engineer. The fairy looked crestfallen, and reached up to remove his hat, likely to beg for the chance.
The Chief Engineer was quicker, he pulled the dixie cup hat from the engineer and settled his own cap atop the engineer to replace it. "It's temporary," he told the other. His tone implied a threat, but the recipient looked relieved. He stepped back and saluted, it was immediately returned.
The Chief placed the cap atop his head, and a normal sailor's cap seemed a crown. He looked at the team, catching each eye and holding it for a moment before continuing on. When finished he nodded. The two Destroyer Water Demons watched with amazement, the girl who'd been sobbing her red eyes wide as saucers as the new crew approached, and saluted.
"Permission to come aboard?" the Chief asked. The poor girl could only nod. They marched in as the other Destroyer Water Demon hugged her sistership tightly.
The flash of light stunned everyone. The troops who'd been under guard were smoldering grease-stains on the floor. The peppershaker in charge of the detail reported they had not escaped under cover of the flash. The two Destroyer Water Demons were also gone. In their place stood an Abyssal Twin Princess, except not. The two figures and their rigging matched the profile, but they were a very dark green and a very pale blue instead of the Abyssal black and white.
They began, "We are."
"Who we were."
"And still desire."
"To complete what we began."
"Although as one."
"Not two," they said, alternating.
"I think that can be arranged," the SecNav said, feeling not very 'All-Mighty' right now.
------------------------------
The tearful hugs and the cycle of thanks continued. The people who'd made their homes inside me for a month were getting moved back into their homes or to more permanent dorms as the government finally got the recovery into high gear. I heard that Joshamee was getting much the same treatment a few dozen miles away.
And there was still the doctors and nurses of the nearby hospital I'd been dorm, auxiliary powerplant, canteen, occasional bar and sometime father-confessor to for the same period. I was proud of my crew and their exemplary record in doing both what was necessary and in doing what was right. Medals, Presidential Unit Citations, all the formal awards didn't matter as much as what those grateful faces had meant when they realized they were safe and warm, that some work meant food and purpose.
And the big brains who never left their ivory towers wonder why we landed with twenty-eight Abyssals looking for a way out, and we were leaving with ninety-three. The christening would be in a few days, Her Highness having interviewed the various ships to better match names with ships. The Swedish Navy wasn't getting all of them, the Royal Canadian Navy, the US Navy, the US Coast Guard and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force were getting a few.
What they were getting technically vaulted the Swedish Navy fully into the position of the second, largest navy in Europe, but the bulk of them would return with us to Nishinoshima along with a cadre of English-speaking Swedish officers making the desperate lie of The Swedish Squadron a reality. There were jokes that they hoped this gave the Abyss a migraine it would never be free of.
I personally hoped that it would inspire copycats all over the world when the Abyssals realized they had alternatives. I feared it might make them desperate to do anything to tip the war back to their side.
------------------------------
It was a dark and stormy night, perfect for hiding under the freighter's keel to slip through the torpedo nets that guarded the Thames. The thunder in the sky and the turbulence of the ship hid the Abyssal destroyer from the watchful eyes of machines and ship-girls that guarded the heart and brain of the largest fleet in Europe.
The Abyssal destroyer had charts of the London sewer system and a desperate mission. The war was changing and it required evolutionary tactics. Hence the destroyer was traveling through the sewers. Anyplace in London could be reached from them, if you knew the route and you didn't mind the stench. The wildlife fled from an Abyssal, but they would not sound the alarm, or the unseasonable rains would cover the approach. The Abyss had seen what the Pacific Storm had done, one was created and launched against England and the channel ports. It was rapidly proving that either the Pacific Princesses were uniquely skilled or had gotten lucky, because the Atlantic Storm while bad was neither a record-breaker nor stable it was breaking up even now.
But it could be used as the cover for so many other clandestine operations. Hence the manhole cover slipping aside, then being replaced as the destroyer found a torrent from a roof to wash the noisome filth from itself before it made the final infiltration. Something with less effective sensors would have missed the electronic tripwires and wards that covered the last few dozen meters, but the crew of the destroyer had planned too long and too well for this. They paused in a blindspot and waited. When the rangefinder spotted a lightning flash, the signal was given and as the thunder boomed a blast of ultrasound from the sonar set off every motion detector in the field.
While the system was reporting hundreds of false positives, the destroyer crossed the open ground and hid in another blindspot and waited. Sure enough, human security left the dry comfort to do their job, checking that there was not in fact an army advancing over the open field. They checked a number of the detectors, verifying they were in fact functional. Satisfied their electronic servants were confused, not inoperative, the human returned inside.
The destroyer waited until the rangefinders spotted another lightning flash and send out another pulse of the sonar, and as thunder boomed, raced to another blindspot closer to the door. Now a lookout watched to see when the door opened if the door itself was locked or not. To their delight, they saw it wasn't locked, but had a guard behind it. That actually made everything easier. There would be no delay to gaining entry. Next point was not a blindspot, but it was dry and the human would take time to check several of the sensors randomly, and that would give them time to deploy their camouflage and prepare to make entry.
The plan to gain entry to Buckingham Palace was still a go.
------------------------------
The SecNav was well aware of his near deific status among ship-girls, but entering the hanger, he was unprepared for what he saw. The Abyssals were there, a pair hugging while one was in tears, the rest looking uncertain. And he'd seen fairies, but the idea that ship-girls' crews would be out in the open save to fly planes was a new experience. There seemed to be a small number assembled in front of the bulk of the Abyssals. Despite being bits of disturbing abstract art, they were as discernibly uncertain as the Abyssals they were the crews of.
Farther was the cordon of `troops` who seemed a mix of suit and sunglasses types who wouldn't have looked out of place as Secret Service, and the odd peppershaker looking ones. That the suit and sunglasses were carrying M14's with a proportional lightsaber as a bayonet, and the peppershakers also had a properly proportioned lightsaber mounted underneath their plungers gave a sense of real menace. The ones they were guarding were nauseating bits of something that shouldn't be able to exist, save the one, blanket-wrapped figure near the edge of the cordon.
It also didn't escape him that the stain on the blanket matched the color of the stain on the end of the long wrench the cthulhoid character was carrying as he remonstrated the crews of the other Abyssal ships and the prisoners under guard. The image of a preacher who truly believed couldn't be shaken. He was glad that as the 'All-Mighty SecNav' he didn't hear the 'desu', 'eh', ja', or other national variations, he heard the words clear and concise.
He had the irrational urge to take his hat off, had he been wearing one. He noted that the three admirals, the general and every ship-girl had all uncovered. They realized as he did the 'All-Mighty SecNav' had wandered into the temple of a very different god, and while worshipers and supplicants had sanctuary, other powers would be tolerated here, but that was all.
"Oh Lord, thou hast made this world the shadow of a dream and taught by time I treat it so - exceptin' always Steam," the figure spoke, his hands describing a reality he wanted to share. Holding the bloodied tool by the clean head to diagram the nature of creation. "From coupler flange to spindle guide, I see the hand of God. Predestination in the stride of yon connectin' rod."
He gestured to the surrounding ship-girls. "The Captain rules upon the bridge," then tapped the ground with the bloody spike, "And I reign here below. He sends his orders down the line, and I'm pleased to have it so."
He stepped up to the collection of crew near the Abyssals. "For though his word be iron law, as ancient rules decree," his wrench rang on the ground to emphasize his words, "I know. What. Truly. Moves. This. Ship. Are my engines, Lord, and me!"
The tiny figure looked at the collection of people, then focused on the still teary-eyed destroyer demon. He was a older parent soothing a frightened child, "I know thy seas are very, very wide, and the ship in truth is small, and those who dwell within her hide, I care for one and all." He looked at the entire assembly, somehow catching each eye before telling them, "Their safety rests upon my skill, their lives are in my hand. I take it for a sacred trust, and they rarely understand."
The figure marched over to the cordon, and even the battleships stepped back from his expression. Those within cringed. Whether he was high priest, or demi-god, his was a god of terrible wrath. He gestured to the ship-girls surrounding them with the bloodied spike rather than the wrench's head. "Behold these purring engine hearts that keep the ship alive. I know them down to their atom's parts, that I and mine may thrive." He pointed to the blanket-wrapped heretic. "And fools they be, who fail to see, why I hold my engines dear."
He thundered the last his rage apparent to all, "For the engine room is a temple raised to the God of the engineer!"
He stepped away from the cringing mass, walking toward the center of the circle of ship-girls. This time he spoke tenderly, as to a beloved friend or lover, "Oh Lord, thou hast made this world the shadow of a dream, and taught by time I treat it so - exceptin' always Steam. From coupler flange to spindle guide, I see thy hand, oh God. Predestination in the stride of yon connectin' rod."
The last, tiny, cynical bit of the SecNav's soul asked when the collection plate would be passed. Then the figure removed his cap and looked around. "She's a good girl, she just needs good engineers."
The Abyssal who'd been crying tears of abject misery was now crying tears of joy as from many of the surrounding ship-girls, in ones and twos and fives, sixty fairies approached. The Chief Engineer picked out one of his cthulhoid shipmates. He shook his head at his fellow engineer. The fairy looked crestfallen, and reached up to remove his hat, likely to beg for the chance.
The Chief Engineer was quicker, he pulled the dixie cup hat from the engineer and settled his own cap atop the engineer to replace it. "It's temporary," he told the other. His tone implied a threat, but the recipient looked relieved. He stepped back and saluted, it was immediately returned.
The Chief placed the cap atop his head, and a normal sailor's cap seemed a crown. He looked at the team, catching each eye and holding it for a moment before continuing on. When finished he nodded. The two Destroyer Water Demons watched with amazement, the girl who'd been sobbing her red eyes wide as saucers as the new crew approached, and saluted.
"Permission to come aboard?" the Chief asked. The poor girl could only nod. They marched in as the other Destroyer Water Demon hugged her sistership tightly.
The flash of light stunned everyone. The troops who'd been under guard were smoldering grease-stains on the floor. The peppershaker in charge of the detail reported they had not escaped under cover of the flash. The two Destroyer Water Demons were also gone. In their place stood an Abyssal Twin Princess, except not. The two figures and their rigging matched the profile, but they were a very dark green and a very pale blue instead of the Abyssal black and white.
They began, "We are."
"Who we were."
"And still desire."
"To complete what we began."
"Although as one."
"Not two," they said, alternating.
"I think that can be arranged," the SecNav said, feeling not very 'All-Mighty' right now.
------------------------------
The tearful hugs and the cycle of thanks continued. The people who'd made their homes inside me for a month were getting moved back into their homes or to more permanent dorms as the government finally got the recovery into high gear. I heard that Joshamee was getting much the same treatment a few dozen miles away.
And there was still the doctors and nurses of the nearby hospital I'd been dorm, auxiliary powerplant, canteen, occasional bar and sometime father-confessor to for the same period. I was proud of my crew and their exemplary record in doing both what was necessary and in doing what was right. Medals, Presidential Unit Citations, all the formal awards didn't matter as much as what those grateful faces had meant when they realized they were safe and warm, that some work meant food and purpose.
And the big brains who never left their ivory towers wonder why we landed with twenty-eight Abyssals looking for a way out, and we were leaving with ninety-three. The christening would be in a few days, Her Highness having interviewed the various ships to better match names with ships. The Swedish Navy wasn't getting all of them, the Royal Canadian Navy, the US Navy, the US Coast Guard and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force were getting a few.
What they were getting technically vaulted the Swedish Navy fully into the position of the second, largest navy in Europe, but the bulk of them would return with us to Nishinoshima along with a cadre of English-speaking Swedish officers making the desperate lie of The Swedish Squadron a reality. There were jokes that they hoped this gave the Abyss a migraine it would never be free of.
I personally hoped that it would inspire copycats all over the world when the Abyssals realized they had alternatives. I feared it might make them desperate to do anything to tip the war back to their side.
------------------------------
It was a dark and stormy night, perfect for hiding under the freighter's keel to slip through the torpedo nets that guarded the Thames. The thunder in the sky and the turbulence of the ship hid the Abyssal destroyer from the watchful eyes of machines and ship-girls that guarded the heart and brain of the largest fleet in Europe.
The Abyssal destroyer had charts of the London sewer system and a desperate mission. The war was changing and it required evolutionary tactics. Hence the destroyer was traveling through the sewers. Anyplace in London could be reached from them, if you knew the route and you didn't mind the stench. The wildlife fled from an Abyssal, but they would not sound the alarm, or the unseasonable rains would cover the approach. The Abyss had seen what the Pacific Storm had done, one was created and launched against England and the channel ports. It was rapidly proving that either the Pacific Princesses were uniquely skilled or had gotten lucky, because the Atlantic Storm while bad was neither a record-breaker nor stable it was breaking up even now.
But it could be used as the cover for so many other clandestine operations. Hence the manhole cover slipping aside, then being replaced as the destroyer found a torrent from a roof to wash the noisome filth from itself before it made the final infiltration. Something with less effective sensors would have missed the electronic tripwires and wards that covered the last few dozen meters, but the crew of the destroyer had planned too long and too well for this. They paused in a blindspot and waited. When the rangefinder spotted a lightning flash, the signal was given and as the thunder boomed a blast of ultrasound from the sonar set off every motion detector in the field.
While the system was reporting hundreds of false positives, the destroyer crossed the open ground and hid in another blindspot and waited. Sure enough, human security left the dry comfort to do their job, checking that there was not in fact an army advancing over the open field. They checked a number of the detectors, verifying they were in fact functional. Satisfied their electronic servants were confused, not inoperative, the human returned inside.
The destroyer waited until the rangefinders spotted another lightning flash and send out another pulse of the sonar, and as thunder boomed, raced to another blindspot closer to the door. Now a lookout watched to see when the door opened if the door itself was locked or not. To their delight, they saw it wasn't locked, but had a guard behind it. That actually made everything easier. There would be no delay to gaining entry. Next point was not a blindspot, but it was dry and the human would take time to check several of the sensors randomly, and that would give them time to deploy their camouflage and prepare to make entry.
The plan to gain entry to Buckingham Palace was still a go.
------------------------------
Anchovy Peaches XXX - Persephone and Hades
Anchovy Peaches XXX - Persephone and Hades
The Tsu-class looked into the distance. The Hell Crosses were circling well behind where the fleet sailed. The Ri-class beside her also looked at the distance.
"If you illuminated them," the Ri-class said, "Could the Hell Crosses rain down their fire?"
The Tsu-class looked at her leader. She smiled. "So that's why you ordered us to hold fire," she said.
"I didn't want to shoot at the ones who might save us," the Ri-class said then a wave of pain ran through her as she tried to move one of her turrets. The mangled mess of her main guns were simply a placebo of safety and power, they were crippled now and the pain from them was growing worse.
"We should get moving," the Ri-class managed, "They might track your radar back to us."
"We're dead anyway," the Tsu-class said, "They're herding us this way, to the Abyss."
"If our Master has abandoned us, we should drag them into the Abyss," the Ri-class said.
In the distance, the Armored Carrier Demon suddenly erupted in flames as the Hell Crosses' fire lances actually hit with every shot. The Ta-class `escorting` the Demon took two hits, and the Light Cruiser Demon took three. Of the three columns of smoke, one vanished and two turned from black to white. The survivors were venting steam.
"Now we run a little more," the Ri-class said, "I just hope we don't stumble over the damned sub that's out here."
"That would be typical," the Tsu-class said, "After all that's happened because we didn't want to waste time searching for it."
The Ri-class nodded and signaled the others to speed up. She still worried that the Battleship Water Demon was out there, possibly on their flank. They hadn't seen her since she and the three Ta-class had ravaged the fleet. Taking two of the Ta-class in return hadn't balanced things by any means.
------------------------------
The destroyer waited until the human had come out to check the systems again, while most of the crew deployed the camouflage cover, a small team raced forward to assault the door and get it open. With a heave they opened the door and the destroyer raced into the antechamber, a second team deployed to open the inner door while the first team raced to close and lock the door behind the destroyer. The human guard was reaching for an alarm as the door opened and the destroyer entered the palace proper. Both the first and second teams reboarded the destroyer as alarms both mechanical and biological sounded and the destroyer prepared for the last step of its mission.
------------------------------
Gotengo knew she was technically breaking the rules. They'd never specifically said the 'don't go out past the patrols' referred to the sub/destroyer picket line, not the P-3 Orions and Kawasaki P-1's. But she wanted to get out as far as she could before doing this. And this week, with the VIPs on Okinawa, the P-1's and P-3's were patrolling out a lot further than they usually did.
She had a knife strapped to her leg, and was prepared to use it.
"November Superior Princess," she said, "I don't know if you like, hate or just eat humans and their ships, but I offer a deal. My sisters, I want to see them again, give them the chance to redeem as I have had. I offer anything you demand, except the health and well-being of my friends, that is not mine to give or to take." She touched the knife. "Even my life, if that is your demand."
She stood for some minutes, describing lazy arcs near her self-imposed border to the patrol area as she awaited any sign that her offer had been accepted or even acknowledged.
The figures appearing out of a distant storm front caught her attention, three Ne-class heavy cruisers she instantly recognized despite their heavy damage.
"Okay, Your Highness, you work fast, I'll give you that," Gotengo said and accelerated towards them, now thinking how to prevent her new friends from massacring her old friends, because it didn't look like all three of her old friends together could beat a single surfaced sub in a gun duel.
Then she saw two cruisers she'd hoped to never see again in her life. "All right, I said 'anything' and letting those two live is a more than fair price."
As she drew closer, she realized she wasn't looking at a fleet, but the ruins of a fleet that somehow kept sailing.
"Chi?" the Ri-class said, and winced as she tried to bring a gun to bear.
"Yes," she told the bane of her existence for so long, the one who loved starting fights, both with herself and among others, "I'd ask what happened, but if you are all here together, I can guess."
"The Princess has fallen," the tattletale Tsu-class said so arrogantly, Gotengo wanted to show some of her new skills and confidence, and wipe the smirk from the prig's face with her fist.
"Then what's chasing you?" she ignored the Tsu-class and concentrated on the leader, the Ri-class.
"At last count, a Ta-class, a Light Cruiser Demon and somewhere out there a Battleship Water Demon, we pared away most of their escorts," the Ri-class said.
So it's not just these, but more you ask, Gotengo thought, I promised anything, but to save my friends, yes, that too I will pay.
"If you've come to die, you are in the right place," Gotengo said loudly, so the entire assembling fleet could hear, "If you are willing to be interned, continue on your course, tell the humans that 'Gotengo told you to invoke the Indianapolis Protocol', and then stand down. If you try some clever treachery, they'll kill you all."
The Tsu-class caught her arm. Gotengo stared at her. "What can you do?" the Tsu-class said, "You have even less armament than we do."
"If one truly has friends," Gotengo said, "The only weapon you need, is a radio." She pulled her arm free and glided among the trio of Ne-class, the playful punches as close to a caress as would occur among the Abyssals, but she knew what was meant by it. She got some distance away and began laying smoke. Both to obscure the crippled fleet, and to draw their foes' eye to something else. She also got on the radio.
" 'Ghostrider the pattern is full', or 'We deal in lead friend'?" she sent into the ether above the low clouds.
" 'We're in the same business,'" came the reply, "Gotengo, this is Vin, you're a bit out of your pasture."
"There are three forces of Abyssals, 17 who might want to turn, a pair of high-levelers chasing them, and a single Battleship Water Demon acting as the hound, get everyone spun up, because I know we can rescue at least three of the first group, and somebody's got to kill the other two groups."
"Will pass your message," the squadron commander of the orbiting P-3's said, "Be careful, you aren't invulnerable."
"I know," Gotengo said. And I know, she silently added, That I made a deal, maybe my life for theirs. Maybe, or just maybe I have to prove myself. The timid weakling. The cowardly sniper. Except I don't have guns or torpedoes, just my radar and a knife.
Her radar was being bounced back by the aluminum flakes in the smoke she was laying as she turned and began laying a second layer to the defensive curtain. Then she'd scout beyond it and the P-3's would have the missile lock they'd need. Eight against two, and the Abyssals would never know what hit them.
------------------------------
Dreadnought had been discussing things with Her Majesty, now she was running through the palace and desperately hoping Warspite and Valiant were hurrying. She had no idea how the corgis had gotten loose, but she didn't need directions, their frantic barking marked the location of the intruder, an Abyssal destroyer.
That was the worst part of it. On land, the only thing a destroyer had that could threaten her was out of commission, but inside the palace she couldn't use most of her heavy weapons either. The fact that the loudest noise she could hear were the dogs confused her. Surely the Abyssal would have opened fire by now, or if it was a Campbeltown, exploded. But nothing.
She stopped as she saw the four marines with the seething swarm of corgis between them and presumably the Abyssal. They had neither a clear shot, nor anything heavy enough to damage a destroyer. The arrival of HMAS Vampire from outside told her she was not alone in this, then the destroyer came to a sudden halt and just stared.
Dreadnought stepped between two of the marines and looked at the Abyssal destroyer to get a clear shot with her secondaries. And she stopped.
"Does anyone know why that Abyssal is wearing a dog costume?" Dreadnought asked.
"Woof," came through the Abyssal's external speakers.
------------------------------
The all-sortie signal had been given and everything that could get into the air or put to sea was on its way. Captain Gordon was barely in the lead as the destroyers tried to pass the massive ship as he churned ahead at flank speed. The force of seventeen Abyssal ships wasn't the real concern, if Gotengo's report was accurate, they hadn't enough gun power all together to challenge even Haida or Willie D, let alone the rest of the `Nishi Fleet`.
What had the battleship worried despite Goto's and Richardson's forces sortieing behind them was the others beyond them, what might be behind them under cover of the approaching storm, and Gotengo was out there alone.
The only wild card in the deck is Shark Dentures, and I doubt she'd risk herself, he thought as he plunged through the sea, General Quarters long since set, all watertight doors closed and his proud, new Chief Engineer happily giving him 115% of the supposed max of his powerplant.
"My fighters have spotted them, and they aren't putting up a hail of flak," Maggie sent, "That's either good, or bad."
"Admiral Crawford, orders?" Captain Gordon sent.
"Close, ascertain their intentions, and if hostile, sink every one of them," the Admiral ordered, "If they are requesting internment, protection, or some other deal, leave them to the subs and destroyers, and you get our wayward girl."
"Understood," he replied as he headed towards the largest ships in the fleet. A formation of three heavy cruisers in a proper formation.
"We surrender, accept internment, whatever," one of the cruisers shouted waving at the distant smokescreen, "Just go after her, she's trying to commit suicide to buy more time."
Many of the others amid the fleet seemed to agree, those that didn't seemed too weary to want to fight. "Our subs and destroyers will escort you in," Captain Gordon said, and wished there were more heavy units. He knew everything on Okinawa had sortied, but even at 35 knots, 70 miles was a long way away.
------------------------------
Logged into DD-scord
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
To any Pacific DD, HELP! We've got an Abyssal destroyer who's dressed as a dog IN BLOODY BUCKINGHAM!
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Okay, calm, ask them which Princess do they serve
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
Okay, thanks, wait one.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Will they talk, or stay a dog?
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
I am unaware of a Vasa save the sunken ship, have you returned?
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Sort of, but I'm not a sailing ship.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
I see.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
It says Elizabeth the Second. Is it bloody mental?
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Sounds like it's trying to switch sides.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
They can do that?
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
@HMS Vasa @HMS Kronan say it with me, facepalm.
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Wouldn't that hurt?
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
If you still want to kill it, start with ear scratches, or butt scratches if the dog suit is backwards.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Once it's purring flip it over and give belly scratches, then you can carry it outside, one HC needed.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
That sounds completely crazy, how do you know it'll work?
Z1 - Certified German
Because HMAS Schwachkopf, they USED TO BE Abyssal destroyers.
The Tsu-class looked into the distance. The Hell Crosses were circling well behind where the fleet sailed. The Ri-class beside her also looked at the distance.
"If you illuminated them," the Ri-class said, "Could the Hell Crosses rain down their fire?"
The Tsu-class looked at her leader. She smiled. "So that's why you ordered us to hold fire," she said.
"I didn't want to shoot at the ones who might save us," the Ri-class said then a wave of pain ran through her as she tried to move one of her turrets. The mangled mess of her main guns were simply a placebo of safety and power, they were crippled now and the pain from them was growing worse.
"We should get moving," the Ri-class managed, "They might track your radar back to us."
"We're dead anyway," the Tsu-class said, "They're herding us this way, to the Abyss."
"If our Master has abandoned us, we should drag them into the Abyss," the Ri-class said.
In the distance, the Armored Carrier Demon suddenly erupted in flames as the Hell Crosses' fire lances actually hit with every shot. The Ta-class `escorting` the Demon took two hits, and the Light Cruiser Demon took three. Of the three columns of smoke, one vanished and two turned from black to white. The survivors were venting steam.
"Now we run a little more," the Ri-class said, "I just hope we don't stumble over the damned sub that's out here."
"That would be typical," the Tsu-class said, "After all that's happened because we didn't want to waste time searching for it."
The Ri-class nodded and signaled the others to speed up. She still worried that the Battleship Water Demon was out there, possibly on their flank. They hadn't seen her since she and the three Ta-class had ravaged the fleet. Taking two of the Ta-class in return hadn't balanced things by any means.
------------------------------
The destroyer waited until the human had come out to check the systems again, while most of the crew deployed the camouflage cover, a small team raced forward to assault the door and get it open. With a heave they opened the door and the destroyer raced into the antechamber, a second team deployed to open the inner door while the first team raced to close and lock the door behind the destroyer. The human guard was reaching for an alarm as the door opened and the destroyer entered the palace proper. Both the first and second teams reboarded the destroyer as alarms both mechanical and biological sounded and the destroyer prepared for the last step of its mission.
------------------------------
Gotengo knew she was technically breaking the rules. They'd never specifically said the 'don't go out past the patrols' referred to the sub/destroyer picket line, not the P-3 Orions and Kawasaki P-1's. But she wanted to get out as far as she could before doing this. And this week, with the VIPs on Okinawa, the P-1's and P-3's were patrolling out a lot further than they usually did.
She had a knife strapped to her leg, and was prepared to use it.
"November Superior Princess," she said, "I don't know if you like, hate or just eat humans and their ships, but I offer a deal. My sisters, I want to see them again, give them the chance to redeem as I have had. I offer anything you demand, except the health and well-being of my friends, that is not mine to give or to take." She touched the knife. "Even my life, if that is your demand."
She stood for some minutes, describing lazy arcs near her self-imposed border to the patrol area as she awaited any sign that her offer had been accepted or even acknowledged.
The figures appearing out of a distant storm front caught her attention, three Ne-class heavy cruisers she instantly recognized despite their heavy damage.
"Okay, Your Highness, you work fast, I'll give you that," Gotengo said and accelerated towards them, now thinking how to prevent her new friends from massacring her old friends, because it didn't look like all three of her old friends together could beat a single surfaced sub in a gun duel.
Then she saw two cruisers she'd hoped to never see again in her life. "All right, I said 'anything' and letting those two live is a more than fair price."
As she drew closer, she realized she wasn't looking at a fleet, but the ruins of a fleet that somehow kept sailing.
"Chi?" the Ri-class said, and winced as she tried to bring a gun to bear.
"Yes," she told the bane of her existence for so long, the one who loved starting fights, both with herself and among others, "I'd ask what happened, but if you are all here together, I can guess."
"The Princess has fallen," the tattletale Tsu-class said so arrogantly, Gotengo wanted to show some of her new skills and confidence, and wipe the smirk from the prig's face with her fist.
"Then what's chasing you?" she ignored the Tsu-class and concentrated on the leader, the Ri-class.
"At last count, a Ta-class, a Light Cruiser Demon and somewhere out there a Battleship Water Demon, we pared away most of their escorts," the Ri-class said.
So it's not just these, but more you ask, Gotengo thought, I promised anything, but to save my friends, yes, that too I will pay.
"If you've come to die, you are in the right place," Gotengo said loudly, so the entire assembling fleet could hear, "If you are willing to be interned, continue on your course, tell the humans that 'Gotengo told you to invoke the Indianapolis Protocol', and then stand down. If you try some clever treachery, they'll kill you all."
The Tsu-class caught her arm. Gotengo stared at her. "What can you do?" the Tsu-class said, "You have even less armament than we do."
"If one truly has friends," Gotengo said, "The only weapon you need, is a radio." She pulled her arm free and glided among the trio of Ne-class, the playful punches as close to a caress as would occur among the Abyssals, but she knew what was meant by it. She got some distance away and began laying smoke. Both to obscure the crippled fleet, and to draw their foes' eye to something else. She also got on the radio.
" 'Ghostrider the pattern is full', or 'We deal in lead friend'?" she sent into the ether above the low clouds.
" 'We're in the same business,'" came the reply, "Gotengo, this is Vin, you're a bit out of your pasture."
"There are three forces of Abyssals, 17 who might want to turn, a pair of high-levelers chasing them, and a single Battleship Water Demon acting as the hound, get everyone spun up, because I know we can rescue at least three of the first group, and somebody's got to kill the other two groups."
"Will pass your message," the squadron commander of the orbiting P-3's said, "Be careful, you aren't invulnerable."
"I know," Gotengo said. And I know, she silently added, That I made a deal, maybe my life for theirs. Maybe, or just maybe I have to prove myself. The timid weakling. The cowardly sniper. Except I don't have guns or torpedoes, just my radar and a knife.
Her radar was being bounced back by the aluminum flakes in the smoke she was laying as she turned and began laying a second layer to the defensive curtain. Then she'd scout beyond it and the P-3's would have the missile lock they'd need. Eight against two, and the Abyssals would never know what hit them.
------------------------------
Dreadnought had been discussing things with Her Majesty, now she was running through the palace and desperately hoping Warspite and Valiant were hurrying. She had no idea how the corgis had gotten loose, but she didn't need directions, their frantic barking marked the location of the intruder, an Abyssal destroyer.
That was the worst part of it. On land, the only thing a destroyer had that could threaten her was out of commission, but inside the palace she couldn't use most of her heavy weapons either. The fact that the loudest noise she could hear were the dogs confused her. Surely the Abyssal would have opened fire by now, or if it was a Campbeltown, exploded. But nothing.
She stopped as she saw the four marines with the seething swarm of corgis between them and presumably the Abyssal. They had neither a clear shot, nor anything heavy enough to damage a destroyer. The arrival of HMAS Vampire from outside told her she was not alone in this, then the destroyer came to a sudden halt and just stared.
Dreadnought stepped between two of the marines and looked at the Abyssal destroyer to get a clear shot with her secondaries. And she stopped.
"Does anyone know why that Abyssal is wearing a dog costume?" Dreadnought asked.
"Woof," came through the Abyssal's external speakers.
------------------------------
The all-sortie signal had been given and everything that could get into the air or put to sea was on its way. Captain Gordon was barely in the lead as the destroyers tried to pass the massive ship as he churned ahead at flank speed. The force of seventeen Abyssal ships wasn't the real concern, if Gotengo's report was accurate, they hadn't enough gun power all together to challenge even Haida or Willie D, let alone the rest of the `Nishi Fleet`.
What had the battleship worried despite Goto's and Richardson's forces sortieing behind them was the others beyond them, what might be behind them under cover of the approaching storm, and Gotengo was out there alone.
The only wild card in the deck is Shark Dentures, and I doubt she'd risk herself, he thought as he plunged through the sea, General Quarters long since set, all watertight doors closed and his proud, new Chief Engineer happily giving him 115% of the supposed max of his powerplant.
"My fighters have spotted them, and they aren't putting up a hail of flak," Maggie sent, "That's either good, or bad."
"Admiral Crawford, orders?" Captain Gordon sent.
"Close, ascertain their intentions, and if hostile, sink every one of them," the Admiral ordered, "If they are requesting internment, protection, or some other deal, leave them to the subs and destroyers, and you get our wayward girl."
"Understood," he replied as he headed towards the largest ships in the fleet. A formation of three heavy cruisers in a proper formation.
"We surrender, accept internment, whatever," one of the cruisers shouted waving at the distant smokescreen, "Just go after her, she's trying to commit suicide to buy more time."
Many of the others amid the fleet seemed to agree, those that didn't seemed too weary to want to fight. "Our subs and destroyers will escort you in," Captain Gordon said, and wished there were more heavy units. He knew everything on Okinawa had sortied, but even at 35 knots, 70 miles was a long way away.
------------------------------
Logged into DD-scord
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
To any Pacific DD, HELP! We've got an Abyssal destroyer who's dressed as a dog IN BLOODY BUCKINGHAM!
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Okay, calm, ask them which Princess do they serve
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
Okay, thanks, wait one.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Will they talk, or stay a dog?
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
I am unaware of a Vasa save the sunken ship, have you returned?
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Sort of, but I'm not a sailing ship.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
I see.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
It says Elizabeth the Second. Is it bloody mental?
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Sounds like it's trying to switch sides.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
They can do that?
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
@HMS Vasa @HMS Kronan say it with me, facepalm.
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Wouldn't that hurt?
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
If you still want to kill it, start with ear scratches, or butt scratches if the dog suit is backwards.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Once it's purring flip it over and give belly scratches, then you can carry it outside, one HC needed.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
That sounds completely crazy, how do you know it'll work?
Z1 - Certified German
Because HMAS Schwachkopf, they USED TO BE Abyssal destroyers.
Anchovy Peaches XXXI - Lyre, Lyre Harp on Fire
Anchovy Peaches XXXI - Lyre, Lyre Harp on Fire
Nagato hated flying, most ship-girls did, but an Abyssal Fleet fleeing another was not the thing you sailed a force through, even if they were a core of fast battleships. So Nagato, Mutsu, Iowa, Bismarck, Hood, Wisconsin, Colorado and Utah had abandoned the christening ceremony to board several, heavy, air transports that had the orders of 'don't spare the horses'.
She hated even more they'd be airdropped into the water to flank the enemy formations. Flying was a bad idea, most girls wanted out of the plane as fast as possible, but jumping out of one that was functioning perfectly was not a wise alternative.
Constitution and Victory had diverted from their flight path from Australia and would arrive at Okinawa in time to join the festivities. Everyone wondered what they'd find, and everyone knew it might be the trap that the Nishinoshima base had been positioned to attract, and trap until heavy units could get there.
"Is this Gotengo a nice girl?" Wisconsin asked.
"Very nice, very kind," Nagato said, "It is difficult to imagine her as an Abyssal."
The Iowa class nodded.
------------------------------
Gotengo submerged again. That smug idiot couldn't identify a finger if you shoved it in her eye, she thought, That's not a Ta-class, that's a Ru-class. The maritime aircraft were in place, out of the Abyssals' effective range. Now she had to wait. She was glad of the lessons, meant and incidental, from the subs. Patience while her foes closed in. The Ru-class would be her target, she'd illuminate the Light Cruiser Demon and the Battleship Water Demon for the Orions. She hoped they were as deadly as their namesake.
------------------------------
Crawford felt very vulnerable out on a steel-hulled warship facing a number of Abyssals. He also realized they needed `a human` to 'assert his authority' and that meant him. Northampton was close but if their extensive damage was a ruse he was going to be in a killing zone.
The destroyers and subs had a simple order, if it was a fake, turn the area into torpedo soup and illuminate the survivors for the P-1's orbiting overhead. They were approaching slowly, having overtaxed engines, and the subs needed to keep up. He was happy to wait. Every minute meant Captain Gordon could complete his rescue of Gotengo and return, or the first of Richardson's Standards would arrive and a dozen, heavy battleline units would be here.
With my luck, Victory and Connie will be first, Crawford thought, Wouldn't that be interesting. In the distance, the Orions had opened fire with every Harpoon they could carry.
------------------------------
Gotengo felt the hate from the Ru-class as the battleship clutched her belly. Steam poured from the gut wound as her boilers vented to atmosphere. As long as the cruiser didn't sail in front of her guns, the hateful glare was all the other ship could manage until she got her secondaries under local control and manual movement.
"The others have been destroyed," Gotengo said, "My friends still have plenty of fire, surrender and you'll not be harmed. We can repair even that."
"I will not," the Ru ground out, before her head exploded.
"Nice trick," the Ta-class said as she surfaced, her gun smoldering from her murder of her ally, "But I've hunted submarines before, and behind your own smoke, your friends cannot help you."
Gotengo dashed out of her smokescreen and left the corpse of the Ru-class slowly settling into the sea. Any chance she had of hiding behind the Light Cruiser Demon or Battleship Water Demon sank even as those two corpses did. Instead she began frantic evasive maneuvers.
Okay, November Superior Princess, I never promised I wouldn't call for, she thought.
"HELP!" she yelled and transmitted over all frequencies. The laughter of the Ta-class blanketed out any response, and might have blocked her call.
------------------------------
The old, Mark-1 eyeball was the best way to track the Abyss. Smoke was a two-way barrier, as much a curse as a blessing, unless you had aircraft to scout and to spot the fall of shot. Captain Gordon had five scout planes and they were all out ahead of him in a widening fan. But he also had Maggie's and Furious' squadrons who'd launched from shore, and they had teeth, torpedoes. All they had to do was spot Gotengo and they could help her, but Lady Macbeth was jamming all the frequencies. Or so she thought.
"Vin, where's Chico?" Captain Gordon asked through his celphone.
"Straight ahead, five miles," the Orion pilot told him, "Calvera is about two miles south south west, playing with her."
"I can spot for you!" came Gotengo's panicked voice over the phone.
"What the Hell are you doing?" Captain Gordon asked.
"I took a contract," she admitted, "Diving into the smoke."
He slowed, got every gun ready and loaded. A few platoons of Marines were on the rails as if their guns could stop a warship. The data feed from the Orion told him exactly where to shoot. The Ta-class dove into the smoke and violently maneuvered, so she wouldn't appear where he'd anticipated. But she didn't shut up, and while he lacked radar lock due to the composition of the smoke, his Radio Direction Finders were good enough to track the Ta-class' mocking laughter and at least get the guns pointed in the right direction.
Gotengo broke through the smoke to the northeast, zigzagging.
The Ta-class broke through to the northwest, and was aiming where Gotengo was. Then she spotted Captain Gordon and the flashes from his turrets. He only hit with one of the first salvo of eight but the white smoke indicated he'd tripped the turbine safeties and he already had the second, corrected salvo on the way before she fired.
It was six against four, she had radar too but he had been prepared with superheavies instead of her High Cap. She hit with four of six, and he hit with only one, but as the secondaries opened and he dropped his torpedoes, one of her turrets blew off. He grunted from the impact, but nothing penetrated and the splinters didn't damage anything. The four gun salvos continued to fire.
She swung around to get all her turrets on target, only to take three of the eight torpedoes. Her look of surprise vanished along with her head as he'd closed to rifle range and his gunners could snipe.
Her guns continued to fire on local control, but another salvo scored four hits that found her engine room and a magazine. A column of flame shot out of her headless neck and her arms dropped. She floated, looking like a grisly road flare. Small secondary explosions continued as Captain Gordon closed in on Gotengo.
"You crazy spider monkey!" he called out and accepted the hug from the panting cruiser, "If you don't care about me, what about your Battleship Water Demon?" She tried to crush his belt armor.
"I made a deal with the November Superior Princess you sang about, if she'd give me back my old friends, I'd do whatever she asked," Gotengo said, "And she did, real fast, so I had to honor my contract."
" 'November Superior Princess'? There's no such thing as the November Superior Princess," Gordon said, "It's just us personifying a powerful force."
"Like Tillman-class battleships?" Gotengo asked.
"Touche," Gordon admitted, "Let's get out of here, maybe Her Highness hasn't run out of names and nameplates yet."
The clouds passed over them as the storm approached. "Did your compass just go wonky?"
"Yeah, gyrocompass too, that's not supposed to be possible," Gordon said.
"Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon, this is Blackjack, Blackjack, umm, please shut off Yankee technology, we need compass bearing to outfly the storm," came over the radio.
"Blackjack, Blackjack, this is Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon, arm your weapons and get your observers out, we didn't do this, and I think I know who did. I've had dreams like this, but this time I'm awake."
"I prefer the dream where Svetlana wakes up with no clothes," came the reply, "Please keep transmitting, is the only reference we have."
"Do you like cheese?" Gotengo asked.
------------------------------
Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming and a slew of surfaced subs escorted the battered Abyssals onshore and to the makeshift repair baths that had been set up. The surviving group were all cruisers and destroyers, they'd been a badly damaged mixed force who'd run away from The Battle of Treasure Island as it was being called, and then returned to find their home under heavy assault, their Princess dead and every surviving hull against them.
The Standards chuckled among themselves that Gordon was being called 'The Abyss' by Abyssals themselves. It raised the question of what their name for the Abyss was.
The new Abyssals stared in stunned amazement at the Swedish and Coast Guard ships getting them situated. The caring treatment seemed at odds with their instincts of how Demons and above would treat mere cruisers.
The Ri-class seemed the most accepting. "We're in a nightmare," she told her fleet, "After the bath, maybe we'll wake up, or maybe we'll be sunk. I just don't want to ache anymore."
The few others nodded and glanced around.
------------------------------
"Blackjack, Blackjack, this is Gordon, Gordon, what's your fuel status, what is your fuel status?" Captain Gordon said. The seas under the storm weren't smooth, but they were far too calm for the storm that raged overhead.
"Gordon, Blackjack, if I can land at Kadena, I can give you three hours," the plane replied.
"I'll arrange it," Gordon said, then only verbally to Gotengo, "After I reestablish radio contact."
Gotengo nodded as she looked around. "We're heading in deeper," Gotengo said.
"I don't think the edge is the way out, at least not without going to the center first," Gordon said. The Smiths and Floyd seemed certain he was traveling the right way, so were his captain and the bridge officers. Considering that his Captain was essentially Nyarlathotep's human guise, he had a feeling that somebody out there was rolling the dice and he and Gotengo were pieces on a board.
"Gordon Gotengo, Gordon Gotengo, this is Blackjack, Blackjack, reduce speed or you'll run right over something," their eye in the sky said, "I say again, reduce speed or you'll run over something."
The two ships slowed as they spotted a spot of white on the 'wine dark sea'.
"I know you," Gordon whispered as he resolved the little girl working on a Ta-class lying on the surface of the water.
"That's her?" Gotengo asked as she slowed and swung wide to give her hydrophones better resolution.
The girl turned and looked at him, glanced at Gotengo, nodded and looked back at Gordon. "She tried to protect me, when I ran away. Please, I can save her."
"Not here," Gordon said, "And not without help." He received acknowledgments and the engineering crews and marines were standing by for boarding. Some instinct caused him to stop from just picking up the fallen battleship. The girl spun her head around and stared. He looked up and saw the eyes.
The five inch had been loaded with starshells, those salvoed, then he brought the 6-inchers to bear, they began a withering fire of VT and HC. He heard the marines open fire as the 16-inchers began their steady fire at the distortion cringing from the brilliant light of the starshells. More starshells were added, he swore that the Captain ran out on his shoulder to fire at the malevolent distortion with his sidearm. It turned to flee. He had no radar lock, but he KNEW where it was, so did the gunners as they laid fire down on it.
He stopped as fast as he'd begun once it disappeared. He realized he'd stepped over the girl at some point, putting himself between her and the eyes.
"What was that?" Gotengo asked as she got up from her crouch.
"He saw it," the girl said.
"Saw what?" Gotengo asked as she tried to look in all directions.
"I saw it," Gordon affirmed, "Let's get the Hell out of here, I think we opened the door and any way is now an exit."
He leaned over to scoop up the Ta-Class who had her belly opened. The incision was careful, but the insides were a mess. His new chief engineer led teams across and into the hole even as he stood up. Gotengo picked up the girl and placed her astride the Ta-class' hips and winced as the girl reached in up to her shoulders to work on the battleship.
"If any way is out," Gotengo said, "Follow me. Blackjack, Blackjack, this is Gotengo, Gotengo, we have the package and we are running away. There's something else in here and it isn't us."
"Gotengo, Gotengo, this is Blackjack, this is Blackjack, what were you firing at?" the aircraft replied, "We couldn't get a lock."
"When you're at Kadena and we've got some vodka inside us, then I'll talk about it," Gordon said, "But out is the direction we're heading."
"Be advised, much sea disturbance behind you, but no targets," the plane replied.
Radar began resolving multiple, small targets. "Imp swarm," Gotengo said as she swung wide and looked.
Gordon poured on the speed as the five-inchers began targeting and firing. He'd have to zigzag to bring more than one turret worth of 16-inch to bear. The screams began from the swarm as they began dying in greater numbers. He twisted so he could release a spread of torpedoes into the pursuing force.
Nagato hated flying, most ship-girls did, but an Abyssal Fleet fleeing another was not the thing you sailed a force through, even if they were a core of fast battleships. So Nagato, Mutsu, Iowa, Bismarck, Hood, Wisconsin, Colorado and Utah had abandoned the christening ceremony to board several, heavy, air transports that had the orders of 'don't spare the horses'.
She hated even more they'd be airdropped into the water to flank the enemy formations. Flying was a bad idea, most girls wanted out of the plane as fast as possible, but jumping out of one that was functioning perfectly was not a wise alternative.
Constitution and Victory had diverted from their flight path from Australia and would arrive at Okinawa in time to join the festivities. Everyone wondered what they'd find, and everyone knew it might be the trap that the Nishinoshima base had been positioned to attract, and trap until heavy units could get there.
"Is this Gotengo a nice girl?" Wisconsin asked.
"Very nice, very kind," Nagato said, "It is difficult to imagine her as an Abyssal."
The Iowa class nodded.
------------------------------
Gotengo submerged again. That smug idiot couldn't identify a finger if you shoved it in her eye, she thought, That's not a Ta-class, that's a Ru-class. The maritime aircraft were in place, out of the Abyssals' effective range. Now she had to wait. She was glad of the lessons, meant and incidental, from the subs. Patience while her foes closed in. The Ru-class would be her target, she'd illuminate the Light Cruiser Demon and the Battleship Water Demon for the Orions. She hoped they were as deadly as their namesake.
------------------------------
Crawford felt very vulnerable out on a steel-hulled warship facing a number of Abyssals. He also realized they needed `a human` to 'assert his authority' and that meant him. Northampton was close but if their extensive damage was a ruse he was going to be in a killing zone.
The destroyers and subs had a simple order, if it was a fake, turn the area into torpedo soup and illuminate the survivors for the P-1's orbiting overhead. They were approaching slowly, having overtaxed engines, and the subs needed to keep up. He was happy to wait. Every minute meant Captain Gordon could complete his rescue of Gotengo and return, or the first of Richardson's Standards would arrive and a dozen, heavy battleline units would be here.
With my luck, Victory and Connie will be first, Crawford thought, Wouldn't that be interesting. In the distance, the Orions had opened fire with every Harpoon they could carry.
------------------------------
Gotengo felt the hate from the Ru-class as the battleship clutched her belly. Steam poured from the gut wound as her boilers vented to atmosphere. As long as the cruiser didn't sail in front of her guns, the hateful glare was all the other ship could manage until she got her secondaries under local control and manual movement.
"The others have been destroyed," Gotengo said, "My friends still have plenty of fire, surrender and you'll not be harmed. We can repair even that."
"I will not," the Ru ground out, before her head exploded.
"Nice trick," the Ta-class said as she surfaced, her gun smoldering from her murder of her ally, "But I've hunted submarines before, and behind your own smoke, your friends cannot help you."
Gotengo dashed out of her smokescreen and left the corpse of the Ru-class slowly settling into the sea. Any chance she had of hiding behind the Light Cruiser Demon or Battleship Water Demon sank even as those two corpses did. Instead she began frantic evasive maneuvers.
Okay, November Superior Princess, I never promised I wouldn't call for, she thought.
"HELP!" she yelled and transmitted over all frequencies. The laughter of the Ta-class blanketed out any response, and might have blocked her call.
------------------------------
The old, Mark-1 eyeball was the best way to track the Abyss. Smoke was a two-way barrier, as much a curse as a blessing, unless you had aircraft to scout and to spot the fall of shot. Captain Gordon had five scout planes and they were all out ahead of him in a widening fan. But he also had Maggie's and Furious' squadrons who'd launched from shore, and they had teeth, torpedoes. All they had to do was spot Gotengo and they could help her, but Lady Macbeth was jamming all the frequencies. Or so she thought.
"Vin, where's Chico?" Captain Gordon asked through his celphone.
"Straight ahead, five miles," the Orion pilot told him, "Calvera is about two miles south south west, playing with her."
"I can spot for you!" came Gotengo's panicked voice over the phone.
"What the Hell are you doing?" Captain Gordon asked.
"I took a contract," she admitted, "Diving into the smoke."
He slowed, got every gun ready and loaded. A few platoons of Marines were on the rails as if their guns could stop a warship. The data feed from the Orion told him exactly where to shoot. The Ta-class dove into the smoke and violently maneuvered, so she wouldn't appear where he'd anticipated. But she didn't shut up, and while he lacked radar lock due to the composition of the smoke, his Radio Direction Finders were good enough to track the Ta-class' mocking laughter and at least get the guns pointed in the right direction.
Gotengo broke through the smoke to the northeast, zigzagging.
The Ta-class broke through to the northwest, and was aiming where Gotengo was. Then she spotted Captain Gordon and the flashes from his turrets. He only hit with one of the first salvo of eight but the white smoke indicated he'd tripped the turbine safeties and he already had the second, corrected salvo on the way before she fired.
It was six against four, she had radar too but he had been prepared with superheavies instead of her High Cap. She hit with four of six, and he hit with only one, but as the secondaries opened and he dropped his torpedoes, one of her turrets blew off. He grunted from the impact, but nothing penetrated and the splinters didn't damage anything. The four gun salvos continued to fire.
She swung around to get all her turrets on target, only to take three of the eight torpedoes. Her look of surprise vanished along with her head as he'd closed to rifle range and his gunners could snipe.
Her guns continued to fire on local control, but another salvo scored four hits that found her engine room and a magazine. A column of flame shot out of her headless neck and her arms dropped. She floated, looking like a grisly road flare. Small secondary explosions continued as Captain Gordon closed in on Gotengo.
"You crazy spider monkey!" he called out and accepted the hug from the panting cruiser, "If you don't care about me, what about your Battleship Water Demon?" She tried to crush his belt armor.
"I made a deal with the November Superior Princess you sang about, if she'd give me back my old friends, I'd do whatever she asked," Gotengo said, "And she did, real fast, so I had to honor my contract."
" 'November Superior Princess'? There's no such thing as the November Superior Princess," Gordon said, "It's just us personifying a powerful force."
"Like Tillman-class battleships?" Gotengo asked.
"Touche," Gordon admitted, "Let's get out of here, maybe Her Highness hasn't run out of names and nameplates yet."
The clouds passed over them as the storm approached. "Did your compass just go wonky?"
"Yeah, gyrocompass too, that's not supposed to be possible," Gordon said.
"Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon, this is Blackjack, Blackjack, umm, please shut off Yankee technology, we need compass bearing to outfly the storm," came over the radio.
"Blackjack, Blackjack, this is Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon, arm your weapons and get your observers out, we didn't do this, and I think I know who did. I've had dreams like this, but this time I'm awake."
"I prefer the dream where Svetlana wakes up with no clothes," came the reply, "Please keep transmitting, is the only reference we have."
"Do you like cheese?" Gotengo asked.
------------------------------
Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming and a slew of surfaced subs escorted the battered Abyssals onshore and to the makeshift repair baths that had been set up. The surviving group were all cruisers and destroyers, they'd been a badly damaged mixed force who'd run away from The Battle of Treasure Island as it was being called, and then returned to find their home under heavy assault, their Princess dead and every surviving hull against them.
The Standards chuckled among themselves that Gordon was being called 'The Abyss' by Abyssals themselves. It raised the question of what their name for the Abyss was.
The new Abyssals stared in stunned amazement at the Swedish and Coast Guard ships getting them situated. The caring treatment seemed at odds with their instincts of how Demons and above would treat mere cruisers.
The Ri-class seemed the most accepting. "We're in a nightmare," she told her fleet, "After the bath, maybe we'll wake up, or maybe we'll be sunk. I just don't want to ache anymore."
The few others nodded and glanced around.
------------------------------
"Blackjack, Blackjack, this is Gordon, Gordon, what's your fuel status, what is your fuel status?" Captain Gordon said. The seas under the storm weren't smooth, but they were far too calm for the storm that raged overhead.
"Gordon, Blackjack, if I can land at Kadena, I can give you three hours," the plane replied.
"I'll arrange it," Gordon said, then only verbally to Gotengo, "After I reestablish radio contact."
Gotengo nodded as she looked around. "We're heading in deeper," Gotengo said.
"I don't think the edge is the way out, at least not without going to the center first," Gordon said. The Smiths and Floyd seemed certain he was traveling the right way, so were his captain and the bridge officers. Considering that his Captain was essentially Nyarlathotep's human guise, he had a feeling that somebody out there was rolling the dice and he and Gotengo were pieces on a board.
"Gordon Gotengo, Gordon Gotengo, this is Blackjack, Blackjack, reduce speed or you'll run right over something," their eye in the sky said, "I say again, reduce speed or you'll run over something."
The two ships slowed as they spotted a spot of white on the 'wine dark sea'.
"I know you," Gordon whispered as he resolved the little girl working on a Ta-class lying on the surface of the water.
"That's her?" Gotengo asked as she slowed and swung wide to give her hydrophones better resolution.
The girl turned and looked at him, glanced at Gotengo, nodded and looked back at Gordon. "She tried to protect me, when I ran away. Please, I can save her."
"Not here," Gordon said, "And not without help." He received acknowledgments and the engineering crews and marines were standing by for boarding. Some instinct caused him to stop from just picking up the fallen battleship. The girl spun her head around and stared. He looked up and saw the eyes.
The five inch had been loaded with starshells, those salvoed, then he brought the 6-inchers to bear, they began a withering fire of VT and HC. He heard the marines open fire as the 16-inchers began their steady fire at the distortion cringing from the brilliant light of the starshells. More starshells were added, he swore that the Captain ran out on his shoulder to fire at the malevolent distortion with his sidearm. It turned to flee. He had no radar lock, but he KNEW where it was, so did the gunners as they laid fire down on it.
He stopped as fast as he'd begun once it disappeared. He realized he'd stepped over the girl at some point, putting himself between her and the eyes.
"What was that?" Gotengo asked as she got up from her crouch.
"He saw it," the girl said.
"Saw what?" Gotengo asked as she tried to look in all directions.
"I saw it," Gordon affirmed, "Let's get the Hell out of here, I think we opened the door and any way is now an exit."
He leaned over to scoop up the Ta-Class who had her belly opened. The incision was careful, but the insides were a mess. His new chief engineer led teams across and into the hole even as he stood up. Gotengo picked up the girl and placed her astride the Ta-class' hips and winced as the girl reached in up to her shoulders to work on the battleship.
"If any way is out," Gotengo said, "Follow me. Blackjack, Blackjack, this is Gotengo, Gotengo, we have the package and we are running away. There's something else in here and it isn't us."
"Gotengo, Gotengo, this is Blackjack, this is Blackjack, what were you firing at?" the aircraft replied, "We couldn't get a lock."
"When you're at Kadena and we've got some vodka inside us, then I'll talk about it," Gordon said, "But out is the direction we're heading."
"Be advised, much sea disturbance behind you, but no targets," the plane replied.
Radar began resolving multiple, small targets. "Imp swarm," Gotengo said as she swung wide and looked.
Gordon poured on the speed as the five-inchers began targeting and firing. He'd have to zigzag to bring more than one turret worth of 16-inch to bear. The screams began from the swarm as they began dying in greater numbers. He twisted so he could release a spread of torpedoes into the pursuing force.
- Location
- Christchurch, New Zealand
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You really pack interesting things into these chapters. I've read 5k or 10k chapters that don't feel nearly as long or eventful.
Also I'm beginning to suspect the 'crack' in this crackfic is actually cracks in the walls of reality. And they're leaking.
Also I'm beginning to suspect the 'crack' in this crackfic is actually cracks in the walls of reality. And they're leaking.
Maybe.
Of course can you imagine one of the chunniboats trying to out-chunni Gordon, and he politely asks "When exactly did you shoot The Abyss in the face?"
Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
"The only reason I haven't is because he's too scared of me to show himself!"
Anchovy Peaches XXXII - Trusting in Eurydice
Anchovy Peaches XXXII - Trusting in Eurydice
Nagato sailed in line ahead. She'd have to explain the historical in joke that Johnston, Heerman, Hoel and Sammie B were part of the screen for her, her sister, both Yamato-class and all four Kongo-sisters. The Iowas, Hood and Bismarck had their own screen as the two battlegroups sailed in a racetrack pattern before what might have been a rain squall, if it moved and had been a less ominous, more natural color. The Swedish Squadron was further back, ready to catch any leakers and the Ise/Fuso-classes and American Standards were in close on Okinawa. Seventeen carriers of various sizes were scouting the flanks and ready to launch their strike packages.
The plan had been simple, close with the enemy and destroy them, but while the transmissions could be heard, even the 'Radar-Master Race' could detect nothing within those clouds.
"Gotengo get clear torps inbound and outbound," Gordon was heard, "Blackjack, you got a lock on that IFF?"
"If they shoot at me, they can't shoot at you," Gotengo replied, "Got it, 279. No sat service yet, figures. Oh shit, is that what you saw?"
"Nope, not even close," came a young voice, like a particularly young destroyer, "Repairs are almost complete."
"Okay, brace yourselves," Gordon called.
"This is like a radio drama," Mutsu said, "I hope my imagination is worse than the reality."
Before Nagato could reply, they heard thunder, then again, but no lightning.
"Ow, ow, ow," Gordon said, "Two guns per turret, two guns per turret, moron."
"Gordon do you hear us?" Nagato said by radio, "We have you at 95 degrees magnetic, respond, please."
"Blackjack, what do you mean they can hear us?" Gotengo said, "Allied Fleet, Allied Fleet this is Gotengo, Gotengo, we are heading approx. 279, heading approx. 279, coming in hot, coming in hot."
"Allied Fleet, Allied Fleet major targets eleven miles ahead and two miles behind our position, major targets eleven miles ahead and two miles behind our position. Load star shell and Type 3's for first salvo. Load star shell and Type 3's for first salvo."
"RDF isn't good enough for that kind of shooting," Iowa called as the two forces continued in their racetrack course, "Even with that kind of load out."
"Let us get closer," Johnston called, "We can fire torpedoes that'll run out of juice before they get to Gordon and Gotengo."
"No," Nagato said, "But move the Swedes up, and intensify the air recon to the flanks. Single line, I at the head, Iowa at the stern, we'll use a battle turn to reverse course. Squadron, clear your guns, simultaneous salvo on three, two, one." Every ship sent the APCBC or HC they'd been loaded with down range. "Let's hope they heard that," Nagato whispered. She could hear the thunder within the rain squall, but saw neither lightning, ships, gun flashes nor enemies. Once she saw any of that, everything would change.
------------------------------
"I hate this," HMS Victory grumped as she marched around the command post still in her flight suit, listened to the snippets and looked at the plotting boards and the sailors trying to make sense of the coming battle. "The greatest gun battle, greater even than Jutland, and we're - " She looked around. "Connie, you BITCH!"
------------------------------
"I thank you for the ride," USS Constitution said as she rode beside the Abyssal Shark Dentures.
"How did you even know I was there?" the Abyssal asked, "I had concealed myself."
"A sailing ship has to know more about the sea than a steamer," Connie said, "Wind and tide speak in ways that steam obscures. Besides, I can read between the lines better than most. I lived most of my life as part of an also-ran, not as a major power, you see from the bottom as well as the top."
The figure nodded. "I am glad that you can vouch for me."
"We both have reasons to have to be out here, working together just means we get closer," Connie said, "Just let me do the talking, at first."
"Do you think they can do it?" Shark Dentures asked.
"It won't be the decisive battle, but Nagato is better at communicating than Beatty ever was," Connie said.
------------------------------
The modern tech still had the best equipment, when it worked. "Vin to Nagato," the orbiting Orion reported, "6000 meters and closing."
"Thank you," Nagato stifled the jealous impulse that Iowa would be the head of the line when their runaways broke out of the cloud, she was still in charge, who fired first would be noted only by some historians. The 'Radar-Master Race' would be neutralized by the short ranges involved.
And, she smiled as she thought, Who scores the first hit will be who has the best optics.
"Gotengo, Captain Gordon, respond please," Mutsu sent into the cloud, all other transmissions had been stifled, the line could communicate with signal flags and lights, all they needed was to be able to see and hear.
"It's getting brighter," Gotengo's voice reported, "We're almost there!"
"As soon as we spot our rescuers, get ready to hit the deck," Gordon said.
"Negative, negative, join the battleline," Mutsu said, "Join the battleline, respond!"
Constitution was back behind the line, with Shark Dentures slightly closer to it. None of the Swedes were happy about the elusive, former, princess sub being here, and Victory had practically burned up the airwaves calling Constitution things that would be answered with swords at any other time. Connie only laughed.
"Horns," Constitution said, "Maybe they can hear."
The entire fleet sounded their horns, some trying to play tunes, others a sustained blast.
"I hear them!" Gotengo shouted over the radio, "I hear them!"
"Allied Fleet, Allied Fleet, this is Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon," Gordon broadcast, "Unless you have two or more battlewagons, run! Unless you have two or more battlewagons, run! We've got lots of small nasties chasing us. We've got lots of small nasties chasing us."
Nagato could practically hear the grins from the ships armed with the Type 3 rounds and the gun crews with VT-fused secondaries. Their fugitives broke through the cloud wall, Gordon firing behind them as they came. His cargo of a Ta-class and a small Abyssal would have been shocking for anyone else. For Gordon, it was almost expected.
"MOMMY!" from the little Abyssal was unexpected. Shark Dentures broaching like a whale near Gordon was even more shocking. He transferred the little one to the odd submarine whose human `tongue` grabbed the girl and hugged her tight as the rest of the Abyssal turned and raced towards the line.
Gordon had set the Ta-class on the water, did a half turn and fired every gun he had in rapid fire, one shot from each turret into the seething mass as they exited the cloud. As he pulled back to join the end of the line with the wobbly Ta-class, the battleline opened fire with main, secondary and AA armament. Even Nagato's own 25mm guns began firing.
Amazingly, or terrifyingly, the immense casualties among the Abyssals didn't slow the mass charge down. They kept coming. The destroyers launched every torpedo they had into the mass, then raced away. Iowa ordered a battleturn but not a course reversal, an escape course. The guns of the fleet were sweeping the Abyssals, like hosing mud off a sidewalk, but the mud kept coming. Keeping the distance open was the only correct course.
Nagato was surprised when the noise of gunfire from Captain Gordon slackened. His five-inch were still firing, but the six-inch had fallen silent, then the sixteen-inch was down to an occasional shot. She realized, he was running out of ammunition as the mass concentrated on the rear of the ship-girl line: Nagato, Mutsu, the wobbly Ta-class and Gordon. The force grew closer, and his marines added their fire at less than a hundred meters. Abyssals struck briefly changed to photographic negatives of themselves, black became white and white became black, then the steaming corpse would sink. But still they closed in.
Grape, chain and canister from 24-pounder long guns and 32-pounder carronades raked the Abyssal imps, against anything heavier than a destroyer it would have been useless, but against PT Imps it wiped the sea clean of them. "Get to the center of the line you idiot!" Constitution yelled, "They're after you, make them pay for it."
Gordon skated past the two Nagato-class and towards the bulk of the Swedish Squadron. The imp mass redirected after him.
------------------------------
Joshamee continued firing, HC and VT tearing great holes in the mass as it pursued them. The others were taking the opportunity to vent their building anger on an allowable target. With Captain Gordon behind them, the mass reached out for them without retreating or taking even the most basic defensive measures. Occasionally a swarm of torpedoes had to be dodged, but the destroyer screen spotted them early enough to send the warning.
"They're fading!" Johnston shouted as she darted in and out firing all the time.
Joshamee looked and realized that by opening the distance the mass was fraying like overstretched cloth. "Keep up the fire, they'll get desperate," Joshamee called and watched with glee as an airstrike finally went in. Not the carrier planes which had been strafing and bombing the PT Imps, but the heavy bombers. The BUFFs unloaded their hideous burdens. Each bomb split into hundreds of bomblets. The sea filled with PT Imps boiled as every bomblet detonated on impact with the ships or the sea.
Joshamee looked at the carnage as the last of the imp swarm withdrew and the dark cloud faded. "Keep up your scans. A straggler plane or imp could still get us!"
Captain Gordon scanned the skies. "Kadena control, Blackjack 286 needs clearance to land there, we wouldn't have made it without him. Tell him and his crew the first bottles of vodka are on me. And the second and the third."
"Will do, Captain, we'll roll out the red carpet," Kadena control replied.
Iowa called for a zigzag pattern. She and Nagato began separating out the battle squadrons and getting the destroyer screen redeployed.
"We did it," the Twin Princess near Joshamee said.
"Yeah, without getting killed," Joshamee said and heard the grim laughter from the other ships, Swedish and other.
Nagato sailed in line ahead. She'd have to explain the historical in joke that Johnston, Heerman, Hoel and Sammie B were part of the screen for her, her sister, both Yamato-class and all four Kongo-sisters. The Iowas, Hood and Bismarck had their own screen as the two battlegroups sailed in a racetrack pattern before what might have been a rain squall, if it moved and had been a less ominous, more natural color. The Swedish Squadron was further back, ready to catch any leakers and the Ise/Fuso-classes and American Standards were in close on Okinawa. Seventeen carriers of various sizes were scouting the flanks and ready to launch their strike packages.
The plan had been simple, close with the enemy and destroy them, but while the transmissions could be heard, even the 'Radar-Master Race' could detect nothing within those clouds.
"Gotengo get clear torps inbound and outbound," Gordon was heard, "Blackjack, you got a lock on that IFF?"
"If they shoot at me, they can't shoot at you," Gotengo replied, "Got it, 279. No sat service yet, figures. Oh shit, is that what you saw?"
"Nope, not even close," came a young voice, like a particularly young destroyer, "Repairs are almost complete."
"Okay, brace yourselves," Gordon called.
"This is like a radio drama," Mutsu said, "I hope my imagination is worse than the reality."
Before Nagato could reply, they heard thunder, then again, but no lightning.
"Ow, ow, ow," Gordon said, "Two guns per turret, two guns per turret, moron."
"Gordon do you hear us?" Nagato said by radio, "We have you at 95 degrees magnetic, respond, please."
"Blackjack, what do you mean they can hear us?" Gotengo said, "Allied Fleet, Allied Fleet this is Gotengo, Gotengo, we are heading approx. 279, heading approx. 279, coming in hot, coming in hot."
"Allied Fleet, Allied Fleet major targets eleven miles ahead and two miles behind our position, major targets eleven miles ahead and two miles behind our position. Load star shell and Type 3's for first salvo. Load star shell and Type 3's for first salvo."
"RDF isn't good enough for that kind of shooting," Iowa called as the two forces continued in their racetrack course, "Even with that kind of load out."
"Let us get closer," Johnston called, "We can fire torpedoes that'll run out of juice before they get to Gordon and Gotengo."
"No," Nagato said, "But move the Swedes up, and intensify the air recon to the flanks. Single line, I at the head, Iowa at the stern, we'll use a battle turn to reverse course. Squadron, clear your guns, simultaneous salvo on three, two, one." Every ship sent the APCBC or HC they'd been loaded with down range. "Let's hope they heard that," Nagato whispered. She could hear the thunder within the rain squall, but saw neither lightning, ships, gun flashes nor enemies. Once she saw any of that, everything would change.
------------------------------
"I hate this," HMS Victory grumped as she marched around the command post still in her flight suit, listened to the snippets and looked at the plotting boards and the sailors trying to make sense of the coming battle. "The greatest gun battle, greater even than Jutland, and we're - " She looked around. "Connie, you BITCH!"
------------------------------
"I thank you for the ride," USS Constitution said as she rode beside the Abyssal Shark Dentures.
"How did you even know I was there?" the Abyssal asked, "I had concealed myself."
"A sailing ship has to know more about the sea than a steamer," Connie said, "Wind and tide speak in ways that steam obscures. Besides, I can read between the lines better than most. I lived most of my life as part of an also-ran, not as a major power, you see from the bottom as well as the top."
The figure nodded. "I am glad that you can vouch for me."
"We both have reasons to have to be out here, working together just means we get closer," Connie said, "Just let me do the talking, at first."
"Do you think they can do it?" Shark Dentures asked.
"It won't be the decisive battle, but Nagato is better at communicating than Beatty ever was," Connie said.
------------------------------
The modern tech still had the best equipment, when it worked. "Vin to Nagato," the orbiting Orion reported, "6000 meters and closing."
"Thank you," Nagato stifled the jealous impulse that Iowa would be the head of the line when their runaways broke out of the cloud, she was still in charge, who fired first would be noted only by some historians. The 'Radar-Master Race' would be neutralized by the short ranges involved.
And, she smiled as she thought, Who scores the first hit will be who has the best optics.
"Gotengo, Captain Gordon, respond please," Mutsu sent into the cloud, all other transmissions had been stifled, the line could communicate with signal flags and lights, all they needed was to be able to see and hear.
"It's getting brighter," Gotengo's voice reported, "We're almost there!"
"As soon as we spot our rescuers, get ready to hit the deck," Gordon said.
"Negative, negative, join the battleline," Mutsu said, "Join the battleline, respond!"
Constitution was back behind the line, with Shark Dentures slightly closer to it. None of the Swedes were happy about the elusive, former, princess sub being here, and Victory had practically burned up the airwaves calling Constitution things that would be answered with swords at any other time. Connie only laughed.
"Horns," Constitution said, "Maybe they can hear."
The entire fleet sounded their horns, some trying to play tunes, others a sustained blast.
"I hear them!" Gotengo shouted over the radio, "I hear them!"
"Allied Fleet, Allied Fleet, this is Captain Gordon, Captain Gordon," Gordon broadcast, "Unless you have two or more battlewagons, run! Unless you have two or more battlewagons, run! We've got lots of small nasties chasing us. We've got lots of small nasties chasing us."
Nagato could practically hear the grins from the ships armed with the Type 3 rounds and the gun crews with VT-fused secondaries. Their fugitives broke through the cloud wall, Gordon firing behind them as they came. His cargo of a Ta-class and a small Abyssal would have been shocking for anyone else. For Gordon, it was almost expected.
"MOMMY!" from the little Abyssal was unexpected. Shark Dentures broaching like a whale near Gordon was even more shocking. He transferred the little one to the odd submarine whose human `tongue` grabbed the girl and hugged her tight as the rest of the Abyssal turned and raced towards the line.
Gordon had set the Ta-class on the water, did a half turn and fired every gun he had in rapid fire, one shot from each turret into the seething mass as they exited the cloud. As he pulled back to join the end of the line with the wobbly Ta-class, the battleline opened fire with main, secondary and AA armament. Even Nagato's own 25mm guns began firing.
Amazingly, or terrifyingly, the immense casualties among the Abyssals didn't slow the mass charge down. They kept coming. The destroyers launched every torpedo they had into the mass, then raced away. Iowa ordered a battleturn but not a course reversal, an escape course. The guns of the fleet were sweeping the Abyssals, like hosing mud off a sidewalk, but the mud kept coming. Keeping the distance open was the only correct course.
Nagato was surprised when the noise of gunfire from Captain Gordon slackened. His five-inch were still firing, but the six-inch had fallen silent, then the sixteen-inch was down to an occasional shot. She realized, he was running out of ammunition as the mass concentrated on the rear of the ship-girl line: Nagato, Mutsu, the wobbly Ta-class and Gordon. The force grew closer, and his marines added their fire at less than a hundred meters. Abyssals struck briefly changed to photographic negatives of themselves, black became white and white became black, then the steaming corpse would sink. But still they closed in.
Grape, chain and canister from 24-pounder long guns and 32-pounder carronades raked the Abyssal imps, against anything heavier than a destroyer it would have been useless, but against PT Imps it wiped the sea clean of them. "Get to the center of the line you idiot!" Constitution yelled, "They're after you, make them pay for it."
Gordon skated past the two Nagato-class and towards the bulk of the Swedish Squadron. The imp mass redirected after him.
------------------------------
Joshamee continued firing, HC and VT tearing great holes in the mass as it pursued them. The others were taking the opportunity to vent their building anger on an allowable target. With Captain Gordon behind them, the mass reached out for them without retreating or taking even the most basic defensive measures. Occasionally a swarm of torpedoes had to be dodged, but the destroyer screen spotted them early enough to send the warning.
"They're fading!" Johnston shouted as she darted in and out firing all the time.
Joshamee looked and realized that by opening the distance the mass was fraying like overstretched cloth. "Keep up the fire, they'll get desperate," Joshamee called and watched with glee as an airstrike finally went in. Not the carrier planes which had been strafing and bombing the PT Imps, but the heavy bombers. The BUFFs unloaded their hideous burdens. Each bomb split into hundreds of bomblets. The sea filled with PT Imps boiled as every bomblet detonated on impact with the ships or the sea.
Joshamee looked at the carnage as the last of the imp swarm withdrew and the dark cloud faded. "Keep up your scans. A straggler plane or imp could still get us!"
Captain Gordon scanned the skies. "Kadena control, Blackjack 286 needs clearance to land there, we wouldn't have made it without him. Tell him and his crew the first bottles of vodka are on me. And the second and the third."
"Will do, Captain, we'll roll out the red carpet," Kadena control replied.
Iowa called for a zigzag pattern. She and Nagato began separating out the battle squadrons and getting the destroyer screen redeployed.
"We did it," the Twin Princess near Joshamee said.
"Yeah, without getting killed," Joshamee said and heard the grim laughter from the other ships, Swedish and other.
Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
So the Abyss poured everything it could into killing Gordon, and failed. I wonder how this will set back operations in other theatres?
It almost worked, if not for those rotten sailing ships!
Probably nothing from the Abyss' POV, it used easily replacable PTImps in a mass charge, and it nearly worked, even with the enormous battleline supporting. On the other hand, it may concentrate action in other areas where ship-girls aren't. No one's figured out how to summon older or newer ships and so the Brazil/Chile/Argentina fleets aren't available, nor does India have a major fleet that isn't the RN. So this might increase action in less contested areas.
Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
So the Abyss' supplies are infinite? Even with PT imps, mass summonings have to require significant resource expenditure; otherwise they'd use this tactic at all times, swamping any Kanmusu who dared stray too far from shore. Pouring supplies into one front will necessarily drain others. That's how resource allocation works.It almost worked, if not for those rotten sailing ships!
Probably nothing from the Abyss' POV, it used easily replacable PTImps in a mass charge, and it nearly worked, even with the enormous battleline supporting. On the other hand, it may concentrate action in other areas where ship-girls aren't. No one's figured out how to summon older or newer ships and so the Brazil/Chile/Argentina fleets aren't available, nor does India have a major fleet that isn't the RN. So this might increase action in less contested areas.
Remember, this was supposed to be a forever war, no one was going to win, the fighting was supposed to continue. So the Abyss essentially has all the resources it needs to continue the war forever (until the humans run out of exploitable resources). Maintaining the war is the only limiter on resource allocation. The Game Must Continue.
Then an Abyssal innovated and the Abyss' reaction made the other Abyssals started realizing they were expendable, than no victory was even desired, and a lot of them started having second thoughts. So only those who agreed with the forever war concept are going to stay loyal, or those who cannot think about it at all. Everybody else is going to look at Willie D's picture and start hunting down Gordon or other Princesses and bring their own ofuda & champagne, or other methods to get onto the side who sees an end to this war as the goal.
The Abyss offered the War Gods a plan to get humans fighting again, but it migrated back to total annihilation, like nuclear war. The Abyssals were offered a chance to vomit their anger and hatred all over their victimizer, then found out that the one offering the release was doing the exact same thing for even more selfish/self-serving reasons. The humans lost ships because other humans out-thought, out-produced or were luckier. The Abyss will destroy them because they were within reach, then bring them back to expend again.
Anchovy Peaches XXXIII - Bargaining with the Unappetizing
Anchovy Peaches XXXIII - Bargaining with the Unappetizing
It was a bit of a joke, but there's something frighteningly vulnerable about a battleship without its main guns. Hibiki spotted Captain Gordon and she signaled for DesDiv 6 to close in a bit more, they had orders and weren't quite breaking them, but they were stretching them a bit for the haggard-looking ship. Hibiki saw Willie D realize what she had done, and the Fletcher began looking around for destroyers of her own.
Hibiki nearly laughed at Willie D's reaction to the small group of Abyssal `Swedish` destroyers answering Willie D's summons. It's help, Hibiki thought and still wanted to sail in closer and hug the battlewagon. It would be a couple of hours until they made landfall on Okinawa. Hours that arguably the most powerful ship among them was most vulnerable.
It scraped at the destroyer's sense of the appropriateness of the world, as if the Abyss itself drew nails across a chalkboard. She could only guard, comforting him would come later. She did wonder where Gotengo had disappeared to, then spotted her zipping in and out of the Swedish Squadron, seeing to their morale and uncertainties. Hibiki nodded, it was a good reason not to be with her friend, they needed her more.
------------------------------
Coming ashore was a bit nerve-racking, the Burt Gummer 'I am completely out of ammo' impression contest had been vaguely amusing, especially from those who'd never heard the original. The Russian delegation at the ramp concerned me. Gotengo skated over to meet with them.
"I don't care how much he offered to buy," Gotengo said, "I'm seeing them all to a round or ten myself."
"Blackjack 286 didn't land here," the Russian officer said, "But we were able to confirm she did escort you and the Swedes to Nishinoshima."
"Okay we'll send Sergi, Misha and the rest a few cases to Vladivostok, or wherever they are flying out of," Gotengo said and smiled.
"How did you know their names? Did they tell you on your way to Nishinoshima?" the Russian officer asked.
"I never talked to them on that flight, I was at Nishinoshima," Gotengo said, "They were completely professional today, they just needed us broadcasting to get a radio fix so we talked about family stuff, hopes and dreams."
"You aren't going to discipline them, are you?" Gordon asked.
"I would need Rod Serling to deliver it," the officer said, "Blackjack 286 crashed on take-off a few days ago. Sergi, Misha, Vanya, Ivan, no survivors."
As the returned spirit of a ship that never existed, things shouldn't spook me, but I felt a chill down my back.
"How?" Gotengo demanded, "We talked with Sergi and his crew for hours. Misha offered violin lessons. It was their radio direction finders that led us out of the storm. We argued about Sergi's sister's cheese of all things!"
The Russian officer had grown more apprehensive with each spot-on revelation.
Constitution approached. "Perhaps they needed to give one more service to Rodina," the sailing ship said, "Or remembered a friend in need."
"I promised a round, if it's only in their name so be it," Gordon said, "I'll bring the cases by the canteen at sundown, that seems to be the appropriate time. If there's a photograph of the crew, please bring it."
The Russian nodded.
------------------------------
Constitution felt Victory's approach rather than seeing it, she hadn't been lying about feeling sea state in ways steamers didn't. Even if this sea was a vast collection of ship-girls. As a 'super frigate' she should have been worried about an angry ship of the line. Constitution hadn't lived this long without having plans. As soon as Victory broached the crowd of ship-girls, Constitution approached. Before Victory could begin her arm-waving tirade, Constitution grabbed Victory's wrists, pivoted her 60 degrees and stepped out of her line of sight.
Indianapolis and Shark Dentures were hugging the little Abyssal Princess between them and all three hugging each other. All three of them were happily crying. Constitution noted the entire armada were photographing or filming the encounter and reconciliation. She also noted the fury of Victory had been damped down to a slow burn.
She mentally chalked one up for the USN over the RN, but decided to bring it up to Victory later.
------------------------------
Tashkent and Gangut stood with many of the aviators and ground crews who'd been brought in to support the construction battalions and the field hospitals. Neither had ever expected to be living through the tail end of a ghost story.
The four, young men in the photo crouched around the football were no different than thousands of others who'd worn the telnyashka of the Navy. But few had returned from the grave to escort an allied warship to safety.
There was food in the canteen, especially cheeses, the vodka was very good, but the first toast was to be to the crew of Blackjack 286.
"They were good men, I regret I could not thank them in person. As a spirit called from beyond, I should not be shocked that others would answer the call. I just never thought they would answer it for me," Captain Gordon said, and drank, as did everyone else.
More toasts were offered, a few anecdotes from the people who knew them. The story of the football tournament the picture was from. Tashkent wondered about why he had returned when so few Soviet or Russian ships had. Whether is was a singular person who drew them, as the crew of Blackjack 286 had been drawn to Captain Gordon, as Gangut was drawn by Admiral Kutnezov, thinking him Rozhestvensky reborn. Or some revolutionary or monarchist spirit.
Tashkent still didn't know why he'd returned and especially into a female body. What troubled him was that if rumors were true, the Abyss itself had confronted Captain Gordon, personally.
Perhaps they wanted to strike at the Abyss in the best way they could, Tashkent thought, Or once they were on the other side, they learned what we all now know. The Submarine Princess created a Repair Princess as daughter, was destroyed by the Red Princess for that crime, only to return as Captain Gordon and Shark Dentures. It seemed almost a Russian folktale, the one most wounded by the dark shaman was best able to smite them. But Baba Yaga would not make such a mistake, or she would not be the villain of the story, but the one who sewed the hero back into one piece, not two.
Tashkent watched Gotengo and Captain Gordon, and their easy camaraderie. He envied it a bit, but knew he would not want to suffer what they had gone through to forge it.
------------------------------
"For those who kneel beside us at altars not Thine own, who lack the lights that guide us, Lord, let their faith atone!" Richardson said as he stood. He wore civilian clothes for this as many of the troops and ship-girls who participated in the rescue sat under the trees to enjoy Okinawa's beauty and good weather, "If wrong we did to call them, by honour bound they came; let not Thy Wrath befall them, but deal to us the blame."
Watanabe Kanji nodded to the admiral as he continued, realizing he understood and knew or accepted what must be done. Tea and a small amount of plum wine circulated. Snacks from America, Russia and Japan also circulated among the people enjoying an afternoon of relaxation, poetry and food. He wished that the Nagatos, Yamato and a few more traditional ship-girls were here instead of the secret beautification project of Nishinoshima, Goto's crew's thank you to Crawford's team.
Polite applause showed the appreciation of the crowd. The fairy widely called The Chief Engineer took the stage.
"Yoyo Yo YoYo,
"Yo Yoyoyo YoYo Yo,
"YoYoYO Yo Yo," he said, a serviceable haiku, predictably about steam and less so about clouds.
Slight tension rippled through the fleet as Floyd took the stage. "Floyd, Floyd, Floyd," it began fingers rubbing down on an unseen head, proving that the limerick was still acceptable as poetry.
"Floyd, Floyd, Flllllooooooyyyyyd," it said as it seemed to melt under the fingers.
"Floyd, Floyd, Floyd," it concluded, a trifle risque. But Mrs. Tenent the hair-dresser of the piece was laughing about it, and every Abyssal who'd luxuriated under those hands looked like they wanted to hide from their embarrassment. But as only laughter and slight applause greeted their discomfiture, they relaxed again.
Angie Crawford replaced the Abyssal fairy. "Ships of war, steel hulls
"Through the storm, sanctuary
"Beckons them to honor."
Polite applause again. Kanji smiled at those here enjoying being together. He wondered if the Abyssals realized how many former enemies sat within easy reach of each other and simply enjoyed the others' food and art, and left the troubles for just this day. Knowing the deadliness of the other and taking comfort in it.
------------------------------
Watanabe opened the door to his office, he saw Mutsu, Yamato and Nagato. He began to bow, then spotted the sword Nagato carried. He completed his bow, deeper than he'd initially intended. "I am humbled you think me worthy of the honor, but my family were always merchants," he said as he ushered them out of the darkness and into the small conference room, the low table had three trays, one with three scrolls, another with three manila folders, and the last with four tea cups, the fourth of which was upside down. "I would not like to seem the hypocrite," he explained.
As they sat around the table, he passed out the tea cups, keeping the fourth cup in the tray. Then he passed out the folders. "I did not request you here for the service," he said and smiled at Mutsu, "Your exception from the invitation was not from a desire to shame you by exclusion. I merely thought that your sister would need your joy in the near future." He poured tea for the three ship-girls.
"I left something like this to others once, never again," Mutsu said.
Kanji nodded, and noted the horrified expressions as the three ship girls read the contents of the folders. "I must thank Admiral Richardson, he explained the Doc Holliday Syndrome, to my shame, I had not expected such a thing in Western culture."
"We have all learned much in the past weeks," Yamato said quietly.
"You must forgive your sister," Kanji counseled, "She is who she is, a brave warrior, but she makes no pretense to being a samurai who will watch the cherry blossoms and compose haikus on clouds. She still needs to be honored in your heart for what she does do, as she has forgiven you in her heart for what you have failed to do."
Yamato blushed as she returned the folder to the tray. Nagato and Mutsu did likewise.
"I know there will be endless questions, from the Americans and our Swedish allies," Kanji said, "For my apology, and the truth behind it." He slid the tray of scrolls towards them as he removed a typewritten sheet of paper. "I have prepared a separate apology to Admiral Crawford and his command, he came offering help to the civilian government and gave unstintingly, never asking if I was in fact the legitimate civilian government. This one I give to the Government Officials and Ministers I harmed for my action of taking action instead of awaiting direction through the chain of command. To ensure posterity understands, I address them by name."
There were grim smiles on the faces of the three warships.
"I have provided you with copies of the scroll I sent to the Emperor. The typewritten copies will be emailed and faxed to various news media. Machines that wait to act, such a convenience, so I might not burden my staff, and sully them with my taint. They followed the orders of a superior. The blame should be mine alone."
"Thank you," Nagato said.
Kanji turned over the fourth tea cup and poured it half full, swirling it idly and staring at it for a moment. "Even in the face of the inevitable, I find my life is still sweet." He quickly drained the cup in one go, then set the cup behind him on a shelf. "With the defections, are we hoping to see the Abyssals redeemed, as Captain Gordon thinks?"
"As with all things, some will chose to surrender to their appetites and reveal themselves, some will wear the mask and live a comfortable lie, and some will embrace the new way," Nagato said, "I fear we are ready for the first and second, but the third will reveal many things we ourselves are not ready to face."
Kanji nodded. "So many run away from chaos, instead of knowing when to ride and when to run away."
"There is no one answer," Yamato said, "As you said, forgiving others for being themselves is hard, forgiving others for being the way you wish you could be is far harder."
All four nodded at that.
The three ship girls fell silent as Kanji began to nod off, and were startled as he suddenly seemed to awaken. "An opportunity comes, the engine's tiller is driven with the hands, but a sail's is commanded by the fingertips."
He seemed to settle into sleep, and after some minutes, the three ship girls burned the folders as the papers in the folders had asked, took the scrolls and departed.
It was a bit of a joke, but there's something frighteningly vulnerable about a battleship without its main guns. Hibiki spotted Captain Gordon and she signaled for DesDiv 6 to close in a bit more, they had orders and weren't quite breaking them, but they were stretching them a bit for the haggard-looking ship. Hibiki saw Willie D realize what she had done, and the Fletcher began looking around for destroyers of her own.
Hibiki nearly laughed at Willie D's reaction to the small group of Abyssal `Swedish` destroyers answering Willie D's summons. It's help, Hibiki thought and still wanted to sail in closer and hug the battlewagon. It would be a couple of hours until they made landfall on Okinawa. Hours that arguably the most powerful ship among them was most vulnerable.
It scraped at the destroyer's sense of the appropriateness of the world, as if the Abyss itself drew nails across a chalkboard. She could only guard, comforting him would come later. She did wonder where Gotengo had disappeared to, then spotted her zipping in and out of the Swedish Squadron, seeing to their morale and uncertainties. Hibiki nodded, it was a good reason not to be with her friend, they needed her more.
------------------------------
Coming ashore was a bit nerve-racking, the Burt Gummer 'I am completely out of ammo' impression contest had been vaguely amusing, especially from those who'd never heard the original. The Russian delegation at the ramp concerned me. Gotengo skated over to meet with them.
"I don't care how much he offered to buy," Gotengo said, "I'm seeing them all to a round or ten myself."
"Blackjack 286 didn't land here," the Russian officer said, "But we were able to confirm she did escort you and the Swedes to Nishinoshima."
"Okay we'll send Sergi, Misha and the rest a few cases to Vladivostok, or wherever they are flying out of," Gotengo said and smiled.
"How did you know their names? Did they tell you on your way to Nishinoshima?" the Russian officer asked.
"I never talked to them on that flight, I was at Nishinoshima," Gotengo said, "They were completely professional today, they just needed us broadcasting to get a radio fix so we talked about family stuff, hopes and dreams."
"You aren't going to discipline them, are you?" Gordon asked.
"I would need Rod Serling to deliver it," the officer said, "Blackjack 286 crashed on take-off a few days ago. Sergi, Misha, Vanya, Ivan, no survivors."
As the returned spirit of a ship that never existed, things shouldn't spook me, but I felt a chill down my back.
"How?" Gotengo demanded, "We talked with Sergi and his crew for hours. Misha offered violin lessons. It was their radio direction finders that led us out of the storm. We argued about Sergi's sister's cheese of all things!"
The Russian officer had grown more apprehensive with each spot-on revelation.
Constitution approached. "Perhaps they needed to give one more service to Rodina," the sailing ship said, "Or remembered a friend in need."
"I promised a round, if it's only in their name so be it," Gordon said, "I'll bring the cases by the canteen at sundown, that seems to be the appropriate time. If there's a photograph of the crew, please bring it."
The Russian nodded.
------------------------------
Constitution felt Victory's approach rather than seeing it, she hadn't been lying about feeling sea state in ways steamers didn't. Even if this sea was a vast collection of ship-girls. As a 'super frigate' she should have been worried about an angry ship of the line. Constitution hadn't lived this long without having plans. As soon as Victory broached the crowd of ship-girls, Constitution approached. Before Victory could begin her arm-waving tirade, Constitution grabbed Victory's wrists, pivoted her 60 degrees and stepped out of her line of sight.
Indianapolis and Shark Dentures were hugging the little Abyssal Princess between them and all three hugging each other. All three of them were happily crying. Constitution noted the entire armada were photographing or filming the encounter and reconciliation. She also noted the fury of Victory had been damped down to a slow burn.
She mentally chalked one up for the USN over the RN, but decided to bring it up to Victory later.
------------------------------
Tashkent and Gangut stood with many of the aviators and ground crews who'd been brought in to support the construction battalions and the field hospitals. Neither had ever expected to be living through the tail end of a ghost story.
The four, young men in the photo crouched around the football were no different than thousands of others who'd worn the telnyashka of the Navy. But few had returned from the grave to escort an allied warship to safety.
There was food in the canteen, especially cheeses, the vodka was very good, but the first toast was to be to the crew of Blackjack 286.
"They were good men, I regret I could not thank them in person. As a spirit called from beyond, I should not be shocked that others would answer the call. I just never thought they would answer it for me," Captain Gordon said, and drank, as did everyone else.
More toasts were offered, a few anecdotes from the people who knew them. The story of the football tournament the picture was from. Tashkent wondered about why he had returned when so few Soviet or Russian ships had. Whether is was a singular person who drew them, as the crew of Blackjack 286 had been drawn to Captain Gordon, as Gangut was drawn by Admiral Kutnezov, thinking him Rozhestvensky reborn. Or some revolutionary or monarchist spirit.
Tashkent still didn't know why he'd returned and especially into a female body. What troubled him was that if rumors were true, the Abyss itself had confronted Captain Gordon, personally.
Perhaps they wanted to strike at the Abyss in the best way they could, Tashkent thought, Or once they were on the other side, they learned what we all now know. The Submarine Princess created a Repair Princess as daughter, was destroyed by the Red Princess for that crime, only to return as Captain Gordon and Shark Dentures. It seemed almost a Russian folktale, the one most wounded by the dark shaman was best able to smite them. But Baba Yaga would not make such a mistake, or she would not be the villain of the story, but the one who sewed the hero back into one piece, not two.
Tashkent watched Gotengo and Captain Gordon, and their easy camaraderie. He envied it a bit, but knew he would not want to suffer what they had gone through to forge it.
------------------------------
"For those who kneel beside us at altars not Thine own, who lack the lights that guide us, Lord, let their faith atone!" Richardson said as he stood. He wore civilian clothes for this as many of the troops and ship-girls who participated in the rescue sat under the trees to enjoy Okinawa's beauty and good weather, "If wrong we did to call them, by honour bound they came; let not Thy Wrath befall them, but deal to us the blame."
Watanabe Kanji nodded to the admiral as he continued, realizing he understood and knew or accepted what must be done. Tea and a small amount of plum wine circulated. Snacks from America, Russia and Japan also circulated among the people enjoying an afternoon of relaxation, poetry and food. He wished that the Nagatos, Yamato and a few more traditional ship-girls were here instead of the secret beautification project of Nishinoshima, Goto's crew's thank you to Crawford's team.
Polite applause showed the appreciation of the crowd. The fairy widely called The Chief Engineer took the stage.
"Yoyo Yo YoYo,
"Yo Yoyoyo YoYo Yo,
"YoYoYO Yo Yo," he said, a serviceable haiku, predictably about steam and less so about clouds.
Slight tension rippled through the fleet as Floyd took the stage. "Floyd, Floyd, Floyd," it began fingers rubbing down on an unseen head, proving that the limerick was still acceptable as poetry.
"Floyd, Floyd, Flllllooooooyyyyyd," it said as it seemed to melt under the fingers.
"Floyd, Floyd, Floyd," it concluded, a trifle risque. But Mrs. Tenent the hair-dresser of the piece was laughing about it, and every Abyssal who'd luxuriated under those hands looked like they wanted to hide from their embarrassment. But as only laughter and slight applause greeted their discomfiture, they relaxed again.
Angie Crawford replaced the Abyssal fairy. "Ships of war, steel hulls
"Through the storm, sanctuary
"Beckons them to honor."
Polite applause again. Kanji smiled at those here enjoying being together. He wondered if the Abyssals realized how many former enemies sat within easy reach of each other and simply enjoyed the others' food and art, and left the troubles for just this day. Knowing the deadliness of the other and taking comfort in it.
------------------------------
Watanabe opened the door to his office, he saw Mutsu, Yamato and Nagato. He began to bow, then spotted the sword Nagato carried. He completed his bow, deeper than he'd initially intended. "I am humbled you think me worthy of the honor, but my family were always merchants," he said as he ushered them out of the darkness and into the small conference room, the low table had three trays, one with three scrolls, another with three manila folders, and the last with four tea cups, the fourth of which was upside down. "I would not like to seem the hypocrite," he explained.
As they sat around the table, he passed out the tea cups, keeping the fourth cup in the tray. Then he passed out the folders. "I did not request you here for the service," he said and smiled at Mutsu, "Your exception from the invitation was not from a desire to shame you by exclusion. I merely thought that your sister would need your joy in the near future." He poured tea for the three ship-girls.
"I left something like this to others once, never again," Mutsu said.
Kanji nodded, and noted the horrified expressions as the three ship girls read the contents of the folders. "I must thank Admiral Richardson, he explained the Doc Holliday Syndrome, to my shame, I had not expected such a thing in Western culture."
"We have all learned much in the past weeks," Yamato said quietly.
"You must forgive your sister," Kanji counseled, "She is who she is, a brave warrior, but she makes no pretense to being a samurai who will watch the cherry blossoms and compose haikus on clouds. She still needs to be honored in your heart for what she does do, as she has forgiven you in her heart for what you have failed to do."
Yamato blushed as she returned the folder to the tray. Nagato and Mutsu did likewise.
"I know there will be endless questions, from the Americans and our Swedish allies," Kanji said, "For my apology, and the truth behind it." He slid the tray of scrolls towards them as he removed a typewritten sheet of paper. "I have prepared a separate apology to Admiral Crawford and his command, he came offering help to the civilian government and gave unstintingly, never asking if I was in fact the legitimate civilian government. This one I give to the Government Officials and Ministers I harmed for my action of taking action instead of awaiting direction through the chain of command. To ensure posterity understands, I address them by name."
There were grim smiles on the faces of the three warships.
"I have provided you with copies of the scroll I sent to the Emperor. The typewritten copies will be emailed and faxed to various news media. Machines that wait to act, such a convenience, so I might not burden my staff, and sully them with my taint. They followed the orders of a superior. The blame should be mine alone."
"Thank you," Nagato said.
Kanji turned over the fourth tea cup and poured it half full, swirling it idly and staring at it for a moment. "Even in the face of the inevitable, I find my life is still sweet." He quickly drained the cup in one go, then set the cup behind him on a shelf. "With the defections, are we hoping to see the Abyssals redeemed, as Captain Gordon thinks?"
"As with all things, some will chose to surrender to their appetites and reveal themselves, some will wear the mask and live a comfortable lie, and some will embrace the new way," Nagato said, "I fear we are ready for the first and second, but the third will reveal many things we ourselves are not ready to face."
Kanji nodded. "So many run away from chaos, instead of knowing when to ride and when to run away."
"There is no one answer," Yamato said, "As you said, forgiving others for being themselves is hard, forgiving others for being the way you wish you could be is far harder."
All four nodded at that.
The three ship girls fell silent as Kanji began to nod off, and were startled as he suddenly seemed to awaken. "An opportunity comes, the engine's tiller is driven with the hands, but a sail's is commanded by the fingertips."
He seemed to settle into sleep, and after some minutes, the three ship girls burned the folders as the papers in the folders had asked, took the scrolls and departed.
I had most of the preceding week's output written a while ago, we'll be going back to Friday, Saturday, Sunday deliveries for a while.
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Anchovy Peaches XXXIV - Opening the New Path
Anchovy Peaches XXXIV - Opening the New Path
Floyd worked the new crystal it had found into the cricket bat. The ribbons, silver paint and the filigree work would come later. It was not the kind of crystal that would make a proper blade, it was much too large for one, and it was decidedly the wrong color. But a bit of research had found a perfect use for it.
The problem was the uniform/personal protective gear that would be required. Most of it was easy, and available from ships' stores for modification, many destroyers wore similar outfits. One critical part was not. So it'd gotten several dozen lengths of bright yellow yarn and now it braided, checked and tied and trimmed. The headgear seemed critically important and since the two ends touched the floor, it suspected that the headgear earthed some sort of power to the ground so it wouldn't destroy the crystal's wielder.
When it considered the power of this crystal, Floyd was willing to believe almost anything was possible, and necessary.
------------------------------
Admiral Richardson had never expected to be this close to a thoroughly pissed off Abyssal. He was already setting new records for how long you could stand near a murderously angry Ru-Class and survive. That she was less intense in her fury than General Chuikov standing beside her was an equally unpleasant surprise.
"What do you mean he killed himself?" the Abyssal at least was trying to control herself. The General was depending on the language barrier to protect people's ears and sensibilities from what he was saying. Richardson didn't speak much Russian, but he knew that no one would appreciate what he was calling the Japanese Prime Minister and the others mentioned in Kanji Watanabe's final apology.
"He took all the blame for deceiving us on himself and took the honorable option," Richardson said.
"He saved over a hundred thousand people, your people," the Ru-class said in an insanely calm tone, the desk slowly splintering as her fingers drove through the surface, "And they drove him to kill himself?"
"Enough," Mutsu said as she entered. Normally the clown, it seemed she wasn't too far away from her sterner sister. "There is a meeting of all ship-girls in the number three hanger, in an hour, everything will be explained there." Mutsu gave a smile that stifled both the Abyssal and the Russian. "And I guarantee, you will be satisfied."
As she left, Richardson swore there was a layer of frost on the Abyssal.
------------------------------
Admiral Crawford walked into the hall, and all the ship-girls and military personnel came to attention, even the recent additions. About three-quarters of the civilians did as well, those who didn't somewhat sheepishly stood and tried to fit in.
"Be seated," Crawford ordered as he stepped up to the podium. Nagato and Richardson were already on the podium to add weight and answer the questions that Crawford had no knowledge of.
"Kanji Watanabe sent his own apology to us, please hold your questions. Don't worry, it is very concise," Crawford said, " 'My friends, please do not let my passing mar the magnificent effort and noble sacrifices you have all made for the benefit of Japan and her people. Your nobility and perseverance are a standard few who would claim the title of noble knight could match.
" 'My decision is my own, and while necessary, it is also in a way self-serving. The cold hand of death rested on my shoulder before this began, and then fate gave me a chance to use that as freedom to save my people, and I hope exalt all of you. My death was inevitable, if it shields you all from the picklocks of nescient experts, please accept my last gift. I thank you all for one last afternoon of joy, it meant more to me than you could ever know,'" Crawford said. He glanced back at Nagato, then yielded the podium to her.
"Watanabe Kanji was dying of pancreatic cancer, if he hadn't taken the blame upon himself, he still would not have seen another winter. Also, Admiral Crawford's estimates were that it should have taken three days for aid to come to you from the mainland. Perhaps the arrival of the troops of the Russian Federation obscured that it took five. And the Government Officials in Tokyo were quick to blame Kanji-san for this unconscionable delay, despite the fact he arranged for the transfers at his minister's direction while the minister and his deputy were still alive," Nagato said, her voice nearly cracking with the strain, "So he decided that he would accept the blame, and take the tanto that would have come for each of us, and plunged it into the heart of our disparagers. As he pointed out to us on the night he left, the Doc Holliday Syndrome: I'm already dying and you're threatening to kill me, good luck. The first vote of no-confidence since the Abyssal War began has toppled the current government, and the Emperor sent a personal note to the various bureaucrats mentioned, 'Was no gentler rebuke possible?' was in kanji, then in English, 'The world wonders.'"
Nearly every ship-girl and naval officer cringed at that. Ground officers and Abyssals were promised an explanation by their fellows later. "He was a brave and devoted soul to the end, and deserves your honor," Nagato's voice cut through the murmuring, "Turn your anger at his treatment to bettering yourselves, that is the best revenge and the best way to honor him and his memory."
As she sat down, it was clear Mutsu wanted to hug her sister, but contented herself by covering Nagato's clenched fist with an open hand.
Richardson stepped up to the podium. "I drew the short straw, so are there any questions?" He glanced around at the quiescent group, everyone looking at everyone else, waiting for someone to be first.
------------------------------
The party on the return to Nishinoshima was 'going to be epic'. Although the former Anchorage Demon, HSwMS Knut Mauritz Östberg was headed home with Her Highness. The party was quite a bit more subdued than most expected. On sensing what the real stream of the party was, Admiral Crawford had stood, drink in hand. "To fallen friends," he said, and everyone drank.
He'd excused himself after that. There was much to do as the crews for the 106 needed to be sorted out and unlike the others, he'd been through this, burying his wife, expecting to join her, then burying his daughter-in-law and son, hundreds of colleagues, and finally his daughter. He'd made peace with the ghosts, but knew there was no one-size-fits-all answer, each had been different and each had to be found alone. With some it was apologies, another it was screaming with rage, with his children, it was taking a frightened, little girl into his life and trying to be a father again, and teaching another frightened, young woman how to be a mother to a girl who'd initially been hostile to everyone but him.
So here he was, a spreadsheet on screen illuminating the room as he looked at what he had, what he needed and tried to make it fit. The odd thing was, for once he had a greater supply than he had demand and he desperately wanted not to give short shrift to those who had remained behind to serve. He didn't have the 70,000 from Missouri, but he had 13,000, more than enough for multiple battleships, and he had three other Iowa-class as supply. For food and fuel, he would have to ship out a lot of them. The South Atlantic was screaming for reinforcements and so many 'polite inquiries' from the Indian Ocean polities meant the same thing, with the North Atlantic, Arctic and soon the Central Pacific being cleared, the Abyssals were retreating to less protected areas and overwhelming the defenders there.
We need to clear the entire Pacific or at least neutralize it, then assemble a fleet and sweep out the Indian Ocean. Let the others deal with the South Atlantic, he thought, knowing the two hardest nuts to crack in the Pacific, the Supply Depot Princess and the Northern Princess were also the least aggressive. Get Maggie spun up, he thought, Then send her, Gordon, Furious, Gibbs, and Haida to the Supply Princess. But who to send to the Northern Princess? Shark Dentures? The Swedish Squadron and Gotengo? I need shock and awe, but also diplomacy, and that's effectively no one.
He shut off the screen, having learned that trying to wrestle the universe like this never worked, sleep and his mind would have a serviceable answer when he awoke.
------------------------------
The figures stumbled into the summoning chamber. Indianapolis pushing Shark Dentures on her cart while everyone else did the best at 'walked' their tiredness and inebriation allowed.
"This is here and our come over here shambles," Gotengo announced to the assembled force.
"Look like ours," the Southern Demon, Thule said.
" 'Cept it doesn't work," Gotengo said, "Cuz 'er music is lousy."
"We got bands!" Gibbs said, leaning against a seated Gordon, the two of their laps suddenly filling with destroyers and smaller subs.
"Anbds, choirs! N' ogre strass!" Gordon said.
"Ain't the mu - mu - mu - SOPUNDS!" One of the Twin Princesses, Hälsingborg said, the other Göteborg having passed out, "It's what you believe. What you re - re - expecsionally want!"
"I want to be friends with everypony!" the Battleship Water Demon John Ericsson said and pulled Gotengo into her lap as she and her rigging collapsed onto the floor.
"I wanna sing," Kushi said as she stared at the collection of summoning material, "BAH! If it's a sacrifice." She set a full and unopened can of beer in the summoning circle. "Make it a sacrifice!"
"Yeah!" came from a dozen other throats as more cans of beer, food, slices of cake, bowls of ice cream and plates of apple pie/strudel were carefully piled into the summoning circle.
"Music!" Ecchi-Nein demanded and the orchestra and bands began to play.
Many of the girls found it was possible to sing ~Ich Hatt' Einen Kameraden~ to the tune of ~Amazing Grace~, while others were singing ~Amazing Grace~. The eerie beauty of Shark Denture's singing voice helped many to remain on key.
------------------------------
He continued walking through the blinding snowstorm. The wind would have stopped many others. He was not typical. He also knew that the storm wasn't supposed to stop him. It was only an ineffectual 'best effort' and that it was part of a stupid game. He didn't play stupid games, he simply won and moved on. His old `boss` had requested help, explained the ridiculous rules that as a boss he couldn't participate in, but his old `employee` could. He was old enough to remember the old boss, and that he did owe some allegiance. That and the job was simple: collect and leave. A literal walk through. When he'd finally understood that who he was supposed to collect, why there was resistance and thus leaving would be the hard part, he'd become vaguely frustrated. That frustration and the plan to relieve it had grown.
But frustration worked for him, frustration became determination and determination just required putting one foot in front of another and driving forward. It also required a twist of revenge. He was only required to collect one, no maximum was ever stated. When another intervened, understanding this was a prison, he'd simply knocked the hero down and slung her over his shoulder while carrying under his arm the one he was to rescue. The girl with the broad-brimmed, conical hat that actually made her taller than him had come with a halfhearted order to return his captives to their prisons. He understood her action was pro forma, so he simply kept marching straight at her to the exit. Two others added their impedance, seeing they could make a show of impotent resistance and escape along with the others.
Strong as they were, they lacked the mass to stop him. Adding the ice and snow reduced their traction. He was built for traction. While theatrical in their attempts to reduce or reverse his progress, their effectiveness was minimal. More games. Behind him, the argument demanding more be done to prevent his escape was answered with lists of actions taken and forces deployed, all to no avail. He expected lightning and fire, but only cold increased. While painful, it had little effect and his `inhibitors` subtly changed from preventing his advance to more snuggling against his abundant heat.
------------------------------
"Scary scary scary scary solstice," Gordon sang along with several fairy choirs, "Very very very scary solstice. Up from the sea, from underground, down from the sky, they're all around. Fear."
"Look to the sky, way up on high," the others sang, each in their own key, "There in the night stars now are right. They will return."
The orchestra decided they were going to play what they wanted. The lower woodwinds and horns started loud and ominous, then the strings cut in, then the upper brass, resulting in a tune you could fast march to, or guzzle more beer and wine to.
A table of appetizers was placed over the carefully stacked food in the summoning circle.
"Nothin' happening," one of the Southern War Demons, Niord said, "Com'om pupel, we gotta really believe!"
"I believe I'll have another beer!" the other Southern War Demon, Oden said.
"Add the empties, and make it pretty!" H29 demanded, "Artistic!"
Someone produced an arc welder and spot welded the steel and aluminum cans into several decorative arches as the orchestras played on.
------------------------------
The arrival of one that made the `inhibitors` cringe didn't deter him. Again, it had guns, but refused to use them. A solid, unexpected blow from him caused her to sit down and stare at the swirling snow. Frankly, he recognized a defector when he saw one, and allies of dubious loyalty were nothing new. The girl under his arm braced herself and grabbed the figure, dragging her form along behind them over the ice and snow.
The gateway was open, just as promised. It was small, but he knew he could force his way through. The two, larger girls blocked the entrance, but their glance at one of the `inhibitors` he already had, made him note that their actions would be as ineffectual as all the others. These finally did slow him as he pushed forward, but push forward he did. He heard the shrieks of fury behind him as the gateway allowed his passage, supposedly against all odds. His passengers and preventors carried or driven before him.
Despite no longer having anything beneath him, he continued to drive forward. When one of his `preventor's` grasp on him started slipping, he threw her over his other shoulder and continued on.
------------------------------
Southern Demon - Thule
Anchorage Demon - Knut Mauritz Östberg "Moje"
Southern War Demon (2) - Oden & Niord
Aircraft Carrier Water Demon - Thor
Light Cruiser Demon - Svea
Destroyer Water Demon (2) (Twin Princess) Hälsingborg & HSwMS Göteborg
Battleship Water Demon - John Ericsson
Floyd worked the new crystal it had found into the cricket bat. The ribbons, silver paint and the filigree work would come later. It was not the kind of crystal that would make a proper blade, it was much too large for one, and it was decidedly the wrong color. But a bit of research had found a perfect use for it.
The problem was the uniform/personal protective gear that would be required. Most of it was easy, and available from ships' stores for modification, many destroyers wore similar outfits. One critical part was not. So it'd gotten several dozen lengths of bright yellow yarn and now it braided, checked and tied and trimmed. The headgear seemed critically important and since the two ends touched the floor, it suspected that the headgear earthed some sort of power to the ground so it wouldn't destroy the crystal's wielder.
When it considered the power of this crystal, Floyd was willing to believe almost anything was possible, and necessary.
------------------------------
Admiral Richardson had never expected to be this close to a thoroughly pissed off Abyssal. He was already setting new records for how long you could stand near a murderously angry Ru-Class and survive. That she was less intense in her fury than General Chuikov standing beside her was an equally unpleasant surprise.
"What do you mean he killed himself?" the Abyssal at least was trying to control herself. The General was depending on the language barrier to protect people's ears and sensibilities from what he was saying. Richardson didn't speak much Russian, but he knew that no one would appreciate what he was calling the Japanese Prime Minister and the others mentioned in Kanji Watanabe's final apology.
"He took all the blame for deceiving us on himself and took the honorable option," Richardson said.
"He saved over a hundred thousand people, your people," the Ru-class said in an insanely calm tone, the desk slowly splintering as her fingers drove through the surface, "And they drove him to kill himself?"
"Enough," Mutsu said as she entered. Normally the clown, it seemed she wasn't too far away from her sterner sister. "There is a meeting of all ship-girls in the number three hanger, in an hour, everything will be explained there." Mutsu gave a smile that stifled both the Abyssal and the Russian. "And I guarantee, you will be satisfied."
As she left, Richardson swore there was a layer of frost on the Abyssal.
------------------------------
Admiral Crawford walked into the hall, and all the ship-girls and military personnel came to attention, even the recent additions. About three-quarters of the civilians did as well, those who didn't somewhat sheepishly stood and tried to fit in.
"Be seated," Crawford ordered as he stepped up to the podium. Nagato and Richardson were already on the podium to add weight and answer the questions that Crawford had no knowledge of.
"Kanji Watanabe sent his own apology to us, please hold your questions. Don't worry, it is very concise," Crawford said, " 'My friends, please do not let my passing mar the magnificent effort and noble sacrifices you have all made for the benefit of Japan and her people. Your nobility and perseverance are a standard few who would claim the title of noble knight could match.
" 'My decision is my own, and while necessary, it is also in a way self-serving. The cold hand of death rested on my shoulder before this began, and then fate gave me a chance to use that as freedom to save my people, and I hope exalt all of you. My death was inevitable, if it shields you all from the picklocks of nescient experts, please accept my last gift. I thank you all for one last afternoon of joy, it meant more to me than you could ever know,'" Crawford said. He glanced back at Nagato, then yielded the podium to her.
"Watanabe Kanji was dying of pancreatic cancer, if he hadn't taken the blame upon himself, he still would not have seen another winter. Also, Admiral Crawford's estimates were that it should have taken three days for aid to come to you from the mainland. Perhaps the arrival of the troops of the Russian Federation obscured that it took five. And the Government Officials in Tokyo were quick to blame Kanji-san for this unconscionable delay, despite the fact he arranged for the transfers at his minister's direction while the minister and his deputy were still alive," Nagato said, her voice nearly cracking with the strain, "So he decided that he would accept the blame, and take the tanto that would have come for each of us, and plunged it into the heart of our disparagers. As he pointed out to us on the night he left, the Doc Holliday Syndrome: I'm already dying and you're threatening to kill me, good luck. The first vote of no-confidence since the Abyssal War began has toppled the current government, and the Emperor sent a personal note to the various bureaucrats mentioned, 'Was no gentler rebuke possible?' was in kanji, then in English, 'The world wonders.'"
Nearly every ship-girl and naval officer cringed at that. Ground officers and Abyssals were promised an explanation by their fellows later. "He was a brave and devoted soul to the end, and deserves your honor," Nagato's voice cut through the murmuring, "Turn your anger at his treatment to bettering yourselves, that is the best revenge and the best way to honor him and his memory."
As she sat down, it was clear Mutsu wanted to hug her sister, but contented herself by covering Nagato's clenched fist with an open hand.
Richardson stepped up to the podium. "I drew the short straw, so are there any questions?" He glanced around at the quiescent group, everyone looking at everyone else, waiting for someone to be first.
------------------------------
The party on the return to Nishinoshima was 'going to be epic'. Although the former Anchorage Demon, HSwMS Knut Mauritz Östberg was headed home with Her Highness. The party was quite a bit more subdued than most expected. On sensing what the real stream of the party was, Admiral Crawford had stood, drink in hand. "To fallen friends," he said, and everyone drank.
He'd excused himself after that. There was much to do as the crews for the 106 needed to be sorted out and unlike the others, he'd been through this, burying his wife, expecting to join her, then burying his daughter-in-law and son, hundreds of colleagues, and finally his daughter. He'd made peace with the ghosts, but knew there was no one-size-fits-all answer, each had been different and each had to be found alone. With some it was apologies, another it was screaming with rage, with his children, it was taking a frightened, little girl into his life and trying to be a father again, and teaching another frightened, young woman how to be a mother to a girl who'd initially been hostile to everyone but him.
So here he was, a spreadsheet on screen illuminating the room as he looked at what he had, what he needed and tried to make it fit. The odd thing was, for once he had a greater supply than he had demand and he desperately wanted not to give short shrift to those who had remained behind to serve. He didn't have the 70,000 from Missouri, but he had 13,000, more than enough for multiple battleships, and he had three other Iowa-class as supply. For food and fuel, he would have to ship out a lot of them. The South Atlantic was screaming for reinforcements and so many 'polite inquiries' from the Indian Ocean polities meant the same thing, with the North Atlantic, Arctic and soon the Central Pacific being cleared, the Abyssals were retreating to less protected areas and overwhelming the defenders there.
We need to clear the entire Pacific or at least neutralize it, then assemble a fleet and sweep out the Indian Ocean. Let the others deal with the South Atlantic, he thought, knowing the two hardest nuts to crack in the Pacific, the Supply Depot Princess and the Northern Princess were also the least aggressive. Get Maggie spun up, he thought, Then send her, Gordon, Furious, Gibbs, and Haida to the Supply Princess. But who to send to the Northern Princess? Shark Dentures? The Swedish Squadron and Gotengo? I need shock and awe, but also diplomacy, and that's effectively no one.
He shut off the screen, having learned that trying to wrestle the universe like this never worked, sleep and his mind would have a serviceable answer when he awoke.
------------------------------
The figures stumbled into the summoning chamber. Indianapolis pushing Shark Dentures on her cart while everyone else did the best at 'walked' their tiredness and inebriation allowed.
"This is here and our come over here shambles," Gotengo announced to the assembled force.
"Look like ours," the Southern Demon, Thule said.
" 'Cept it doesn't work," Gotengo said, "Cuz 'er music is lousy."
"We got bands!" Gibbs said, leaning against a seated Gordon, the two of their laps suddenly filling with destroyers and smaller subs.
"Anbds, choirs! N' ogre strass!" Gordon said.
"Ain't the mu - mu - mu - SOPUNDS!" One of the Twin Princesses, Hälsingborg said, the other Göteborg having passed out, "It's what you believe. What you re - re - expecsionally want!"
"I want to be friends with everypony!" the Battleship Water Demon John Ericsson said and pulled Gotengo into her lap as she and her rigging collapsed onto the floor.
"I wanna sing," Kushi said as she stared at the collection of summoning material, "BAH! If it's a sacrifice." She set a full and unopened can of beer in the summoning circle. "Make it a sacrifice!"
"Yeah!" came from a dozen other throats as more cans of beer, food, slices of cake, bowls of ice cream and plates of apple pie/strudel were carefully piled into the summoning circle.
"Music!" Ecchi-Nein demanded and the orchestra and bands began to play.
Many of the girls found it was possible to sing ~Ich Hatt' Einen Kameraden~ to the tune of ~Amazing Grace~, while others were singing ~Amazing Grace~. The eerie beauty of Shark Denture's singing voice helped many to remain on key.
------------------------------
He continued walking through the blinding snowstorm. The wind would have stopped many others. He was not typical. He also knew that the storm wasn't supposed to stop him. It was only an ineffectual 'best effort' and that it was part of a stupid game. He didn't play stupid games, he simply won and moved on. His old `boss` had requested help, explained the ridiculous rules that as a boss he couldn't participate in, but his old `employee` could. He was old enough to remember the old boss, and that he did owe some allegiance. That and the job was simple: collect and leave. A literal walk through. When he'd finally understood that who he was supposed to collect, why there was resistance and thus leaving would be the hard part, he'd become vaguely frustrated. That frustration and the plan to relieve it had grown.
But frustration worked for him, frustration became determination and determination just required putting one foot in front of another and driving forward. It also required a twist of revenge. He was only required to collect one, no maximum was ever stated. When another intervened, understanding this was a prison, he'd simply knocked the hero down and slung her over his shoulder while carrying under his arm the one he was to rescue. The girl with the broad-brimmed, conical hat that actually made her taller than him had come with a halfhearted order to return his captives to their prisons. He understood her action was pro forma, so he simply kept marching straight at her to the exit. Two others added their impedance, seeing they could make a show of impotent resistance and escape along with the others.
Strong as they were, they lacked the mass to stop him. Adding the ice and snow reduced their traction. He was built for traction. While theatrical in their attempts to reduce or reverse his progress, their effectiveness was minimal. More games. Behind him, the argument demanding more be done to prevent his escape was answered with lists of actions taken and forces deployed, all to no avail. He expected lightning and fire, but only cold increased. While painful, it had little effect and his `inhibitors` subtly changed from preventing his advance to more snuggling against his abundant heat.
------------------------------
"Scary scary scary scary solstice," Gordon sang along with several fairy choirs, "Very very very scary solstice. Up from the sea, from underground, down from the sky, they're all around. Fear."
"Look to the sky, way up on high," the others sang, each in their own key, "There in the night stars now are right. They will return."
The orchestra decided they were going to play what they wanted. The lower woodwinds and horns started loud and ominous, then the strings cut in, then the upper brass, resulting in a tune you could fast march to, or guzzle more beer and wine to.
A table of appetizers was placed over the carefully stacked food in the summoning circle.
"Nothin' happening," one of the Southern War Demons, Niord said, "Com'om pupel, we gotta really believe!"
"I believe I'll have another beer!" the other Southern War Demon, Oden said.
"Add the empties, and make it pretty!" H29 demanded, "Artistic!"
Someone produced an arc welder and spot welded the steel and aluminum cans into several decorative arches as the orchestras played on.
------------------------------
The arrival of one that made the `inhibitors` cringe didn't deter him. Again, it had guns, but refused to use them. A solid, unexpected blow from him caused her to sit down and stare at the swirling snow. Frankly, he recognized a defector when he saw one, and allies of dubious loyalty were nothing new. The girl under his arm braced herself and grabbed the figure, dragging her form along behind them over the ice and snow.
The gateway was open, just as promised. It was small, but he knew he could force his way through. The two, larger girls blocked the entrance, but their glance at one of the `inhibitors` he already had, made him note that their actions would be as ineffectual as all the others. These finally did slow him as he pushed forward, but push forward he did. He heard the shrieks of fury behind him as the gateway allowed his passage, supposedly against all odds. His passengers and preventors carried or driven before him.
Despite no longer having anything beneath him, he continued to drive forward. When one of his `preventor's` grasp on him started slipping, he threw her over his other shoulder and continued on.
------------------------------
Southern Demon - Thule
Anchorage Demon - Knut Mauritz Östberg "Moje"
Southern War Demon (2) - Oden & Niord
Aircraft Carrier Water Demon - Thor
Light Cruiser Demon - Svea
Destroyer Water Demon (2) (Twin Princess) Hälsingborg & HSwMS Göteborg
Battleship Water Demon - John Ericsson
Anchovy Peaches XXXV - Ingratitude Is Irrational Poison
Anchovy Peaches XXXV - Ingratitude Is Irrational Poison
Northampton noted the predawn hour and the crisp knocking on the door. At least it's not panicked pounding, she thought as she threw on a dressing robe and headed for the front door of the home she shared with her Admiral. Her assurance that it wasn't a disaster ended when she saw the one knocking was Gotengo. What the former Abyssal rated as 'disaster' and what even other reformed Abyssals did was a leap.
"Captain Gordon, Kushi and Maggie regret to inform you that they can't turn off the summoning pool," the girl chirped, then gave her a once over that made Northampton's skin crawl.
"Can't turn it off?" Northampton said, every attempted summoning had been a complete and total bust.
Gotengo shrugged. "I've seen it before, Imp swarms keep pouring out, or they've summoned a new Princess," Gotengo said, then glanced around, "Since we're alone, why can't I make clothes look as good as you do. You just woke up and you're beautiful. While I always have success in Night Battles, I never draw the eye as you and Corporal Wilcox do. It sometimes is frustrating."
"Let's get everyone up and to the summoning chamber, then afterwards Maggie and I will help on the eye-catching front."
The girl grinned. "Thank you. Excuse me I was told to get 'all the Marines' next."
The girl dashed off, her long legs moving her at speeds Northampton would need her rigging to match.
She sensed her Admiral behind her. "They can't turn the summoning pool off, and Gotengo says the Abyss has the same problem when they summon a princess."
"I'll get dressed and send an alert to Goto," Crawford said.
------------------------------
Admiral Crawford looked around the summoning room. Cultists had attacked the summoning chambers of other bases before. People who worshiped the Abyssals, Luddites who welcomed the regression the Abyssals forced, people who thought the resources were being wasted to 'keep the real people down', and the other mistaken to insane variations of one or more of the above. Ship-girls had attempted late-night, drunken summonings. Few ships had resulted.
No human had ever activated a summoning pool and been unable to shut it off. The glow lit the room and the winds from the other side were beginning to stir things in the summoning chamber. Northampton was off documenting everything that had been done: every piece of music, instrument, the summoning material, any chants or rituals.
Everyone else nervously awaited the results, and desperately hoped for a failed summoning again.
The Marines were not happy about the base commander walking around an area they hadn't first gone over with a fine-toothed comb. But he needed to see before they sanitized away what the group had tried. That he had every halfway sober ship-girl and sub-girl at the base as close guard mitigated some of that worry.
The changing glow from the summoning pool drew every eye. Guards rushed to surround the pool and await what came out of it.
The appearance of a real bear of a man wearing, carrying or dragging several ship-girls confused everyone. Ship-girls were known, the leviathan of a man was an unknown factor. His clothing looked like a dark gray, business suit with heavy combat boots, also gray and a kepi, gray, with flaps to protect his neck from the sun. The design on the front of the cap showed a colorful butterfly in flight and stated simply 'Moth-tan'.
The Admiral also noted how tired the man looked as he gently set the girls down where they were safe and stepped away to sit down on the far edge of the pool from them. The wary weariness of a soldier who was not interested in the denouement of what he'd achieved, just that he'd succeeded, survived and intended to stay that way.
"Admiral," the girl with the Gibson Girl outfit and the witch's hat stood and saluted, "C-3, U.S.S. Salem, it's good to be here."
An older woman stood up from the two women who'd been slung over the man's shoulders when he'd appeared. Her dress would have been out of date any time in the 20th Century. She stood and saluted. "U.S.S. Olympia, reporting for duty."
The murmurs of the crowd at the announcement of the famous ship's identity alarmed some. One of the taller girls, a battleship or battlecruiser stood, saluted and said something no one in the immediate area seemed to understand. The girl smiled and said, "Francesco Caracciolo happy to be here."
The other tall girl saluted, "USS Washington (BB-47), Colorado class, uh, please don't shoot me, we really are happy to be here and want to help."
The young girl with the buckler hung it from her waist and saluted. "U.S.S. Russell, DD-414," she said, "This is SS-192, uh never mind, and . . . " she trailed off and looked around, "We're really not sure, we've never seen a sub like her before."
"AGSS-569, U.S.S. Albacore," the man said, he hadn't moved from where he'd seated himself and looked like if left to his own devices he'd have gone to sleep in the pool.
"And you are?" the senior most Marine, Major Callahan asked.
"Die kill you all! Make you suffer!" the last of the ship-girls announced as she stood and advanced on the man.
"Down Princess!" the man shouted, never standing up but the girl fell back on her butt staring at him in fear.
"Tea or you will all see a horrible sight," then the girl broke down in tears, curling up in the bottom of the pool.
"That's the Princess I think," Gotengo said.
Crawford looked at the summoners and shook his head.
The man seemed to focus on Major Callahan "I'm afraid my name is unpronounceable," the man said.
"Isn't that convenient," Callahan said, "Give it a try."
The man sighed, a grandfather dealing with an unruly smartaleck, "My name isn't auditory, it's olfactory, smells of the deep seas and molten rock really don't translate into sounds."
"Okay," Callahan's Gunnery Sergeant said, clearly trying to provoke, "Magma Abyss, how about that?"
"If that's what you agree on, why should I care?" the man said, neither impressed nor intimidated by the show of force.
"Why are you here, sir?" Crawford asked.
"My old boss asked me to rescue the Albacore, and bring her through the portal," the old man said and nodded towards the sub-girl, "Since I didn't like the games being played, when the others lined up to stop me, I just brought them along. The other side has been cheating, my old boss thought it was appropriate to cheat back."
"This is some kind of game to you?" Callahan asked.
"It is to them," the old man said, "Frankly, I'd be happier not playing it, but if I have to pick a side, it'll be the one who leaves me alone after you win. You lot aren't going to come charging into my home and demand action. So if someone asks me to help, you get it."
"But what do you want?" Crawford asked.
"I doubt you can just send me home, so a place I can get some sleep in the sun would be ideal," the old man said, "Somebody is going to notice the rules breach, so they're going to try and rectify it. When they do, wake me and I'll pay my debt to the game."
"Top floor of the battleship dorms," Crawford told Callahan. He got a dubious look from the Marine, but then he saluted and the old man ponderously climbed out of the pool. As he passed Crawford, the admiral saw just how big he was. Some basketball players might have been taller, but this man was massive, built more along the lines of Tolkien's dwarves than a human.
The admiral watched him go, then returned his attention to the two sub-girls.
------------------------------
The room smelled of fuel oil and flowers, but the large window faced the sun, that was all that mattered. He looked over at the uniformed human who remained behind when the other two had taken station outside the door. He had little idea what any of the furnishings meant and hoped he wouldn't have to learn, but he did realize that as a prisoner he needed to take some of his jailers' needs into account.
He pulled the two stands towards the window and the sunbeam streaming in. He collected the large flexible sheet off another piece of furniture, then thought about how to affix it to the two stands.
"You wouldn't have anything sticky around here would you?" he asked, conscious not to scare the human, they panicked easily in his experience.
"You want tape or glue?" the uniform asked, the voice higher pitched, more like those he'd rescued than those who'd received them.
"I don't know either of those. I want to extend this flat between these two stands, then I'm going to take off all these coverings and sleep in the sunbeam. I noticed all of you wear these coverings religiously so a barrier between the door and me should avoid upsetting your religious tenets," he said.
The uniform put hand to face and muttered something, then looked up and said, "Tape. I'll check the drawers."
"Thank you," he said, and with some help they arranged it properly. When they finished, he began removing the coverings. "You've been warned."
The uniformed human's coloring changed, and it withdrew to near the door as he settled in his natural state in the sunbeam and went to sleep.
------------------------------
Admiral Crawford was back in his office, behind his desk and somewhat in control of the situation. The summoners were being carted off for thorough interrogation and acting as if they'd won the National Championship. An entire battle squadron on their first go, the Admiral knew the higher up's inclination would be to give them a medal and a mass grave at Arlington, before having them shot. The ship-girls were being interviewed by Northampton, the only ship-girl not fangirling over Olympia and their mystery man seemed as quiescent as he claimed.
That left the two, despondent sub-girls in front of him. They'd been provided some better clothes, but still refused to be separated. That SS-192 had a bruise on her cheek disturbed him, but he'd decided to let them tell him about it.
"I was under the impression that you were too recent to be summoned," he addressed Albacore as she sat beside SS-192 who had drawn her legs against her chest and was dry washing her hands.
"That and I had no wartime experience, nor a crew like most patrolling and combat vessels," Albacore said, "So he had to drag me out of there." She picked up the Admiral's cap she'd worn. "Because the effect I had on all subsequent designs, andthatmyAdmirallovedme, I had enough reality to be brought over." She had started blushing at the mention of her Admiral, and now just looked wistful. "I don't know if you need a research sub, but I know I can scout, and I'm not afraid."
"You'd do your Admiral proud," Crawford said, "Although I understand you were a bust as an ASW target."
Albacore shrugged. "We got something better."
The elephant in the room, as it tried to hide behind the coffee table, became the focus. "SS-192, Sailfish, I -"
"not sailfish," the girl said almost too quietly to be heard. Albacore hugged her and gave the Admiral a pleading look.
Reality descended on the admiral. SS-192 wasn't Sailfish, she was Squalus, the two sub-girl's connection was they both depended on the innovations of a particular naval officer. Crawford had heard stories about the Sailfish's skipper not even wanting to hear the word Squalus on his boat. It seemed that this had created a rift, two spirits for one hull, with the sinking, rescue and raising of the Squalus and being rechristened Sailfish being the breaking point. No other naval vessel carried the name Squalus, and none ever would.
"Very well, SS-192, what intelligence can you give me on the one who arrived with you?" he asked.
She perked up a little now that she wasn't the subject of the questions. "He didn't look like he does now," SS-192 said, "He was bigger, like a dinosaur on two legs. He walked up to Albie, and picked her up. I rushed in and tried to fight him. He said 'verisimilitude'." She touched her bruised cheek. "He gave me this, and I don't remember much after that. I'm sorry, I've failed you." She hugged her legs tighter and look like she was about to cry.
"You gave me much more information than I had," Crawford said, "Albacore, was he an allosaur or a tyrannosaur?"
"Neither really. He was a lot bulkier than any two-legged dinosaur, and he had stegosaur-like plates down his back," Albacore said, "Are you all right Admiral?"
"I just figured out his name," the Admiral said, he picked up the phone, then considered the effect of that man walking through his base might have and set the handset back in the cradle. "Please come with me." He stood and walked to the door with both sub-girls close behind.
Northampton noted the predawn hour and the crisp knocking on the door. At least it's not panicked pounding, she thought as she threw on a dressing robe and headed for the front door of the home she shared with her Admiral. Her assurance that it wasn't a disaster ended when she saw the one knocking was Gotengo. What the former Abyssal rated as 'disaster' and what even other reformed Abyssals did was a leap.
"Captain Gordon, Kushi and Maggie regret to inform you that they can't turn off the summoning pool," the girl chirped, then gave her a once over that made Northampton's skin crawl.
"Can't turn it off?" Northampton said, every attempted summoning had been a complete and total bust.
Gotengo shrugged. "I've seen it before, Imp swarms keep pouring out, or they've summoned a new Princess," Gotengo said, then glanced around, "Since we're alone, why can't I make clothes look as good as you do. You just woke up and you're beautiful. While I always have success in Night Battles, I never draw the eye as you and Corporal Wilcox do. It sometimes is frustrating."
"Let's get everyone up and to the summoning chamber, then afterwards Maggie and I will help on the eye-catching front."
The girl grinned. "Thank you. Excuse me I was told to get 'all the Marines' next."
The girl dashed off, her long legs moving her at speeds Northampton would need her rigging to match.
She sensed her Admiral behind her. "They can't turn the summoning pool off, and Gotengo says the Abyss has the same problem when they summon a princess."
"I'll get dressed and send an alert to Goto," Crawford said.
------------------------------
Admiral Crawford looked around the summoning room. Cultists had attacked the summoning chambers of other bases before. People who worshiped the Abyssals, Luddites who welcomed the regression the Abyssals forced, people who thought the resources were being wasted to 'keep the real people down', and the other mistaken to insane variations of one or more of the above. Ship-girls had attempted late-night, drunken summonings. Few ships had resulted.
No human had ever activated a summoning pool and been unable to shut it off. The glow lit the room and the winds from the other side were beginning to stir things in the summoning chamber. Northampton was off documenting everything that had been done: every piece of music, instrument, the summoning material, any chants or rituals.
Everyone else nervously awaited the results, and desperately hoped for a failed summoning again.
The Marines were not happy about the base commander walking around an area they hadn't first gone over with a fine-toothed comb. But he needed to see before they sanitized away what the group had tried. That he had every halfway sober ship-girl and sub-girl at the base as close guard mitigated some of that worry.
The changing glow from the summoning pool drew every eye. Guards rushed to surround the pool and await what came out of it.
The appearance of a real bear of a man wearing, carrying or dragging several ship-girls confused everyone. Ship-girls were known, the leviathan of a man was an unknown factor. His clothing looked like a dark gray, business suit with heavy combat boots, also gray and a kepi, gray, with flaps to protect his neck from the sun. The design on the front of the cap showed a colorful butterfly in flight and stated simply 'Moth-tan'.
The Admiral also noted how tired the man looked as he gently set the girls down where they were safe and stepped away to sit down on the far edge of the pool from them. The wary weariness of a soldier who was not interested in the denouement of what he'd achieved, just that he'd succeeded, survived and intended to stay that way.
"Admiral," the girl with the Gibson Girl outfit and the witch's hat stood and saluted, "C-3, U.S.S. Salem, it's good to be here."
An older woman stood up from the two women who'd been slung over the man's shoulders when he'd appeared. Her dress would have been out of date any time in the 20th Century. She stood and saluted. "U.S.S. Olympia, reporting for duty."
The murmurs of the crowd at the announcement of the famous ship's identity alarmed some. One of the taller girls, a battleship or battlecruiser stood, saluted and said something no one in the immediate area seemed to understand. The girl smiled and said, "Francesco Caracciolo happy to be here."
The other tall girl saluted, "USS Washington (BB-47), Colorado class, uh, please don't shoot me, we really are happy to be here and want to help."
The young girl with the buckler hung it from her waist and saluted. "U.S.S. Russell, DD-414," she said, "This is SS-192, uh never mind, and . . . " she trailed off and looked around, "We're really not sure, we've never seen a sub like her before."
"AGSS-569, U.S.S. Albacore," the man said, he hadn't moved from where he'd seated himself and looked like if left to his own devices he'd have gone to sleep in the pool.
"And you are?" the senior most Marine, Major Callahan asked.
"Die kill you all! Make you suffer!" the last of the ship-girls announced as she stood and advanced on the man.
"Down Princess!" the man shouted, never standing up but the girl fell back on her butt staring at him in fear.
"Tea or you will all see a horrible sight," then the girl broke down in tears, curling up in the bottom of the pool.
"That's the Princess I think," Gotengo said.
Crawford looked at the summoners and shook his head.
The man seemed to focus on Major Callahan "I'm afraid my name is unpronounceable," the man said.
"Isn't that convenient," Callahan said, "Give it a try."
The man sighed, a grandfather dealing with an unruly smartaleck, "My name isn't auditory, it's olfactory, smells of the deep seas and molten rock really don't translate into sounds."
"Okay," Callahan's Gunnery Sergeant said, clearly trying to provoke, "Magma Abyss, how about that?"
"If that's what you agree on, why should I care?" the man said, neither impressed nor intimidated by the show of force.
"Why are you here, sir?" Crawford asked.
"My old boss asked me to rescue the Albacore, and bring her through the portal," the old man said and nodded towards the sub-girl, "Since I didn't like the games being played, when the others lined up to stop me, I just brought them along. The other side has been cheating, my old boss thought it was appropriate to cheat back."
"This is some kind of game to you?" Callahan asked.
"It is to them," the old man said, "Frankly, I'd be happier not playing it, but if I have to pick a side, it'll be the one who leaves me alone after you win. You lot aren't going to come charging into my home and demand action. So if someone asks me to help, you get it."
"But what do you want?" Crawford asked.
"I doubt you can just send me home, so a place I can get some sleep in the sun would be ideal," the old man said, "Somebody is going to notice the rules breach, so they're going to try and rectify it. When they do, wake me and I'll pay my debt to the game."
"Top floor of the battleship dorms," Crawford told Callahan. He got a dubious look from the Marine, but then he saluted and the old man ponderously climbed out of the pool. As he passed Crawford, the admiral saw just how big he was. Some basketball players might have been taller, but this man was massive, built more along the lines of Tolkien's dwarves than a human.
The admiral watched him go, then returned his attention to the two sub-girls.
------------------------------
The room smelled of fuel oil and flowers, but the large window faced the sun, that was all that mattered. He looked over at the uniformed human who remained behind when the other two had taken station outside the door. He had little idea what any of the furnishings meant and hoped he wouldn't have to learn, but he did realize that as a prisoner he needed to take some of his jailers' needs into account.
He pulled the two stands towards the window and the sunbeam streaming in. He collected the large flexible sheet off another piece of furniture, then thought about how to affix it to the two stands.
"You wouldn't have anything sticky around here would you?" he asked, conscious not to scare the human, they panicked easily in his experience.
"You want tape or glue?" the uniform asked, the voice higher pitched, more like those he'd rescued than those who'd received them.
"I don't know either of those. I want to extend this flat between these two stands, then I'm going to take off all these coverings and sleep in the sunbeam. I noticed all of you wear these coverings religiously so a barrier between the door and me should avoid upsetting your religious tenets," he said.
The uniform put hand to face and muttered something, then looked up and said, "Tape. I'll check the drawers."
"Thank you," he said, and with some help they arranged it properly. When they finished, he began removing the coverings. "You've been warned."
The uniformed human's coloring changed, and it withdrew to near the door as he settled in his natural state in the sunbeam and went to sleep.
------------------------------
Admiral Crawford was back in his office, behind his desk and somewhat in control of the situation. The summoners were being carted off for thorough interrogation and acting as if they'd won the National Championship. An entire battle squadron on their first go, the Admiral knew the higher up's inclination would be to give them a medal and a mass grave at Arlington, before having them shot. The ship-girls were being interviewed by Northampton, the only ship-girl not fangirling over Olympia and their mystery man seemed as quiescent as he claimed.
That left the two, despondent sub-girls in front of him. They'd been provided some better clothes, but still refused to be separated. That SS-192 had a bruise on her cheek disturbed him, but he'd decided to let them tell him about it.
"I was under the impression that you were too recent to be summoned," he addressed Albacore as she sat beside SS-192 who had drawn her legs against her chest and was dry washing her hands.
"That and I had no wartime experience, nor a crew like most patrolling and combat vessels," Albacore said, "So he had to drag me out of there." She picked up the Admiral's cap she'd worn. "Because the effect I had on all subsequent designs, andthatmyAdmirallovedme, I had enough reality to be brought over." She had started blushing at the mention of her Admiral, and now just looked wistful. "I don't know if you need a research sub, but I know I can scout, and I'm not afraid."
"You'd do your Admiral proud," Crawford said, "Although I understand you were a bust as an ASW target."
Albacore shrugged. "We got something better."
The elephant in the room, as it tried to hide behind the coffee table, became the focus. "SS-192, Sailfish, I -"
"not sailfish," the girl said almost too quietly to be heard. Albacore hugged her and gave the Admiral a pleading look.
Reality descended on the admiral. SS-192 wasn't Sailfish, she was Squalus, the two sub-girl's connection was they both depended on the innovations of a particular naval officer. Crawford had heard stories about the Sailfish's skipper not even wanting to hear the word Squalus on his boat. It seemed that this had created a rift, two spirits for one hull, with the sinking, rescue and raising of the Squalus and being rechristened Sailfish being the breaking point. No other naval vessel carried the name Squalus, and none ever would.
"Very well, SS-192, what intelligence can you give me on the one who arrived with you?" he asked.
She perked up a little now that she wasn't the subject of the questions. "He didn't look like he does now," SS-192 said, "He was bigger, like a dinosaur on two legs. He walked up to Albie, and picked her up. I rushed in and tried to fight him. He said 'verisimilitude'." She touched her bruised cheek. "He gave me this, and I don't remember much after that. I'm sorry, I've failed you." She hugged her legs tighter and look like she was about to cry.
"You gave me much more information than I had," Crawford said, "Albacore, was he an allosaur or a tyrannosaur?"
"Neither really. He was a lot bulkier than any two-legged dinosaur, and he had stegosaur-like plates down his back," Albacore said, "Are you all right Admiral?"
"I just figured out his name," the Admiral said, he picked up the phone, then considered the effect of that man walking through his base might have and set the handset back in the cradle. "Please come with me." He stood and walked to the door with both sub-girls close behind.