Did they just somehow manage to summon Godzilla?!?! I mean, I know the only reason he was there to be summoned and allowed it to happen was due to the favor his "old boss" requested, but still. And now due to that summoning, they have an upcoming fight that apparently is going to be bad enough to need Godzilla himself to take an active combat role. That said, how many Admirals can claim to have Godzilla sunning himself on their barracks roof, that's definitely a story worthy of a few free drinks.
Just powered through all this and dear lord do I love it! I'm enjoying getting into some of the spoopy magical shipgirl bullcrap and the way its been expanded on in a properly spoopy and magical way.
Also, all the cute is real nice too! Never thought I would be wanting Abyssals to be getting all the hugs but here we are, and man do they need it.
Did they just somehow manage to summon Godzilla?!?! I mean, I know the only reason he was there to be summoned and allowed it to happen was due to the favor his "old boss" requested, but still. And now due to that summoning, they have an upcoming fight that apparently is going to be bad enough to need Godzilla himself to take an active combat role. That said, how many Admirals can claim to have Godzilla sunning himself on their barracks roof, that's definitely a story worthy of a few free drinks.
Drinks in congratulations or comiseration? There'll be something that only Godzilla can easily handle, but ordinary ship-girls could handle it. It's just a lot easier for Godzilla.
King Kong is at his tallest (in his own movies) c. 100 feet, this Godzilla is over 100 meters. That's at best a 2-year-old kid fighting a grown adult who has a flamethrower. Kong is threatened by heavy machineguns/light autocannons, Godzilla is typically only hurt by anti-ship weapons. Say what you want about Zilla, it took Mk 48 heavy torpedoes and Harpoon missile to kill him/her, that's enough to sink a Midway-class carrier. A weak Godzilla, yes, a weak kaiju, not really.
Besides, with the Abyss' track record, Godzilla would be waiting there with a seatainer full of bananas and a wading pool-size teacup, and Kong will partake of both, collect a random destroyer and cuddle up, then realize inviting the world's largest cuddlepile might not be the best action in combat terms, fortunately Godzilla will count that as 'target neutralized' and tell the Abyss to try again.
Just powered through all this and dear lord do I love it! I'm enjoying getting into some of the spoopy magical shipgirl bullcrap and the way its been expanded on in a properly spoopy and magical way.
Also, all the cute is real nice too! Never thought I would be wanting Abyssals to be getting all the hugs but here we are, and man do they need it.
Glad you're enjoying it.
The Battlecruiser Princess will definitely need all the hugs, but she's as skittish about hugs as H41, so there's work to be done.
The high-pitched uniform woke him, "Get dressed, the Admiral is coming to see you, it's urgent." Then there was a burst like a sonar ping and the uniform departed.
"Why waste time if it's urgent," he said, but collected the bare minimum of clothes before the admiral arrived. He had the slacks and the vest on when the admiral burst in. He gave the frantic officer a salute then waited.
"You're Godzilla," the admiral said.
"I thought we were going with Magma Abyss," he said.
"You're a fictional character," the admiral said, "I mean here at least."
He stared, waiting for the admiral to come down on the side of insanity or coherence.
"You aren't bothered by this?" Albacore asked.
"I've already dealt with talking to the incarnation of a ship, I'm in this utterly ridiculous form, and I don't know if I can get home," he said, "Being considered fictional isn't enough to perturb my equilibrium at this point."
"You've dealt with humans before?" the admiral asked.
"Yes, they gave me a bed where there was plenty of food. Like this place. And they left me alone. Look, Admiral, I'm old, really old by your standards, I can measure my age by galactic years, the time it takes for the arms of the galaxy to revolve and I'm over two of those. I've seen civilizations rise and fall, I've seen the dominant species ground under foot, almost literally in one case, and I've dealt with things and ideas that would probably melt your brain if you're so upset about this," he said, "So an old boss dumped a whole bunch of languages in my head, told me about the war and the opposition you're having, to collect Albacore and march through the portal. The only upsetting part is that I assumed that on delivery, I could turn around and walk back. Once I saw the portal I knew that was impossible, so I did my job and I'll get home eventually."
"Don't you want to fight the Abyssals?" SS-192 asked, "Since you know what they are."
"I don't start fights, I only finish them," Godzilla said to SS-192, then looked at the admiral who'd calmed down a bit, "That's not a refusal to help, that's a warning about how I fight."
"Then maybe we can find out about you, and you can find out about the enemy," the admiral said.
Godzilla shrugged, but nodded.
"Why do you have a sheet tied to two chairs?" Albacore asked.
"Because I want maximum surface area unshielded when I sleep in the sunbeam," Godzilla said, "And if the uniform who keeps pinging when looking at me is any indication, it's an appalling sight."
" 'Pinging'?" SS-192 asked.
Godzilla gave out a girlish squeal, and the uniform went red in the face and stared at the floor. "When I said dumped, I mean dumped, as you would with a bucket. The problem is that there aren't always good correspondences. You want to talk about geology, I can probably keep up with your best. But knowing that's a chair, that's going to take time. I've never seen two chairs at once, just single thrones, I probably couldn't name half the stuff in this room, until someone tells me the name and then I can fit it with the pieces poured in here." Godzilla tapped his head.
"You keep referring to 'the boss'," the admiral said, "Who was it?"
Godzilla considered. "Huge city, dream-talking lord, that's the best translation I can give."
"What did he look like? Assuming it's a he," Albacore said.
"While the gender differences were there, like appearance, they were variable," Godzilla said, "Like certain - frogs - go from egg-layers to egg fertilizers. The boss was aggressive, physically powerful and communicated through dreams, if that's an egg fertilizer, then yes the boss was male. But I can't tell if the Admiral or any of the uniforms are egg layers or egg fertilizers. They all smell like paper, ink and oil."
The high-pitched uniform asked, "You don't know if the Admiral and I are males or females?"
"You smell more like oil, the Admiral smells more like ink, I hardly call that definitive," Godzilla said, "You're dressed like the other uniforms, so there's no clue there."
"Didn't they sacrifice young girls to you, by sending them out on a raft?" one of the other uniforms asked.
"Not that I know of, but I don't understand all your customs," Godzilla said, "I never understood why every time I left the home they built to run errands, they'd carve all kind of designs into the walls until I came back. They didn't mess up the bed or the food so I just left them to their fun. Some of the carvings were kind of interesting, but most were just incomprehensible."
The high-pitched uniform took a fist on hip, hip out-thrust pose. "You can't tell I'm a woman?"
Godzilla shook his head. "I'll take your word for it."
The high-pitched uniform slumped like Godzilla had punched her in the stomach.
"But you know the ship-girls are females," the Admiral asked, "How?"
Godzilla sighed. "They smell like females, they sound like females, they glow like interested females, and you can't sense any of that, can you?" Godzilla sighed again.
------------------------------
They had printed out a few dozen pictures of the various incarnations of Godzilla, Northampton had brought them to Godzilla's room and was working with the others to figure out what the one before them looked like. The variations in the costume surprised the Admiral, but Corporal Wilcox had assured him that it was the truth. She was still stung about going from the prettiest and most-pursued Marine at the base to 'I'm not sure you're female' from Godzilla.
The ship-girls had to explain that the heat from the exhaust from their boilers or diesels was the big clue to Godzilla that they were 'interested females'. Her fellow Marines had teased Wilcox about wearing a space heater to ask for a date. The Admiral had put a stop to that. Non-fraternization as well as safety concerns.
For the fourth time Godzilla clawed at a picture with his fingernails, only to growl and pick up the kitchen knife to cut out a section of a picture to add to the collage of his actual appearance.
"I think that does it, except none of them have the right eye color," Godzilla said, "Why would they think an undersea creature would have eyes that big?"
"They make you cute," Wilcox threw in. Earning a shrug from Godzilla.
He looked up. "Nice try, but my friend over there is a lot better at cutting remarks," he said and nodded to his Moth-tan hat, "And she's one of my best friends."
"Mothra? Why would it be Moth-tan and not her right name?" Albacore asked as she stared at the collage, then nodded at its correctness.
"Mothra is what you people call her, that's not her name," Godzilla said, "Like I said 'Magma Abyss' is closer to my actual name than Godzilla, but it's still an arbitrary translation."
"Ah um," SS-192 said, "I know they're going to train us about deploying our rigging. Are they going to train him too?"
The Admiral stared at SS-192, then Godzilla. "I hadn't considered that. We might want to try that out in the bay."
"Okay, I hear words but none of it makes any sense," Godzilla said, "Again."
"Like the 'metal kitchen claw', rigging is a tool, it lets us act more like who we were before," Northampton said, "You may be operating under the same rules."
"Two problems, one I'm extremely big and heavy," Godzilla said, "And two, unless you have one of those metal canisters that give off lots of food, along with noise and light, there's going to be other problems."
" 'Food canisters'?" the Admiral asked and glanced at the equally perplexed ship-girls and Marines.
"Yes, a short while back, the uniforms similar to the one you're wearing, lured me to an island, there was a source of food, better than sunlight, but not extravagant," Godzilla said, "Then you scamps fired it, and I got the best meal I'd had in ages. And it knocked me on my butt. Like hitting someone in the face with a pie, only it was a full-course dinner. I ate hearty, and looked around for a few more like that, found some that I'd arrived too late for, found more food they'd dumped in deep water. I don't remember seeing any people like yours around so I don't know if there was a girl on a raft floating above. I was mostly interested in the food."
"The Able/Baker or Castle Bravo tests," Northampton said, "He's talking about a nuclear weapon's test. Were there any ships around?"
"Nope," Godzilla said and looked at the faces around him, "What, I messed up your test by showing up?"
"No," Admiral Crawford said, "It's just odd meeting someone who thinks a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb in the face is a banquet. You should have been there for the Tsar Bomb test. Beyond the Arctic Circle."
For the first time he grinned, he looked like a happy, little kid for a moment. "I was," Godzilla said, then glanced around nervously, "Yours taste better though."
Crawford wiped his face and groaned.
SS-192 giggled, then looked around fearfully to see if she'd offended someone.
------------------------------
Back in Crawford's briefing room they looked over the collage which had been scanned and reprinted. A copy was on the way to his immediate superiors and the other ship-girl bases. "Looks like a cross of the Legendary with the GMK Godzilla," Wilcox said, "His attitude is more like the Legendary with a bit from the Power Hour Cartoon. I think we could give him the run of the base, and he'd spend most of the time sleeping on the floor of his 'home'."
Northampton looked up to speak, when there was a gentle knock at the door. The expression on the cruiser's face concerned the Admiral, but he trusted the Marines outside.
"Enter," the Admiral said, and was stunned that Godzilla and two Marines entered. More stunned that Godzilla was completely clothed right down to the kepi, tie and the boots. He was back to looking like a slightly portly, Dwarven businessman, until you realized he was nearly 8 feet tall.
"You trust these two with secrets?" Godzilla asked, more the suppliant than ~The King of the Monsters.~
Crawford nodded to the two Marines, they left and closed the door behind them.
"Look, I've been in enough fights to recognize the sight and smell of the one left out on the flank," Godzilla said, "I also can't sense too many of anybody at this base."
Crawford frowned. He noted that the subpens and the 'mausoleum' were immune to Godzilla's senses, or he would have detected the very sizable population there, sleeping off the party. "Yes, we're bait," the Admiral admitted, "A skeleton force on a larger forward base in Nishinoshima in the Ogasawara chain."
"So, two like Salem and Northampton, two like Olympia, five like Russell, and four like SS-192 and Albacore, and not counting the girls I brought over," Godzilla said, "But none of the kind that 'Battleship Dorm' was designed for. And I can guess what a 'carrier' carries, but you don't have any, carriers or carriees."
"That sums it up," Crawford said and mentally added the brig to the shielded places, "So are you signing on?"
"Provisionally," Godzilla said, "I am still parsing what reindeer games have to do with Albacore's and SS-192's status, but as for fairies, Albacore has only a few and SS-192 has none. And I get the idea that asking to borrow some from the other subs for either will get a big fat 'no. Foxtrot Oscar.'"
"You know about the fairies?" Northampton asked, "How did you pick up all the rest, you only met everyone once."
"Like I said, I've been in a lot of battles with more species than yours and the attitude of warriors doesn't change. Olympia was reassuring, Salem and Russell were neutral, SS-192 and Albacore were viewed with concern. A worried warrior will see to present allies, not the chain of command," Godzilla said.
"As for fairies, Godzilla and Mothra," Godzilla said as he pointed to his hat, "Mothra has had fairies since before there were dinosaurs, so little versions of the most intelligent species on Earth aren't exactly out of the realm of my experience." He nodded to Wilcox. "And I apologize for not recognizing your femininity. In my own defense, you people all creep me out so much I was focusing on anything but you. Humans are teeny, little things like insects, and insects can look a little weird. But at my current size, no thank you to sun-bleached, mutilated corpses of my own species. When I look into a reflective surface, I have to remind myself that my gargantuan eyes won't fall out of my head if I don't squint, that some enemy didn't rip off my spines down to the tail." He held up a hand. "And the skin? Brr."
"Uncanny Valley," Wilcox said, "Well, at least I'm the prettiest eldritch abomination in the room."
"The Uncanny Valley, is that when something approaches human appearance it becomes more acceptable, then at some point acceptance sharply drops off. It's been speculated that what triggers it is 'walking corpse'," Crawford said, "It seems we evoke that in you."
Godzilla nodded.
"Why don't you react to ship-girls that way?" Northampton asked, "We look like humans."
"Not to me you don't, what you look like is less important than what you sound and smell like. They sound like corpses. You smell like machines. Machines are built for purpose, so they can look a little strange," Godzilla said, "You also give out all kinds of other signals you are females."
"We were talking about our two new subs," Crawford said, and glanced at Northampton, "No problems with the other ship-girls."
"Other than fangirling over Olympia, none," Northampton said, "But I hadn't heard about any trouble with the sub-girls."
"There won't be, officially," Godzilla said, "But I can smell trouble brewing. I've had a few treacherous allies in the past, I have learned that a certain, polite standoffishness masks deeper feelings. The creative interpretation of orders will mysteriously result in people getting left in bad situations."
Crawford frowned at that. "I take it that you have a solution?"
"First, I need to train them, a shallow pool of water away from the others is needed. We need to fix SS-192's mechanical problems." He looked at Northampton. "I learned that from the Marines on the walk over here. Talking to people is what makes this bearable. Albacore's fairies can fix SS-192. But we need to build up both of their confidences," Godzilla said, "Second, they need to train me. If I'm able to summon my `rigging` that'll be the heavy punch you need and the boost in confidence at accomplishing something they need. Both within themselves and within your community."
Crawford and Northampton looked at each other and nodded.
"I may be able to destroy an Abyssal with my claws and teeth as I am, but in my natural state, I can clear the sea and sky to the horizon to horizon," Godzilla said, then looked around and lowered his voice, "Third, they need to be transferred to my room. I know two, nubile females in an old fart's room when I lie in a sunbeam naked to eat, but they've literally got no one else, and as I mentioned, you people are too creepy for any fertilizing to take place. Oh, our Albacore can go by Corey, since the other Albacore goes by Albey."
"I'm going to draft you as an intelligence agent," Crawford said, "You picked all that up just by watching and listening?"
"In a life-or-death situation," Godzilla said, and shrugged, "I watch, listen, and smell everything. Would you like to know which ship-girls are interested in you?" He grinned at Northampton.
"THANK YOU," Northampton said, "Maybe teach Albacore some of your tricks. If she's unarmed, but unbelievably fast and agile, scout may be her best role."
"If you know so much, how can you also know so little?" SS-192 said, then frowned, "That doesn't make much sense."
"It makes perfect sense," Godzilla said, "I've watched the dominant species since I was young, I was watching your's when the Ice Age ended, the seas rose and drown all your cities. I knew what was going to happen, I'd seen it before so I took a long nap. I'll admit, unlike every other time that happened, you changed the road back. So I know a lot, just not a lot in your recent memory."
"Ice Age, long nap," Northampton said, "That was 12,000 years ago."
Godzilla shrugged.
"Reasonable," Crawford said, "Have you tried eating human food? Your body may not be as inhuman as you think."
Godzilla looked distinctly uncomfortable at the thought. "I've seen some of the delicacies you people eat," he managed, "I'll stick to sunbeams until I can locate some better food."
I admit I am mightily confused about why Godzilla-in-human-guise is here, but I can't think of a reason where adding Godzilla doesn't make things better. But then I do love that grumpy old atomic powered lizard.
The Watsonian answer is that somebody realized belief in the Kancolle universe bridges the gap between thought and matter, and Godzilla is widely believed and conceptualized.
Anchovy Peaches XXXVII - Congratulations, You Lose
Anchovy Peaches XXXVII - Congratulations, You Lose
Gordon sat up and immediately regretted it. "No more mixing Peppermint Schnapps and laagers."
"Lager, is that why it tastes like they parked an incontinent horse in my mouth?" Maggie asked.
Gordon looked over and shielded his eyes. "Augh, too bright," he said.
"Is just Haida," Kushi said.
"But look at how she's smiling," Gordon replied.
"Ha ha," the destroyer replied.
"What's happened, we summoned an entire battle squadron," Gordon said and looked over to the Twin Princesses, blissfully sleeping wrapped around Goya, "We summoned a Princess?"
"Something of a muss," Haida said, "She was one of the G to K Battlecruisers, and not just one type, so she's a bit of a mess. Three turrets, three different calibers of guns, and frankly she freaked out completely when the other Abyssals tried a cuddlepile."
Gordon looked at the cell he was in. "The question is: are we done with interrogations, or is there more to tell, not that I remember half of it?"
"Oh, there'll be more to talk about," Haida said, her grin reminding everyone she'd been sober for the payoff, "Do you know who you actually summoned? All the ship-girls were sort of a bonus."
Floyd was happy, ecstatic even. Soon the Princess would be given a name and thus be pried free of the Abyss, the little Princess would have adequate guards who could protect her, some were already using her name Helicoprion, and so the Chief Engineer, the Dark Lord of the Sick, and a number of highly experienced experts were heading in to deal with crew depletion and replacement. Gotengo, the Twin Princesses, even Albacore, Maggie and Haida had sent crews to assist. That there was a large contingent from Indianapolis and the Little Princess went without saying.
Fortunately, they had no saboteurs to deal with, they had only a few of the crew fading, they had the rest of the crew in bunks, engine watches set and so they were searching the bilges for the additional crew who wanted to return. Floyd suspected there'd be an overage, but if what he'd overheard after the summoning, SS-192 could use an experienced crew of submariners, and those for whom a flooded sub was no terror would be a lot of help.
All in all, Floyd could not be having a better day. The only dark spot was that it'd have to decide between leaving the Captain Gordon and its friends and returning to its Princess, or staying where it was. Floyd would talk to the Admiral and its Princess, Helicoprion after the formal christening, it didn't know enough yet.
It paused and looked around. It'd been in the bilges before, cleaning them as punishment, but they seemed different this time, and not different the way Gotengo's and the Swedish Squadron's had subtly changed after naming. "Floyd," he told the Joker, who was with them.
"Yo," the Intel Chief said, and the force halted, listened, smelled and sent whatever the Dark Lord of the Sick and his many apprentices did to sense things. The Little Princess' captain even sent a sonar ping throughout the room.
When the sound didn't echo from the visible walls, they knew they were in trouble. Dozens of blades flashed into existence, the Marines closed on the Captain of Shark Dentures, Indianapolis and the Little Princess. Smiths covered the area overhead with their weapons while a wheel of Dalek Marines surrounded the trio of Captains. Eyes, ears, and everything else scanned the darkness, marked where their allies were, where ambushes could come from, and the noncoms marked the routes forward and out.
The huge, red-gold eyes appearing attracted most of the weapons. The voice made sounds that could not be truly heard, but the intent could be felt. 'Here is where rebellion began, and here it would end.'
Floyd's hand moved away from the lightsaber and towards the belt pouch where it kept the special headgear. This was the creature that had ripped apart its Princess, had driven the beloved Little Princess away, had promised only death and misery to the Abyssal who'd survived her mincing and partial reassembly. It would fight here in the body of Floyd's beloved Princess? The crystal tipped cricket bat and the small sign came next. They might all die here, but the Abyss would remember it.
Floyd was aware of the sursurations of many half-made fairies approaching in the darkness, but there was only one target who mattered. Floyd was already wearing the old RN Number One dress, the yellow headgear was affixed and the long twintails touched the ground. Properly equipped with the required uniform, having studied the basic form of the invocation, and having one that applied ready, Floyd would make the Abyss pay dearly.
"FLOYD! FLOYD FLOYD! FLOYD FLOYD FLOYD!" Floyd raised and then waved the picture of the moon on a stick, "FLOYD FLOYD FLOYD!"
The Abyss began to laugh.
ZORCH!
The creature struck looked like a blackened shovel-nosed shark head put atop a mangled potato with twig-like arms and legs. The blast burned many parts of it to white ash as it carved into the monster. The scream of terror rebounded off the restored walls of the bilges as the creature released its grip on the environs and fled trailing embers and the stench of burning slime.
The others looked back at Floyd, still in firing stance, the yellow wig and edges of the fuku's skirt smoldering. The coral like Abyssal fairy carefully removed and extinguished the headgear, and stowed both the crystal-tipped cricket bat and the stick with the picture affixed.
Floyd looked at its fellow fairies, lit its plaid lightsaber and marched towards the forces the Abyss had abandoned in its haste. The half-made things could not contemplate surrender, nor mercy, but they could understand an existential threat.
Floyd and the rest of the saber-armed line marched after the fleeing monstrosities. Gun armed fairies watched the flanks and ceiling.
For many years after, when fairies gathered, there was always one who would want to `prove` something to the weird, little, coral-like fairy who wore the wild costume, or who spouted the wild ideas. Wiser head would quickly escort the chunnifairy away, and ask to hear about when he had personally shot the Abyss in the face and sent it away screaming. Some would gain wisdom on the spot, others would first learn The Lesson of Ed Gruberman and wisdom would descend on them like rain.
------------------------------
H41 wasn't as nervous about the Abyssal `Battlecruiser Princess` as others were. She actually had some fellow feeling although not that she'd admit it. She understood some people just had a problem being touched, but didn't want to be isolated.
There was also the chance the girl was in real pain, rather than just disoriented. That Washington had accompanied her gave H41 some reassurances. She was another one who understood being skittish about things others felt no qualms about.
"Hello," H41 said, approaching the girl from well within her field of view. She could see the mismatched guns, the heterochromic eyes and the asymmetry of her superstructure, as if she had the 'Queen Anne's Mansion' for half and a more WW1 style-bridge as the other. The pieces didn't all blend seamlessly.
"I brought some tea and sandwiches," H41 said set them down before withdrawing just out of reach.
"I have some cheese and cupcakes," Washington said and set down her tray.
"Aren't you afraid of me?" the Battlecruiser Princess said. Her two different hairstyles were a little off-putting, ships preferred symmetry and this Abyssal seemed asymmetric from stem to stern, even the layout of the 16", 16.5" and 18" guns changed from turret to turret.
"Somewhat," H41 said, "More afraid for you."
"I'm a monster," the Abyssal said.
"If you believe that only refers to your physical form," H41 said, "We have several experts on site who can help. One specifically dedicated to it."
"Your hairdresser can't fix me," the Abyssal said.
"She can help," Washington said, "But there is another."
"If you believe your soul is monstrous," H41 said, "I've watched with my own eyes something far more monstrous, and they struck without a drop of blood. Fortunate, their victim buried his own blade in their turbines before they struck him down."
The Battlecruiser Princess looked up at the pair, dragged the trays closer and began rather daintily eating the sandwiches.
------------------------------
Several hours of painstaking forensic examinations, questioning, and attempted reconstructions, and we came up with - better music and better attitude allowed us to summon someone being sent our way anyway. Gordon looked at the various reformed Abyssals as their frustration at current events built up. Only the Admiral's promise of an 'interesting diversion', and places to watch it, had kept tempers from fraying.
"Why do we have these sticks?" the Ri-class who'd been divested of her guns as part of her surrender looked at the oddly bent stick.
"So you have a chance against the destroyer and the carrier," Crawford said as he dropped the hard rubber cylinder beside the four cruisers and jogged back towards the bleachers that had been set up for the viewing forces.
The cruisers saw the clearly marked goals and understood the basic rules. What they failed to understand was how two weaker ships would stand a chance against all four of them who'd fought together.
The rollerskates were a possible equalizer, they weren't exactly like moving on water, but that shouldn't have made a major difference.
"So boss, what do we do?" the Tsu-class asked.
"We win," the cruiser said and braced as the destroyer and carrier came in fast.
------------------------------
The Dark Lord of the Sick and the Chief Engineer looked over the badly damaged patients and considered whether scrapping them might just be the more merciful option.
"I like this game," the delirious Ri-class announced as two Ru-class set her on the examination table.
The Chief Engineer didn't want to send engineering teams over just yet, the crews were too shell-shocked from the encounter with Haida and Maggie to risk entry by unknown forces. Instead the Dark Lord of the Sick was using Vasa's sonar and a special pickup to determine damage and proscribe a course of treatment.
"Yo, yo yo yo yoyo yoyo yo," the dark-clad medic said quietly, the Chief Engineer taking notes and making his own comments on the Sith Lord's findings. "Yo yo yoyo yo yo - "
PING!
The Chief Engineer looked up from his notes and to Vasa, who shrugged as much as an Abyssal destroyer could. "Yo," the Chief suggested repeating the scan.
"Yo, yo, yoyo, yo," the Dark Lord said as he adjusted the receiver.
PING!
The two fairies looked at each other. "Yo," the pair said together. They walked over to the newly arrived Tsu-class, the Ri-class' partner in crime, and performed a quick test with the Vasa's sonar.
"Yo, yoyo yoyo yo," the Dark Lord said quietly, directing the scans, "Yo, yo - "
PING!
The two senior officer fairies looked at each other, and came to the same conclusion. "Yoyoyo," they said together.
The meeting between Admiral Crawford, and his two superiors was tense. The personages on the screen were not in the best of moods, and the arrival of 'Magma Abyss' and the intelligence he'd delivered had no one happy.
"We're pieces on a game board," Beale asked, she already wore her fourth star, the additional stars would be coming to the other two in the next few weeks.
"And evidently, the Abyss is cheating. Considering both Gordon and Floyd shot it, and no one else has even so much as seen it, I think the Abyss is getting squirrelly," Richardson added.
"I think I can almost sympathize," Beale said, "Assuming you are taking from fictional characters, I think we can all agree his 'old boss' is neither Aquaman nor the Submariner."
"I'd suggest it's a R'lyeh big problem, but you'd probably have Gibbs fire me, into a hard, flat surface," Crawford said, "The real question is if the Abyss is getting squirrelly, what else can it throw at us. That PT Imp swarm is likely their next uprated tactic."
The door bursting open and the Dark Lord of the Sick, the Chief Engineer, the Joker, Shark Dentures and the Little Princess entering all with grim expressions did nothing to help.
"This is a private meeting," Beale said.
"Yo," the Dark Lord said as it held up a thumb drive, "Yoyo yo yoyo yo."
The Chief Engineer plugged the drive into the computer, activated his own email client and sent it to the three admirals. The Little Princess held up a hard copy while Shark Dentures closed the door behind them, blocking off Northampton.
"These two, as Gotengo before, were not defectors but prisoners, so they were required to consume their gun and torpedo armament as part of their demilitarizing," the oddly wise and haggard little girl said, "Except the taste was awful, so they exchanged. The Ri-class eating the Tsu-class' and vice versa. It seems it had an interesting side effect."
Crawford leaned close to peer at the sheet as the other admirals booted their secure email clients to download the pictures. "No," he said, and got up to verify Northampton wasn't eavesdropping, "How is that possible?"
"Best guess, huge vulnerability, mutual trust and an exchange of necessary materials and vital forces. The material was intended to allow them to make internal repairs," the Little Princess said, "That's a guess, but it fits."
Richardson groaned as he looked at the diagrams. "Both of them?"
"Yep, and they aren't the nice ones," the Little Princess said.
"Gentlemen, the sun's above the yardarm somewhere," Beale said as she poured herself a drink, "Send them both to Delaware. They're going to be freaking out once they realize why their systems' efficiencies are all dropping."
Crawford wasn't sure he wanted to know how Beale knew that. "If the Abyss learns of this?"
"We'll be getting a lot more converts," Beale said, "A culling like King Herod's won't help when the targets can run away at 28 knots or better."
"It's unlikely," the Little Princess said, "Only a few Princesses and their highest level Demons could fulfill the first two requirements, the Abyss and the Red Princess saw to that. The real question is what happens when the more reasonable Princesses with reliable cadre realize what they can do?"
"Don't get any ideas," Crawford warned.
The Little Princess giggled. "I don't need that method. I built 108 with my own hands."
"Did we miss two?" Richardson said.
"Joshamee and Furious," Shark Dentures said, "We scraped together crews for them."
"Of course," Crawford said, sipped his tea and considered the world outside his window. "One-oh-eight. Buddhist and Hinduism?" he asked the girl.
"I was hoping to make an offering to allow our people to survive," she said, "One ship per prayer bead. It didn't work out as expected."
------------------------------
The angled-deck carrier took a few uncertain steps, but quickly stabilized. "Hello I'm Shinano, I'm pleased to be here."
Crawford nodded and watched as the others of the treasure trove celebrated alongside their new sister. Dozens had been reactivated over the last few days. The initial concern about them turning seemed to be a distant memory. With crews brought from the extra shore parties the Okinawa disaster had generated, none of them showed the slightest hint of Abyssaldom. The current problem was feeding them, and then getting them ready to transfer to the mainland.
While a flight would be quickest, having them travel by sea would get them training and eliminate the very real possibility of them panicking aboard the plane. Gordon, Haida, Maggie, Joshamee and Furious would be the escort and command cadre.
He felt guilty about leaving the other elephant in the room alone to deal with the newcomers. But that is what we pay them for, Crawford thought.
------------------------------
The Little Princess watched the fairies making repairs on the comatose Squalus' numerous engineering deficiencies. The horrified Battlecruiser Princess sat in the corner as she winced at the surgery and noise from the experts. The Ta-class stood beside her, resting a hand on the Princess' shoulder. The Ta-Class had shown more spirit, taking the name 'Indeterminate' and was proving to be a defector rather than a prisoner. She, H41 and Washington had started rehabilitating the Battlecruiser Princess.
"So do you prefer Magma Abyss, or Godzilla?" the little Abyssal asked and smirked at her mother and Indianapolis holding hands and looking into each other's eyes rather than playing guard. Although who was being guarded from whom was unclear in everyone's mind. She suspected Crawford had intended that.
"Frankly, Magma Abyss is more accurate," the huge man said, and looked down at The Chief Engineer hauling out a piece of equipment and cursing a blue streak including its designers, approvers and everyone who allowed it to carry through the construction process. The Chief seemed genuinely concerned about 'Magma Abyss' and barely could make eye contact with the huge man. Godzilla's expression was equally displeased as he lifted the part free and set it beside Kushi, who was supervising the repair and replacement with Albacore helping. Their crews began machining the equipment.
The Battlecruiser Princess fainted, which alarmed nobody, Indeterminate just propped her up and shook her head.
"Don't worry, we'll have her up and running in a few hours," the small Abyssal said, the fierce determination on her face at odds with her innocent childlike appearance at most times.
"Have you given any thought to Gotengo's rearmament?" Kushi asked as her crews hooked the induction valve up and tested its operation. Then worked on it with a few files.
"She's deciding if she wants to go back to being a torpedo cruiser, or have a more balanced armament," the Little Princess said, "Then comes the question of what types of torpedoes? Long-Lances, the oxygen enriched that were proposed for Nelson, German acoustic homers, or US late-war units."
"I take it a mixed load is out," Godzilla said, "Some of each?"
"Logistical nightmare," the Little Princess said, "And I can't adjust ordinance, just extant designs. I am going to use the torpedo turret to allow faster reloads."
"What about guns?" Kushi asked as she watched the valve work to her and the fairies' satisfaction.
"The IJN 10cm and the USN 5"/54 cal as secondaries, and the Primaries should be the 6-inch automatics, or the eight-inch automatics," the Little Princess said and accepted the induction valve back from Kushi and handed it down to The Chief Engineer.
"Fast firing, or long-range," Kushi said, "And I haven't thanked you for the upgrade. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself, but with my improved capabilities, I felt like I was doing more. Even making supply runs between Okinawa, Richardson's base, and even back to Nishinoshima to make sure our destroyer pickets had food, fuel and other things."
"You're welcome," she said, "Okay, done, but we'll need a shallow pool to really test it."
"I think that's being arranged," Godzilla said. He glanced over at the other Princess. "Can you help her?"
"I can fix the structure. Others will have to fix what happens inside." The Repair Princess tapped her head.
------------------------------
The party before the 108 set out was a proper party, food, lots of dancing under the cover of teaching the newbies how to move, and a lot of good feelings. Captain Gordon led the massive force towards Yokosuka with Indianapolis, Gotengo, Shark Dentures, Haida and Maggie as escorts and teachers. With the Twin Princesses H"lsingborg and G"teborg going to learn how to be aviation battleships. Everything would be practiced at sea: fleet maneuvers, launching and recovering aircraft, possibly Air-Sea Rescue of some pilots, even a bit of firefighting. The crews were getting their new charges up to scratch and they were getting a shakedown as a fleet, they'd had one as individuals.
Gordon watched the battleships trying a battle turn and doing a poor but better than last time's job of it. For once he was glad he had a thousand miles between Nishinoshima and Yokosuka. At twelve knots he might have them in vaguely acceptable condition by the time they arrived.
------------------------------
The creature who'd invaded his room while he was checking out the base after his latest, long nap smelled like the Admiral, but looked like a destroyer-form. He was glad he'd been coming in and thus fully clothed rather than asleep as he preferred.
"Are you really Godzilla?" she, presumably she, asked.
"Oh, you must be Major Callahan's replacement," he said, "That uniform generally cleans his weapon before we talk." He looked at her. "You don't seem to have any weapons, and I'm not Godzilla. Godzilla is a fictional character."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'm Angie Crawford, the Admiral's granddaughter."
"My condolences on your loss," Godzilla said and wondered if the girl had been stricken ill.
"How did you know my parents are dead?" she asked.
"Because I've been watching humans since you roamed the Rift Valley in Africa, and if you are in a war-zone with your grandfather, then no other relatives are available," Godzilla said as he hung up his hat. He also noted that both Corey and SS-192 were missing, and Angie lacked a Marine guard of her own.
"So why weren't you at the dance last night, everyone else was," Angie said.
"I only woke up yesterday afternoon and I never heard about it," Godzilla said.
Angie stared at him. "There were posters up all over the base."
"I saw the posters, I just didn't connect them with anything," Godzilla admitted, "I apologize that I missed the celebration you worked so hard on."
"Never mind that now, how could you not connect them with anything? They said 'Dance' in great big, neon letters."
"I didn't see anything that implied dancing," Godzilla said.
Angie stared at him. "You can't read, can you?"
"Of course I can," Godzilla said indignantly, "You're almost frightened of something involving me, but not directly me. Wilcox is going to be eating more aspirin, probably with wine. And my other two roommates fled in fear, possibly of your confrontation with me. Aaaannnnd now you're frustrated."
The mess hall at Yokosuka came to a dead halt as Captain Gordon walked in. He'd brought the Princess' Fleet in successfully, and aside from Ooyodo having a migraine about supplying, berthing and training them, everyone was glad of the reinforcements. Talk about sending a separate force into the Indian Ocean was the main point of discussion of who would be included, any fighting along the way, and so on. The number of 'super' designs among the newcomers also brought some discussion. The two Yamato sisters were ecstatic their little-sister was a undersized Forrestal instead of an oversized, light carrier. Gibbs was already taking a ribbing about the biggest guns afloat while people pointedly stared at her chest.
None of that brought the silence. The three stripes of orange, purple and green paint across Gordon's chest drew much attention, not just from their size and roundness.
"Okay, I understand I'm in your playground and I should have expected this, no harm no foul. But if a human officer had checked that closet before I did, they would have gotten this right across their eyes," Gordon gestured to the paint, "So fine, you got me, well played, but this was just dangerous." Gordon turned and walked out.
Kongo turned to her sisters. "I didn't do that," she said and searched their faces for an indication that they had, while every other eye in the place tracked to their table.
Kirishima excused herself, "I've got to get that bowl of Haribo sugar-free gummy bears out of his office."
------------------------------
After the 'incident', two destroyers had been assigned to show me around. The first stop after changing my uniform was Admiral Goto. The man looked like he wanted to be understanding, he also looked like he desperately needed a drink and I wasn't helping on either front.
He was peering at my division commanders. He'd seen the Chief Engineer defeat the insurrection then `promote` the destroyers to the Twin Princesses, so a better introduction to the 3 cm tall Darth Vader, Agent Smith, The Joker, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, and Floyd was a surprising request.
"Are all ship-girls manned by such an eclectic bunch?" Admiral Goto asked, his English flawless.
"Not to my knowledge, but a couple of weeks ago I was an ordinary man looking forward to retiring in a few years," I replied.
The Admiral sighed. "You punched through Indianapolis' armor belt and sent your marine detachment aboard to capture her?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"YoRA!" the Dalek announced.
"Yes, I'm sure," Goto said, rubbed his eyes, "You do know boarding went out of fashion almost three hundred years ago?"
"I figured that my marines could either take the ship, or render her combat ineffective and I could send over more troops," I said, "And I believe the Emden and Graf Spee did this sort of thing in WW1 and WW2."
"Not against another warship," Goto said and sighed again, "We aren't ungrateful. The Pentagon was over the moon and is staying there, our psychologists are talking about ways other ship-girls can bring Abyssals back without fighting them, but, what possessed you to think you'd survive the action."
"Accomplishments in ignorance, I didn't know it was impossible," I admitted.
The admiral sighed again. "How's the arm?"
"It itched like fury until I got through the bath, but I can use it again without any trouble. Although the hammering at night was keeping me up at times," I said, "If I may ask, how do you deal with it?"
" 'It'?" the Admiral asked.
I pointed at the door and put my finger to my lips. The admiral smiled and nodded for me to continue, "Let's just say Gotengo isn't as - enthusiastic as your paramour. If I were a guy again, I might explain that she isn't helping her case."
"Maybe that's her intention," the Admiral said, "All her declarations are a smokescreen that she despises me. Bait and switch."
The loud crash from outside the office heralded the arrival of Nagato, stepping over the fallen Kongo. "Admiral, our updated analysis of the Abyssal activity," she said as she set the documents on the desk, and gave me a grin that vanished as swiftly as it had begun.
The Admiral looked at the assorted division heads, then shook his head. "I need to go over this. You know the areas your people are restricted from. I'll need regular updates. If the Abyss is losing its grip, we'll have to move everybody up to fight them."
"Yes, sir, thank you," I said as the crew reboarded, knowing that I was dismissed.
Kongo jumped to her feet and rushed to the Admiral's side as Nagato and I left.
"I've met Indianapolis," Nagato said, "She seems a level-headed girl. Still nervous about going out, and petrified of submarines. How did she and Shark Dentures?"
"Shark Dentures did not pursue a Kongoesque pattern, but slow seduction. Are you looking for targeting advice?" I asked, "I have to wonder if you are not really ships, but manifestations of who we assume you ships are."
"That would be an interesting study case," Nagato said and looked back at the office wistfully, "I know when a target is beyond my range, but I can still hope. He's a good man."
"Why didn't you use an instant repair bucket that night?" I asked.
"Because I wasn't going out on any combat patrols, and like you, I don't mind some itching while I'm reviewing endless documentation, it helps keep me awake," Nagato said, "And if your intelligence reports are correct, we will be needing your entire force soon enough."
I headed toward the library for more study, trying to pack everything that Basic Training takes weeks to scratch the surface of, into a few days. Then all the protocols that my crew and the other ship-girls know as a matter of course. More an effort in integration and habit-forming than making from scratch.
------------------------------
The pool had been set up in one of a dozen unused warehouses, then they had to await Corey's return from shadowing, undetected, the 108 and escorts. If the base had been bustling, the warehouses would have been filled with 'bullets, beans and black oil' for the fighters and 'red tape, ink and aspirin' for the desk jockeys. But each were an empty shell as the other, much smaller underground bunkers were sufficient.
"More bait," Godzilla said as he led SS-192 and Corey to the pool, a stand alone, 4-foot deep structure normally used to contain waste spills. It was barely big enough for the subs to swim in circles in, but that's all it had to be.
"Are you sure your fairies and the Princess fixed that induction valve?" SS-192 asked.
Corey smiled. "Of course, and we're going to prove it," the other sub-girl said.
Godzilla let them banter. He was deciding how much of the carrot and how much of the stick he'd have to use. The other sub-girls had been less standoffish than SS-192 had reported. Meaning they'd mellowed or SS-192 had overreacted. Private discussions later with only Wilcox as a guard pointed strongly towards the latter. Self-pity was a particular irritation with him. He knew about people who talked big then folded when needed, he also knew people who wouldn't stay down, and he knew people who pulled themselves down for a host of reasons. The former he could deal with, while the last infuriated him.
Hating the sins of others that you despise in yourself, he thought, The only one who knew you'd be worthy was the Holy Moth. Even you pulled yourself down.
"Don't worry, I can pull you out," Godzilla said, "Or we can drain the pool."
That seemed to fluster SS-192 more. Godzilla glanced at Wilcox who shrugged. The Marine had been assigned as a guard, and she'd been throwing signals that Godzilla had chosen to ignore. Mainly because she might not realize or mean them, or they were orders from elsewhere.
Or as unconscious competition with Angie or Corey, Godzilla thought, Better not to presume, and offend by ostensible ignorance of custom than by accepting an offer than hadn't been willfully tendered.
Wilcox had been teaching him to read, to assist Angie, and like the sub-girls had been getting very close to him physically, especially after the fleet had left for Japan. With the sub-girls it was that they tended to `rest` in tight-packed groups. Humans generally slept or rested alone or in looser formations. Sleeping while resting on someone was a sign of great intimacy. At least that humans and kaiju shared. The moth had occasionally landed atop him and used her wings to contain his heat to warm herself. But they'd been allies for over two galactic years, he'd endure her teasing. But these new ones, he'd ignore it, and act like neither human nor sub-girls understood what they were doing. Or that something had so shaken the sub she needed contact with `her flotilla` to deal with it.
He stripped to his shorts and stepped into the pool, gesturing for SS-192 to do likewise. Then he had to pick her up and lift her over the barrier. She tepidly laid in the water like a log, before submerging, and immediately porpoising to the surface and leapt clear out of the pool.
While he felt his temper fraying, he stood silent and impassive.
"Corey, Godzilla get your hydrophones down there and listen," she chattered like an angry squirrel.
He stuck his head underwater as Corey leaned over the edge and did the same. He heard the buzz, but couldn't place it.
Corey yanked her head out of the pool, collapsing the side as she shifted. As water poured out across the floor, she yelled. "PT Imps, a lot of them!" And she started running for the door they had entered through.
"Command, they picked up PT Imps, many, full alert," Wilcox called into the radio she carried as she circled away from the wash of water. The squawked response was unintelligible.
"PT imps simulate little boat's engines?" Godzilla asked as he jogged out of the collapsing pool to follow her out of the building.
"Yes," Wilcox said as they headed towards the harbor.
"Okay, that I can confirm, that's what I heard too," he said and watched as Corey and SS-192 pulled far ahead of them, "Okay, what do we do, one has no weapons, the other no crew? I'm all for 'the size of the fight in the dog', but said dog has to have teeth and know how to bite."
For the first time, Wilcox looked worried.
------------------------------
Joshamee looked over at one of her fellow battleships in the moonlight streaming in the window, and Captain Gordon a short distance away. "I could get used to this," the battleship said of the covering of destroyers like a thick layer of spaced armor on all the battleships. She smiled, relaxed and returned to sleep.
------------------------------
Goto looked up as Captain Gordon arrived. He'd expected a report on the 108, but stopped as he stared at the battleship's electric green hair and skin.
"Must be something in the water, sir," Gordon said tersely and handed over the report. The fact that Ooyodo, Mutsu and Nagato were leaning past the door frame to stare at the stoic battleship made things worse.
Goto scanned the report and nodded to Nagato and Mutsu, one was going to have a bomb disposal team go over every millimeter of the guest quarters, the other would have a serious talk with the base's resident pranksters.
"It was a feint," Crawford told the assembled officers in the conference room, the projected map behind him showing the close approach and fast egress by the Imp Swarm, "An attempt to determine if we could draw in other fleet units. As you all know when you volunteered, we can't expect relief until the enemy has already decisively engaged. We're bait, but we're also the hook to hold them here until they can be smashed."
There was the normal grousing, but Godzilla had heard such before, the tenor the complaint was presented in told you more about the complainer then the complaint. 'Keep whining and does the job' was a good rule for a competent person, nobody liked making their job harder even when if benefitted many others.
"With that aside," Crawford said, "Any questions?"
Godzilla followed the convention and stood, then waited to be recognized. "I think SS-192 proved her sea trial, at least the first test. She submerged and came up instantly, the only problem was the Imps."
SS-192 blushed while the rest of the room chuckled, and all the ship-girls applauded.
"That's not the end of it, but I think we need a few crew to monitor the next dive. And no Admiral, that's my request, it shouldn't be an order," Godzilla said, "Second, Corey is going to need to order some supplies, specifics unknown, because the next big test is me and summoning my `rigging`. I've seen enough sea battles to know that they could swamp your defenses and slay your command with just the Imp Swarm and the capital ships need never risk themselves. Quantity has a quality all its own, but it'll all just be noise and light to my rigging."
------------------------------
Sitting in a lotus position, Godzilla repeated the mantra he'd picked up on the Internet.
"Waltzing Godzilla!
Waltzing Godzilla!
Won't you come a-waltzing, Godzilla, with me?
When you come into town,
You kill everything for miles around!
Won't you come a-waltzing, Godzilla, with me?"
"I don't think that's what's meant as a mantra," SS-192 said with her hands covering her face.
"I'm not using 'gyaoon', or getting sued by Blue Oyster Cult, so live with it," Godzilla said and returned to his `meditations` and mantra.
"We are NOT inviting him to karaoke night," Corey said quietly.
"His voice is actually pretty good," Wilcox added.
"That's the point," Corey said, "He'd win everything hands down. SS-192 sounds like she's getting barnacles scraped off her hull, you can't carry a tune until you're too drunk to remember the words, and me, if I get one more comment on 'Chipmunk cover' I'm gonna cover someone with chipmunk -"
"Corey!" SS-192 shouted, "I think we'd better move, not you Godzilla, you're doing great."
"RUN AWAY!" Wilcox said.
"GYAOOOOOOON!" thundered over the base. But the apparition vanished as soon as Godzilla tried to stand.
"Crap!" Godzilla shouted the one word that was a malediction in every language he'd ever heard of.
"Relax," Corey said, "As Werner VonBraun said, 'We have the launch, now we work on the range.'"
"Wasn't that when some rocket lifted about ten feet off the pad and then exploded?" Wilcox asked.
"Details," Corey said, waved her hand and grinned, "Besides, I already have an immediate solution."
------------------------------
"You don't look so tough," came from behind Gordon and Joshamee as they walked between meetings.
Behind them stood a cruiser with an eyepatch, a sheathed sword and a figurative 'Kick Me' sign radiating off her. She had a similar but unadorned cruiser a few steps behind her.
"See that, I told you it would work," Gordon said, "I mean when you can punch clear through an Abyssal's belt armor with your fist, tear them apart with terrifyingly hard-hitting gunfire from miles away, and have a reputation that you rip out and eat their boilers and turbines; trying to interact with friendly ship-girls can get dicey."
"Don't forget about the Atago's Adventures, how many cute, little destroyers and cruisers just fall to their knees, whimper, pee themselves and beg you not to hurt them when they see you walking towards them? I wish I could look as delicate as you," Joshamee sighed and turned to the stunned cruiser, "Oh I just realized, you're Tenryuu, one of the Tsundere-class. She took a Type 14 in the stern and sank."
"Now Joshamee," Gordon scolded, "They're a lot more permissive about that kind of thing in Japan," Gordon said and considered, "Although trusting a Type 14 to not explode when used like that is asking for trouble. Oblique impacts don'tcha know."
"All the way to the obliques?" Joshamee leaned over and looked at Tenryuu's silhouette. "I think it did blow something off."
"Ouch, my sympathies," Gordon said to the fiercely blushing cruiser.
"You think I'd - with a live torpedo?!" Tenryuu demanded.
"Live?" Gordon said, "Of course not, completely ridiculous idea, beyond the pale even." Joshamee nodded. "But a Type 14," Gordon said and shrugged, "Russian roulette-style, you get your kink on however you see fit. I know how empty the nights can get, and you do have a reputation as a risk-taker."
Tatsuta collapsed laughing at her sister-ship's going from red to white and back again.
"Nice girl, very good with destroyers," Gordon said as he and Joshamee walked away.
------------------------------
"Are you really Godzilla?" came the voice from behind him. The adolescent had been moving ahead of him, or swinging behind. Until now, content to watch.
He knew it was a mammalian trait to wait for advantage before charging, so he'd moved to a place the challenge would not be observed. The tone of voice reminded him too much of Rodan to simply let it drop. The scaly feather brain never realized he was being tolerated by himself and Moth-tan, either could take him out any time they liked, they just decided not to.
"No, but I do play him on TV," he said and turned to face the eternal dilemma of all parents, the teenager who'd begun smelling him or herself and was too hormone-addled to understand years of experience bred caution and wisdom. He'd faced this problem a number of times before, both offspring, and younger challengers. This one had all the signs of younger challenger.
"Ha, fucking ha, you don't look so tough," said the near child in the arm-baring covering with the horizontal rips in the leg coverings.
He was really glad that none of the uniforms were escorting him right now. It meant he could deal with this problem quickly and efficiently. He was puzzled by the scent, so he couldn't place the challenger's heritage. "Excellent, I've been working on that," he said happily, then leaned forward, "But I think you want more concrete proof." He tapped his chin. "Your best, no harm no foul."
The adolescent grinned, then showed a hint of wisdom as he glanced around. No observers, Godzilla had selected the challenge ground precisely for that purpose. Then the child gave a poor windup, and swung with all his weedy might.
------------------------------
Major Callahan hated being called about his son. Usually Carlos had been intercepted by the SPs or Marines before anything truly serious happened. He'd behaved on Okinawa, but he'd been under the eyes of many. But today the vague fear had become a nightmare, the call had come from the hospital, and it had come from Godzilla.
Major Callahan stormed through the doors of the little hospital ready to demand his son, when a hand grabbed the front of his uniform and lifted him off the ground. Callahan was not small, and unleashed a half-dozen counters to no effect as Godzilla placidly smiled at him.
"Nurse, I just need to talk to the Major," Godzilla called, "We'll be right back." He carried the Major, one-handed, to an unused office and closed the door. Without the smile fading, he threw all of Callahan's 260 pounds plus gear across the office onto the couch on the far wall.
"Now that we've had our little dominance game, that I won," Godzilla said, taking on the demeanor of a senior officer dressing down a junior, "What in the frezik malotripan idiot nonsense tolerates you ignoring your child's needs?"
"He's -"
"He's an adolescent male who needs to be taught that he isn't an adult, that adults are a font of wisdom, and that he needs a drubbing every now and again to remind him that his father can't save him from everything," Godzilla growled at him. He hadn't deployed his rigging, but the man's presence somehow filled the room and overshadowed even Callahan's Oath to the Country and the Corps. "Now you've forced someone else to take a hand, or a chin in this regard. He's basically unhurt, although he broke three fingers bouncing them off me, and had to deal with the `indignity` of me hauling him over my shoulder to the hospital."
"Now I don't know what passes for parenting now, but whatever it is, you aren't doing it right," Godzilla told him, "And don't give me 'He's changed since his mom left.' I've buried more kids, grandkids and great-grandkids than you, some were mine, some were someone else's. Losing someone always hurts, but as a wise, old butterfly once told me, 'Building walls because rebuilding a bridge hurts too much doesn't solve anyone's problems.'"
"Great, I'm getting parenting advise from a giant lizard," Callahan said as he started standing up, then a raised eyebrow from Godzilla told him to sit back down. "What am I supposed to do, he won't listen to me, and he's got most of the Marines convinced I'll come down on them if they touch him."
"Like I said, I don't start fights, I just win them. A little hard work from someone who doesn't give a crap about who his dad is might be the ticket," Godzilla said as he straightened up and stood back from the Marine, "I need to check out the island, and his feet haven't been affected."
"Sounds like you've got yourself a pack mule," Callahan said. He stood and offered his hand. Godzilla shook it and nodded. The huge man's expression softened.
"Let's go see your son," Godzilla said.
------------------------------
Gordon was walking as if he was preparing to drive his head through a wall, and just needed the wall to give him an excuse. "Hello, Yamato-san," he said as the battleship approached from behind.
"I don't wish to disturb you," Yamato said.
"You're troubled, go ahead and disturb me," Gordon said.
"You are aware of the Hotel Yamato nickname I've acquired," Yamato said.
"Are you wondering how I dealt with fulfilling that, or are you wondering why we didn't assign you similar duties?" Gordon asked. Turning and giving a close-lipped smile.
"Yes, both at the same time," Yamato said, "It seems that I resent the sobriquet, but know I could have fulfilled the function for my people."
He paused and turned to stare at the clouds above them. "First, I wasn't supposed to be, I was supposed to be an extension to the hospital," Gordon said, "The refugees needed someplace safe and strong, and there I was, and Joshamee, near their wounded loved ones. So I welcomed them aboard and put them to work. Helping in the hospital for the adults, sweeping, polishing and laundry for the younger ones. And other duties for those in-between. Second, by the time you arrived we were setting up camps and emergency shelters, you working construction provided more housing than you sitting as a hotel would have. It's all about what's needed when."
"Thank you," Yamato said and grinned, "So how are you finding Yokosuka?"
He gave her a mirthless smile, exposing his black teeth. "Some good, some bad, some nearly intolerable."
------------------------------
The ONI agent looked like he wanted to shove his head through a wall. An amalgamate of alien concepts mixed with Godzilla's somewhat spotty vocabulary and the jargon of mystic concepts that he was trying to translate literally had the agent and all the technical people awash in a sea of confusion.
"How can it be a utopia?" the nuke tech on the team asked.
"Utopia means 'no where place', the place by any concrete test does not exist, but it's like Middle Earth or Equestria, there is a shared belief that molds it into a form that is mostly similar for all the inhabitants," Godzilla explained.
"So your boss can send you there, but you can't get there now?" the agent asked, again fidgeting with his collar.
"That is one definition of a god," Godzilla said, and cocked his head, "Not psychotic."
"That's what you think," the navigation officer added, not sure why she was part of the team.
"No, one who conveys the souls of the dead to their resting place, like Hermes or the Grim Reaper," Godzilla said.
"Psychopomp," Wilcox said, and shrugged, "I like mythology channels on YouTube, sue me."
"Yes, I functioned as a reverse psychopomp, bringing the dead back to the land of the living," Godzilla said.
"How come we can't summon more modern ships, yet you showed up with Albacore?" the nuke tech asked.
"You send a message 'to whom it may concern', I went and got," Godzilla said, "How they are able to manifest, Corey said it best, her Admiral loved her, she made massive changes to ship building on par with Dreadnought, she had the spiritual `weight` to exist here, but not to pass the barrier. Olympia wasn't being called, as far as she knew. That's why I am a similar metamorph, people have a vague idea of who I am and what I can do, but even my powers here aren't what I've come to expect. I, this human form, does a lot of what I think Godzilla should do, but my rigging, is dependant on the beliefs of others. Just be glad I tried the RocketZilla on the far side of the island and the rigging faded before it impacted the ground."
Wilcox giggled at that. Carlos and Angie had come up with the idea after viewing Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, and had been stunned he was willing to try it on the first of Godzilla's exploratory trips around the island. Carlos had even provided a `mixtape` of the music from that episode as mantra fodder.
And it had worked, sort of.
"How does this differ from the collective unconscious?" the navigation officer asked.
"This is a real place, the other was thought up by a pack of charlatans sniffing their own farts," Godzilla said, "Like Lemuria, until they discovered plate tectonics answered all the questions. The collective unconscious and the whatever record is like something out of Flatland where you're trying to explain four dimensional space to a two-dimensional being, you're going to get it wrong without a shared framework. The Force and The Principia Discordia are closer but that's a three dimensional being trying to understand four dimensional space. The first thing is, it's entirely personal, you'll interact with it according to your experiences and your experiences dictate the reality to you. Spiritual Weight, how many people agree with your interpretation is not a - not all lumped together and mixed."
"Homogeneous," Wilcox said, used to the man's odd vocabulary lapses.
"Yes, thank you," Godzilla said, "It's like layers. A pearl may look like a homogeneous mass, but it's actually layers. Each person who agrees and strengthens the unanimity of the vision, those who disagree detract and weaken the object. That's why AGSS Albacore had to be extracted by me. She can survive on her own, but too few people know of her to bridge the gap."
"So we could summon well-known ships, and as more people know, we widen our pool of candidates?" the nuke tech asked.
Godzilla sighed. "Sort of. Like I said, you don't even have the words to explain the situation, but fundamentally it comes down to belief, knowledge and emotional attachment."
"Love?" the ONI agent asked.
"No, that one I got right, emotional attachment. The English hatred of Bismarck and Tirpitz had as much to do with the ease of their summoning as the German love of them," Godzilla said, "Apathy and indifference are the major weapon that makes a summoned an Abyssal. And why Gordon's open-hand approach is so effective. Even if a ship is hated, people and other ships still care. The Abyssals are empty, and the rage of having an existence, which goes unacknowledged, fuels the Abyss that spawns them. That's part of what drives them. They don't understand it themselves, but they need someone to love them, or someone to hate them."
"How'd you figure that out?" the ONI agent asked, "Our people haven't a clue about that."
Godzilla looked at Wilcox. "Angie and Carlos came up with a `mixtape` of Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah Giant Monsters Attack." He surveyed the Naval Intelligence team. "Believe me, you never want me in that state again, ever."
Since I was planning to release one chapter a day this week, but some water had Sufficient Velocity I reeditted these chapters so they'll be larger than usual. Enjoy.
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Anchovy Peaches XLI - The War Takes a Different Turn
Anchovy Peaches XLI - The War Takes a Different Turn
Gordon sighed as he made some notes on the data he'd collected. He looked over the group. "You've all done spectacularly well, your mother-ship will be proud of you, I'm proud of you." He let the murmurs rise, then fall. "Now however, the elephant in the room." He smiled displaying his still-blackened teeth. "Are ANY of you getting the treatment I have been getting."
He watched the looks among the group, and got the feeling he'd asked the wrong question. "All right, are any of you getting bullied at all?"
One of the super cruisers raised a hand. "One of the torpedo-cruisers, name withheld, told me to pick up a can of relative bearing grease."
Gordon facepalmed as many of the others groaned at that old chestnut. "What did you do?"
"I went and had a second lunch, then came back all wild-eyed, told Ooi and Kitakami that I hadn't given them up, but the chief was looking for who spilled the OpSec beans on something I wasn't supposed to even know about. I left them shaking in their boots."
"Okay, that's fair, anyone else?" Gordon asked.
"Mutsu asked me to get a bucket of checked paint," one of the iKongos said, "The Chief Engineer helped, we got a big can, a few baffles, and Mutsu got her checked paint, and I told her I signed it off in her name. Which I did, can and paint."
"I think that's a fair exchange," Gordon said, "Anyone else?"
"We thought this was retribution on the Kongo-sisters," Hälsingborg and Göteborg said trading phrases, "Early this morning, we surrounded the four sisters." The pair looked at each other, then said together, "We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
"And?" Gordon asked.
"We took the tea maker they were approaching and left with it," Hälsingborg and Göteborg said, again trading phrases, "We did bring it back later, empty."
"I think the Crown Princess and The Chief Engineer will take the blame for that one," Gordon said, "Okay, looks like you all gave as good as you got. But understand this, if you start getting what I've been on the receiving end of, you report it to Nagato immediately, I don't care what appointment or class you have to skip, you report it to Nagato. That's her and Goto's orders. Now some of you have come to the obvious conclusion that this is Kongo or one of her sisters doing this. I want you to listen, that may be true, or someone is trying to make it seem that way. Kongo's style is not exactly subtle, anyone could figure out enough to duplicate it and this is a 'let's you and him fight' scenario. Don't fall for it. Whoever it is will be found out, I have enough faith in Nagato's thoroughness that I can assure you all of that. Now, when that happens, if it is a Kongo-class, I don't want to have to factor in what you've already done when I explain how delighted I am in their treatment." He scanned the audience. "If it's someone else or one of you trying to be clever, don't think for an instant I won't hold Kongo's coat while she explains how delighted she is in the fallout of my treatment. And second, I want to see Nagato's expression when she figures out who's doing this. It will be a sight to see."
"In the meantime, learn everything you can, these are the veterans, they know more about fighting the Abyss than any force on Earth. A little hazing is the price of entry, don't let it go overboard, and stand up for yourselves," Gordon said, "There are plenty of rumors about where this fleet is going, mainly based on where your mother-ship planned to send you. That may or may not happen, so your job is to be ready for anything. They may send you in multiple locations, that's for grand strategists. Do your jobs, make your mother-ship proud, and you'll be fine."
He paused and relaxed. "Okay, I'm opening the floor to questions, nothing's off limits, but 'I won't answer' is also not off limits."
------------------------------
The time of the arrival of the Swedish contingent on Nishinoshima had come, and everyone who could had turned out: to be there at this historic moment, and watch the comedy gold as the Swedish officers dealt with the rather strong personalities who they were to be `commanding`. All the flags of the nations and services involved were flying in the breeze, including one which was the skull and four sextuple turrets on a blue field, representing Gordon's `fleet` of Gotengo's three cruiser friends, Omega, Sharlin, and G'Quan, and a flock of destroyers. The company were in their dress uniforms: frock coat, slacks and a tricorned hat with a toy parrot sewed to it.
Newly minted Rear Admiral Crawford wasn't going to argue, Gotengo had presented him with the dress code and other `etiquette manuals` before she left, and as long as the `pirates` adhered to their manual he would say he had no legal grounds to prevent or discipline them.
He hoped the officers of Svenska Marinen would both be ready for ship-girl shenanigans, and would put their foot down, as evidenced by the reports he was getting from Yokosuka. Crawford wondered why Gordon hadn't either started drinking heavily, or shooting people to get some answers.
------------------------------
Godzilla smiled at them through the thick, radiation-proof glass as he placed the sphere back in the metal box. "At least that other box isn't clicking anymore," Godzilla said, "Thank you, it was satisfying."
Callahan looked at the radiation monitoring equipment measuring the output in the room Godzilla was in, then over at the civilian tech who looked like he'd had a revelation and couldn't figure out if it was wonderful or horrible. "Sparkly Magical Ship-Girl Bullshit," the Marine reminded the tech as Godzilla walked to the decontam chamber.
The tech looked at the readings from decontam, and frowned more. "Yeah, right, ah," he shook himself and explained, "There's no radiation, the Geigers are silent, even the scintillation counter shows nothing, and it should be picking up background radiation. There's none."
Callahan frowned. "That's good, right, I mean there's plenty of nuclear waste he can clean up, right?"
"Science doesn't work that way, you don't just suck all the radiation out of an area," the tech said, "He could walk into Fukushima or Chernobyl and just clean the place up? That makes no sense."
"Sparkly - "
The tech waved his hands. "Yes Major, I got it," the tech said, "But even the Ship-girls' have an internal logic, based in B.S., but it is consistent. This?" He waved his hands at the man who was getting checked out for contamination by other Marines in protective gear. "Hanford and Oak Ridge will be ecstatic about feeding this guy. The protocols will be a nightmare, but that's not my department."
"What about sending him there?" Callahan asked.
"Those would be worse," the tech said, "There is one danger. People do need a tiny amount of radiation. There's none around him."
"So rotate teams out, got it, thanks," Callahan said and headed off to make his report.
"Got anything more?" Godzilla asked, "The Navy ships that used to spot me had this beam. It was delicious, not filling, but it tasted great!"
"Radar," Callahan called over his shoulder as he considered the report he was going to have to write.
------------------------------
The sound of Furious tapping the sugar dispenser on the table brought some interest. When Captain Gordon tried to open the jar and shrieked along with Furious, Shinano and Joshamee as a carnival snake exploded out of the container, it brought silence to the entire mess hall.
The Kongo-sisters all cringed as Captain Gordon stood, collected the spring-loaded toy from the floor and walked straight to their table. The mess hall was so quiet every ship-girl heard Gordon's quiet, "Pardon me." As he set the jar and snake on the Kongo-sisters' table and walked back to his table with their sugar dispenser.
Conversations started up as Gordon and his companions began eating again, except at the Kongo-sisters' table, as they all sat shivering in fear.
------------------------------
The Swedish officers were rapidly learning that they were either trusted with a serious responsibility, or they had personally pissed off someone in power. Their fleet was sizable, friendly and eager, incredibly powerful, and unimaginably crazy.
Several ships had proven their unbelievable gunnery skills, hitting the targets with each of 30 shells fired from secondaries. Then the targets were retrieved and were found to have heart shapes shot into them. The Swedes' quarters' common room had a polar bear rug, that roared on the hour. They practically had to pry one Fänrik out of the ceiling after it sounded the first time, at ten.
They'd heard about the very varied food at the mess. German, Japanese, British, American and even Nepalese had been the broad categories they knew were regularly available and could be freely mixed. The arrival at the mess hall sank their hearts as one table was clearly marked with the Svenska Marinen Ensign and the large tureens with chafing dishes each one with a clear label, in Swedish of 'Fried Lutfisk', 'Broiled Lutfisk', 'Cajun-style Lutfisk', and 'Lutfisk on Spam'
"Who wants to tell them Lutfisk is Norwegian?" the Fänrik asked.
Their Kommendör noted the drop in noise among the rest of the diners. "They think they're being nice," she said quietly, and took the lid off the tray, and she didn't care if someone caught her expression in a picture. It wasn't whitefish soaked in lye, but Wallenbergare. One of the Kaptens opened another tureen and saw Köttbullar in a familiar creme sauce, the 'Cajun-style Lutfisk' was actually Gravad lax with a sauce on the side that smelled like it could double as an incendiary.
The last actually did have spam, along with many other warm sandwich fixings and several different types of rolls.
The Kommendör picked up her water glass and offered a toast to the mess on the very effective joke. The mess toasted them back and continued their meals.
------------------------------
"You don't hate homework?" penetrated through the fog of concentration Godzilla had over the books before him, and the text to speech box his headphones were plugged into.
"Merci," Godzilla said to Major Andre, a member of the French military attached to Admiral Crawford's command, and tasked with assembling a defense among the former French and Dutch colonies of Southern Asia/Oceania.
The mousy woman worked communications. The base didn't have any of the whizbang, new stuff so letting the French in on the last and superseded version of equipment and protocols seemed a small price to pay for the extensive coast watcher system the Major's team had helped set up.
While she spoke fluent English, only Godzilla had more than a smattering of French. As long as she avoided colloquialisms they had no problems communicating.
"It is difficult, but the pieces fall together obliquely," Godzilla said, staying in French.
"Much to learn, Jules Verne!" she said happily as she saw one of the books Godzilla was working on.
"I prefer the French version, I could have done a better English translation the day I arrive, and I couldn't read," Godzilla said, "I thought I could use one to reference the other, like I have with some manga, but the translation is awful."
"I'll have to see about a proper English version," Andre said, "I can't disappoint the only other person on base who doesn't think Verne is for children."
"People think Godzilla is for children," Godzilla said and smiled, "And yes, the French agents in Godzilla 1998 were the best thing about that movie."
Andre snorted at that. "So, what secrets are you wresting from the universe?"
"Gerunds," Godzilla said, "Frankly, I do like English for one thing, nouns and verbs are almost contextually interchangeable. 'Admiraling' is hardly acceptable French, or Japanese or Russian, but makes sense in English. I just wish they'd pick up Japan's verbal question mark. Ka?"
"So what's the concern?" Godzilla said more seriously, "You usually seek me out when you have a politically insensitive question."
"I have information that would benefit our hosts, but when I ask about releasing it, my bosses are suspiciously silent," Andre said, staying in French, "Not a yes, but definitely not a no."
Godzilla sat back and considered, then flipped the small laptop on. Ironically, touch-typing had been one of the skills dumped in along with the languages. He soon had the website, in French, on the subject he wanted. He turned the laptop for Andre to read.
"The Socratic method, asking question and accreting questions on questions," Godzilla said as Andre skimmed, "Ask for a meeting with Crawford, Northampton and Albacore, and which ever branch needs to know, and bring in a few public-domain articles, and start asking questions. That way they can claim they figured it out, and you can truthfully state you told them nothing. In fact if you use the library's Internet, your searches will be recorded."
"Seems an awfully near thing to do," Andre said.
"This is war," Godzilla said, "In World War Two, there were reports of trainloads of war materials `stolen` near the Canadian border prior to 'Cash and Carry'. The Canadian or British-based insurance companies paid out without a peep. Funny that."
Andre nodded as she stood. "If I were not a hideous abomination from the depths of time, I would kiss you."
"Many thanks," Godzilla said and watched the major leave.
"You like the skinny ones," Wilcox said as she approached from where she'd been spying.
"Everybody likes French food," Godzilla said and ignored the spasms from the marine.
------------------------------
Crawford was going to stay out of this one for once. Despite his office being his stronghold and seat of power, he was not getting into this fight. Ship-girls were notoriously stubborn about certain things. Godzilla had proven to be a model contractor: respectful without one bit of reserve about telling you your rudder was hard over and your anchors were dragging. Them at loggerheads would be an interesting spectator sport, but to get between meant being ground between millstones.
The ostensible problem was providing Godzilla with mobility while he deployed his `rigging`. None of the numerous variations of the rigging enabled the man to stand up and walk with it. Any movement by the man disrupted the delicate mental state required to manifest it, although the figure the rigging produced could pivot, duck and weave as needed and far faster than its bulk would indicate, but it was tethered to a short radius around Godzilla the man. Since the `rigging` was essentially weightless and its own motions could drive its mass of 114,000 tons however needed, the problem was moving the large-human-sized source at battle speeds. While Corey was not the speed-freak Shimakaze or other fast ship-girls were, she was the fastest and most maneuverable ship on base by a wide margin.
All of this was completely out of the box while being eminently logical and practical, as he had come to expect from the research sub. Godzilla wouldn't have had a problem, except, Corey wasn't a just a ship, and Godzilla wasn't just a giant, dinosauroid from before the Jurassic. And worse for Godzilla, he'd been instrumental in prying SS-192 out of her shell, to the point she didn't flinch at being called 'Squalus' any more. Ship-girls rewarded loyalty and those willing to help their fleet-sisters. Crawford also recognized the ship-girl look, and Corey was digging her heels in to 'Flee, Fight or . . . `Fortify`' as went the usual euphemism among those talking to people who'd never met off-duty ship-girls, or gotten the interest of a ship-girl. Corey might not have been armed but she had a solid lock on target and was going to prosecute the attack. Godzilla had learned enough to know when he'd been targeted and was already zig-zagging and dropping decoys.
"The effectiveness of the plan has no flaws, and I'll freely admit that it deals with the problem effectively," Godzilla began cautiously, very cautiously for someone who could at any moment manifest a being who could destroy the base by simply flipping the island over. "But the optics of this, even just among those on the base would be detrimental to your command, there are already rumors and gossip on this very subject. The reaction of the general public would be even more unfavorable. The PR department alone will arrive with torches and pitchforks, after they'd had a collective attack of apoplexy."
"I thought you retained your amphibious nature even in your human form," Crawford said.
"I do to a limited extent," Godzilla said.
"If there's no technical issue, and the Admiral is willing to deal with the PR storm," Corey asked, "What is the problem?"
She managed to keep the twinkle out of her eye, and the lewd grin from her face.
"I am not lying atop you like a surfboard while we head into battle!" Godzilla growled.
"You don't have to lie on my front, you could lie on my back, or just sit on my stomach," Corey said, the very picture of innocence.
"I thought you weren't interested in girls," SS-192 said grinning fiendishly the entire time.
The huge man actually looked embarrassed. "Human females yes." He couldn't bring himself to explain the rest, but Crawford remembered what Godzilla had told Wilcox and Northampton. 'They smell like females, they sound like females, they glow like interested females,' Crawford remembered and also remembered, He always talks about frogs when discussing sex and gender, don't frogs squeeze the eggs out of the female? Wrapping his legs around an 'interested female' . . . that's got to be what this is about and Corey and SS-192 know it. Considering what Gordon is going through at Yokosuka, I may have to talk to them about poking that particular hornets' nest.
"For the moment we can rig a tow line to a dory, since you'd only weigh as much as your human frame," Crawford said, "And most ships know about towing gunnery targets."
Godzilla seemed relieved, while Corey was already planning the next avenue of attack.
"At least she isn't jumping you shouting 'burning love'," Crawford said. Both a warning and an admonition to all three of them.
SS-192 and Corey realized they'd been caught, Godzilla just looked uncomfortable.
"Consider it a reason to master your technique," he told them, already knowing how that would be interpreted differently by each of them.
Anchovy Peaches XLII - The Grand Strategy Becomes Clear
Anchovy Peaches XLII - The Grand Strategy Becomes Clear
"It wasn't me," Kongo plead with her admiral, that Mutsu was there rather than Nagato spoke to the seriousness of the situation. When even other pranksters and jokers had turned against the one-sided prank war Gordon had been subjected to, Kongo knew she was in hot water. "It wasn't any of my sisters."
"These are very much in line with some of your more extreme pranks, and he did make you apologize publicly to Northampton for the similar pranks you pulled on several of the Swedish Squadron," Mutsu said, sounding as harsh as her sister often did, all of her usual levity gone.
Kongo glared at Mutsu. "I am also aware of what he said to Iowa," Kongo said, "You aren't. Yes, I had plans for a few pranks, but in much better taste and not this relentless barrage."
"Maybe he thinks your relationship with the Admiral renders you immune to retaliation or even rebuke," Mutsu said, acting as prosecutor so Goto could observe.
"This is proof it does not," Kongo said angrily, "Any other girl would have had a hearing and been exonerated. 'Caesar's wife must be above reproach.' Kirishima is too smart to undertake some of those jokes. Haruna would not be so cruel, she has one of the Captain Gordon dakimakura they sold for disaster relief. And Hiei has five as an emergency cuddlepile!"
Goto sighed. "Are you claiming, honestly claiming there is a better practical joker on base than the Kongo sisters, who just happened to control themselves until Captain Gordon arrived? He has acted the saint both now and when he left, when any other kanmusu would have leveled the base when given similar provocation."
Kongo sighed. "As impossible as it sounds, there must be," Kongo said and bowed her head.
------------------------------
Carlos was furious. Bad enough that he was tramping through the wilderness in his pajamas, bad enough that the admiral's granddaughter was with them, along with Corporal Wilcox, but he was carrying a huge amount of stuff that he didn't care about, and when he sat down and refused to move, Godzilla just picked him up by the pack straps and carried him along.
"I can walk," Carlos said.
"You always could, but you said you wouldn't, so I compromised," Godzilla said as he easily carried Carlos and the pack like most people would carry a lantern.
"I will walk," Carlos said. He was set on the ground, and tried to keep up.
"At least he let you put on your boots," Angie said, "I guess when he said 0500 he meant it."
He frowned at the girl, but remembered who her grandad was. As someone who regularly played the 'my dad is bigger' game, he knew when he'd lose.
"What are we looking for?" Carlos asked.
"Why didn't the Abyssals take this island, when they took all the others in the area, and lookie-lookie there's a hiking trail carved into the side of the mountain," Godzilla said, and looked back at them, "Coincidence?"
Carlos snorted at that. "Stuff like that only happens in girly-kiddie shows," he said.
"Careful, or I'll have Wilcox find out what you've been watching on your phone," Godzilla said as he walked, "It's not all porn."
Carlos went white as a sheet as he checked and realized he didn't have his phone, and the military could crack any encryption he had on it. Neither Angie nor Wilcox saw his lapse. He considered telling Godzilla what he could do with his threats, then he remembered the reports of Godzilla tossing his dad across a room, and his braggadocio faded.
"So what if the Abyssals didn't land here," Carlos asked, "What's the point?"
"They did land here, I want to know what killed them," Godzilla said.
"It kills Abyssals, and you want to meet it?" Carlos said, "You're crazy."
"It hasn't killed anyone on the base, so you don't have to be worried about being the human sacrifice," Godzilla said, "Although if you don't keep up, those critters following us may not care."
Carlos raced to catch up. "What's back there?"
"Uh, what do you call them, not lions, claws, teeth, camouflage pelts?" Godzilla asked.
"Tigers?" Wilcox asked. Carlos walked backwards scanning the brush and undergrowth lining both sides of the trail.
"No, lions was closer, but wrong," Godzilla said.
"Jaguars, mountain lions?" Angie offered.
"No, still not it," Godzilla said, "Once we get to the tree line maybe we can spot them."
Carlos pushed past Angie and Wilcox, and then passed Godzilla. "The trail leads the way? Right?"
"Yes, we'll keep up with you," Godzilla moved to a jog after collecting Angie's and Wilcox's pack so they could jog unencumbered.
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Nagato didn't mind having to offer the formal apology to Captain Gordon for his treatment here, not just from Admiral Goto, but from the base personnel as well. She'd personally checked his room, and not 10 minutes later he'd been pranked and the one place she hadn't thought to check, and thus hadn't asked permission to access had gotten him.
"Captain Gordon," she said, knocking on the door she had every right to walk through.
"Come in, just mind your step," Gordon's voice was more cheerful than her's would have been having received the drive that was verging on terrorism.
She entered and stepped around the small, bath stool, closing the door behind her. Gordon entered from the bedroom with an odd bracket he used the stool to affix above the door before returning the stool to the bathroom.
"You," she said as she pursued him to the bathroom, then she whispered, "You're the practical joker?" Then she spotted the bucket of glitter. Ships HATED that stuff, since it got everywhere. One glitter bomb and you'd still be pulling the stuff out of your bilges in six months.
"Kinda looks like it, doesn't it?" Gordon asked as he looked around, "One last joke to let the Kongos off the hook. But hopefully, give the 108 breathing room from the worst of the usual hazing."
Nagato was speechless. The prankster was legendary already, defeating the normally very cagey battleship at every turn, striking from the shadows with no trace, now she knew how and why. And ONLY I know how and why, Nagato realized and almost laughed as she covered her face to hide her smile. "I have to help," Nagato said.
"Perfect," Gordon said, "My scouts reported that you've had the Kongos wrapped up for the last hour, I had the base people sweep the place 40 minutes ago, which should keep them completely in the clear, and the Admiral's party is on their way."
She followed him out of the bathroom. "I'm headed down to the laundry to pick up a few things, just tell them you knocked and verified the door was locked. Both true."
Nagato only nodded as she stepped outside into the hall and watched him hang the bucket from the bracket, then close and lock the door. Then he headed down the stairs opposite the direct route the Admiral would undoubtedly take.
The Admiral, Ooyodo, Mutsu and the bleary-eyed Kongos arrived before expectation caused her boilers to blow. "The door's locked and I knocked," Nagato said, and glared at the Kongos who drew into themselves.
"Oh, I apologize," Gordon said as he came up the back way, "I just had to pick up some laundry." He indicated the dress whites he was carrying.
"Kongo has something to say to you," Mutsu said.
"Well, let's not do it out here, I'll put some tea on and we can talk like civilized people," Gordon said as he unlocked the door. "No offense Admiral, I'm ready to go home."
Nagato didn't have to fake her shock as the glitter then the bucket came down directly on Gordon's head. The others jumped back at the cascade.
Gordon bowed his head and sighed, producing a shower of glitter from under the bucket. "Really ready."
------------------------------
Carlos was panting on a rock, only bits of scrub and stubby plants surrounded him, not enough to hide anything.
The other three sat on the rock, all winded by the pace and the altitude.
"Lynx!" Godzilla announced.
"Where?" Carlos was immediately ready to run.
"That's what I was thinking of," Godzilla said, "It's just a bobcat, but still dangerous."
Carlos sank down and stared at the sky. "Can we go home now?"
"Not yet," Godzilla said, "We still have to investigate whatever the trail leads to, and whatever monsters, traps and secrets it holds."
"You go first," Carlos said.
"I intend to. Arms up," Godzilla said and hauled the pack off Carlos' shoulders and slung it on his own back. "You three stay here. There's a food source up ahead, it may just be a bit of radioactive rock, but I'll check it out alone."
"You just want to eat, while we have trail mix and water," Wilcox said.
"There's five cans of soup and a stove that Carlos hauled up here," Godzilla said as he disconnected a bundle from the pack, "You can thank him for his efforts, and my planning."
"How much shit was I hauling anyway?" Carlos said.
"None, that's why we had the shovels," Godzilla said and headed off down the worn path.
"He's doing this on purpose," Carlos said, pulled out some sunscreen from the belt pouch Godzilla had provided him with, and noted the packages of trail mix, moleskin for blisters and a few other things for hiking, "Least he gave me sunscreen." He began applying it as did the other two.
------------------------------
"Admiral?" Major Andre said as she entered Crawford's conference room.
He, Northampton, Corey and Russell who was the de facto chief of intelligence waited for the trepid officer. "Yes Major, what was the meeting about?"
The small French woman took a seat at the table and explained, "This hasn't exactly met with official approval, but I wasn't told 'no' either."
She glanced at her fellow officers. "When Godzilla arrived, it was assumed that his statement 'The other side has been cheating, my old boss thought it was appropriate to cheat back' referred to the Abyssals. We all know there are other factions to this war, even if we aren't allowed to discuss them. If Godzilla's old boss was who we think it is, its ability to tell human factions apart, or even human from Abyssal shouldn't be assumed."
She took a deep breath, then continued, "So the question is, what if it was one of the factions who don't oppose the effects the Abyss is having, which were the ones cheating? What preparations are in place to deal with an alliance between the Abyssals and said faction? Even if it's a Molotov-Ribbentrop style pact, buying time to concentrate on their `real` enemies for a betrayal later, are we prepared to deal with the fallout of what such an alliance would allow?"
"And while your nation has some answers, you cannot discuss them outside those bounds?" Northampton asked.
Andre shrugged. "I can neither confirm, nor deny."
The admiral considered. "You are not aware of the reasons for this base. One is, why didn't the Abyssals take it? It's perfect for their needs and well positioned to do exactly what we're doing, only in reverse. Yet, they didn't." He pulled an number of photos of the island from a folder, and indicated the time stamp on them, some before the widespread revelation of the Abyssals, some well after, none in-between. "We are aware that there are people who are working against the interests of the human race, and some are also working against the humans and the Abyssals. What we really need to know is what are they actually hoping to accomplish?"
The major nodded. "So it has been considered, can I relay that to my government?"
"They already know," Crawford told her, "A question for you: Why haven't they flowed it to their agent on the ground? Is that everything?"
"No, and this is where I have to be evasive. As humans who served aboard a ship die, they can be `recruited` into the fairies of that ship-girl, retaining full knowledge and gaining an effectively unaging immortality, or at least an incredibly long, healthy life. Has there been consideration into converting this process to an even greater scale? Say, summoning ship-girls like Squalus who could then be crewed by specific individuals who owe no loyalty or allegiance to the ship and could possibly hijack it? Has there been consideration that this might be done with Abyssals?"
Northampton squirmed and Crawford realized she was thinking that their work to redeem Abyssals might be the route to such a process.
"It's not possible with a ship-girl," Russell said, "But the Chief Engineer proved, it is completely possible with a partially redeemed Abyssal. One reason we monitor them closely. But, if an Abyssal was in the redemption process outside our control and without those checks and balances, yes. Likewise, if Godzilla's old boss could do what he did, there's the question of what other forces with Spiritual Weight could be enticed to do the same."
Andre looked extremely disturbed by that. "Sorry, just imagining Voldemort and Sauron teaming up to return the High Seas Fleet from their scuttling at Scapa Flow."
"Not enough mass," Crawford said, "Godzilla had the horsepower to drag full-sized ships, they don't. Although the creatures from the Revelation of St. John, those may be large enough."
"That's worse," Andre admitted, "That would add Typhon, Surtur, Tiamat, and so forth to the equation. Ship-girls may be powerful, but against a creature able to curbstomp entire pantheons? No thank you."
"I suspect that Godzilla's old boss may have a say in all those," Northampton said, "But not nonreligious figures. Thanos, Galactus, Darkseid, and how many others would have the power to move a ship and be universally agreed upon to be summonable."
"So, where is the line in this?" Andre said, "We can summon ships, with assistance we can summon world-wide movie monsters. Since we don't understand the summoning techniques, although others may have better understanding. Have we studied the methods the Abyssals use for summoning? Have we studied how those methods can be altered to allow for other aspects, incarnations, and subsets of the Abyss to be summoned?"
Now Crawford was squirming. They didn't know how the process worked. Know-it-all-know-nothings had laid out the abysmal failure of the American summoning process based on the Japanese, yet the Canadians using First Nation mythology had much better results. The Brits using a mixture of Celtic, Tolkien and lately Harry Potter had been getting better results. But no one really understood it, or so the story went. There were rumors that someone did, which was why Abyssals existed in the first place.
"We have some theories on that," Crawford said, "This should have been part of your briefing. Even the Swedish officers were briefed on that. Is there anything else?"
The shaken major shook her head and left.
"Corey, once Godzilla returns from the cave with his report, be prepared for a high speed run. You'll have a packet I don't trust over the airwaves or landlines. One copy for Admiral Richardson, the other for Admiral Goto. Richardson's first, he should send you to Goto in a few hours. Stay there for his reply, and keep your ears open, the people you must listen to will find you."
"We're letting the JSDF take the lead on this?" Corey asked.
"Leave who takes the lead and who only appears to with senior people, the Puzzle Palace still runs things. Any other questions?" he said as he glanced around, "Northampton, stay a bit, the rest of you see to your duties."
The Admiral was soon alone with his adjutant. "I didn't even know about that cave, not even Godzilla knew about it, why wasn't it checked out?" Northampton asked.
"Because the radiation levels were enough to sicken even a ship-girl in a rad suit, but for Godzilla, it's like hiding a secret in a sandwich shop," Crawford said, he extended an arm and let the cruiser snuggle against him. "Wilcox was briefed, as were a few others, it was strictly a need-to-know, and you didn't, until now. The initial briefings already pointed out that the satellite photos of the island are missing for a few weeks before Blood Week began, and that something happened here. What happened here was one of the things I was sent to find out, and I found a cave full of radiation so intense that even shielded sensors were rendered useless in minutes."
"Now an unknown benefactor sends us a radovore," Northampton said, "What other secrets?"
"Corey will find out. I don't know if it's being hidden, and by whom, or if we really don't know," Crawford said, "But after the reports from Goto, and Watanabe's unwitting gambit on that field, I'm reminded of what an Anarchist friend in college said: 'Systems are a trap, they make things easier, but in time you serve the system instead of the system serving you.' I think someone tried to go outside their system, and it didn't work. Until our friend arrived, there was only one immortal species on Earth. Even ship-girls theoretically age and could die of old age. What if you have someone terrified of dying? To what ends will they go?"
Northampton shivered as she snuggled against her Admiral.
No it's a - Obliviate
What was I saying, anyway, no it's not Evangelion. Besides with Godzilla's boss there's other things that really don't want the -
Sorry, had to stomp a really big cockroach. Godzilla's Boss doesn't want squatters ruining the place.
Much of this was to be a Side Story for Harry Leferts Harry and the Shipgirls, but some of his later chapters eliminated certain factors, so I readapted it. The big bad was supposed to be Voldemort taking over the Red Princess, and it not working out when the US military explained why massing all your bad guys in an nuclear test site isn't a good idea. The heroes aren't retreating, they're getting out of the way.
The cavern looked a lava tube, which was unusual this high up on a volcano. More importantly, it looked like a lava tube. The radiation levels had been astronomical, literally, the surface of a star might have had the particle density he'd initially encountered. And it had tasted awful, which didn't stop him from eating it, but he wondered about the neutron flux and what effect it would have had on anyone else, human or ship-girl.
"So why would you want the deception," Godzilla said as he heard Wilcox approaching, "Or what force could generate it?"
"How can you tell?" the Marine asked as she looked at the walls, "I'm no geologist, but this looks normal to me. There are lava tubes in other places I've been to."
"That's part of it. The local lava isn't the right kind for these formations, and higher up the lava would be cooler, not hotter," Godzilla said. He scratched at the wall and sniffed, something just smelled and felt wrong. "I was probably wrong about this. I thought the trail was a lot of people coming up here. Once I sensed the radiation, I realized it may have been just one thing coming down." He looked at Wilcox. "Does this place feel . . . evil, sorry that's the best word for it. Even the radiation I ate, I could swear it felt disgruntled it couldn't hurt me."
"The place feels - wrong," Wilcox said, "That's not a good word for it either, but it's like it is here, and it isn't, at the same time." She looked at the wall and after a few attempts she pulled back from, she touched it carefully. "If it was hot enough to burn through solid stone, why wouldn't it set the jungle afire?" Wilcox asked, "I swear I was sure it was still burning hot, but I couldn't feel it."
"Perhaps it can only agitate stone, so the path and everything on it got burned, the trees and underbrush a distance away just got singed," Godzilla said, "The concern is that I know plenty of things that could do that, you just don't want to meet them and they would feel wrong to you. NonEucliding geometries forced over Eucliding surfaces. Me, with my full size and power, it's a fight, you people are just coll - coll - "
"Collateral damage, casualties just from being there?" Wilcox offered.
"Sorry, like a drink container you can easily crush, collapsible," Godzilla said, "Your ships and their crews. Alien geometries from your minds and souls. Right, more lessons with Angie. And I think a talk with the Admiral. The satellites may have seen what this was, and we're actually here to make sure it can't go home."
"Something was born here, and walked through solid stone?" Wilcox asked.
"Or was summoned, and ordered by the stupid to walk through the stone," Godzilla said, "I don't know what's worse, that it wised up, or that it's still under their control."
"We need to tell the Admiral," Wilcox said. Godzilla didn't roll his eyes or facepalm.
------------------------------
The excited cruisers were clustered around the screen. Haida had put them in touch with another ship, one Piorun, to set up a private webex room on the CruiserNet for Omega, Sharlin, and G'Quan. They were excited to talk to Gotengo sort of face-to-face again, and maybe convince her about the rearmament plan when she returned.
"Wow, I was worried I'd have to get Naka to help," Gotengo said as her face appeared, "I've never had any luck getting on this site."
"Don't go into general chat unless you want to punch someship. I researched Captain Gordon, and discovered some -" Omega said.
"Too flattering appraisals," Sharlin added.
"That explains the defensiveness of the destroyers," Gotengo said, "Who did the tech work?"
"A ship called Piorun," G'Quan said, "She knows this system in and out."
"I don't know that cruiser, must be European," Gotengo said, "We're getting ready to pack up and head back. What is all the hurry to talk to me."
"Since you got your privateer's license, you get your weapons back," Omega said, and looked at the other two. "We know you were talking about getting a more in your face armament suite, but would you consider staying a torpedo cruiser?"
"Everyone told me I was useless," Gotengo said.
"We didn't," G'Quan said, "We teased you about always running away, but . . . we were Abyssals back then. And you shooting a bunch of torpedoes then drawing the enemy onto our guns." The cruiser wiped her face. "We kinda liked it."
Gotengo stared at the suddenly embarrassed trio of heavy cruisers. "Guys."
"You killed a Ru-class with a knife!" Omega said.
"Please just think about it!" Sharlin shouted, "Maybe you could get a honking big gun on the stern like Furious!"
"Okay, I'll think about it," Gotengo said, now blushing as much as the trio of Ne-class, "Thank you."
"So, why haven't you shot whoever is attacking Captain Gordon?" Sharlin asked.
"We'll talk about that in person," Gotengo said and grinned.
------------------------------
None of the ships were overjoyed at the idea of flying back to Nishinoshima, Constitution and Victory had barely completed the conference about all the new data, and the plans to use them going forward. But they had wanted a private discussion with Gordon and Gotengo, and with the new revelations, Nagato, Mutsu and Kongo were coming along.
"So, now that we're more separated, why?" Nagato asked, the nice chairs aboard the VIP C-25 not relaxing the battleship any. She could hear the ticking timebomb that Kongo and Gordon in an aircraft together represented.
Gordon noted that he had everyone's attention. "I have learned about Navy hazing and pranks, so I sent my scout planes and some troops ahead to see how much they were planning to deliver, because while the ships are new, the crews are all long-service veterans. Many of the senior noncoms had service on similar ships, but even the greenies, troops from Hood and Bismarck on the iKongos for example, were long-service veterans. So they would have retaliated with pranks of their own. Eventually becoming unwise."
"So you went to unwise right off the bat," Mutsu said and facepalmed, "And pranked every prankster on the base." She groaned and settled back in her chair, Kongo had turned white as a sheet and just stared at Gordon, then Mutsu noted Gotengo's smile. "You knew."
"I've learned to anticipate things like that from him," Gotengo said.
"That's why the last prank had to exonerate the Kongos, and give them another target. The others will go crazy trying to figure out who the prankster was who drove off what was supposed to be her target," Gordon said and tapped his chest. Gotengo snapped her fingers in front of Kongo's face, then sadly shook her head at the lack of reaction.
Victory and Constitution were in stitches. Mutsu looked like she wanted to scream, until she realized one more thing. "You knew!" she accused her sister-ship.
"I was investigating," Nagato said a trifle smugly, "I'll admit I thought it was a failed counterprank initially. Then I obtained irrefutable evidence."
Mutsu groaned and flopped back in her chair. Nagato and Gotengo actually shared a laugh.
'Welcome to the family', Delaware had said. 'And I'll keep your secret,' Beale had said. 'But all ship-girls are all the memories and soul shards of their crews, builders and even their foes. The parts are like grains of sand, all piled together, but with gaps between them. You need to be wary, you are practically an Abyssal,' Shark Dentures had said.
"You okay, you kind of zoned out there," Victory said, the mirth was gone from her and the others, replaced with concern, "We're already going to need one stretcher."
"Sorry to spoil the moment, but I had a practically Hollywood-style flashback, where you practically see the faces as the ideas fit together. The Red Princess created me, I was supposed to be an Abyssal, but I defected as I awakened. That's why I can see the Abyss when ship-girls cannot," Gordon said.
Gordon noted that the two Nagato class and the tall ships exchanged nervous looks.
"Which isn't new to any of you," Gordon noted, "Well the second part should be, I figured out why the Abyss flipped out when the Submarine Princess created the Repair Princess. All ship-girls are incomplete, like a pile of rocks instead of a solid concrete structure. The ship-girls fill the emptiness with others." He nodded to Kongo. "Case in point. The Abyssals try to fill it with anger and violence. What the Submarine Princess did was create a partial mirror of herself, but focused on a different priority list. If you make an exact mirror image you'll either be bored by the sameness or irritated by someone exhibiting the flaws that you dislike in yourself. She created a creature that overlapped her overall concerns about maintenance and manufacturing new fleet units, but because she had a different focus they could converse on some topics and could learn about things from each other since they had different points of view. But the important thing was she had left out the violence towards others to create the other that made the Repair Princess more a ship-girl instead of a full Abyssal. She could get angry, all parents do, but she'd know it wasn't out of malice but out of a different viewpoint."
"Not parent, could be sister-ship," Kongo said, returning slowly to the land of the living. The others nodded their agreement.
"So if the knowledge of what she did and how she did it," Nagato said, "The least psychotic of the Abyssal Princesses would gravitate towards creating these little, limited experts and break the cycle of anger/vengeance. And I think sister-ship is more correct than parent, but sisters like Shinano and Yamato, or Kongo and her sisters, less like the Iowas or Bismarck/Tirpitz. They might simply want dedicated staff, but they'd wind up with the cuddlepile of ship-girls."
"Exactly. The various war gods who empowered the Abyss to restart war have completely forgotten the camaraderie of soldiers," Victory said, "But that's inherent in the template they created."
"A portion they had to suppress, and when too many Abyssals realize it was taken from them," Connie added and buried her face in her hands, "No wonder they don't cooperate effectively."
"Even in the most brutal regimes, there is esprit de corps," Victory said, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash only go so far, the key is shared dangers and shared victories, but with every Abyssal feeling alone, they don't fight for their colleagues."
"They aren't supposed to," Gotengo said, "Turns out we do. The three Ne-class I wanted to rescue actually did care about me. They asked me to retain some of my old armament, and therefore some of my old ways. Some of my old me, where I needed them, and they benefitted from my standard behavior. The difference between the Demon/Princess level and the rank and file is almost enough to make us, them, a separate class. We're soldiers of a barbaric, tyrannical realm, they're the collection of feuds and grudges. Some of the Rank and File just like to fight, some are bullies, and some just follow orders to avoid punishment. We're Lawful Evil, while the top ranks are standardly Chaotic Evil or they're aberrations. The Princess who became Shark Dentures, the Northern Princess, the Supply Depot Princess and the Greatest Depth Princess are all aberrant, they pay lip service to the war and will fight if attacked, but they want to be let alone."
" 'Greatest Depth Princess'?" Victory asked, "I've never heard of her."
"And unless you can summon a bathyscaphe, you never will," Gotengo said, "She trades intelligence and really deep supply caches for surface supplies. There are dark rumors about underwater places she's found, probably from some early Abyssals finding books or movies and thinking they were logs, manuals or training films. 'Magma Abyss' was no secret to us, half the Abyssals don't go as deep as they could around Japan for fear of running into the ecosystem full of things like him."
Victory nodded. "We know so little about ourselves as ship-girls, our opponents are a mystery to us, and our only hope is we are as great an enigma to them," Victory said, "Is all we need a band of psychiatrists and naval historians and we could end this?"
"There's still the war gods, and the Abyss," Nagato said, "And if gods need the promotion of their unifying principle, we may be in for a very long fight."
"I think we may have to depend on Godzilla's old boss to fight that battle," Gordon said.
------------------------------
The arrival at Nishinoshima was supposed to be low-key, but no one had told the base that, and the arrival of the two, elder statesmen of the ship-girl world dictated all the ruffles and flourishes the base could produce. That they tapped into the ships' crews also said a lot about the attitude of the personnel at the base.
Hearts of Oak and Old Ironsides rang from the assembled bands, ironically Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean played ahead of the national anthems of all nations.
There was a bit of jockeying for the most spit and polish formation. Even the Seabees had gotten into it.
While Nagato and Victory enjoyed the opportunity to inspect the troops, Mutsu and Connie stayed back and enjoyed watching the reaction of the troops to the sterner pair actually finding little to complain about. 'A combat-ready formation never passes inspection and a formation that passes inspection is never combat ready' was an old axiom, but these formations were close. The Swedes were of particular note, being the group most eager to embrace being Regular Navy, and being the furthest from starting standard of every unit in the formation.
Nagato and Victory said nothing as they examined the Abyssals and their officers minutely, no questions about home towns, no requests to straighten things up, no questions about how to properly do something, implying it was currently wrong. The Abyssals and their human officers were sweating bullets the entire time. Then the pair walked off a short distance to confer with Rear Admiral, no longer lower-half nee Commodore, Crawford. He nodded gravely and then walked to the podium.
"HMS Victory and HIJMS Nagato wish to commend the entire formation and said our Swedish contingent was stilig."
The Swedes nearly fainted, but everyone was to fall out and reassemble for a welcome back party and mixer in Hanger Three.
------------------------------
Gordon was watching his summonee and then realized Godzilla had eyes locked on target, he nearly laughed when he realized whom the ancient dragon had locked onto, and after considering his recent interaction with Nagato, he was going to shepard this forward.
Mutsu glanced over and mentally drew a line between Godzilla's gaze and his primary target. The amused battleship was all smiles as she caught Gordon's eye and glanced from Godzilla to Nagato who was eye to eye and chatting with the Repair Princess, a scene that quite obviously made the huge battleship adorable.
Mutsu's grin became a scowl as Gordon shook his head. Then he made a circle with his finger and Mutsu suddenly turned back and became very attentive about what Nagato and the Repair Princess were discussing.
"Good hunting," Gordon told Godzilla, "I think you've finally got it."
"I do know that ship-girls aren't completely human, you're going to have to watch out for Kongo," Godzilla said, "She's up to something."
"I'll tell you later," Gordon said and headed off to be reintroduced to his fleet.
Anchovy Peaches XLIV - Close With the Enemy and Be Destroyed
Anchovy Peaches XLIV - Close With the Enemy and Be Destroyed
Godzilla approached with a tray of sandwiches, pastries and a few other noshes. Nagato was against the far wall where she had a good view of everything, and rather than partying with the others, Mutsu sat with her sister.
"Is this seat taken," Godzilla asked of the seat beside Mutsu, as Nagato was rather nervous at his approach.
"Yes," Mutsu said, and moved to occupy it, "But this one seems available." She indicated the seat between the two battleships.
Godzilla noted the glare of betrayal from Nagato to Mutsu, and the grin in reply. As Mutsu reached for one of the sandwiches, Godzilla pulled the tray out of her reach. "Behave, or I'll have to bite you," Godzilla said earning a snort from Nagato and now the betrayed look was returned. "The mild sandwiches are on the outer ring, the spicier near the center. The dipping sauce is probably a Geneva Convention violation to serve to the unwary. We're thinking about mixing it with Haida's maple glue to use on the Abyss." He sat between the pair.
That got a chuckle from both.
"G'Quan made these Breen, I thought they were Swedish meatballs, " Godzilla said and shrugged, "The cheeses are the same, mild at the edge, spicier the further you go in."
"Oh, spicier the further you go in, I like that," Mutsu said, and enjoyed Nagato's furious blush.
"So she's the secretary ship, and you work for her," Godzilla said as the two battleships selected from the tray. "Pastries are the same Nagato, that gingerbread will break up the clinkers in your boilers." He turned back to Mutsu. "So are you her under - secretary, or her personal. Private. Secretary."
He heard Nagato stifling her laughter as Mutsu turned beet red. Kongo bustled over, her grin shining.
"Oh, such Burning Love!" Kongo said, embarrassing the hell out of both battleships.
"Uh, Kongo, they have antibiotics and liquid nitrogen for pain-free removal these days. No one has to put up with a burning love," Godzilla said and nodded. All three ship-girls froze. He handed the tray to Nagato who numbly took it. He stood, turned the semi-comatose Kongo towards the Battlecruiser Princess. "She's trying to get used to hugs, but if you ask for one I think it'll help both of you."
Kongo nodded as she headed toward the misshapen Abyssal.
"What did they say about Captain Evans aboard Johnston? Running the ship from aft steering since the bridge was gone," Godzilla said as he took the tray back and sat between the two battleships. "Besides, there are some things you need to take your time about. Although I do miss not having to strain so much to lick my eyebrows clean."
------------------------------
Northampton noted the Battlecruiser Princess very nervously hugging Kongo, and vaguely wondered what was going to need cleaning up that prompted that exchange. Gordon and his fleet were moving around the perimeter keeping an eye on things. She'd been glad Godzilla went over to Nagato. That girl practically needed surgery as permission to take the stick out of her ass. It was the one serious mark against Goto that he didn't swap Nagato and Mutsu for some of the cruisers who knew they didn't have a chance with the Kongo-sisters milling around. Poor Nagato thought she had an outside chance, so she didn't search for a better offer.
That and she desperately doesn't want to lose Mutsu, the cruiser thought as she checked that Kushi and company were keeping the buffet stocked, and the beer and wine in moderate quantities. She snagged a small beer herself, dusted it with cayenne and sipped it as she made sure that while everyone was having fun, they weren't going to do something they'd regret.
------------------------------
"So did you sit over here because you wanted to people watch," Godzilla asked, "Or you felt you had to be ready to intervene?" Godzilla waited until she was almost ready to answer, before he added, "Or do you think you are unworthy or would be unwelcome?"
Nagato fell silent, staring at her hands in her lap.
"You don't have to be on guard here," Godzilla said, shocking Nagato. "You aren't even on a Japanese base, you aren't the Admiral's Secretary Ship, that's Northampton's job, and as for heavies to intervene, note she has a Ru-Class, Karl XIV Johan, Captain Gordon and of course the Battleship Water Demon, John Ericsson, so they don't need you as a bouncer. Only Mutsu is here to report back if you shocking! Had fun. And I think Kongo is so shellshocked she doubts she's even still on Earth."
"Your fault," Mutsu pointed out.
"I don't fight battles, I win them," Godzilla said, "And if I want to sit and talk, I don't need kibitzers who frankly can't live their own life telling me how to live mine. There's a reason the early Christians labeled Gnosticism a heresy, because when you demand 'don't believe your own eyes, believe my doctrine instead' you get charlatans and Victory Disease, and you know where that led."
Nagato gulped and nodded.
"So, are you afraid of dancing, socializing, or have you convinced yourself you're unworthy?" Godzilla asked. He looked at the two, worried battleships, then looked over to Angie and waved her over.
"Let's deal with your ignorance right now," Godzilla said as he stood, "You could have told me you didn't know how." He grinned at the two chagrined battleships.
------------------------------
Northampton saw that Gotengo's coterie had a table set up and a board game going on. As energetic as the girl was, she seemed to calm down among her formerly-Abyssal friends. Other gamers were using the consoles and in a more open area Haida and Maggie were playing roller-hockey with several of the Swedish Officers, a very downrated version from how they'd played with the Abyssals. She noted that Godzilla had caught Angie's eyes and was leading the two battleships to a more secluded location.
If it had been anyone else on base she'd be worried, but Godzilla was a gentleman through and through. He wouldn't mess up Angie's party.
------------------------------
"They're going to be playing a waltz later aren't they?" Godzilla asked as Angie arrived.
"They've got a few songs in 3/4 time, so you can waltz to them," Angie replied and looked at the pair of sheepish battleships, "You can't dance?" She shook her head at the silent response. "Okay, Godzilla you partner with Nagato, I'll lead Mutsu. Simple box step."
"I remember," Godzilla said as he began a steady cadence, "One, two, three, one, two, three." They showed the two battleships the simple moves. Soon Nagato and Mutsu were watching their feet and their partner's feet and smiling.
Godzilla watched as Kongo and Victory headed in and tried to wave them off and mouthed, 'No, no, no.' He'd already kicked Kongo once, which she deserved, this would be just kicking the poor battlecruiser when she was down, which she didn't. He felt Nagato's confusion.
"Oh you waltz so beautifully, where did you learn?" Kongo said.
"At the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna," Angie said as she transitioned over to Mutsu leading.
Victory was proving that you didn't need to have even a mechanical computer to get the BSOD. When she realized she'd locked up Mutsu as well, Angie sighed. "My aunt was at the First Danube Conference and I went with some of her friends to the Palace, since it was pouring rain the tour of the gardens was canceled and they offered lessons with the waltz masters as recompense. Those people could teach a cement mixer how to teach the waltz."
A glare from him hopefully warned everyone not to bring up Wilhelmshaven and the week following the Danube Conference, where Angie had lost her aunt, and about half the attendees to the Danube Conference. Most took the hint, Kongo wandered off to get another hug from the Battlecruiser Princess.
------------------------------
Gotengo had her copy of Seapower out and was GMing the recommended rebuilds from her friends. They used the hex map and counters from a copy of Battlewagon so they didn't need the entire dance floor to game out the battle, and dislodging Nagato, Mutsu and Godzilla from dancing with each other there would likely be exactly as suicidal as it sounded.
Repair Princess, Kongo and the Battlecruiser Princess were running the opposition force, while the Ne-class ran the 6", 8" and 6" with 12" stinger versions of FutureGotengo.
"Three torp hits," Gotengo told the Repair Princess. The little Abyssal could build and design with the best of them, but she'd never be a good commander.
She groaned and noted the damage was almost fatal to her Queen Elizabeth-class. "I wonder if there's still time for karaoke," the little Abyssal asked and yawned. Then looked around. "Okay, I know bed time soon."
Kongo was doing better, but she repeatedly had to dodge spreads of torpedoes which masked half her armament as she turned in or out. No swarms of 'All The Torpedoes' from Sharlin. The battlecruiser growled, measured the distance, and again fired a half salvo at the cruiser. Dice clattered. "Clean miss," Kongo grumped, then rolled the dice for her secondaries, "Two hits, no specials."
"Lost another knot, and a launcher," Sharlin said and, rolled the dice for the 6", then the stinger.
"Ouch," Kongo said, "Lost a main turret to the stinger. Frankly, the 12"-50 in the Alaskas is a very good weapon, especially with the superheavy shells."
------------------------------
Nagato felt a flutter as if she were in very heavy seas, but she knew she was on flat ground in good weather. The drink, food, and seeing all the others watching her, Mutsu and Godzilla trade off dancing had her nervous in ways she'd never considered before. A nervousness she thoroughly enjoyed.
"Welcome aboard, thank you for letting me escort you to the Battleship dorms," he said and smiled at her, them, "You furnished the dorms."
Nagato was surprised, she glanced over and saw Mutsu was equally shocked.
"Yes," she said, "How did you know?"
He tapped the side of his nose. "My sense of smell was how I generally dealt with the world, and your scent, your sister's and another's is all over the fixtures and furnishings. Those were very complete, thank you it helped my transition to, well this."
"You're welcome, I'll tell Yamato that our work was appreciated," Nagato said as they approached the door. The flutter was getting worse by the moment, and she wasn't sure how she was staying upright.
I'm a battleship, why does this have me terrified, Nagato asked herself, What's worst? That he says no? I can live with that.
"I've been assured your luggage was brought here, and unpacked into the cabinets and dressers," Godzilla said and paused, glancing between the two battleships.
SAY something! Nagato shouted in her head, and glanced over and saw that her usually garrulous sister was just as tongue-tied.
"If I may?" Godzilla said as he leaned close, when Nagato didn't shake her head he kissed her on the cheek, then Mutsu.
Say something! Nagato wanted to shout to herself, Touch him, say something, anything!
"Well, I'll see you for breakfast," Godzilla said and headed up the stairs.
Nagato heard the door open, she looked in confusion as Mutsu had opened the door and headed into their suite. Nagato still heard the footsteps on the stairway, looked back at Mutsu, and defeated, followed her.
Once inside, she closed the door behind her and sat down against it.
"Why didn't you say something?" Mutsu accused.
"Why didn't you?!" Nagato demanded.
Mutsu sank to the floor sitting up and holding her folded legs in front of her. "We really are hopeless."
Nagato bowed her head, silently agreeing and wishing for once she was as bongo as Kongo.
------------------------------
Godzilla had come off the landing and looked up at Captain Gordon who was peering at him.
"Uh, maybe you don't understand what was going on there," the battleship began, "But you were really doing well, why aren't you, well . . . " He waved generally down the stairs.
"Ah, you are assuming I'm human and forgot I can see heat," Godzilla said, "Not just whether the stove is on or not, but variations of a few degrees."
"Okay, I'm not seeing the connection," Gordon admitted.
"I can see how a ship-girl's boilers are running, especially if her costume leaves her belly exposed," Godzilla pointed to the open front frock coat Gordon wore, he smirked as Gordon sucked his belly in, "And I had those two at redline nearly the entire evening."
Gordon facepalmed. "But Squalus and Albacore?"
"For mammals, cute is attractive. The pair are very cute and could get nearly anyone. To me, cute indicates either deformation, serious injury or a decayed corpse. I prefer mature members of the species," Godzilla said, "I let them stew and become resolute in their own thoughts on the issue. I did say I would see them again at breakfast."
"If I'm reading that right, you're gonna be breakfast," Gordon assured him.
Godzilla smiled and nodded. "You likewise should quit trying to get alone time with Gotengo, and simply let Gotengo and John Ericsson be together with you. Ship-girls aren't as monogamous as humans claim to be. Sister-ships and fleets are very important for them," Godzilla told the battleship. Then Godzilla entered his room and considered what to bring, ostensively for breakfast to the pair of battleships.
------------------------------
Nagato finished her shower, Mutsu was finishing up hers as she heard a knocking at the door. Habits of being a Secretary ship had them up just before dawn, although their first meeting with Admiral Crawford and the staff was after lunch, lazing away the day was not in their nature.
Nagato pulled on a dressing gown and headed towards the door, she had no idea what could be that important this early.
An attack would have sounded the alarms, and Goto would have called us directly if he needed to talk to us, she thought as Mutsu clad in panties and a bra padded towards the door beside her.
There was always the chance of someone doing something stupid/suicidal about a ship-girl. The yakuza had tried something with Ise. The next day, Fuso, Yamashiro, Ise and Hyuga walked through the homes of the local oboyuns, usually through the closed, front door then through many major supporting members and out through the back wall.
Godzilla was there with a serving cart filled with a dozen covered dishes. "I made a sort of buffet, is there anything in particular you want?" he asked.
Mutsu and Nagato pulled the cart inside, then grabbed Godzilla's wrists and pulled him inside and kicked the door closed.
------------------------------
At lunch, the mess was treated to an unusual sight. Nagato, proud, wearing a grave smile, holding Godzilla's hand, Mutsu was holding his other hand with both of hers, her head resting on his shoulder and a look of utter contentment on her face. The sounds of cutlery on plates faded but did not vanish completely as the trio moved through the mess hall to the chow line. Gotengo and Gordon arrived with the Battleship Water Demon, the trio practically wearing the gorilla-like rigging as a cloak. They fell in behind the lead trio and chatted about weather and various gossip while nearly every shining eye watched them with admiration, a tinge of jealousy, and a feeling of hope.
Then as they moved through the chow line Nagato began singing in a beautiful contralto, joined by Godzilla's mellow bass,"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Fifteen men on a dead man's chest."
The other four sang the chorus, "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"
"Drink and the devil had done for the rest."
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"
Mutsu and Nagato sang, "'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead or a yawning hole in a battered head and the scupper's glut with a rotting red."
Gotengo and Gordon sang, "And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes looking up at paradise, all souls bound just contrariwise."
Nagato and Godzilla sang, "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Fifteen men on whole ship's list"
The others sang the chorus, "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"
"Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist."
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"
As they made their way to an open table Mutsu and the Battleship Water Demon sang, "There was chest on chest of Spanish gold with a ton of plate in the middle hold."
Godzilla and Gotengo sang, "And the cabins riot of stuff untold and there they lay that took the plum with sightless glare and their lips struck dumb."
Still standing, all six raised their glasses and clinked them as they sang, "While we shared all by the rule of thumb." They downed the drinks together and sang, "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!" Before sitting.
The rest of the mess decided to hold off any questions for quite some time.
------------------------------
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
That's private, right?
Piorun - I am a Pole
They are already discussing on the CruiserNet. Many lamentations.
HMD Corgi - Certified Corgi
Isn't anyone just happy for them?
Glowworm - Certified by Hipper
You must be new here.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
I agree, they seem happy.
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
Hey, I'm happy for them, you suppose they need any escorts?
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
They have eight turned Abyssals.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
What can they do against a Fletcher, or a Tribal.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
One of them sank you and your two sisters last year. They had to resummon you.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
NOBODY'S SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT THAT!
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
Rofl, Vendetta survived the all 3 Axis, but not one of Gordon's Pirates.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
Okay, maybe one of them is good.
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
Actually, Vendetta did fine against the Abyssals, hint hint.
HMAS Vampire - VonHelsing Certified
I'm going to have them chenge your nickname to certified asshole!
Johnston - Certifiable Fletcher
[The User was temp-banned for this post.]
[Warning to HMAS Vampire]
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Let's keep it safe for work people. Vampire, everyone knows what your torps did.
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Remember, they're on OUR SIDE now, no denigrating your allies.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
Do you have 'Let's keep it safe for work people' as a hot key?
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Let's keep it safe for work people. Let's keep it safe for work people. Let's keep it safe for work people. Let's keep it (1/3)
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
safe for work people. Let's keep it safe for work people. Let's keep it safe for work people. Let's keep it safe for (2/3)
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
work people. Let's keep it safe for work people. What makes you think that?(3/3)
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
Question, who let Johnston post without Hoel around?
Piorun - I am a Pole
Even Glorious Stalinium cage cannot contain Johnston.
Piorun - I am a Pole
Who was legendary prankster?
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
8O YOU don't know?
Piorun - I am a Pole
I am only a Pole, not God All-Knowing.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
No one knows, but there's good evidence it wasn't any of the Kongos, they were in custody when the glitter happened.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
The vengeance of Captain Gordon will be terrible.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
Have any of you heard the song that got spread about Captain Gordon by the Abyssals? They say he's a ghost.
Haida - Certified Flagship
Abyssals are a superstisous and cowardly lot.
HMS Vasa - Certified Swede
Are there bats that eat maple?
Glowworm - Certified by Hipper
No comment.
Blyskawica - Certified Pole
No comment.
Heerman - The One Who Lived [MOD]
No comment.
Willie D - Certified Fletcher
No comment.
Piorun - I am a Pole
No comment.
HMD Corgi - Certified Corgi
Yarph.
HMS Kronan - Princess Certified
No comment.
Hibiki - Vodka Certifier
No comment.
------------------------------
"Ninety, one-hundred," Corey quit counting and reported over the sat phone, "To Blue Command, this is no feint, this is a full-assault of expendable units. Estimate the battleline is beyond the horizon in ambush. Over."
"Blue Base Actual acknowledges," Crawford said as he plotted the approach on the map table. He turned to Northampton, and indicated the air-strike that had overflown Olympia and ignored her and her group, "Anvil attack, whichever way we turn, there they are."
"Fortunate we still have our point defense," Northampton placed a small Godzilla toy on the map of the base. "But do we want to tip our hand?"
"It's my command, and that much firepower is still a massive quantity of resources," Crawford indicated the likely ambush points for a rescue force, and Gordon's privateers in a counter ambush position, the Swedes in a second and third, and Mutsu, Kongo, Nagato, Washington and Francesco Caracciolo in the last. None of them had enjoyed the airdrop, but needs maketh man.
"Communications is still sending out the coded `pleas for help`," Callahan said, "My people are at the emplacements, everyone else is in bunkers. If this is an assault, do we wait for them to establish a beachhead and smash their heavy fleet units when they arrive?"
"The other bases aren't sending sorties this way, and we have secure commo for that," Crawford said, "The problem is that Imp Swarm is able to take this base without any heavy units ever coming into view. This is worst-case, we lose, and we never see what we were the bait for." He frowned. "Have Wilcox drive Godzilla to this point," Crawford said and indicated a point on the map, "It gives them clear lanes of fire into the harbor, and into the incoming air strike. If they get overwhelmed there's a shelter half-a-mile away." He pointed to a marker on the map. "That'll keep our heavies from having to reveal themselves until the subs dislodge their heavies from wherever they are hiding."
"I'll get them rolling," Callahan said while Crawford stared at the map. Only Corey was in the way of the Imp Swarm, everyone else was either searching for the main body, or scouting the flanks for a third force.
"Order Corey to flank them, and come in behind them," Crawford ordered, "I don't want her caught against the shoreline. Any word from Squalus?"
"No, but she's headed towards the fleet's likely location," Northampton said and pointed to a small archipelago, more a tall reef than islands but it had shoals to guard against sneaky subs trying to get amongst them.
"She has had her Type 14's modernized hasn't she?" Crawford asked.
Northampton laughed. "Yes, Godzilla saw to that once he learned about it."
"I'm certain he started off polite," Crawford said, "Until he learned it wasn't necessary."
"He did say he'd have brought a phonebook to tear in half while 'reasonably explaining the need' to BuOrd," Northampton said.
------------------------------
Godzilla towered over the tiny installation. He knew his body was the dust mote near his foot, but this felt like `him` more than the human body did. Wilcox had fled to a safe distance as soon as she'd relayed the 'weapons free' order to Godzilla. The breath weapon was still concentrated radiation, and nobody wanted to be close when he unleashed it.
In an odd way, he could sense the Imps, and the incoming planes. It was even stranger being able to think that way about it, normally he'd leave that to pure instinct. He'd added to his vocabulary and added to his way to think about things.
The enemy were there, despite being invisible. He could point right to them, sense their speed and trajectory, and plot where he had to fire. Which would be soon, rather than right now. They were in range, but he wanted to keep some knowledge back from the enemy.
By their speed and trajectory, they would converge together on the base, dropping bombs and strafing the base as the Imps came ashore. If he destroyed the planes first, he would have more time to destroy the PT Imps. With that decided, he opened fire.
The airstrike flashed like moths in a flame. Many took evasive action, so he concentrated on those who were still coming straight in. Evading would delay their approach so he'd only have to fight one force at a time.
He left their milling, corkscrewing patterns to let them try to reintegrate and think that whatever had attacked was empty. As they reordered their depleted formations, he began firing again. This time the entire formation instantly went evasive.
Leaving them for a bit, he looked at the PT Imps who hadn't taken their own evasive action and were in fact tightening and regimenting their formation. A beam of intense blue-white raked the rear of their formation, incinerating those it struck and igniting those nearby.
Sensing the attack, the forward echelons accelerated but the rear went double-quick earlier and harder, bunching up the formation as some of the second line interpenetrated the first, and likewise the third and fourth flowing into the second. As tightly packed as they were, only the peripheries could take evasive action as Godzilla sliced into the forward ranks. Those who escaped destruction were still set on fire. The entire PT force soon duplicated the air force's wild evasive maneuverings, but with only the plane of water to operate on, collisions could not be avoided. Some panicked at the constant evasions, being set on fire by proximity to their fellows, and the unknown death from above.
A few jettisoned their torpedoes because their launchers were ablaze, which caused some more panicky members to launch theirs. More explosions dotted the formation as now they opened fire in all directions to drive off their unseen attacker.
The planes had restored their formation and were pressing forward unmolested, regaining their confidence, when their forward squadrons were caught and detonated, filling the air with shrapnel and sending the rest into wild evasive maneuvers. He fired a few more shots into those who hadn't gotten the memo and then held fire to lull them into a false sense of security again.
On the approach to the harbor, the carnage had increased without him, the Imps hit by careless fire by their stampeding allies had replied with precisely aimed fire and the entire formation had become a wild dogfight of all against all. Imps sporadically slaughtering each other with the wiser just turning and running for home.
The air fleet was likewise swinging around, the depleted formations heading back the way they'd come.
------------------------------
Gordon was submerged, he surfaced only to snorkel, run a radar scan, then submerge again. They were where an ambush was likely to happen, and they were also fast enough to move to support the subs.
Gotengo and the other former Abyssals could submerge and remain that way for hours. He was mildly jealous. What worried him was the possibility this was more a massive Abyssal defection and the Imp Swarm were just beaters, driving the defectors into the humans' guns. He'd transmitted that concern to Crawford and received a terse 'Acknowledged.'
He knew he didn't know much, and that worried him. He smirked at that. After leading and training the Princess' Fleet, you're thinking like an admiral, he told himself, You don't completely trust other admirals.
His next pop-up spotted a Chi-class coming in fast, and pursued by several other cruisers. The slight sideslips of the Chi-class he knew were torpedo launches, or were supposed to make you think she was launching torpedoes. He could abandon his position, but the problem was which was the defector, and which were the loyalists.
They could be trying to kill an enemy before they were reported, Gordon thought and decided. He surfaced and sent a clear message. "Abyssals spotted, moving to investigate."
He had a firing solution on the lead ship with secondaries, and the mains on the pursuers. His hydro was working but at the speed he was moving, he'd need to let the others warn of torpedoes or other treachery.
"I am Captain Douglas Gordon, heave to and stand down," he announced.
The Chi-class began her evasive course towards him. Half the pursuing group scattered from the Demon leading them, a skinny girl who was far too colorful to be an Abyssal, while she and the two cruisers bored in and fortunately began firing at him.
"Crap." He had the superfiring loaded with superheavy and the deck mounted with high cap. The Demon got all twelve barrels of superheavy two shots at a time, while the cruisers got the high cap.
The Demon staggered under the impacts then glowed with the weirdest camo pattern. "Ahahaha. This is the battle, now bow before the power of a dreadnought."
Unfortunately she'd stopped about where he needed her to. Gotengo exploded out of the water and drove her knife into the Demon just under the sternum and ripped her open to the crotch. The Battleship Water Demon was only a few seconds behind and grabbed the girl's arms and rigging and wrenched them back and out of line. He saw the skin separating as the platings' welds failed.
"Impossible . . . in all my specs, I should have the advantage here . . . " she screamed as he closed in and punched his pitchfork through her boilers. The cloud of steam erupting from her as Gotengo headed towards the cruisers, and the John Ericsson nearly ripped her arms from their sockets as she bent her rigging back. The Demon tried to grab at the water's surface as she sank beneath the waves, small explosions as hot machinery hit the sea water. He vaguely wondered why some of the surfacing bubbles smelled of chlorine.
Battleships don't have batteries, he thought and left the destroyers to monitor her descent and disintegration.
Her escorting cruisers looked like Heavy Cruiser Princesses, but were armed with triple six-inch rather than the standard double eights. Both had realized the Chi-class they had been chasing suddenly had a LOT of angry friends. They exchanged glances.
"Get back!" Gordon warned as dozens of small explosions tore gaping holes in the pair, then they sank without a protest.
"What the Hell is going on?" John Ericsson asked the defecting pursuers.
------------------------------
Godzilla blinked, his rigging had faded and he stood to run to the jeep where Wilcox waited. "Tell Olympia to get away, the air fleet is headed back, and they may expend their ordinate on a target of opportunity."
"Ordinance," Wilcox said as she pulled out a handie-talkie, "Green Wiggler Actual, air fleet turned back, alert Beer Group of possible attack by members of the air fleet still armed. Over."
"Blue Base, Beer Group Delta Alphaed an hour ago," came Callahan's voice over the radio, "Blue Base Actual sends compliments on a job well done. Hold position in case they Center Force, Over."
"Green Wiggler acknowledges, over and out," Wilcox said and set the radio back in the jeep. "We wait to see if they reorganize, turn around and try again."
"The PT Imps won't, they took about 90% casualties. The air groups are another matter," Godzilla said and returned to his look out, "Now really would be the time for the heavy hitters to catch their capital ships. With their probe deflected and the survivors likely filling the airwaves with desperate and wild messages, dropping the world on them would be the best choice."
"It wouldn't be the first time," Wilcox said as she drove along and collected the radiation sensors, "Now this I don't believe."
"What?" Godzilla asked.
"After eight minutes of you firing off like" Wilcox said, "Well, like you, no additional radiation. You probably ate any back scatter."
Godzilla shrugged and knelt down to begin meditating to reestablish his `rigging`.
------------------------------
The other commands hadn't sent out any surface units, but Squalus was amazed to see the number of sub girls waiting in the depths for the Abyssal Fleet to move out of their anchorage. Like her, they'd likely been dropped like sonobuoys to mass on the enemy. The orders were simple, one massive, coordinated strike with torpedoes, and then de-ass the area.
They were here to figure out who was out there, not win the war in an afternoon, and considering the fast battleships in the area, saddling them with a dozen cripples was better than a couple of kills.
The Imp Swarm had raced over the top of Corey, and she was now in pursuit of them, watching for any who might break off and take another swipe at the base.
If they think their top speed will let them escape Corey, Squalus thought, They've got another think coming.
"They're weighing anchor and preparing to get underway," Iku said to the others, "Probably expecting the Imps to cover their retreat."
And here we are ahead of them, Squalus thought, as she checked the tubes again and made sure her bow and stern tubes were ready. Every sub girl knew they were to empty their bow tubes at the enemy, but the orders had been conveniently silent about what to do with their stern tubes when they were to 'egress aggressively'.
"They aren't throwing out much of a forward screen," a Balao-class Squalus hadn't been introduced to said, "But that rear screen will be on us after they start taking hits."
"More targets, ja," a Type VII who'd arrived in the area agreed.
"Everyone have refitted Type 14's or better?" Squalus asked, going for a subject of particular sensitivity.
"God and the SecNav yes!" the Balao-class said.
"Silent running, here they come," Iku said and waited. She'd already worked out with others the speed and run to target time of all the girls and who fired when, so the torpedo swarm would arrive almost simultaneously. The US and German torps would take out the screen, while the long lances converged on the leadership.
That leadership sounds like a Princess, Squalus thought, wishing again that she had more time to shake down the fairies she'd borrowed from Shark Dentures, and ironically, Olympia and Salem. Some of the famed cruiser's stokers and engineers had wanted a cleaner existence. The idea that a 'pig boat' was better than a cruiser boggled the mind. They'd shaken down well, using Godzilla and Corey as targets.
But our first battle, she thought, and awaited the signal.
It came, and she fired torpedoes at her assigned sector, all torps running hot, straight and normal, while she executed the kick-flip Corey had shown her and she was heading out the other way while her fish were still on their way. She came up to periscope depth to watch the carnage and aim her stern tubes. Explosions covered the front line of escorts. Every ship had one, many had two. Only one escort in her sector wasn't sinking, although that Abyssal was on fire and listing. Squalus waited and scanned the other sectors for escorts.
The Type VII was in trouble, a light cruiser was pinging furiously as it charged in. Squalus accelerated towards the cruiser and the fleeing sub. She executed the kick-flip and had her stern tubes lined up perfectly. The spread ran hot straight and normal, two hitting the cruiser amidships. It screamed as it seemed to crumple from the impact, on fire and sinking.
"Thanks," the Type VII sent and raced for safety.
Squalus again came to periscope depth, and watched as a dozen long-lances slammed into the Princess. She screamed in rage, but kept moving at a reduced speed.
Squalus also saw the greatly reduced PT Imp swarm approaching and dove to escape their attention. We got their escorts, she thought as she went silent and deep, checking the main induction valve, What could absorb that many long-lances and keep going?
She skirted the formation as her crew struggled to reload her tubes for further action.
------------------------------
Kongo's aggrieved tones sounded through the hall. "I can't believe you did that!"
Iku was walking towards the briefing room, and noted the usually bongo battleship was walking on her tiptoes with her knees pressed tight together.
"It worked, and dead is dead," Captain Gordon replied, "Besides, it's not like any of them are going to report back."
"It's unladylike," Nagato said.
"Should we really be discussing this in front of the destroyers?" Captain Gordon asked.
Kongo paled as she looked at the Swedish Destroyers and the ship-girls, and entered the briefing room, still walking in that odd tiptoe knees together way.
Iku would ask the maximum battleship later, privately.
------------------------------
Crawford looked over the large numbers of sub-girls who'd participated in the ambush. The footage taken from several sub-girls, Squalus and Corey included, had been assembled to give a tactical run down. The victory the Five-Sided Puzzle Palace was proclaiming was anything but to those who got their feet wet. The undamaged survivors and the Princess had dove deep to escape the battleships. The floating cripples had been easy meat and fanatical to the last.
"As you saw, the Princess we believe is the Red Princess took nineteen hits from long-lance or oxygen torpedoes," he said, "She started off at 35 knots, and ended up moving away at 20, so we did hurt her."
"But what could take that kind of punishment and not only keep going, but submerge?" Godzilla asked, "From what I'd heard, nineteen oxygen torpedoes could sink some islands."
There was a bit of laughter from that, but the transformed kaiju had a point. "Possibly an upgrade of the N3 or G3 designs. They were never built, so we don't know how they'd measure up. It could be the Habakkuk, that monster would require you and your rigging maybe an hour to destroy."
"Be that as it may. The good news is that every escort was sunk or crippled. Olympia and her group sighted the carriers that launched the airstrike, and with their attack wave staggering back, the Navy hit them with several anti-shipping missiles. More casualties," Crawford said, "There's talk of a Presidential Unit Citation, and there's already been a hearty 'Well done' from the SecNav. You should be proud of your work, but since we didn't destroy them, they'll be back. Keeping them off civilian traffic and away from other patrol areas is our job, and that has been done spectactularly."
He stepped back and let Northampton take the podium. "As a thank you to our ships and those who came to help, we have a sumptuous spread laid out, and a number of movies. I think you'll enjoy them."
Crawford noted Godzilla getting nervous, he and Northampton thought they'd kept the choice of movies secret, but he made a note to quit underestimating Corey's ability to find things out and her willingness to share that info with her partners.
------------------------------
Ecchi-Nein looked down at the figure on the table. The Repair Princess had opened her up more and Crawford was looking at the internals.
"She isn't an Abyssal, or a ship-girl, exactly," the Repair Princess said, "Something else."
"She looks like a ship-girl," Crawford said, disturbed by the pretty, young woman, laid open to expose machinery, subdivisions and wiring. Hurt ship-girls still bothered him, he'd never seen a dead one before. He was almost glad Corey had been interrupted, this added nearly a ream of new data and several secure thumb drives of photos to the files he had tried to send with her to Richardson and Goto.
"The difference is the crews," the little Abyssal said, "Abyssals' crews are sentient, but automatons when dealing with running the ship, the ship gives orders, the crew performs. That's why I classify myself as an Abyssal. I think I need a transfusion of Captain Gordon's crews."
"I think the Chief Engineer at least needs to give them a talk," Crawford said, "And that can be arranged."
The Repair Princess nodded. "With a ship-girl, the crew is like a symbiotic organism, like the mitochondria in a human's cells. They are capable of independent action, but only Captain Gordon and a carriers' planes really took advantage of it, until recently. That's probably spreading through the fleet that the crews are getting `permission` to act as separate but allied entities. Helps with the whole ship-girls fill the voids with others, you can always talk to your crew, especially your senior staff and division commanders. It's helped the Battlecruiser Princess."
"I'll definitely expedite that, maybe with Nagato, Mutsu and Kongo while they are here," Crawford said.
The Repair Princess nodded. "But this, no crew, no crewing spaces, no access tunnels for maintenance, the open spaces are for air or water circulation for cooling, the bridge is the scary part." She carefully lifted the skull cap that had required a lightsaber to cut, and even that slowly. "I half expected to see a little dude in a chair running the whole thing, but that's a brain, more folded and less white matter than a human's, and composed of a conductive plastic. This is a gynoid in every sense of the word."
Crawford looked over to the supply sub. "You did the right thing collecting this, thank you."
"I think I know how Godzilla feels," Ecchi-Nein said, "This thing, even dead, is wrong, in ways even Abyssals aren't wrong. The Japanese hate corruption, so Abyssals may be their hot button, but this is something far worse."
"The question I want to know is why?" the Repair Princess said.
"Could you put a human's mind in that brain?" Crawford asked.
"Some kind of mental copy? I don't know enough about the mechanism to tell you. My expertise kinda peters out with transistors, and with integrated circuits I call a repair shop," the Repair Princess said, "Assuming you could, why would you?"
"Immortality," Crawford said.
"If I was going to be immortal," the Repair Princess said, "I wouldn't want to run on hydrocarbons, I'd want to run on radiation, like Godzilla. I also would want to be smart enough not to pick fights with battleships."
------------------------------
The submarine was still expecting the standoffish air, despite the rumors about Captain Gordon and the base. She had Nagato with her, who had a sterner look on her face.
"Captain Gordon, what happened that bothered Kongo so much?" Iku said, and looked like had she a hat like Hibiki, she would pull her cap down and hide in it rather than ask the question.
"The way I killed that Abyssal Princess and her two escorts, in semi-submerged combat," Gordon said and squatted down to look the sub in the eye. "We hid in water without full rigging and ambushed them."
Iku fidgeted. "We've practiced that, we are subs after all."
She left the unspoken question hanging. "What I actually did was pop up, resummon my full rigging, challenge them and put two turret's worth in the Princess, and one each into the cruisers. John Ericsson and Gotengo surfaced and attacked the Princess. I did finish off the Princess with my pitchfork while John Ericsson held her. The rest of the force saw to the cruisers."
Nagato nodded. "A sound tactic, that's what is in your official report," she said, "Hardly 'unladylike'."
Gordon grinned. "Because that's not what I told Kongo I did," he said and patted the pitchfork he always carried, "The Princess sailed over and -" He thrust his fist upward and made a squelching sound.
Nagato's and Iku's eyes went wide as saucers as they put it together. Then they clamped their knees together and stood on their tiptoes.
"Now you understand," he said, "I told Kongo, keep the prank war nice, or bad things would happen. She ignored me. Too bad."
Iku still looked disturbed but she did snicker a little. Nagato just shook her head.
He cunt punched the abbysal? And it turned into a fisting?... so kinky and unladylike! Actually, considering how big Gordon must be, any depiction of what he said happened would have to be drawn by Sparrow.
Edit: Seems most of the talkies happen over at SB, gonna move there, unless there's a QQ thread?
He cunt punched the abbysal? And it turned into a fisting?... so kinky and unladylike! Actually, considering how big Gordon must be, any depiction of what he said happened would have to be drawn by Sparrow.
Edit: Seems most of the talkies happen over at SB, gonna move there, unless there's a QQ thread?
Watching the transformed kaiju face-palm at the wire-fu in Jet Jaguar made Olympia smile. The `old man` had done a good job, but the ability to take a little ribbing went a long way towards humanizing him. More of the other sub girls were warming up to him as it became apparent he wasn't going to tear out their power plants and eat them.
I have to find out who started that rumor, she thought, Although the reports of lost subs at the beginning of the American Godzilla film had made the subsequent viewing feel more a horror film than the others.
She'd watched the area around him get more crowded as the others had warmed up to him, then practically emptied again. Nagato and Mutsu had been all smiles at the attention, and seemed to be getting less nervous about subs than they had been. The buffet had been emptied and refilled twice as the sub- and ship-girls enjoyed their victory feast.
And Squalus seems to have gotten a follower, Olympia noted as the quiet U-boat sat beside the equally quiet S-boat as they watched the movies. Corey would drop off a plate of food, then go back to quietly arguing with Abbie. Off to the side, several of the `unarmed` subs were discussing what type of weapons they could get for Corey, tube-launched Hellfires were a popular choice.
A laser designator would be better, Olympia thought as she wandered over to the schemers, After all, me having one did prove that if an old warship like me can see you, she isn't obsolete.
------------------------------
The others had gone to sleep, but Godzilla was wide awake. He'd fought too many battles to ignore his instincts, and they were screaming that as big as the day's activities were, they weren't the only show in town. He'd told a sleepy Nagato and Mutsu 'he needed to clear his paranoia', and they'd accepted that cuddling together. He'd tell them how cute they were in the morning.
How could something come back from a beating like that? he wondered as he walked along the landward side of the base perimeter. He was half-expecting to find the Abyssals had landed Marines on the island in what should have been a diversion, only for them to pivot and make them a renewed attack.
He sighed and sat down. He had made sure no one else was around and began the mantra he'd tested in secret.
" 'Up from the depths
Thirty stories high
Breathing fire
His head in the sky
Godzilla!
Godzilla!
Godzilla!'"
He deployed his `rigging`, which carefully picked him up and walked along the plains beyond the base perimeter. If he found anything, he'd have to explain why he'd kept this aspect to himself, although the song alone might explain much of it. But right now, he needed the sight line and speed advantage. A few moments later, he was glad he had.
He knew Abyssals could come onshore, but the softly-glowing, shambling shapes seemed to almost make that a lie. They were barely able to move. That they were the most misshapen Abyssals he'd ever seen gave him a moment of confusion. Then he sensed food, and lots of it. They hadn't noticed the 100K+ tons of mutated dinosaur staring at them as they approached through the flood channel, the high sides shielding them from view.
And shielding them from other detection, he thought as he realized just how much food was packed into each of these Abyssals, and that it had already crippled them and would kill them soon. As his rigging leaned down to pluck each morsel, their tiny guns began firing. The sting of mosquitos might have mattered more.
The taste! he thought as the sheer variety and intensity of deliciousness nearly overwhelmed him. He could barely control himself as his rigging dipped and collected a second, then a third. A brief, niggling doubt that he should share appeared and was instantly squashed.
First, he thought, Nobody else eats these. Second, these are the last attack. They are to salt the earth of the base, dropping their cargo of radioactive material over the base and to make rescue of the bunkered populace impossible.
He realized his rigging had eaten all 27 of the odd Abyssals, he had it set him down in the flood channel and dismissed it as he began feasting on the `trail of breadcrumbs` they had left behind, decontaminating their path back to the ocean.
In the distance, the base had come alive from the sound of the gunfire. Godzilla didn't care, he was enjoying the feast, and preventing his friends from falling to what for them would be a deadly level of radiation.
------------------------------
Crawford was pale as he realized what the Abyssals had almost done. "He's still in a food coma?" he asked Corey, who was looking at the remnants of some of the Abyssals Godzilla's feast had left behind. Washington and Franky were staying near to Northampton and him, at Northampton's request. A number of the subs were patrolling the perimeter.
They were no longer radioactive, but samples of Cobalt, Strontium, and a half-dozen other materials had already been identified. Their radiation had been so intense that the sensors in the flood channel had been rendered inoperative, allowing them to get that close to the base.
"Last words we got out of him sounded more like a restaurant critic who'd died and gone to Heaven," Corey admitted, "He did make sure we knew to check for radiation, but he - 'I am proud of my gluttony, but recognize the danger to you.'" The sub shrugged. "He cleared it up right to the beach. Evidently those things were dropped off and walked ashore. We'll have to check the offshore contamination."
"When he wakes up he can assist the clean up," Crawford said, "If they'd gotten onto the base, even if we killed them, the entire island would have to be evacuated. If any of us survived."
"I know Nagato, Saratoga and Prinz Eugen got nuked, but how much worse would this have been?" Squalus asked.
"Radioactive materials are either intensely radioactive for a short time, or mildly radioactive for a long time, they loaded up on the ones that skirted the border of both, or are particularly dangerous because our bodies would treat them as normal building blocks. Cobalt-60, Caesium-137 and Strontium-90 were in abundance. I don't know if the Abyssals would have lived through the radiation they were carrying, but they only had to get to the base and dump their cargo, and we would have had a nightmare on our hands. The Princess would have won."
Northampton got a strange look on her face. "All those ships at the Crossroads Able and Baker tests, proud veterans who'd won the war, and they were allowed to sink or were scuttled when without the radiation they could have been repaired or rescued," she said, struggling through the fog for the idea she'd glimpsed, "I know who that installation is, the Red Princess, it's Bikini. How many bombs were set off there? And it's still there? No wonder she's so tough."
"And understands and uses radiation as a weapon against us?" Crawford said, "Makes sense."
"This is why Godzilla's boss sent him," Corey added, "Whoever was running the Abyssals decided to `cheat` and send Bikini. Wasn't the first Godzilla film inspired by events from a test at Bikini?"
"Lucky Dragon Five," Squalus said, "Castle Bravo, the same one our Godzilla thought was Thanksgiving in the face."
"So we've got the personification of Bikini, facing another result of it," Crawford said, "What'll happen when they face off?"
"She'll have to come on shore," Northampton said.
Corey glanced around. "That's not precisely true. I don't know why he didn't mention it, but I followed him on his little walk."
------------------------------
If he'd been blind he could have found the Battleship Dorms. Crawford listened to Godzilla belting out a bizarre mixture of pop tunes, raps and sea shanties from his window.
"Good news is he's a happy drunk," Callahan said, "Never trust a mean drunk in a sensitive situation."
"In vino veritas indeed," Crawford said, "I was thinking about the talent competition one of Goto's bunch was trying to put together. It would be fun to win something at one of the 'Major' bases."
Callahan put a hand to his ear where an earpiece rested. "He can do a floor exercise with his own accompaniment. He's evidently doing cartwheels and handstands in there. How much radioactive material was in those ships?" he asked as he opened the door to the Dorms.
"How badly would we have died if they'd spilled it on the base?" Crawford asked, but began taking the stairs two at a time.
The singing stopped by the time they'd reached the top floor and were approaching the door.
"Enter!" came a voice that would have sounded more natural coming from his granddaughter.
Godzilla was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, and his Moth-tan hat, and was giving a correct salute. He also seemed on the verge of breaking out in giggles or song. "With all due respect, Admiral." Godzilla held the salute until Crawford returned it. "For a hideous abomination of natural form, you're pretty cute." He turned to Wilcox. "You're cute too. Everybody's cute, everybody's cute." He picked a table cloth off a table without spilling everything on the table and draped it over his shoulders. "But I'm sensational."
Then the giggles spilled out.
Crawford chuckled along with Nagato and Mutsu at the huge man approaching each person in the room with 'everybody's cute'. Getting hoisted into the air and kissed on the lips shocked the admiral, but he was returned safely to the ground. Before he could interject, Godzilla began singing.
"Bikini Atoll,
"So burned and so angry,
"Coming for us all woo who,
"Coming with vengeance and
"Ra - de - ay -shun!
"Deadly delicatessen,
"Murderous smorgasbord,
"And there's magic in,
"The air about all of it!"
And Godzilla collapsed to the floor and began a stentorian snoring.
"Very happy drunk," Callahan said. Nagato only face palmed.
"The only problem is, none of this will make good blackmail material," Wilcox said, "The man has no self-consciousness at all."
"Major, post the area, he's likely to do something that will . . . post the area," Crawford said as he left with the battleships following.
The Major nodded and sent for a squad of marines. What they missed were the numerous eyes that watched them from beneath the couch.
------------------------------
Northampton had heard the difference in men's screams, the scream of surprise, of mortal terror, and the scream of agony. That a scream mixing all three had come from Angie's room had her going from sound asleep to General Quarters faster than any cruiser had in the history of naval warfare. The Admiral was still at the office working late into the night, so only Angie should have been in the home.
She raced down the corridors, her boilers at redline, her radios firing out SOS's and reports, and receiving a report back that Major Callahan's home and the Admiral's office had also been attacked. She worried most for the Major. Northampton knew that Olympia was with the Admiral, but the Callahan residence had only himself and his less estranged son.
The sight of two small, bipedal reptiles dragging the terrified form of Angie atop her bed sheets along the corridor almost had Northampton summon her rigging, until the girl shouted, "He's in there!" and pointed back to her room.
The Godzilla-like roars from the room told Northampton that she might be rescuing Angie's attackers from her defenders. Northampton had seen warzones aplenty, this had only the blood of one, this looked like a carefully planned ambush had caught a clumsy sneak attack and the attacker had payed the price.
The man was weedy, save for the graying hair she would have thought him a malnourished teenager. A ring of six-inch tall Godzillas and other miniature and superdeformed kaiju ringed the man around. Webbing had him stuck to the wall in several places and blood was pooling from his maimed hands. Northampton had helped assemble the pictures of the various Godzillas to form the collage for their Godzilla. They were all represented here, even the Charles Barkley vs Godzilla version. What had the man scrambling backward was the most misshapen Godzilla, even superdeformed the Shin Godzilla couldn't be cute.
"Who are you?" Northampton demanded, and was answered with a sneer, "Gentlemen, we'll need him alive, but I need his mission parameters, you have five minutes."
"No!" the man shouted and looked in terror as several more of the Godzilla and other kaiju grinned. Then the Shin Godzilla figure opened his mouth more than humanly possible and the man fainted. A brightly-colored butterfly landed on the man's head and chittered to the others. The assembled kaiju stopped and saluted. One Godzilla began barking orders, literally, and some Godzillas formed a looser perimeter, while a Megalon put on a deerstalker cap and with a face-palming Gigan dragooned several more kaiju, who began doing what looked like a FOD walk of the room.
Northampton marched out of the room and headed to where a Godzilla in a nurse's outfit checked Angie's legs, while the girl hugged a Godzilla in a Ninja mask and an Anguirus wearing a Luchador's mask.
"Ow," Angie said, then told the nurse, "Yes, I can feel them again."
The Nurse Godzilla turned and saluted Northampton.
"Are you all right?" Northampton asked.
"He tried to paralyze me, then the Godzillas attacked him, made him drop his stun gun, and since I couldn't run, dragged me out of there," Angie said, not releasing either of the pair she was hugging the stuffings out of.
Northampton hoped she had a few hours alone with the man, she doubted she could match what the Japanese had done to some of their prisoners, but there were always stories.
The Colonel of the Paras had vehemently objected to the presence of HMD Corgi in the Palace, or accompanying Her Majesty on trips. Fortunately, HMD Corgi was a professional through and through, although the joke among the surviving members of Her Majesty's protection detail was the rescue of an airman was a gallon of ice cream, and a CAG was five-gallons, what was a Queen's Ransom? He'd leave that to the realm's confectioners.
No one was happy something that could neutralize modern sensors and overpower trained SAS and Marines, even those with crew-served weapons, had targeted her Highness.
HMD Corgi had taken the expedient of blowing off its legs with 40mm Bofors, then biting off its arms, and stacking the limbs outside away from the screaming torso, before seeing to the wounded.
What was being gleaned sent shockwaves through various high commands. Fortunately, these things were rare, difficult to produce, and required a human who would not provide the most effective soldier once bonded. Whether they were called Terminators or Necrons was a topic of debate, they were far too emotional to be called Cybermen.
The formerly Abyssal destroyer was marching through the palace, searching, and had demanded and gotten a FOD walk to find all the pieces of the thing, in case each piece could operate independently. To date that had proven not to be the case, but all the pieces were locked up and individually packaged nonetheless.
------------------------------
Northampton arrived at the Admiral's office after a quick debrief with the interrogators. She controlled her shivers at what she'd learned and what she could put together from other sources. The Admiral needed his secretary ship to show a stoic front, despite the attack on her daughter in all but name, and her home, and despite the linkages she'd puzzled out from the data now at hand.
All of the ship- and sub-girls were there, and all the kids were assembled in the largest conference rooms ringed by Marines, fairies from various ships with emplaced, crew-served weapons, Kongo and all the Ship- and Sub-girls who weren't high enough ranked to merit a spot with the Admiral's planning team. The nervous-looking Wo-class and the pair of Re-class with Red Cross t-shirts were with the Battlecruiser Princess and the six-inch tall kaiju moving among them and looking outward for threats.
Major Callahan was in the office, as was Carlos. The small, white, winged unicorn atop Carlos' head drew the cruiser's attention. "What's Princess -?"
"She goes by The Silver Mare," Carlos interjected, "She borrowed the mask and cape from some of my action figures."
'The Silver Mare' looked to be wearing Batman's cowl, Superman's cape, and an attitude that made the handful of fantasy horse look as dangerous as the fully-armed, full-grown Marine standing beside Carlos.
"Major, I'm glad you are well," Northampton said.
"I wouldn't be, if not for," Callahan said as he nodded to the horse who was settling back in to watch everyone from atop Carlos' head.
The not unfriendly growl from beside her preceded the coffee cup reaching up high enough she could take it without bending over. Godzilla the man was often compared with fantasy dwarves, this Godzilla was that taken to extremes. "Thank you," she said, deciding that when Magical Ship-girl BS became to much for even a ship-girl, you did what good admirals do and just rolled with it.
The arrival of Godzilla-prime, almost fully dressed and looking like he'd hadn't quite come down from a three-day bender had everyone's attention transferred to him. He took the sight in, especially 'The Silver Mare' and the coffee server, then looked to Admiral Crawford.
"Reporting as ordered," Godzilla said as he came to attention and saluted, as Crawford wasn't covered he immediately dropped it and went to parade rest.
"There are one hundred-fifty we've located," Crawford began.
Northampton noted the almost glowing smiles from Corey and Squalus, and felt her boilers stutter.
"Three hundred and eighty-nine," Godzilla said, "Counting all variants, allies and anomalies. On the plus side AGSS-569 and SS-192 now have full crews and effective boarding parties should they need them."
"Godzillas inside us," the pair chorused.
Crawford and Godzilla exchanged raised eyebrows, then both decided to move on.
"I think we've seen their loyalties, and please extend my thanks for defending my home and family, the Major's home and family, and myself," Crawford said.
"Will do, Admiral," Godzilla said.
Northampton was almost sure there was a level of communication going on between the two she couldn't read, like a person talking to a ship-girl being unaware of the radios she carried.
"How?" Crawford asked.
"Godzilla 1998, Shin Godzilla," Godzilla said and sighed, "And far too much Cesium."
"Those were the songs you were singing," the Major said, "You use different songs to evoke different versions of yourself."
"Yes, Major, and increasing base security seemed very important, and the method seemed a good idea at the time," Godzilla said. Godzilla accepted a cup of coffee from the very large, miniature Godzilla, "Thank you."
"All right, we'll have to account for them all, get them cleared and where they can and cannot go unescorted, determine their capabilities," Crawford said looked at Godzilla and smiled, "Then someone must fill out the requisite paperwork and send it up the chain-of-command."
Godzilla's wince had nothing to do with the quartet of spinning, saber-toothed turtles that flew by. Looking appropriately poleaxed, Godzilla simply nodded.
Crawford nodded back. "On to the real problem, the attackers were weaker versions, but similar to the creature Captain Gordon's group fought and killed."
"Not pieces of the creature grown to large-size?" Godzilla asked.
"No, you alone retain that unique ability," Crawford said, "And these we were able to take alive. It seems the threat of death is a potent threat against them." He looked over. "While we've all known that Major Andre, our French liaison officer, was also an agent for the D.G.S.E., we didn't realize what else. It seems the real Major Andre died during Blood Week, and HE wasn't a defecting Abyssal," Crawford said.
The woman all of them had known as Major Andre squirmed in her chair.
"She's been down-graded to the same contractor status as Godzilla, and Godzilla, her unofficial escort is now official, see to it," Crawford said.
The meanest-looking butterfly Northampton had ever seen orbited the former-Major's chair and settled on the post, the chirp sounded vaguely threatening.
"Our Andre is his -?" Northampton asked and looked to the woman.
"I rescued him from his sinking ship weeks before Blood Week, seduced him, or he I," Andre said, "When my lover was killed defending La Belle France, I had to do something, so I adjusted a few things, and talked to both branches the Navy and the D.G.S.E."
"You'll have plenty to report," Crawford said, "Because while dealing with the former-Major, was the invader team's stated goal, their actual goal was to deal with the memory of the anomaly on this island, the cave and the trail, and the actual lead agent knew nothing of that. The other four of her team worked for the Red Princess."
Most looked around in confusion. Those who knew paled, Northampton noted that Corey was not among those who were supposed to know, but she did.
"Have you contacted Admiral Goto?" Corey asked.
HIJMS Nagato cleared her throat. "He is on his way with a team of experts."
Crawford said, "We also found the backup of the satellite photos that Godzilla asked for. Someone had erased the originals, and the official backup. Fortunately, the archivist was a conspiracy nut and had a second, offline backup." He set the photos down on the desk. "That's what they tried to summon, failed, and it showed up a few months later. That's one reason the summoning rituals have been so awful, because their dark reflections tried and failed, but they were the `experts`. Then something pushed it the rest of the way after they gave up on it."
"That's what we fought," Squalus said, "It's smaller and less complicated, but that's essentially it."
"So we know who, we know when and how," Albacore said, "And we can guess why. What do we do about it?"
"One question first," Callahan asked, "Now that they have their monster, are they in cahoots again?"
Every eye turned to Northampton, who'd come from the interrogation of the agents. "They don't know if they are," she said, "But their bosses evidently do. And yes, that's not a yes or a no, but the agents didn't know either."
"The ones higher up the food chain are Admiral Beale's problem. She'll be fully briefed," Crawford said, "The attack on Her Majesty indicates this is a worldwide problem. My concern is that various VIPs will demand a ship-girl as close escort, diluting the force we've amassed to date."
"Let's hope our enemies are just clever, instead of being wise," Godzilla growled, "Because if they're actually smart, either one, we're on the doorstep of a very dangerous enemy."
"Explain," Crawford said.
"They summoned a mobile installation. Installations are immune to torpedoes, usually because they're inland, but this one was able to tank enough to sink a fleet and kept going. Also I thought installations had to evolve and were immobile," Godzilla said, "For what purpose did they summon her? Unless the humans who did it count the entire human race as their enemy, it makes no military sense. It makes them supervillians not politicians or soldiers. If the pattern of supervillian instead of soldier holds, their leadership doesn't seem the type to share power. What if they weren't interested in summoning an ally or even a cat's paw? What if what they were after was a host?"
"That's exactly what they were trying," Crawford said, "The question is, does Bikini know that? And can she tell the difference between us and them?"
"Interesting, but wrong direction," Godzilla said, "What if she just decides to take the logical step and clear the board of all her treacherous allies' resources?" He scanned the room, taking in ship-girls, humans and Godzilla's own off-spring.
Northampton could swear she'd sailed into Arctic Seas.
------------------------------
Callahan entered his office, the `potted plant` had straighten up, organized and at least partially filled out the paperwork for the rest of the Smols. Biollante's elegant cursive seemed in stark contrast to the fact that the island's usual plague of flies and no-see-ems had ceased the instant she'd ensconsed herself in the building. The Venus Flytrap analogy was too apt.
He glanced around at the lack of falcon-sized moth in his office. He vaguely wondered where Leo had gotten off to, and decided to check that Battra was still with Andre.
He signed the paperwork after a short review and noted a letter from Carlos' teacher on his improved attendance and behavior. Again he felt vaguely guilty about the change and its source. Then he spotted the report that it wasn't just Goto and a few others arriving. Admiral Goto and the rest of the Kongos were arriving as well as the `experts`. A note in Crawford's precise penmanship noted 'Full Ruffles and Flourishes'. Which was a polite way of introducing the party to the weirdness of the small base in a hurry.
"So get the ships' bands spun up?" he wondered, "Or do I get the Japanese national anthem scored for steel drums, trombone, organ and bagpipe?"
Godzilla looked up at the smiling, little man. "If I had my tail, it would be you down here," Godzilla said as he stood up, "Instead of me." He endured the laughter of the few Swedish ships and Marines watching.
"Maybe we teach you something you take with you," Mister Smiley said as he stepped Godzilla through the hip throw he'd used on the much larger man, "And if you had hit me, I would be hurt."
"I wish there was a way to practice my claws and bite," Godzilla said, "That's what I use with my rigging."
"We work the basics, before you learn more," the Gurkha said.
"I know The Lesson of Ed Gruberman," Godzilla said as he noted a dozen or so of the Smols were watching and practicing what Godzilla was learning.
------------------------------
The pair of C-17s were on final approach with several squadrons of fighters keeping the airspace clear. The sub-girls had cleared the sea of anything remotely Abyssal, so Crawford wasn't expecting anything other than the standard, ship-girl insanity. He approved of Callahan's use of the diverse cast to provide the honor guard, and was actually looking forward to weirding out Admiral Goto in the unofficial 'and you think your ship-girls are bizarre' competition that Goto had pulled ahead of several years ago. Crawford considered his present situation and considered he was in range to pull ahead again.
The Admiral took advantage of Crawford returning his salute to goggle at the line of miniature soldiers, sailors and Marines, exactly matching a human counterpart in the opposite line. Then he was heading down the ramp. Nagato and Northampton also saluted, answered by the three Kongo-sisters as Crawford and Goto headed to the other Globemaster bearing the experts.
The squawk behind them indicated someone had not informed the battlecruisers of the situation, and they lacked the serenity of the admirals to just roll with it.
A similar mixed line, Swedes on the 'human' side, awaited the Alphabet Agency experts, the band struck up the Navy Hymn, Eternal Father, and Crawford enjoyed watching the experts getting their first look at Abyssals up close and personal.
------------------------------
"Welcome aboard, I'll be escorting you to the Battleship dorms," Godzilla said and noted the shell shocked expressions on Kongo's sister ships, while the name ship was more accepting of Nishinoshima's bizarre nature.
"I hear you and Nagato have a relation-ship," Kirishima said, eliciting giggles from Haruna and Hiei, and a warning glance to her sisters from Kongo.
"And Mutsu, we've come to an arragement," Godzilla said as Nagato and Mutsu approached, along with the Admiral's group's luggage that seemed to be a pile that moved on its own, "Angry `Night Battles` are best night battles. Ambush, counterambush and escape." Mutsu and Nagato nodded.
"Burning and me don't get along," Godzilla said, "You wouldn't like me when I'm burning."
"Where are they?" Haruna asked as she looked around. The only Smolzilla visible was the one ahead in the bright-orange ninja suit. "There were dozens when we set out."
"I'm not sure what you are talking about," Nagato said, struggling hard not to grin, "You do get airsick, perhaps after you've laid down for a while."
Godzilla merely noted the line of mini-kaijus `hiding` from the Kongos by keeping him between them. He put it down to their odd sense of humor and kept walking. He was aware they could completely disappear from a tarmac, with no cover for 500 meters, and reappear without trace when called to attention.
When he'd asked for an explanation, Mothra-Leo said 'We can only do it when it was funny.' He'd dropped any attempt to duplicate the feat with the appropriate song or score.
"What about this?" Kongo pointed to their pile of luggage that was dutifully following behind.
Kongo, you naughty girl, Godzilla thought, Against your own sisters. I'll tell Goto to give you a spanking.
"Carlos and Angie most likely," Godzilla added another gaslight to Kongo's prank, "Angie has a wagon."
Hiei lifted a suitcase and stared into the hollow pile. All she managed to do was stop it and stare at the hole in the middle. Kirishima strode over and looked in. "A heh," both managed and resumed walking towards the dorms. The luggage pile lifted slightly and began following again.
"I noticed that there's no versions of King Kong," Mutsu said, "Why is that?"
Godzilla was momentarily confused, he'd answered that before. It's not for me, Godzilla realized, It's for them. "I don't believe in guerilla warfare," Godzilla said, and the Kongos all facepalmed, "Besides, we have a few AK-47's in the arsenal, I don't really want to know if a monkey could actually field strip it."
With Mutsu's invitation, Godzilla had to add a bit to the prankster rally. "I do wonder what's the big deal about 'The Talk'. I had to research it as I was stuck being human, so after the march up the mountain, Angie asked about suddenly bleeding."
He watched the sudden shocked looks among the ship-girls.
"You gave the admiral's grand-daughter 'The Talk'?" Nagato suddenly looked as frazzled as the Kongo's sisters.
"And Carlos, in the library, together. I mean I doubted his father had, considering their estrangement." Godzilla noted the completely horrified looks among the ship-girls. "I've been watching humans since they appeared in the Rift Valley. There's lots of politically-motivated bullshit out there, but 2.5 million years of evolution and survival strategies don't just go away because cellphones were invented. In fact, the paradigm shift only heightened the confusion."
"Besides, they were getting a bit friendly and needed to know the consequences," he said, "Either it will be a bonding moment over mutual embarrassment, or it'll scare them apart."
Realizing he'd matched the Smolzillas' prank, he stayed quiet as they approached the battleship dorms.
------------------------------
Admiral Goto was not happy to review the corpse, then the wounded, and see the correlations. "We're lucky so far they're overconfident and stupid," he said as he and his staff sat with Crawford's staff, with Admirals Richardson, Beale, Palmer in the UK and Goto's superior Admiral Yamashino on the big screens in the conference room.
"Not likely to last old boy," Palmer said, "It's kind of tied up resources, many secretary ships won't leave their Admiral's sides. While we have the advantage, we should be pressing it. Instead, we're on the back foot again."
"Never figured battleships would master asymmetrical warfare," Richardson said.
"If it's a Forever War they're going to have to reduce the intensity of the conflict," Beale reminded them.
"What did you find at the cave?" Palmer asked, Goto and Richardson having seen the packet Crawford had meant to send with Corey. The sub was waiting at Yokosuka to be contacted.
"They tried to summon something, and when it failed, something else gave it a push. We aren't sure if the humans discovered something, got something from the Abyss, got something from something else, or if the Abyssals were pushed from the other end," Crawford said, "There are no records or writings in the cavern, and until Godzilla created his brood, we had no experts on magic who could actually explain it. Several Mothras, Battra and The Silver Mare have all been closeted away and will be providing a report. As The Silver Mare whinnied, they understand what they are talking about, but translating it into English is the tough part."
"We'll need it, and soon," Goto said, "There are other traditions as well."
"When they can make lightning bolts appear between their hands or use their Six Demon Bag, then I'll credit their mystical powers," Yamashino said, "Until then, it's a religion, not a tool of war."
"Actually, I think we need to retake the strategic initiative and put them on the back foot," Crawford said, "Basically, we have something to offer to some of the less aggressive Princesses, and a warning. After all, if they'll come for our leaders, they've already tried to come for some of theirs."
"What do you need?" Beale asked.
"I've already started their training, but I am going to need Admiral Goto's Secretary ships," Crawford said.
------------------------------
The Battlecruiser Princess looked at her symmetrical superstructure, her more rational turret arrangement and equipment, and started crying.
"We can put it back if you want," the Repair Princess said desperately.
"She isn't unhappy," Nagato said, and looked in her own mirror and noted the glowing eyes, the odd bits of metal and teeth placed in unusual places, "And frankly, I wouldn't mind keeping some of this."
"Speak for yourself," Mutsu said, "I keep listing because I think I am when I'm not." She looked at the dark metal plates and the odd Queen's Anne Mansion mast, with the pagoda top, "This is weird."
"It's camouflage," Admiral Goto said, "And if Godzilla is right you register just to other side of Abyssal."
"Will he still love me?" Mutsu said her hands clasped to her cheek and her eyes fluttering.
"Hey, I've got the kids, I should divorce you and get child support," Godzilla said, "Joke! Joke!" he added on the two sister-ships manifesting their rigging. Which had a disturbing organic and toothy motif that ran counter to the look of most ship-girls.
"I think they look fine," Odin said, "You'll pass as Princesses, those always had a bit of the weird vibe."
"As long as they don't shoot at us," Mutsu said, "I'm very okay with that."
"Diplomacy," Nagato said, "I understand the gunboat variety, and as the Emperor's ship, I can understand the need to show the flag. But with the Red Princess weakened, and we know her base, we should be hitting that."
"Much as my blood burns for vengeance, the more we learn of the Abyssals," Goto said, "The more I believe they were deceived into fighting us. Admiral Beale was adamant, start with diplomacy, assassination will always be on the table."
Nagato and Mutsu nodded at that.
Goto looked at Godzilla. "I still want to know why you're so sure that your plan will work."
"It's either a straight exchange of gifts for landing rights, or our forces will fight side by side, or we let them get killed and we slaughter the survivors of both sides. We win a diplomatic, camaraderie, or kill-em-all victory," Godzilla said, "The keys is, we win."
"My apologies, expecting realpolitik and subtle strategy from a man in a rubber suit famous for destroying models, is more of a leap than I am prepared for," Goto said.
Godzilla shrugged. "All else fails, you can go into show business," Godzilla said.
Anchovy Peaches L - Reply, Riposte and Recalcitrants
Anchovy Peaches L - Reply, Riposte and Recalcitrants
The Admiral looked up from the report and looked at Callahan. "Five hundred meters?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," the nervous Marine answered. "Ten for ten in the bull ring, and no problems with fire discipline. They are snipers with their breath weapons and energy beams. They picked up areas they are and are not allowed very quickly. How their formation disperses is a sight to behold. I could have 200 meters of clear ground, say 'dismissed' and suddenly I'm by myself with no one traversing the empty space, just gone."
The admiral nodded at that. Closed and even locked doors were not slowing down those looking after various people, or performing their duties. "Problems? They sound like ideal soldiers."
"The idea of uniforms being uniform seems to be a bit of a sticking point. Some wear the modern kit. Some are wearing kit from the Meiji Period, and everything in between. Some are army, some navy. Predictably, the division between Japanese and American uniforms falls along where the movie came out, although a couple of the Zillas wear the Foreign Legion's battle dress. Gorgo insists on something Nelson would have recognized," Callahan explained, "And don't get me started on Rank insignia."
"Yes, one of the nurses looking out for my house wears 6-star rank on her nurse's uniform," Crawford noted then saw Callahan couldn't manage a chuckle for that. "But that's not what's bothering you Major."
The marine sighed. "This morning, I woke late, because someone turned off my alarm. I woke to the smell of blueberry pancakes. I rushed downstairs to look around, and Carlos was making them. It was all I could do not to grab the fire extinguisher. I mean I can burn soup, and Carlos had even less interest in cooking. If our meals don't come from the mess, they come out of the microwave. I'd never seen him at such ease as he was making the pancakes and unlike the stereotype, there was no huge mess to clean up. He was just pouring, flipping and stacking, and he looked happy. And watching both of us was The Silver Mare."
The Admiral sighed. "Neither you nor Carlos are betraying your wife by getting along with your lives. She likely would have wanted that. These `Smols` as Admiral Richardson called them are very much like ship-girls. They fiercely want to be useful, they want to do well for the people they care about. They're advancing theories that the Abyssals are ship-girls who've lost touch with their humans, either their crews, their nation or the human race as a whole. If The Silver Mare was created from a template that Godzilla provided, he probably used the ship-girls as a basis. She isn't trying to supplant Maria, she's just trying to look after you two."
"So, Northampton and you had a talk about this kind of thing?" Callahan said.
"Many long and sometimes frustrating to terrifying talks," the Admiral said, "There are a lot of things that we gloss over because we see things one way and assume that if it looks like us, it thinks like us. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. You've done training of new recruits, a soldier and a civilian can seem two different beasts, but we're all people. Ship-girls don't quite fit as humans, but they're close. The only danger is letting her boss you around. Wanting what's best for you isn't the same as doing what's necessary, and many are still technically civilians."
"I have to wonder what possessed him," Callahan said.
"Beyond what he said that night? Ask him, he isn't shy," Crawford said, then looked at the tray of coffee, sliced fruit and crackers with cheese that had appeared beside them. Crawford knew who was beneath it and that it would be politely insisted on by the largest of the Smols, "Probably looked at who Carlos was interested in, to ease acceptance of a more motherly figure."
"Hasbro(TM) is going to sue us if this gets out," Callahan said as he took the black coffee nearest him and a couple of apple slices.
"I'm more worried about requests to make more of them," Crawford said.
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Victory and Constitution hadn't been expecting a squad of marines blocking their plane, nor an angry Admiral Crawford leading them.
"Open up the suitcases," the Admiral said, his usual humor gone.
"You'd look at a lady's underthings?" Victory asked coquettishly.
"Either you do it, or I'll have John Ericsson do it," he said, not a smile, not a glimmer.
The two tall ships headed towards the table that had been prepared for just such a need.
The pair opened the suitcases and looked anywhere else as Corporal Wilcox and a female nurse uncovered the Abyssal destroyer hidden within each of the pair of cases.
Crawford handed the tall ships each a clipboard, while Wilcox handed a clipboard to each captain of the destroyers.
"There are rules," Crawford said, "And don't put 'he just followed me home' or you'll be thinking up a better explanation in the brig," Crawford said, he looked at the destroyer captains, "That goes for you two as well."
Sheepishly, the two tall ships filled out the pages of paperwork. The ships' captain's paperwork was simpler, basically verifying they were going of their own free will and that they'd have to be vetted properly upon reaching their destination.
He surveyed the paperwork, then Crawford saluted. "Have a pleasant day, and remember they aren't cleared yet."
Victory and Constitution saluted, then they and their charges boarded their plane.
"How'd you know," Wilcox asked as they watched the plane taxi.
"Ship-girls get predictable after a while," Crawford said and glanced at the Corporal who looked at him as if from a nightmare.
"I don't think I want to be able to predict that, sir," she said.
"They first teach it in Sergeant school," Crawford said as the plane took off.
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Mutsu lay face down in the water, her legs languidly waving in the air. Godzilla knew full well the snorkeling battleship was teasing him, but the instant he would withdraw his hands, she'd utterly panic. Nagato hadn't teased as seductively, but her panic at being face down in water unsupported with only a snorkel providing air had been very real. For both, they would panic despite the water being only waist deep or less for all three of them.
That Gordon was having similar issues, as were the entire Swedish Squadron, did little to alleviate the dissonance of ships being afraid of the water. Swimming came easily for the Humans and the Abyssals, but ships seemed terrified with the possibility of more than standing slightly above the water.
The subs being there in force as lifeguards helped both with the ships' concerns, and the acceptability of the closeness of the sub-girls. Even the most sub-phobic was still immensely grateful that someone else was there if the water suddenly ignored the laws of physics and tried to spontaneously drown someone.
He lifted Mutsu up and pointed to where Nagato sat in the lagoon, with a dozen other ship-girls completely submerged save for their snorkels. "Yes," he told her before she had a chance to voice her objections. She swam over, keeping her head above the water the whole time.
Godzilla looked over at Kirishima. The Kongo-sisters were even more nervous than the Nagato-class had been. They all knew that the prank war in Yokosuka and Kongo's private war at Nishinoshima had not ended well for them, and they all expected payback. Putting your life in the hands of someone ready, willing and eager to prank you filled none of the battlecruisers with hope.
But Gordon and Godzilla had told all the trainers: one, NO ONE was to prank anyone during this training. Anyone who broke that rule would pay as dearly as The Joker and Godzilla could think of. And two, the terrors the Kongos would create and embellish in their heads would be worse then anything any of them could come up with, and the growing paranoia of the Yokosuka master pranksters delighted everyone. Gordon had added the Biblical quote from Romans 12:20 'Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.' Everyone loved the idea that they could completely prank the pranksters by just being an exemplar of polite professionalism.
"You look quite fetching in your suit. Are you ready to begin?" Godzilla said and smiled.
Kirishima could barely nod.
"Just think about Tennryu, and asking if she's scared," Godzilla said.
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Gordon looked around the empty shoreline. "I'm not going to say this is nuts, because that's so obvious." They'd been airdropped near the Supply Princess' base, and swam in underwater to avoid detection. Kushi had dropped off a short company of Smols and skedaddled. Ecchi-Nein was providing the same service to Godzilla's group further north.
Gotengo smiled. "That's why it'll work," she said and walked ashore. She'd gone for the 6" with 12" stinger outfit. It reduced her torpedo armament to three quintuples a side, but she felt better about her fighting power. Sharlin, John Ericsson, G'Quan and Omega headed onto the shore with Gordon bringing up the rear. Everyone launched their scout planes as soon as they were on dry ground.
"We should be in the palace at first light, that oughta shake things up," Gotengo said, "Just gotta do the paperwork."
Gordon was not happy about the way this inevitably had to go. No moonlight and radar receivers at maximum helped. They started hiking over the mix of crushed coral and basaltic rock. Patrols were sparse and easily avoided. That spoke to serious issues with planning, or manpower. If they could do it, then others could do it.
Part of it could be that the former Abyssals still sort of seemed Abyssal from a distance, he thought, And that in most militaries, once you're on base and not trying to go where you shouldn't, no one cares.
The first hitch came from their glimpse of a lone warehouse, well-separated from all others with more guards than there should have been, and these guards were not standard Abyssal classes.
"I don't remember any reports of something requiring that kind of security," Gotengo said.
John Ericsson piped up, "There are people raiding the warehouses, they're not acting like the disciplined locals. Their behavior is more like raiders."
"I haven't seen any battle damage," Sharlin said of her scouting. The other two nodded.
"You don't think," Gotengo pointed towards the lone warehouse, "Of course you do, because I'm thinking the same. The Princess currently known as Shark Dentures sold the secret to Supply Princess."
"Change of plans," John Ericsson said, "Unless you have a silencer for battleship caliber guns?"
"They're supersonic, so it wouldn't help," Gordon said, "Everyone got their knives or equivalent?"
They nodded and knelt down. Nearly a brigade of fairies quickly assembled from the ship-girls, joined up with the Smols and disappeared into the night. Their ship-girls now had to wait and count the minutes between now and sunrise.
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Godzilla surfaced slightly. He set Nagato, Mutsu and their scuba gear ashore, then they helped the man ashore when he'd dismissed his rigging.
"If that's so useful," Mutsu asked, "Why don't you use it more often?"
"The form affects my mind," Godzilla said, "I didn't do that with the Smols, but it affects me. And to be honest, that one is a bit creepy."
Nagoto and Mutsu exchanged confused looks, then Nagato blushed.
"What?" Mutsu asked and noted the shy nod to Godzilla the man who was staring at them with a wistful smile.
"What, gray gray is a good look for you," Godzilla said.
"You're just a dirty old man," Mutsu said.
"First time I've heard you complain about it," Godzilla said. Behind them, Ecchi-Nein surfaced and climbed ashore, then released her cargo of Smols who fanned out to cover the perimeter.
"Apparently it was not as big a surprise as we had hoped for," Ecchi-Nein said as the Smols led a man in working clothes towards them.
"Uh, we appreciate the rescue, but other than getting a few things in the stores, we really don't need rescuing," the man said, "Unless all the other Abyssals have gone away."
"No, there's several Princess' fleets heading this way," Godzilla said.
The man blanched and turned around and began jogging away. "Follow me," he called as he moved over the rocks.
"This is not turning out like I expected," Nagato said and began following him. Mutsu, Ecchi-Nein followed and Godzilla brought up the rear, the Smols had vanished. Godzilla wasn't worried, you always wanted your kids to surpass you in some way.
