Part 27
Gale sneaked a glance at her watch as Washington mopped up the last scraps of gravy with her biscuit. Four and a half hours. Four and a half
hours of the exact same routine.
Wash would make her selection from the serving area, offer profuse thanks and a licked-clean plate in exchange for a fresh helping of her choice. The battleship would then return to her seat with a graceful hip-swinging walk she couldn't have been aware of and tidy her napkin before she dug in. Then it was the endless repetition of cutting a small morsel off her meal, chewing silently, and dabbing at her mouth when required.
For
four and a half hours. She had to have ingested at
least ten thousand calories by now, shipgirl food was hearty stuff. Gale tried her very best not scowl.
The taffies might eat six meals a day—and that's not counting the nearly constant stream of candy and soda they ingested—but at least
each individual meal was more or less normal-sized. And Jersey… she just wolfed down her food so fast that Gale was never quite sure just
what she was eating. It let the Yeoman maintain a sense of plausible dependability, no matter how flimsy it might be.
But not Wash. Her demure eating habits made it
painfully clear how much she managed to fit into that slender little waist, especially when she wore that snug little haze-gray sailor top.
"Yeoman?" Wash set her fork down against her plate with a polite
clink of steel on plastic. "Is something the matter?"
"Hmm? I-" Gale snapped herself out of her daze. She wasn't staring! Honest. "I, uh… no, ma'am."
Wash gave her a look, those steely gray eyes warming up just a smidgen. She didn't say anything, just gave Gale
the look.
"You're gorgeous," said Gale, her voice just loud enough for Wash to hear, "Uh… I mean.. Ma'am?" The yeoman's face scrunched up like someone had poked her nose with a sledge hammer.
Wash's blush could only be described as thermonuclear. "That… That, uh," the elegant battleship actually
stammered before catching herself. She let out a short cough to require her bearings, "That worries you?"
Gale gulped, "Uh… not… I mean…" she held up a hand, begging for time to collect her thoughts.
Wash nodded, dabbing at non-existent specks of food on her face to hide her blush.
"Okay," Gale took a breath, "I'm in pretty good shape, yeah?"
Wash nodded.
"But… to keep in shape… I have to work out, watch what I eat," Gale sighed, "Pick a salad wrap for a mid-day snack instead of a brownie."
"Oh…" Wash looked utterly crestfallen, her shoulders going slack as she slouched back in her chair.
"Yeah," Gale bit her lip. "And here you are with…" the sailor waved generally over the battleship's perfect hourglass figure, "With…
that. And you eat three times your own body weight in
crap."
Wash didn't say a word, the muscles in her slender—but surprisingly toned—neck flexing and un flexing as she thought. "Yeoman… didn't you say you worked with New Jersey?"
"Yeah… but it's less obvious," said Gale, "She just sorta inhales it all."
The corners of Wash's mouth twitched upwards, and the demure battleship had to bite her lip to keep from bursting out in laughter. It was an action that, however valiant, proved unsuccessful, as a low rumble soon echoed from her mouth. "Of course she does."
Gale couldn't help but laugh along with her. "Don't- Don't worry, Ma'am," she said. "I'm sure I'll get used to it."
"I'm sure you will," said Wash, popping the last bit of biscuit into her mouth. She chewed for a second, swallowed, then added, "Just keep that in mind if you ever ask me to dinner."
By the time Gale got her voice back, Wash was already halfway to the serving area.
—|—|—
"J-Jersey?" White let out a pitiful little whimper. Rivulets of sweat dripped off her ruddy face, soaking into her salty hair and freezing her neckerchief solid.
"Yo," The battleship visibly cringed at the flagging escort carrier.
"I, I have to-"
"Convoy, drop to five knots!" barked Jersey, shushing the escort carrier with a glance as she peeled off to join her, "RJ, get a CAP up."
"Hai!" said the flattop carrier, waving her hands over that scroll thing as she spotted a deckload of Zeros, "wanna hang Two-fifty kilo bombs on 'em?"
Jersey scowled, jostling into position alongside her exhausted escort carrier. She really
really wished she had proper fighter-bombers like Hellcats or Skyhawks around. Or Tomcats, like in that one movie with
Nimitz. Zeros were air-superiority fighters, and flimsy ones at that… still, without White's TBFs to fly ASW… "Do it."
"You betcha!"
Jersey tossed a wave in reply. The Japs would cover her CAP. It… wasn't exactly a comforting thought, but she worked with what she had. And right now, she had more pressing problems. "Hey, kiddo," she said, her voice soft and warm as she fell abreast of White.
"Hey," said White with an exhausted grin. "I-I can make it, I jus' need a rest."
"Mm.." Jersey smiled, tousling the girl's sweaty hair, "Let's get you some food, hmm?"
White smiled, and gave a lazy nod.
"I got you a sandwich," said Jersey, pulling the neatly bagged items from her pocket, "and some strawberry milk, I know how you like that."
"I do," said White, reaching her shaky hands towards the bottle.
"Here," Jersey twisted the cap off and slid a straw into the frothy pink milk. "There," she knelt to offer the snack to her charge, "Drink up, kiddo, okay?"
White took a long sip, her eyes rolling back in undisguised glee.
"I'll get a DC team over there, yeah?" said Jersey, holding her hand out front of her vest pocket. A half-dozen faeries in dirty dungarees with bright red tool boxes obligingly crawled out, forming up in rough circle on the battleship's hand.
White nodded, silently sipping her milk as Jersey deposited her faeries on White's deck.
"You listen to her guys, okay?" said the Battleship, "They know uniflow better than you."
A tiny grunt in the affirmative.
"I'll be right here, take anything from the stores you need, okay?"
Another grunt, and the faerie puffed out her chest in pride.
"Yeah yeah…" Jersey smiled, handing White another bottle of milk as the carrier finished her first, "you're hot shit alright. Now do your jobs."
The faeries saluted, then disappeared into the carrier's superstructure.
Jersey sighed, her shoulders going slack as she steamed along at a crawl. Ryuujou was spotting her CAP, Kongou and Kirishima were watching for surface threats, Tenryuu was juggling the destroyers on Air-defense… Naka was handling C3 with that fancy-ass phone of hers… There wasn't much for the big battleship to do beyond cuddle her escort carrier.
"Hey, Jersey!" Naka waved at Jersey, steaming towards her at a good fifteen knots.
God fucking damn it.
"Message from Tei- um, I mean Admiral Williams," said Naka, holding her phone out to Jersey, "They did it! They figured out how to summon ships!"
"Hot damn, Lemme see!" Jersey felt her charred face crack into a smile.
Naka tossed her the phone. After a moment's blank stare for Jersey, she helpfully added "Press the green one to talk."
Jersey nodded, stabbing her thumb at the jewel-like button and holding the slender plastic rectangle to her ear. "USS
New Jersey, uh… over."
"Jersey, good to hear from you again." came the comfortingly familiar tones of her Admiral.
"Yeah," Jersey winced, "I think my radio got knocked out, it's been spotty at range."
"Fair enough, good to hear you're still in one piece."
Jersey smiled, "Thank you, Sir. What's this I hear about a playmate?"
"We'll brief you on the specifics later," said Williams,
"Suffice it to say, USS Washington is back and eager for action."
"What?" Jersey let out a squeal of surprise. "Holly Hannah that's awesome! I love Wash! Tell Crowning I owe him-" she screeched to a halt mid-sentence, her body physically shaking from the mental whiplash.
"Jersey, come in, over. Did we loose you?"
"Uh… no sir," said Jersey, "Just, uh… nothing, sir. It's nothing."
A pause.
"I'd say it's something, Jersey."
The battleship winced, "Why's that, sir?"
"The Professor started laughing as soon as you said it."
For a split-second, Jersey panicked. Then her glare went cold as ice, her head swivelling to bracket Naka with the deadly precision of her main battery. "Naka…"
"Yes~" said the light cruiser with a frustratingly cutesy sing-song idol cadence.
"Am I on speaker phone?"
"May~be~"
"Sir," said Jersey.
"Go ahead, Jersey."
"Request permission to slap the shit out of Naka when we make port."
