Belated Battleships (KanColle) [REHOST]
- Thread starter theJMPer
- Start date
Yuudachi isn't the TENTH Shiratsuyu, she's the FOURTH. (Your SB copy needs this correction, too.)
EDIT: It occurs to me...
... the canon personality of Yamato would make New Jersey feel like a fucking clod. Might actually be worse than 'insufferable arrogance'.
Last edited:
still_guns
For the Empire!
- Location
- Bridge of ISS Conundrum
If the shipgirls come from the shipgirl equivalent of Valhalla, does that mean Ikazuchi's anchor is the equivalent of Thor's Hammer?
- Location
- 'Murica
No, see the problem is that Alaska took all of Jersey's dere. She's left with nothing but tsun and more tsun.
Fixed it, thanks.
Awww, thank you kindly!
Alaska: What, she's my friend. She just happens to be the perfect size and shape for cuddling.Seriously. Seriously? Do I even have to explain what's wrong with that conclusion. Bah. Hopeless, the lot of you shipgirls. And your human paramours too!
Jersey: On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, ew, zoomies.
That sounded wrong when I wrote it, but I checked the wiki. Don't check the wiki past midnight kids, this kinda thing happens.
Maaaaaaaybe~
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Oh good, then I can keep bugging her about it until she says the magic words.
... ok, you're fucking with me now. Nobody's that dense.
You actually watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies?
Adamantium9001
Sworn enemy of the dragon-tyrant
- Location
- Inside my own head
I beg your pardon? I think it's supposed to be just "matted," not "matted down." Also, the second half of the sentence is saying that if Wash had longer or shorter hair but it was equally messy, it wouldn't look as good, whereas what I think what you're trying to say is that the amount of messiness is what's perfect. Maybe go with "Her russet brown hair was matted just enough to look beautifully unkempt."
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Tell me, Alaska. The one who you think you might love, the one you wrote to Jersey about... who is it? Because I have a very good idea who it is at the moment...
- Location
- United States
*Excited U.N.Spacy000 noise*
And even the motorboat joke made its way over here! It is a good day.
Sounds more like Niflheim/Niflhelm/Niflhel/Hel - you know, that frozen wasteland place where vikings who die of old age instead of glorious battle are condemned to. That would probably fit more than Valhalla for the Iowas due to the 'nap' phenomena and such.
Stahor
BookWorm
- Location
- Russia, Moscow
Did she seen Mogami?
- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
By my reckoning, four people: Mogami, Mikuma, Tone and Alaska.
does Alaska also have Ushio and Isokaze?
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Really good thing we didn't give her a complex then...
....Lucky canuck!!!
That would be awesome. and funny. Mostly funny, really. But also awesome.
Eliminator
- Location
- 'Murica
Battleship New Jersey was a very,very fast ship. She had claws, nine of the finest naval rifles ever developed by human hands tied into the most advanced mechanical ballistics computer the world has seen or ever will see, and that wasn't even counting the two entire Fletchers she had strapped onto each hip.
She had armor, the finest American metallurgy could buy coupled with the finest damage control ever devised. Even if something managed to breech her belt, she could keep fighting. They wouldn't stop her unless they tore every limb from her body, and even then she could still fight with her teeth.
She had eyes. Brilliant ice-blue eyes with precision unmatched by any of her kin. Eyes backed up by a radar system that made every other ship afloat shiver in reverent awe. Eyes that could pick her target out of the inky blackness of a moonless night. Eyes that could walk her fire onto the object of her fury without ever revealing herself.
But above all, she was fast. Her turbines made her the most powerful battleship ever built, even her stillborn sisters the Montanas wouldn't have come close. At design overload, she pushed a quarter million horsepower though her shafts, her screws churning the sea to foam as they battered it to her will.
In her service against the Red Menace, she'd spent years fighting alongside Perry class frigates. Ships thirteen times lighter than her and powered by literal jet engines. Ships she could overhaul with out even exerting herself.
During The War, Jersey and her sisters had been in constant demand precisely because of that speed. They, and they alone, could keep up with the precious fleet carriers and bring the might of their flak barrage to bear.
There wasn't a ship in the world Jersey couldn't outrun or out-fight, and a great many that fell into both categories.
But… sometimes even Jersey felt like slowing down and enjoying a quiet day at sea. Since Musashi was still nursing a ragged gash in her torpedo blister, the fleet had slowed all the way down to a relaxing twelve knots. But, regardless of the practical reasons, it was a beautiful day for a nice relaxing jaunt down the coast.
There wasn't a cloud in the polished-sapphire sky. Warm sunlight beat down against Jersey's skin, bathing her with a pleasant warmness even as her slender bow skimmed though the chilly water gently lapping at her hull.
The ocean felt comforting, inviting even. The waves curling against her hull felt like the gentle kisses of a—probably French—lover, not the harsh battering she'd had to endure off Adak island those few days ago. Days that felt like months, now.
And to top it all off, Jersey swore the wind blowing off the Canadian coast smelled faintly of fresh maple syrup. The sent wasn't quite pungent enough to make her hungry, but it was more than enough to put a smile on her face and a bit of spring in her hips. "Nice day for a sail, hmm?" she said to nobody in particular.
"Indeed," Musashi smiled. There was still a tiny catch in her side every time a wave hit her at just the right angle. The girl was built like fucking tank with tits, but even herdesign couldn't completely compensate for shitty-ass Jap DC. Jersey made a mental note to corner the girl for some lessons once they made port, it'd be a shame if she sank.
"You doing okay there, Mushi?" Jersey lazily fell into formation a few dozen yards abreast of the super battleship, her shades glinting with the Japanese girl's pouting scowl.
"It's nothing my armor can't handle," said Musashi, "As long as we stay below…" she stroked her chin in thought, the action squeezing her colossal breasts together in a way that had to be at least somewhat intentional. Not that Jersey was jealous or even particularly attentive to that region of her anatomy or anything. "Say, fifteen knots?"
"Want me to send a crew over?" asked Jersey, her hands resting on her broad hips to frame them for Musashi's viewing convenience. The American tensed her legs as her hull rode over a wave, the muscles in her massive thighs pulling her shorts even tighter over her General-Electric provided powerplants.
"I can manage," said Musashi, her glasses glinting in the sunlight as her gaze drooped down along the American's towering figure.
"You sure?" Jersey bit back a shit-eating grin, "You wouldn't feel better full of my seamen?"
For a split-second, Musashi didn't get the joke. After all, it only works in English. Then her snowy hair tufts quivered, and her face blushed a brilliant chocolaty-red color. "Jersey!" she hissed.
"Your face!" Jersey threw her head back and howled with laughter. "You should have seen your fucking face!"
Musashi aimed a punch at the howling American, but Jersey effortlessly pulled ahead. Even without the huge gash on her TDS, Musashi couldn't hope to keep up.
"Jersey!" Musashi's voice thundered loud enough attentive Canadians probably heard it all the way to the coast. "Jersey, that's lewd!"
"And your fucking outfit isn't?" Jersey clawed at her stomach, trying to keep herself at least upright as she howled with laughter. "Oh man… that's too good."
Musashi scowled and folded her arms in her typical chest-squeezing pout.
"Speaking of," added Jersey, "When we get to the mainland, you're gonna have to wear your shirt like a fucking shirt."
Musashi cocked a snowy eyebrow.
"Look, uh…" Jersey shrugged, "If you're gonna be in America, you should follow our rules, okay? Do I come to Japan and tell you how to run your country?"
"Yes," said Musashi.
"Twice," added Kongou.
Jersey screwed up her face, "Wait, what was the second time?"
Kirishima rolled her eyes.
Before either battleship could speak up, a voice crackled though Jersey's radio room. A voice she swore the recognized.
"Hey, beauty queen, this is Frisco, ya you copy?" The cruiser's easygoing accent was just tinted with something a little darker, but Jersey could tell the cruiser was putting on a mask—either for her own morale or everyone else's.
Jersey tensed, her hands balling into fists as a memory she never wanted to repeat floated into her mind. "Frisco…" Her face exploded into a blush. The entire rest of her task force was staring at her, and Kongou was even flashing 'beauty queen?' at her in Morse. "Goddamnit."
"Oh hey, it's you!" Frisco's smile radiated over the radio, "Hey, you gotta show me how you do that thing with your hair? It's really pre-"
Jersey hurriedly downed out the signal with a husky grunt of her own, but it wasn't fast enough. Musashi was smirking, Kongou was giggling, Naka was smiling like a tiny orange shark, and Kirishima was scribbling so fast actual, literal smoke was coming off her pencil. Fuckers. "Frisco, now is neither the time nor the place."
"Yeah, okay," Frisco paused. "Anyway, we caught a few panzerschiffs trying to run down Juan de Fuca."
Suddenly, Jersey was very very interested. "Continue."
"Wash bagged three, but there's still," A brief pause punctuated by the quiet sound of Frisco counting under her breath, "Four of the little bastards that broke for the Pacific. I'm shadowing them with Radar-"
Jersey shot a triumphant glance to Musashi, who just pouted it off with a huff.
"Admiral-" Frisco's voice wavered for a second as she let the word slide though her lips,"Wants to know if you gals feel up to a little interception. Shouldn't take you more 'n a day or two out of your way."
Jersey bit her lip, "wait one, Frisco."
"Wilco, beauty queen."
"Call me that and I eat you."
"Promises~" said Frisco with a sing-song lilt.
Jersey scowled and glanced back at the rest of her fleet. "Ya'll are in the loop I take it?"
The girls nodded back.
"Anyone not feeling up to a little smash 'n… well, more smash?" she asked, her gaze hovering over the hole in Musashi's TDS.
Musashi huffed. "German torpedoes a shit," she said proudly. "THEY CANNOT SINK MUSASHI!" she added at a deafening bellow.
"They already dumped their fish," added Frisco. "They might've reloaded, but it's hard as hell to reload your fish while running for your stinking nazi lives at twenty-eight knots."
Jersey glanced at Musashi, who just flashed a wicked grin. "Okay, we're in," she said. "Since when is killing Nazis ever the wrong option?"
—|—|—
Back on the Washington shores, professor Crowning enjoyed a nice breakfast of oatmeal, orange juice, and staring fruitlessly at a white board. Or at least he had been, until Yeoman Gale burst in. Dripping wet and dressed in nothing more than a towel that only nominally gave her any modesty.
Before the professor could react, Gale blurted out something enthusiastically and stared at Crowning like she'd just found the location of the Ark of the Covenant. Unfortunately, in her enthusiasm she'd slurred what might have been a coherent sentence into one indistinguishable blur of volume. "I'm sorry," Crowning put his spoon back down, "what?"
Gale huffed, her cheeks puffing out as water dripped down her features onto the carpeting. "I said," she stormed towards the board, one hand fumbling for a pen while the other held her towel close to her breast, "What if they're drops."
Crowning blinked, "I'm… I don't follow."
Gale frantically scribbled on the board with her pen, only to find the poor thing had lost every scrap of ink. She shot the dead marker a look of utter disappointment and hurtled it at Crowning's head. "Drops!" her eyes beamed with rabid enthusiasm.
Crowning deftly dodge the hurled marker, "I…saying it again will not cause me to suddenly know."
Gale huffed, "Do you play any video games?"
Crowning shook his head.
"It's like teaching a rock," grumbled Gale. "Look, just… If you kill something, they drop loot, and the bigger and badder the enemy, the better loot you get."
"Okay," Crowning nodded, his hands moving to his hips as his gaze shifted to the board.
"What if the girls are like that?" said Gale, "A… okay, I used to have cats growing up." Crowning shot her a look, but the sailor continued on regardless. "Every time you'd try and walk though the door one of those little bastards would just zip out between your legs."
Crowning's face glowed, "You think every time we kill one of those things, it leaves the door open for one of ours to sneak back?"
Gale nodded frantically, "I just… help me plot this, will you?"
The two leaped into action, Crowning calling out the date of every major battle with the Abyssals while Gale marked it down on the board. It took them less than an hour to form a workable plot.
"Holy shit," breathed Gale. It fit. Everything fit. Every time an Abyssal was slain, the tonnage chart jumped up. Sometimes a little if it was just a small skirmish. Sometimes by a massive amount of it was a full task-force or a Princess-class. The correlation wasn't just close, it was perfect.
"We found it," breathed Crowning. His face twisted into a shaky smile as a numb rush crashed over him.
"And the last major battle was…" Gale's gaze drifted over to the very right-most mark on the board.
"The Northern Princess," Crowning smiled and let out a careless laugh.
Gale Grinned. "You know, there's something I've always wanted to do."
—|—|—
Admiral Williams hunched over his computer, attending to the million and one things an Admiral of his station needs to account for. Chief among them was satisfying everyone's impossible demands for fleet assets. He had an entire ocean to cover, and precious few ships—especially capital ships—to do it with.
Frisco, for all her… eccentricities…had been invaluable in plugging a few of the most glaring holes, but she was only one cruiser. One very damaged cruiser, if his Yeoman's report was accurate. But he couldn't afford to pull her off the line, not when he needed every ocean-going warship he had ten times over just to hold the line.
And then he noticed a new e-mail waiting for him.
Several hours later, Williams strode into the summoning hall with the glass-smooth stride that seems so natural when wearing a proper dress uniform. His head was held high, his sword clicked against his hip as he walked into the room full to bursting with every sailor and Marine who could be spared. Even with so many bodies dampening the sound, the room resonated with a rocking fuzzy guitar riff.
It was at that exact moment that Gale, who was standing up on the stage with a Marine band, croons out "every girl's crazy for a sharp dressed man!" and thrust her hand at him.
Williams shot her the most blank of Admiral Stares. The inscrutable mask of brass that could make even the saltiest seadog go looking for the nearest bit of shore. Yeoman Gale's antics were well known among the base, and she got a generous amount of slack simply because of how well she worked with shipgirls.
But this time… this time she'd-
Williams blinked. This time she'd get away with it too.
Standing in the middle of the summoning pool, her brilliant copper hair quivering in the breeze like a dancing flame, was a girl. She was maybe a hair taller than Frisco, but she had the same slender, wiry build. All sinewy and muscle and very little fat to go around. A treaty cruiser, she had to be.
But where Frisco's fine features presented a mask of solemn calm and dignity, this girl's toothy grin and blazing red hair painted the picture of a loose-canon. A gunslinger from the old west, as suggested by the heavy revolvers hanging off her belt. And under her shoulders. And by the looks of it, she had a fifth gun strapped to the small of her back.
On the other hand, she wasn't flashing her stomach like Frisco did. The newcomer's shirt might have the sleeves torn off at the shoulder, but it was at least tucked into her salt-spattered shorts.
Williams pushed though the crowd, ready to address the newly returned shipgirl. "Attention!" barked a Marine.
The crowd instantly snapped too, and even the girl followed suit—after a brief moment of confusion where she tried to decide if she should salute or not.
Williams strode right up to the railing, his shoes clicking in perfect time as he looked down at the flame-headed girl. "Report."
"USS St. Louis, sir," The girl slammed a hand up against her brow, "Cee-ell-49, but you can call me Lucky Lou." She paused, "Or… just Lou, sir."
Williams smiled, and returned her salute with one of his own. "Welcome back, Lou. It's good to have you."
"It's good to be back, sir," said the girl. The cruiser. Not just any cruiser, one of the only ships to get underway during the Pearl Harbor attack. A ship who won eleven battle-stars, and who didn't even let a torn-off bow and a kamikaze hit keep her from the fight.
"Yeoman Gale," William's voice boomed over the suddenly-silent summoning chamber.
"Aye sir?" Gale's shoulders shrank, like she was trying to decide if she should try to hide or not.
"Good work."
Gale beamed.
"Saint Louis," Williams folded his hands behind his back, "Come with me, we'll get you briefed."
"Aye, sir!" Lou shot off a jaunty salute and half-ran half-skipped over to the ladder, her flaming hair following lazily behind her in a giant untamed mane of burning copper.
"And Gale," Williams smiled at the sailor, "Take a break, you've earned it."
She had armor, the finest American metallurgy could buy coupled with the finest damage control ever devised. Even if something managed to breech her belt, she could keep fighting. They wouldn't stop her unless they tore every limb from her body, and even then she could still fight with her teeth.
She had eyes. Brilliant ice-blue eyes with precision unmatched by any of her kin. Eyes backed up by a radar system that made every other ship afloat shiver in reverent awe. Eyes that could pick her target out of the inky blackness of a moonless night. Eyes that could walk her fire onto the object of her fury without ever revealing herself.
But above all, she was fast. Her turbines made her the most powerful battleship ever built, even her stillborn sisters the Montanas wouldn't have come close. At design overload, she pushed a quarter million horsepower though her shafts, her screws churning the sea to foam as they battered it to her will.
In her service against the Red Menace, she'd spent years fighting alongside Perry class frigates. Ships thirteen times lighter than her and powered by literal jet engines. Ships she could overhaul with out even exerting herself.
During The War, Jersey and her sisters had been in constant demand precisely because of that speed. They, and they alone, could keep up with the precious fleet carriers and bring the might of their flak barrage to bear.
There wasn't a ship in the world Jersey couldn't outrun or out-fight, and a great many that fell into both categories.
But… sometimes even Jersey felt like slowing down and enjoying a quiet day at sea. Since Musashi was still nursing a ragged gash in her torpedo blister, the fleet had slowed all the way down to a relaxing twelve knots. But, regardless of the practical reasons, it was a beautiful day for a nice relaxing jaunt down the coast.
There wasn't a cloud in the polished-sapphire sky. Warm sunlight beat down against Jersey's skin, bathing her with a pleasant warmness even as her slender bow skimmed though the chilly water gently lapping at her hull.
The ocean felt comforting, inviting even. The waves curling against her hull felt like the gentle kisses of a—probably French—lover, not the harsh battering she'd had to endure off Adak island those few days ago. Days that felt like months, now.
And to top it all off, Jersey swore the wind blowing off the Canadian coast smelled faintly of fresh maple syrup. The sent wasn't quite pungent enough to make her hungry, but it was more than enough to put a smile on her face and a bit of spring in her hips. "Nice day for a sail, hmm?" she said to nobody in particular.
"Indeed," Musashi smiled. There was still a tiny catch in her side every time a wave hit her at just the right angle. The girl was built like fucking tank with tits, but even herdesign couldn't completely compensate for shitty-ass Jap DC. Jersey made a mental note to corner the girl for some lessons once they made port, it'd be a shame if she sank.
"You doing okay there, Mushi?" Jersey lazily fell into formation a few dozen yards abreast of the super battleship, her shades glinting with the Japanese girl's pouting scowl.
"It's nothing my armor can't handle," said Musashi, "As long as we stay below…" she stroked her chin in thought, the action squeezing her colossal breasts together in a way that had to be at least somewhat intentional. Not that Jersey was jealous or even particularly attentive to that region of her anatomy or anything. "Say, fifteen knots?"
"Want me to send a crew over?" asked Jersey, her hands resting on her broad hips to frame them for Musashi's viewing convenience. The American tensed her legs as her hull rode over a wave, the muscles in her massive thighs pulling her shorts even tighter over her General-Electric provided powerplants.
"I can manage," said Musashi, her glasses glinting in the sunlight as her gaze drooped down along the American's towering figure.
"You sure?" Jersey bit back a shit-eating grin, "You wouldn't feel better full of my seamen?"
For a split-second, Musashi didn't get the joke. After all, it only works in English. Then her snowy hair tufts quivered, and her face blushed a brilliant chocolaty-red color. "Jersey!" she hissed.
"Your face!" Jersey threw her head back and howled with laughter. "You should have seen your fucking face!"
Musashi aimed a punch at the howling American, but Jersey effortlessly pulled ahead. Even without the huge gash on her TDS, Musashi couldn't hope to keep up.
"Jersey!" Musashi's voice thundered loud enough attentive Canadians probably heard it all the way to the coast. "Jersey, that's lewd!"
"And your fucking outfit isn't?" Jersey clawed at her stomach, trying to keep herself at least upright as she howled with laughter. "Oh man… that's too good."
Musashi scowled and folded her arms in her typical chest-squeezing pout.
"Speaking of," added Jersey, "When we get to the mainland, you're gonna have to wear your shirt like a fucking shirt."
Musashi cocked a snowy eyebrow.
"Look, uh…" Jersey shrugged, "If you're gonna be in America, you should follow our rules, okay? Do I come to Japan and tell you how to run your country?"
"Yes," said Musashi.
"Twice," added Kongou.
Jersey screwed up her face, "Wait, what was the second time?"
Kirishima rolled her eyes.
Before either battleship could speak up, a voice crackled though Jersey's radio room. A voice she swore the recognized.
"Hey, beauty queen, this is Frisco, ya you copy?" The cruiser's easygoing accent was just tinted with something a little darker, but Jersey could tell the cruiser was putting on a mask—either for her own morale or everyone else's.
Jersey tensed, her hands balling into fists as a memory she never wanted to repeat floated into her mind. "Frisco…" Her face exploded into a blush. The entire rest of her task force was staring at her, and Kongou was even flashing 'beauty queen?' at her in Morse. "Goddamnit."
"Oh hey, it's you!" Frisco's smile radiated over the radio, "Hey, you gotta show me how you do that thing with your hair? It's really pre-"
Jersey hurriedly downed out the signal with a husky grunt of her own, but it wasn't fast enough. Musashi was smirking, Kongou was giggling, Naka was smiling like a tiny orange shark, and Kirishima was scribbling so fast actual, literal smoke was coming off her pencil. Fuckers. "Frisco, now is neither the time nor the place."
"Yeah, okay," Frisco paused. "Anyway, we caught a few panzerschiffs trying to run down Juan de Fuca."
Suddenly, Jersey was very very interested. "Continue."
"Wash bagged three, but there's still," A brief pause punctuated by the quiet sound of Frisco counting under her breath, "Four of the little bastards that broke for the Pacific. I'm shadowing them with Radar-"
Jersey shot a triumphant glance to Musashi, who just pouted it off with a huff.
"Admiral-" Frisco's voice wavered for a second as she let the word slide though her lips,"Wants to know if you gals feel up to a little interception. Shouldn't take you more 'n a day or two out of your way."
Jersey bit her lip, "wait one, Frisco."
"Wilco, beauty queen."
"Call me that and I eat you."
"Promises~" said Frisco with a sing-song lilt.
Jersey scowled and glanced back at the rest of her fleet. "Ya'll are in the loop I take it?"
The girls nodded back.
"Anyone not feeling up to a little smash 'n… well, more smash?" she asked, her gaze hovering over the hole in Musashi's TDS.
Musashi huffed. "German torpedoes a shit," she said proudly. "THEY CANNOT SINK MUSASHI!" she added at a deafening bellow.
"They already dumped their fish," added Frisco. "They might've reloaded, but it's hard as hell to reload your fish while running for your stinking nazi lives at twenty-eight knots."
Jersey glanced at Musashi, who just flashed a wicked grin. "Okay, we're in," she said. "Since when is killing Nazis ever the wrong option?"
—|—|—
Back on the Washington shores, professor Crowning enjoyed a nice breakfast of oatmeal, orange juice, and staring fruitlessly at a white board. Or at least he had been, until Yeoman Gale burst in. Dripping wet and dressed in nothing more than a towel that only nominally gave her any modesty.
Before the professor could react, Gale blurted out something enthusiastically and stared at Crowning like she'd just found the location of the Ark of the Covenant. Unfortunately, in her enthusiasm she'd slurred what might have been a coherent sentence into one indistinguishable blur of volume. "I'm sorry," Crowning put his spoon back down, "what?"
Gale huffed, her cheeks puffing out as water dripped down her features onto the carpeting. "I said," she stormed towards the board, one hand fumbling for a pen while the other held her towel close to her breast, "What if they're drops."
Crowning blinked, "I'm… I don't follow."
Gale frantically scribbled on the board with her pen, only to find the poor thing had lost every scrap of ink. She shot the dead marker a look of utter disappointment and hurtled it at Crowning's head. "Drops!" her eyes beamed with rabid enthusiasm.
Crowning deftly dodge the hurled marker, "I…saying it again will not cause me to suddenly know."
Gale huffed, "Do you play any video games?"
Crowning shook his head.
"It's like teaching a rock," grumbled Gale. "Look, just… If you kill something, they drop loot, and the bigger and badder the enemy, the better loot you get."
"Okay," Crowning nodded, his hands moving to his hips as his gaze shifted to the board.
"What if the girls are like that?" said Gale, "A… okay, I used to have cats growing up." Crowning shot her a look, but the sailor continued on regardless. "Every time you'd try and walk though the door one of those little bastards would just zip out between your legs."
Crowning's face glowed, "You think every time we kill one of those things, it leaves the door open for one of ours to sneak back?"
Gale nodded frantically, "I just… help me plot this, will you?"
The two leaped into action, Crowning calling out the date of every major battle with the Abyssals while Gale marked it down on the board. It took them less than an hour to form a workable plot.
"Holy shit," breathed Gale. It fit. Everything fit. Every time an Abyssal was slain, the tonnage chart jumped up. Sometimes a little if it was just a small skirmish. Sometimes by a massive amount of it was a full task-force or a Princess-class. The correlation wasn't just close, it was perfect.
"We found it," breathed Crowning. His face twisted into a shaky smile as a numb rush crashed over him.
"And the last major battle was…" Gale's gaze drifted over to the very right-most mark on the board.
"The Northern Princess," Crowning smiled and let out a careless laugh.
Gale Grinned. "You know, there's something I've always wanted to do."
—|—|—
Admiral Williams hunched over his computer, attending to the million and one things an Admiral of his station needs to account for. Chief among them was satisfying everyone's impossible demands for fleet assets. He had an entire ocean to cover, and precious few ships—especially capital ships—to do it with.
Frisco, for all her… eccentricities…had been invaluable in plugging a few of the most glaring holes, but she was only one cruiser. One very damaged cruiser, if his Yeoman's report was accurate. But he couldn't afford to pull her off the line, not when he needed every ocean-going warship he had ten times over just to hold the line.
And then he noticed a new e-mail waiting for him.
Williams sighed. He'd gotten his fair share of strange and inexplicable e-mails from Gale, the most memorable of which only said 'The poi is real', but this was certainly up there. But in all his time working with the yeoman, she'd never once let him down. So the admiral made a note on his schedule, leaving plenty of time to change uniforms and show up at the exact stroke of three like she'd asked.
Several hours later, Williams strode into the summoning hall with the glass-smooth stride that seems so natural when wearing a proper dress uniform. His head was held high, his sword clicked against his hip as he walked into the room full to bursting with every sailor and Marine who could be spared. Even with so many bodies dampening the sound, the room resonated with a rocking fuzzy guitar riff.
It was at that exact moment that Gale, who was standing up on the stage with a Marine band, croons out "every girl's crazy for a sharp dressed man!" and thrust her hand at him.
Williams shot her the most blank of Admiral Stares. The inscrutable mask of brass that could make even the saltiest seadog go looking for the nearest bit of shore. Yeoman Gale's antics were well known among the base, and she got a generous amount of slack simply because of how well she worked with shipgirls.
But this time… this time she'd-
Williams blinked. This time she'd get away with it too.
Standing in the middle of the summoning pool, her brilliant copper hair quivering in the breeze like a dancing flame, was a girl. She was maybe a hair taller than Frisco, but she had the same slender, wiry build. All sinewy and muscle and very little fat to go around. A treaty cruiser, she had to be.
But where Frisco's fine features presented a mask of solemn calm and dignity, this girl's toothy grin and blazing red hair painted the picture of a loose-canon. A gunslinger from the old west, as suggested by the heavy revolvers hanging off her belt. And under her shoulders. And by the looks of it, she had a fifth gun strapped to the small of her back.
On the other hand, she wasn't flashing her stomach like Frisco did. The newcomer's shirt might have the sleeves torn off at the shoulder, but it was at least tucked into her salt-spattered shorts.
Williams pushed though the crowd, ready to address the newly returned shipgirl. "Attention!" barked a Marine.
The crowd instantly snapped too, and even the girl followed suit—after a brief moment of confusion where she tried to decide if she should salute or not.
Williams strode right up to the railing, his shoes clicking in perfect time as he looked down at the flame-headed girl. "Report."
"USS St. Louis, sir," The girl slammed a hand up against her brow, "Cee-ell-49, but you can call me Lucky Lou." She paused, "Or… just Lou, sir."
Williams smiled, and returned her salute with one of his own. "Welcome back, Lou. It's good to have you."
"It's good to be back, sir," said the girl. The cruiser. Not just any cruiser, one of the only ships to get underway during the Pearl Harbor attack. A ship who won eleven battle-stars, and who didn't even let a torn-off bow and a kamikaze hit keep her from the fight.
"Yeoman Gale," William's voice boomed over the suddenly-silent summoning chamber.
"Aye sir?" Gale's shoulders shrank, like she was trying to decide if she should try to hide or not.
"Good work."
Gale beamed.
"Saint Louis," Williams folded his hands behind his back, "Come with me, we'll get you briefed."
"Aye, sir!" Lou shot off a jaunty salute and half-ran half-skipped over to the ladder, her flaming hair following lazily behind her in a giant untamed mane of burning copper.
"And Gale," Williams smiled at the sailor, "Take a break, you've earned it."
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Spectre
eternal servant to the Fire/EMS gods
- Location
- NY
no this is Helena's sister. her class was a subgroup of the Brooklyn class
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Well, damn JMPer. Now I have to wait a day for the fans to point out your mistakes and you to fix them so I can fold this in with the other chapter and then upload it to FFN. Couldn't you have waited another few hours?
...
Don't answer that.
Curious. Does Jersey genuinely not know about Commodore Perry or did she just forget?
This Capitalist-Imperialist American statement is approved by The Soviet Committee For the Liberation Of Europe From The Rule of Fascist Oppression...
(HOI4 is coming out in a week, can you tell I'm excited?)
Well, she's not quite Atlanta-level of gun but she is still a goodly amount of gun.
...
Don't answer that.
Curious. Does Jersey genuinely not know about Commodore Perry or did she just forget?
This Capitalist-Imperialist American statement is approved by The Soviet Committee For the Liberation Of Europe From The Rule of Fascist Oppression...
(HOI4 is coming out in a week, can you tell I'm excited?)
Well, she's not quite Atlanta-level of gun but she is still a goodly amount of gun.
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