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Belated Battleships (KanColle) [REHOST]

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They'd probably be dressed as factory women, bandages here and there... you know, that working, no-nonsense look.


"When you prance around with all those pretty guns, be a dear and remember who hauled ass across the ocean to keep you and your sisters supplied!"
 
HolyDragoon said:
They'd probably be dressed as factory women, bandages here and there... you know, that working, no-nonsense look.


"When you prance around with all those pretty guns, be a dear and remember who hauled ass across the ocean to keep you and your sisters supplied!"
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They would definitely be a 'Rosie The Riveter' archetype.

Also, that sounds like something a Merchant Marine would say. I talked to one at a Veterans' Day meet in Arizona last year. That sounds exactly like him. Mad props.
 
HolyDragoon said:
They'd probably be dressed as factory women, bandages here and there... you know, that working, no-nonsense look.


"When you prance around with all those pretty guns, be a dear and remember who hauled ass across the ocean to keep you and your sisters supplied!"
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... Why do I imagine that being said in Scottie's voice? I haven't watched TOS or played STO recently, but that's the voice that pops into my head while reading that.
 
Here's some serious humor food.

What happens when local Girl Scouts and shipgirls meet?

During Girl Scout Cookie Season

Oh, the carnage.
 
"I ordered all the cookies."

"All. The. Cookies?"

"Yeah, what's the problem?"

"WHYYYY?"

"Which part of 'all the cookies' did you not understand?"

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!?"

"Duh yeah, I ordered all the cookies!"
 
The result: the shipgirl(s) who pulled the stunt are assigned to build a 1:1 scale replica of the naval base nearby. Out of only the cookie boxes. By hand.
 
Burning Baron said:
Doesn't somebody here volunteer on Texas?
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If so, they need to take pictures of the prophylactic room's humorous poster. I was apparently laughing too hard, and the image was terrible.

Yes. There was a prophylactic room next to the rest of the medical section. Sailors had to report in and be checked for venereal diseases after shore time.
 
Yeah I volunteer on Iowa. Semi-related, we just got our Iowa crew pins for 2016, and it seems the Big Stick is a fan of Pirates.




Iowa: Part of the ship, part of the crew!
Iowa, stop. Iowa, please...
 
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Confusion intensifies
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    • "You want a drink doc." Vestal glanced up from the messy collection of reference books, paperwork, and medical texts attempting to eat her desk just long enough to glance at Crowning though the chipped lenses of her eyeglasses.

    "No," Crowning sank into a chair. "I—"

    Vestal locked her eyes on his and scowled. "Wasn't a," she grunted and hauled her aged body to its feet with a crack of ancient metal and groaning flesh. She wasn't as young as she used to be. And that was saying something for her, she was ancient even when she served in the Pacific. "Ah… a question doc."

    Crowning shook his head and tried to wave her off. "Vestal, I really don't think…" he trailed off and pursed his lips. "Yeah. Pour me one."

    "That's the spirit," Vestal stuck her pipe between her teeth and promptly forgot about it as she poured two glasses of brandy. "Now," a tiny faerie wearing grubby, coal-covered fatigues darted down the stem of her pipe and stoked the fire. "You're here because of the tweet, aren't ya?"

    Crowning blinked at the repair ship. "How did you—"

    "I'm old," said Vestal. "But I'm not decrepit. Solette's kid taught me how to internet." She fished an iphone covered in coal dust from her tool belt and settled it on her desk.

    Crowning smiled and took a drink of the sniff brandy.

    "So," Vestal puffed on her pipe. "You're not mad about Jersey."

    The professor stared into his own reflection on the oak-brown brandy and sighed. "I really thought… I thought we'd had a thing going. That she…" he glanced up to see Vestal's catlike half-grin. "That wasn't a question either, was it?"

    Vestal shook her head. "To tell you the truth, I'm surprised. You don't find girls with asses like that everyday."

    Crowning growled under his breath. "It wasn't… She was pretty, but she was more then that."

    "She was your knight in shining armor, eh?" Vestal tossed back her drink and poured herself another.

    The mental image of Jersey in impractical miniskirted plate standing atop the corpse of a slain dragon intruded into the professor's mind, but he shooed it away with a grimace. "Could say that."

    "You thought she was perfect," Vestal's bushy eyebrows twitched, but her gaze was as solid as the horizon. "Don't deny it either, doc. You called her a living god."

    Crowning chuckled. It was the oldest cliche in the book, and he'd waltz right into it. "And you think I got so caught up in… the myth of the Black Dragon, I forgot she was still a girl."

    "Not just a girl," said Vestal. "A battleship who spent most of her life in the age of cruise missiles."

    Crowning blinked. "I don't follow."

    Vestal fished a giant book from under her desk and thumbed though the pages until she found what she was looking for. "This," she turned the book so Crowning could see, "Is a Jap Type-95 Long-Lance torpedo. Oxygen-powered, wakeless, with a ninety-eight-hundred yard range at fifty knots and a twelve-hundred pound warhead."

    Crowning nodded. He was still getting his head around the intricacies of naval combat, but the name 'Long-Lance' was evocative enough for him to remember. "Like Naka and her girls carry."

    Vestal shook her head. "That's the ninety-three. This—" she tapped the illustration—"Was the sub-launched model."

    "I don't follow."

    "Jersey—" Vestal took the book back and went hunting for another page. "—Has flawed torpedo bulges, but that doesn't matter because she doesn't even have a hydrophone set."

    Crowning blinked, not quite sure where the old repair ship was going with this.

    "And," Vestal pivoted the book around again to show an angry dart of a missile with stubby delta razor blades for wings hanging under a white-painted jet. "This is an AS-4 Kitchen missile. Flies at mach four with terminal radar guidance and a ton of high-explosive in the nose."

    The repair ship settled back onto her haunches. "After her reactivation, the extent of Jersey's effective air-defense battery was a handful of marines with Stingers that might down a pesky helicopter. Stopping things like that—" Vestal tapped the missile's picture again "—was the job of her escort. And Jersey lived like that for a decade."

    Crowning was silent as he pieced together what Vestal was saying.

    "Your girlfriend," said Vestal, "more than any other battleship in history, is utterly reliant on her escorts to feel safe. She needs you. Just like she needs all of us." She shrugged, and took a puff from her half-forgotten pipe. "But you knew that, otherwise you'd be angrier over what she did."

    The professor's voice was barely above a whisper when he replied. "Yeah."

    "You want my advice?" Vestal crossed her arms with a groan. "Because I'm giving it no matter what you say. She just lost her sister and you just found out she's not this perfect goddess you thought she was. Neither of you got your heads on straight."

    She shifted in her seat, shifting her bulging tool-belt with a jingle of gritty wrenches and sockets. "But… she still needs you, and I'm pretty sure you still love her. You just know she's human now."

    Crowning chuckled. He'd always thought of Jersey as the protector. A paladin against the demons of the abyss. It never occurred to him that she might need a protector of her own. "Yeah… I hadn't… yeah."

    "Not saying she's not an asshole," said Vestal with a grin. "Just… think 'fore you do anything drastic."

    Crowning nodded. "Thanks, Vestal."

    Vestal waved his thanks off with a flick of her hand and went back to her paperwork. But just as he was leaving she piped up again. "Uh… Doc?"

    "Hmm?"

    The repairship bit her lip. "You've been here a lot longer than I have." She paused for a moment then added, "Notice Wash eating more than usual lately?"

    Crowning shrugged. "Can't say I have, why?"

    Vestal drummed a finger against her papers. "No reason."

    —|—|—​
    Hamakaze's eyes narrowed to precise slits as she sized up her target. Her torpedoes were dialed in, and her gun crews stood ready by their posts. They were as drilled and disciplined as anyone in the IJN, they wouldn't open fire without her express order.

    But if she did give such an order, they would not miss. Not at this range. This was knife-fighting range, a destroyer's natural environment. Here, she and her sisters held all the cards.

    It didn't hurt that Nachi was taking up the rear of the formation. With the Kagerous screening her, the heavy cruiser was free to bring her long twenty-centimeter rifles to bear without fear of outrunning her turrets. She sat behind a newspaper-covered table, idly cleaning one of her hip-mounted quadruple tubes while her main battery directors hovered over her target.

    "You know," the big cruiser smiled a venom-dripping grin, "You'd be amazed how fast a human body decays at sea."

    "Mmm," Hamakaze nodded, but her eyes never lost her target track.

    "Just a few days in the blue," Nachi nodded to the gaggle of minute faeries sprawled over the table and snapped a torpedo tube back into its cradle, "Even your own mother would never identify the body."

    Urakaze just stared as menacingly as she could. Which, for her, meant smiling in a slightly less sunny manner than usual.

    "If they even find it, that is," said Nachi. "The sea's so vast… you'd probably be eaten to nothing by fish before you washed ashore."

    "Or sharks," said Isokaze.

    "Sharks are fish," said Hamakze.

    "No they're not!"

    "Yes they are," said Hamakaze.

    "They aren't, actually," said Urakaze. "Sharks don't have bones."

    Hamakaze huffed. "For the purposes of this example, they're fish."

    Isokaze blinked. "I'm confused."

    "Miss Nachi didn't mean only bony fish will eat him," explained Hamakaze. "She was using 'fish' in the general term of 'sealife'."

    Urakaze scratched at her chin. "I'm kinda with Hamakaze now."

    "What!" Isokaze screwed up her face in a pout. "No fair! NACHI!"

    "All of you shut up," Nachi scowled and hung her head. "You're supposed to be intimidating him."

    "Oh," Hamakze nodded and swung her gaze back around.

    "Right," Urakaze nodded resolutly.

    "Sorry, Nachi." Isokaze's pout lessened by a fraction and she brought her own battery to bear.

    On the other end of their stares, rifles, and torpedo tubes stood the utterly disinterested form of Cameron Young, Alaska's friend from the toy shop and soon to be date. His hands were thrust casually into the pockets of his jeans, and a lopsided smirk graced his youthful features. "You girls kinda suck at this."

    "Do not!" said Isokaze.

    Cameron chuckled, and fussed with the tie hanging loosely around his neck. "Get to the part where you tell me you're not afraid to go to prison."

    "What?" Hamakaze's face paled. "Noo… prison is scary."

    Nachi's head fell to the table with a loud thump, and the big cruiser started quietly pounding her skull against the newspaper covered wood while mumbling under her breath. Cameron got the feeling she wasn't saying very nice things about her destroyer screen.

    "You!" Isokaze thrust a gloved hand at Cameraon. "You made Hamakaze cry!"

    "Not crying," protested the silver-haired destroyer, but her sister had worked up too much inertial to stop so suddenly.

    "Prison might be scary!" thundered Isokaze with all the volume her tiny lungs could produce, "But we'd go there to protect our big sister!"

    "You mean 'laska?" chuckled Cameron.

    The three destroyers nodded. Nachi just bashed her head against the table, which Cameron decided counted as a nod.

    "Ya'll do know Texas already gave me this talk, right?" Cameron laughed a honey-smooth southern chuckle. "No offense to you girls, but she's an awful lot scarier than you."

    "Oh," Isokaze nodded. "We know."

    "Trust me," added Hamakaze, "We know."

    Before anyone could say anything more, a tall blonde in a long blue-green coat with a smile that noticeably brightened the room exploded through the doors with a laughing "Pan~ pa~ ka~ paaaaan~"

    "Wagner's bridal chorus?" said Cameron.

    "Yes!" Atago beamed at him and giggled. "How did you know?"

    "My mom's a wedding planner."

    "Ooooooh!" Atago's smiled grew so large it started to genuinely unease Cameraon. Perhaps he should have kept that little tidbit of information to himself. Texas had made the same kind of excited giggling noise when she learned. He tried not to think of reasons why.

    Nachi banged her head against the table and muttered something. The only word Cameron caught was "Baka".

    "'Laska will be right down," said Atago. The busty cruiser settled onto a couch and pulled her coat tight against her legs with a giggle.

    "Are you going to try and intimidate me, ma'am?" asked Cameron.

    Atago laughed. "Of course not, sweetie! I'm just going to keep a spotter in the air so I can get some pictures." She laughed again, and brought her kindly eyes around to meet his. "While I stay within main battery range at all times."

    "See girls," Cameron glanced at the destroyers while pointing to Atago. "that is how you make a threat."

    Hamakze nodded, and fished a notebook from her bra and scribbled a few lines down.

    "'Taagoooooo~" Alaska's beautiful airy voice washed down the stairs like the first lights of dawn kissing the coast. "Tagooo… Is he here?"

    "Yes, 'laska," said Atago.

    "Still?" Alaska seemed genuinely surprised, but her voice kept its kind-but-contentedly-bewildered lilt that Cameron found so endearing.

    "Yes, 'laska." Atago giggled. "Even we couldn't scare him away."

    There was a pause.

    "Oh, good!" Alaska's laugh preceded her as she ducked though the doorway. Which was probably a good thing, because even with advance warning Cameron took what felt like hours to pick his jaw up off the floor.

    She was beautiful, even more stunning than she normally was. Her old parka and heavy snow boots had been traded in for a sea-blue dress trimmed with fur around the neckline and sneakers. Her pale skin glittered like freshly-fallen snow, except for the brilliant patches of red on her adorably chubby cheeks, and her silver hair was done up in a rope braid tipped with a little anchor.

    If he could have torn his eyes off the nervously happy look on her face, he might have noticed her tights giving a better look at her tremendously strong legs than her old pants ever had. But her smile was just too cute to look away from. "W-wow."

    "I told you," said Atago.

    Alaska smiled and twirled her dress a bit more. "'s so swishy!"

    "You look beautiful, 'laska."

    Alaska giggled, and shuffled over to his side. It was a little awkward, considering how much taller she was—and how her nerves were ruining her already tenuous sense of coordination. But that just made her that much more endearing. "T-thank you!"

    Cameron beamed at her. He bit back his nerves and put his arm around his slender waist so his fingers just brushed at her hip. "Do you mind, 'laska?"

    The large cruiser didn't answer. But she did suddenly squish herself against him with the quiet 'shhhoompf' of a sheet of paper getting lifted by a vacuum, and her hand was suddenly around him.

    "Is…" Cameron blushed. He was pretty sure that was a yes, but… well he hadn't been this nervous in years. "You don't mind?"

    Alaska frantically shook her head. "I like," she mumbled.

    "Eeeee!" Atago bolted to her feet with her phone snapping off pictures faster than a battery of antiaircraft guns. "You two are SOOOO CUUUUUUUTE!"

    Cameron felt Alaska's skin heat up as her blush deepened. He was sure he wasn't doing much better, but he didn't look nearly as cute with a blush as she did. "Uh… shall we?"

    Alaska nodded happily, and he steered her back out the way he'd came.

    One of the benefits of dating a shipgirl was the free transport. Anything bigger than a destroyer—who Cameron was pretty sure were off-limits anyways—would hopelessly max-out any civilian car or truck. Thankfully, Admiral Raleigh had offered one of the base ten-tons to ferry them around on their date.

    Unfortunately, said truck came with a pair of Marine drivers who felt it their duty to both intimidate him into a quivering wreck and offer him thoroughly unhelpful love advice. But they were cool enough guys once you got to know them, and neither one was anything but a gentleman once Cameron actually had Alaska on his arm.

    "So," the cruiser settled herself on the spartan bench with a smile. "Where are you going?"

    "Well," Cameron blushed. It'd sounded like such a brilliant idea when he thought of it, but now that he was actually telling the gorgeous cruiser… "I was going to take you ice skating."

    Alaska looked confused. Which could mean literally anything, because she always had that slight air of being a stranger in a strange world just happily fumbling her way though life.

    "It's…" Cameron stopped and forced himself to get his words in order before just letting them spill out of his mouth. "Uh… I figured… you can walk on water… this way I could to."

    Alaska's contented face twitched into a slight smile.

    "That sounded more romantic when I thought of it," said Cameron with a nervous chuckle.
     
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    • Yes! First like! [ICHIBAN INTENSIFIES]

    But seriously, a good chapter, and it's nice to see Crowning try to recover from this, though he'll still need to talk with Jersey at some point.
     
    Hmm. Nice chapter. Hell lots of nice chapters. Not sure about the Crowing and Jersey thing. Prefer have them stay friends at this point. Friends can be escorts after all.
     
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