When Jersey woke up, she was lying flat on a cool metal slab. It wasn't quite what she'd call
cold, but… it was certainly noticeably chilly against her bare skin. That was the second thing her groggy mind noticed as it lazily shook itself out of mothballs: she was completely bare-ass naked.
"What?" Jersey's voice rang quiet and horse in her ears, and her mouth was dry and cottony. She tried to rub… something, slag probably… from her eyes, but only succeeded in smacking herself in the face. Her arms were as strong as ever, but her hands felt like lead blocks, and she didn't have any feeling past her elbows.
But the parts of her body she
could feel were… all tingly inside. She could feel her crew polishing a couple of new bofors mounts, which Jersey was more than happy to have. But her attention was captured by the strange sensation in her bunkers freshly enlarged to meet the baseline of her class. She felt full and empty at the same time. She felt the weight of thousands of tons of fuel oil, but she could also feel it slosh around with every breath.
She was also hungry as fuck, but as an Iowa class battleship, that was pretty much a constant for her. A warship of her vastness always felt at least a little peckish. Her tummy groaned a rumble that echoed off the sterile tile walls, and the battleship started to pick herself up off the chilly steel table.
But she stopped before her shoulder-blades lost contact. She wasn't alone, not really. A naval engineering faerie stood on her breast, its little feet making divots in her pale flesh as it struggled to stay upright. Jersey knew it was a naval engineer because of the itty-bitty glasses suspended in front of its even tinier eyes, and the utterly adorable little clipboard it held in one stubby hand.
"Hey," Jersey nodded at the little thing. It waved a stumpy hand in reply. "He take good care of me?"
The battleship glanced over at her other breast, where a dozen or so marines lay entrenched in a ball of kevlars, M16s, and Woodland BDUs with the sleeves rolled up in the way only Marines could quite pull of. "Guys?"
A miniature lieutenant whipped his little head over, his kevlar continuing the motion for a split-second longer and nearly whipping him in the cheek with its chin-strap. After a moment to collect himself, he reported in the affirmative.
"See," Jersey braced her elbows against the table and jacked herself up to a more comfortable supine position. She was careful to move slowly though, so neither of the parties assembled on her quarterdeck went toppling off. "Didn't have a thing to worry about."
The Marines huffed and idly fixed bayonets.
"So," Jersey glanced at the engineer. "How long was I out?"
The faerie—who Jersey was certain had to be a loan from Akashi—answered with a few imperceptible words.
"Two
weeks?" Jersey's jaw dropped. It felt like just heartbeats ago the hipless-skirted wonder had been talking her through the process and putting in drydock. Refitting is a hull of a drug. "Shit! Oh, fuck me in the shaft galleries, I got shit to do."
The faeries stared silently up at her.
"That means you guys need to go."
The engineer just hopped off, sliding down Jersey's belly like it was a toned gaijin waterslide and bouncing between her abdominal muscles until it finally landed on the table by her hip.
The Marines, however, decided it would be cooler and more tactcal to rappel off Jersey's flank. Which would have been fine, Jersey herself admitted it looked pretty damn cool, if they hadn't needed to set their lines first. Lacking any convenient place on her breast to tie off their ropes, the marines had just dug several itty-bitty grappling hooks into her tender flesh.
"What the
fuck guys?" Jersey scowled at the marines and gingerly picked the hooks out of her skin. She sighed at their shameless explanation. "I guess I can accept that."
The battleship rolled her eyes and swung her long legs off the table. Two weeks was a long time to spend on her back, and she was careful to brace her arms against the table as she gently shifted her weight to her feet. Her muscles quivered for a moment, then found their strength.
Her first step was a little timid. Her second less so. And by the third, she was moving just like she always had. She didn't bother trying to cover herself as she went looking for her uniform, she doubted anyone would intrude. And if they did, they'd be Japanese, which made it her patriotic duty to give them an unadulterated view at how immensely superior American shipbuilding was in every conceivable aspect.
But then the battleship caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The change to her figure wasn't huge, other than her upperworks being a bit less disproportionately small next to her hips. But her body wasn't what the battleship was staring at. She was staring at her hair.
It was the same waterfall of strawberry-tinged blond that fell almost to the cleft of her aft it had been before. Only she now had two little tufts sicking up from the crown of her head. Little copper-gold tufts that looked eerily like the furry simulacrums of a cat's ears.
"POI!" Jersey roared and furiously tried to brush her tufts down, but to no avail. The moment her hands lost contact the tufts would spring back like she hadn't touched them in the first place. "POI! Get your scrawny ass in her
Right fucking now!"
"Poi?" the slim destroyer stuck her little head around a divider and smiled. Her little hair-tuft-puppy-ear
things flapped with the motion, as full of happiness as they were devoid of shame. "Like… you look good, Jersey!"
"Good?" Jersey bit her lip and huffed. "I look like a fucking catgirl with…" she trailed off as her eyes traveled lower on her own reflection, "With… a fucking killer rack, but that's not the goddamn point right now!"
Yuudachi giggled. "Neko-Chan Jersey, Nyaaa~" she pawed the air, earning a glare from Jersey that could melt steel.
"I hate everything," said the battleship.
"It's… like… not all a loss, though, poi!" Yuudachi stepped fully into Jersey's half of the refitting bay and did a little twirl. Her hair had picked up the same copper-blond highlights at the tips that Jersey's had, and her figure was subtly—though noticeably—curvier.
"Wait…" Jersey glanced from her own reflected tufts to Yuudachi's new haircolor. "You… don't suppose Akashi got her notes crossed?"
Yuudachi shrugged. "I like… I don't mind." She did another twirl and giggled as her hair splayed out around her. "I like this!"
"Yeah…" Jersey sighed and glanced at her own reflection. "Guess… I like it too, poi."
—|—|—
"Hey, Vestal. You got a minute?" Gale wrapped her knuckles against the cranky old repairship's door. It seemed like every time she walked by, the number of taped-up memes promising horrific retribution if Vestal was forced to leave her nice comfy office because someone got drunk increased. Gale was reasonably certain it had something to do with Vestal's age, but some kind of bitching about drunks was a common thread among all the medical personnel she knew.
There was a long, ragged breath from the other side of the door before Vestal's croneish voice rattled out. "Yeah, 's open."
Gale opened the door and was hit square in the face by a solid mass of thick coal smoke. Vestal might not approve of drinking, but she certainly loved that pipe of hers. "Ah…" she waved a pocked of clean air in front of her and settled into a chair below the ash layer. "You, uh… you okay?"
Vestal shrugged and planted her pipe in the corner of her mouth. By the way she moved, she seemed to forget it was there the moment her hands left the battered wooden chamber. "What can I do for ya?"
"Well, I was…" Gale trailed off as she noticed what the repair ship had been reading. An anatomy book, but not a high-level graduate textbook. This was a book for—maybe—high-schoolers, complete with inexplicably-ethnically-diverse and painfully nineties lingo on the cover. "Vestal?"
"Huh?" The repairship puffed idly on her pipe.
"What are you reading?"
"'m learning," said Vestal.
"But…" Gale glanced from the book to the ancient auxiliary and back again. "But you're a repair ship."
"Exactly," said Vestal. "I repair
ships. Ask me to put out a fire or plug a torn torpedo bulge and I can do it in my sleep. But ask me to… to…" She trailed off. "See, I don't even know enough about biology to give you an example of something I don't know how to do."
The repair ship chewed angrily on her pipe. "You know… Jersey called me the other day. Needed help getting… uh…" she leaned in to make sure she wasn't overheard, "sand outta her shaft galleries."
Gale blinked. "should I know what that means?"
"Well…" Vestal's blush was so bright it was visible through her gritty age-weathered cheeks. "She… twixt her shafts…"
"Oh my god!" Gale winced at the thought. "Oh! that's…"
"Yeah," said Vestal. "I just laughed 'cause… 'cause it was funny—"
Gale shrugged in agreement.
"And because as long as I was laughing," said Vestal, "I didn't have to admit I couldn't do a single thing to help her." She sighed and drummed her fingers against her book. "So now I'm changing that."
Gale didn't know why, but she felt the overwhelming compulsion to hug Vestal. So she did just that, and ruffled the auxiliary's graying hair for good measure.
Vestal smiled that raggedy-old-cat smile of hers. "Thanks. Hey," She peeked her bushy eyebrows. "Did you know the…" she paused to flip open her book and skim a few lines, "My-to-con-dri-a is the powerhouse of the cell?"
Gale chuckled. "Yeah, I think I did, Vestal."
"That's so fascinating," said Vestal. "We've only got the one propulsion plant, but you…" she trailed off. "Anyways, why'd you want to talk to me?"
"Well…" Gale squirmed in her seat. "Actually… I wanted to ask you about Wash and her…" Gale held her hands around her belly, "And the whole deal. But if you're not, uh… no offense…"
"Oh, none taken." Vestal puffed on her pipe. "I'm afraid I can't help you there," she drummed her fingers on her book. "Might want to talk to Nurseboat or his wife."
"Nurseboat?" Gale chuckled.
"The… army… what'shisface," Vestal waved in the general direction of Solette's office. "The one who does my paperwork and gets in my way."
"I'll tell him you said that," said Gale with a smirk.
"Fine, I say it to his face all the time." Vestal chuckled to herself. "Say… Gale?"
The sailor froze halfway through the door. "Yeah?"
"This…" Vestal blushed. "Might be a little intimate, but when's the last time you… ah… drained your bilges?"
Gale shot the auxiliary a look of utter uncomprehension. "What?"
"Never mind," Vestal shrugged and went back to reading.
"Okay," Gale sighed and completed her journey through the door. It had just latched behind her when her eyes went wide as dinner plates and a happy gasp slipped through her lips.
—|—|—
"Admiral." Nagato's rough, deep voice was as stern as frozen iron. The imperious aspect was only highlighted by the stiff fabric of her knee-length, heavily armored greatcoat. If Admiral Goto was into the stern, silent type of woman, he'd have said the sturdier uniform was a great improvement. But he wasn't so he didn't. "May I have a word?"
"Of course." Goto glanced up from whatever the hell he was doing. He had so many things on his plate right now, he barely had time to read any of it. He focused all his limited attention on fighting the war, he trusted Ooyodo enough to just sign anything she put in front of him.
On second thought, that probably explained how she kept accumulating those sixty-four ounce coffee mugs. But since she destroyed them almost as fast in fits of stress-induced rage-against-the-spreadsheets, Goto had no trouble looking the other way.
"Nagato, what's on your…" Goto froze in horror as he noticed something off about the stern big-seven battleship standing imposingly in his doorway. Her face was as grim as always, her posture a face-hardened mass of authoritarian strength. But cradled against her breast, all but invisible against the fabric of her gloves, was her hamster.
While her face was utterly devoid of emotion—save perhaps for a burning hatred directed in a generally enemies-of-Nippon direction—her fingers were lightly stroking the small animal with careful, measured pets.
Nagato
hated being seen in public fawning over cute things. She was, more than any other ship in the entire fleet, Japan given form in flesh and steel. She made it quite clear that she considered anything less than utter devotion to her duty beneath her dignity as a battleship and a warrior.
Just purchasing that animal in the first place had been a dance of espionage and logistics that'd make Operation Diamond look like a run to the konbini. For her to take that animal out of her room… Her need for cute things must be so overwhelming she couldn't endure the dozen or so steps between her office and his without something to slow the meltdown.
"Nagato," Goto bolted to his feet and dug one of the kitty calendars he kept in the very bottom drawer of his desk for just such an occasion. It'd had saved his life more than once before. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," Nagato's face was impassive, but her pets sped up a notch. "I…" corded muscle in her neck tensed as she knit her jaw. Her nostrils flared as she hissed in a stiff breath. "I… would like to request…" she closed her eyes and frantically petted the little ball of fur cradled to her chest.
"Here." Goto flipped the calendar to a particularly adorable picture of a Maine Coon kitten. Nagato liked her cats shaggy, although Goto pretended not to know.
"Thank you, sir." Nagato took a moment to drink in its adorable little paws, and a tiny smile graced her usually so-stern features. Her heart started to ease it's frantic patter, and what muscles Goto could see slackened their tension.
"Now," Goto gently stroked the battleship's ashy black hair. Nagato might not be as fragile as some of his other girls, but she broke… "What did you want to ask me?"
"I…" Nagato took a breath to calm herself. "I would like to request a patrol route that would take me past Sasebo. If—" she stopped again and smoothed the folds in her coat. "If, and only if, the military situation allows it."
Goto smiled. "Shouldn't be a problem."
Nagato allowed herself a tiny glimmer of a smile. "Thank you sir, I…" she stopped, and superstitiously shoved the calendar down her shirt. "If there's nothing else?"
"Dismissed."
"Thank you, sir." Nagato turned on her heel and walked smartly out the door. Goto counted off the steps until she was at her office, waited a few more seconds for her to close the door behind her… and…
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" A high-pitched scream that was still distinctly modulated from Nagato's smokey contralto roared through the building.
Goto ducked his head out his office. "Everyone hear that?"
There was a chorus of nods from the assembled collection of shipgirls and sailors.
"You will go to your grave before you tell another soul," said Goto with deadly earnest. "That is all."
—|—|—
"Welcome to naval gunnery one-oh-one." Texas took great happiness in drawing each syllable of the number through her thick honey-on-cornbread accent. The plump battleship idly spun her parasol in the coastal wind and smiled at the lean, leggy form of former-aircraft carrier Saratoga. "Well, for you sweetie, it's more one-oh-two on account of your eight-inchers."
Sara shivered as much as she could in the warm coastal air. "Don't remind me, Tex."
"But you looked so cute with your 'lil pop-guns," Texas allowed herself a moment to reminisce of happier days in the Pacific fleet.
"They were twenty-centimeter guns," Atago crossed her arms with a huff. She was fully aware that she was no battleship, and that her friend Alaska had her effortlessly beat with those long twelves of hers. But the twenty-centimeter/fifty third-year number two was a gun as excellent as its name was ponderous. Atago had ten of them and she was far from useless, right? "Twenty centimeter guns aren't small."
"On you, maybe." Texas chuckled. "But look at Sara here."
Atago did. She looked up at the slender American battlecruiser. And up. And up and up and up. Sara really was astonishingly tall, and almost all of that height came from her sinewy legs. She really was a
capital ship, one that commanded the undivided attention and awe of all in her presence without speaking a single word.
In hindsight, the image of such a mighty warship paddling around with just a few eight-inch guns was pretty funny. Like those water pistols Alaska liked to hide in the bath. "Point withdrawn."
Sara blushed. "Oh, Atago, you don't have to be like that, honey." The towering battlecruiser fussed with the perilously short hem of her pleated skirt. The wind was stiff today, and if it wasn't for the sturdy tooled leather holsters hanging off her hips, Sara's skirt wouldn't have been nearly as prim and proper. "From what I hear your class had some spectacular groupings."
"Thank you," Atago blushed. She'd never met Sara before, but the big American was so kind and motherly that the cruiser couldn't but enjoy the praise.
"Sara," Texas' voice had a teasing glint to it.
"Yes, Te-AH!" Sara jolted as a water balloon hit her square in the face.
Texas giggled like a schoolgirl. "You're not fighting deck anymore, Sara. You need to be
constantly aware of your surroundings."
Sara mopped her face off with her neckerchief. Luckily none of it had gotten on her shirt, she wasn't sure how well the gray fabric would stand up to a firm soaking, and she'd rather nobody saw her bra. Well… besides Stewart anyway, but he wasn't here so that point was rather moot. "This is payback, isn't it?"
"Sara, I do declare!" Texas put a hand to her chest in mock outrage. "How
dare you!"
"Tex—"
"Accusing an 'old-fashioned battle-wagon'," Texas put on a pitch-perfect imitation of Sara's gentle accent, "of such underhanded tactics!"
"I said I was sorry!"
"Please, sweetie," Texas waved a gloved hand at the pouting battlecruiser. "Let your elders talk. We won't be around for much longer anyhow, now that you carriers are about."
Sara crossed her arms with a huff. "That was
years ago."
"I know, sweetie." Texas chuckled. "Every ship comes off the line as a cocky little thing. You should've seen Yorkie and I teasing Wyo and her sisters over two inches. And from what I hear Dreadnought was
insufferable."
Sara giggled at the thought of proper, stately Texas being a fresh young girl at some point in her life. "I didn't mean it… I thought it was all in good fun."
"Oh, it was dear," Texas spun her parasol with a smirk. "You couldn't be harsh if you tried, don't think there's a mean-spirited frame in your hull. But, seeing as I finally
amas old as you thought I was, I'm going to milk this for all it's worth."
Sara laughed. "I missed you, Texie."
"You too, Sara. Now, mister Young?"
Cameron waded out into the lapping tides, making Sara look even more statuesque since
hesunk down to his knees while Sara stood calmly atop the waves. "So," he settled a big RC boat onto the water and took a second to make sure it was turned on. "My boss let me have these for gunnery practice."
"That's awful nice of him." It took every fiber of Sara's military bearing to avoid ruffling his fussy brown hair. Alaska really did get lucky with him.
"Not… really," Cameron chuckled and sent the boat darting out over the waves. "'laska pretty much keeps the store afloat on her own with all the hot-wheels she buys."
On the beach Alaska looked up from where she'd been pushing her latest acquisition—a baby-blue Ford GT with orange highlights—back and forth on a long. Atago just looked guilty and pulled the collar of her azure overcoat tighter.
"Wha?" Alaska tilted her head to the side. She was wearing her swimsuit instead of her uniform, mostly because she was going to the beach, and she knew that Cameron liked looking at her in her swimsuit, and she liked it when he liked her. "Say my name?"
"Don't worry about it," said Cameron.
"Okay," Alaska went back to contentedly pushing her cars around the beach.
"Now then." Texas pivoted on her heel to watch the boat zip through the calm water. "See if you can hit that. And just remember, you've got a Ford mark 1 tied into your radar." The old battleship chuckled. "Back in
my day, we did it all" she tapped a finger to her temple. "Up here."
Sara smiled and slipped her pistols from their holsters. It felt strange. She'd never in her life carried weapons like this. But as her hands closed around the polished nickel-steel frames and lovingly carved grips… it felt
right.
These were the guns she was born to carry. She thumbed the hammers back with a shiver. Everything was so oiled and precise. Everything moved with the tuned precision of a fine Swiss watch. Her radar fed data into the fire-control computer buried deep in her hull, drenching her eyes with more than she'd ever thought possible. It was like she'd been blind and deaf all her life, and someone had finally given her sight.
"Woah," Sara glanced from one hand to the other as power coursed through her veins.
"Easy there, Neo," Texas chuckled. "What? I was a
museum, people
toured me. I picked up a thing or two."
Sara was too busy flexing her newly acquired ballistic muscle to comment. It wasn't like flying… but it was just as intoxicating. Was this how the battleships lived? Then again, it's all they'd ever known. They probably didn't understand how awesome a power their rifles were.
"Whenever you're ready, sweetie." Texas put a gentle hand on the small of Sara's back.
The battlecruiser smiled, her teeth glinting in the sun as she tuned in on the distant dot of Cameron's boat. It was only a few hundred feet away, with her hull fully summoned she could probably run it over without moving from where she stood. But a full-size range was difficult to find for guns who's range was measured in tens of thousands of yards. Small-scale would have to do.
Ba-Bang! Her two pistols fired off in near-harmony, sending sub-scale shells arcing through the air to land in a tight straddle around the miniature boat. It took Sara a moment to process what she'd just done. Her instincts kicked in, bringing her fingers off the trigger and returning her guns to their leather holsters. But her conscious mind was consumed with giggling. "Did you see that!"
"That I did, sweetie." Texas clapped Sara on the small of the back—about as high up as she could comfortably reach.
"I straddled on my first shot!" Sara squealed with glee. "Did… did you see that!"
"You're a natural, Sara." Texas smiled. Meanwhile, Alaska and Atago had somehow not only acquired pom-poms, but matching cheerleader outfits and had changed into them while neither capital ship was looking. The two cruisers lead an elaborately-choreographed cheer for Sara where Cameron stared in unrepentant shock at the way Alaska bounced around. Texas sighed. There was something not right with those two girls.
"I…" Sara laughed. "I guess I am!"
