12/6/2178 CE
"Move it marines! Double-time and check your corners!" Lieutenant Harriet Shepard shouted to the marines running ahead of her in the cave. A purely performative shout to assure the frightened jarheads that she was still there while acting as rearguard.
Shepard took her own advice to sweep their six on hearing the crack of another mass accelerator and the yelling of marines further off. She growls in frustration at her inability to help them, help
any of the Alliance marines stuck in these hellish caves on Torfan while scattered in penny-packets.
"How the fuck did it go so wrong?" she muttered to herself for the Nth time while sprinting to catch up again. Rooting out this slaver base wasn't supposed to be
easy by any means, it was a primary slave transfer point poised on the informal Verge-Traverse border, but ONI screwed up the size and opposition big time.
Shepard planted her foot hard to turn a sharp corner while the sounds of batarian boots thundered behind her. Those rhythmic stomps drove her and the marines onward blindly through the tunnels, searching for a way out that she keeps telling herself
has to exist somewhere.
That hope grows a little dimmer when they come upon a 3-way fork.
"Dammit dammit dammit, which way?" she heard Gunny Pierce muttering. There was a slight tremble in the white-knuckle grip on his rifle that wasn't from running.
Shepard cursed under her breath, if the Gunny was breaking then there was no way she could keep the other 14 marines together. The
well-prepared ambush by the batarians and Fucking Blood Pack in the largest cavern had scattered most of the Corps. Hers was the largest Shepard knew of, according to the chaotic and nightmarish comm traffic. Maybe Major Kyle had more, but he was too busy hysterically babbling about Alliance power and Marine pride.
…
Fuck. Just 15 out of a battalion. 15
fucking marines left!
Shepard focused on that damning fact and her old friend, anger, to keep her mind clear. To
not think about all the marines, friends and comrades, blasted or burned alive by vorcha, crushed by krogan, or eviscerated by batarians. Never mind the dead (or dying) being feasted on by varren.
Her teeth ground as she bit out a retort to Pierce's muttering. "Go left soldier! That's the way out of this clusterfuck!" Shepard had no clue but thought if she sounded confident enough maybe they could hold it together enough to find a
real exit, since the entrance was collapsed by the slavers. "Get me?"
"Sir yes sir!" came the shaky collective reply, even from Pierce. Shepard smirks under her helmet, the hope she can actually keep them from breaking renewing.
Turning the corner, the first ranks run right into automatic fire. The batarians positioned themselves farther down the tunnel and were prepared to cut them down. It scythes through the front ranks, nearly depleting their kinetic barriers before scrambling back or taking cover in alcoves. Unfortunately leaving the middle and rear ranks to face the same.
Shepard throws herself against the corner with another marine she grabbed by the armor collar, watching as a handful of her remaining troops are cut down in the confusion.
"How the fuck did they—" Shepard bit back the fucking obvious question, because of course they knew they were coming. The fuckers following her would've told them, and they actually know this fuckoff massive cave system,
goddammit why did she forget that?!
…Oh,
shit her tail! She realizes this right as they come close enough to hit the marines from behind at the same time.
"Marines!" she shouts over the mass accelerator fire. "Fall back to the next tunnel!" Shepard grabs the marine next to her and dashes for the first tunnel in sight. Her barriers took a beating, just barely holding enough for her to reach relative safety.
She ends up in a natural alcove, and watches more marines come after her. 3. 4. 7…
Just 7? That couldn't be right, where were the rest? She told them to head for the next tunnel!
"Lieutenant!" That was Gunny Pierce over comms, but where was he? She could hear a faint echo of his voice over the gunfire…
"Me and five other marines have moved into the next tunnel. I don't see you; do you need assistance?"
…Oh. Oh, there were 3 tunnels to choose from, and Shepard hadn't specified which. She, like an
idiot, only said 'next tunnel' and picked one at random herself. A void opened in her gut as the realization they were divided sunk in.
Movement in her peripheral vision caught her eye, something alien, and Shepard's rifle automatically snapped up to fire. She hit center mass on a vorcha, killing it since it didn't have barriers, but there were more behind it. A whole pack of vorcha backed up by batarian slavers, and of course a couple krogan handlers. She ducked back before they could reply, and most of her remaining marines did, except for 2 poor souls.
Anger coursed through her veins as she counted the 5 remaining in her tunnel. 2 good marines cut down by these butchers, and the krogan even had the gall to laugh.
"Lieutenant Shepard, we need orders!" Gunny Pierce begged, his voice cracking. A marine next to her asked the same thing, and she whirled her head around to give an anger charged response to hold and fight.
The fire and fury in her gut froze the moment she saw her eyes. All of them. Shepard didn't have the words to describe the bone deep terror in every remaining marine looking to her for guidance, or those still fighting the Fucking Blood Pack and slavers. It's the kind that only comes from the certainty that, right now, death is the
better option.
They ask again more frantically, but again Shepard has nothing. What can she say to this that would help in any possible way? Feed them more anger to keep them going, like her? No, that only worked for Shepard because of Mindoir, it wouldn't work on these people. Unlike Shepard, they still had something to lose, families and friends see again, and right now that was driving their fear.
She tried to come up with something, anything, that wasn't just more angry vitriol to keep fighting or running, but the choice was taken away from her. Vorcha with missile launchers, the so-called boom-squads, fired a spread down her tunnel. They were poorly aimed and mostly hit rock, but it was enough to blow Shepard and the marines from their cover into the open.
Shepard hit the ground hard and heard her armor crack. It had taken a beating since the initial ambush and looked to be finally giving up on her. A small mercy that Torfan was habitable.
She braced for the inevitable hail of gunshots, but nothing came. Seconds passed and nothing came, except for the raspy, horrid laugh of vorcha, and the deep basso of krogan and batarians. It ignited a spark of anger in Shepard that helped raise her head and meet the eyes of her foe.
"Pitiful," a batarian spat, head tilted right. "The mighty marines of the Alliance sent running like pyjaks. I expected more. We
planned for more, like those damnable warship bitches of you humans."
Ah, well the excessive firepower suddenly made some sense, and if Admiral Kahoku had his way there may have been shipgirls down here. She'd cursed NavSec for that, but now she was smiling. At least the bastards wouldn't get it all their way.
"Think this is funny, human?" the batarian grunted with a cruel smile. "You still lost, and now you're going to die. And just for that grin you'll be
last."
Last? What did he…
Shepard suddenly heard the roar of flamers followed by the screams of people in the air and through her half-ruined helmet comm. Vorcha cackled alongside it and gust of hot wind blew from behind the batarian, carrying the smell of burning flesh. Her eyes opened their widest and terror gripped her heart.
They were burning them. They were
burning her people alive.
She tried to rise, instinct and raw fury telling her body to get up and fight this bastard, but one club of the batarian's rifle was all it took to send Shepard sprawling on the ground again with a spinning head, unable to do anything but listen and breath the scent of cooking human flesh.
She could still recognize Gunny Pierce's voice on the comms, begging for help and salvation. Shepard tried to respond but couldn't make anything louder than a raspy whisper.
God, please make it stop.
Vorcha stalked up to stand over her marines, and two specifically dragged Shepard further away from them.
No more. Please no more.
Pilot lights on their flamers lit, and they test fired a few into the air for sport, and to elicit begging and crying from the marines. Shepard herself shuddered seeing the fire, an old, inexplicable phobia from birth that never failed to make her body lock up and pour ice in her veins.
Spare them. Take me and spare them.
The vorcha cackled and lit her people, her friends, on fire. Dousing them in whatever vile chemical the Fucking Blood Pack concocted for the vorcha to make it burn anywhere and anything. Their screams joined the rest, and Shepard couldn't even add her own.
Just kill them already, this is too much.
The batarian from earlier knelt to look her in the eyes. "You humans should've stayed out of the Verge." Then placed a canister in front of Shepard's face, it had the universal pictogram for flammable on it, and had a basic detonator attached. The batarian walked away and the krogan rounded up the vorcha to move on.
Why won't you just shoot me?
Her body was still locked up, forcing her to watch her friends moored beside her slowly burning alive, and the firebomb in front of her beep slowly.
I don't want to die like this.
It detonated and Shepard's ears rang with the screams of men, metal, and planes.
###
Gratok grunted when the firebomb went off and filled the caves with another disgusting smell. He and the Blood Pack casually moved away from the site to spare themselves the smell and continue the hunt.
"Good contract," the krogan handler, Carn, said. "The vorcha are happy and the varren will eat good tonight."
"You expected otherwise?" Gratok asked, letting mild offense into his tone.
Carn smirked, clearly finding it amusing. "Can never tell with humans. Good fighters. Hoped for ship-females like Haliat said."
Gratok huffed in annoyance. "Haliat was an idiot and I am glad he was wrong. Damned fool set us back years provoking the humans."
Carn hummed in seeming approval. "Want him dead?"
Gratok sighed. "Yes, but he's not worth the credits. He can keep whatever hole he's found—"
Gratok froze when his armor flashed a radiation alert. He looked around and barked for every batarian in sight to find the source.
###
Shepard ran through the ruins of Mindoir in blind terror. Running as fast as she could away from the monsters destroying her home. She leapt over the bodies of friends, uncaring of the beasts feasting on them, she just needed to get away!
Shepard ducked into an alley just as Zeros strafed the street with gunfire.
Zeros? What? Why are the Japs here?!
Shepard ducked and screamed as bombs dropped nearby, showering her with sharp debris. She ran out of the alleyway and onto her fore deck where her sailors were scrambling to stations while the Japanese continued bombing Pearl.
What-What's going on? Why am I at Pearl Harbor?
She could still hear the slavers ransacking Mindoir behind her, while the Japanese continued to strafe and bomb her comrades in the harbor. A large explosion drew her attention.
Utah? No! Why?! Leave her alone, she doesn't even have guns anymore! What's the sense?
Utah screamed and someone else along with her, until Shepard realized it was hers. Except also not quite.
I don't understand. What's happening? Why am I here?
Shells splashed nearby startling her badly and bringing her attention back to the naval battle at hand. There was a distant feeling of shame for her distraction against the Abyssals. She couldn't afford this when Manilla was so close to liberation. Her own guns spoke next.
Burn you bastards!
Part of Shepard knew she'd never been here, or at Pearl, but another, increasingly louder part screamed this was all real. It had happened, was
still happening!
Shepard ran again with Abyssal demons and Japanese planes on her heels while dodging around the rubble of a harbor and the main colonial settlement. She turned a corner to end up back at Pearl Harbor/Mindoir again, and now surrounded by batarians and Abyssals while pirate gunships and Zeros continued attacking.
Shepard wondered why this was happening.
Because they won't stop!
What did they even want with her homes and friends?
They do it because they can!
WHY HER?!
THIS IS WHO YOU ARE!
Shepard backed up clutching her non-existent head while the stuff of her nightmares closed ranks on her. Her back hit a railing on her fore deck, and she sank against it staring wide-eyed at the monsters marching towards her. To eat her, enslave her, or hopefully just kill her.
She felt fire at her back and looked over to see the oil-slicked water aflame and consuming two dear friends. She heard them screaming as they were burned alive right in front of her and there was
nothing she could do about it.
FIGHT DAMMIT!
The voice, her voice, screamed at Shepard bringing a new splitting headache as she tried to fight it. To make it go away and just leave her alone or tell her
why.
She rocked as the biggest explosion of the day laid her flat, followed by a scream that tore at her very soul. Her head was turned by an invisible hand, forcing Shepard to look at the source. At her dying family.
They. Won't. Stop. They will never stop. Not until we are dead, or slaves.
An abyssal batarian laid its hands on her and made to restrain while a tar-black krogan laughed at her.
Anger reignites in her breast.
They won't even kill us unless we put up a good fight.
Her anger burns hotter than it ever has in her life, making her heart pound furiously in her ears. It's soon replaced with the roar of 6 boilers.
…The bastards want a fight?
Skin charred by fire is mended and replaced with Krupp armor.
They want to see what we can do?!
Turbines whine and power her arms to shove off the monsters and stand back up, fists clenched.
THEY WILL REGRET IT!
She took a deep breath and bellowed the alert.
GENERAL QUARTERS.
GENERAL QUARTERS.
GENERAL QUARTERS.
###
"Just a little radiation," Carn said in his annoyingly laconic way. "A light tan on Tuchanka."
"It won't be 'a little radiation' if the humans actually brought something down here." Gratok cursed. "I never pegged them with that kind of quad, but we may be dealing with a ruthless pyjak." Gratok took his men and swept back towards the bodies, eyes on the many natural alcoves for a device that may have been stashed.
"Or plain crazy, like their leader," Carn scoffed.
Gratok grimaced, because he had a point. The human leader was an absolute wreck and may just detonate a device if it exists. Not like the Council would care about this low-caste moon.
"Sir!" one of his men called, pointing back towards the last group of burning human corpses. "We think it's coming from back there."
Just his luck that it was on their bodies somewhere. Now they'll have to wait for the flames to die down to search.
…Come to think of it, they should've stopped already. Why hasn't it?
Gratok unfortunately gets an answer when, before his unbelieving eyes, the red-haired bitch they'd burned last stepped out of the flames unharmed. Her armor was gone, and the undersuit torn, but there was no blood, no wounds, just pristine flesh and burning red eyes.
All guns snapped up to aim, but everyone held their fire as somehow the flames
followed her. The fire wrapped around her body, settling on her shoulders forming a concerning silhouette, and abruptly went out. In their place appeared a greatcoat…
…and warship rigging.
Gratok had just enough time to lock eyes with the red-haired, red-eyed female and see the abyss of madness and hate behind them before she fired.
###
She snarled and screamed at the collection of enemies before unloading Gun I into them. High explosive shells thundered to detonate at practically point-blank range to rattle the cave like a small earthquake. She unloaded another gun, and then a third while screaming all her hate at them.
She stopped after the fourth to reload and check if they were all dead. She was rewarded with a minority that had somehow survived her fury. Good. Her rage wasn't close to burning out yet.
The big, burly, humpbacked ones stomped forward with a manic gleam in their eyes, a bloodlust to match her own. It said something to her.
"Finally, a worthy fight!"
She didn't care, nor understand, what it said, only that it was responsible for part of the death and carnage she had seen. Just looking at those hateful things and remembering all the destruction and suffering they caused makes her boilers burn hotter.
One charged at her; an armored fist cocked back to pummel her into the ground.
She caught it, put all 34,000 shp into her arm, and ripped it out from the socket.
The second attempted something similar, and a swarm of charred chitinous Imps followed behind it.
Fine enough. She would be happy to kill them up close.
###
Gratok has
no fucking clue how he survived that barrage or the following three. He remembers the paralyzing fear and then a whirl of motion before finding himself in an alcove. One he was happy to stay in and wait out the hellfire.
He'd never seen a shipgirl except for vids and thought they would be flimsy, weak things. Why wouldn't they, when they were supposedly the spirits of primitive water vessels?
Oh, how
fucking wrong he is! The firepower alone left him speechless, it felt like enough to shatter a fort,
and that was one gun. He shuddered to think what would happen if all four were fired at once.
But now he was watching it fight two krogan and several vorcha hand-to-hand and was tearing apart the krogan to beat them with their limbs. It was a horrific, bloody display too, to see her rip off Carn's arm and beat him with it, but she didn't seem to care about the gore drenching her. She just kept howling madly.
The vorcha were swarming now, abandoning their weapons in favor of close combat like their krogan masters. They couldn't do any better or help the dying krogan, but it would by Gratok some time.
"Hello! Hello! Base you better fucking answer!" Gratok hisses into the comms. "It's Gratok and we have a bad BAD situation here!"
"Gratok?" He struggled with the voice before recognizing Pralem.
"What's going on? We felt a small quake from back here, did the humans bring a surprise?"
"Oh, if only," he chuckled bitterly, then flinching at the dying screams of vorcha mingling with the shipgirl's crazed screams before they were messily silenced. "No if the humans had this from the start, they would've used it. I just saw a shipgirl form
right in front of me!"
"…Say again? A shipgirl?! Gratok you're—" There's the sounds of a fight from the other end, leaving Gratok to wait several nervous breathes as it's sorted out.
"Gratok!" Oh, damn, that was the Boss.
"Which shipgirl is it?"
How the fuck am I supposed to know, he thinks, and repeats it in a much more polite way. "I'm not exactly an expert of the human's weird spirits. It has big, three-gun turrets and can pummel a krogan.
Bare handed."
Gratok catches a swear on the other end, further fraying his nerves.
"One of the big bitches, but WHICH, dammit. …Can you read human numbers?"
Odd question. "Yes, why does that matter?" There were a lot less vorcha screams now, he nervously noted.
"Look at the rigging you idiot! Give me the number right now!"
Gulping audibly, Gratok waits for a seemingly safe moment to peek around the corner. He's just in time to see the woman rip a vorcha in half, the long way, and get a look at her number.
"38! The number is 38!"
It's the last thing Gratok says before she locked eyes with him.
###
She killed the cowardly, four-eyed elite destroyer hiding from her with a secondary and followed the Imps. She almost fired off another HE salvo to finish them off, but stopped, deciding they could lead her back to their base.
So, she followed on foot with the inevitable pace of a Standard, her mind filled with the prospects of avenging the people dead and taken as slaves by the Japs at Mindoir. She would make them scream and beg just like her comrades and family had before granting mercy the innocents were denied.
She turned a corner still following the Imps and smiles gleefully. The Imps had led her to a much larger collection of Batarians/Abyssals/Japs (goddamn her head hurt) arrayed before… people.
Her people, under attack. No, that would not stand.
The fleeing Imp/Japs crashed into the larger collection, and some noticed her as she was computing a firing solution.
###
Gunny Matsuda panted hard as the Blood Pack and batarians hit them again, and they still barely held them back. His company technically outnumbered them and was led by one of the best of the Alliance, but the truth was harsher. Most marines were walking wounded at this point, and Major Kyle was undoubtedly a Section 8. About the only thing holding them together was the fear of surrendering to slavers and krogan.
He looked over the rock set as improvised cover, checking if the Blood Pack was readying for yet another vorcha wave assault, when he saw something strange.
More vorcha were sprinting towards the enemy and practically crashed into their backs. He could hear lots of shouting and complaining from the batarians, but nothing he could understand. Curiously the new vorcha seemed scared out of their minds. What the hell could cause that?
Matsuda got his answer when high explosive artillery fire crashed into the collected enemy, blasting them apart in a shower of bodies and limbs. His ears rang from the shockwave and its reverberation off the cave walls, even through his helmet. His fellow marines were no better off, though some were ignoring it to openly gape at the scene.
He couldn't blame them when he looked up.
A lone woman, a
shipgirl splattered with alien blood, charged the aliens from behind solo. Her secondaries and AA guns immediately began firing to cut down the vorcha and batarians by the bushel. They couldn't even do anything because of how suddenly she descended on them, and then she started fighting the krogan hand-to-hand. He watched in morbid fascination as the shipgirl tore off a krogan's armor piece by piece to use them as improvised slashing/stabbing weapons while her secondaries continued to kill targets at range.
It was an utterly mesmerizing and horrifying display of raw bloodshed that would've had Matsuda voiding his lunch but for two things. He's seen some of the worst these Verge slavers had to offer, and he hadn't eaten for a while.
"Sir…" said a nervous marine next to Matsuda. "What the fuck? When did we get a shipgirl?"
"I don't… wait a minute, Shepard?!" He'd been focusing on the carnage before, but the flash of fiery red hair framing her face finally triggered recognition. He stared open mouthed, jaw to the floor, at his friend, superior, and now apparently natural-born shipgirl.
"Marvelous!" said Major Kyle, sneaking up behind them. "Just marvelous! That! That, marines, is what we must aspire to!" he pointed at Shepard kicking a krogan hard enough to embed it in the rock wall and take off a batarian head with one swipe of her fist. All while her secondaries kept pouring fire into the surrounding foes struggling to recover or run the fuck away.
Matsuda stared incredulously at Kyle's manic grin. "Sir, respectfully, you cannot be serious. That is…" He didn't know what to call Shepard's brutal massacre of the aliens, except possibly Section 8 worthy. Marines were meant to be tough and aggressive, not
that.
"The strength of the Alliance!" Kyle finished, right as one of Shepard's main guns thundered, reducing the last major collection of aliens to vapor. "One of the bravest fighting ships of all!"
…Brave is a word to describe this. Matsuda would prefer,
fucking terrifying. This is exactly why shipgirl mental health is closely monitored.
Matsuda flinched back as the fleeing vorcha charged their line, and he instinctively ordered the marines to open fire. The vorcha didn't care about the marines, just fleeing the mad shipgirl so they died easily to disciplined gunfire. Matsuda felt proud they could still manage that after their ordeal.
Unfortunately, it drew Shepard's attention, her gaze passing over the marine line with a disturbing detachment. It unsettled Matsuda to see her
almost recognize him and Major Kyle before a fog descended over her eyes again. He wondered for a moment what she was seeing.
"Hail, sailor!" Major Kyle called. "Keep fighting the good fight! Continue with our mission here!"
What the
hell was this headcase on about?! Continue the mission? The mission was FUBAR, this was their chance to get away with less-than-devastating casualties. Shepard literally had the aliens running scared, and her guns were perfect for clearing the rubble trapping them!
"…Yes. The mission," Shepard nodded distractedly, despite Matsuda's silent pleas for her to stop and talk some sense into Kyle as the XO. "I'll make sure the Japanese don't get away with it."
"The Japanese? What is she… oh fuck," Matsuda swore, finally seeing the hull number under the blood spatter, and the stars and stripes flying from her mast. The 38
th American Battleship,
USS Pennsylvania.
Of all the ships to come back, Pennsylvania had a reputation from her steel-hull life, and the 1
st Abyssal War on Earth. An excellent fighter, aggressive as hell, but one with
significant emotional and psychological baggage. The Japanese and American admirals of the time struggled to deal with her trauma during the height of the war. They never managed before she was sunk again.
She infamously had episodes of… dissociation from the present, where she thought it was the Pacific War again. Matsuda was disheartened to see those rumors were true, as Shepard… Pennsylvania, finished off the enemy. Matsuda wasn't sure to be grateful she had a target, or absolutely terrified.
"Outstanding! Carry on while I rally the marines behind you for our final charge!" Kyle continued, to Matsuda's horror.
Matsuda was about to interject, but Shepard's—
Pennsylvania's wide, gleeful, bloodthirsty grin stopped him short. "With
pleasure, sir! I won't let a single Jap get away!
Not this time."
Shepard pivoted on her heel and ran after the retreating slavers and Blood Pack, leaving the pool of blood, viscera, and bodies behind her.
"…She's going to kill everything here," Matsuda fearfully concluded.
###
She roared with another broadside of her main guns, firing 12 HE shells downrange at the retreating monsters. None of them would escape, she would not allow it. She would chase and chase with the steady, relentless pace of a Standard until they were corralled in whatever hole they crawled out from. Then shell it until that hole was a crater and move inside to finish the survivors with her bare hands.
Blood demanded blood, and she didn't spill nearly enough. So many missed opportunities. Solomon Islands, stuck in Alaska. Elysium, too far from the action. Surigao, too
primitive to find the Japanese. Mindoir, too small and
weak to do anything. Even in the 1
st Abyssal War, when battleships ruled the waves again, Jersey had the nerve to
sideline her to shore bombardment duty, never mind having to work with the Japanese.
Especially
Kaga and Hiryu.
No more waiting.
The humpbacked Abyssal cruisers (or was it Jap cruisers?) turned to fight her, firing grapeshot of all things. Was this the 1800's or some shit?
She laughed maniacally and blasted one with her secondaries while the second met her fists. She punched and tore and rent steel until oil spilled from the wounds in great gouts, staining her legs and fists. She didn't stop until it was a mere pile of scrap beneath her.
She turned to the other, seeing it wasn't dead yet despite AP shells from her secondaries, but couldn't move. It flinched back, eyes wide with fear when she met its eyes.
Good. She advanced slowly, grabbing its head to hoist it onto ruined legs, standing solely by her support. She took aim for a point-blank HE shot, when her radio room caught a piece of chatter coming from the Abyssal's… arm? Odd design choice but abominations like this rarely made sense.
It did give her an idea.
She grabbed the Abyssal's arm and held it to her ear to listen in.
"—hat in the hell is going on?! Report! I need a report on what the shipgirl is doing! Someone, make some damned sense!"
"Hello~" she purred with a wide grin splitting her face. It must be a horrifically terrifying thing going by the cruiser's expression.
"…Who is this? I don't recognize your voice," it said, cautiously and suspiciously.
"Oh, you know exactly who I am. You've been asking about me after all," she said sweetly.
"…You're the shipgirl," it said, fear entering its voice.
Very good.
"Correct! You win a prize!" she said, deliberately exaggerating her faux cheer for effect. "Ask what it is!"
"…I-I have no interest in your—"
"ASK ME!" she roared, boiler temperature peaking and horn blaring. The cruiser (or krogan?) flinched back far as it could while its arm was still in her steel grip. There was a shriek from it, she must have broken the limb.
"What's the prize?" the other monster asked meekly.
"YOUR RUSTING HULK!" she laughed as images of other hulks, friends and family alike, rushed through her mind and fueled her unending rage.
Everyone was going to pay for what they took from her, and this time she would not be stopped. "YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THAT HOLE YOU CAME FROM!"
She crushed the radio in her hand and finished off the screaming creature beneath her with gunfire.
She continued her steady course, taking potshots at stragglers or unfortunate individuals that stopped to watch.
###
Pralem sat frozen in the base's comms hub, staring at the blank hologram that he'd just spoken to the shipgirl through. His two coworkers were no better off, leaving questions unanswered and sentences half-finished. He should berate them as the technical supervisor, but what the
fuck could he say to that?
"…She's insane," he breathed, not caring he was stating the obvious. "She's in-
fucking-sane and killing everything that moves."
Pralem had never heard that sort of bloodlust and sheer insanity in a person before, if this thing could be called one. Maybe a blood raging krogan came close, but that still came up short. The blood rage could at least be directed and managed by a skilled krogan, this unhinged
thing wasn't even trying to rein itself in. Its voice had such a viscerally unhinged quality about it that set him on edge by itself. Never mind the muttering what, he
hoped, were supposed to be internal thoughts, because otherwise this thing was more sadistic than his already pessimistic expectations.
A shout from the comms jolted Pralem back into action, and he in turn harshly berated the other two into working again. Admittedly it was just to work off his own frustration and barely contained fear. He focused on relaying information to everyone else outside and, on Boss' orders, pulling them back to defend the base. Ironically the Blood Pack krogan complied easily, probably lusting for a good fight with the mad shipgirl. Their funeral. His own batarians had to be badgered into obedience after hearing the carnage themselves.
He was just going over the vid feeds of fighters setting up heavy weapons and cover when the door opened behind him. He didn't bother looking back to see, the only one checking on them would be Boss Tarak. Pralem could tell by the agitated tap-tap-tap of his toe on the floor panels.
"Well?" Tarak demanded.
"Everyone that could get back in time has," Pralem said, surprising himself with his own calm tone. He must have gone over the hill from terror to peace. He pushed several feeds to an array of holo-screens and explained the situation. "Manned turrets, rocket launchers, and all the firebombs we didn't use earlier. The krogan are itching for a fight too. Let's hope it helps this time."
Tarak shot him a look that promised terrible things for undermining morale in front of him, but Pralem couldn't give less of a damn after what he'd seen. Was still watching, as one of the screens showed more fleeing vorcha and batarians. The shipgirl finished off the group she was after earlier and found more to slaughter. Honestly, without the armor-shitting terror of earlier, it was astounding how quickly the shipgirl stacked up casualties. No wonder the turians bitched about (and envied) their man-portable artillery all the time.
Tarak wasn't in the state of mind to appreciate such abstract things, looking ready to punch out the screen if he could.
"This is absurd! We had them! We had the humans on their knees begging for death, and then
this shows up out of nowhere! Where on this pitiful moon were they hiding a ship-bitch?!"
"They weren't," Pralem answers the rhetorical question, just to see his boss turn interesting shades. Listening to said ship-bitch just once put some perspective on his threat assessments; Tarak ranked much lower now. "From what Gratok said, before she turned him to a thin paste," Tarak squawked satisfyingly, "she formed basically out of nowhere. One of their 'natural-borns' I guess that suddenly… awakened, is what they call it right? Seems right."
Pralem was quite enjoying the expressions of his colleagues and Tarak's interesting shades. They'd probably be his last entertainment before the shipgirl slaughtered him like the rest.
"And she chose
just now to do it, hmmm?" Tarak accused; head tilted far right. "This wasn't something we could have
expected from the damn humans?"
"Hey hey," Pralem raised his hands to at least make a token effort to placate Tarak, "they lost a lot of their people before that happened. If they planned that, then the Alliace is
far more ruthless and brutal than they advertise."
Tarak growled, but Pralem knew he saw the point, he just wouldn't admit it to save face with… all of four people nearby, not counting himself. Two comms techs, and a couple passing pirates hauling stuff. Truly a risk of mutiny, Pralem thought dryly. (My, he had quite the cutting wit in this state.)
Tarak locked eyes in an attempt to intimidate Pralem, but it hardly affected him for 2 reasons. 1, Pralem was well over the hill of terror as he discovered earlier, and 2, he looked away and adopted a puzzled expression instead.
"What tunnel is that?" Tarak asked, pointing to the upper right screen. The one showing a couple batarians being explosively reduced to their atomic components by shipgirl gunfire, followed by the monster marching by. She
still had that twisted expression of glee and fury on her face, and he could see her lips moving. No doubt muttering more insane nonsense.
"Not sure," Pralem admitted, "I wasn't trying to keep track when I opened every feed nearby. Must be close though."
Tarak sucked in a breath. "It is, because that's the mouth of the central cavern!"
Tarak pointed to the central screen, showing the central cavern, and now Pralem saw movement in the distance. Specifically, a vorcha that was flying through the air, landing hard (and dead) in front of the assembled 'defenders,' and the cause of its brief airborne achievement.
The shipgirl was standing at the cave mouth, arms crossed, wicked smirk plastered, practically taunting the defenders by not immediately firing on them, even though everyone could see her clearly. The vorcha and krogan were agitating for a fight, despite the example made
seconds ago, while the batarians at least unsafed their rifles before trading nervous looks. They didn't know what was about to happen. Pralem did.
"Pardon me, Boss," Pralem said, gently nudging Tarak aside to his bewilderment so he could properly speak into the mic. He keyed the PA circuit, took a deep breath, and bellowed, "BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The shipgirl's main guns opened with a full salvo, knocking anyone unprepared (meaning everyone not Pralem) to the ground.
###
They scattered and ran while she cackled and roared. Her prey all gathered in one place, right against the walls of their base, was better than she dared hope for. Sadly they weren't bunched into a single convenient target, but on the other hand that wasn't much fun. The Japanese/Abyssals/slaver fucks were even fighting back too!
Heavy cannon fire and rockets flew at her, striking true or impacting nearby. It was an admirable effort that would shred any person into shark bait, but unfortunately for them she wasn't a person. She is a warship, a battleship with 13.5 inches of armor as her skin. These weapons had no chance of penetrating her belt.
She fired another salvo, spreading it more to kill a greater number, and cackled with glee at their frightened screams before they were silenced. She marched forward, slowly, to finish the job out here, and break open the fort she knew the rest were hiding in. Gunfire still came, but at a sprinkle of its previous hail. Most of the gunners were in pieces or had fled. She didn't expect more resistance.
Thus it was a total surprise when she was thrown off her feet by an unseen force. She tumbled fore over aft before landing heavily a couple dozen feet away, creating a small new crater in the cavern.
She was still getting her bearings straight when she heard footsteps approaching and looked up. It was a lone creature in armor unique to the rest; a custom job compared to the mass production she'd been killing so far. It held a decently sized gun in hand and was wreathed in a blue-shifted aura.
For a moment the anger dulled, and clarity came. "A battlemaster?" she coughed.
The krogan battlemaster grunted. "Looks like you aren't completely insane. Good."
She got to her feet slowly, expecting a sudden attack, but to her confusion the battlemaster let her. He simply watched with a slight grin on his face while she got on solid footing. She had a clear shot and could strike first, but she was sufficiently on edge to hold fire. And now that she looked around, every other alien had stopped shooting.
The battlemaster chuckled lowly. "They know not to interfere in this fight. I am Weyrloc Kerr, and I came to this pitiful rock because the batarians promised one of your kind would be here," he said, pointing at her. "Tarak seemed to be a liar at first, and I had plans to dismember him for the offense. Heh. Well seems he was right after all!"
Kerr let out a short, loud belly laugh at his fortune. She didn't share his mirth; it only made her angrier.
"Tell me, warship-female," Kerr continued. "What is your name, so I may etch it on my armor when I kill you."
"I am… I-I…" Her voice faltered trying to answer the question, because now she was forced to confront the dilemma she had been ignoring. Constant violence and the hunt for enemies had provided a distraction, but now she had a moment of quiet.
Who is she? It was a question with two answers driven by fiercely conflicting sides of herself. The older part shouted Harriet Shepard, 1
st Lieutenant of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. The newer part screamed USS Pennsylvania, lead-ship of the United States Navy Pennsylvania-class battleships.
Pennsylvania insisted that this was reality now. That she was a warship, had
always been a warship, and her humanity was a temporary state. She needs to embrace it willingly, because it was always inevitable.
However, Shepard refuses to do so. Shepard stubbornly clings onto her sense of self and insists that her humanity is the default. It's what she grew up with and all she knew for 24 years. She was
not surrendering it!
About the only thing both agreed on was to kill the bastards that murdered her friends and family, and so had focused on that while mentally warring in the background.
"Disappointing," Kerr's voice cut through the mental fog. "Do you refuse to give me your name, or can you even remember it? I asked who you were! What is your name, warship!"
That simple, direct demand for the
warship's name cut through the conflict completely, and Pennsylvania took over. Shepard was shoved to the background kicking and screaming but still clinging on while Pennsylvania breathed deeply. Burning red eyes met the krogan's, and her face twisted to a snarl.
"I am the United States Ship Pennsylvania," she declared over all protests, blocking it behind a wall of steel. "Proud battleship of the United States Navy!"
Kerr grinned widely. "Pennsylvania. Good. I will remember this name in the stories I tell."
Pennsylvania didn't bother with a reply, and didn't care for any banter the battlemaster wanted to make. She took aim with her I and IV guns to fire and end this quickly.
Kerr thrust out an arm and made a twisting motion. A blue corona surrounded her and, at the last moment before firing, she was weightless. The recoil ruined her firing solution, missing Kerr entirely and instead striking the far cave wall. She flew from Kerr, skipping along the ground as a victim of her own recoil now that his damn magic (biotics, Shepard distantly supplied) took her tonnage away.
Hands and feet dug into the rock with the force of full-size turbines to stop herself. Her weight was still gone, so Pennsylvania stayed on her hands and knees to keep from floating away. A few secondaries could elevate themselves to strike Kerr, so she began computing a firing solution.
Kerr didn't give her the time. He shot a glowing fireball from his shotgun (the M-300, Shepard supplied), and it was slow enough Pennsylvania could track it in the second before impact. She distantly recognized it as the special explosive round colloquially called a Carnage shot, and it lived up to the name. Pennsylvania flew back again, and midair her weight suddenly returned, causing her to crash heavily to the ground.
Her crew, rattled and disgruntled, informed her she was weightless for about 10 seconds. She could work with that.
Pennsylvania stood up, firing off all her secondaries currently tracking Kerr, and Guns II & III that hadn't fired yet. She grinned maliciously, assuming Kerr couldn't dodge that in time, but he proved her wrong by. That same damnable blue corona surrounded him, and Kerr
charged past her incoming shells, then kept going. There was about 100 feet between them, according to her rangefinders. Kerr covered that in seconds and slammed right into her. She only skidded back a few feet, but Pennsylvania was struggling to comprehend
what the hell was going on.
("Biotics," said the small, smug voice of Shepard. "They're a bitch, huh?")
Pennsylvania growled and tried burying her annoyingly persistent human part under more steel so she could concentrate.
"Good!" Kerr bellowed happily. "Keep standing and fighting. I want a good one before I crush your skull."
Pennsylvania snarled and spat a curse at the battlemaster and charged him. Going for CQC, thinking that staying close wouldn't let him use biotics easily. She was partially right.
Kerr glowed brightly, right before her fist connected, and it felt like hitting a wall of Krupp armor. He took a few more punches from her, before punching back and she felt that same force pushing her back. A Throw, Shepard distantly said.
She didn't go far, but it was enough for Kerr to use another biotic ability, this one generating a series of shockwaves. The last hit her hard, and knocked her off balance right as she tried to fire her secondaries. The shots went wide, again, only killing a few vorcha.
Kerr laughed, pulsing his biotic aura tauntingly. Pennsylvania growled and picked herself up for another salvo that, again, Kerr dodged with a charge. She braced herself for the impact, but this time Kerr charged perpendicular to her position, using it to get out from her current firing arc. She was lifted again and hit with another Carnage round.
Pennsylvania slammed into the ceiling and growled, reluctantly commending Kerr in her mind. She tried to brace herself against the stalactites and fire, but again the excessive recoil on her negated tonnage fouled her aim. She shouted at her fire control officer, but he meekly replied that they couldn't completely compensate for that. They literally didn't have the tools to calculate it.
Kerr charged out of danger and used another biotic power right after. Pennsylvania felt the increasingly familiar tingle of biotics affecting her, and this time she plummeted towards the ground. Fast. Far faster than she should with her natural tonnage.
She realizes too late Kerr caught her in a biotic Slam,
enhancing her tonnage instead of negating it. She lands
hard on her keel, kicking up a dust storm and shockwave of rocks. It's enough to make a big crater and knock the steam out of her.
She lays stunned, engineering rushing to restore engine output, and reports of minor to moderate structural damage coming in. She ignores them to brace for the next inevitable attack, but it doesn't come. Kerr is slowly approaching her without his biotic aura.
Shepard screams at Pennsylvania that,
"He's cooling down and can't do anything, goddammit!"
Shut up, she screamed mentally and demanded a report from engineering. She's unfortunately still stuck.
"I'm truly impressed, warship-female. You have made me struggle more in these minutes than I have in 300 years," he gloated, slowly circling her from a distance. She could see his biotic corona slowly regaining strength, practically advertising her time limit. "You even made me dodge multiple times! Quite a feat. Normally I simply take the hits to bring my enemies despair, but I'm not so stupidly overconfident to test your formidable guns."
Kerr laughed, nodding with genuine approval to Pennsylvania, and lifted his arm. The corona didn't appear to be at full strength again, so she had some time.
An idea was forming.
"I will tell many tales of this day, Pennsylvania. Be honored that your name shall be part of Clan Weyrloc lore!"
*Ding ding ding.*
Steam pressure restored.
Pennsylvania grabbed the EOT and sent Ahead Flank. Steam rushed back through her pipes and into her Curtis turbines, restoring power to her limbs. Pennsylvania contorted her body and slapped the ground hard to flip back on her feet.
All available guns were brought to bear on Kerr's shocked (and pleased) mug. There wasn't time for coordinated fire, and at this range a firing solution was pointless. She simply ordered the gunnery officers to just eyeball the bastard and fire at will.
A staggered staccato of gunfire erupted from her guns to descend on Kerr. She had a distant hope it would work, but the blue flare she spotted at the last moment confirmed her suspicion. Her secondaries continued firing at their maximum ROF and spread to the sides, trying to catch Kerr's perpendicular charge when he didn't immediately come for her. Her main guns she kept in reserve and fully loaded for her plan.
Pennsylvania hated to admit it, but Weyrloc Kerr was a better fighter than her. He had biotics on his side, a few special rounds for his shotgun and rifle, and most of all a major experience gap. The latter tied everything together, allowing Kerr to use his various biotic powers in conjunction with well timed gunfire to actually damage her.
Above all, Pennsylvania hated his biotic Charge and Lift the most. Charge let Kerr avoid her gunfire and get in close. While Lift kept fouling her firing solutions and turning her own weapons against her.
However, she outmatched him in raw power and crazy sailor ideas.
Pennsylvania ceased fire when Kerr didn't immediately show himself and waited for the dust to clear. Her search radar actually told her his exact position and range, which she
could have used to fire on him through the dust, but she didn't believe that would work given his unfortunate intelligence. She kept feigning a visual search while Guns II & III traversed the opposite direction.
When the dust cleared, she immediately brought her guns to bear and prepared to fire.
Kerr reacted as she expected. His biotics flared and suddenly Pennsylvania was weightless and floating upwards. Normally she would have fired by now, fouling her solution again, and turning her own recoil against her.
This time she didn't fire. In fact, Pennsylvania pushed off the ground to shoot up to the ceiling. She braced against two stalactites, looking down at Kerr's confused expression, and pushed off towards him. She waited until the calculated angle was right, then fired Guns II & III to use the recoil as
thrust.
The approximately 2500-ish pounds of propellant charge acted on her to great effect with her usual tonnage negated. She shot towards him at frankly insane speeds for a Standard. The look of wide-eyed, open-mouthed astonishment on Kerr's face right before she impacted will be a treasured memory.
In a reversal of fortunes, Pennsylvania's impact sent Kerr skipping across the ground to land with a heavy thud while she dropped anchors to keep herself on the ground while Lift ran its course. Once free, she immediately followed up with a salvo from Gun I. High explosive shells impacted in a spread around Kerr, and hopefully one landed directly on the battlemaster, but Pennsylvania wasn't holding her breath.
She jogged up to confirm his death or finish him, Gun IV and her secondaries at the ready. The smoke slowly cleared in the stagnant cavern air, eventually revealing Kerr on his back. His body was broken and bleeding badly, his limbs mangled, and his head crest had a long crack running lengthwise.
She angrily stomped hard on his leg, severing it with brute force alone, and did the same to the other. It was a petty, vindictive act born from embarrassment. She had felled scores of alien foes with her guns and bare hands effortlessly, and here this
lone krogan managed to toss her around like a ragdoll. He even damaged some of her spotlights and other less-armored gear.
Pennsylvania punted Kerr hard, using him to make a new bloody crater in the wall and turned away to resume her task. Shepard screamed something in the back of her mind, but Pennsylvania forced her down
again. Persistent little girl, she should let her work.
Pennsylvania turned back to the base and her captive audience. The remaining slaver and Blood Pack defenders were staring in amazement and fear at her. They slowly realized that the fight was over, Kerr lost, and she was totally focused on them again. There was a mad dash to re-man their guns or escape while Pennsylvania advanced slowly. She made each footfall land heavily with a fraction of her full tonnage, to intimidate them, and reload all her main guns.
"Tell me, future shark bait," she called, computing a firing solution while taunting them. "Do you have an afterlife? Let's find out."
###
Tarak had pulled Pralem away from comms to his personal quarters and watched with detached amusement as his boss frantically packed. Pralem was supposed to be helping but decided to keep an eye on the ongoing fight outside that continued to shake the walls with thunderous gunfire. Kerr was doing amazingly well against the shipgirl, demonstrating an expert use of biotics to level the playing field from literal centuries of experience.
"Unless you see the ship-bitch suddenly losing, help me pack!" Tarak growled.
Pralem shrugged and made a token effort. "I don't know why you bother. It's not like we can escape, she'll be here soon anyways. Kerr can't last once she figures out how to work against his biotics."
"You're only half-right," Tarak said, throwing some underclothes in a bag. "Kerr certainly won't win, but we
can escape."
Pralem stopped looking to stare unimpressed at Tarak. "Did you forget about the Alliance fleet hovering above us right now? I think they'll prefer to shoot us down than let you spin some amusing, but ineffective, lies," he said dryly, while packing 3 issues of Fornax into Tarak's 2
nd bag.
To his surprise, Tarak laughed. "Oh, the human fleet won't be a problem. I've been expecting this would come soon and have an escape plan in mind. There's a ship deep in this tunnel system, a personal vessel of mine, that we'll wait out the attack in. It will feed us and three others for 60 days while we wait out the humans."
Pralem stared harder at Tarak. "We? What's this we about?"
"You're coming. I thought that would be obvious." Tarak stopped the inevitable objection with a sharp glare. "You are acerbic, irritating, and borderline insubordinate, but you, Pralem, have 2 advantages in your favor." Tarak chuckled, and Pralem got the feeling he wouldn't like these 'advantages.' "One, you grasped the situation was hopeless immediately, and didn't try lying to me. I like that. I need that. Two, you're a witness."
Ah, yes Tarak would have to save his own ass somehow, and having an extra set of eyes that saw this blood-soaked aircar-wreck would help Tarak's case when his buyers demanded answers. He didn't like being thought of as useful though. He'd rather cut and run.
The base rattled again, freezing Tarak's packing and making Pralem check the vid feed again. This time Kerr was flying back while the shipgirl Pennsylvania (a name he would remember forever) rocketed forward in midair.
Oh, that didn't look good.
"Damn, Kerr doesn't have long," Tarak said, peering over his arm. He shoved a bag into Pralem's arms. "Move! We're going now before she decides to shell this place directly."
Yeah, Pralem didn't want to be around when that happened.
###
They all opened fire at once, and Pennsylvania let them have a moment to fire their guns and loose their rockets. None of them had any effect on her except to kick up a dust shroud and enhance her intimidation.
Her AP salvo fired, dispersing the dust and striking the base walls like the fist of God. The walls burst outwards like a squeezed fruit, scattering all the remaining defenders from the shockwave and shrapnel.
Pennsylvania walked through the dead and dying without a care. Her secondaries on local control executed anyone with the strength to stand, so they wouldn't be a nuisance later. A few begged for surrender and pled for mercy.
She did not grant it.
The inside of the base was little better than outside, except louder. Damaged alarms continued to blare their warnings, smoke from burning materials choked the air, and more dead and wounded littered the halls. Mostly dead, since the base was directly hit.
Pennsylvania executed the handful of wounded in sight and continued onward, systematically moving through the halls. Each room was cleared of enemies before proceeding to the next level.
She found more resistance waiting for her. Several batarian slavers in ranks, waiting for her to leave the stairwell. There were no demands for her surrender, or gloating proclamations that she was trapped. Pennsylvania wasn't in a talking or taunting mood either. She let Gun I do the talking right as they ineffectually fired on her.
There wasn't enough left to stain her boots. Same with the next group she came across. And the next. And the next.
Pennsylvania dispassionately killed them all with little of the same zeal she started with. After the humiliating fight against Kerr, she just wanted this over and done. She wanted a rest, a bath, and time to figure out…
herself. She focused on clearing rooms again, killing everyone she came across regardless of what they begged, until the last room.
She ripped open the door, all guns trained and prepared to fire immediately but stopped herself. She'd found the slave pens.
Her nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell. Dozens of unwashed bodies were scattered throughout the wide room and had definitely been there a while. All of them, without exception, were underfed, held in abysmal conditions, and openly fearful or so demoralized they simply shut down.
Pennsylvania wouldn't let this stand one moment longer and strode to the nearest pen. She violently ripped open the door, tossing it away to land loudly. Inside was a mixed group of asari and humans.
"Here, come on," she said, extending a hand towards the prisoners. No one took it, they all shrunk back in naked terror. Why? She was here to free them dammit! "I said come on! You're free!" she snapped, tired and irritated in general. Pennsylvania decided, if the prisoners were too scared and demoralized to come out, she would take them out herself.
"I said come on—"
A glimpse of her reflection in their water bucket stopped her dead. She was coated in blood and soot, cutting a grisly visage, and with her reaching forward aggressively to take them…
A memory flashed through her mind of a similar situation from the other side. She was cold, afraid, dirty and stained with blood after so many falls. She'd been corned at a former convenience store, and there was a batarian pirate reaching down to take her…
"I said get over here, damn human!"
Shepard shot back to the forefront, battering Pennsylvania into submission, and screamed.
###
Rear Admiral George Kahoku sighed heavily, pacing on the flag bridge of his flagship,
SSV Istanbul. He was waiting for news from his groundside marines,
any news would do, even if, he morbidly thought, they were all dead. At least KIA was better than an uncertain MIA fate to batarian slavers.
His secretary ship (or sub as it were) sitting beside his chair was no better. USS Barb hated this kind of inaction, where she wasn't lying in wait for prey to come along, but sitting nervously for news of comrades in a battle she couldn't affect. One hand was buried in her grayed brunette hair, scratching her scalp nervously while the worry wore more wrinkles into her face.
Admiral Kahoku was about to demand another status update, and was
very close to sending down a second team, when a comms rating beat him.
"Admiral sir! Incoming transmission from the surface. ID confirms as Gunnery Sergeant Saito Matsuda."
The immediate question of why only a Gunnery Sergeant was contacting him was pushed aside. "Send it to my console immediately," he ordered, sitting on his chair to take the channel. Barb leaned over to listen and watch.
The rating pushed it to the admiral, and a holoscreen with Audio Only displayed center frame appeared.
"Admiral Kahoku, this is Gunny Matsuda, do you read?" Matsuda said, sounding haggard and tired to their ears, but there was no gunfire heard. Barb shared a nervous look with Kahoku.
"We read you, Gunny. I've been waiting for a message from your battalion. Where is Major Preston Kyle?"
"Major Kyle is… indisposed, sir," Matsuda said slowly. Kahoku noted the deliberate use of 'indisposed' instead of injured.
"I have assumed command in his absence."
"What about 1st Lieutenant Shepard?" he asked. She was the XO of the battalion on this op.
"…Sir she is also indisposed for the moment, but… not for the exact same reason."
Kahoku grimaced as the Gunny's dancing around the issues painted a grim picture of events on Torfan. He knew it would be bad when the trap was sprung, but this was sounding like a worst-case scenario.
"Gunny, I understand what you're saying," unfortunately, "but I need a straight answer for my next question. What's the status of your battalion and the mission?"
Matsuda heavily sighed and answered crisply,
"The battalion is FUBAR sir, but the mission is complete. All slavers and Blood Pack," Blood Pack?!
"have been eliminated or captured. We've mostly been cleaning up after Lieutenant Shepard's solo action."
"Gunny… are you saying that the Lieutenant finished with just her team?" he asked, trading astonished looks with Barb. If it were true he'd send all of them to N-School immediately.
"No sir, I'm saying she completed it on her own. Frankly speaking sir, we were on a rout before she came in and literally blew them all away. Shepard's a shipgirl sir, and awakened today."
Kahoku froze, having trouble processing such a simultaneously amazing and horrific fact. A natural-born shipgirl awakening was amazing in itself, something to be celebrated, but to happen
here was beyond horrible. She would've come back to service amid what was sounding like one of the most bloody and horrible actions in years. It didn't get much worse.
"Gunny, this is USS Barb speaking," Barb said, cutting in when he failed to reply. "Which ship is it?"
"One of the old ones, Secretary Ship ma'am," he said deferentially.
"USS Pennsylvania's back again."
Oh. That was
much worse.
