A woman finds herself in an familiar yet completely unfamiliar place as something that objectively should not exist, yet does. Ripped away from everything she cares about, follow Shinano's journey as she tries to find her footing in an unfamiliar world, find her footing, and find happiness once more.
This work of fiction is a recursive fanwork of Abyssal Admiral Quest 2: Graveyard of Empires. Please support both the original release (Kantai Collection) and the Fanwork (Abyssal Admiral Quest and Abyssal Admiral Quest 2)
Heya everyone, it's Miho! I'm back with another work of fanfiction, this time a recursive one that is essentially complete (sans the final few chapters and potentially an epilogue) that currently clocks in at just over two hundred thousand words. It was co written with @ArchAIngel, the writer and QM of Abyssal Admiral Quest: Love Conquers All, and Abyssal Admiral Quest 2: Graveyard of Empires. Without him, this Omake that turned into a novel would not exist, and I am extremely thankful (And slightly frightened) by the amount of work we have both put into this work over the course of the past four months. If you enjoy this work, I would highly recommend reading through AAQ1 and get yourself caught up with AAQ2 over on Akun. As a fair warning, both do contain Adult content. Just as this work does. Adult content within this work will contain a warning within the chapter if it is going to get outright explicit. I have, from my recollection, two outright sex scenes written within this work. If that makes you uncomfortable, I will be placing warnings within the work itself so that people may skip said scenes.
Regardless, thank you all for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the words that Arch and I have written!
Humanity had come for the Batarian Hegemony, and the carpet of cold, endless night was bathed in mass-driver fire, plasma bolts, and searing laser fire bolting back and forth. It was a cruiser action, a dozen against a dozen, gray and blue ships engaging in close-in brawls with darker, sleeker ones and matching plasma to bolting tungsten shards. Hulls hammered each other apart, but only one of them had the outer armor melt back together, flowing like wax to replace wounds with clean plate once more.
It was war, in all its glory, and all its horror.
And from war came emotional highs, and from that, the local psychosphere rumbling, and in the rear of the action, between a meager orbital ring defending a world specialized in large-scale farming and the cruisers fighting to protect or take it, was a flash of light and brilliance. Sensors could tell what it was at a glance.
A shipgirl had awoken, and it was going to shift the field immediately.
Who, however, was rather more in question.
I awoke amidst a void engulfed in the fires of war, munitions whizzing past me as I struggled to gain my bearings. Given that I had been asleep moments before dreaming pleasant dream involving something else entirely unrelated and far more palatable than being dropped amidst a battlefield, it could be perhaps understood that the first thing I did upon waking up was broadcasting a message on quite literally every channel,
"What the fuck is going on?!"
Only to double take immediately, as what the fuck, that wasn't English. On further reflection, I had even been thinking in Japanese; something I hadn't been able to accomplish in any meaningful way for over a decade. However, beyond the initial few moments, I had no time to think as near-immediately, the communication network I was apparently plugged into was flooded with chatter, largely composed of languages I couldn't understand. Moments later, I noticed the slate-gray faction's fusion plumes suddenly pulse in an array of gamma-ray bursts, prows splotched with molten metal as one of the ones further to the back sent a request in somewhat butchered Japanese.
"This is Systems Alliance Ship, Cruiser Venus, requesting identification of the unknown macrocapital-weight shipgirl. I repeat, this is Systems Alliance Ship, Cruiser Venus, requesting identification of the unknown macrocapital-weight shipgirl." The voice requested- no, ordered in rusty Japanese; a reflection of my own until apparently literal seconds ago. For a second, I pondered the question, my still waking brain providing a name. Shinano. Since it sounded correct and rang a bell, I momentarily didn't question it, only to once more double take,
Since when was my name Shinano? I clearly remembered being Kana, not Shinano. Why had my-
'Oh. Shipgirl. Shinano. Duh.'
Brain working properly once more, I belted out a rather professional reply, "Shinano, Imperial Japanese Navy." Searching myself for a moment, I came up with a class name and designation, my mind somewhat blue screening at the information overload that accompanied the brief glance into everything I apparently knew now, "A Shinano Class Strategic Support Carrier. Whatever in the blazes that is."
"Understood. Shinano, we are engaging in full breakthrough maneuvers to reach your location, Escort-Shipgirl Charon is approaching your location before us, Admiral Hightower is currently hers, suggest that you attempt to avoid engagement with the local planet until we link up. Current situation is planetary assault against a hostile foe, clearing orbitals for deployment of Walker Maniple Agnus Dei. May the Pantheon be with you until we are." A far smoother response echoes out on the comms, a rapid improvement that spoke of likely technological assistance? Or perhaps the speaker was an AI and just updated their language repository. Both were more than possible given the info in my databanks; that was going to take some getting used to. Ripping myself out of my brief derail with a focus I hadn't been able to muster on command only hours ago, I eyed the two ships breaking away from what appeared to be the friendly lines; one's stern lighting up like a false sun momentarily as their engines flared, as in the same instant a girl zipped out with a hair like a cloud drawn into a ponytail and a grin that spoke of mania.
'A destroyer, then.' I mused to herself. Before I could acknowledge the oncoming information, the voice continued,
"We suggest avoiding hostile cruisers for the moment, this band is better than most of these four-eyed slavers."
'Four Eyed What Nows!?'
I froze, momentarily, before fury boiled within my breast. There was, in my mind, quite literally no worse sin in existence than the practice of slavery. Those that removed the ability of others to choose were scum. Those that bound those with the ability to choose and enforced their will upon them were so far beyond worse than scum that comparing them to scum was frankly offensive to the scum.
"Shinano copies." I replied, a simmering rage bleeding through my voice despite my best effort. My good sense warred with my ideology and sense of justice as I slowly gauged my own systems, looking through eyes that saw more and a brain that knew and performed better than my old one ever had. "Will hold position, over." I finished the thought, turning my gaze to the other cruiser on the side of the Systems Alliance-
'... Wait a fucking second… Four eyed slavers, Systems Alliance-'
Almost failing to process the information laid out before me, I barely managed to remember to not broadcast the following into comms,
"Of fucking course I'm in Mass Effect. WHY WOULDN'T IT BE MASS EFFECT?!"
Returning my attention to the battle with my spleen vented for the moment, I noted the Batarian Fleet; for what else could a force of slavers be, continue to engage the Systems Alliance fleet. It seemed that the former had a significant advantage in firepower, though the sheer endurance granted by what appeared to be self-sealing hulls based on regenerative- yep. That was regenerative metal, and it was the same shit I was apparently made out of. Regardless of that rather interesting piece of information, I watched as one of the batarians ships went up in a rather spectacular display of fireworks as her hull was punctured; the munition detonating within as it shattered the lass' spine.
My soul sensors (what the fuck, I had those?) reported a myriad of souls blinking out as they were sucked into the uncaring void. A pang of sympathy flicked through me briefly before I mercilessly crushed most of it. Feeling sympathy for the likely innocents onboard was fine, but I needed to focus for now. I'd likely being seeing a lot more of this, after all.
Meanwhile, Charon, the other shipgirl present, burned a straight line towards me, trailed by a hextet of black escort vessels trailing gamma-rays; an after effect of the utilization of Antimatter, according to my databanks. Simple physics meant that Charon would be the one to arrive by my side first, even as she ducked and weaved in a rather impressive display of evasive maneuvers, avoiding mass-drivers with the skill of a veteran. Shifting my attention to the other ships pursuing my ally, I blinked as my computers duly informed me that I'd been struck by a mass driver.
'... I honestly didn't even register that.'
Given, of course, that it had barely even scratched my shielding, I was going to put that matter to the side and focus on the actually important things. Like the formation of escorts chasing the girl burning to my side. And the rather impressive figure of Venus dumping torpedoes left and right as she made her way to me as well, trailing ever so slightly behind the formation of Batarian escorts.
'Right. Let's see what kind of tricks I have to help out Charon.'
It only took only a microsecond to become aware of all the options available to me. Option upon option arrayed itself before and, and with the information I had of the battlespace, it only took me a singular second after that to make a choice. I had, rather amusingly, a veritable horde of drones worth only the material it took to make them that I could use to absolutely bully the escorts; though it was likely they would take meaningful losses to the OPFOR's GARDIAN networks, on top of a spinal mass driver, my choice was very very obvious.
Lining up a shot was also shockingly simple. It was a simple matter of looking through my eyes; apparently now able to perceive every spectrum of light I had a sensor for. IR overlaid with lidar overlaid with optical sensors found the optimal firing solution in a manner of moments, and after that it was simply a matter of raising the… bolt action shotgun (Those existed?!) that represented my spinal gun into a firing position. As drones poured from my hangers with orders to eliminate the escorts I wasn't about to core with a capital grade weapon, I depressed the trigger.
The results were nearly instantaneous. My mass driver rumbled, spitting forth a metallic slug a 0.018c, shearing through the woefully unprepared shields of the Batarian Escort with all the grace of a rampaging bull, coring her from bow to stern in an interesting practical demonstration of the ancient conundrum: "Was it a donut if it was a cylinder?" Yet, that wasn't all the shot accomplished. In their unprofessional haste to pursue Charon into the range of a macrocapital, the trailing escort slammed into the cored hulk of the lead escort, shearing a good half of her mass off and leaving her very much dead in space.
Witnessing this all, Charon whooped over the comms, "A carrier and a spinal? You're a girl with all the fixings, aren't ya?" Her grin easily audible simply through her voice, she sped to my side, executing a beautiful flip as she burned to match my current orbital speed with a casualness that spoke of long hours of practice.
Putting aside the friendly escort for now, I returned my attention to the remaining four escorts just as they spun on a dime, their fusion torches flaring as they burned towards safety. And they would have gotten away with it too… if it weren't for the funny little effect fusion torches had. They, after all, tended to white out your IR sensors to your direct stern, and my practically biblical swarm of drones had just ripple-fired a series of missiles directly on their rear. The mass-distortion rockets carved through what little point defense the escorts managed to throw up, leaving two unlucky Batarian destroyers dead and drifting, fully at my mercy. After a brief internal debate, I put off their executions in case any spooks wanted to rummage around in their hulks, dully reporting their positions up the chain of command as I understood it.
As the remaining two Batarian escorts fled the field of battle, my attention suddenly shifted, Charon coughing to draw my attention as she hoisted what appeared to be an M60 that very very obviously represented her spinal weapon.
"Nice shooting, could'a used practice, but you're fresh." The escort said, her indigo eyes staring into my own as she continued, "Right, so, we got a bit of clear time given the situation, and you've definitely got questions. Admiral's on the Venus, so that'll be good, but I can probably toss you anything simple"
A seemingly endless stream of questions poured forth from my mind, yet given that I probably didn't even remotely have time to voice them all, I settled on getting a general sitrep. "When and where am I?"
Blinking, Charon took a moment to process the evidently unexpected question before she replied, "2183, April 22nd Terran time, might tick over in a little bit, and right now we're on the edge of Hegemony space, system name is Uhulis, I don't think it's really important, besides that it makes a lot of food. Garden world, so bombarding it is ixnay, but we can invade it and that's fine." Given that I could see the aforementioned garden world they were orbiting, the lack of exact system location made a large degree of sense.
"What did they do to piss us off?" I asked moments after her response, filing away the rather interesting perspective on food for later. After all, while people often underestimated the importance of breadbaskets, they were strategically critical if you were in any way reliant on the consumption of food for energy.
"Well, for one, they're slavers, and for two, they kind of poked some of our minor colonies before leaving." She counted it out on her fingers, the deadpan evident in her voice. "And for three, frankly, they've got a record of doing real bad things to people who aren't uploads. Only reason we got off free is that trying to enslave a big old robot forklift involves a real fast lesson in being forklift certified." She sniggered at her own joke, clearly entertained by her own humor, though I personally couldn't see what was so humorous about it all. "Real difficult, but, Citadel isn't exactly doing more than forbidding shipping the SA biological hospital tools as a 'sanction'. Slap on the wrist and everyone knows it. May as well be tacit acceptance, and I'd bet there's some funny spy men running around the Hegemony causing 'em problems."
"... You're going to have to explain all those terms to me later." I sighed tiredly, recalling that, yes, in fact, this wasn't exactly a dream that I could wake up from. Refocusing a moment later, I asked whatI expected to be my final question, "Do we have time to do more, or do we get to go kill some Slaver Scum?"
"Well, you ain't moving that fast." Only for Charon to shoot that theory down as she sized me up. "Sorry, girl, but you're bulky. And the Admiral said to wait, so yeah, we can exchange chat a bit more, what do you need explained? I got time and plenty of crew-memories to check just in case, and one was a historian too, even if they specialized in the history of the bronze age." With a small shrug, she continued her thought. "Never know what kinda skills get to end up in you as a shipgirl."
"... fair enough." I pouted, recalling my drones reflexively, "I suppose I should ask other questions then." Pausing to collect my thoughts, I briefly went through all the things I needed to know, before finally settling on one, "I suppose a general history of everything that happened from the nineteen forties to now would be useful, in that case?"
"Huh, you are old then, girlie, well, I'm a youngster, so I'm morally obliged to be cocky, a bit irritatin', and smug 'bout it!" She grinned to take the edge off. "Right, startin' with us getting to space…"
With an information dump practically breaking my mind (What the fuck do you mean there was a war that was essentially Ragnarok in the twenty tens, WHAT THE FUCK!?) and the fact that apparently most humans were uploads with verifiable souls (not as surprising, given the fact I had motherfucking soul sensors) with only a small minority rejecting robothood to live like the Amish had centuries ago (and wasn't that a minor mindbender), I contemplated the government system that apparently somehow worked despite being a, ew, Theocracy.
Granted, it was a theocracy with verifiable gods that were likely benevolent, but also, it grated at my inner anarchist and agnostic that of all things that humanity ended up as it would be a fucking theocracy. Sue me, I had expected something more along the lines of fully automated gay space communism. Not… that.
Pushing aside the snickering escort; she'd been doing that since she'd described the Pantheon's children, I watched as the visibly battle-damaged Venus began to decelerate near me, frowning as my systems informed me that I could repair that, and that I had the materials aboard to do so. Filling away Venus' question of if she'd prefer to communicate via comms or via show platform, I began to slowly approach the warship myself, muttering foreign words and procedures that I somehow knew how to accomplish. Yay knowledge and competence package on the basics of being a ship? I'd be completely fucking lost otherwise.
Snapping out of my fugue moments before I could do something I might potentially regret later, I opened a channel to Venus, "Shinano to Venus, before we communicate, I have the facilities to repair your battle damage. Would you like that done, over?"
"Only if you can do it before the Bats get here, Shinano, being mid-repair would leave you vulnerable, and if I lost a shipgirl to something like this, Admiralty would have my core." The voice communicated, the frown audible through the comms, "Or at least want a damn good explanation. Otherwise, we can still fight the ship, and she'll keep us safe. As you're a repair ship, I have to ask this: Any special issues with combat?"
"I can do it fast." I replied instantly, frankly insulted at the jab at my pride and sense of competitiveness as a repair ship… which was also definitely going to bend my mind later. New instincts. Yaaaaaaaaaay, "As for your latter question, I'm a Support Carrier. I'm fairly sure I'm designed to be deployable in the midst of combat, and have bays specifically designed to theoretically be able to repair ships amidst a naval battle."
"Understood Shinano, in that case, fix her up and lead us back to the Bat's rear, we'll be striking there and seeing if we can punch a hole in their battle-line, then roll the sides up. After that, it's the orbitals, but those should be easy pickings, and we have a Ghorghenmast-class transport incoming in about 4 hours if they hit their timetables. 3, if we're lucky. Agnus Dei riding in style." With their reply sent, Venus cut her main torch, maneuvering thrusters along her flank firing as she obligingly turned her stern towards me.
And wasn't that a rather lovely sight. One of Venus' thrusters had likely taken a glancing blow from a mass driver, given the deformed and damaged metal surrounding the cone that served to direct the fusion torch providing her with a portion of her propulsion. With a ponderous hum, I rummaged around in my stores, searching for a plate that matched the identified specifications of the plates she already had. As I did so, I gently began to work away at the damaged segments, cutting the damaged metal away and storing it internally for reprocessing with my bare hands. With the preliminary steps complete, I pulled the plate I located out of storage, along with a healthy dose of that lovely living metal we seemed to be all made out of, patched up all the cracks present within the thruster node, and began to quickly and efficiently whisper the plate into the correct location, my hands dancing like a maestro's.
Completing my work in significantly less time that I'd been allotted, I grinned as I waved towards the cruiser, "Venus, this is Shinano. You're in fighting shape."
"Thank you, Shinano, our girl will thank you whenever she decides to pop out and stop waiting around." The engine bell burned and glowed, but, notably, did not break, my repair work holding up to the test fire just as expected. "Now, uploading targets."
With that statement complete, three cruisers present within the general background of the battlespace brought themselves into my focus, their wounds and suspected weaknesses highlighted in a rather ominous red. The trio of enemy vessels were slugging it out with their human peers, exchanging mass driver rounds in a display that might be dazzling if I wasn't capable of outputting significantly more firepower on a whim.
"I don't know which of these is the flag, but one is, and they tend to break and run around 1/3rd losses. So if we destroy these three and don't lose any more hulls, they'll flee. Especially without a leader to rally them. If that fails, we'll have to mop up the rest, or treat you a bit like a mobile fortress and rally around you. Any questions, or full speed ahead to the rear of their line?" The admiral(?) informed me, their final question definitely one not intended to be taken advantage of, despite the offer.
"Full speed ahead, sir." I replied instantly, a pleased smirk breaking out across my face at the thought of… eliminating the Batarians slavers from this plane of existence, "Nothing would please me more than ridding ourselves of slaving scum."
Throwing myself into flank speed with an almost childlike enthusiasm, I raced forward, building momentum with each second I kept my thrusters burning at full power. Within an hour, I was in the maximum effective range of my spinal mass driver, and, with almost pathetic ease; considering the targeting data the much closer cruisers had provided the battle-net, I lined up a shot, the tungsten slug shearing through the rear cruiser's weakened barriers like a knife through warm butter. Her stern crumbled under the force of the impact, leaving her dead in the metaphorical water.
Leaving the doomed enemy to her fate, I began launching my drone swarms once more as I watched Venus surged forward, likely burning some more of that antimatter as she maneuvered under the second closest Batarian cruiser. With a beautiful launch of torpedoes, that one was as good as dust, gravetic distortions shredding her to pieces as her core detonated in tandem. Then, there was no time to focus on any of the other allied ships surrounding me as I became engulfed in the desperate melee above the garden world, my bolt action shotgun thundering her fury again and again as my rigging came alive, my mass driver turrets and even my GUARDIAN network began lighting up the battlespace.
A Batarian cruiser's shields depleted by one shot of my spinal, only to be subsequently swarmed by human escorts and torn to pieces.
A squadron Batarian escort came under concentrated mass driver attack from my secondary batteries, mauling them as they desperately tried to get out of range, only for a Systems Alliance hunter-killer pack to pounce, easily dispatching the weakened forces.
Another Batarian cruiser went up in short-lived flames as my drones swarmed her, tearing her apart like a swarm of locusts before moving to the next.
My surroundings became a symphony of destruction, my guns, lasers, and drones the musicians I conducted inexpertly, yet with as many of them as I had, my lack of expertise mattered not. Soon enough, all that was left was the already worn orbital defenses, the hulks of Batarian warships surrounding me as I collected my breath. I could, of course, simply force my way through the orbital defenses, but frankly… That wasn't the purpose I was best suited for, and I could accomplish it with my drone swarms well enough. Especially given I would be having an absolute blast cannibalizing this battlefield for parts and replenishing my internal stores of raw material, and the fact my manufacturing systems were already hard at work replacing my moderate losses. Deciding the best course of action was simply to serve my purpose as a "Strategic Support Carrier", I keyed my comms, making my intentions clear to the rest of the present fleet.
"Shinano to all Systems Alliance forces, if any of you are in need of repairs, rally to me, over."
"Understood and appreciated, Shinano." Venus sent back. "Hold the swarm for the From Heaven. They'll be good ground support for them, and defenses without ships have trouble shooting back."
"Shinano copies, holding my swarms." I replied instantly. With the communication done, I returned my attention back to my actual job, only to instantly double-take.
Beholding the sea of damaged cruisers and escorts arrayed before me with an obviously startled look, I shook my head and got cracking on repairing them all. Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising that humanity's ships were struggling, given, well, the two thousand plus years of technological development the Citadel had on humanity. Frankly, it was impressive that we were able to even remotely think about attacking a Batarian system without the overwhelming force of numbers. Hell, according to the copy of the codex that some bastard that was going to get an honest to gods peck on the cheek later for sending me, the cruisers I was repairing only had escort grade shields, according to Citadel standards.
Not really able to do much about the internal damage on a timer, I did my best to ensure that the armored compartments and such were properly repaired, noting the densely packed structures with extremely limited corridors and the presence of extremely dense data networks inside both the armor, compartments, and critical sections of the vessels I was repairing. Eventually, after repairing the first three, everything flew into a sort of blur; even the overpenetrated escorts not even phasing me as I ensured the fleet was in good order, a sense of satisfaction, happiness, and accomplishment filling me as I did the job I had evidently been built for? Summoned for? Eh, not important. The job I had been called to do. That worked.
As I finished repairing the final escort, giving her a pat on her hull as I did so, I finally took the opportunity to consciously process the data I had been receiving from the battlespace and my various sensors. While I had been in a fugue state, a Ghorghenmast class assault ship, From Heaven, had entered the system. She hadn't been close enough to take a proper look at beforehand, but now that I was done with my work, I could more easily take a moment to appreciate her.
It honestly didn't look like a ship. It looked as if someone had taken a giant cargo container, strapped engines to the stern, and given it a point defense grid worth about as much as a cruiser's. The prow of the ship was practically unnoticeable when compared to the swollen midsection; attached to a sort of spine running along her keel by what appeared to be a series of cargo clamps of all things. Upon the box in her midsection, there was a visible inscription.
"From Heaven, With Love."
With a quiet snort, I turned to face the nearest Batarian hulk, engaging the industrial (not rated for combat) tractor projectors and pulling her closer. The material she was composed of would serve no purpose simply floating here, and frankly, I didn't respect the Batarians nearly enough to even bother pretending to respect their war graves in the midst of combat. They had given that right up by being a society of slaving asshats.
Watching as the fleet turned to engage and rapidly swat the orbitals via the ancient and sacred traditions of "rocks very very hurty when thrown fast", I once more sent forth my drone swarm, this time in a angry buzzing escort formation around the entire central section of From Heaven as it detached from their mothership.
In the same instant, I replied to a repeated request by the Admiral for a clarification on how I wanted to be contacted, simply saying that a comms device was more than acceptable, though I would appreciate having Charon on hand simply for moral support.
Sue me. Having a person there made things somewhat better. And I wasn't about to trouble the admiral by making him send a show platform. I wasn't some princess, after all.
The much shorter girl zipped up to me with the speed characteristic of an escort girl, again coming to a halt next to me and snapping off a quick salute and her signature grin. "Right, nice to talk again. Boys and girls in the ships'll be happier with more plate between them and batty guns. So. You've been real helpful, and boss thanks you for that, but officially we gotta cross all the t's and dot all the i's, so." She cleared her throat, likely more out of habit than need. "Do you, IJN Shinano, properly transfer to the command of the Systems Alliance Navy, accepting their authority to assign you champion-rank and command-rank, drawing a paycheck from such, and being a citizen proper of the Systems Alliance?" She rolled her eyes a little, very obviously reciting what she was told was necessary and not necessarily what she personally thought was needed, "With all the rights and privileges therein?"
Because, of course, I couldn't control my impulse in time, my first response was, "It's Shinano, not IJN Shinano. The Imperial Japanese Navy didn't make use of prefixes." Followed by an embarrassed blush and equally embarrassed noise. Shoving that down before the escort could open her mouth, I nodded my head rapidly, "You'll have to explain the ranking system, but yes, I accept. I assume at some point I'll have to perform a formal ceremony and all that jazz?"
"Absolutely and it'll be a snore." Charon nodded. "Incredibly boring but even if all the paper's electronic now, we gotta. Rankings… well, that's simple enough. See, you're a shipgirl, so you're a really useful asset to everyone, right? So you command a good and big paycheck. Problem is, unless I'm readin' you wrong, you ain't got the command skill to run anything well, so you can't just get a rank high up in authority even if you'd earn pay like someone at that rank. So long while back, goddesses got a suggestion from the High Priestesses saying to make it so that everyone draws pay from how good they are at leading, and how good they are at fighting, and splitting that. Or, well, how good they are at helping fighting in your case. It makes the paychecks a little complicated in your credits, but that's mostly just working on the banking." Charon made a face. "Trust me, while setting up a banking account is ass, it's real nice to just let a bunch of clerks handle the stuff rather than trying to keep'em separate. So you get paid, but you don't gotta worry if you'll override an actual officer who knows what formations look like. Make sense?"
"Yes. Thank you, Charon." I replied, my… ears? Wait…
Blinking, I finally took a moment to process the fact that I apparently wasn't in my old body anymore. I was, in fact…
I barely managed to contain a squeal. I had fluffy tails. I HAD ZA FLUFFY TAIL. Glorious glorious day, at long last the fluffy tail was-
And that was exactly when the reality of the situation hit me like a metric ton of bricks and I barely managed to choke back a sob.
Immediately, Charon was at my side, a kind hand patting against my back as tears began to fall, "Shit, post-battle rush hitting you, girl? 'S alright, 's alright." She tried to soothe, one hand stroking my back, "I get it, it's a hell of a crash your first time, you'll adjust. Anything you want right now? Hug, food, nap?"
Unfortunately for Charon, there really wasn't much one could do to comfort me, not when the sheer unadulterated grief from losing everything I had ever known and loved was hitting me in an unrelenting storm of emotion. My grip on my control slipping with each passing second, I briefly debated fleeing, only to firmly shove that thought aside. It wouldn't help, and-
'They were gone they were gone they were gone they were GONE.'
It wasn't as if I would be able to mount any defense if I got myself into any sort of trouble. With a somewhat detached, out of body experience, I felt my body cry, grieve, and eventually collapse in on myself, adopting a fetal position despite Charon's best efforts.
The words, the thoughts, the memories of everything I had raced through my mind, tearing apart every attempt I made to get back my control, to stop fucking crying and grieving out in the open like some…
I aborted the thought, firmly wrenching my mind away from the toxic masculinity with more difficulty than I was used to. Gritting my teeth, I forced aside the emotions, shoving them in a box as I slowly forced my tear streaked body into actually cooperating, fixing my expression into one of pure neutrality as I killed my emotional response and buried it. I'd regret it. I'd regret it so much later, but a battlefield was no place to have the breakdown I knew I needed. Metaphorically "standing up" and uncurling myself from my tails; I'd grabbed them to cuddle against at some point during my breakdown slash anxiety attack. With all that completed, I turned towards Charon, forcing a small, dishonest smile onto my face with great difficulty "... I'm… Okay. Orders?"
If I still was able to feel, I would probably be cringing at how dead I sounded, but…
Well, there was a reason it'd taken me years to recover from the last time I'd done this.
Looking up through tear-stained eyes, I beheld Charon's expression. She looked a bit worried- No. That was an understatement. In fact, calling it an understatement was an understatement in and of itself, but she nodded slowly, accepting my 'recovery' with a small frown, "...Well, ground's fine, but the Venus could use a check on her internals, if you wanna follow me? You get to pick your Admiral, but we only got one right here, so may as well get you to his hull while he's in there instead of one of the big 'ol command battlestations. See if you hit it off? Good way to cool down." It was obvious she was trying to distract me, and, honestly, at this point, I would take it. Without any fanfare whatsoever, I began to slowly drift towards Venus, not at all trusting myself to operate at any sort of appreciable speed given my absolutely sorry emotional state. The fact she was so invested in trying to help despite having met me at most six hours ago was honestly helping more than anything though. It gave me a small anchor to latch onto. An acquaintance I could call a friend while I centered myself, and rediscovered the rock that had kept me anchored to reality ever since I had searched my soul gods only know how many years ago.
Accompanied by Charon's ceaseless fountain of yapping, time passes quickly as I approach Venus, stowing my rigging as I enter the ship. Three things stand out to me immediately. One, there was no atmosphere, much like a 'canon' Mass Effect Geth vessel. Two, there are human platforms running around, some performing damage control, others recovering bodies, and others still directing all the others. Notably, each different 'group, has a different insignia etched somewhere upon their platforms. A silver scythe for the engineers, a spear surrounded by a snake; akin to a caduceus, and a golden sun etched upon those obviously in command.
Being that there is no atmosphere, it is utterly unsurprising that they're speaking purely through comms, especially since they've evidently had more than a century to get used to the new state of affairs. However it does make the fact that Charon and I are able to exchange words in the void stand out even more starkly as we're brought before a large door separating the bulkhead we were in from the next.
"Hey, you want me with you, or meet him alone? He's a good guy, can promise, but looks kinda big and chunky right now." Her concern plastered across her face, I almost felt guilty for what I was about to say.
"I'll meet him alone, thank you Charon. I just… need some space, I think." Pausing, I managed some actual humor, "I'm demi anyway. It's the person I care about, not the shell."
Her endless font of energy had appreciated, as was the fact there were evidently two other girls within this fleet, though the girl, perhaps unintentionally, hadn't provided any names. But right now, I needed relative solitude, and I couldn't do that by facing the admiral who had called me here with someone else at my side.
No, I would do that alone.
The door slides open, armored steel done in the style of doors found on ships (unsurprisingly), before I am greeted by the sight of a blocky individual that must be the person I am looking for. Not bothering to assign the individual a gender, though given what Charon had said, the Admiral was male, I gave him a once over. He was essentially a giant lego person, vaguely humanoid in shape, one lone eye looking down from above even my considerable height.
"Apologies for the look, but this platform is optimized for cooling and computing, not aesthetics. I am Admiral Hightower of the Systems Alliance Navy, for my sins, follower of lady Yamato, and leader of this branch of the assault into Hegemony space. I appreciate your cooperation and thank you for the help, we hit about twice as much forces here as we expected, and without you, we'd have retreated with good odds of losing several hulls. So, on behalf of my forces, we owe you one. A lot less people died today. Now, I won't start you on the files yet, but Charon is very worried you had an immediate adrenaline crash." The eye slitted focusing on me as he seemed to peer directly in to my soul, rimmed in gold, "You said, however, you're fine with combat, miss Shinano. Do you think you were wrong, or do you need some help with something else?"
'... He saw right through that, didn't he. Not shocking, an Admiral would probably be familiar with what coming down from a combat high looks like, and I know what I did wasn't that. Now…'
Gulping, I made my choice, not even bothering to think too much about it. Lying wouldn't serve me well, especially towards a superior officer that already suspected the issue wasn't what Charon had assumed it was.
"Are you familiar with the theory of the multiverse, Admiral?" I asked softly, the rhetorical question stinging my tongue with the weight of the grief behind it, "Because… Given all I've heard, in the place I come from, no war akin to the Norse concept of Ragnarok occurred in twenty sixteen. In fact, that was a period of relative peace, broken for most only in early twenty twenty two when the Russian Federation invaded the Republic of Ukraine, starting the first war in continental Europe since the second world war."
Breathing deeply to contain the grief that all but wanted to shatter me, I gauged his reaction as best I could without any of the context clues I was familiar with. Despite how much I had grown in size… I felt even smaller, standing before someone with the ability to decide my fate, and one that served a theocracy. One that… might not be as nice as their followers depicted.
Evidently finding what he had wanted, and yet at the same time not, he swore. "Sun burn it all, I brought a metaphysicist in case of trouble that I am not qualified to understand, and of course he's not only a casualty but his core got cracked. Miss, I am willing to believe you at your word, given what I've heard of the world-that-was before the Old War, but I cannot genuinely check you right now, to ensure it. The good news is, we do have dedicated therapists for this, the bad news is, they're not here right now, and I'll need to have one shipped in. You're no Rift-creature, given you're capable of coherent thought instead of gibbering and making reality collapse, so I'll ask you this. Are you comfortable with staying around and assisting, or would you prefer to move to the rear and handle the situation better? I'll be assigning you mandatory therapy either way, mind, but shipgirls can quite often need some combat to help them stabilize mentally, and you know yourself better than I do."
… That was a good question. I had been ripped away from everything I loved, and conventional wisdom said that I should… take a rest.
Yet everything I was rebelled against that. Even Kana, the woman I had been and definitely still was would have rebelled against that very thought. I had always felt most alive with my adrenaline running, and while it might not be the healthiest coping mechanism ever, it would serve its purpose for now. And… The admiral was likely correct. My worries had only slammed me in the face after combat had ended. And while I could still vaguely track my drones obediently following the orders I had given them and proving CAS for the troops with boots on the ground, that meant that I had felt alive and happy while doing what I had been made to do.
Hell, even focusing on the drones doing their job was bringing a small smile to my face despite how raw everything still was.
With that, my response was obvious, a surprising amount of positive emotion bleeding in despite my general emotional exhaustion, "I'll stay and fight, sir. I'll need time to get over the emotional wounds of being ripped away from a semi-stable and happy life and everything I've ever loved, but while I was fighting, I felt alive, I felt happy, and I was fulfilled. I think that without that, it's likely that I'll get worse before getting better."
"Understood, Shinano. I'll do what I can to get you a therapist faster, Pantheon knows we're going to need to appeal to them for a version update." He paused, considering. "...Specifically that things that aren't hostile can show up from other universes. Which is genuinely unprecedented, and will need to be recorded, in case some fool who takes the books too strictly decides on meeting another like you that you have to go. But that, thankfully, is above both our levels. I'll put you in Charon's room for now, if you don't mind, she seems to like you, and she's the favorite girl in my fleet. For now, I will assign you the thing all living beings dread." An audible smile filled his voice as he doomed me. "File-work and reading material." One of the massive hands passed me a small, shining silicon crystal. "This contains files both that you'll need to fill out to get paid, and to get all the proper rights a shipgirl is assigned, and that should assist in catching you up on history recently. I took the liberty of assigning the most recent versions aboard of the main catechisms of each goddess, so you can look at them, but I suggest doing it in a more relaxed state of mind. Figuring out what you believe in is always stressful, and the pantheon will not judge you for thinking carefully. Well. They will, but not poorly. Thoughtless worship isn't worth much. Consider this your first order. I'll take over the ground command from here. Any further questions?"
"Am I required to worship any of the goddesses or gods?" I asked, because frankly, I didn't think I would for at least a solid while. Even as an agnostic, I was an existential nihilist first and foremost, and the worship of a higher power kinda clashed with that. Well, at least in theory. Or perhaps it was my interpretation? In any case, my boss for the foreseeable future was talking again and I should listen instead of pondering on philosophy.
"Absolutely not, though I'll ask that you also don't get annoyed if people pray around you. Or, at least, talk to them instead of dismissing them. There was this obnoxious little Salarian…" He waved a hand. "Never mind, suffice it to say that some people wouldn't be willing to accept the idea that someone might run a government differently from them if you hit them on the head with a big lump of rebar. There's no requirements, I simply felt it prudent and reasonable, as well as helping you understand both how the Systems Alliance works and also Charon. She definitely believes in Tenryuu and what she represents."
"I advocated for the respect of all religions in my other life. I understand. I won't cast judgment until I see things with my own eyes." I replied with a smile, snapping off a salute, "Is there anything else you require, Admiral?"
The purpose he'd given me was more than enough to stabilize me for now and serve as a temporary rock. Or perhaps more fittingly, a lighthouse to light up a dark night.
With the dismissal, I spun on my heel and exited the room, finding Charon resting against the wall. A moment later, a question was on her lips, "Boss says you're in my room, anything happen important you wanna talk about? Or just wanna go rest after that, I still got energy but I dunno if you do."
"I think I'd like to talk to you and the others aboard Venus if you don't mind. I don't think I'll be able to sleep with all the thoughts churning around in my head." I replied with a wan smile, holding up the data crystal as I continued, "How do I use this, first of all?"
"Well, first you-" Her mouth stopped moving as she realized something. "...Doooo you have an Omnitool or do we gotta go poke the engineers? Because that's for Omnitool optical interfacing but I was too busy in combat to stare at your hands. Should upload right into ya, holds lots of data, but if you ain't got one we gotta go requisition one."
Looking blankly at her, I slowly shook my head in a negative manner. Why in the fuck, after all, would a fresh summon from the goddam nineteen forties, have an omnitool. If I had the energy to tease her about this- actually, you know what. Charon was never living this down. I always told people to laugh when they were sad, and it was about time I put my money were my mouth was,
"Charon. Remember. I'm from the forties. Of the twentieth century. Why in the blazes would I even remotely have an omnitool in my possession?" I snarked, deadpan as dry as the Sahara. Of course, the fact I was from the forties wasn't the full truth, given I was also from the twenties of the twenty first century, but eh, semantics.
"I mean, I don't think they had big honking fluffy tails in the 40's, so iunno." She grinned anyway, completely shameless. "Right, rear of the ship, then. Engis usually congregate 'round the reactor, it's like shavings to magnets. Big shiny vrr make nerds happy!"
Getting more than a few looks, most of them curious and directed at my ears and tail (and, of course, the obligatory thirst for any sort of woman or man with a desirable body) as I walked down towards engineering, I was content to remain silent as door after door opened before the mighty power of Charon's authorization.
One event stuck out most to me, and actually had me respond out loud. There had been a group of sailors, all of them chatting as I passed them about why I had, of all things, seven tails, and if I was supposed to have seven, and why seven if seven. Given that I was a nerd about foxes, I felt obligated to respond, and did.
Joining their local channel with a mental flick of a switch, I grinned, spinning to face them, "Probably because my humanoid form is patterned after a form of youko, or a fox spirit, to use the English term. As for why seven, I genuinely couldn't tell you. I can, however, tell you that seven is two tails off from nine, which was generally considered the pinnacle of a fox's power."
There's effectively a series of curious looks, then they visibly start looking into the air and their comms poking the ship's databanks, hunting for data on quite what a 'youko' was. They'd probably have better luck with kitsune, but I sure as hell wasn't going to tell them that.
Chaos, after all, was its own form of entertainment.
Leaving the men behind, Charon and I finally entered the reactor bay. Not surprisingly, the engineers were in uniform shells, ones with multiple arms designed to operate as much of the machinery as possible. Yet there was one that stood out. They were holding a silver scythe, one that was faintly glowing. Given that silver wasn't exactly supposed to do that, and the fact he'd been grumbling about four-eyes and boarders, I assumed he was the closest to being in charge here.
Clearing my throat, I raised a hand, "Excuse me, are you the head engineer? I need to requisition an omnitool, when you have the time to spare."
They looked up, standing just about at the right height to get an eyeful of my bust despite how many limbs they had. Not that I particularly minded, so long as it was kept to simply looking, "Give me your hand so I can measure it, fitting the damn things to a rigging is going to be a bit of a chore." He commed me, turning briefly to look at another platform. "Bigsby, get over here, you take over launch-array replacement, this lady needs me." Another platform moved over and does, indeed, resume rooting around in the mass of wiring. "You'll have to actually make it play nice, though, I'm qualified for steel-hulls, not shipgirls. Thank Enterprise-" The scythe's light pulses softly at that; proof enough that there was basis in the theocracy. "-that you're a repair ship or we'd have to figure it out from manuals and fiddly bits. And nobody wants to deal with that. Hmm?"
Perhaps given a past history, he glared at Charon, who, for the first time since I'd met her, looked genuinely sheepish, sliding behind me as if to hide from the gaze. Aborting his glare now that he'd lost his target, the engineer turned back towards me, "Ah, right, manners. Chief Engineer Ryder, of the Venus nameship. Too many torpedoes on this thing, and they want to put more on, as if I'm here to just put more bombs powered by other bombs instead of mass drivers on!"
"Shinano." I acknowledged with a respectful tilt of my head, "Thank you for your assistance, Chief Ryder."
"Ah, I'd be negligent if I didn't help, trying to operate on a ship without an omnitool is like trying to walk without legs." Taking my extended hand, he looked it over, before turning it to the other side, then gently moving my fingers around. Simply relaxing, given it would likely take a few minutes, I sit silently through the process before he finally grunted, "Right, close enough to standard fit for a Yamatoite platform. Makes sense, given your sibling. Which means…" Getting up out of his 'crouch', Ryder walks over to a rack of sealed boxes, all of them without visible labels, then taps one, the device opening as it pops like a cork from a bottle. "Right, then, size fifteens would be what you want. Standard issue so nothing special, if you weren't a shipgirl this thing'd need another glove, but you are." Pulling out what looked to be a plain rubber glove with copper wiring down the palm that terminated at the fingertips, and a funny metal disk on the back of the forearm area, he continued speaking, "I haven't the faintest how to hook it into your systems, lass, but you are a repair ship, so it should be fine. Password's abc123, if you don't change it, the ewar lads will scream your ears off." Pointing at a bench in the back between two others; filled with various components and with bins chock full of parts I could actually recognize due to my systems, he finally finished speaking, "If you want to tinker, bench's there. Just don't use up too much superconductor, half the stuff shorted out when we took a bad hit to the main shields, and replacing it's been like peeling rust off the inside of armor."
Taking the offer to tinker with my new toy with an excitement I likely wouldn't have felt a mere day ago, I, perhaps as cheerfully as I could given the circumstances, made my way over to the bench, already fiddling with the omnitool I'd been provided, my hands and systems analyzing the tiny thing and how to best integrate it into my systems.
Apparently, the main issue with riggings and incorporating things wasn't so much the actual material per se, as how utterly stubborn a shipgirl's self-identity was, and how it tended to treat foreign materials and agents with a fervor the TSA would look lackadaisical next to. Convincing the automatic systems of the soul that yes, this did in fact count as a part of your body and was not a evil foreign parasite trying to sneak in very cleverly involved taking very small amounts of skin flakes and rubbing it in, then treating it in a minor chemical solution of water, a few polymers, and a single one of my hairs plucked out to make it stick. And then assuring that all of the omnitool was, in fact, covered in this thin layer, which was a task best described as trying to truly color everywhere inside the lines in a coloring book. Doable, but tedious and slow. A massive fucking pain in the cunt, sure, but I was a repair ship, and I'd already had to do repairs even more fiddly than this nonsense since becoming Shinano.
Eventually, it clicked on, and as far as my soul was concerned, it was a part of my rigging, and as such could be upgraded far more easily. After all, a gun replacing another gun was significantly easier to refit than adding an entirely new system.
It fit like a glove, which was good, as it was, in fact, a glove. And how, I had an omnitool, just like Commander Shepard–
Oh gods that was going to be relevant as well wasn't it?
Filing that particular thought away for later, I began to fiddle with the features, noting the tactile, light and sound (including an internal comm!) based system. Just as I was about to begin fiddling some more, a light cough and a nudge on my shoulder reminded me that I had, in fact, come here for a reason. Pulling out the data crystal with a mumbled apology, I uploaded it to the omnitool, blanching as I looked upon the veritable mountain of paperwork I had to do.
And with no fairies in sight, it was entirely up to me to complete this fucking mess. Thankfully, I wasn't just human anymore, and my brain was effectively a far future tech supercomputer. What might have taken me days upon weeks upon months to complete previously would now only take a completely reasonable amount of objective time.
Five minutes of objective time and about a year of subjective time later, I was massaging my head with my left hand, groaning in agony as the sheer amount of information I had processed left me feeling bloated in new and awful ways.
Summarizing everything I had done one more time to make sure I had, in fact, gotten everything on the list, I nodded in satisfaction in finding I had done so.
I had filled in my citizenship papers registering me as a legal person that actually existed, and filled out the documents required by the military. Evidently, my pay grade would start at the NATO equivalent of OF-4, or in USN terms, O-5. Granted, my command rank was still what one would expect of any new recruit: that of a Seaman Apprentice, but in this world, your personal combat power was factored into your paygrade. Perhaps not shocking, given the other information I had already taken a glance at.
Thankfully, I didn't have to wait for everything to process, due to the realities of space being fuckhuge, so I was then able to fill out a registration for the military's bank of choice to open an account and fill out another form that required me to request that once my account was opened that my paycheck be deposited there.
Then, I had to provide authorization for Hightower to find a therapist for me, which was a much more familiar process that only ate so much processing power because I was trying to do several different things at once, like doing what research I could and figuring out new terminology and the official language and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Moving on, I filled out a registration form to become one of Hightower's shipgirls; given that it wasn't a binding for life arrangement, I had no issue doing so, and I would likely get orders to move to theater command anyway, given I was a strategic, not tactical, asset. Besides, he had done me a solid, and I knew the people here, and I wanted to be able to take comfort in that.
Finally, I then compiled everything into a giant file, and sent it off to the officers in charge of mail attached to my application to have it sent on the next courier out, because space was fucking huge and FTL couriers were generally required in the event of a war due to the FTL comms beacons being rather critical strategic targets.
Then, because I was a masochist, I dove into the entire history of the world I had ended up in, because why not spend an entire fucking subjective year or so studying history like the nerd I was.
And I wondered why my head was throbbing. Dumbass.
Of most recent note, when compared to the trademarked canon of Mass Effect, was that there was no mention of a first contact war, incident, or any sort of real armed conflict between the Turian Hierarchy and the Systems Alliance. There were arguments, sure, some incidents that didn't quite earn that term as well as the 'Relay 314 Incident'. Oh, and there was that one time a technological malfunction killed a buncha humans when a Turian escort rammed a human freighter, but even that hadn't caused a war.
Of course, that hadn't meant that the first contact had been anything but hilariously tense. Thankfully, all it had ever amounted to was two embarrassing months of very cautious poking by the two parties that then transitioned into actual negotiations and contact.
The second major thing of note was that humanity had opted for "tall" rather than "wide" in this timeline, and that Earth was essentially a giant nature preserve that some people happened to live on. Luna was a military base, Mars was the capital and terraformed; something that frankly offended my sensibilities given that for some fucking reason they hadn't terraformed Venus yet. Then again, I was a former squishy fleshbag and I suppose it was understandable that they hadn't given the vast majority of uploads compared to the population of 'non uploads'. Either way, Sol was essentially a nightmare to assault without anything short of overwhelming force, so I could ignore that for now.
Third, humanity wasn't in a HFY fanfic, and thus actually was more reasonable in terms of soft and hard power. They were definitely a power, but they weren't anywhere on the level of the Big Three nor even the Volus in terms of economic might. The only reason they were getting away with murder-death-killing the Batarians was the general regard for the Batarian Hegemony seemed to be "North Korea, but in Space."
Tangentially, the reason that no one had done anything about the Hegemony beforehand had my blood boiling. Because apparently the economic burden of caring for the liberated peoples of the Hegemony was considered too great of a fucking burden to bear.
God fucking damnit I hated bystander syndrome, especially when it caused the suffering of uncountable souls despite there being powers that could have done something. Especially when the excuse was fucking money.
Fourth, the Terminus was an actual fucking mess involving one of my big sister's goddam fanatics; god, why the fuck, who was sufficiently insane enough that a public and harsh condemnation for his literal goddess wasn't enough to shake him. He'd whipped the blood pack into shape, improving their quality of life marginally, though it was not really of particular note when he was an ambitious murderous asshat.
As an additional tangent, Aria was a shipgirl here, and I'd gone down a rather fascinating rabbit hole involving the Justicars, the Asari High Command, and crimes against sapients on a truly grand scale.
At that point, I'd pulled out, and was now staring at Charon as the escort looked at me with a bit of concern.
"I'm fine, Charon. I just spent way too long nerding out over the history in the crystal." I admitted easily, earning a laugh from the other shipgirl as I rubbed the back of my head, "I do think I could use some rest now, before I'm tempted to dive back into the rabbit hole."
"Yeah, you got nearly a quarter millennia to catch up on, I getcha." She nodded again. "My quarters have four beds, which is nice given there's now four girls under Hightower, well, 'cept his other partners, but they're kinda…" She clicked her tongue. "Well, we all talked 'bout how he's an Admiral, so it's fine, basically! Doubt they'll dislike ya, you seem even-headed enough 'bout stuff, even if that fluff seems to go between the ears with how much you gotta learn. Hopefully the other two get fixed up soon, nobody likes FTL core hits, they're just." She stuck out her tongue. "It's just gross? Like having someone shove a battery up your butt, then discharge it. Really bad. Don't ask how I know that, it's crew memory stuff, someone was stupid." Sensing not an insignificant amount of dissatisfaction in the current state of a polyamorous relationship, I blinked, placing a hand on her shoulder before we left,
"Do you wanna talk about it?" I asked, tilting my head to the side as I then pushed her forward again, "You don't seem entirely satisfied with Hightower's… romantic choices."
"It's more…" She looked at me, eyes clearly judging, then tugged me along. "Look, talk about it in the room. Privacy, you get me?"
Not even giving me a chance to respond, she pulled me into a clean room, where three beds were made immaculately and one was a mess of sheets, four colors of pillows, and, somewhat surprisingly yet not, colored pencil drawings, where Charon flopped. "Right, so, how much do you know 'bout how shipgirls reproduce with humans, cuz that's kinda the crux of what's up with his human partners."
"Nothing whatsoever." I shrugged, sensing more than a little bit of danger but not at all willing to back down; it was just a talk about our bodies. Probably. "I was just summoned, and I know for a fact I'm ace spectrum."
"Right, so, first up, I got a birth control implant that's currently on, and I gotta be honest, while it's the objectively right thing to do, 's part of why I'd like this war to be over, 'cuz I've been trying for kids with him since 'bout… year after I was summoned? So six, going on seven years. Haven't succeeded, but don't wanna abandon the frontlines due to kid, or ignore the kid by dumping 'em on someone else, just because I really like the guy." She flopped frontally onto the bed, kicking her feet in the air in frustration. "It's the standard method, just dick in girl, fill with spooge, slow as hell on shipgirls 'cuz our bodies soak up the stuff for repairs and refueling. If you don't want a risk, just give him head or do butt stuff, or get creative, he's an open-minded guy. My problem comes from how he married into a group of three girls who were already together, which ain't that odd, but they wanted kids. Again, not… that odd, but since the war started, they've been kinda sending mail hinting that he should retire to see 'em, because it's way easier for humans to have kids with humans than shipgirls, and while two of 'em have other jobs, one of them is a bit weird and likes being a full time mom. I respect it, but full time's just…" She flailed her hands. "It's weird, you know?"
Opting to conceal that fact that I would prefer to be a full time mom if I hadn't been forced into becoming a shipgirl, and the fact that I was more than mildly irritated that desiring to be a full time maternal figure was being called 'weird', I nodded sympathetically. Thankfully, the sympathy was genuine, born from the fact I was trans, and while I had eventually resolved to never pass down my genes, there had been a time where I'd longed for a biological child. Honestly, I still did. "I think I understand." I mused, gingerly sitting down on the bed beside her and offering her a fluffy tail in these trying times, "You're concerned you're going to get abandoned in favor of a new model, right? And you're feeling jealousy towards the other members of your polycule, because they came into the picture far after you and Hightower had an established relationship." I offered gently, easily slipping into the role of an understanding friend. It was a hat I wore fairly often, after all. Pausing, I considered something else, "Are there no options for in vitro fertilization, or other things like fertilizing your eggs outside of your body, then reinserting them into the womb?"
"Nah, if it's fertilized I can have it removed for safety's sake, but it's that they want him to retire. Guy's a lifer, and I feel like they ain't respecting that because they want their baby daddy home safe, and… I get it, but also, it's his choice, like it's my choice to be here, you get me? They like him, I like him, but I ain't sure I like what they're doin' with him, and I ain't sure what they're askin' of him is good for him. As for other options, we considered an Asari, but being an upload means that human/human is coding a baby, while I gotta get filled with artificial batter that counts as his soul, and trying for external would be even harder given babies and sex are real strongly associated. Maybe in a couple hundred years when shipgirls for humans are uploads, and not organic humans with metal bits." She lets out a long, annoyed sigh. "I can't get mad at the other girls, I get why they want their baby daddy safe, their kids are super cute, and a lot of why I want some! I like helping 'em with theirs, it's fun. But he gets to choose to go to war too, you know? And it's too damn far to talk much, space's too big!"
Filing away the default response of "discuss this like adults, you fucking morons" phrased significantly more politely, I briefly considered the options I had to resolve this, before figuring that there was only one. Grabbing her hand, I sighed, and yoinked her out of bed, "We're going to see Hightower if he's available, and if he's not, we're going to go do something you enjoy doing and take your mind off things" I declared, sending a memo to Hightower that Charon and I wanted to speak with him. I was aware I was doing something somewhat against my personal beliefs on choice, but in my experience, most of the time, people couldn't be trusted to actually talk about their problems with the subject of their problems.
Receiving an affirmative from Hightower within moments, I took the lack of protest from Charon as permission and dragged her towards the CiC, noting the request for clarification and opting to cryptically say something about fleet cohesion in the hopes that an admiral, given the blurbs I had seens about them in the data, would understand.
Thankfully, he seemed to understand, given that he diverted us to what appeared to be his private quarters, sitting down with his leg-brick platform, though I did note that he seemed to have another shell in the room, lending credence to my earlier theory. An angelic, idealized man that was rather effeminate in appearance as compared to the classical adonis look. Two huge golden wings extended from the back of the shell, and it was clad in stylized clothing, complete with a pair of heels that raised my respect for the man considerably; not enough men in my time had been secure enough in their masculinity to be even remotely daring. Of course, it was currently uninhabited by Hightower, and no one was present, but he would likely swap over to it if this went down like I thought it would.
"Admiral," I began, my tone friendly, "Charon has some concerns to bring up with you regarding your, ah, more personal relationships." I continued, nudging the girl beside me forward with one of my many fluffy tails, "Go on. Talk." I urged them both, "You're both adults, after all."
He looked at Charon and shook his head. "You told her already?" A nod from the other shipgirl. "Well, I'll trust your judgment then. Very well, Shinano, I'm… a bit surprised, but yes, it's something of an issue. Right now, Shukufuku and her partners are not pushing me very hard, and I think it can be resolved when the war is over, but I am definitely worried if they push any further. Right now, if things stay as they are until the end, I think she's a little too worried. This said. If they push much farther in their letters, I will definitely be sending a formal letter of separation, and consult Graf's clergy after the war for the complexities of negotiating a divorce. I won't be stupid and abandon the front to go deal with what amounts to my own ego and desires in the middle of a war, and I cannot imagine Shukufuku abusing her children, so no letters of forceful separation will be sent."
"I assume that the letters you have sent back have raised this issue?" I asked, mostly for clarity. Given the maturity the parties I could currently interact with were showing, I was now most certainly convinced that these women hadn't considered what it meant to be military wives.
"Yes, and I'm hoping the responses will accept it, they're not here yet, and all I can do is wait. I've got the stipend set up for the worst case, if I am lost, and it's not a small one, so whatever happens, my children will be fine. Unfortunately, worry is weighing on Charon, and nothing can fix that but getting more answers back. I wasn't aware she was so stressed out that she'd vent to you, though, apologies." That's to Charon, who shakes her head.
"Boss, I love you, but you can be a 'lil too patient. Still, I can't really argue with your stances. Just worry about you. Want to at least draft a formal separation letter?"
"Charon, I just finished managing the cleanup of the naval section, I would rather shoot myself in the head than do more paperwork, and it would probably be better for my health to boot." He answered, and Charon laughed.
"Alright, boss, alright, I get you! I'll ask in a week if the letters don't hit by then. When's it expected?"
"Three to four days, so we'll find out then if they responded reasonably or if things will take a sadder turn. I enjoyed their company, but I won't turn down my duty." He reverently patted a heat vent on his chest the shape of a sun, one that I'd seen glowing previously. Perhaps it lit up when he was running particularly hot. "I worship Yamato, but on the point of this campaign, I follow Worldburner's scriptures. Slavery is an evil akin to rape, and often aside. I can't stand aside as someone who is talented at command, even if my personal combat skills are…"
"Boss can't shoot for shit." Charon summarized. "Love him to bits! Can't shoot for shit."
"I was trying…" He sighed. "Never mind. Apologies for all this drama on your first day, Shinano, I was hoping to keep it private long enough to have the letters come back and leave it concluded instead of a time-lag opened bleeding wound. Alas, thus is fate. Now." He shakes himself out. "You, girl, are visibly jetlagged, and need a nap. So unless you have anything else, as my shipgirl, I request you go take a nap. I cannot change anything in the time it will take you to unfog your head."
I nodded, happy that everything had resolved decently, even as I sent an itemized list of my fetishes, kinks, along with my sexual and romantic orientation. Because, again, chaos was fun, and I had long since understood I didn't exactly have a standard sense of shame about these things. "Since you all have a culture of expecting shipgirls to fuck their Admirals, I expect my first time to be memorable, Admiral~" I stated softly, exiting the room before I could see his reaction. I could ask Charon later. I was fairly sure she'd be happy to inform me. 'Sides, I wouldn't actually be able to tell what his reaction was, given that I was going to have to learn an entirely new method of nonverbal communication.
God fucking damnit. The first time was already hard enough.
Besides, Admiral Hightower was right. I was tired, and could most certainly use a nap. Or a proper sleep. But I also hadn't been assigned my shift…
Problems for the Shinano of tomorrow, I guess.
Yawning as I entered the room that I would be sharing with Charon and two other girls, I randomly picked one of the three beds that seemed likely to be unoccupied, and collapsed, asleep within minutes.
I had no idea the absolute trip that awaited me within the realms of sleep…
There is a woman whose face was empty and whose heart was burning gold, and in one hand, she carried a butcher's knife, and in the other hand, a sack of eyes, wiggling and writhing. She approached a table, and poured out her sack, and each eye and its neural stalk slopped onto a cutting board, connected to an armored rat that lingered and coiled up, legs wrapped up by nerves in the shape of chains.
The woman brought the knife down, and an eye became meat, a slice of butchered offal. One, two, three, four times, was the offal made, the eyes sliced into chunks that were behaving like steaks. She slid them aside, and they fell off the table, and could not be seen again.
The rats feared the woman, and she raised her butcher's knife again, and swung, and she was soaked in gore and blood. Meat dripped from her hand, her arm, her face, her chest. It poured into the heart, and it burned hotter and brighter. It was not a sacrifice, as the nerves were cut. The rats were unharmed, and ran about her, squeaking.
A great maw appeared in the sky above, and the rats squeaked, many of them slurped as it inhaled, but the light in the heart burned hotter, and the woman shielded some of the rats from the maw, waving her butcher's blade threateningly.
The maw would not, and could not, fear the knife.
But the maw feared hearts, which the rats had lost a long time ago.
One of the rats climbed onto the woman's shoulder, as the maw left, belly unfilled and patience tested. The hand that held the sack once reached up, and a piece of eye was fed to the rat, and they gave a happy little squeal. They rubbed on the woman's neck, and she smiled.
The Butcher was pleased, and her blade was sharper than before.
I woke up, sweat dripping down my body despite the complete lack of oxygen and heat, my breath coming in heavily as what I had just witnessed faded-
No. They weren't fading. And honestly, I wasn't sure it was a dream. Everything within it had a dreamlike quality, sure, but… I was a shipgirl. And that was a very very cryptic dream that reeked of something fierce of the classical trappings of prophetic visions. Filing away the memory in my databanks, I set to analyzing it, turning my attention to the problem and ignoring the sound of everything around me as I combed through every potentially relevant detail within the dream.
The woman was the key figure. Thus I would have to start with her to even begin to hope to decipher anything. It was fairly easy to comb through the crystal to find a potential source for the golden light; Kadmonic energy generally manifested in such a color, and was tied to heroism. The wriggling eyes meant fuck all to me at the moment, so I could revisit them later, once I figured out a potential guess for the other things. The cutting board wrapped by nerves in the shape of chains to an armored rat was particularly of interest. Speaking of the rats. It was quite possible that they referred to the Quarians, given the racial slur that the citadel seemed oh so fond of when referring to them. The creation of four offals was beyond me at the moment, that too, I put aside, the symbolism of the meat being cut and bleeding into her golden heart. Perhaps a symbol to represent tragedy strengthening the hero? Or perhaps it was something else. Either way, the rats, the blade, the heart, the flesh. All of them seemed key.
And then there was the maw, and the woman shielding some of the rats from them, waving her blade threateningly. The maw didn't fear the blade. That was important. But the maw feared hearts, something the rats evidently did not have.
The maw was driven off? And the rats were happy. The hero fed a rat a piece of an eye, and they rubbed her neck. The butcher, or the hero, either had been pleased, and her blade had become sharper.
Throwing up my hands and giving it up as a bad job for the moment, I finally took a moment to check my surroundings. Only to regret it immediately. Charon snored like someone had replaced her neck with a running chainsaw, and it was doing horrible things to my noise hypersensitivity. Given that discretion was the better part of valor, I launched myself out of my bed as quietly as I could and booked it out of the room, gently shutting the door behind me as I tried to figure out what the fucking hells to do now.
Thankfully, my Omnitool decided to interject with a helpful little ping, and displayed two messages from my Admiral, a message from Charon, and another from "A Watcher". A helpful little popup informed me in a very obviously cheerful text that I could select any of the notifications to view them. Deciding to get the message from the… probably a spook out of the way first, I blinked at the message.
[Hello, miss Shinano. I am the local intelligence director for this fleet, Floyd of the Abyss Watchers. Please meet me in the following room at your earliest convenience to discuss the implications of your existence. I would hate to have to inconvenience you.]
The block of text is immediately followed by an authorization, along with a location. Given that he outranked me, and the fact that the authorization returned as an actual one when I ran it through the program designed to check those things, I pinged the system for the location of said location, and began to make my way there when someone cheerfully provided the location moments later.
Opening the message from Charon as I traveled, I gave an amused snort at the contents of the message.
[Hey, the other two should be coming along within a day or two at most, courier hit us and said so while you were snoozing. Message me back if you wanna learn about them, or just hit me up in person. Also, remember to read the Codex 'bout Asari if you dunno what they are, one of 'em's a blueberry. Bit dim, but really nice lady.]
Dodging aside from one of the many personnel traversing the corridors, I made a reminder within the omnitool to do as Charon had suggested and read up on the Asari girl, opening up the messages from Admiral Hightower as I did so.
While reading the message, I took a moment to assess the hallways surrounding me, noting that there were no longer bodies lying around, nor any visible battle damage; at least sans the ones that the engineers were already working over. Complaining all the while.
Heh, engineers. Same no matter the era apparently.
[As you are no longer looking like you have attempted to place two freighters under your eyes, the expected schedules for deployment are as follows. We expect 3-4 weeks deployed over this planet before a garrison force arrives and the fortifications are sufficient to hold off minor probing actions, before we join up with a thrust for major fleet action. High Priestess Ignatius Thunderblade of the Church of Tenryuu will be in attendance there, so please read up on her and her church before that time elapses. I respect your choices in religion and the lack thereof, but knowing your superior officers is important.]
The second message had me stop, blink, then begin laughing out loud, peals of laughter somehow echoing through the halls devoid of oxygen as I clutched my stomach, tears running down my face as I read the fucking excel sheet with a potential schedule of sex. A session for every single kink, from one hour to fourteen each. I wasn't at all randy in the slightest, and frankly I didn't know Hightower enough to get more than the literal objective benefits from it (and none of the emotional benefit), so that was certainly out of the question. Because a message of this level merited a response, I quickly sent a message back, providing a highly modified schedule that had us sleeping together at most a few hours a week, with a note that I'd likely want attention following any sort of combat. Along with a note telling him that I would study up on Lady Tenryuu's teachings and the general attitudes of her clergy.
As an aside, I was jealous of the fucker not needing sleep. The bastard.
Entering the room in question, I quickly noted it was a torpedo magazine that had yet to be refilled, largely emptied during the combat the fleet had undergone just a day prior. Upon the magazine proper, there sat an extremely advanced platform colored jet black, with golden hexagons cascading down their body in a pattern that definitely meant something. There was no real face, just a blank plate, and a shoulder tuft of black fur that I was fairly sure didn't come from anything actually organic completed the look.
Image source currently not found, will add once Arch gets back to me on it
(No sword or shield)
With their movement outright unnaturally smooth compared to the rest of the people I'd interacted with, they stood from their position on a torpedo easily the size of a human being, looking at me as they spoke, "Good morning, miss Shinano. Apologies for the inconvenience, but you've got a bit of an unusual aspect to you. Tell me, then. If you look at me, what's not there that everyone else has?"
"You don't have a visible face." I replied with a hum, adopting a relaxed stance as I did my best to gauge his body posture, "What can I assist you with, Watcher Floyd?"
"Close, and I suppose you're right." He nodded. "I'll accept that. But I meant that, as a Watcher, I am agnostic by choice. And, I believe, so are you. You'll not be finding many of us around here, calling on Blessings is simply too much of an allure. And I wanted to ask you, if you would consider praying to a goddess for the power it gives?"
He was obviously angling for something, and knew something I had only told the admiral, so he had either wrested it out of him or had been listening in. Not sure which I appreciated more, to be honest. That said, would I consider praying to a goddess for the power it gave? For tangible power? Would I be willing to follow the tenants of a goddess for power?
…Probably. But also, probably not. I was a free-bird for the moment, after all, and while I definitely could see myself aligning with them, my agnosticism was something I could hold onto from my other life, even if it wasn't necessarily a healthy choice. "I don't think I will for the moment, Watcher Floyd. That said, I suppose what you were looking for earlier was the lack of holy symbols present on your current shell."
"Very good." He nodded again, sounding pleased. "You're very unusual, then. A shipgirl who isn't from the Old War, and thus possesses an awed look of the Pantheon from their actions then, or from this era, who possesses an awed look of the Pantheon from their cultural near-totality. In that case." He reached down to his hip, popping out one of the hexagons, about the size of a human palm. "Take this. Don't wear it, but if you meet another one of us, show it. They'll know what it means. The Abyss has managed to convince most people it's made up for what it's done, but not everyone. Never everyone. Only humans should rule humanity, not palemoon gods, no matter if they're our hopes and dreams, and not aliens either. Do you have any questions you couldn't ask your Admiral?" He finished, holding out the token to me.
Honestly, there was a bit more humanocentric rhetoric there than I was particularly comfortable with, but connections weren't always a bad thing, and generally would be considered a good thing. That said, the nearly Cerberistic rant was a minor turnoff.
Accepting the token with a sigh, I shook my head, "No, there's not really much I can ask questions about without consulting the data crystal. If you're willing to give me another one of those that would have information not normally available, I'd appreciate it, but I am in no way expecting that."
He paused at that request, slowly shaking his head, "...Unfortunately, I don't have anything prepared that is actually useful for that. You hardly need to know our organizational structure, or who else is around, and you don't need to know our operations in the area… Ah. This golden hexagon design is our public signature. At work, of course, we're the black ops, so a variety happens. If you want to genuinely and fully sign up, go to Luna herself, and speak to Sathariel. The Lady will judge you."
"... Actually, on that note." I hummed, sending a communication request, "I'm sending you a potentially prophetic dream and my preliminary and updated observations on them."
Because on second thought, the entire dream was most certainly entirely about a Hero, the Batarians, and their Slaves. And that definitely was immediately relevant to the war effort. Attaching that file to another note, I sent that to Admiral Hightower as well, apologizing for bringing up something else that would potentially be something he needed the expert on metaphysics for.
"Appreciated. I'll file it for intel analysis. I'm a frontal operations infiltrator, not an intelligence officer in full, so I'll have to pass it up the chain." Floyd replied, moving to leave the room before pausing, turning to face me once more, "Thank you for your quick responses. It's… good, to talk to you. If you want to meet again, the message link will relay to me." He said, before turning away and walking out of the door, "Goodbye."
As all that happened, Hightower replied promptly, thanking me and informing me exactly as I suspected; that he was utterly unqualified to figure out what the fuck that all was, and requested that I tell him anything further I saw or figured out. There was also an update regarding the warfront; evidently, there were Quarian slaves that had been found amongst the Batarians. Not many, and almost always sickly, but they had been found in Batarian hands.
As I made my way back to my quarters, trying to figure out what to do, I finally remembered that I had received a schedule. A frantic check told me that I should, within the next hour, be assisting in the repair of the boarding specialized platforms of Venus, as well as the replacement of her starboard torpedo tubes after a… Magazine detonation? Huh. SA design and engineering was apparently just built different.
There were also some clerics; a quick check of their holy symbol and a cross reference to the codex informed me they were followers of Worldburner, who were arguing nearby, significantly less quietly than they probably thought they were. About Batarians. Because of fucking course.
"Look, we found the plantations, we got to know what's going on, we're already raiding their stocks for feeding everyone because of course food is a problem, of course we-" One of the three ranted, the fury in his voice evident. Thankfully, one of his friends seems to have sense, and cut it off before it can go any further.
"I know, George, it's a shithole by any standard, but we're up here until all the platforms are fixed, and heading down is scheduled in two days." They snap, likely long since used to dealing with this level of… zealotry.
"There is actively practiced slavery on the surface, the thing the goddess herself redeemed herself from, and we're not. There. This is a problem, damn it!" George practically roars back, only to be prodded by the third,
"And going down and shooting people yourself is not going to solve it, Ensign. You got told that, and we're going to do this legally and properly. We are not moving before the say-so of the lieutenant commander." They spoke with authority, and likely rank, and were probably expecting to be listened to. Unfortunately for them, George was a zealot.
"It. Is. Slavery. The only worse crimes are rape of a minor and mass murder, and we have those recorded down too as a side effect! It's all but the ur-evil. We need to get rid of them and-" Once more, the officer cut him off before he can continue his religious rant,
"We're not going to shoot them all and let the goddesses sort them out, you loudmouthed idiot. Goddesses Deep and Dark, how did you get assigned here?" The presumable-officer groaned, before realizing I was present, snapping off a hasty salute. "Ah, ma'am, sorry, we're in your way, aren't we?"
Shaking my head as they began to scramble towards the nearest wall, I replied instantly, snapping off my own salute towards the Ensign and Petty Officer, "You both outrank me, Sir. No need to salute. I'm just a combat Commander, not a command Commander." With a hopefully disarming smile, I bowed, "Seaman Apprentice Shinano, at your service."
Blinking visibly, the trio issue a small bow, notably lesser than mine, in return. The Petty Officer speaks up first, "Understood, Seaman Apprentice. We're having a bit of a discussion as reports from the ground came back and how people are taking it. Did you get those, or are you not fully cleared yet?"
Taking a second to check that I had received the report and noting that George apparently had shut his goddam trap, I nodded in affirmative as soon as I opened the report that I had indeed received, "I've got it. I'll be reading through it… now."
Within a few moments of objective time, I was honestly a little confused why they were so horrified, before remembering that the history books had mentioned that slavery had been exterminated in full after the Old War. Right. They were being confronted with an evil that they thought was dead, and that was why there was a discussion about religious doctrine. Opening that file as well, I winced, burying the mounting rage at the rank hypocrisy. It wasn't helpful right now, after all, and it wouldn't help me with this upcoming debate.
'Yeah. That would definitely cause a theocratic kerfluffle, to say the least. Because it definitely was not at all a trauma response that a former slaver and goddess of redemption who had done some seriously fucked up shit called slavery one of the greatest evils ever and that all who practiced it should die. Not at all. How could it possibly be a trauma response? That wouldn't cause any problems down the line- Welp, yep, it was causing problems.'
"Right. So. Slavery. It's horrible, it's evil, and it; the concept, needs to be exterminated out of existence." I began, shooting a withering glare at George, "It is a sin worse than quite literally almost anything shy of an actual genocide, and you," I pointed at the Ensign, "Believe that it warrants immediate capital punishment for all those even tangentially involved." I didn't give him a moment to respond before nodding towards the Petty Officer, "You believe that you should respect the chain of command and wait for more intelligence. And to actually contemplate the meaning of your goddess' domains and figure out just who deserves to lose their life and who does not, not blindly practice the dogma of your faith."
"Yes, there's a reason that every book starts with telling you to look for the spirit of the word and not the letter." The Petty Officer interjected, looking relieved I was on his side, "And that we have version updates."
"I'm not saying that we should stop the entire population, but we've got multiple active pregnancies to care for, and that was not something we are equipped to handle for non-uploads." The Ensign answered. "Someone has to pay, you know? And goddess knows it shouldn't be the poor Asari in question."
"Retributive punishment has never worked as anything but a tool for fear." I countered easily, settinging into the familiar flow of debate with something akin to relief. This, at least, was familiar to me, after all, "There were multiple studies even back when I was a steel hull that said exactly that with objective proof, "And while I understand that you aren't equipped to handle pregnancies, since, you know," I gestured vaguely to their shells, "You are all uploads, you cannot tell me that humanity's collective knowledge on the subject has been lost because I am literally looking at it right now." Pausing, I twisted the knife further, "Furthermore, there are several humanitarian aid agencies you could call for assistance from now that the battlespace is secure, and goodness knows that the Citadel Council would eat up the nearly free positive PR for supplying it."
"Thank you." The Petty Officer breathed fervently, George stepping back in the face of such opposition as his friend shook their hand, "I've been trying to get through to him for the past half-hour."
"I… fine, we planned on being able to use their medical equipment on the topic, not for their infrastructure-" He cut himself off with a frown. "...It's bad down there, Shinano. Their greatest defense against conquest might be us having to put things together rightly."
"I am reading the report, yes. Slave states tend to actively use their slaves as hostages. Why do you think the Citadel never stamped them out?" I replied rhetorically, shaking my head as I quickly checked the time. Ah shit, I was going to have to wrap this up or I'd be late, "Look, I understand your zeal. But you need to put it in a better place. For instance, how about you find all the slavers and slave owners you think could be redeemed, even the ones that are probably faking it, and put them to supervised work assisting with the reconstruction, for example, while trials and all that shit are sorted out?"
"I- That is a better idea." George admitted, even though it clearly pained him to do so. "Damn it. I look like a fool, don't I?" He sighed. "A straw man who was easily knocked over. Sorry, I need to get back to work." He trotted off quickly, and the Petty Officer shook her head.
"He's not a bad person, but we've had to put a few more people in the brig for lashing out over this, to cool their damn cores. Hopefully we get a version update of the word proper to reflect the spirit soon, problems of FTL speed relative to the size of the front. Ah, and I didn't introduce myself! Petty Officer Hannah, sorry, I've been tasked with handling these overly emotional medics I call officers and subordinates. About the only good thing I can say is most of us are just filing this down as something to assign to garrison forces instead of the actual conquest, and it'll probably wear down in sheer outrage, but initial shocks have to be nasty for everyone. Appreciate the help, it's a damn nuisance to bring people into line at times when they're running on outraged justice for a genuine evil."
"Try pointing that outrage towards something that won't cause immediate harm," I offered, "And if you can't get through to them, send them to me. I'll knock some sense into their skulls." Checking the time once more, I winced, "I'm sorry ma'am, but I really have to go. I wouldn't want to be late to my first shift, and those torpedo tubes won't repair themselves."
"Understood, Seaman Apprentice Shinano. Gods go with you." She waved me off, moving towards someone else with the third member staying quietly at her side. She had mentioned having to put people in the brig, so I guessed it made sense- Ah. The third guy had probably warranted something done to be put in the brig.
Leaving them behind, I refocused on my objective; getting to the section of the ship I needed to be at. Thankfully, it didn't take all that long to get there, and I arrived at my station with several minutes to spare (Thank fuck. Being late to my first shift would have made me an anxious wreck for the rest of the day). Taking a moment to look around and appreciate the engineering (and damage done), I noted that the section had been entirely cleared of slag, and that there were more than enough parts to finish the repairs even without my personal stocks. It also appeared that I was supposed to work my magic alone; which given the fact this was normally the job of a repairstation proper, made a significant amount of sense. Essentially everything that made the launchers work was fucking gone, and I would have to replace it. The connection to the CiC, targeting sensors, and magazines proper were all fine, but given the mags were essentially large boxes, my guess is they had been repaired preemptively.
Taking a deep breath, I began.
First, I had to replace the autoloader out of the mountains of spares present. I mixed circuit boards with living metal to properly shield them without losing any conductivity, and placed relatively simplistic loading arms in place, attaching them to the circuit board and feeding them a standard code that I just apparently knew now. Even still, it was a fairly simple loop. Pick up a torpedo, put it in the tube, let the tube seal, repeat ad nauseum. The finicky part was simply the timing, what tube got fed, and I simply handed that by adding in more loading arms, as the blueprints for the vessel had evidently intended.
Then, I remade the launchers from scratch. Or, well, more accurately, I remade the reusable VLS pods from scratch. Shipboard torpedoes rightfully had much more in common with a rocket than an olden era torpedo, especially given their size. They were, in my honest opinion, well within the range to be classified as a cruise missile. The fact that I could move them startled me for a bit, then I remembered I had fucking god knows how much horsepower, and likely outmassed the entirety of the Earth's wet navy fleet in 2022.
Of course, managing the piping for a CO2 container was a pain in my apparently shapely rear, but hey, such was the life of a repair ship.
Thankfully, I could test the system, given that there were provided test and dummy torps, and blessedly, I was able to fix any issues that cropped up by simply running the loop. The dummies running into anything in the void wasn't a concern; a few EVA platforms simply grabbed them and restowed them after the fact, though that had taken some rather annoying finangling.
With all of that accomplished in an hour, I had then spent the next hour making sure everything was hooked to the internal network properly.
As an aside, I was going to fucking murder someone. The entire process had essentially amount to an entire fucking two hours of IT troubleshooting. "Is it there yet?" followed by a "No", repeated in a seemingly infinite, inescapable loop.
Pain in my fucking tits, gods. They were going to drive me to drink at this rate.
By the time I had finally finished, sending a gif of me waving that I'd had a 'part' of me create to the repair crew clamped to the outside of the hull magnetically, I was soaked in various grime and oil, and needed a fucking shower. Cleaning my tails were going to be a fucking nightmare, and I wanted to get started stat. It didn't help that there were a buncha crewmen just staring at me in awe, though I supposed it was warranted, given I had apparently done in two hours what it took a hundred plus men on a specialized station and equivalent amount of time to accomplish. Not that I particularly appreciated the looks regardless. Despite how open I generally was, I was still very much an introvert.
In any case, with all of that done, I finally turned my attention towards the slag. After a few moments of internal debate, I pulled out my rigging and just straight up took all of it, looking at anyone who looked particularly curious with a shrug, "I can repross this into usable material, and I'll want to be well stocked."
Answering the few questions that were asked, I then waved goodbye after checking my scheduling and making sure I did, in fact, want to take a shower instead of going to do something else. Evidently, there wasn't anything else for me to do today beyond familiarizing myself with the world I had ended up in, so I made my way to the showers with a shrug.
I had, in the back of my mind, been aware that it was unlikely to be optimized for someone biological. I still did a double take when I realized I was going to have to fucking order shampoo. And other cleaning materials, if I didn't want to horrifically damage my hair and skin.
… Not that I could, given I was a shipgirl, but I still very much thought like a squishy human.
Sighing, I managed to find a communal pool of more biologically inclined cleaning supplies that Charon and the other shipgirls shared before heading into one of the stalls and locking the door behind me. Poking at the shower, I noted that water was rationed, and that I would in fact, have a limited amount of time to actually clean myself. Not exactly surprising, mind you, but still mildly irritating. Especially given the sheer amount of work I'd need to put into my more furred bits.
Stripping my clothes off was easy enough. I apparently had come into existence with a particularly… revealing take on a kimono. Stripping my underwear off was slightly more involved, but only because my tits had increased by several cup sizes, and I wasn't exactly used to this kind of bra.
Simple pull-ons had been what I'd used in the past, after all. It wasn't like I'd had the bust to justify anything more fancy, nor the money to spare.
Tossing the clothes into my hull with a sigh, I placed them in my own internal laundry facility… which was a thing I had, apparently. At least, something close enough to it that my systems said they wouldn't damage my only pair of clothes. With all of that done, I finally took a look at the sorry state of my tails, and violently recoiled, nearly sending myself into hyperventilation before I caught myself and forced my mind off of the spiral it had entered.
Holy shit this was not something I could do on my own.
And that meant I was going to have to call someone for help. Waffling for what felt like several minutes, I sent a message to both Charon and the Admiral, asking if either of them had time to help me with that, clarifying in both that I wasn't subtly asking for anything lewd. Because my tails were fucking covered in oil and that was actually beyond distressing, what the fuck.
So apparently I was vain when I actually looked good. Not surprising, given the kind of person I was, but I hadn't been expecting a fucking anxiety attack over it. Granted, it definitely wasn't helping that I was getting the normal ick sensory input that always put me in a worse mood from being covered in all sorts of oil and grime, but genuinely what the fuck.
Charon responded first, only to immediately follow up that she'd be bringing shampoo. Hightower took a few minutes longer, though he also affirms that he'll be arriving, though he'll need to remove his show platform's wings as the processing platform would simply not fit.
With a warm feeling in my chest, I did my best to clean off the grime from my body so I looked somewhat remotely presentable, before a knock on the stall I was in snapped me out of it. Turning the lock without even bothering to cover my body, I let them both in, noting their appreciative looks in the corner of my mind, and greeted them.
"Thank you."
Both simply did their best approximation of a smile as they set to work; Charon even humming a happy, if a bit off key, tune as they both rather professionally cleaned my tails. Meanwhile, I sorted out my hair, getting good use out of the shampoo that Charon had brought. I also noted that my tails were just about sensitive as my skin had been back in the other life, which was most certainly doing things to me, though I could easily push past it for now, given, well, my mentality on the matter. Thank god both of them seemed completely okay with helping out a relatively complete stranger. I didn't know what the fuck I would do if I'd started to have to ask random female crew members.
"So, how'd lookin' up stuff go, or did ya get distracted with the whole torpedo thing? I ain't got any, too small to fit 'em and a good turret grid without getting my fine little butt to light cruiser size." Charon asked, rubbing my back fairly firmly while she stood on a stool. Given that I was at least seven feet tall, and she was, well, short, it was understandable. Nor was it truly surprising that she thought nothing of my nudity, though it was nice to find a kindred spirit who didn't exactly care about things like modesty.
Though I supposed nothing wasn't accurate given the "Damn" that I'd heard when she walked in. Flattering, that.
Shaking away those thoughts for now, I leaned into the massage and replied, "No, at least, not as much as I'd like. I've been referencing them occasionally when I have the time, and I had to reference a bit of Lady Worldburner's doctrine and dogma to head off a particularly zealous ensign, but otherwise, I haven't had the time."
"Fair enough, Iggy's gonna be around but in a couple months. You wanna talk about that or girls, or something else?" Charon said. Before I could answer, Hightower continued,
"Also, the entire fleet's devotees of Worldburner have gotten quite upset at the state of their hospitals and ethics both. We're having to adjust timetables to account for things like 'we thought they would have enough medical equipment to service the non-slave portions of the population', they failed to service a lot of the lower class as well, who are not exactly well treated. I believe the term from your era, Shinano, would be jackbooted stomping. Kishocks in enforcement officers, Dawn's light, those are close to antitank guns…" Hightower grumbled, though he didn't seem to have any issues as he fondled my tails with soap and a brush to get everything out. "You really do accumulate grime in these, I'll see if any engineers have any ideas to help. If you need a bath after every job, that's going to be a problem for you, for the water supplies, and for everyone else. And I doubt you like it either."
I shook my head in a negative, "No, I don't particularly enjoy having to shower after every job, especially when there's probably a better solution. Might have to rig up a tail-net or something." I mused, shaking myself out of the fugue before it could even begin, "That said, Charon, could we talk about… Lady Tenryuu and her doctrine, then talk about the other girls in the fleet?"
"Oh, sure! Boss, you got anything to add onto that?" Hightower shook his head as he continued to brush my tails, finally manage to draw a brief reaction as I shifted around in place, ears atop of my head rotating towards the current speaker as I kept track of what Charon was saying, "Right, so, first thing, most of us got a sword, I don't, but I got hands and a real nice gun, because Tenryuu kinda got famous for making a really evil sword play… well, Hope ain't nice but it's under control, so lotsa people wanna follow in her footsteps. Thankfully, the galaxy isn't full of genuinely evil swords."
The shipgirl visibly shivered, "Got to see it, once. Not good." She was quieter there, and given what I was referencing on Hope and the rest of the seven silver weapons, yeah, that was understandable. "Anyways! Our main doctrine is that you should be passionate about what you're good at, that you should excel in it from your practice, and you should also find what you're good at first. Trying to excel at something you're really bad at is gonna be possible, but it's also gonna really, really suck. So think carefully. I'd say it's tempering the passion with thought? Though a lotta the lower-rank followers, they ain't got quite enough thought for the passion. Common problem, higher up the ranks you climb, more stable and sensible they are. Just from how you can't wildly handle stuff. Not great leaders, but very good at inspiring people, more rousing-speech than well-made-battle-plan. Important to pair 'em up with Yamatoites or Himikoites to make sure morale is high but they ain't using the morale for bad ideas. Now, I follow her because I really like going fast and making everyone eat my torch exhaust, and that's what I'm good at. I never got to meet Iggy herself, but probably will soon, touch base and see how she is." Blinking, I followed the rapid fire information, Charon not even bothering to pause for a breath. Then again, we didn't exactly need to breathe, so… Eh, "Rumor is she's focused on some pretty crazy stuff with a shield. Er, lump of metal on arm, not kinetic barriers. Has two kids, Aster's for people who really want to go full champion on the field, or really have a wildly out there goal, one of the ones I heard of wants to finish pi and won't take no for an answer. Amar's the one for people who are… In their lane? Happy at what they do, but want to be better at it? Like… the guy who really is content with being an admin clerk, but wants to be a really good admin clerk, not the boss of the admin groups. Where you're happy but you're not static? I ain't good at that, alas, so I'm definitely explainin' it badly. But Aster's a little too wild for me. So in her house do I go and pray, and hopefully, I'll get to be like her." She patted her belly gently. "Or, at least really good at what I love doing."
"I see." I managed to get out without moaning. Barely. Because holy shit having my tail brushed and clean was doing things to me and god fucking damnit I was horny now. Fuck, "Admirable." Because what else could I say? Lady Tenryuu was apparently just the goddess of being Shounen or Shoujo as fuck, and like the chuuni bitch I was I was there for it. But also…
Yeah. I couldn't exactly let go of that one little slice of my other life I could hold onto. Not yet, at least. I'd need time for that. Shaking my head more to clear my mind of the developing haze of lust than anything else, I managed to get another question out without much indication of how hot and bothered I was, "Can we, ah, move onto, mh, the other shipgirls?"
"Well, first, gotta ask, how much do you know about the Asari, because tryin' to explain Ulna without knowing about Asari is like tryin' to explain how to make steel without having iron." She answered.
"I know enough of the basics." I replied instantly, concealing a sigh of relief as Hightower briefly let up on the brushing. Any more of that I was going to jump them, and I didn't exactly want to do that without being in a slightly clearer state of mind, "Monosex, generally monogendered beings who reproduce through a form of space magic that I'm not even going to try and comprehend. Xenophilic seemingly by intentional design, and definitely by biology, one of the few 'naturally' biotic species in existence."
"Yeah, the fact they can just mix souls with anything with a soul is such bullshit." Charon actually sounded sour, definitely for an understandable reason, given how long she'd been trying to get pregnant. Thankfully, Hightower butted in to provide more information,
"Forgive any grumpiness, it makes them very easy to assure children with, so she's a bit sore." The brushing stopped, and momentarily, I was confused, before I realized with a light blush that Hightower had stopped because I'd finally started to give audible and visible cues that I was worked up, "Ulna is a lady who summoned into SA space on ritual summon, which was unexpected, and picked me after confirmation that the SA is generally considered effectively allied to the Republic. I've promised her that if there's a war, I won't make her choose, but frankly, I cannot imagine a situation in which they would start one, and I can't imagine the Republic hitting a Hegemony-like state that would result in us declaring war on them. Space is too big for a clash over actual territory to happen."
"Yeah, basically. She's a shipgirl, so her biotics scale off her FTL core as a blueberry one. Really good at it too, kinda not great as a shot, and her spinals a little anemic, but she was an experiment in a point-defense focused cruiser with some stuff from the Salarians that turned out to be cost-ineffective, so she didn't get past the prototype flight stage. Great on a shipgirl, given we're kinda loose on logi with an Admiral around, but terrible for steel hull stuff. Also a bit… slow? Like, she's not stupid, don't treat her like she's stupid, but at the same time, she takes a little while to understand anything new, and needs patience for that. Fortunately, very nice lady, very understanding that she is a little weird, and great at killing anything without shields. Blow out those, and the crew of a steel hull is." She claps her hands. "Pate."
Nodding, I briefly considered asking for the brushing to resume, before tossing that thought to the side for now. I could be randy later. Preferable in either my quarters or the Admiral's quarters. Sending a message to Charon and the Admiral to that effect, I continued on as if we hadn't just started the equivalent of sexting while we talked, "And the other girl?"
"An Inheritor for the Uranus-class planetary assault cruisers, Tatsuta, who decided that things were calm enough to summon a few months before the war." Hightower nodded, replying to my message with a ratherer pointed note that the baths were private back over comms. "Useful girl, talented in many things, and an Old War veteran, so expect her to be very much capable at damn near everything. Very confident, very steady, extremely reliable, honestly most of what you'd want. Specialized in close combat, however, so you're going to be putting her back together a fair bit, and a bit clumsy with how she wasn't a carrier in the Old War, but the Uranus-class has a fighter complement. Perhaps you can learn together?" He shrugged at that, before continuing, "She's been adjusting well, all things told, and while she believes, she's yet to pick a church. Now." He grabbed my right shoulder gently, "I am your Admiral, and you are very worked up, so, would you like us to leave you alone for a bit, or should we continue this here, or in my quarters?"
Shivering a bit at the touch, honestly for more than reason, I considered things briefly. Did I want to continue? I barely knew these two, and there was a part of my brain that was screaming that this was a horrible idea. But there was also, a smaller, yet significantly more poignant part of my brain rationally telling me that it was a good idea for a multitude of reasons, and with that in mind, I opened my mouth to respond, only to choke up and chicken out of saying it aloud, simply sending a message instead,
[Yes, I would like to continue, but I don't particularly want my first instance of penetrative sex to be in a shower of all places. Your quarters, please, Admiral.]
Given the concerned look I was getting, Hightower had definitely understood that I was uncomfortable. Thankfully, he respected my agency in the matter and helped me get up, stepping out of the shower politely as I shooed both him and Charon out, dressing myself again. Of course, it wouldn't be long before it was off again, but it helped me feel more in control, and that definitely eased some of the knot of unease building in my chest.
We were silent as we made our way towards his quarters, each of them walking close yet somehow also managing to keep a respectful distance at the same time; not that I knew how the fuck they'd pulled that off, but hey, props to them…
'Stop trying to distract yourself, dumbass' I chided myself as we entered his room, 'Stop acting like the virgin you only technically are, Shinano, for fucks sake…'
The room wasn't all that large, but the fact that he had a private room at all was more than the literal entirety of the rest of the crew got, so I would take it. There was a comfortable bed, one with sheets layered all over it. As I stopped to take in the room and the rather scant decorations, I noted Hightower stepping over to his dresser, pulling out a box that-
Oh, that was a syringe. The mounting irrational panic I briefly felt at that nosedived off a cliff at his next words,
"Given our situation, I don't think engaging in your pregnancy kink is wise." He says, slightly dryly. "This is an injectable birth control that prevents you from releasing eggs entirely, and should last for at least a week at the standard dose. Do you have any issues with needles, or should I grab the edible version that's only lasting about a day?"
Blinking, I tried to reboot myself, wondering exactly why the fuck I had a minor panic attack at the sight of-
Ah. Yeah. That would explain why I was feeling icky about this whole thing. Fucking transphobes in positions of power and authority, ruining that for me. At least Hightower wasn't like that, and would help kick that particular illogical trauma response in the teeth. As Charon flopped on the bed, somehow removing the entirety of her clothes by stowing her rigging- what the fuck, I wanted that, I replied,
"Hand me the syringe, I can handle needles just fine."
Accepting the needle from the Admiral, I looked towards Charon, "How do I replicate your trick?" Before turning back to the admiral before adding, "Does it matter where I inject?"
"Just a vein." He remarked, and with a nod, I shrugged off my right kimono sleeve, leaving myself exposed; not that I evidently cared much. Fitting too, given Hightower had begun to strip himself. As I injected straight into one of my veins, finding it with perhaps more ease than most civilians would have, Hightower continued, "Normally it's not even necessary, Charon has a toggleable implant that does the same thing, but you need a repair ship to do it or a very talented surgeon with a lot of prep work, and we have neither here. I'll have that scheduled when we meet up with the main fleet, if you don't have any objections."
"Admiral… I am a repair vessel, you are aware, correct?" I lifted an eyebrow as I hunted around for a bandage, only to blink as the wound closed itself in a manner of seconds. How in the- Ah, right. My hull was living metal. A little prick like that wouldn't stay damaged for long. "I'm fairly sure that if one of you has records on how to perform the operation, I can do it myself."
"Unfortunately, I'm given to understand that it's somewhat difficult to cut open your own abdomen and work on it. I'm willing to give you the designs if I can dig them up, but self-surgery tends to be messy at the best of times." Ah. There was the concern I was expecting when I said utterly deranged shit like I just had. Then again, I also was the idiot that had stared at my cut open hand in fascination for far longer than was considered normal as a kindergartener, and could watch some particularly graphic videos about, ya know, bottom surgery with only vague fascination combined with "I want that." so…
I was aware I wasn't the norm in that regard. That said, it was probably better to just deal with the injections for now.
"While I am confident I can do so, and don't particularly want to trouble another repair vessel," I began, "For everyone else's sake, I'll refrain from doing that."
"Thank you." The genuine relief in Hightower's voice definitely made it worth not cutting my own stomach open for what essentially amounted to shits and giggles, "There's plenty of the birth control serum, we shouldn't need to order more unless we get cut off from resupply for about 3 months, which is unlikely. Now, Charon?" He verbally nudged, and I quickly realized that I hadn't… Ah, right. I never gave her permission to stay.
"Charon can stay if she wishes, Admiral." I quickly interjected, because I had absolutely no issues with her being here. Honestly, I'd prefer it to some extent, "And yes, Charon, that is an offer and request, not me being a pushover."
With all of that said, I considered the syringe, before shrugging and stowing it within myself, marking it down for reprocessing.
"Thanks, didn't think I'd get to bed a seven foot tall fox MILF in my lifetime, but hey, it's pretty great. We can practice rigging, half-rigging, and unrigging later, it's pretty useful to get used to the gradient of ship and girl. Never got the hang of it like Tatsuta did, but." She grinned. "Gotta appreciate a pretty naked lady, hey? So, you're the new girl, anything besides 'both of us' you wanna get done tonight?"
Shrugging off my clothes with no small amount of eagerness, I considered her question, humming to myself, "What would you recommend doing, beyond 'both of you'?" I asked honestly, because I was definitely still adjusting to this world and-
Yeah. I needed distractions. Because if I dwelled on literally anything but moving forward, I was going to start sobbing again. Thankfully for my own sake, the pair took the initiative, and my night became a haze of lust and familiar pleasure…
It is not a sword, it is a Sword. Runes burn down its edge, hot and hungry. I cannot, should not, see them. Looking deeper will be very bad for my health.
It is held in the hand that can hold it, the only hand that has ever held it. It is the hand that has killed a god in single combat before.
For love.
It angles to do so again. Love has been touched on, not trampled, but touched upon, for the hand's bearer loves so, and there is no better reason to wage war. The sword-
I look at that no further. There is a god. It is an old god, and it is a proud god, and it is greater than anything I have ever seen. It is King of Kings, The Two-Browed Lord, and there is the mark of a stone impacting its forehead. It is mighty, and it has ended worlds, and bent nations. From it are an infinity of strings, stretching over the galactic disk, bending and twisting souls and hearts into their worst shape.
Not their most unbelievable shape. Merely their worst. The worm in the darkness bringing out the worst of all, Human, Asari, Turian, Salarian and more, the toxin in the galactic vein.
It is a god. By every definition of overwhelming power, it is a god.
A god aims to slay it, because it has made that god's beloved cry, and for that will the universe be upheaved. A soul older than the human species clashes with a sword not two hundred years old.
It is not a contest. A thunderbolt of silver severs the strings, strikes the crowns from both brows, shatters their divine aegis, and rips out their heart. The Sword eats, and eats, and eats. It asserts the one law the Sword understands:
The edge of the Sword is the life-taker.
The hand however, holds strong, and does not bend under the weight of the Sword.
It is held up by love, and it will never break for anything weaker.
And so does the first of the Harvest fall.
It will not be the last to fall by the edge of the Sword.
The Sword knows I'm there.
I shouldn't be here.
I woke up screaming, silver dust covering my eyes as I breathed heavily, sweat pouring off my body from my most recent dream. Evidently, I was going to have to deal with this every night, because holy shit.
Shaking my head, I gently wiped off the silver dust, just barely remembering to pull a glass container out of my rigging and shove the aforementioned dust into it before checking the bed beside me, ignoring the way the rise and fall of my chest filled me with euphoria despite the situation.
I was never going to not be incredibly euphoric that my body matched my identity, never.
Refocusing on the present, I was (thankfully) fully prepared for Hightower to bolt upright, staring at me in bafflement as Charon turned shock white upon glimpsing the powder, as if she had just seen a ghost.
Considering the fact I was pretty sure the subject of my vision had been her goddess and her souleating monstrosity of a sword, it was definitely understandable. Moments later, she asked the exact question I expected,
"Hey, Shinano, really really important question: Are there any cuts on your body right now?" What did surprise me, however, was the fact that Charon sounded terrified. It definitely was not a good look on her, and I quickly moved on to assuage her fears.
"No cuts. Just another prophetic vision." I winced, shivering in place, "I'm fairly sure I know what this one means, but I need some time to process it."
"Oh thank fuck." Charon swore. "I was really worried somehow that thing got you." Thankfully, I wasn't stupid enough to say the name of that accursed weapon, and simply nodded in tandem with Charon, because I liked my soul right where it was, thank you.
"...Take some time to rest. I'll go explain to the crew why there's a woman screaming her lungs out in my room." Hightower remarked, the dry humor eliciting a snort as he dressed himself again. A pity, I always appreciated a well maintained and designed shell, "Charon, do you have any issues explaining what that was likely related to?"
"...Do, but I can deal." She admitted. "Gotta handle that piece of shit sometimes, and the world ain't free of real Evil." That was definitely a capital E evil I had heard in her voice. As Hightower left the room, heading off the potential 'mistreating your shipgirl' inquisition with rational explanation, I turned back towards the terrified escort, wrapping her in a hug before she could start shivering more,
"I'm fine, Charon. My vision ended before it could hurt me. It knows I exist now and wants to kill me, but it also wants to do that with everyone it knows exists, so it's okay."
Shivering in my grasp, Charon patted my arms for a while, likely reminding herself that, yes, I was, in fact, still in possession of all my extremities. Pulling back from the embrace, she brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, before finally speaking, "Right. Well, it ain't good, but 'least you're okay. Sorry. Bit of uh…" She paused. "One sec, databank sorting… Ah! Seeing the devil's work before you, that should hit your era right. It's pretty much the worst thing for us Tenryuuites. Ambition that's been taken to omnicidal self-focus. You ain't supposed to lose yourself in the killing like a Krogan, you know?"
Noting the pity in her voice, I nodded, "I understand. Besides, I already am fairly certain I know exactly what the vision means. I'm compiling a report right now, to send to Hightower, you, and the local spook."
"Thanks. Good to know it's a clear'un, though if it is that thing, it's at least clear. A bastard sword." She giggled a little, and though it took me a while to get the joke, I finally got it a few seconds later, snickering a bit myself before she continued. "But clear. Right, so what's on your agenda, I'm stuck on patrol duty given I'm kinda overkill for anything on the ground, but given we got plenty of escorts, could pal around with you until Ulna and Tats show up?" She seemed comfy at the mention of the other two, more than certainly at least considering them friends. Perhaps it was more, potentially romantic, potentially not, considering how easily she had slept with a woman she had not even met two days ago.
Then again, could I really say anything different, given I was that exact woman? Letting out an amused hum at the thought, I considered my schedule. Right, about what I'd expected. Repairs to the point defense networks of the fleet, some general maintenance, and a request from Chief Ryder to look over Venus and see if they'd missed anything. All of that was certainly doable, though I'd have to block out my time well to have time for anything other than work today.
"I've got a pretty full load of work today, so unless you wanna stick to being solely my escort today, I'm afraid I'll have to decline the socialization, Charon." I replied regretfully. Because I really did enjoy her presence, and she was another rock that I was starting to develop enough of an attachment to to potentially tackle my…
Don't think about it. Can't yet. Gotta find an anchor beyond "Live so that someone remembers them."
"Eh, fair, patrols are what my steel hull is made for, so I got a real high boredom tolerance." She shoved herself off the bed, re-rigged, then blinked. "...Might be a decent idea to ask Tats to show you about rigging up and down, should speed up things for ya. She'll set you right, oldest girl here." With her piece said, she gave me one last hug before leaving the room, leaving me to my lonesome as I rerigged the slower way, meandering my way out of the room and towards the closest airlock. I had a lot of lasers to replace, after all. In zero-g even! What fun~
I had been amidst putting a GARDIAN array back into place on one of the many escorts I had been working on today when I received an IFF ping at long range from… SAS Tatsuta. Considering that I still hadn't received the paperwork declaring me as SAS Shinano, I sent a reply ping back, my IFF reading simply as Shinano, with a clarified message attached, "Imperial Japanese Navy."
A few moments later, as I began the finishing touches on the GARDIAN array, I received a comm,
"Ah, I know of your steel-hull. Good evening, then, and my apologies for being late and causing you trouble. As a fellow sister of a glorious ship, we can commiserate. Would you like to meet in the void, or aboard?" Tatsuta's voice was serious and deadpan, and through my relatively weak (for my size) sensors indicated there was another burn-signature next to her; likely Ulna simply via probability.
Raising my eyebrow at the array, I gave it an experimental scan, a satisfied smile crossing my face as it returned all green, "I'd prefer to meet in the void, Tatsuta-san. I have several more escorts to finish repairs on, and I'd like to get that done now, before any potential counter-attack from the slaving bastards manifests itself because I tempted Murphy."
"Completely understandable, that's an observed effect." She commed back, to my surprise. Huh so that actually was a thing in this universe? Neat. Given that they were arriving from out of system FTL, it was most certainly going to take them some time to decelerate out of their burn, but it gave me time to move onto the next escort as I finished. Before I could, however, I received their next comm, "Is Hightower doing well? I'm assuming you're with him, at least, given he's the only Admiral in system, or did another awaken?"
"He's doing well. Just some issues with his human partners, but that'll be resolved one way or another when the next courier vessel arrives with the letter. Should be today or tomorrow, actually." I informed her, maneuvering away from the corvette with my, well, maneuvering thrusters. Gently burning towards the next one, I received the followup the next moment,
"That's good to hear, Charon must be pleased. I'll not comment further on that on open comms." She changed the topic abruptly, though understandably, "How recently have you arrived here, then? Anything happen of import, or was it a planetary conquest as expected with half-a-dozen cruisers in the way?"
"Well," I began, my thrusters firing once more to bring me alongside another corvette, "There were a dozen cruisers and their associated escort, so, yeah. It wasn't going all that great until I showed up." Once more, I began the process of repairing the GARDIAN array, "Having a Macrocapital show up out of nowhere tends to do that to a battle."
"Sometimes it feels like the universe runs on the laws of drama more than sense." Tatsuta agreed. "We'll be meeting one another a lot, considering my role, so do familiarize yourself with my blueprints." A tightbeam comm tossed my way, including, not unexpectedly, a glaive. Humming at all the details in the report, I concluded that Tatsuta was going to be my worst patient with the resignation of someone who knew that wasn't something that'd ever change, "I'm afraid planetary assault is not kind, but the role is… satisfying." Whooo there, girl, Jesus. We do not revel in war. That was bad. Thankfully, she reigned it back in moments later, appreciation evident in her voice as she continued, "The fleet is in far better condition than I'd expect thanks to you. Appreciated."
Pausing in my repairs briefly, I nodded, "Of course. Just doing my job, Tatsuta-san." Before immediately resuming, because I was not going to let the son of a bitch Murphy and his goddamn law catch us with our pants down.
"Don't we all." A tinge of melancholy, as she remembered old friends, shaken off. "Is Charon well, then? I saw her on patrol, but all this tells me is she still has engines and a hull."
"She's doing well," I replied with a smile, "She didn't take any damage as far as I'm aware in the last engagement." I frowned, "If she has, and hasn't come and seen me about it, I will be very annoyed with her."
"That would certainly be accurate, but I suppose she's completely dodging everything again." The former light cruiser chuckled, "It seems we'll be on station and waiting for retaliation or orders, then. Back to the age of sail we go, courier ships and all. It's strange to be in a fleet that is, in some ways, less responsive than my steel-hull, even if I know the scale has grown." She's definitely just making idle chatter at this point, and I simply hum in affirmative on the comms, opting to concentrate on my work instead. I was just new enough to this all that I couldn't realistically multitask without potentially fucking up, and now that I'd invoked Murphy a few times I wasn't about to tempt him.
Several hours later, I had just finished installing the last GARDIAN array I had been assigned to repair when Tatsua entered tightbeam comm range; or, in my case, visual range given how many sensors were tied to my eyes. Alongside her was an Asari in a black and yellow outfit, though they were not hexagonal, nor the correct color for the Watchers. Hell, they were stripes, not hexagons, so it was probably an intentional choice to avoid misidentification. Sending a handshake, I opened a tightbeam comm,
"I just finished with my repairs, Tatsuta-san, Ulna-san. If you would like to chat, I have a few hours free before I need to give Venus a full look over to make sure the engineering crews didn't miss anything, at their request."
"Ah." The Asari shipgirl said, head tilting as she took me in, "...You're new here, though, you've already joined up?" Curiosity filled her voice as she adjusted her course, slowing to match my lazy orbit of the Garden World who's name I still hadn't managed to figure out. More than likely we simply didn't care to know, given that it wasn't attached to the intel package I'd been given. Meh.
"I have, yes." I nodded, humming as I browsed through the codex a bit more, hunting for any tidbits of interesting information I might have missed, "Though not officially. Paperwork was sent out on the courier two days ago, so it'll be a while before I receive confirmation on my combat and command rank."
"Ah." The annoyance in her tone palpable, Ulna glares at nothing in particular, "Paperwork. The bane of Admirals."
Tatsuta shook her head in wry agreement. "It could be worse. An Admiral who doesn't have an organization has paperwork with complex mathematical problems simply show up, and if they go unsolved, the fleet starts to have issues for incomprehensible reasons. Admirals do paperwork, says the rules, and they simply have to deal with it. I distinctly remember the Old Man complaining about how it makes no sense that solving for the 277th digit of pi has anything to do with upkeeping a fleet."
"Probably a metaphysical representation of the logistic chain they'd be managing, along with the plans they'd be drafting and sending to their organization for approval or denial. Solving for the 277th digit of pi is rote and boring enough to be a comparable burden in 'work', thus to keep their status as admirals; able to resupply their ships simply by having sex with them, they have to do paperwork." I theorized, noting the surprised look on both of their face as I blinked slowly, "What? Did I say something strange?"
"Well, I know you're not your sister now." Tatsuta answered dryly. "She knows precisely enough to know to not interfere with research and to let other girls handle that topic, and to repair herself in a pinch."
"Mhm." Ulna nodded along. "Works for Asari too, with a few changes. Usually having to deal with obstreperous social situations at awkward times. Endless office politics. I think I prefer the human way, worse on the wrist, better on the sanity." Tatsuta and I both nodded in agreement, because, yeah, paperwork was definitely better than fucking office politics, "Need any help with any further work? Many hands." She waved her own in what may be the least energetic example of jazz hands in the galaxy, really, it belonged in record books.
"I wouldn't mind the assistance, actually. There's a few pieces of heavy machinery that I'll have to move that'll be awkward as hell to move on my own, even if I can move em easily in theory." I replied with a smile, thinking of all the ways that this would shorten the amount of time I spent doing annoying tasks and move onto the more fun and fulfilling ones-
…Wait a goddamn second. Since when had repairing shit become fun and fulfilling?
Damn Shipgirl brain meat. Changing the way I thought and shit.
Ulna smiled widely. "I can help with that!" Her hands glowed faintly, this time, though she hadn't seemed to have done more than that. "Biotics are very good at moving heavy objects carefully if you have the time to focus."
"Not so good for delicate fast work, but little is." Tatsuta added on. "Very well, Shinano, you are the expert here, lead on." She clipped her glaive to her back with a magnetic snap, fastening it there.
"Follow me then. We'll have to go redock with Venus to start my work there." I replied, positioning myself to move towards exactly that, burning gently through the void.
Most of what I was asked to do had been rote review. Checking the integrity of entire sections of the ship, making sure the repairs were both functional and secure, that kind of thing. So having two extra pairs of eyes was a godsend, especially when one knew vaguely how each machine worked and the other was practically OCD about ensuring she saw everything.
Everything was done in about a third of the time I expected to. There were a few portions that I marked for repairs, given they were either shoddily done or very very obviously simply battle damage control, but nothing too horrible. Just things they'd want to look over before we got our marching orders or came under attack.
I did, however, note that everyone was still grumbling, even if the guys with the spear-caudecus weren't doing so nearly as much as they had been prior. Evidently, their zealotry issues had been sorted out. Though, in a rather amusing incident, Ulna had idly mentioned that a ship were no one was complaining was a ship you'd check for mind control on, something I had agreed with almost instantly.
I knew what sailors were like, after all.
Though Tatsuta hadn't seemed all that happy when Ulna had brought it up and I'd agreed.
Probably best to handle that now.
"Tatsuta," I began, "Did I do something to offend you?"
Blinking, she looked towards me, halo-rigging spinning gently. "Ah? No, no. Simply… poor memories of the Obsidian Chariots. Came within a breath of genuinely ending my sister's life against my will, and you never quite forget that." She explained quietly. "Without Tirpitz there to patch the wounds, I believe I would have. Thankfully, they are gone save one, and that one is… not a trouble. Old memories never fade, they just linger."
As she hurried away, trying to outrun old ghosts, I winced. Yep. That was definitely PTSD. Treated PTSD, but still PTSD. Thankfully, it seemed that our admiral had a gift for good timing, and was arriving now, still in his show platform.
That brought the older ship to a halt immediately. Almost as one, three of us saluted, Ulna slightly slower than Tatsuta and I. With the salute returned, we return to rest, only for things to immediately remind me that this wasn't the military I was used to thinking of when Hightower wrapped his returning shipgirls in an embrace, "Welcome back, missed you two. I see you've met the new girl, as well."
With a kiss on his cheek, Tatsuta responded, "We have. An interesting woman, and quite tall. It seems irony favors us, considering we get more than that capital ship you were hoping for, and yet she's more helpful than a dreadnought would be. Especially for a campaign like this. Were you injured?"
"Not at all." He smiled. "Thank you for the concern, Tatsuta. Ulna?"
"I'm glad to be back." She said simply. "I'm not glad I missed a fight I could've helped turn around."
"Military intelligence isn't." Hightower snarked back, the old adage clearly still present despite how far things had advanced. Perhaps some things never changed, after all. Putting that thought to the side, I continued to listen to the exchange, ears twitching as I opened another codex entry on the side, "Charon's doing well, still trying to outrun everyone, and still devoted. Shinano's to be trusted." He patted the sun on his chest, something that seemed to convince both of them immediately. "Not a worshiper, but brand new."
"I have to admit worshiping the daughter of my sister is certainly an experience, but I can't deny the results." Tatsuta nodded. "I'll respect it, considering I'm in it given she fits more than a deep belief the woman whose clothes I helped change is a deific being."
"Always the practical one." Hightower agreed. "We'll be here for a while, alas. At least the couriers are flowing cleanly, so we'll be kept mostly up to date. I did hear a couple hours ago that Ignatius has a new ship-body, so she'll be wanting to show that off in a pile of dead Batarians."
Holding off a smile at the thought with an internal mantra I had always tried to practice; and had lapsed on recently, I noted that none of the others seemed to be inclined to offer the slaver state any sort of sympathy. Not that I was judging them for that… But…
Well, I'd been on the receiving end of "othering" far too much to be comfortable allowing myself to slip into it. Catching myself and my biases was a skill I'd spent hours of my life honing, and I wasn't about to let that skill rust just because I was in a new universe.
Getting my thoughts under control before any of them could notice I was spacing out, I recalled something I'd been meaning to ask Hightower. Seeing as there was a brief lull in the conversation, I opted toi bring it up now, "Admiral, speaking of. Do we have a timetable on our next operation?"
"Yes, once an occupational force arrives, we're to depart to the main fleet and link up, it's been somewhat accelerated due to my requests for a therapist for you. A shipgirl is generally able to shift timetable a bit, though they are certainly going to work you over for it. Repairing a major battlefleet isn't something you'll be expected to solo, but." He tapped his own platform. "Well, capital ships are usually taking the brunt of damage from enemy spinals. Call it a week or so now. It won't be hard to find other shipgirls, or look around for another Admiral if you'd like, and to…" He stopped himself, flicking open a private tightbeam to me for a moment, "Find someone who can do an implant for you. Trust me when I say nobody will judge you for using birth control, unless they're those lunatics from Red Steel." With that said, he flipped back to normal comms, "I'll likely be called to debrief by Ignatius, given Augusta Lux is handling overall command instead of fleet command. So I'll be absent for a lot of it. Further questions, Shinano?"
"Red Steel, sir?" I questioned, because I didn't really care if Tatsuta and Ulna knew about, well, my reproductive state, "Additionally, other admirals?"
"You are not bound to me, Shinano. We're together for a bit, but we've not been together long enough to say much more than we like one another's company." Of course the cheeky bastard winked at me there, "If you meet another one and hit it off better than me, well, the job of an Admiral is to keep his fleet happy and functional, as well as to lead them. I'd recite a part of my own church's canon on the subject, but I'd be reciting half the book given the instructions on polygamy. Now." He sighs. "Red Steel is a group in the Terminus that has replaced the Blood Pack, and manages to be a step up, at the least, by turning their Orc-like behavior to something more disciplined and functional." I was definitely getting a feeling that Hightower was not exactly the fondest of this Red Steel group, "I have something of a religious bias against them, considering they're technically followers of Yamato, but they tend to rather twist what she says to their own ends. It is difficult to be officially declared a heretic under the legal system, and the requirements are long, but they managed it, and they took some of the declarations about how to be a parent in ways I do not approve of, to put it mildly. That, and a habit of burning people to death if they don't worship the right goddess, despite the explicit and multiple instructions it is a pantheon not an exclusive club-" He cut himself off with a sharp hand gesture. "Apologies, Shinano, most of the church tends to get heated about them. Signature is blood-red platforms and a golden sun, like mine. Which is a damn pity as red and gold does look good."
"... Well, on the matter of the church getting heated about those twisting your faith to their own ends, you're already doing significantly better than the goddam christians of my time," I grit out, snarling a bit at the last bit. I did not hate easily. But Christianity? Yeah, honestly, if it weren't for the fact there had been Christians in my direct circle of family who were good examples of christians instead of poor ones, I would probably have an irrational hatred of that religion. "To your former point, I doubt I'll be able to let you all go, because, bluntly, I'm fairly sure I trauma bonded with Charon, and she's a package deal with you all."
"I'm fairly sure the only way she's leaving is in a coffin." Tatsuta answered, receiving a snort of amusement from myself and a glare from Hightower.
"Accurate, but a bit too grim. I'll do my best to treat you well, my goddess would be very disappointed in me, never mind the issues otherwise." He smiled towards me, "And I'm afraid I don't even know what that religion is, nor have I heard of it. Tatsuta?"
"I know of it, but not in detail, though I know the reason you didn't know. The Chariots sat on Rome and Italy got cut down to about ten thousand lives, so considering Mecca got flattened and the Middle East with it, Shinano, quite a lot of major religious centers collapsed. So don't expect comparisons to pre-war religions to hold up well."
Ulna prompted wrapped her fleetmate in a hug, "You don't like talking about that." The Asari stated simply, receiving back-rubs from her the subject of her hug in turn.
"I can't bury the past. Facing it is the only way forwards." She was definitely quoting someone there. But who?
"Ah, good to know, thank you Tatsuta." I replied, filing away the information regarding the fate of much of the religions I'd be familiar with for reference, "I can send you a file later, Admiral. It's something I have… not a small amount of trauma regarding. On that note," I paused, looking towards the other two shipgirls, before nodding to myself, "You have my permission to share the information we discussed when I first met you with the rest of the shipgirls in the fleet." Once more, I paused, before looking towards the former light cruiser, "A quote from someone?"
"My sister has a habit of three things coming out of her mouth. References to various media she enjoys, incredibly sappy lines about people she likes, and genuine wisdom that it's difficult to argue with. The church, needless to say, tends to focus on the third." Tatsuta answered. "Even if she can occasionally make the first sound quite impressive if you don't know the context."
Hightower, on the other hand, shook his head. "I don't mind that, Shinano, but not here. This is a public corridor, after all. Some privacy should be maintained, though." His eyes sparkled, and that wasn't a metaphor. He was honest to god making his eyes sparkle. "And you did say everything." You're going to be simultaneously appreciating and regretting your actions there for the rest of your time here, aren't you?
"... More appreciative than regretful." I snickered, "So long as they understand what no means."
"Interacting with Turian girls gives you strong appreciation for what no means in all contexts." Ulna nodded.
"Deep knows it's a good portion of some of the more less-talked-about sections of the canons." Hightower agreed. "If only because it's a bit hard to convert someone on the basis of a firm grounding in safe, sane, consensual, and it's not exactly deeply inspiring to have rules for the bedroom laid out. Necessary, but not inspiring. So, find somewhere more private, or- ah!" He snaps his fingers. "Shinano, would you prefer I take Ulna aside, and tell her about it while you get worked over for rigging-up training, or that we all talk about that together?"
"The former, please, Admiral. I would like to be able to do all the things I saw Charon doing with that." I replied immediately, because it would be infinitely easier to keep my clothes clean and get dressed in the morning.
"Tatsuta, I'll leave it in your hands." The shipgirl in question bowed formally. "Ulna, follow me." The Asari scoots over, and wraps one of his hands in hers as they walk off.
Tatsuta shook her head fondly. "A very simple woman. Very well, Shinano, we are going to go train somewhere private. I'd appreciate it if you didn't take any pictures, I prefer anyone seeing me bare to be seeing it in person." She gestured for me to follow with her pointer finger, walking off at her own pace as she 'waited' for me to keep up. Not that I had any issue keeping up with her, given how long my stride was.
The room in question was definitely a training room, though it wasn't for the classical "human" like one would expect. There were a buncha mats, a lot of blunt weapons, along with a firing range. It was also completely and utterly empty.
Before I could even ask, Tatsuta simply stated, "I called ahead," before she pulled out a pile of mats and scowled at the ceiling, "If any of you are watching, kindly cut it out. I know how your kind work, and this is a bit private." After about a minute, she nodded. "Very well then. Practicing unrigging, rigging, and half-rigging, then. Do you know what these states are, then?"
"No, not really," I shook my head, "I could make educated guesses, but since you're about to tell me, I'll keep them to myself."
"Rigged, is the state I am in right now." One of her turrets spun gently upwards. "As close to steel-hulls as you get. With all the properties, masses, and power of such. This is what you use for combat, for work, and for most purposes. It's fairly simple. Now." A flash of light, a different color than Charon, and her rigging was gone, though she remained clothed. "This is a mild innovation, being half-rigged. I keep the rigging in part." She groped her own chest, perhaps hoping for a reaction, though I gave no indication I cared. Mostly because I didn't… particularly care? I mean, she looked aesthetically good, and I could appreciate how much effort she obviously put into her appearance, but I was also demi. Both romantically and sexually. It was personalities that did it for me, in the end. Perhaps not having gotten the reaction she was looking for, Tatsuta continued, "But, it is just clothing. It tears like clothing and it acts like clothing, which can be useful, given quite a lot of men like stockings, and even more women, though I admit a bias to the latter. Under this? I am a human being. And unrigged?" Another flash, and Tatsuta is naked, completely bare, without a hint of hair downstairs, or a hint of shame. "Well, I think you can figure this out."
With a nod, I hummed nonsensically, focusing as I first tried the easier step. Well, for me. Because apparently I'd been half-rigging properly despite, ya know, not having any fucking idea what I was doing. Finally, something click into place, and with a brief flash of azure light, I was completely nude. "Huh. Neat."
"Indeed, it's very helpful. It also happens to clean anything off the cloth that doesn't have some conceptual weight, which, unfortunately for you as a repair ship, includes centuries of impressions that mechanical work involves grease. Blame Rosie the Riveter." A small smile on Tatsuta's face briefly makes me contemplate whacking her upside the head playfully, before I shrug the impulse aside, "The good news is that when you are fully rigged, a valid way of getting it off is a high-power pressure-washer. Or anything that would usually be quite dangerous to a human being. Now, focus on being a ship. The feelings of your heart being a reactor, your skin being metal, and your fingers being tools. Focus on that." She ordered, the simple act of it all causing me to straighten up and pull back my snarky impulses.
Hiding a shudder at the commanding tone she had used, I did exactly what she had told me to do, focusing on the aspects she had mentioned. The thrumming of my eezo core, the way it hummed loudly, not at all quiet like the one on the Normandy or the Tempest. I breathed deeply, settling on the feeling of my skin as metal and my fingers as tools. The drones within my hangers, awaiting but a single command to perform my bidding, and the calling I had as a vessel of humanity to serve and protect.
The metal, the guns, the tools of my rigging snapped into focus, called as easily as I might move one of my fingers. Nodding in approval, Tatsuta continued to speak, still buck naked, "Very well. Now, focus on your flesh and bone, that your heart is a beating muscle, your skin is soft and sensitive, and your fingers being graspers. And then we shall repeat it until you have done this a hundred times in a row. Without failing."
Fair enough. There were situations where it would be useful to do this as easily as breathing, and she was also trying (and failing) to distract me by being naked. With a hum, I snapped back into my unrigged state, the memories of what I had been in my already somehow distant life making such things ridiculously easy. Then again, back to a ship, though it took me longer. On and off, I rigged and unrigged, until I had, in fact, done it a hundred times without failing. Standing buck naked myself, I raised an eyebrow, speaking fully in fluent Japanese,
"Does this meet your satisfaction, Tatsuta-san?"
She smiled. "It does, Shinano-san." She answered in equally fluent Japanese. "Well done, and very simple to learn. Technically, there is an advanced method to this, walking the line between, letting your recoil propel the mass of a human being while having the durability of a ship, for a brief moment. However, given your recent summoning, and how you are a repair ship, not a warship, I will tell you this: It involves a lot of broken bones from propelling yourself as a human in durability and mass, and your guns responding accordingly. I can teach it, but we don't have time to learn before meeting up. I can, tomorrow, once I've dealt with the fact I have not seen the man I deeply care for for several days, show you a partial half-rig." Her left hand raised, the rubber glove upon it letting me know exactly what it was even before the holographic light of the omnitool showed up, "A useful trick in a niche, but ultimately mostly good for appealing to people you like. Do you have any questions for me, before I depart and enjoy that it is no longer possible to break a pelvis in bed?"
Blinking at the blunt description of what she planned to do with Hightower, I shook my head, "Beyond the fact that I do very much consider myself a warship, nothing else, Tatsuta-san. Enjoy seeing your… husband? For the first time in a while. I will use this opportunity to study." Bringing up my right hand, I half-rigged, humming as I pulled open the tool and began browsing, putting my internal computers to work on something else in the meantime, "Ah, as another note, if your hull comes with any sort of laundry machine, you can use that to clean your clothing. In case you already didn't know that."
Rigging to half herself, Tatsuta nodded,. "An old trick, but a good one. Deep knows I might have gone mad if I had tails like yours. Good luck, Shinano, and enjoy your studies." Watching as she strutted out of the room like she owned the place, I fired off a message to Hightower and Floyd with my report on the most recent prophetic dream. Unsurprisingly, Hightower was busy, and wouldn't be responding anytime soon, but Floyd returned a ping of acknowledgement, requesting further clarification on the location. I sent what little I could make out of the event, before firing up my omnitool and internal computers.
On my omnitool, I did the research I was significantly more interested in; current events, while my computer handled the topic I was only slightly less interested in, the metaphysics behind well, my new species slash race, I supposed.
Starting off with recent history, the largest events most certainly were first contact between the Systems Alliance and the Citadel, followed very shortly afterwards by the declaration of war on the Hegemony following what essentially amounted to an ultimatum to the rump state: change your ways or be forced to change them.
Of course, the Hegemony had tried to strike back, largely via giant space rocks, but none had come even remotely close to success, largely due to the shipgirls involved in the counterterrorism operations that had shut those down.
There's of course, some rote condemnation by the Citadel, but, beyond that, there had been no consequences for the SA. A diplomatic slap on the wrist, but evidently, the first war since 1895 in Citadel Space was being received fairly well.
Additionally, there was no news about the Geth, and given the year, that was odd, especially since we were fairly close to when Mass Effect was supposed to kick off. Not that that mattered much, given how much had changed, but, eh.
Shanxi was apparently producing some plot rocks, but beyond that, it continued to essentially serve as a stopover point for humanity, with a very insignificantly small population of non-uploaded humans also making it their home.
Switching over to the various news networks in Citadel space, I noted that it was essentially just… normal reporting, with the odd report of various spins on the human invasion of Batarian space, notably using the ethnocentric terms that I'd come to expect from, ya know, a buncha ethonostates, though apparently, there were a degree of intermixing between each culture, so it wasn't completely correct to call them that.
Of particular note on the rote news, however, was the fact Destiny Ascension was also a shipgirl. Poor girl was definitely being treated as a hanger princess, and had a wild series of rumors following her.
I'd have to request a spar, at some point. Other macrocapitals weren't going to be easy to find, and I could definitely use some lessons from her. Even if she was more than certainly going to kick my ass nine out of ten times.
On the metaphysical front, I was utterly unsurprised that shipgirls were an inter-species phenomenon, with only the Geth and Rachni having none in recorded history. Cultural zeitgeist and societal beliefs also meant that they were always female, and if the crew was of more than fifty, they'd manifest into a girl in fifty or so years. While there were a few exceptions to this, like the fact the Hierarchy was capable of borrowing the power of a yet to manifest shipgirl briefly, that was about it.
Each species also had something they were good at. Humans were impossible to scare with supernatural means, the Turians were good at everything in general, the Asari's shipgirls had biotics scaling with the size of their eezo core, and the Salarians were… well, they were Salarian. I didn't exactly know how to describe them beyond "fucking terrifying".
They almost always aggregated around an Admiral, almost always a male of the species, though female Admirals did exist; they had separate rules, and operated much closer to a shield maiden than a commander of masses. Except in the Asari, at least. They just had standard Admirals since they were, of course, monogendered. Admirals were universally exceptional members of their species, though they did not always have exceptional morality. Likely due to ToS, the codex was largely clear of any NSFW mentions beyond the note that shipgirls could resupply via sexual intercourse, and beyond that, the only thing of note was the fact that an Admiral could emerge from anywhere.
Moving on, the reason shipgirls were so good was simple. They were essentially a ship in the small package of a girl. Targeting them with anything short of soul sensors was an exercise in futility, which meant that, well, because shipgirls didn't strictly have a body, you couldn't hit them without being able to "see" them.
On the note of not having a body, shipgirls were evidently something akin to a magical girl, except they were always in their transformed state. Oh, and there were always more than their steel hulled counterparts, but that was unsurprising. Also unsurprising was the fact that shipgirls were generally refit to remove crew accommodations of various kinds after being summoned, which made sense. I'd have to make sure I got those, because I did actually have a fair amount of space occupied by crew quarters that I could use for other things. Perhaps another hanger? Or an expansion of my internal factories? Eh, I'd have to see what the eggheads thought.
Then again, I was an egghead, I supposed, given that I apparently had several years of education in various fields via my crew. Some of them more modern than others, others less so. Speaking of crew, I had crew memories, which I was starting to get used to accessing. I was now, well, very much a polyglot simply by virtue of having several languages on hand, along with having more college degrees than I could count in theory, given how many memories I had access to.
In practice, they weren't my memories, so unless I immersed myself in them I'd have to essentially reference them constantly, so if I wanted to become an expert in any field I'd have to knuckle down and study.
Glazing over the section about a shipgirls' sexuality, I continued onwards to the fact that capable steel hulls generally trended to a more powerful shipgirl, though there were more than enough examples of shipgirls that hadn't been exceptional, or outright had horrible luck becoming more than those that had done exceptional things through their grit and determination in their second life. Given there was a link to metaphysics provided in that segment, and not much of the article remaining, I went over, only to blanche.
That was fucking useless. Great. With a sigh, I closed out of the Codex, briefly checking as to why I hadn't been able to find wikipedia, only to facepalm. Right. Merged into the Codex a few years after first contact.
With all that done, I shrugged, turned my omnitool off, and made my way to bed. I was done with everything I needed to accomplish today, and since I couldn't get food or otherwise entertain myself, I was going to go crash for a bit.
AN:
Note that there is a outright sex scene within this chapter. If you wish to skip it, it starts directly after:
Nee-san had trained her worshippers well, apparently.
and ends with this quote (there remains minor references to the fact that sex has occured between the pair, and the rest of the chapter is essentially pillow talk that does actually contain plot relevant information and character development, but you can skip it if you want):
Playing with my hair until I was something more than pleasure and contentment, I finally came out of my daze and rolled over, kissing the man chastely on the lips. He'd earned it, after all, and while I wasn't sure I was developing feelings yet, there was definitely some chemistry between us. Perhaps proving why there was, he smiled,
Beyond that, there shouldn't be anything else that could potentially trigger someone, though if there is, leave a comment and I'll add a warning.
The eggs of the arachnopulmonata clade last long, in deserts. So too did their works, patient and old, furious and waiting.
Long ago, the galaxy was swept clean, but not by the billion-year-old genocide machines. Not by them, no, but by another, who had taken it upon them to be the greatest of species, and proved it through conquests of extermination.
You see wood-ships bigger than the Citadel, split open as each one a living being dies, slain in pale blue particle lances and purpled graser blasts.
You see sunbirds, living fusion beings nurtured in gas giants, have their wings broken, eggs shattered, and homes frozen by grandiose superweapons.
You see living color entities, formed in a grand jewel-world, who had never left it and had no plans to, utterly harmless, bombarded into dust and leaving a brilliant life-filled planet as ash and cinders.
You see a grand alliance of a hundred nations, standing shoulder to shoulder, working together to oppose the oncoming chitinous menace. They cooperate, diversify, coordinate, they are infinite diversity in infinite combination. Technology is shared and brought to grand heights, things you don't even understand on their ships as they march out, squarely certain that genocide on the scale of a galaxy could never, ever be accepted.
The arachnopulmonata kill every last one of them. Each and every move they make is foreseen, each maneuver picked out, each spy or cunning device noticed before it was ever used. Their strength was foresight, and they took it to conquest, for they saw the future and judged no other species who could not worthy of life.
It was a grand irony that the next event they prepared for, united under one banner, was the arrival of the Harvest.
And so too did they die.
Or so the Harvest thought.
Eggs and machines seethed under stone and sand, rage in waiting. There was a future in which they rose again, they had seen, and the ancients before even the Inusannon waited.
And they hated.
Waking up with tears streaming down my face, I choked back a wail of mourning for those that had been lost in times long since past and set to work, fury filling my body as I recalled every massacre, every instance of pointless murder at the hands of a race so full of themselves that they thought all others unworthy of life. Snarling in remembered desperation and fury, I pulled up my omnitool, pushing aside the fact that the vision itself had been hilariously clear compared to every other I had seen. I could remember in shocking clarity the atrocities committed, the planets burned, a highlight reel of omnicide on a galactic scale.
With rage etched across my face like a grotesque gargoyle, I set to work, recreating the images I had seen in my mind and searching the extranet, looking for any information that would provide me clues to end one of the very very few things I was willing to kill simply because it existed. Fuck the sins of the father. Fuck that. I was going to exterminate this fucking wretched existance from this plane of existence for daring to put so much blood on their hands over simple believed superiority.
Quickly, my rage cooled to frustration. Nothing come up, because the galaxy is fucking huge, and what I'd seen hadn't been clear enough. About the only interesting thing was that my new enemy was likely an arachnid of some form. Breathing out a harsh sigh, I compiled all my notes into a file and fired it off to both Hightower and Floyd, attaching a request to the latter message to inform me if anything came up.
I wanted those fuckers dead and gone. How fucking dare they…
Shaking my head, I snapped myself out of the spiral and took a look at the schedule, half rigging and wiping my tears away with the sleeve of my kimono.
For once, responded with an actual message, "Yet another genocidal horror possibly lurking in the wings is, unfortunately, not going to change anything, but we'll watch out for scorpions. And bald men who like to dance." Was that… a joke? That was a joke. From the spook. So he did have a sense of humor!
Yet the next message from Hightower sobered me instantly, "Are you okay after seeing this, and do you want me to also ask for the courier ships to relay a request to try and stop this for the sake of your sanity? Two traumatic visions in a row cannot be good for you."
I sent a reply back that I'd be fine, dealing with these visions was most certainly just going to be a fact of life, and I somehow slept fine even when I was actively horrified or watching something that woke me up screaming.
"If you need anything on that or change your mind, contact me. I have zero interest in having you mentally collapse because of something you had no choice in handling. Otherwise, the schedule is simple enough today." He replied, sending me the schedule.
He wasn't wrong, mind. Cleaning up and reprocessing scrapped Batarian orbital defenses was simple enough. They'd been collected and towed into one place, and while the fleet had a cruiser outfitted to deal with that, I could deal with it so much better that the cruiser might as well be a handgun before a thermonuclear bomb.
With that material, the goal for the next day was to turn those scraps into a series of short-range defense satellites, meant to sit and wait until something with the wrong IFF. They would then release a salvo of torpedoes. Fragile, cheap, and incredibly hilariously deadly, because they didn't generate all that much heat, and the inattentive fool would be utterly wrecked by them. Other than that, the ground situation continued to be irrelevant to me besides a minor contribution of drones to assist with mop up operations and security, and I'd already repaired everything.
Honestly, I was pretty much at the point where I was definitely just going to do tomorrow's work today, because I needed the distraction.
The Batarian orbital defense stations weren't… bad, exactly. They're certainly not astounding by any measure, at least by Citadel standards, a bit behind on times, but they weren't even remotely close to the standards that the Systems Alliance expected of their basic colonial defenses, to say even less of their core worlds. They're definitely beyond anything humanity could currently produce in everything but metallurgy, but metallurgy was very much something humanity excelled at, having invested a large amount of time and money into the development of better and greater alloys and metals.
Breaking them down, however, was going to be a grisly task. There were the unfortunate sods stuck within the orbitals, dead from whatever the fuck had killed them, and hate them or not, these fuckers at least deserved an unmarked grave. Everyone did. So, with more than a bit of annoyance at my own personal insistence of treating every thinking being with at least a modicum of decency, I began the task of slowly clearing then scrapping each defense station, slowly but surely piling all the Batarian corpses into a singular semi-intact orbital defense network, letting Hightower know of my intent all the while. Of course, I received the expected reminder to prioritize human lives over dead Batarian's burial rites, but I simply forwarded an estimated completion time of both my tasks and he gave me the go ahead.
It only took me several hours, but hey, I still had another few hours to start manufacturing the defenses, since I sure as fuck wasn't going anywhere close to bed anytime soon…
Wiping some grease from my brown onto my kimono (it thankfully wasn't all that much of a pain in the rear to clean), I sighed softly and began placing the first of the fabricated defenses down, slowly but surely over the course of another several hours placing a overlapping network of satellites in orbit designed to kill shit, only leaving the North Pole open; I would need to scrap the last station before I could finish that area. Thankfully, it seemed that Hightower had sent a team to clean up the station, and by the time I returned it was empty once more. Scrapping it and then fabricating the rest of the required satellites took the rest of the sixteen hours I had allotted myself for the task, and finally, I was done.
And almost completely out of supplies. Fuck. I was going to need to get fucked, wasn't I? A quick query of my stores informed me that yes, I desperately needed a resupply, so once more, I sighed, and fired off a request to Admiral Hightower for exactly that. Pausing, I added an additional request to be pampered, offering several suggestions to accompany it, considering I had just done the work of several ships working in tandem over the course of three days in sixteen hours.
Sue me. I wanted to be treated like a princess for a bit. I'd earned it.
Hightower looked over his options, shaking his head in mild wonderment. For a shipgirl who'd arrived so soon, she was all but throwing herself into her work. Good, in that it gave her a distraction, bad, in that she was definitely not as stable as she thought she was. He was… well, he wasn't going to say it to her, but he definitely didn't think waking up with terrible visions of genocide was good for you. Much as she'd clearly compartmentalized. Briefly, he considered rations for the meal option, then, a metallic clang rang out in his quarters.
He was above an agri-world and the local commanding officer. Of course he could requisition enough of a meal for two. And go annoy Ryder by getting a mouth and storage system installed that did more than make girls happy, granted, but that was very easily doable. "It'll take a couple hours, but I believe we can have a meal together, Shinano. Is there any food in particular you'd like, given we sit above a rather varied Garden World?" He'd not go for alcohol, while shipgirls usually had a tolerance measured in barrels, he'd no clue what Shinano's tolerance was and her sister got drunk at the rates of an organic human going by what Tatsuta said. And he really, really, really was not interested in fucking a woman too drunk to consent, thank you very much, he'd never forgive himself, never mind what she'd think after.
He waited attentively for the fascinating girl's comms-response. A few moments later, he received it,
"No alcohol, a rice dish of your preference, preferably Japanese. Beyond that, surprise me. I'll eat pretty much anything, and I'm sending you a list of things I know I wouldn't back when I was, well, still human."
The list is fairly short, which was nice. He liked lists and explanations, if only because it left more time to puzzle out things like managing a polycule.
Still, if the High Priestesses could manage a total of eight between them all, he could manage five counting himself, especially with shipgirl cooperation in play. "Thank you, I'll have something prepared." Which did admittedly mean "Steal from the massive pantries of the local plantation owners" but letting luxury foods rot just because it was sitting there and cooked for terrible people was rather ridiculous. It wasn't as if there were dead babies in them.
Now to pick something out of it and ensure it was good. At least shipgirls didn't give a damn about chirality, and he wasn't even going to really digest it so much as turn it into reactor fuel. Hmm. He should ask her if it was going to be a regular thing for her, if so he might want to invest into some cooking programs and see doing it himself. Maybe ask Tatsuta too? Thoughts for later, thoughts for later…
The room in question was somewhat difficult to find, mostly because SA ships had charging rooms, not messes, nor did they have private messes for officers. Eating simply… wasn't really a thing for uploads. Plug in and charge and chat over comms, which, arguably, was significantly noisier than the general din of a mess. Which, of course, meant that getting a room to dine in was most certainly not the simplest thing in existence. However, my admiral had pulled it off, given that I was beholding a table filled with rather interesting looking cuisine. Hightower did, however, emit a feeling of exasperation before it rapidly shifted upon seeing me, "Ah, welcome, I'm afraid it's been a few years since I ate, so I'm a bit rusty, but you should be fine." He said, smiling happily at me. "It was certainly interesting to pick things out, though."
It most certainly was interesting. As I gave a rote greeting and sat down; a process, given my tails, I beheld the food before me. There were fish based rolls, composed of something that definitely wasn't rice but was similar enough that convergent evolution had created dishes similar to what most people called sushi. There were some avocado-adjacent vegetable rolls as well; funny, considering that avocado was essentially a substitute for fatty tuna, but eh, I couldn't exactly count on slaving scum to have good taste. There was some steamed fish I couldn't recognize, combined with honest to god lemon, though I supposed that wasn't as surprising, given that Earth probably did export a limited amount of produce, likely as a luxury item. The fish itself was a brilliant velvet-red; so that was definitely interesting. The fact that there was honest to god curry and miso was, well. Hightower was going to get a good reward for all of this effort, let's just say that. It had been what felt like forever since I had partaken in good food, nevermind food in general.
"... Well, Admiral," I began, "You certainly exceeded my expectations, given that we are over an alien world." Smiling, I nodded towards the dishes covering the table, "And yet I somehow still recognize most of the dishes."
"In an entire ship's crew, you can usually find someone who has an idea, and to tell the truth, a lot was stripping out pantries of the upper class. Somehow, I'm not going to be crying if they don't get their fanciest foods." Hiding a snicker, I watched as he nodded, gesturing towards the food, "Do dig in, I didn't get wine, but that's about it, and there's still a bottle of a local fruit juice that was oddly tangy." He pushed it over gently, the yellow fluid too non-transparent to just be lemonade. "I'm surprised you managed the entire grid, though, very well done."
Given I was currently almost moaning from the taste of good food on my tongue for the first time in half a week as I dug into the rolls, perhaps I could be forgiven for not responding to the praise with anything beyond a light blush and the wagging of my tails. A few moments later, after swallowing, I brought myself under control and took a sip from the juice, "It was… well, relaxing. I got into the zone and just kinda did it all."
"I've never quite gotten in 'the zone', but it's a known phenomenon across all races. Usually for makers, too. The source of relics and artifacts. They're quite interesting, usually, given how they tie to the metaphysics of making things." Evidently, we were going to do the normal thing and socialize over food. Not that I was opposed, even if it was both baffling and adorable that he was struggling so much to eat.
I had to bend his mind over my ability to handle chopsticks at some point. His reactions would be hilarious.
"Hmmm, well," I mused, placing a finger on my chin in an exaggerated manner, "It's definitely an experience. A state of hyperfixation and hyperfocus that kinda just clicks on sometimes."
"Yes, I dated a follower of Enterprise once who hit IT and locked herself in her room for two weeks after I made a comment, and let me tell you, a younger me?" Making a wild gesture with his fork vaguely in my general direction, he continued, "I thought I'd stuck my foot all the way in my mouth until my mother assured me that no, this just happens sometimes. Also had a panic attack when I was told that technically, it snips a bit off the soul, but fortunately unless you attempt to churn out events like that, souls are very good at self-repair. Apparently it ties into how some weapons are more than the sum of their parts, though the equations there are dizzyingly baffling to my poor emotion-oriented brain. Good food, good friends, and good rest are all good for the soul."
"Indeed." I nodded along, trying some of the other food, humming in delight because while it wasn't actually nourishing anymore; since, well, my body would convert this to its weight in supplies, it was very good and sitting down and eating with someone was genuinely just a very good experience. Speaking of, I needed to find a way to get Hightower to open up more, hopefully so I could connect better with him, "What do you do for fun, Admiral?"
"Well, assuming my fleet doesn't count…" He cheekily replied to my amusement, silent for a few moments before he shook his head, "Honestly? I like tinkering with platform design, while this isn't my work, it's my design." He tapped his chest. "I used to follow Enterprise until I realized that while I enjoyed working with making how things look, I wasn't actually all that interested in making them work, but I definitely enjoyed working with people. And figuring out how they work, how they tick, if they tell true or false. Pretty common to bounce around the churches when you're young, figure out who you are. Other than designing how platforms look for people or myself… Hm." His fork rapped on his plate, tapping loudly echoing in the room. "This is terribly stereotypical of me, but I actually like running naval combat simulations. It's cleaner than actual naval combat, and you can test things that genuinely don't work, or precisely how badly something would have gone. I know, I know, Yamatoite who likes running things, but sometimes you really do just fit into the stereotype."
"Nothing wrong with fitting into a stereotype, Admiral," I hummed, blinking as I realized most of the food was gone already. Huh, I'd failed to moderate my pace. Drat. There was a skill I was going to have to relearn. Right, anyway, hobbies, "I personally enjoy writing. There's something extremely satisfying about crafting a narrative, exploring characters, and building the world they all live in. Using only written words to do so, you paint a world that your reader can immerse themselves in, teaching lessons or trying to send a message all the while."
"A useful and ever-valuable skill. No technology can ever replace the ability to show someone the world inside your own mind, that only you could've created. Also a bit stereotypical of you, really, a repair ship who likes to make? A pair of obvious stereotypes, we make." He chuckled, amused. "But as you said, there's nothing wrong with fitting into a stereotype. I'm told omnitools are a bit obnoxious for that, have you tried a direct neural plug for text writing? Think words, and they happen?"
I blinked, slowly processing his words, before grimacing and shaking my head, "Probably not the best idea. Typing them out gives me a sense of clarity that the speed of thought wouldn't offer. I think too damn fast for my own good, and seeing it written on a screen is just very satisfying, especially with a word counter on the side."
"Ah, that's fair. I've had more than a few times where the little list that the goddess passed down to us to refine was helpful." He tapped the side of his head, a soft clang sounding. "Can mark locations, times I need to be there, why I need to be there… Really, one Ziusdran called it a 'quest log'. Remarkably efficient, if rather distant from the first program. But, it still holds to the original idea of helping people coordinate their lives on their own. And helping people in charge coordinate the lives of their subordinates."
Huh, nee-san was based. Who knew? Then again, the pantheon likely just straight up encouraged it, so, well, I certainly wasn't complaining. Still wasn't going to pray to them or ask for blessings mind you, though…
If I had to choose, it'd probably be nee-san. Mostly for practical reasons, partially because it was fucking hilarious. It'd also give me a bit of a connection with Tatsuta, in that we'd both worship our sisters. Heh.
With only a twitch of my ears giving away my mental tangent, I nodded, "Iteration is always good. We can always become better versions of ourselves, after all, and why wouldn't that hold true for all things in life?"
"Isn't that the truth. Stasis is a close cousin of decay, and the simulations are quite clear how bad decay gets. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing, but that's because I've gotten some more messages from the main fleet saying that due to our offensive tempo, this world is to be left with a thinner garrison than I'd find acceptable for the time between a fleet arriving, and us leaving soon. I'll be sending them records of what you've done. Only proper to ensure what you've done is told to people who should know, and that grid is impressive. Though, I admit." He tapped his own head again. "I haven't the faintest how to iterate on my own looks. Heels were the latest trick, but that was months ago. Given you've seen all of me, do you care to have any suggestions, or?"
Considering his question for a moment, I hummed, trying to figure out if there'd be any potential improvements. There were, of course, subjective improvements one could make… "Have you considered adding more wings?"
"Yes, actually, it's mostly a problem in the bedroom, but it's not a bad idea for walking around, so I'd have to have them made detachable. Which is an issue because having asymmetrical wings is a bit…" He wiggled a hand, clearly unsure. "Trenchcoat and katana, you know? And if it's detachable it can come off. It's not a bad idea, at all, though! Maybe if I ever hit the point I can afford to splurge on gravitech for a show platform, instead of simple magnetic locks."
I nodded, humming as I considered a few other things, "Have you considered ordering an element zero based one? The Citadel's been producing those for ages, and as far as I can tell, there's no prohibition on buying civilian products right now, just military ones."
"It's plausible, but that's still more expensive than magnets, but you're not actually wrong. I'll file that away, thank you, a very good idea. Charon quite likes them, and so does Ulna, with Tatsuta being neutral and liking what it does for her fleet. Are you done eating, and would you prefer to talk, or introduce me to a different kind of aesthetic appreciation?"
Giggling, I answered him simply by standing up, "Well, to your quarters then, te-i-to-ku~"
He grinned, stood up, bowed, walked over, and slipped an arm behind my legs and back, neatly dropping me into his arms; a classic princess carry. "Of course, then, ka-n-mu-su~" He sing-songed, before lifting me up with no visible effort.
Given that I had very little to zero sense of shame, the fact that when he began essentially parading me through the ship was of little concern beyond the slight blush dusting my cheeks and the way my goddam tails were betraying me, happily wagging as my ears twitched alongside them, catching snippets of conversation between sailors who had no clue why this was happening, and the sailors who were smart enough to understand that the Admiral was getting lucky tonight.
Oh, and he was being a perfect gentleman about it too. No wandering hands, no excessively lewd remarks, just very cheerful marching towards the bedroom.
Nee-san had trained her worshippers well, apparently.
Arriving at his quarters, Hightower laid me down on his bed, coming in for a kiss that I eagerly returned as his hands worked to undo my kimono. Preempting him, I simply unrigged, leaving myself bare to the world as he broke from our kiss and began to leave a trace of kisses down my neck and collar bone, his hands fodling my breasts all the while.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how sensitive I was, I was like putty in his hands, whimpering as my body began to heat up, a full blow blush erupting on my face as I reveled in the feeling of my breasts being fondled for the second time in the week.
Familiar with my tendencies, Hightower doesn't stop as he continues trailing kisses down my body, his hands leaving my breasts as he approaches my crotch to grab my thighs, stroking them.
"Yes…" I moaned, reveling in the sensations that my admiral was providing, riding through the pleasure of being eaten out as I wrapped my legs around his head, "More of, hhnnn, that, admiral…"
"Your wish is my command," With his answer, muffled by the very fact it was spoken directly into me, he dove into my 'most precious place' with aplomb, his mouth and tongue working my snatch with an experience that spoke of his long practice and, well.
A distinct lack of a need to breathe.
Time passed in a blur of pleasure, each flick of his tongue eliciting a moan, a shiver, or otherwise sending me into a fit of heavy breathing, and before I knew it, I approached the edge of a climax I had become very familiar with recently.
Wordlessly screaming my pleasure in a silent exhalation of air, I came, shoving my crotch into his face even further as my thighs tightened reflexively, not about to let him escape as I rode out my orgasm, panting as I laid on the bed, eyes screwed shut in an effort to focus more on the distinct feelings of pleasure that were assailing me endlessly.
As I opened my eyes, I was greeted to the sight of Hightower's dick, psychoplastics indistinguishable even in warmth from an actual cock, standing at full mast, waiting for my attention. Licking my lips as I sat up with more effort than one would usually put into such a simple action, I flipped myself around, pushing some hair out of my face as I made my intent clear, pushing my lips against the tip of his cock.
His groans were music to my ears as I teased the tip, tongue and lips working as one to get reaction after reaction until I finally decided to move onto the next 'phase'. Pulling his entire length into my mouth in a familiar action, I bobbed my head up and down the length of his shaft, sucking and tonguing his length.
I was, after all, actually familiar with how to do a blowjob. I-
I sharply cut off that particular train of thought. It wasn't relevant right now, and thinking of what I'd lost in exchange for what I'd gained wasn't worth it. Besides-
'Oooooh, that was good….'
I briefly paused from the pleasure of having my ears fondled, the teasing voice of my admiral pushing the prior thought right out of my head moments later, "And here I thought you only scheduled a few hours a week."
'Yeah well, I also didn't expect to completely deplete my supplies building, nor to so quickly come to trust you enough to get some emotional benefit out of this exchange too.' I mused internally, briefly popping his cock out of my mouth to wrangle my long hair into compliance before launching myself into the blowjob again, eyes tracking the way he reacted; I needed to know when to stop, after all.
It'd be so much better inside my womb than in my mouth after all. Besides, he knew I was a power bottom. If he didn't want to be edged a bit he shouldn't have let me set the tempo.
Speaking of edging, I finally noted one of his tells that I'd noticed in our… prior session. I watched as the eyes continued to constrict, only to gently stop and pull back right before he could cross the line into an orgasm, taking no small amount of satisfaction on the 'exhalation' of breath as I did so. Smugly, I waited a moment for him to catch his bearings, only to blink as he spoke, "Well, I know where this is going, then."
Taking the hint for what it was, I flipping myself around again, getting on all fours and presenting my ass to him, my tails parting like curtains as they revealed, once again, my glistening crotch.
"Go on then, te-i-to-ku~" I teased, a flirty lit filling my voice as I wiggled my rear a bit, "Breed me~" Unsurprisingly, the onslaught was sudden, swift, and without mercy, my admiral practically hilting his cock inside my tunnel in an instant. Honestly, it should have been painful, but since shipgirls had a bit of minor hentai logic to them, his cock slamming against my cervix was insanely pleasurable rather than simply agonizing. A steady rhythm of wet slaps, moans, and grunts filled the bedroom as Hightower pumped in and out of my 'citadel', each thrust sending a wave of pleasure coursing through my body as I gave into the primal act and simply stopped care about anything beyond maintaining my position and not collapsing into a puddle of pleasurable goo.
"Well, we want the same thing, then." I could hear Hightower chirp, hand grabbing my hips to hold me up as I finally lost the battle keep my upper body upright as he played with my tails with his other hand, "My lovely ka-n-mu-su~"
'Well,' I mused in a surprisingly lucid part of my mind, 'he was certainly getting use out of that nickname.'
Still, all good things needed to come to a climax, then an end. The tempo increased slowly as the sound of bodies becoming one filled the room, my moans and his grunts eventually becoming indistinguishable from each other before finally, like lightning dancing down my space, I froze, silently screaming my pleasure out to the world. In the same instant, or perhaps in response to my inside clamping down on his dick, my Admiral came, my eyes screwing shut as rope after rope of baby batter filled my womb and insides, the warm liquid just as amazing as it had felt last time.
For a few moments, we simply breathed heavily, reveling in the feelings that had just faded away. Then, with a grunt, he pulled out, and I collapsed into a puddle of highly content shipgirl, chest heaving as I fought to bring myself into some semblance of coherence. I could barely tell as Hightower slipped into bed beside me, pulling a blanket over the both of us as he did so.
Playing with my hair until I was something more than pleasure and contentment, I finally came out of my daze and rolled over, kissing the man chastely on the lips. He'd earned it, after all, and while I wasn't sure I was developing feelings yet, there was definitely some chemistry between us. Perhaps proving why there was, he smiled,
"I should see if Tatsuta's up to anything next time you're interested, she's a fellow dom, and quite skilled. That, and possessing strong opinions all handcuffs should be fuzzy." He mused idly, his voice light as he considered what he'd just suggested before continuing, "As far as quirks go, it's quite easy to accommodate."
"I'm not opposed, Admiral. In fact, I'd welcome it." I replied, still very much experiencing a clarity I had only felt well, right after sex like this. It was strange, and, honestly, quite welcome, "M'not a dom though. M'a switch."
"Fair enough." He agreed. Honestly, Hightower seemed quite happy to simply enable what I wanted to do with my life, and I was here for it, "She'll be happy, she's commented that while she likes Charon as a person, having a nice chest to work over is fun for her. And while I love Charon, she is never going to be called a shortstack. And, on that note, I'd like to ask you that, if another girl shows up, you show them the same courtesy you got. It's war, so we're very likely to see girls and Inheritors show up, and it's best to set that down so you aren't confused if you walk in on me kissing another woman you don't know." His tone turned serious, though I didn't exactly know why, it wasn't as if we were in a relationship yet, "Though it also extends in your favor, if you find someone attractive to you. Equality, you know?"
With an amused hum, I nodded anyway, "Of course, Admiral. I'm not at all opposed, and either way, I'm not dating you yet as is, so I have no right to protest." This time, rolling over to face him properly, I smiled softly, "I do appreciate you saying that your request extends both ways, and that you won't be a jealous lover. It does mean a lot to me"
"It's always best to set this out ahead of time, just in case. And it's rather childish to be jealous and, mmm." He tapped his chin, searching for the correct words, "Selfish about it? You've not been here long enough for it to kick in, but usually a group has everyone at least at the 'friends with extensive benefits' with everyone else, and genuine love with another part of it. Trying to insist you must be loved is selfish and arrogant. May as well be an Ottoman Sultan." He shifted a bit under the blankets, getting more comfortable now that the various… fluids had started drying, "Anyways, we should slumber. Tomorrow is going to be more and less busy than expected."
Though he didn't outright come and say it, I could tell the offer was made largely to make sure someone was there if I woke up from my visions screaming or sobbing again, if for nothing else than to comfort me right after the fact. It was definitely more than appreciated, and with a smile, I turned around, once more, getting comfortable, "Thank you. Goodnight… I never… actually remember getting your given name."
There's a short laugh. "Goddesses, I forgot that? My mother would have me crunching images for an hour in penance. Admiral Adam Hightower, Shinano."
"... Kana, then. If only in private." I smiled back, "It was my name, before, ya know, all of this." Before my smile could turn watery, I continued, "I'd like to have someone call me that occasionally, if only so I don't forget the sound of one of my names."
"Then sleep well, Kana. I pray for your pleasant dreams." There was a faint sense of power in that prayer, the softness of a warm and gentle hand reaching down as my sister answered.
Because of course she had.
"Sleep well, Adam." I replied in turn, closing my eyes, "Thank you, oneesan. I'll… appreciate the lack of horrifying visions tonight."
There is a priestess, and she cannot fight. Because of who she is, because of how she thinks, the priestess cannot fight. She saved a species that was not a species in a war against titanic crimes, against the desire of one man to shatter all reality for one mad dream, against the beating weight of a mankind gone mad. If you were cruel, you could call her a traitor to her humanity. If you were being honest, you could call her better than the humans she had known, an exemplar of what people should be.
But she cannot fight, because of who she is, as sure of that as she is sure she is maker-of-tools, the candytuft blossom taken from rocky ground and moved to loamy soil.
Something desires the priestess dead, dead and buried, dead and gone, gone forever and ever and ever, shattered in body and soul for something they cannot accept, no matter what. Negotiations and words will bring no peace, no heartfelt soul-art will end the battle. But the priestess cannot fight, no matter what. It is not who she is, and it is not how she is. She is not a pacifist by morals, but by inability in person, instead of a belief violence is wrong.
So she flees. The priestess flees, hands shaking, heart trembling, into her fastness. Through gate and bar and wall and door, the priestess flees, but whatever is chasing her will not let her go simply from material security. It rips through, battering aside defenders whom you can only make out as not being human, yet being people. You can tell little more than that. They believe in the priestess, and that she is worthy, for they are what she saved, and each and every last one will die before they allow her to be harmed.
The priestess reaches the core of the fortress, the defenses, but so too do her pursuers. She cannot fight, and she cannot defend herself.
So she kneels, and you hear words clear and steady echoing in your mind. They linger, strong and firm and believed in.
"You have chased me as far as I will flee." There is the sound of churning gears, and of burning furnace-heat.
"This is where my soul lies." You realize what is at the core. Wall to wall ports, sized for humans, but never touched by any human hand save the priestess herself.
"I have worked too hard to allow this to come to ruin, and this is the heart the Goddesses have helped me build." Machinery moves, and a titan of steel and power steps forwards, a hammer of force in their grasp. Not a human, never a human, cannot even be mistaken for human… but utterly certain that the priestess is the most important person in the world to them, as certain as that night follows day and that stars are bright.
"Just as I have never abandoned my children." The priestess is mother of the species, yet has never given birth, womb untouched. She is designer and builder of the species, who never once told them to obey her. She only placed faith in her creations, and her creations placed utmost faith in her in return.
"So shall my Goddesses not abandon me." Coruscating POWER that nearly blinds you cascades around her, as the priestess on her knees does not plead.
To plead, is to be uncertain in the answer to your question.
There is no uncertainty in her tone, no more than there is uncertainty that the ports on the walls begin to pour out war-machines, thumping, pounding POWER from the magnificent soul you see and the belief it has placed in the ones it believes in, that her next words will be answered.
'So, as I pray…"
The hero bears a thousand swords, and while her hands will never swing a single one, each arrays in defense of the one they will give everything for. And for each one the attackers fell, the broken sword is repaired. Not replaced, never replaced, but repaired. She is given the ability to defend herself, without fighting. It is for the gods to do what heroes cannot, and nothing more.
I woke up with tears in my eyes, though this time, they weren't tears of sorrow, or of pain. This time, they were simply tears of joy, because I hadn't fucking had a nightmarish vision. I didn't need to do anything here. I could simply relay it without interpretation to Hightower and Floyd without an ounce of guilt, because this would resolve itself favorably without my intervention.
Yawning as I awoke, I looked around Hightower's room, noting that the Admiral was indeed, and waiting for me to wake up. With a smile, I slipped out of bed, stretching out my body as I stood, "I'm okay. Just tears of relief, Admiral. The blessing worked, and though it wasn't exactly free of violence, it wasn't horrifying. More hopeful and bright."
"Ah, it did work. I was worried I might need to pray to another goddess, and it always feels a little awkward." He admitted as he admired my body, just as I'd kinda sorta intended. I was very much someone who enjoyed honest compliments and someone staring at my body definitely was one. "Sometimes you just need a different sort of help, and it is a pantheon. So, anything specific about it you'd like to talk about, or should we get straight to business and work again?"
"I'll send you the data later. It's not anything urgent, unlike my previous visions." I replied, rigging again now that my show had concluded, "To business, please."
"We're to take up Agnus Dei and remove them from the planet below to rejoin the main fleet, so we'll be getting into FTL by day's end. If there's anything you want to wrap up, it's now, or then. Walkers are a terrible occupation force, too much firepower, not enough ability to do anything else, but very useful. And." He tapped his own omnitool, displays shifting as he sent me a data packet containing the orders. "It's straight from strategic command. Authorization check, Ignatius Thunderblade." The name was technically, a bit silly. He took it completely seriously. "Apparently things are changing. Any questions?"
"I'll take the day to check over the entire fleet then, Admiral." I replied professionally, "No questions." Snapping off a salute, I turned to leave, only to pause, "By your leave, sir?"
"Take your leave, Apprentice Seawoman." He answered. "Things won't be getting less busy than now for a while."
I didn't need to have prophetic dreams to tell that much. Especially given we were about to be attached to the main assault fleet by stratcom. As I took my leave, I went over the things I should probably do in my mind.
I needed to give the fleet a final checkover. Then, I'd want to tinker with my drones for a bit. Then, I'd see if the other girls were up for sparring or training. Then, probably, bed and visions. Whoo.
Shaking my head, I set to work. The fleet was in shipshape, with only the odd scuffed pain from orbital debris, and that wasn't nearly important enough to justify my attention. I simply gave each NCO info on it so they had shit to give their seamen, because that tradition was definitely still alive. Tinkering with my drones revealed that I could perform a minor improvement to their cycle time by removing the bits that were likely intended to house a human upload as a pilot, because I didn't really need those anymore, and beyond that, I was mostly just scratching my head for any possible improvement before giving it up as a bad job.
Finally, not even four hours after I'd started everything I'd set out to do, I hummed, going over the replies from each girl.
Tatsuta offered to give me some training on the trick she'd shown me, though she thought a spar would be fair to me at all, which, was, well. Completely true. Charon was… not helpful in the slightest, so I simply decided I'd spend some time with her before I went to sleep tonight. Ulna, however, had the most interesting proposal. She was willing to meld and poke around in my head to see if there was anything she could do to help with the visions.
With a hum, I opted to take Tatsuta on her offer first, firing off a message to the rest of my intentions, along with an additional message to Ulna to take her up on her offer later in the day.
It only took a few minutes before Tatsuta met me in the void; given that firing naval guns inside a starship was definitely a categorically bad idea. She gave me a polite bow as she approached, her station-keeping thrusters gently puffing on her legs. "Had better visions this time?" She asked once I'd matched orbits with her, my own thrusters firing from my own legs. Thank fuck that the astrophysics behind station keeping were built into me, I'd have no fucking clue how to do it otherwise.
"I did, thank you." I replied, returning to the matter at hand, "So… training?"
"Of course." One of her rigging-guns snapped to behind her, firing a slug off into the void, catapulting her away, her body seeming to flicker faintly as I looked. "First lesson: Track me. If you can't keep track of things around you, then trying this will have you shoot someone you don't want to shoot." She instructed firmly, another shot cracking her direction onto an entirely new vector practically at a right angle, and another of those full-body flickers every time she did it. "And that is unacceptable."
With a firm nod, I did exactly that, eyes tracking Tatsuta through each maneuver with a single minded focus. I understood what she was saying, after all. She was responsibly teaching a technique with mitigable risks that she would not allow to be used poorly by some chucklefuck.
It wasn't easy, not in the slightest, to keep up with a shipgirl doing her best impression of a rogue rubber ball in space, especially in three dimensions once she noticed me even slightly managing to keep up. Midway through even more so, when without a singular hint of warning, she changed the type to include semi-random steps. That wasn't even to mention the strain I was experiencing trying to keep up with her, my eyes aching as I tried to differentiate between afterimage and the actual person, my only hope in the matter being the simple fact that my other sensors couldn't sense heat from the former.
Even still…
I managed. I kept up. Even if I lost her every so often. Even if my sensor array was essentially the shipgirl equivalent of nearsighted; I was going to have to get that fixed, I kept up with her dancing around me. The vast gap between myself and a shipgirl who was experienced and capable displayed itself before me in its full glory, and with a grin filled with passion, I knew exactly what I'd be spending this life doing.
After all, let it never be said that I wasn't a hypercompetitive bitch.
Eventually, she stopped making the void and physics into her bitch, and came coasting to a stop next to me, and violet eyes peered at me as she weighed my performance.
For some reason I couldn't exactly understand, they swung down to my hips, before swinging back up to meet my gaze, her eyes filled with memories of days long past. "...Exceptionally well done." She said, her voice filled with a bit of surprise. "Especially given your class is known for the opposite of its agility. However. For a first time. You'll need more, several days of just this, before I let you attempt anything, and possibly dragging in tracking me and Charon at once. Still. I expected several days before you managed to keep up with that at all." It's blunt and direct, but very clear praise. The best kind of praise. "You might just be able to crack it in a few months. Assuming you keep up the work."
Just as I was about to reply, movement from below us caught my eye. It seemed From Heaven was done reclaiming her cargo. With a sigh, I turned to face Tatsuta, already firing off messages to Charon and Ulna that our plans were canceled for now until after our FTL jump. I didn't have to, but, honestly, I felt like it was basic courtesy. As I did so, Tatsuta moved to get a better look at From Heaven, before remarking "It seems we've got until that reaches system-edge. Charon's waiting."
"Understood." I replied, and that was that. Because what else was there to say? It wasn't as if there was any other way of responding. That and the fact I'd have about a day and a half of complete solitude to figure out something to do in. I figured I'd split the difference between improving my drones more to suit myself better and learning what I could from my databanks. Ugh, I wasn't going to sleep for 36 hours either. God, I hated all-nighters. At least I was a shipgirl now, so it likely wasn't going to be quite as bad.
At least, I hoped so…
Given that I had nothing to do but read and tinker with my shit while I was in FTL, I decided to read up on the various things that I hadn't had a chance to look at yet in the time since I'd been summoned. Starting with the strategic commander of the current theater I was operating in.
Ignatius Thunderblade was a public figure, a completely shocking turn of events given her dual role as a war-leader and peacetime leader. She'd recently been given a starship by the pantheon which had apparently been a buzz of activity. Due to the fact that Pantheon handed down relics in a manner that was essentially a challenge to their followers (I approved, honestly), that wasn't surprising. Figuring how shit worked was, after all, a decidedly human response to being handed the unknown.
Of course, the other response was to kill it with fire, but I was going to choose not to focus on the negatives there.
Of course, because the Pantheon was responsible, they did teach their followers how to maintain and repair the relic, but otherwise, it was all on human curiosity to figure it out.
Good. I didn't want the species I still belonged to handfed all of their technological advancement.
Behavior-wise, Ignatius was known best for being the "stable one" of her church who'd managed to hit the top of the rankings. Of course, because it was Lady Tenryuu's church, that meant that she still was rumored to have done something batshit insane. Namely, blocking the sword I had seen in my visions during a spar with her goddess. While not an overall strategic commander that ran entire campaigns like Augusta Lux, who was my sister's high priestess, she was known for being extremely good at fleet-management on a strategic and tactical level. Especially in a battle encompassing an entire star system. Additionally, despite being an admiral (not that kind of admiral, the normal ones I was used to. A flag officer), she was an extremely competent ship captain who preferred to command her ship herself. Apparently the best of all the high priestesses, with a habit of managing to heavily damage shipgirls with the steel hull she commanded.
Her political views regarding the war with the Hegemony could best be summed up as similar to mine. "It's about damn time someone did something about those slaving scumbags, and the fact that it falls to the new kid on the block is frankly an embarrassment, especially considering they contributed to the fucking rachni wars. I mean, how the fuck is it even remotely okay that we're able to actually achieve a victory again such ancient spacegoers, amIright?"
She'd also promised to personally take Kar'shan should the Hegemony not surrender, and then personally take the capital herself. Apparently, she was a fan of grandiose statements that could be interpreted as chuuni.
Not at all shocking, to be honest.
There was also an image attached, and immediately my opinion of the woman increased slightly. She had clearly taken great care into the design of her own body and clearly took good care of that body. Always something I looked for in anyone I was remotely going to have to associate, though it was both easier and harder to tell with humanity now a species of uploads when I was used to fleshbags.
Image to be added. It's Raiden Shogun
On her combat prowess, it was explicitly noted that while she'd never beaten Lady Tenryuu, she had kept pace with her children. Which was impressive, given the disparity between a shipgirl and a human, let alone the disparity between a demigod shipgirl and a human. She was definitely someone that could probably kick my ass in a fight, to be honest.
Otherwise, the most important church to look into was definitely Enterprise. Because of course, a short glance told me that she was the one that dealt with machinery, manufacturing, making, all the shit I was good at. The societal role they held was a mixture of engineering, science, and architecture, combined with the general blue collared workers who put stuff together. Things like a bricklayer, a mason, to a modest architect designing a house, all the way up to naval engineers and architects. If it was manufactured and made in an industrial setting, it was probably a follower of Enterprise who was behind it in human space.
She was also considered to be the goddess of fortification and defense, which meant that the ground was also under her domain. Enterprise herself was known for showing up, grumbling about any flaws in the designs she encountered, pointing them out, then listing out a battery of ways to fix them. Any flaws. Even the ones that no one knew about or could reasonably test for. She had shown up quite a bit in the past, though less so recently, for reasons no one seemed inclined to comment on.
Apparently, I'd run into a shipgirl who was tsundere for humanity. Kinda reminded me of… Huh. It didn't hurt as much anymore. Good. That meant I was coming to terms with things, and moving on. Just like they'd want me to.
Back to Enterprise's church. A Scythe was her symbol, something that had caused me to laugh out of loud for a solid ten or so minutes before I'd gotten myself under control, tears in my eyes at the obvious symbolism that tied an American Shipgirl lionized by 'capitalism' using a tool that was quite literally one step removed from a fucking sickle. Apparently, the scythe was called Despair. I could read into the symbolism about the despair of the working class, but given what little personality I could intuit based on the information I had, I doubted that was actually the case.
Despair was apparently able to chat and talk, and was known for being friendly and a general chatterbox. Whodathunkit. A self aware weapon. Neat.
Her followers, in terms of personal combat prowess, were noted for being obnoxiously hard to kill, but, perhaps more critically, they could generate a large fogbank when gathered en mass. Said fog impeded all forms of indirect fire, and was a general pain in anyone's rear. Direct fire and melee was definitely the best way to engage them, but they forced you into engagements on their terms, where they were also benefiting from fortified positions.
Nasty buggers.
Oh, and because fuck you, some of them could generate shit ex nihilo. Because fuck your ability to siege them out, they have shit for days.
Her High Priestess was Polyhymnia Clio, and her apparent bias was towards being able to take a machine, and then overclock it to hell and back without much of the usual side effects. This was apparently what qualified her for the position, after getting into a six hour long debate on the nature of gravity that fucking university dissertations were written about with her goddess after they had met in public. A unique method of recruitment, sure, but a welcome one.
She was, of note, the first to manifest a Blessing fully. Likely, that meant she was the designated alpha tester for esoteric things. She'd been working with RnD, so she wasn't really directly contributing to the war effort.
Beyond managing the logistic chain, anyway. That clearly wasn't important, though.
My sarcasm could rip the paint away from a building, I swear. I needed to get it back under control. Oh, and she was also in a well kept and well designed platform. Why was I even fucking surprised at this point? It was clearly a societal expectation to do that.
Image to be added. It's Mori.
Of course, there were a buncha other little nuggets of information I ran across, but all of that was by far the most interesting, and the only bits really worth repeating aloud to myself.
Checking my chronometer, I nodded. That had been a good eighteen hours spent doing some mandatory and less than enjoyable studying! Now I got to do the fun shit I had kept in reserve to stave off the boredom. Namely, tinkering with my drones and diving through my repository of blueprints!
Unfortunately, I had just about hit a wall with my drones. I'd only been able to simply fiddle with the pulse ranges of my strikecraft's lasers in a way that'd make them fire significantly faster, burn them out faster, but also, I could replenish and repair my strikecraft simply by having sex with my Admiral. That was a nonissue, especially one I factored in the simple reality that I could simply repair them in my bays, and it wasn't even that resource intensive. Optimizations for shipgirls, however, would definitely not work on normal ships, because no human engineer would want to work on the maintenance nightmares my drones were slowly becoming.
That had only taken me about an hour. Then I had dove into my absolute treasure trove of blueprints, finding the schematics and engineering notes for dozens upon dozens of ships of all classes, including several second line classes deemed obsolete but not quite ready for retirement. As was ancient tradition, I also found the blueprints for a lot of horrible ideas, the worst of all of them a macro-capital designed to huck torpedoes at the problem in frankly insane quantities that would make Kitakami blush. Granted, they only had five salvos worth of ammunition, but such an alpha strike was surely impressive right?
It wasn't. Not nearly enough. My fucking GARDIAN network alone would ensure that only, at most, less than twenty percent of those hit, nevermind the less than a percent figure that I would likely achieve if properly escorted. It wasn't worth it, especially not for a macrocapital that took insane amounts of eezo to even make mobile.
Yes. GARDIAN was that much bullshit. The only reason it hadn't obsoleted strike craft was the simple fact that GARDIAN could be overwhelmed and it couldn't be everywhere at once. Nevermind the ECM you could fit into a fighter that you couldn't in a torpedo.
Then, of course, there were the blueprints I shouldn't have access to. Because those were all top secret classified, by the goddam Watchers. I was honestly going to try not to think of those, because fuck that noise. I was definitely not going to think of the spy ships, the world destroying mass effect gun, or the designs for sensor-absorbant armor that I was going to fucking put on my drones as soon as I got the opportunity, nor the hulls clearly made never to be seen.
Oh, and the fuckhuge EMP gun. Yeah, that was most certainly designed for anti-human work.
God I fucking hated and loved spooks in equal measure.
Oh, and, on a brighter note, my engineer had apparently designed a semi-functional one person fighter based off the millennium falcon. Not at all even close to remotely useful, but hey, bored engineers did things. Like I was doing. Totally not contemplating the best way to manufacture the sensor absorbent plating I wasn't supposed to have access to.
Of course, the only reason I was doing that was the simple reality that my databanks hadn't contained the blueprints for anything but my goddamn drones.
I wanted a shinier strikecraft, damnit! And blueprints for repair drones!
Oh. There went my chrono. Damnit. I'd wanted time to get started on drawing up some theoretical plans to create the drone equivalent of the F-22. In space. Sadly, I'd need to get my hands on a quantum computer or some hyper size efficient supercomputers for my beloved space F-35. Ah well. Duty called, as did my impending exit from FTL.
A simple issue that all ships based in mass effect technology were limited by was their sensors. No matter how fancy you were, no matter how advanced, the simple fact was that no one had cracked FTL sensors or useful FTL comms. No, the Thessian university experiments that could just about make Doom transmit across space with a QEC the size of a capital ship didn't count. As such, when I entered the system and moved into formation with every other ship serving as an escort to the absolute unit I was, I couldn't actually see anything there.
Right up until the moment until there was something there, and I was very much reminded that while I may be a macrocapital, my displacement wasn't so large as to outmass entire fleets. Light hit me just about halfway into the system, two hours of flight or so from where I was told the hastily built mobile discharge stations. There were two of them, servicing two capital ships, the rest of the fleet waiting patiently in line.
Including the other dozen capital ships. Of the fourteen capital weight ships present; which, by the way, was an extremely high concentration of force, I could recognize thirteen of them by their class, though not name due to the distance between us. Two were of the aging Luna class carriers; a pure fleet-carrier design that had the simple issue of too much point defense and not enough space for their strike craft. They were scheduled to be phased out by the more modern Terra class carriers in the near future as a result. There were also four modernized Luna class variants who had solved the issue of space by simply stripping out some of the point defense and adding more carrier capacity, though it was definitely a stopgap problem to a larger issue. In addition, there were five Neptune-class dreadnaughts, designed for long range bombardment like all dreadnaughts in Mass Effect were, alongside two Mars class command flagships, explicitly designed for durability and sensor performance.
Finally, there was a… thing, in the center of it all. One I didn't recognize in the slightest, but clearly designed by a genius who had cracked the core power issue of starships, because it very very visibly had two spinal guns. Nevermind the fact one of those spinal guns very very obviously wasn't a mass driver, I was practically salivating at the thought of getting my hands on the reactor that was powering this absolute unit of a capital ship.
Because yeesh, it even had a respectable network of kinetic broadside turrets and a heavy array of GARDIAN strips. It was more than certainly the relic that the Pantheon had gifted one of their High Priestesses, because if it was an untested prototype everything I had learned about the people supposedly in charge of this fleet was wrong and I was very much about to die from their incompetence.
The outrider escorts found us moments later, and for a few moments, we waited as Hightower and the Captain in charge of their formation exchanged authorization codes and confirmed that everything is right and dandy, before informing us that they're resuming long range patrols. As they left, Charon waved at one of her steel-hulled sisters, "Gonna be interesting to see ya later, Io!" She announced, as if the spirit inside could hear her. I was personally willing to bet Io could. Nevertheless, Charon continued, "Race ya when you're here!"
With a fond shake of her head, Tatsua continued onwards, and, taking that as a que, I buried my urge to reach over and ruffle the escort's hair. Slowly but surely, we were pulled into the core of the fleet's formation, right near the… Relic. I still didn't have a good way to identify it, and, resolving to fix that, I sent an IFF ping over. It wasn't as if that would cause some kind of offense.
Right?
Thankfully, whoever had received the ping hadn't taken offense, as a smooth, feminine voice that responded seemed almost amused, "I see the newest arrival to the fleet of the Systems Alliance doesn't know what a High Priestess looks like. Hello, Shinano, this is Ignatius Thunderblade, I already know who you are."
Blinking slowly, my mouth opening in a small o shape, I blushed, embarrassed that I hadn't quite put two and two together, "Apologies Ma'am. I wasn't aware that you were the steel hull." I barely managed to not stammer, "I-uh." I blinked, trying to figure out if I needed to say anything else, "Orders?"
"Arrive in the starboard shuttle dock, Hightower has requested some rather large things with regards to you as well as a full refit, and I prefer to judge people in a less massive platform. He'll be arriving as well. I will be there in thirty minutes." The strategic commander of the entire fleet told me.
It was also a blatantly warning that if I was late… there would be issues.
Fortunately, the shuttle dock was an aggressively standardized feature of Systems Alliance ships, with only escorts lacking them, and Ignatius was no exception. It didn't matter that it wasn't a carrier, a method of transporting things and people from ship to ship or ship to ground was important.
Well within the allotted time, I arrived at the indicated location, ironically before High-Adam, perhaps because my Admiral had more to handle? It didn't particularly matter, to be honest, because I was, honestly quite used to this. The extent I to which I took the mantra of 'early is on time, on time is late, and late is fired' definitely wasn't normal, after all, given the extremes to which I often took it.
What kind of moron tried to show up thirty minutes early by default? For goddesses sake, and I had wondered why I had burned myself out so fast back then.
The woman who met me in the bay matched me in height; impressive, considering I was quite literally seven feet tall, staring me directly in the eyes. Honestly, the feeling was almost intense enough that I nearly didn't notice Adam walking out of his shuttle in his show platform, wings and all. Turning my attention back to the woman before me, I noted some critical difference between the image in the codex and the lady before me. First, she had a sword sheathed at her left side in an engraved steel sheath, the hilt of the blade the same luminous silver I had seen Ryder holding. Far more elaborate, of course, but still the same silver. Of course, given she was a combatant versed in melee, I was utterly unsurprised at the lack of decorations present within.
All in all, a fairly standard longsword. I wondered if the comparisons to the "classic JRPG protag sword" were intentional? They could be, given what I knew of the general tendencies of Tenryuuites.
In addition, she; of course, had the shield she was famous for strapped to the forearm of her non-dominant left arm built of the same luminous silver. A kite shield, beautifully engraved but no less functional. It was; as the rumors had said, gashed, with a certain weight lingering behind. Given the sword that had caused it… I shuddered at the unpleasantness that thought brought up. I didn't want to encounter False Hope again anytime soon.
Moving on! There was a rifle I didn't recognize strapped across her back, perhaps a shotgun, but in the end, it was irrelevant. Otherwise, beyond her outfit being essentially an extremely expensive custom hardsuit that emphasized the hard work she had put into her platform but also made it obvious that she was a machine. Also, I could definitely tell this platform was both a show and kill platform. There was, after all, a certain sense one got when looking at a machine obviously designed with combat in mind.
Blinking in the face of her stare; I wasn't getting into a pointless show of bravado by not doing so, I noted something else. She had no guard. No 2IC. It was just her, looking over me as Hightower watched on, examining me with inscrutable eyes then moving on to my rigging, briefly lingering over my chest with a flicker of what might have been lust, or could have simply been an acknowledgement that my outfit wasn't even remotely close to chaste.
"...So you were entirely correct." She said, a moment later. "I'm impressed, Hightower. The Pantheon hasn't seen someone like this before."
"I strive to succeed, ma'am." He replied, and she nodded once.
"I'll ensure it, then. Shinano, I'm told you're a seer, who has visions every night, cryptic as what I've gotten are. Would a dedicated translator interfere with them at all, or do you not know?" It was phrased as a polite request, but the order not even remotely concealed within was obvious.
"I don't know, ma'am." I replied after a few moments of thought, striving to be as respectful as I could, "But I do not believe so."
"Understandable. Seers are somewhat infamous for not fully understanding what they see. The Law of Cost strikes again." with another nod and a simple hand gesture to follow her, she continued, "Follow me, then, I've got a lot of facilities aboard this body of mine, and as such enough to spare some work. Shinano. You'll be refit with some input into the situation by onboard engineers and also Vestal. I believe you'd know her as USS Vestal, though she's an Inheritor now. After that, we'll see how the metaphysicists handle you. And get you a therapist, Hightower was clear that one should be assigned to the Venus, and I am inclined to consider it reasonable given it's mandatory on all cruiser flags and up, and all capitals."
Huh. An emphasis on mental health that I hadn't seen on my Earth. Refreshing.
With nothing better to do, I continued to analyse the woman that was currently my overall commanding officer. Her stride was long, confident, and certain. Given she was essentially walking in her own body, it was likely warranted.
Though… My sensors weren't picking up any EM fluctuations. Either they'd managed to contain and conceal all the magnetic flux, or… The ship somehow didn't have to transmit power. Both were baffling. But… Should I even ask? Was it information I was cleared to know?
Who the fuck was I kidding. I wouldn't be who I was without my innate sense of curiosity, and this silence was starting to kill me.
"High Priestess?" I began with confidence I didn't really feel, "Is this vessel shielded or otherwise concealing the EM fluctuations from the transmission of power, or is it utilizing an alternative energy source that doesn't require that?"
"I am not a researcher, so I do not understand the mechanism of this, but one of the tricks used to create this ship is something titled 'holeum', which is a kind of treatment applicable to matter that causes it to double as power storage and conduction, while remaining as whatever other properties it has. As a result, the majority of this ship by mass is armor plate, with only fast-release parts like capacitors and the reactors requiring other materials due to it not being good at rapid discharge of stored power. There are no batteries or circuits. It's revolutionary, once the researchers crack quite how the Pantheon pulled this off. Comparable to the quantum-collapsed carbon Asari have at higher level infantry."
With my question answered, I once more fell silent. Eventually, we arrived at a massive pair of double doors thick enough to be vault doors, ones which opened without any signal I could detect. Odds were, the High Priestess had simply willed it open, given this entire ship was effectively her. Inside, a familiar smell greeted me. The hot, rich scent of metal being worked, the clang and hiss of hammer and cutter, and the acidic smell of those working with electricity overlaid on top of it all. Platforms worked here by the hundreds, and in the center of it all was a blonde, blue-eyed woman with skin pale as the grave. She was obviously rigged, but at the same time, was dressed in some kind of light power armor. It was thin, absolutely littered in gaps, but it covered the vitals with vital plating.
Sitting up as we entered, the woman saluted the High Priestess, who returned it. "Igantius, she's actually real?" The woman, who was likely Vestal, asked, the disbelief evident in her tone.
"Much as you are." The High Priestess answered. "Shinano, this is Vestal, who will be refitting you with onboard resources. I'm afraid that I'm not qualified to involve myself in this process, so I'll be departing, but." A mental map of the ship was beamed into my computers, with sections I didn't have clearance for blurred out with the rote message. There were a few locations labeled, though it was obviously more for my benefit than anything else. A metaphysis' office and another for therapists. They, unsurprisingly, didn't have timestamps. Given I was about to essentially undergo surgery, that wasn't all that shocking.
"High Priestess Ignatius, thank you for prioritizing my requests." Adam's voice drew me out of my internal musings, his gratitude evident as he spoke formally to his commanding officer.
"I would chide you for not having her see a therapist faster, but battle losses are merely a tragedy you cannot solve. A shipgirl is precious to all. Shinano, I'll be talking to you again after you're refit, and have handed your information to the metaphysicists. I'm not qualified to engage in either area."
The absolute stupidity that had infected my era's leaders seemed to be absent here, thankfully, given her constant confidence to simply say "I am not qualified to answer that" or "I am deferring to the experts in this matter."
Based, honestly.
With a shake of my head, I brought myself back to reality and made a request that would absolutely have people looking at me like I was half insane, "Vestal, may I request a post-facto recording of the operation? I would like a reference of how far I have to go as a repair ship before I reach your level."
I left unsaid that I also wanted to see what I looked like inside, because I was fucking weird like that.
"Yes, I can absolutely do both a recording and a post-facto commentary walkthrough. Deep knows that I could've used every bit of help I got at first." She says, before looking at Hightower. "Sir, do you want to obser- Actually, can that, Shinano, do you want your Admiral observing and commenting on options for you being refitted and you under surgery, or would you prefer it be between you and I? Medical ethics check."
"... I would like him to leave for the duration of the op, but I would like his expertise during the initial stages." I replied after a few moments of thought. While I didn't have a sense of shame, I was still a fairly private person when it came to certain topics, and this most certainly qualified. "No offense Admiral, I wouldn't trust even my romantic partners from before with this."
"None taken, surgery is about as private as you get. That you're shy about it is about as odd as Vestal being here on the most capable ship in the fleet." The blonde smirked a little at that, preening, but it quieted down damn fast.
"You keep high-value assets on the most important places. And I can't exactly be distributed, so here I am. Right then, Shinano, first up, I need to get a general idea, besides a rebuild to optimize you around being a shipgirl, what do you see as your role in a fleet, and do you have any specific parts that you feel need reworking besides your primary tractor array? I have your steel-hull blueprints on file, and that one is very much a compromise of cost vs effectiveness."
Pondering the question for a bit, I considered things. Not for long. I didn't particularly need to think hard to know I'd chafe at being a purely backline unit. I was… My personality demanded I be as close to a combat medic as a ship could get. With a nod, I replied,
"I would like for my repair bays to be partially modified to allow for dual purpose use as a hanger bay. While it wouldn't work on a steel-hull vessel, given the modifications I've already done to my strike craft and their design, it would for someone like me. I've run the numbers as best I can, and it should allow for the addition of eight hundred to twelve hundred strikecraft to my compliment. I would also like to formally request the blueprints and schematics for a better strike craft to modify to my liking, in addition for the blueprints and schematics for a repair drone, if such things exist." Pausing, I breathed, then continued, "Finally, I would also appreciate the schematics for other forms of smallcraft. My abilities allow me to essentially tailor my carrier complement for the situation I expect to find myself in, and I would like to be able to take full advantage of that."
She took my request in, then turned to Hightower. "Sir, anything you'd like to add for her perusal?"
"I've been looking over your insides too, Shinano." Thankfully, he had honored my request to not call me Kana in anything but a private setting, "You've got excellent short-range sensors but poor long range ones, which is a noticeable issue in a shipgirl, especially if you want to fight, and your midsection is a significant vulnerability that should probably be armored up somewhat, just to ensure a gutshot doesn't have catastrophic consequences for you. Otherwise, I'll agree even if I've never heard of viable remote repair drones. Something with Omnigel?" He guessed, clearly poking around. "And… oh, right, duh. Can you ensure she doesn't need to open her prow nearly as much for her tractor so a stray shot doesn't result in a questionable gravitic problem inside her? I don't quite know what a direct hit to that array would do, in specific, but in generalities, I know it isn't very good for you. Any objections to my suggestions, Shinano? You have the final say with regards to your own body."
"... Wouldn't want to go the way Taihou and Hood did as steel hulls, I suppose." I allowed, shaking my head, "Those are good suggestions, and I accept them without complaint, sir."
Blinking slowly at the mention of Taihou, Vestal shook her head and continued, "...huh. That'd make you the second heavily armored carrier-esque girl I've refitted out of having a major vulnerability. I fixed her up back in the Old War, I think she's in this fleet too, a Terra-Class these days. Anyways, I don't actually have any idea for long-range repair drones, though I could do something like floating extra limbs about you immediately. Other strikecraft are easy, though I'll leave out shuttles considering they're effectively useless on a shipgirl, and dual purpose repair bays are… well, that'll be tricky, but I see where you're going with this. Next question is about your engines and a related topic, actually. While they'll be upgraded to shipgirl standards, I can get you to the speed of a capital ship, instead of a macro-capital, but. It'll cost you a pretty amount of space for AM storage, and if that hits, you're going up like those two did. Do you want that vulnerability, or are you content with getting about a 25% speed boost or so from fusion torch refinement?" She's already scribbling on a hardlight diagram I could recognize as being my steel-hull blueprints, projecting from a table in front of her.
"The vulnerability isn't worth it." I shook my head, "I'll pursue alternate methods for rapid repositioning." Elaborating more so that Vestal wouldn't get concerned, I clarified, "Tatsuta is training me on how to use my batteries for a boost of speed."
"Understood, then, next question. While you'll be getting an overall armor improvement whatever I do from using much rarer materials, I can somewhat sacrifice armor volume for increasing your shield generators, which is generally preferred for long-range combats, but does mean you'll be comparatively less capable if closed in on. However, shield generators are… Well, let's say looting Batarian scraps is one of your better choices than Alliance work." I wasn't shocked that she sounded upset to admit that, given it was a blow to her pride as an engineer, "Element Zero is not something we've mastered as much as the Citadel, and it is flagrant bullshit."
"Armor, please. I'm a… well, Fleet Tender, but Support Carrier feels more accurate. I need to be able to slug it out in close range if necessary."
And wasn't that weird to say. It was strange, how in space, the role of a carrier had flipped with the role of the battleship. From outranging the enemy and alpha striking them with ordinance into a brawler, with the reverse occurring with the battleship.
"Alright." She slips pieces and parts around on the display, visibly editing what will be you. "And the last question on your setup. I can fiddle around with your parts-to-manufacturing storage ratio, right now it's about 75-25 for parts to manufacturing equipment. This is fairly standard and what I run, but manufacturing is more long-term, while parts are what you use for immediate repairs. Do you have any thoughts on that subject, or should I keep it at the SA default?"
"SA default, please. I can always manufacture more parts." I replied instantly. While being a battlefield medic definitely meant I should probably focus more on parts, the issue with parts was simple: You didn't always have the correct ones.
"Understood. Hightower, I believe you can comm Ignatius for where you should wait. She's going to want to discuss things with you anyways considering the strategic asset in hand." Vestal stood up, waved her omnitool through the display and… caught it on it? That was some flagrant data-transfer bullshit right there, but Vestal grabbed the plans anyway. "Shinano, I'll set up some simple drones so you have plenty of angles. Then I'll be putting you under, and getting to work. You'll need a few hours after that to be spent on rest. And not sleeping with your Admiral. I know it usually fixes us up, but you'll be metaphysically unstable and that may just reset you back to base conditions, and you'll get to learn what having two sets of internals is like in the space of one. Otherwise." She sent me a file. "Fill this out while I get ready, it's basically just confirming you consent, that you're in your right state of mind, what's going to happen to you, with the fancy formal words that mean all the legal rights in the world and keep me from getting hit with three dozen different justified cases of medical abuse." She sounded a bit annoyed, which definitely meant that had happened to her before. Filling out the form in an objective second, I fired it back at her, massaging my head a bit to stave off the minor ache from overclocking myself like that. With all of that complete, Adam leaned over and squeezed my hand gently,
"I'll be there, Shinano." He promised. "Just not when you wake up."
I simply squeezed his hand back. His reassurance was honestly appreciated, given my… abandonment complex, because that was what losing all your friends every two years for the space of six different years did to a bitch.
Given I had already filled out the paperwork and fired it back at Vestal, I simply waited patiently as she left, the sea of engineers parting before her like the red sea before Moses.
It took a good twenty minutes before I was ushered into an operating room."Now, this is important, don't unrig." Vestal told me. Doing exactly that, I simply laid down on the operating table. "I need to work it over. Just lie down on the table, I'll stick you with sedatives, and it'll all feel like a minute passed." With all of the ethical shit out of the way, I felt the prick of a needle as the nostalgic feeling of my senses fading away rapidly filled me…
Shinano statline goes from:
Shinano-Class Strategic Support Carrier: 21 Ranged, 16 Turret, 24 Toughness, 22+ Shields, Excellent Quality, Very Slow Speed, Long Range. Battleship armor. Escort, Cruiser, Battleship effectiveness. Special Rules: Regeneration, Shielded-Eezo, Alpha, Carrier(1 Point), Resist-Destroyer, Repair, Construction, Consume.
To
Shinano-Class Strategic Support Carrier: 23 Ranged, 17+ Turret, 26 Toughness, 24 Shields, Excellent Quality, Very Slow Speed, Very Long Range. Battleship armor. Escort, Cruiser, Battleship effectiveness. Special Rules: Regeneration, Shielded-Eezo-Soul, Alpha, Carrier(3 Point), Resist-Destroyer, Repair, Construction, Consume, Aegis, Tractor-Short Range.
"You're taking on a grave responsibility, Admiral Hightower." Ignatius said, and the poor man stood straight anyway. "If something goes wrong with Shinano, I wouldn't be surprised if Yamato herself stuck her nose in, considering how touchy she can get when someone hurts her daughters. You have the room of most Admirals, but you're also bedding her sister. Are you certain you can live up to it?"
"No." He answered, still standing straight. "But, I think I can do a better shot than most, and if I can get support for her, then she'll be a damn good shipgirl and helpful to this war. I think without support she's got some underlying issues I can't fix on my own, ma'am, without a miracle beyond the pantheon in my favor, but I think she's slotted in well, she trusts me, and she's bonded strongly to Charon. I don't know where my path will lead, ma'am, but I'm willing to walk it and see how many mines I can stomp out underfoot."
She looked at her subordinate officer for a long, long time. A silent, long feeling of drifting.
Something appeared on the deck. A knife.
Both of them started, even though it was simply lying down.
"...Well, we know they're watching." She says, a moment later. "Yuu, you know not to surprise strangers."
The former submarine seems to phase into existence out of a shadow, more melting than appearing. Metal poured into a mold, with no heating or cooling needed. "I was here by coincidence." The Abyssal answered in a bland monotone. "I intended to converse with you. I still do."
"But about a different topic." Ignatius stated. "Alright. No dire warnings?"
"No dire warnings. Threats are pointless." Yuu agreed, still monotone. "We are watching. We are vigilant. Admiral Hightower. All we ask is the same of every other Admiral. You have affirmed this. My reason for appearing is to ensure this fact is known." She spread her hands, a show of the fact she's unarmed besides the knife on the table. "Do you have any questions?"
"Is the Pantheon willing to chip in a bit for this, or am I on my own?"
"If things are truly needful, we will be there. Otherwise, she is your responsibility until she makes the decision she is not. We will never compromise the decisions of a shipgirl unless the decisions made are themselves compromised." Which was a fancy way to say 'too many people think mind control is a valid fetish in real life', both humans in the room knew. "There is a further problem, however."
A crystal was fished out, and both of them read it in succession via omni-tool. Both pale. I could not make out the words, but the words of the High Priestess made my blood run cold.
"Bioweapons." Ignatius hissed. Yellow-blooded augmentations in Batarians that let them take a railgun shot through the chest and keep moving, thickly bulked muscles that should've killed them sustained anyways, until they died, and then the corpses would convulse and spit out creatures made of the chewed-up meat of everything around before assaulting their killers. Not the same species, not at all. Not any species known in the galaxy to any civilization. "They could turn cities into weapons with this. Entire civilian populations if it's transmissible. Goddesses, never mind the biospheres, where did they get this, it makes the Genophage look like a child's attempt at making E Coli reproduce. Yuu?"
The Reapers. It could only be them. It had to be them. But I could not speak, and no matter how I tried, I could not warn them. I could only observe; an ephemeral spirit in this dream.
"We don't know. This is… troublesome. We are currently invested in other actions due to hostile outside actors. We will attempt to lend help when available, but currently, we have a severe drought of time. "Fortunately, it seems unable to infect the uploads who encountered it. Unfortunately, an unarmed Batarian was able to viably remove limbs from fully armored platforms. It is… bad." A faint spark of emotion hit there, unusual for the little creature. "If I can spare the time, I will assist. I promise."
That settled the High Priestess in her chair. Whatever that meant, Yuu's word was clearly considered as immaculate as marble. "That would be much appreciated. We can handle the Batarians. This data, I'm not so sure on. The comparisons I can make are troubling. Hightower: Inform your fleet, I will transmit this to the other officers, but ensure they know to keep it on the down-low until we know it's more than stuck in laboratories. Prepare mass plasma usage and ensure a large stock of hydrogen flasks. I don't want to find out what this can do en masse. And, unfortunately, I'll be calling up scouring ships."
Whatever that means, Ignatius clearly likes it about as much as I like the idea of bioweapon-bombing civilian population centers. Given that they were called scouring ships, I could guess why.
Genocide on a massive scale…
"Ma'am, I know you're certain on that, so I won't ask why. But I will say that's going to look very bad in the public eye if it doesn't breakout obviously." Hightower pointed out, clearly not that afraid of his superior officer.
"I know, and bombing a garden world's biosphere to ash and cinders isn't something I especially want to have to authorize. But I will if I damn well have to, and the reproduction rates on this thing don't make me happy. I hope that it'll stay in the labs. But I'm not going to rely on the Hegemony deciding on a respectable defeat being better than killing their population for victory. It's possible, but…" She pinched her brow. "Yuu, you're really the bringer of bad news today, aren't you?"
"I'm sorry. But you would prefer this to me not telling you until it broke out. I was sent as soon as I was able. This was within 2 days of deployment to this region with those two days spent completely exterminating the laboratory that was working on the topic. They managed to wipe their databanks before I got to them. There is almost certainly more."
"We can hope you got it all. But…" The brow-pinch grew firmer. "Goddesses. I'll have to prioritize worlds with high populations rather than productive ones, given that if they let this into their slaves, I can't even-" She stopped herself. "But that is a problem for humanity. Not our gods."
"I hope so. We would like humanity to stand on their own as much as possible. But everyone is knocked down sometimes. And there is no shame in cooperation."
"Have you considered that it might be wiser to sic killteams on interrogating bioscientists, or is that the wrong thing to suggest here?" Hightower offered up. "See how many know anything. Were there prisoners?"
"I attempted to take a prisoner, and their augmentations consumed their entire body and turned into a monster. I killed it. It was not very difficult. But I am a shipgirl. It would be difficult for ordinary soldiers. I am annoyed that it was able to resist capture by me."
Ignatius reached over, and… rubbed Yuu's head?
And then she purred, of all the things. An outright legitimate purr. "It's fine, Yuu. Their fault. Alright, no prisoners? We can do that. Watchers know?" A nod. "Right, then I'll just keep this on the down-low unless it shows up. Preparing mass plasma won't be suspicious, though. Dismissed, Yuu."
The girl said nothing, but vanished utterly, just… there, to not there.
"...So, is she autistic?" Hightower asked.
"I am autistic." Yuu replied as I silently echoed her, the man let out an entirely undignified yelp from the voice on his shoulders. "I also have a sense of humor. Thank you for asking. I appreciate it." And then she vanished again.
'Deadpan humor appreciator detected. I must. Learn. More.' I gushed internally, because, yes, deadpan humor supremacy.
Then I was awake, Vestal looming over me with her hair tied up in a bun and net, cleaning blood from her fingers. "Alright, so, test one." She spread a hand out. "Finger count?"
"Five. Also, I need to speak with Admiral Hightower and High Priestess Ignatius immediately. I…" Pausing, I considered how to best phrase it, "... Kinda saw them talking about something I probably shouldn't have seen?"
Vestal went quiet. "...You know what, we really do need to put you through clearance checks if you're a seer, and I don't think anyone considered that. However, you are staying in that chair until your organs are more solid, because right now the reason you're not screaming in pain is that you have about 1.2% of your blood as sedatives. Give it at least fifteen minutes, or is it so urgent I need to break out emergency repair procedures?" She'd known me for all of one surgery and a conversation, and she was still taking me 100% seriously without a hint of doubt. That was… Nice. I liked it quite a lot, actually.
"I… Won't move then." I replied blandly, because also, how the fuck else was I supposed to respond to what she'd just said?! 1.2%? That was insane.
"Good. I'll release you as soon as I'm able, but right now you are a patient in my charge, so unless you can-" She smacked her face, then tapped the side of my head, creating a very odd feeling that I imagined was much like being the water in a glass. "Right, that'll push the comms array forwards, Iggy's the ship. Comm her, I have damn high clearance considering I've rooted around her insides more than most anyone else. You're still staying here until I think your organs have settled enough to walk." Then she walked over to a series of vials, and dropped a scalpel into one, then corked it, beginning the process of stowing surgical tools.
Blinking and doing my best to shake my head to fight off the drunkenness that usually accompanied my post anesthetic experience, I did exactly that, raising the High Priestess, "... Shinano to High Priestess Thunderblade. How copy?"
"I hear you, Shinano. Something happen in your surgery? Do I need to get down there personally?" the message was returned back to me by radio, which apparently was still in use even now. Made sense. No source of FTL comms, after all.
"... I saw your meeting with," I blanked on how to say what I meant without alerting Vestal, only to sigh, "Lady Yuu. While I was under. I wanted to make sure to inform you before I," Blinking, I fought off the world spinning briefly, "Am almost unaware and as close to drunk on anesthetics as one can be for the next few hours."
There is a moment of quiet. "I will be there when you are more stable. I'll tell your Admiral to move, too. Vestal, will you-"
"As long as she is my patient she will not leave my care and I will punch Enterprise in the face if she comes down to disagree with that." The repair ship answered.
"...I was going to say 'will you give me an estimated time for her recovery'."
Vestal blushed… black? A jet black flush crawled up her cheeks and neck. Huh, neat. Abyssals blushed black, good to know. "...Ah. Yes, about three hours thirty minutes, with a thirty minute variance either way. Apologies."
"Too many of my subordinates being over-excited puppies with swords." Ignatius dismissed. "Very well, Shinano. I'll see you then."
Given I had simply remained silent, my earlier clarity fading away like dust upon the wind, nothing more was said. I was vaguely aware of giggling occasionally at nothing in particular as Vestal gave a few tests to my systems. I was even vaguely aware of my various bits and bobs sloshing into place and sticking, as if I had swallowed a piece of gum and felt it drop into my stomach and stay there.
Though, before my entire body could be finished, Vestal cleared me to leave, and, because I was a responsible drunk… Apparently, I simply staggered out of the operating room and plopped my ass down in a corner where I wouldn't disturb anyone, curling up into a ball and going the fuck to sleep. I sure as fuck wasn't going to cause trouble by doing that! Not at all!
You see four wolves.
One wolf is STRENGTH. They are power. They are force. They are velocity and momentum and the kickswing that removes a head and the hand that shatters bone.
They are not reckless strength. They are not heedless fury. They are not uncontrolled power.
One wolf is CUNNING. They are genius. They are exceptional ideas. They are creativity and variety and new things. They are the word that shatters the mind and the villain brought to suicide by words.
They are not torture. They are not torment. They are not unsleeving the soul and replacing it.
One wolf is PATIENT. They are the waiting sniper. They are the ambush readied. They are the precise shot. They are a platoon exposed for a single building's move dying of headshots and never realizing where it came from, and the knife placed perfectly in the place to leave you bubbling your breath out your throat.
They are not mindlessly servile. They are not thoughtlessly obedient. They are not unable to operate without other wolves.
One wolf is LEADERSHIP. They are the one who coordinates the others. They are the leader of the pack. They are the prime hunter, none of the greatest abilities of the rest but a portion of the power of each of them.
They are not posturing dominance games. They are not insistent authority unproven. They are not a fool who toys with their subordinates for fun.
The four wolves are a pack.
But like all wolves end up as, a human being brought them to heel.
Now they are loyal hounds, and none could ask for better.
I came out of my slumber with an amused huff, blinking bleary eyes and beholding the sight that greeted me.
Oh. That was Adam. Leaning over me. "Another vision? This one didn't seem too bad." Taking his outstretched hand, I grunted as he helped me to my feet.
I paid no mind to the High Priestess standing behind him. If she was content to let my Admiral handle his shipgirl, that wasn't my problem.
"No. That one wasn't. Nor was the one I had while I was under." I replied softly, eyes crinkled with joy, "I'm no longer drunk off of painkillers as well, so that's definitely wonderful."
Words could not describe how much I loathed being under the influence of substances. Alcohol was the only exception, and only to a very limited degree of tipsy, not drunk.
"Good. So, I'm afraid we need to move to a secure room. Ignatius?" He said, very politely, and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. I didn't need the help, but I wasn't going to say no. It wasn't like sleeping on the goddam floor was conducive to not having my legs fall asleep, after all. As we arrived at our destination, I noted it was largely a boring conference room; one that wasn't actually that boring because the walls were actually covered in fucking warding schema.
"So." The High Priestess began, as I took my seat. "I'm told you saw my meeting with Yuu. Congratulations, you now know more about her than the entirety of the Special Tasks Group. What, in full, did you see?"
"The entire conversation starting from when you told Hightower, and I quote, 'You're taking on a grave responsibility..' ma'am." I replied professionally with furrowed brows, "Up until Yuu left for the second time."
"Great." She did that brow-pinch thing again. "So, you know you were going to be told about the bioweapon. I'm… not pleased some of the things I intended to keep on the down-low are now known about. Most of those are very much the kind of emergency procedure that exists in case of big problems, rather than something I want to use. Drawing from forbidden weapons, in essence. Unfortunately, given rates suggest preparing them for use is important. Shinano. Can you keep your mouth shut about this, until at least we find more than one laboratory with incredibly worrying data?" She looked me directly in the eyes again, completely unafraid of my answer. Her bones made of steel in a more than literal sense.
"I can and will keep mum, ma'am. I understand that some of your choices are going to be unpopular, and frankly, I would like to briefly file a moral protest against the use of scouring, but it won't leak from me." I replied seriously, "On another note. For you, Lady Yuu, and Admiral Hightower. Investigate the so called Leviathan of Dis. I believe that it may be linked to this… bioweapon."
"I intend to have the ships prepared, I do not intend to use them unless there's outbreaks beyond the ability of forces to control, but your objection is noted, and frankly agreed with. They existed in the case of things like gray-goo plagues, and this has similar potential to spread if it is in fact infectious." Ignatius explained. "And… the Leviathan of Dis?" She paused. "Recorded down, that may be the most actionable intelligence we have. The good news is that it's an inert hulk, so if they found some ancient Prothean technology on biowarfare, it should be destructible." She patted the table fondly, which was confusing until I remembered she was the ship. "And not slowly. Goddesses know that the Asari are flagrant examples of what they can make when they want something peaceful. A war-weapon from them would be a nightmare."
While she had missed part of my hint, that was, in fact, a worthy start, "Just be careful of the Leviathan," I continued, "I… Am not entirely sure it's as safe as the Hegemony claims."
"I fully expect some kind of ancient Prothean nonsense." She agreed.
And then she swung an arm, and a sea of stars appeared in the air, conjured in a sudden storm of lightning that left not a blast mark.
Right.
The church of being a chuuni and then living up to it.
"We are currently five systems from the Dis system, due to its distance from the edge of our insertion point." Ignatius began. "Of these, two are border systems, functionally irrelevant to anything, and populated with less than a million lives, primarily existing so the Hegemony can wave its cock around. One system is a moderately important ship production system by the name of Nostro, which is estimated to be defended by one capital-class defensive station, aging, but functional enough. Maintenance is suspect, but cannot be confirmed so operations will continue to assume it works. Best to bring too much than too little. The problem are the last two."
She drew a line to the Dis system in purpled bolts, the fourth and fifth systems highlighted in this sudden constellation of combat-planning. "System four is a core world for their mining and processing by the name of Javik, due to an immense amount of rich ores that are easily accessible. As such, its defenses compose of a thick satellite network, a major discharge station, and four capital-class stations, while two dozen cruiser-class stations are there, and no intel suggests the upkeep there is poorly done. Capture of this planet will be very useful for the war effort, but also, it is a barren and airless world where slave rebellion is prevented by large air-domes, resulting in any rebellion simply being choked to death. And it has a lot of slaves. As such, a lot of it will be urban fighting but worse for my forces, and the orbitals are strong indeed. Worse, the Batarians are, unfortunately, not stupid enough that they think we care as much about slave lives as they do, and will absolutely use the air controls to hold them hostage. Solutions are… thin on the ground. Extant, but thin on the ground."
A final system is highlighted. "And then there is the Dis system. Officially, it's barely got an outpost at all. Officially. I was, frankly, going to ignore it. It has less than ten thousand lives in it and absolutely no strategic value whatsoever. At most it could be a fuel mine. However. With what you just told me, it has gone from being strategically insignificant to strategically crucial. Whatever this is, I refuse to ignore it when a seer has genuinely clear information. However, we are going blind here beyond it being related to a dangerous bioweapon. And while we could be lucky and this is 'just' a security through obscurity situation, the Pantheon has reported they have discovered a battlestation from previous eras both still in operation and also capable of engaging capital ships successfully despite degradation. Operating on the assumption that this cannot be native, this means we should assume at least some defenses on the Leviathan of Dis are active."
I was definitely beginning to wonder quite how much of the Codex's lines on "Yeah, she's only good for one star system." were complete fucking horseshit and an intentional understatement of her capabilities. Left unsaid was how much of that data I should talk about outside this room.
"I can absolutely justify a rapid strike on Nostro, due to its relatively light defenses, especially with the support of a massive repair ship." She nodded towards me, then continued on. "Nobody will think I'm making an odd choice there. The issue is that Javik is going to be an absolute bear, it's too far to dive on without risking drive-discharge failure, and without it, you can't get to Dis practically. So, unless our newest fleet addition has a way to make FTL cores not build up static, we'll need to engage a place where if we make a slipup, a lot of people whose only crime was being enslaved will die for it. And, more pertinently, if the bioweapon is able to be produced outside of laboratory conditions, that's a lot of people who they can spin up into mindless killing machines. Which, miserably, would make the 'choice' easier, just bombard them to dust and move on. But the pantheon is clear: All you rule from that kind of choice is ash and dust, so if you go for complete extermination, be damn well sure it's the last course you have left. I wanted to avoid it, frankly, and go for the manufacturing worlds so that it becomes devalued. That way they'd ship out forces and blitzing Javik would enable air controls to be as rapidly taken as possible. And justifying that to the rest of the fleet cannot just go on my say-so."
She stopped there. "Well. It could. But then I would lose a lot of respect from my subordinates for going off on targets in a genuinely poor way that will get a lot of people killed who damn well don't deserve it. Going around Javik is… more doable, but slower."
Hightower looks slightly stunned by this, and a bit awed, but he does speak. "Ma'am, would a discharge station at Nostro be viable, and what are the estimated statistics on the capital-class defense station and defenses overall? I think I have a suggestion."
She looks at the lower-ranking leader. "...To get to Dis?" A nod. "Likely, but there's not one there."
"Ma'am, we have a mobile shipyard."
Both of them turned to look at me.
"Shinano. Do you think you can assemble a discharge station rated for capital ships?" Ignatius asks. "Because that would allow us to skip Javik, and only assault Nostro, which I can much more easily explain as removing some Batarian shipyards and claiming them for our own repairs. And then I can justify a force hitting Dis on intel received from special operations of the darkest black. But that hinges on if you can allow that to happen."
Oh boy.
Responsibility.
In a galactic war at that.
Referencing the blueprints of a Capital Class discharge station, I winced. That was… a lot of material. On top of a lot of time. It wouldn't be easy…
But…
"... Give me five days with frequent resupplies, and I can probably get it done. Six days if I don't completely and utterly monofocus on it." I replied with furrowed brows, a frown dusting my face as I began mentally calculating the most optimal schedule, "If I had help from another repair vessel, that number would go down, potentially all the way down to three to four days, since I'd not have to bear that burden completely alone."
"I can't lend you Vestal until my new body's replicable, she's on here partially to study it and assist in learning operations. I can, however, offer you a shipgirl who's… somewhat vulnerable." Ignatius turned, fixing her gaze on my Admiral. "SAS Citrine, whose previous Admiral she was in a steady and reliable relationship, but was assisting in attacking a Mad Scientist whose project was attempting to induce a constant Krogan blood-rage like effect in other species, and had succeeded in doing that but not making it infectious. He was lost in the ensuing fighting, but Citrine successfully killed the one responsible and destroyed the project. She is currently somewhat grieving, but able to operate, and personally, I consider that a distraction from mourning would be good for her mental health. She's currently deployed in the fleet, but asking her to come along should be very easy. She's got no Admiral currently."
Referencing my blueprints, I hummed in satisfaction. The Citrine-class repair cruisers were a slightly outdated design in the sense that it focused heavily on point defense for their displacement and sacrificed direct firepower, but had excellent onboard facilities for repair work. Citrine herself was noted for her specialization in escorts, after managing to take six escorts from 'floating hulk' to 'fully functional' in the space of twelve hours. Given that she was also a shipgirl, she would be enough to cut down the time to three to four days.
"I'm willing to attempt it, assuming Shinano has no objections?" Adam answered his superior officer.
"I have none. I can empathize and sympathize with the poor girl. I lost everything I knew and loved fairly recently, after all." I replied with a hum, a pang of loss rushing through me. It was fading with time, but was still present, and it would likely be a scar I would carry for the rest of my existence.
The High Priestess became dramatically less imposing in a moment upon hearing that, body language shifting and position adjusting, as well as the feeling of her being mighty. "...Ah, yes. I should have considered that. My apologies." She inclined her head softly. "I'm a bit rattled by the bioweapon. Still, there's also mobile forces to consider, besides a capital-weight station at Nostro. Intelligence is not perfect, but there's not expected to be hostile capital ships besides that, and the estimates range from two dozen to forty cruisers, and a hundred to two hundred escorts. Considering our current ship performance, I'll be seconding you to a larger force than you currently have, Hightower. Admiral Iacon in the Mars-class capital ship Kirishima will be in charge of the operation."
"No further questions from me, ma'am."
"No further questions from me, ma'am." I replied as well.
"Dismissed. Your more formal orders will come in a few hours as I discuss details with the rest of strategic command." The room's door opened, and without any fanfare, the High Priestess departed.
Adam let out a breath. "Well, didn't expect that today. I think the best option is to go and either talk with a metaphysicist about you, Shinano, or see the therapist. I picked out one I think will work, but." A small, conciliatory hand gesture was made, directed towards me. He was giving me a choice in the matter, I appreciated that. "Citrine tomorrow. It'll take time to restructure things, of that I'm sure." You'll be doing both, but the order is your decision."
"I'll head over to the metaphysicist Admiral. I don't have the energy to do a session one with a therapist today." I replied with a smile, "You're welcome to stick along, but I doubt you have the time now." Pausing, I considered something, "Ah, Admiral? Please make sure to send me the intelligence reports later. I'll be tailoring my fighter compliment over the course of the following days and during FTL."
"Not a trouble, Shinano, just remember to leave wiggle room, given it is intel. Otherwise, you're entirely right, I am going to be busy integrating into a large command structure, though you're still under my command." He stood up and hugged me, a gesture I happily returned. "Try to not spend too much time with the nerds, or you'll lose all night." He teased, leaving a parting kiss on my neck. The jerk. He knew I couldn't actually do anything with the feelings that had caused right now!
"I'll be up for a while longer anyway, Admiral. I had a nap recently enough that I have the energy." I grumbled, waving goodbye as he exited the room. Left to my own devices, I, once again, sighed. Right. Now to go visit the metaphysicist.
There's a lot of things I could have imagined a metaphysicist to look like.
An actual, factual wizard's robe, gnarled metal staff with a knob on the end, and pointy hat with stars and moons on it standing before me when I'd entered their research area was practically incongruous with the mechanical body below the outfit, especially with the silver scythe symbol on the platform's shoulder.
Otherwise, they're surprisingly a fairly normal looking human being, well cared for by any organic standard, but that's rapidly becoming normalized. Seems like personal care matters in this era. "Ah, you're the fluzz?" He asked, peering at me exaggeratedly as he walked over, all the others in the room in smaller, less dressed platforms.
All of them, however, had pointy hats. Some were black, some were stars and moons, but they were all absolutely classical pointy hats.
"Researcher Alorn, very unfortunate name these days, pleased to meet you, having vision troubles?" He greeted, clearly intending to get down to business immediately. Not that I minded.
Bowing deeply, as was the Eastern Traditions by which I had been raised, I greeted the man, "Shinano, Alorn-sensei, a pleasure to meet you." Coming up out of my bow, I tilted my head to the side, "I assume you wish to get down to business?"
The bow was returned. "Of course! Seers are usually either extremely exceptional or Asari, and as such working on one is more than interesting! Quickly, quickly, follow me, your visions have a few constant metaphors-yes I'm cleared before you ask- and I've got some theories to round them out as well." He shuffled by two people arguing about why faeries were weak to bread as well as iron and one of them holding what I swore looked like a fission reactor's control rod, and another group discussing something about "theoretical black hole extraction behaviors and requirements", as well as dozens of other topics. I was led to a side area again, and he sat down on a chair, bringing up a hardlight display of the text of my visions exactly as I'd written them down. "So the first one you had is the most interesting, do you know of the planet Torfan?"
I froze. "Yes. That's what the vision was referencing?"
"Indeed!" He answers cheerfully, bringing up an image of a woman-
That was a lot of goddam fucking blood and guts. Jesus goddam Christ Shepard, did you have absolutely no chill in this universe? Then again, slaving scum.
Alorn seemed to not mind at all. "This lady, a Jane Shepard, has earned a little title after physically bull-rushing through an entire Batarian platoon before they could purge a slave quarter full of Quarians by venting their living space! They decided to call her "The Butcher of Torfan", and considering there were four eyes involved, I am inclined to think you saw her rather nice deed. Needed to be cleaned off afterwards, but she judged that being absolutely covered in gore was preferential to innocent deaths. It wasn't strictly majorly noticeable save for that apparently one of them is mildly high ranking, which might make the Quarians stop insisting humanity is a bunch of murderous robots who killed off their creators and replaced them when we return them home."
He rolled his eyes, clearly considering that accusation to have about as much weight as a ship in FTL.
"Regardless, that she was the subject of a vision is very interesting, and it lines up with the rest of the metaphors, except for the maw. Did you have any speculation about that bit, of the cleaver and the heart? I do, but I'd like to hear yours."
"... I don't, really. What little I guessed about it was included in my notes." I replied, shaking my head, "To be honest, I'm not exactly the best at interpreting visions."
"Hah, fair enough! It's a rare skill, Goddesses know that the biggest experts are the Asari and they quite understandably keep it close to their chests! My theory in the maw is that as it's warded off by the heart, instead of the blade, it's a threat that isn't strictly physical. Something that's about who you are, rather than your ability to turn people into meat jam for sandwiches. Otherwise, arguing the Quarians are literally heartless is both biologically stupid, and ignores their close-knit personal ties in their fleet. Something about this lady is destined to deal with some kind of moral or supernatural issue, though figuring out what is unknown. This has, however, meant that she's likely to have a few squads of black ops shadowing her, just in case. Any questions, or are we moving to prodding the next vision, the one about… that sword." He stilled a bit just saying that.
Ah. Yeah, that would do it. The Geth and the Quarians. Priority: Rannoch. That tracked, and I felt a bit stupid for not considering it earlier. Shaking my head to indicate I didn't have any questions, I nodded towards Alorn, "No questions, please, continue. I'm learning a lot."
"Very well! Obviously, you saw That Sword, which is suspected to be how it is so… singular, and has a habit of being completely itself. It is difficult to explain how it works, partially as all studies are passed down from the Pantheon, and they refuse to allow it to be studied on the grounds of safety, giving some… quite extensive warnings on why it's so accursedly dangerous. Scientifically, unfortunate! Practically, I admit, I like being able to articulate thoughts that aren't an endless desire to kill everything, it's very nice. Which means, given who's holding it, that is obviously Tenryuu, as the vision matches up to none of her Old War records. This is also likely why you woke up with silver dust, it attempted to kill you and failed." He brought up an image of a sword that was… well, almost plain, frankly.
Disturbing, considering how much of an anathema it was, but I suppose there was a deceptive beauty to False Hope.
Image not present
"Now, the goddess fighting something is obvious, and we passed it up to her via prayer. We've gotten an answer back, as well, she put it at high priority considering she hates it more than most do." He coughed, which was an affection, given he was a robot. "In her view, she is currently engaging a classified enemy manipulating others, and thanks you for warning that the hooks it has are galactic in nature, as your vision mentioned all major species. She hopes that the vision will come true, and that you will be nice to her sister. She had thought that it was merely manipulating one group, not everyone, and the methods it used being known are highly valuable for counter-intelligence work."
I was beginning to see why this guy was the nerd supreme onboard the ship of one of the highesting ranking members of the Systems Alliance, considering he had just… Holy shit, his ability to look at patterns and take apart puzzles was as amazing as it was humbling. I wanted that. I wanted that so much.
But it also was something I was not going to ever be particularly good at. It was too alien to my particular neurosis to be something I would ever accomplish to the level this guy had. Thankfully, I had long since made peace with the fact there were things I would be good at, and things I would be bad at, so meh.
"Do you have any insight into any of my other visions, sensei?" I asked, because I definitely wanted the DATA.
"Well, I can tell you right now that no priestess on roster for Enterprise has the level of inability to fight that vision described, and that she's Enterprise is obvious considering her making machinery work for her. I haven't the faintest who it could be as a metaphor, save maybe the Old War to modern day described apocryphal, helpless humanity becoming something rather less helpless." He tapped his staff, grinning widely. Probably was NOT just a funny metal stick, then. "The problem is the fortress doesn't line up with anything, and it doesn't fit into any other ideas. That one is genuinely baffling. Absolutely no data perfectly fits it, but sometimes that just happens. We'll continue to chew on it."
"I appreciate it. I have no idea what was going on there." I replied, relief etched across my face, "And the other visions? I know I sent the one about the wolves out…"
"Oh! That one I haven't reviewed yet, it was just a few hours ago, give me a bit to bring it up." He closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again, signaling he was done. "Okay, so that one is very, very odd. I don't know any squads it refers to, that'd be a very long databank check, but it's clearly referring to some group that went through a change. See how it goes on about point and counterpoint, how they all embody something and don't embody other, related things? Then it talks about how someone brought the wolves to heel, and they became good and loyal hounds? Character change and development in some form happened. It could be a metaphor for something grander, of course, but I'm most interested in if the human is a metaphor for humanity, or a specific person who's distant. Could also be aspects of someone who overcame their own personal trial, and the wolves are the human, too. An unfortunate lack of context and time to review, but it is definitely about some kind of personalized overcoming. Anyone you know who's got the negative traits there, maybe? Or anyone you've heard of?" He sounded hopeful, like I'd potentially be able to give him some hints to go on. Tangentially, he was one of the few people who had not even spared my body a glance at all, far to engrossed in the visions I had given him to chew on to care about fat fucking fox tits. Based, quite honestly.
"Sadly, I don't know anyone that would fit those descriptions." I answered with a shake of my head, "I'll keep an eye out, though." As if a lightbulb had gone off, I hummed in consideration, "It's possible it's referring to the fleet I joined. Hightower, Charon, Tatsua, and Ulna, but I very much doubt it. None of the metaphors truly fit all that well."
"Agreed, the closest is the leading wolf to Hightower, but dominance games? Unless my admittedly secondary reports are very wrong, that's entirely unlike him. And the rest… none of your allies suggest sheer, overwhelming power. If anything, you're sheer overwhelming power considering you're the macrocapital, and you certainly don't suggest reckless and uncontrolled power. Unless I am thoroughly misjudging you?" Odd how he didn't sound worried, just excited to work with a puzzle. Particularly brave of him, especially considering I did actually have a well hidden temper, but he didn't exactly know that. Nor could I particularly blame him for being fixated on his interests.
With a smile, I shook my head, "While I do have a temper, it's one I've shackled and chained, and one I largely have it under control. I don't believe any of the wolves refer to me."
"Then they don't fit that category. Obnoxious little vision, let's see, what's next… Ah, we're done then. Alright then, I'd like you to wear something next time you sleep." He reached into his… own… chest… and fished out what looked to be a metal net. "Right, had this on me! Hooray for memory! So, next time you sleep, please, put this on, it should result in getting some good readings for what exactly is going on by reading your neural processing of the information. If I get nothing, that means it's a completely soul-based effect, which is likely, but this will allow me to rule out several methods of precognition, which should help with refining your visions technologically! Are there any issues with that, or?" He held out the gossamer metal web to me, looking all bright-eyed and hopeful.
"No issues. I'll make sure to wear it before I sleep tonight." I replied with a chirp, accepting the contraption with a smile, "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"
"Nothing especially until you sleep again. I'll need the information, or lack thereof, but ultimately there's nothing else I have to bring up. Been looking up symbolism of what you look like, and it is a mess, I swear the world-that-was made up tall tales and didn't care about consistency, considering we know kitsune existed, but the pantheon's data is thin on the ground and as such we resort to myth. At least we know that Inari was one of them!" He rambled on cheerfully. "Lots of interesting data when you have two people who were there. Regardless. Your cooperation is appreciated and so are your puzzles. I'd put you through Qlippoth training, but I'm not that rustcored to not notice you're looking exhausted. May I suggest you go slumber soon?" Totally not because he was visibly excited.
With an agreeable nod, I decided that I mind as well get some sleep after I began working on my general fighter complement upgrades and began walking towards the shuttlebay to return to Venus.
Of course, because my luck was just like that, I was interrupted in the corridors, specifically by a small albino staring at me with a black box about the size of one of my tits. She'd evidently been waiting for a while, and was staring at me without blinking.
Politely, I asked her a question, "Can I help you, ma'am?"
"Yes." She said, and I immediately knew it was the same voice I had heard in my visions. Yuu. "I have a useful gift based on common preferences." Yuu gently pushed the box towards me, a fairly obvious hinge present where I could open it.
Doing exactly that, I noted the various syringes in a rainbow of colors, and a tiny paper book about the size of my hand… which may not really mean all that much, considering I was seven feet tall now.
"Some are useful. Some are fun." They recited, still staring at me. "Labeling is color-coded for clarity. One is intended to, hopefully, give you sleep without vision. The blue ones."
"Thank you, Lady Yuu. It is greatly appreciated." I replied softly, bowing deeply, "I should inform you, in case the High Priestess has not; I witnessed your discussion with her."
"I was informed. It is… mildly vexing, but outside of your control. Your sister was mildly unhappy to learn that you were unable to choose if you had visions or not. It is not a decision she thought should be made for you via biological necessity. Do you have further questions on this topic?" She asked, crossing her arms behind her back like she was standing at attention.
"Do you believe I could meet Yamato-neesan anytime soon, Lady Yuu?" I asked, because it didn't hurt to ask, and I did actually want to see what my sister was like here, "With a similar question to Musashi-neesan, if she's also around."
"Musashi is unlikely due to her not being summoned currently. Yamato is… possible, but still unlikely." The little creature stated, rocking back and forth in place slightly for stimulation. Mood, fellow autist. Mood. "Her issue is simply that you are not sufficiently unhappy or discontent to merit major intervention, and your issues are able to be solved by humans. So she is very disinclined to intervene if she has no spare time. There is a war on." The last line is stated like it explains everything. Which, mind, made sense. "However, if you wish to put in a request, she will likely do her best when she has some. Would you like to put in a request?"
Nodding, I fiddled nervously with my hair, "Yes, please. I would like to meet and get to know my sister."
Yuu smiled. One that I could tell on the spot was genuine. "This is good. She wished to see you, but did not wish to put pressure on you. We will do our best to ensure it relatively soon. How much is… variable. But she was intensely interested and stated she would have come immediately if she was not busy at the front lines of other problems." She was definitely being evasive, but frankly, it wasn't my business, and I wasn't going to try and pry some answer out of a submarine spook. In that direction lied madness.
"Thank you, Lady Yuu." I replied with a bow, rising with an honest smile of my own, "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss or speak of?"
"Yes." Reaching into her bodysuit, Yuu fished out a small, pink gem about the size of a fingernail, handing it to me, "If you wish to converse further, please destroy this and it will provide a temporary link to the Admiral of the Abyss, who can redirect you to others. I suggest you call him a phone operator."
"I'll make sure to do that." I giggled, because I knew a prank when I saw one, "I'll make sure not to waste this. Just to confirm, however," My expression turned severe, "This is for use in emergencies, correct?"
"This is correct. This is not expensive, but it is mildly obnoxious to produce. This is primarily due to this being technically blood magic." She stopped herself. "...Clarification." She held one hand up before I could say anything. "Blood given. Not harmful, not taken. And not your blood. My husband's. Do not worry. He regenerates. We would be… unhappy, if he engaged in self-harm that stuck."
Somehow, I suspected that 'unhappy' was a very British form of understatement.
"I understand." I replied, because I did. I would be… unhappy, if my partners hurt themselves, and was most certainly unhappy at the thought of them doing so when I was gone.
"Very well. I hope I will not need to show up again." She bowed to me, this time, and then faded away into a pool of shadows, vanishing fully into gods only knew where.
Then, finally, I made my way back to Venus, sighing as I set myself up for an hour of dismantling and replacing my strike complement with a much more modern variant than I'd possessed earlier…
You see a city. It is a brilliant and shining place, though you cannot make out details, but from it emits a feeling of peace and hope. A city of dreams where right action draws right result, where any citizen who is err is merely mistaken instead of malevolent, and may be brought along the proper path.
The city is under siege. The sky is the color of blood. One great black eye floats in the sky, staring down without a pupil, at you. You are not yourself. You are fire, who burns those who dare to fail to care.
You cannot lead, and the leader is not here. You can only inspire by your one method.
Blood rains from the sky. The blood is the enemy. It becomes ghosts. It becomes machines. The citizens are scared, because the blood is so thick and so everywhere, and their scrabbled responses have no leader, frantically looking for safety.
You cannot rally them.
Your hand drops a shotgun, a double-barreled one, and undoes a belt of shells around your waist, that too hitting the ground. It is a weapon.
It is not your weapon.
You feel yourself move. It is euphoria mixed with grim resignation and bitterness, an old task to do in a place that should've never had it. It is the sprinter's high mixed with a need to sprint as fast as you can without rest or respect. Nobody will praise you for this.
Nobody ever should, either.
In your hands there is violence, and violence flies forth from your hands, dealt out, again and again. Storm clouds gather, and the blood rain slows, replaced with mere droplets of fluid.
You cannot stop this. You are not the right person to stop this.
But you can fight and buy time so that others can stop this.
A sound like ripping steel echoes from your throat, a battle-cry of barbarism set to the defense of civilization. It is challenge and fury, calling for the sky to come down and face you.
The sky falls.
You hold it up.
Because right now, nobody else can. And you will buy them as much time as they need.
Feeling the same grim determination from the vision, I awoke, shaking off the residual emotion that had come from briefly being the individual I had been seeing through the eyes of. Perhaps they were a version of myself? I couldn't truly tell, and with a sigh, I compiled my preliminary notes and fired them off to the relevant people, this time including Alorn in the recipients. Yawning as I rolled out of bed, I went to check my messages, mostly to see if I had my marching orders yet or if I had time to accomplish my other tasks before pausing. Blinking, I shook my head. Right. Before all of that, I needed to take the metal net off and stow it.
Doing exactly that, I peered at my omnitool.
Floyd had immediately responded, requesting that I visit him in the same torpedo hold… "soon". Alorn had sent me an entire fucking essay on his eagerness to look up the historical connotations of a rain of blood along with the DATA I had provided him by wearing the hairnet, and Adam instead had sent me a schedule that left most of my day open, with my only obligation a checkup with Vestal and to give the fleet a general look over to familiarize myself with the composition. He'd also informed me that he and Charon were going to be visiting Citrine, and that I was invited to attend.
Replying noncommittally to all of the messages, I sent out another message to Tatsuta, inquiring if she was available for some more training in her… unique method of movement.
I had fully expected the negative reply, but was gladdened to know that there was a potential for some practice tomorrow. I did take the chastizement she'd attached with grace, given, well. She was essentially giving me a verbal tap on the nose for forgetting that I was a repair ship and she wasn't, and thus needed more time to understand the damn blueprints of her allies she'd be working in tandem with.
With all that accomplished, I checked my chrono, noting that I had a bit before I had to see Vestal. Firing off a message to Floyd, I made my way to the torpedo room, leaning against the wall should he not be present and closing my eyes. I had upgrades to continue doing, after all.
Unfortunately, he came in about a minute after I had really started to get into things, interrupting my fugue before I could even begin. Without preamble, he began, sitting on the same damn torp. "A vision from the first person is something we have more familiarity." He started, without preamble. "That usually means something personal. Given you're heading into the lion's den, thanks to the pantheon's little representative and her orders, could you tell what color the blood was?"
"An unnatural, vibrant crimson red." I replied instantly.
"Pity, if it was yellow, it'd be telling you that something's up in Dis. Good news is, we're fairly sure that Dis isn't that heavily defended. Bad news, multiple Collector warships have been sniffing around the nearby systems, and they're their usual enigmatic selves. Worse news, there's a hostile capital shipgirl waiting at Nostro in full repair, the Honton. And she's specialized in long-range firepower." He laid out clearly, "Your Admiral and the High Priestess-" He definitely sounded unhappy to say her title. "-have been informed, but I wanted to check on the vision in person, considering I just lost a squad in Dis, cores irrecoverable." Or, in other terms: Dead as dead can be.
Though he didn't say it, he was definitely hoping my vision was related to his people. My respect for the spook went up marginally. He was losing points somewhat for clearly not respecting the current political system openly, but definitely gained several more for actually caring about his men.
"You might want to be a bit more respectful to the High Priestess where others have a chance of hearing you," I commented instead of providing any other answer, "There are benefits to working within the system for the goals you actually aim to achieve, and after having looked at some of the… political adverts you and yours push, you need the good PR." I shook my head, grumbling something unkind under my breath, "What is it with political opposition movements to the norm and not at all understanding the concept of hearts and minds?"
"If we were in public, I'd entirely agree and be much more polite on the topic." He agreed immediately. "We are not in public, and nobody is listening to us. So I feel I can be a little more open in my opinions on people who have power but not moral- Never mind, you're not here for a lecture." He dismissed the line of thought. "Honton is not an especially famous shipgirl, but she is a capital ship, so you'll have your work cut out for you, her Admiral's some fresh-faced four-eyes who got picked a few months ago, little skill. I'll try and dig up what I can, and hopefully assassinate him if I get the chance. You don't strike me as the type to complain about that." It was a leading statement, waiting for me to either draw myself deeper or pull myself out.
"I'm not going to complain about the assassination of an enemy admiral during wartime." I shrugged, because that essentially was my feeling on the matter, "War isn't nice, war isn't pretty, and unless I'm very much mistaken, war still operates on a principle of escalation." Sighing, I looked him in the eyes, "Going after a mission critical target is fine. But I draw the line on purely political assassinations within the Systems Alliance. If you ever give me a hint that the Watchers are performing those, I'll fucking storm your base myself."
"Heh." He shakes his head. "If only… But no, we may be fighting a losing war with only one ending, but we'll cling to what we are. Otherwise, the Abyss gets to prove itself right about us. And it's already got a bad, bad habit of doing that over and over again." He sounded very, very bitter about that. "Good that I won't have to break off contact, though, I was a little worried. Hopefully, the Collectors are just being their bottom-feeder selves again, picking at the edges of battles for whatever they want. Nobody's figured out what they want yet." He stood up. "I should go."
"Before you leave, a warning," I stood, placing my left hand on his shoulder, concealing an internal panic attack about the existence of collector ships for later, "The collectors. Be more weary of them. They are not what they seem to be."
"Don't we know it. Now only if we knew what they were." He agreed, walking out moments later.
Sighing, I stood up to leave myself, only to pause as I caught sight of the Ensign I'd given a good tonguelashing to… only a few days ago. Huh, the passage of time was a bitch, eh? Regardless, he was talking to another ensign, who was noticeably smug.
"Told you it'd get an update." He crowed, clearly rubbing it in. Not that I blamed him.
"Yeah, yeah, yuk it up, I was wrong, you were right, pantheon made it less black and white and more shades of punishment, update hit, can you stop rubbing it in?"
"You still owe me fifty credits." The ensign that wasn't a zealot nagged.
"Go to hell." The previously zealous ensign grumbled, already reaching into his 'pockets'.
"With fifty credits in my pocket." The other smirked, the smug energy radiating from him practically visible in an aura around the guy. As money changed hands, I smiled fondly.
Even in this strange place, petty betting was still common, it seemed.
Getting back to Ingatius was essentially just one boring shuttle ride, one boring walk, and Vestal waving at me with some visible annoyance on her face as she stood next to a container for… fucking Bose-Einstein Condensate, going by the labeling. Matter so goddamn cold it kinda just broke down into primordial, unmoving slop. The Citadel (because they hadn't been sitting in space with thumbs up their asses) had figured out how to manufacture it, but the actual practical use of such matter was relatively thin due to, well, being an absolute whore to keep in the state it was meant to be in, not a, for example, massive fuckhuge cloud of chlorine gas. "Give me ten minutes, Shinano, this damn spinal part is being obnoxious to figure out how it got managed." The blonde Abyssal complained, clearly frustrated to actually upset at the machinery near her.
"... Would you like some assistance, Vestal?" I offered, because fuck standing here fiddling my goddamn thumbs for ten minutes. Not nearly enough time to do any of the tinkering I'd been meaning to do with my shiny new drones.
"Sure, fine, get over here and tell me if you have any ideas for figuring out how this got fit into-" She sent me a blueprint for some kind of lasing array using the the BEC as a reaction mass, collapsing it into a specialized gamma-ray range burst through lenses that were made by using Eezo to focus the energies outwords. It's a graser, in other terms, as a spinal gun. Oh, and there was a great lump of that didn't look like it should damn well not fit in this tank, but either Vestal was terminally stupid (unlikely) or it had fit in there last time.
Referencing my manuals on BEC, I hummed, trying to figure out how to get all that shite into the container. The good news, of course, was the answer was standardized. The bad news was that it called for a massive tractor…
I palmed my face, grimaced, and looked to Vestal, "Give me a second and I'll have it compressed." Before doing exactly that, engaging my tractor arrays and compressing the bitch into a size usable for the jar.
It was mostly just obnoxious to accomplish, given the orangery beam of light that my tractors manifested meant that I felt like I was grabbing the worst kind of raw meat, all squishy and squirmy and shit, but it finally crushed down and fit into the tank. With the task done, I turned to Vestal, sighing and dusting my hands off on my kimono. "That felt disgusting."
"I see I'm going to need to refit myself later, and get this ship's own arrays to do this next time." She shook her head. "Of course Enterprise made it dual-use, if I dig I'll probably find a way to use the tractors internally too, knowing her. Thank you Shinano, now." She gestured, and a dozen platforms twice my height grab the tank and moved it away very carefully out a door to presumably the spinal. "Let me just give you a look over, sit down on a table, you look in good health."
Most of what followed amounted to a thirty minute long checkup of "Okay, does this bit spit out good diagnostics?" Followed by a "Yes" from my for about five of those minutes, and a twenty five minute long segment where she'd opened up my kimono, prodded me under my ribcage with something I didn't recognize to test my actual diagnostic systems, forcing them to report minor errors until she was satisfied that they actually worked. Moments later, I was given a clean bill of health, and waved goodbye to Vestal, shaking my head as I fired off a message to Adam,
"I'm available. Have you and Charon met Citrine yet?"
"No, we have not. Charon wanted some personal attention-" That was the "code" for 'Charon wanted to get railed', "-And Citrine is… well, she's not assigned to much right now. So she was fine with waiting to talk to a fellow repair ship. Your name's been getting around. Rumor continues to be the galaxy's first form of FTL communication." Even through pure text, I could see Adam grinning at his dumb joke, The dork.
"I'll go ahead and head over to meet her then." I replied with a roll of my eyes, hoping my snark would be evident in the following reply, "Try not to break the bed, yeah? We're going to need it soon enough, after all."
"Don't worry, you're a repair ship, you can fix it. Or we find a wall." He shamelessly returned. The dork. Why did I like him, again?
Oh right. He was nice. Also a nerd. Ticked all the boxes of my attraction he did.
Moving on!
Citrine wasn't on either Venus or Ignatius, but I did know she was on Zoozve, named after a quasi-moon of Venus. Because, of course, Adam continued to have a fetish for spreadsheets, I already have a timetable, because the absolute dork used his divine blessings for fucking paperwork.
I was honestly kinda jealous.
Shrugging aside the minor irritation, I debated between taking a shuttle to Zoozve, before deciding that it wasn't worth the wait, and made my way slowly but surely through the void to the ship in question.
She was another Venus class cruiser; also without a shipgirl manifested, and getting in was a simple matter of authorization and the guards letting me in. Granted, they could exactly stop me if I'd really wanted to get in, but procedure was procedure. She was in one of the few private rooms, even if I knew it wasn't entirely private with Adam and Charon there. The door was, of course, closed, so, because I wasn't some kind of fucking savage, I knocked.
"Citrine? It's Shinano. May I come in?"
Image not present
A faint, "come in" that didn't sound assertive at all echoed. Concerned, because Citrine sounded worried, I gently opened the door, blinking at the sight of Adam with an unfamiliar shipgirl that must be Citrine sitting on his lap. Putting aside her cybernetic appearance for later, I hummed. She definitely wasn't okay. It was time to deploy comfort. Walking towards her slowly so she could object if she needed to, I eventually sat down beside her when she did not, offering one of my tails,
"A fluffy tail in these trying times?" I offered gently, yet entirely serious. Grief, after all, was…
It sucked. Especially when one didn't have a very specific neurosis with death.
"Never held one." She answered, because she was definitely not in a state to give me an actual answer. Silently, from outside of Citrine's reach, Charon motioned for me to put it in Citrine's grasp anyway. There was no hint of the usual bubbly, playful girl. Only business.
I approved.
Acknowledging Charon's suggestion, I gently placed my tail on Citrine's lap, letting her do what she would with it as I spoke aloud, "It hurts, doesn't it? Knowing they're outside of your reach forever." For the first time since I'd arrived here, I let the rawness of my grief show, letting the tears fall as they may, "The people or person you loved, gone, in an instant." Pausing, I took a watery breath as I confronted the emotions I had refused to confront, "You ask yourself if there's anything you could have done to change things? Go through scenario after scenario, because the alternative is unthinkable." I smiled a smile of agony, a rictus of emotion that I hadn't let myself feel for a long time now, "It never quite goes away, that scar. Oh, you can heal it, move on from it, but suddenly, something will remind you of them for a moment and you're back there again at the same moment you lost them, if only for an instant."
Because, honestly, I didn't know how else to get her to confront her grief. I faced it the only way I have ever known how to. Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes. If I got to confront my own grief in the process, the more accomplished the better.
"All you can do is keep going." Adam agreed, his voice warmer than usual. "What is a terrible, terrible wound to a simple and normal platform, eventually becomes a mere scar on a Walker. It will never leave you, and you cannot wipe your memories away."
Citrine shook in his grasp, rigging audibly clanking and clanging. Considering my own had never given so much as a loud hiccup, it said much of her state. "I… I know that. And I wasn't even that close until I realized I was too late. And that'll never change now, thanks to that Krogan."
I probably shouldn't let Citrine around Krogan, going by that comment. Adam continued to hold her, though he also grabbed one of her hands and gently placed it on my offered tail. Thankfully, she began to slowly pet it, as he continued speaking, "Regret is the greatest poison. Did you follow any goddess?"
"Enterprise." She answered promptly, the answer so deep in her bones that grief couldn't tear it out.
"Then remember all things can be survived, and all that breaks can be fixed in time. And nobody who cared for you would want you to suffer." A tight beamed thumbs up for Adam gave me the opening I needed, and, with a soft smile, still wet with tears, I took it.
"I don't exactly worship any of the goddesses, Citrine." I began, my voice quiet, "A result of my unique circumstances, mostly, but it did give me some perspective and a chance to develop alternate beliefs." Pausing, I looked to the ceiling, a forlorn yet somehow joyful smile on my face, "I personally believe that people suffer from two deaths. The death of their body…" I nodded to her at that, "And their final death, when none are left to remember them, their works, or the person they were in life." With my piece almost completed, my azure eyes met Citrine's citrine eyes, "You can't change the past. But you can change the future. Remember him. It's what keeps me going when I feel like I can't move on."
… Gods above, I missed my partners…
But I couldn't stop moving forward and living my life. After all…
Who else would remember them when I was gone? Besides… They would want me to be happy, just like I wanted the same for them.
Sniffing, Citrine shook her head, before she hiccuped, a bit of gearing popping out of her mouth and onto my chest. Turning bright red, the shipgirl stammered, "I'm sorry I didn't-"
Charon snickered, seeing a chance to lighten the mood just a bit past grim grief. "Getting in gear, huh?" She interjected, a cheerful smile on her face.
A laugh. A wet, snotty, slightly crunchy laugh, but a laugh out of the grieving shipgirl all the same, "May Mortem Ferro Homines not take you." She answered, to another little snicker.
"Not goin' there a while yet." The escort answered,right back to her usual shamelessness, while shooting me a much more physical thumbs-up. "Sorry, but I got way too much to do! Now, girl, c'mon. We got pretty much the biggest offense in known space to basic morals, religious or not, sittin' right before us, and getting rid of 'em is gonna be a big help to a lotta people. So let's get to work on getting you signed up with boss and readied up, so we can all deal with this, go home to Sol, and chill. You ain't gonna change the future by sitting on your cute butt, no matter how damn cute your butt is!"
Somehow, the completely, utterly shameless flirting gets another messy giggle out of Citrine. "Do you have any shame?"
"I got a great butt, who'd have shame about bein' hot? Only reason boss's not poking yours is he's a robot."
Adam reached over and lightly flicked her on the forehead. "Charon, please." He said, no heat to it. "Citrine, we do have missions and work for you, and another repair ship."
The girl looks at you, eyes less wet with tears, and her mechanical hand comes up and rubs them. "So… uh… what are you good at repairing?" She tried lamely, which may be one of the more pathetic attempts at being friendly you've heard.
"Honestly? Nothing in particular. I'm a generalist," I explained, smiling honestly despite the lame attempt, "Also a hybrid Carrier, but I'm also a macrocapital, so…" I shrugged lamely, having run out of things to talk about and emotionally exhausted myself, "I've also only been around for about a week, Citrine. My Admiral will explain my… unique circumstances to you whenever you'd like, or I can explain them to you now, but I wasn't lying about anything I said."
"Suffice it to say that Shinano's got some special circumstances that means she'll understand loss too." Adam decided on. "Citrine, your speciality is?"
"Oh, rapid repairs of escort ships, it's something I just… get, you know?" She's started talking. "See, the main issue with repairing escorts is that most large ships when hulked end up as still having most of the internal structure intact and you have to deal with how it's often mangled and bent from kinetic force transfer. Now if you move to escorts, they're so small it's blown out so instead of tearing it out you need to shave off the ends and install a new structural support system despite how standard it is to tear it out! And once you've done that then you can do the rest because it'll all be built around that, like the endoskeleton of a platform defines the external armor plating. They're small enough that it's not a huge problem. It'd be a bad idea if Shinano got really hurt but I can tell what is and isn't an escort, it's obvious."
"Two obviouses." Charon says, and Citrine tries to laugh and hiccups again. This time, thankfully,I was not assaulted by bits of her body popping out.
I could also see her rigging starting to become less grimy. Wire sheathes replace themselves and wires visibly fold under secured areas, instead of loosely laid out everywhere. Finally, the paint was growing back, as if it had never been faded in the first place. Progress!
Adam placed his hand on her head, and it shines gold, before he drew out some kind of shining crystal filled with a deep orange light. "And that should keep your cooling going." He said, lightly placing it on the bed. "Charon, dispose of that later." He ordered. "Citrine, do you think you can work on strikecraft?"
"...Probably, yeah?"
"Shinano, would you like some extra help with your drones?"
"Yes. Absolutely. Gimme." I snarked in a complete deadpan, holding my expression for exactly two seconds before I broke down into giggles, "Yes, I would love the help. I've hit a wall with properly retrofitting them into the role I want them to play, and I'm trying to figure out a method of converting some of the designs I have access to into some sort of mobile repair drone. I've considered taking the standard Systems Alliance shuttle design and filling it with omni-gel, but it doesn't seem like the correct way to go about that."
"Oh, remote omnigel application?" Citrine visibly perked up, and the distraction worked like a charm. "I've tried something like implanting omnigel pockets in my skin but it ended up like gigantic wet, gooey clusters of ick half the time from the auto-implementing failing, and all over the place. Do you have any ideas to fix the issue of implementing it once it's delivered, because a lot of long-ranged repairs would be good given you're very big-" She paused. "Erm." Again. Blushing. Awkward. Worried. "...In a good way?"
She was fiddling with my tail now instead of patting it, like she could draw blueprints in the hairs.
Cute.
Shaking aside the familiar feeling of finding a nerd cute, I smiled and responded kindly, "I am very tall, yes." Pausing to snicker a bit to lighten the blow, I continued, "I haven't, honestly. I'm thinking maybe if we add some sort of nanomachine to the gel to accept commands when injected on what to do and repair, it might work, but would definitely be on the more expensive end."
"Well, droneplanes like carrier girls do have onboard VI already, could you do anything with that and maybe remodeling how omnitool flashforging works?" She suggested. "I don't know if it's plausible but I do know that I don't have any planes at all. Pulling from how ground-based engineers can deploy turrets and have them aim?"
It wasn't a bad idea, even if it does mean the VI will need to have an extensive list of premade programs, I could tell that without even trying. But it was more progress than I'd made on my own, and I was actually getting somewhere now.
As Adam continued to pat Citrine's head and Charon made the weird crystal thingie disappear, I continued to chat with Citrine well into the night, finally turning in when we both grew tired enough to finally take a rest.
