Sir_Braazmiir
Tiefling Paladin
- Location
- Wherever I am
Odds on it being Belfast?New equipment from ranking rewards: Modified Swordfish Mk.III and 6-inch Mk.XXIII, possibly hinting at a Town-class cruiser.
Kantai Collection - Fanfic Idea and Recs
- Thread starter sasahara17
- Start date
She is the most famous of the cruisers who have triple Mk.XXIII 6-inchers, so I'd say it's quite likely it is her. Theoretically it could be any ship of the Town, Colony/Improved Colony or Swiftsure classes.
EDIT: I've been told one of the maps of the event is the Battle of the Barents Sea, other is based on the Malta convoys, maybe even Operation Pedestal itself. The first one points to either HMS Sheffield or HMS Jamaica. The second one, if it is in fact based on Pedestal, points to HMS Nigeria, HMS Kenya or HMS Manchester; if it's not Pedestal, HMS Liverpool, HMS Birmingham and HMS Newcastle can be candidates, depending on which action it's based on.
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- Location
- The Frozen North
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Swordfish isn't new equipment, it was added alongside Gotland Kai 2.
WarpObscura
Sleepy Big Stick
- Location
- A dot at the edge of continental Asia.
NGL, as little sense as the maid design makes, AL's created a certain expectation in my mind as to what Belfast should look like. Whoever it really is, I just hope the ball doesn't get dropped as hard as with Helena.
ARBITRACOM
Sic transit gloria mundi
Sheffield and Washington from the event:
There's also Scirocco but I'm not posting her picture here.
Sheffield's a very solid design. Her hair is another matter but her dark uniform contrasts very nicely with the red cravat. Her rigging looks compact and practical, honestly among my favourite cruiser rigging design among cruisers with none of that "turret planted without barbette on thin hull plating" so common in shipgirl designs.
Washington's a bit underwhelming for me at first but she's growing on me, and certainly a better first impression than SoDak even though I like her as well. The oversized magazines are a bit silly but that's a small complaint in an overall good design. Her black Kai color scheme (will replace with HD image as soon as it's available) looks excellent:
There's also Scirocco but I'm not posting her picture here.
Sheffield's a very solid design. Her hair is another matter but her dark uniform contrasts very nicely with the red cravat. Her rigging looks compact and practical, honestly among my favourite cruiser rigging design among cruisers with none of that "turret planted without barbette on thin hull plating" so common in shipgirl designs.
Washington's a bit underwhelming for me at first but she's growing on me, and certainly a better first impression than SoDak even though I like her as well. The oversized magazines are a bit silly but that's a small complaint in an overall good design. Her black Kai color scheme (will replace with HD image as soon as it's available) looks excellent:
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Joyful_Overkill
satisfaction in knowing your enemy won't survive.
Im imaging a constant gag where washington often walks into rooms unnoticed. Much to the chagrin of kirishima.
- Location
- The Land of Many Bregrets
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...So I have this SI thing I've kicking around for several years or so.
Yes yes, heard that one all before, but it's set in Europe (Gibraltar, specifically) and it's from non-SI perspectives, aka 'I had to invent a lot of shipgirls'. That, the research and the part where I'm doing this only in my spare time being the main reason it took so long.
SI shows up as HMS Lion... as per her aviation battleship proposal. The 'abortions the result of a psychological maladjustment' one. That Lion. It's mostly a Catch-22/Blackadder Goes Forth-inspired farce as you might imagine, whilst exploring what a potential European Abyssal War might look like. If that sounds even vaguely interesting, would someone be willing to give the first two chapters a look-see?
I'm not a naval historian or anything, this was very much a 'bored in spare time' project, I am painfully aware there is a mountain of things I'm doubtless missing but hopefully it still holds up. Like, I only found about the whole 'submarines flying Jolly Rogers' thing a week ago.
Sometimes in Gibraltar it felt like just waking up in the morning was enough of an excuse for things to go wrong.
"An Aviation Battleship?"
Resolution shrugged, feet churning through the waves. "So she says. Ring any bells?"
To starboard, the RFA Vindictive pondered, hand to chin. Work cranes and deck parties were already making ready upon her rigging, paranoid and wary, a sentiment shared by the rest of the taskforce for obvious reasons. When a fleet sallied forth with its own repair ship in tow… well. Everyone always grew a little justifiably concerned.
"We never launched any." HMS Illustrious (Actual Carrier) said off portside, checking her Lee-Enfield rifle with white-gloved hands; steel-grey hair and black admiralty coat catching in the headwind.
"There was Furious?" Vindictive suggested, still pondering.
"That was a conversion, and temporary. Besides, she's up the Channel."
"Then..." Vindictive tapped her chin, "...hmm. Not too sure I'm afraid. Funny really. Not the largest field in England to get lost in, is it?"
Resolution chuckled wearily. "Guess that's why she can't remember her own name." She stretched, arms over head, aiming for that crick in her shoulder, old weary joints creaking in sympathy with old weary machinery.
"Another Channel storm," she muttered, feeling her boilers groan, "some half-dressed bint's staking Malta out again and now an amnesiac Aviation Battleship of all things? It's not even noon!"
"Maybe she's just confused?" Ajax suggested, black ponytail flapping in the breeze as she clipped along at an easy pace for a light cruiser. "Can't be easy waking up with two legs, eh?"
"Or as half an aircraft carrier." Illustrious tagged on dryly, watching her BARCAP circle above. The amnesiac half-carrier in question had reported Abyssals pursuing her; the Portuguese had kindly bombed half of them but there was a reason they were sallying to greet her with a carrier force. A few minutes earlier they'd even found a random pair of Fairey Barracudas flying around empty.
"Could be drunk," Greyhound suggested blandly, the thin destroyer steaming lazily along at half-ahead and still keeping pace, "rum tub's first thing on me I found when I woke up." Further out, Mohawk, Havock and Juno made up the rest of the taskforce's destroyer screen.
Resolution groaned, "I don't care if she's drunk enough to undress for the Italian Navy, can't she read her own damn bell?"
"She might not have one." Vindictive shrugged, now fiddling in her toolbox to untangle a sewing kit from a pair of scissors. "If we've never launched one, we've never launched one, so she must be a paper who's never been to sea. That would make her… I think, Lion, most likely?"
"...'Most likely'?"
Vindictive nodded absently, shrugging. "Well, I think so at least? The battleship Lion 1939 I mean, not like, old Lion; they got as far as her hull before scrapping her. I think there was a proposal for a conversion at one point or another...?"
"A rejected proposal." Illustrious corrected… whilst reaching for her hip flask; never an optimistic sign. "I believe the precise words were 'abortions the result of a psychological maladjustment'."
Resolution coughed politely.
"Ah..." Vindictive blinked, fingers stalling. "Well, don't tell her that."
Illustrious sipped. "Quite."
"S-So, er..." great, now Greyhound was staring at them, "are we er- we rescuin' a lion or an abortion or what-"
"Yes," said Illustrious.
"No," said Resolution.
"...I'll tell you in a minute," said Vindictive, massaging her forehead.
The sea churned, the sun shone and the taskforce continued to sail merrily along. Resolution focused on the waves and carefully did not think about aborted African felines.
A good half hour later, Illustrious had a hand to her ear. "She's in sight."
Greyhound looked over. "Yeah? What's she look like?"
"Definitely an aviation battleship. Two triple main battery turrets – at least 15 inchers – and an over-shoulder half-deck."
Resolution tried to picture it. "She look anything like Vanguard at all?"
Illustrious paused. "...Yes, actually." Frowned. "The Abyssals are catching up, one moment."
The carrier fell silent, eyes blankly staring into the distance as her concentration transferred over to radar plots, flight paths and radio transmissions. Resolution watched as the two unloaded Barracudas on Illustrious' flight deck became surrounded in a flurry of activity as deck crews began loading up ordnance. She almost asked about it – before realising clearing the flight deck would be a necessary precursor to launching Illustrious's own strike force anyway. Why not include the two extra bombers? They were returning to sender, after all.
"That match Lion?" Resolution asked their repair ship instead.
Vindictive fiddled with a telescope. "It would. Though I've never actually seen the conversion plans. If the turrets are 16s it can't really be anyone else."
Resolution snorted, her two older, smaller turrets heavy in their waist brackets. "Too right, that. Greyhound, Mohawk," the two destroyers turned, the latter's namesake headpiece stiff in the breeze, "go ahead and clear us for any submarines."
"Aye aye, flags!" Greyhound saluted as she and Mohawk raised steam. The two smaller vessels pushed ahead, cutting neatly through the waves at a pace that made her hull shudder. Havock and Juno adjusted course to draw inwards, consolidating their positions on either side of their little flotilla. Illustrious continued to… well, fly off into carrierland or whatever it was she did exactly. Had fun bombing the enemy, Resolution supposed. Every few seconds or so, her rifle would fire with a crack, and another plane of one sort or another would zoom off up into the sky, stopping only to reload the next squadron. The only one of them actually firing a weapon in anger.
Minutes passed. The big, scary battleship kept tootling along.
"Greyhound, sonar contact, 0400. Hunting."
"Mohawk, supporting."
"Illustrious, vectoring in support."
She could barely even see them any more. Two little grey streaks of smoke near the horizon, shifting course off in the distance, a few dots in Illustrious' angry death cloud peeling off to join them from on high.
Illustrious herself fired off one last clip – crack, ca-click, crack, ca-click, crack, ca-click – before finally shouldering the rifle, eyes still unfocused and mind still clearly occupied.
Minutes passed. Waves splashed. The death cloud passed beyond the horizon, the distant rumble of explosions the only hint of them giving someone else a particularly unpleasant day. Juno coughed. Ajax hummed a tune.
Resolution floated, and felt very accomplished in doing so.
Vindictive pulled up alongside. "Do you think she'll be alright?"
"Hmm?"
"Lion, I mean." The repair ship shrugged her shoulders. "They scrapped her long before they completed her. If she's come back without her memories, God only knows what else she's missing."
"You're assuming it's Lion."
Another shrug. "Who else could be it be? Like we said, Furious is up in the Channel. And a proper carrier now."
"Again."
"Well, yes."
"Hmm."
Resolution fought back a grimace, pulling out her hip flask and popping the cap. "How bad is it?"
"How bad is what?"
Swigged. "Her bein' paper."
Vindictive winced, copper hair braid swinging alongside her repair cranes. "Bad? Possibly. Or- I wouldn't say it was always bad. But for Lion, it's probably bad." Her hands made a compressing motion. "Like, a little bad."
Resolution stared. "...Specifics, please."
Vindictive's hands waffled. "Look it's – how it is, is, if Illustrious is right, the carrier conversation wasn't a plan or a blueprint, it was a rejected proposal, yes?"
Resolution nodded.
"Well… that means there's been no full design study. No-one properly ran the numbers or did any testing. No-one ever bloody built it and discovered all the inevitable problems along the way or after. Yes, yes, she has aircraft and moves under steam but," another wince, and Vindictive looked away. "To put it mildly, I'm concerned that if we ever actually put her out to combat we will all promptly discover a hundred things wrong with that bloody ship today."
Resolution stopped fighting the grimace, hip flask swigging. The rum burned its way down her throat. "Right."
"Sorry- I didn't mean to put it like that-"
"I was launched too late for Jutland, Vindictive."
"Right right- well..."
A spurt of water erupted off in the distance. "Greyhound, sub's popped. Sure it got fish in the water though, tread carefully."
She fiddled her radio headset and adjusted course as the destroyer rattled off speed and heading. "Aye aye, Greyhound, carry on."
She almost poked Illustrious in the shoulder, but the carrier was already changing course to match them… whilst still staring blankly into nothing.
Goodness, the ability to do that whilst simultaneously coordinating God-knew how many flights and anti-submarine sweeps almost felt mildly irritating.
She sighed, mentally reviewing readiness. Ammunition ready and loaded, hatches secured, AA manned. Damage control parties ready and waiting. The crew in her waist turrets were so eager they were practically vibrating. Unless that was nerves. Or the caffeine. Hard to tell, sometimes.
She hmm'd. "Say, there's still that battleship to deal with right?"
Illustrious absently tucked back a length of steel-grey hair. "Actually, that's sinking now."
...Sodding carriers.
Eventually, their wayward mystery boat came into view. At first a dot on the horizon beneath a lazy trail of steam, flanked on either side by its new destroyer escort.
Vindictive closed her telescope with a snap. "Well, that's definitely Lion."
"Yeah?" Resolution glanced over. Vindictive handed the telescope over and simply pointed.
Putting it to her eye and focusing, she began scanning the horizon-
-oh. Huh.
"Yeah, that has to be Lion doesn't it..."
The flight deck looked… awkward, to put things politely, but those guns sold it; clear 16 inchers. She couldn't catch the pendant number at this angle, but the super-structure, the radar array… she'd never sailed alongside Vanguard back in the old days – too much of an old, creaky training ship by then – but everything she'd heard and seen of her and her would-be half-sisters matched.
...Politely awkward flight deck aside, of course.
Shifting focus a little removed all doubt. Their human forms always had a – what was it – sympathetic? Sympathetic relationship to their namesakes and history, and a woman with fluffy, blonde-to-dark hair that fell about her shoulders like a mane really just had to be Lion, didn't it? At least the red-and-white dress managed to be classy by their standards; somewhere between 're-enacting Waterloo' and a cocktail party. Thank God they weren't the IJN.
Resolution nodded confidently. "That's Lion."
Juno snorted. "Three cheers gang we solved the mystery."
"You were right," Resolution said, offering the telescope over to Illustrious. "She really does look like Vanguard." Illustrious waved her off- oh, right, scout planes. She handed it back to Vindictive instead, who resumed watching their distant charge.
Resolution fiddled her radio. "Resolution, Greyhound, how's she looking?"
"Not bad, not bad. Everything seems fine. She's er, really happy to see us!"
Illustrious clicked in. "Is her radio damaged? I can't find her operational frequency."
"Er- dunno, one sec-"
She heard Vindictive sigh and start rummaging through her toolkit. "Am I clear to assist?"
Vindictive looked to Resolution who looked to Illustrious who continued to look at nothing in particular.
"You should be clear enough." The carrier said. "There's nothing on the ASW patrols. You girls don't hear anything either?"
"Juno, nothing."
"Havock, nothing here."
Resolution nodded then. "Go ahead."
Vindictive nodded and built up steam, slowly peeling ahead at twenty knots whilst circling flights of Illustrious' planes trailed along overhead, prowling the waters for even a hint of submarine.
The Abyssals' surface force had, of course, been sunk or driven off long before Resolution ever got the chance to see any of them personally.
"T-This is um- I'm Lion?" A new voice crackled across the airwaves. A little breathy, but… well, they had been running for their life 'till just now.
Resolution fiddled her radio set. "Good morning Lion. Welcome back."
"Ah- thank you? I mean- thank you! For the rescue!"
"Not a problem," -not that she got to help at all- "anything to report?"
"U-Um… no?"
Illustrious and Resolution shared a look. "Well, that's good?"
"Yes!"
Illustrious shrugged and turned back to the radio. "I found your bombers, they should be on their way back to you now."
"You wha- oh! Oh, thanks!"
Illustrious watched the ship in the distance coolly. "What were their munitions spent upon, if I might ask?"
Resolution could see Lion's silhouette twitch even at this distance; the shoulder-deck made the motion truly obvious. "A-ah, about that..."
Illustrious patiently waited.
"Th-They were a scouting force…?"
"They're torpedo bombers."
"There's only two of them!" Resolution winced at the radio feedback. "Are they safe?"
"Safe, sound and on their way back," Illustrious assured, "as promised. Your fighter compliment?"
"A-Ah… there were twelve… most were shot down though…"
Illustrious nodded. "You can thank the Portuguese for taking out their carrier. No hits taken by you personally?"
"Only strafing-?"
"That's fine as long as you're still seaworthy. RFA Vindictive should be with you shortly-"
"-I'm here, I'm here." Vindictive cut in on the line, now pulling up alongside the wayward half-a-battleship, "alright dear, let's take a look at you-"
The radio cut out with a slight fuzz now the two ships were close enough for local communications, aka flapping their mouths and hoping words fell out. Resolution ran her tongue across her teeth. Yep; two years, still weird.
She sighed, bobbing gently on the waves, waiting. Off in the distance, Vindictive was still vaguely visible fussing and examining. Illustrious began recovering aircraft. Greyhound and the others continued their sweeps. Ajax started toying with one of those game-box thingiewhats making little electronic beeping noises.
Time passed. No more contacts came. She gave up the ghost and told her gun crews to stand down.
"We'll need to get her a proper greatcoat if she ever gets the Arctic duty."
Illustrious snorted, running her post-battle inspections on her rifle whilst her deck armature received Seafires, her own black Admiral's coat draped lazily over her shoulders. "We're Gibraltar; they'd have to get it past the Spaniards to see any of ours reassigned. Bread for Boats, remember?"
She shrugged. "I suppose. Think she'll stay ours or if she'll go to the Channel?"
"Ours. I doubt the people at the Facility will want her." Illustrious' voice went particularly droll. "If she'd come back as a full battleship she'd stay a week and then be whisked straight off to sweet Calais. As it stands..."
Illustrious simply gestured, to where Vindictive was making angry gesticulations regarding a suspiciously head-shaped dent in the underside of Lion's flight deck armature.
Resolution groaned. "Wish I could argue… anyway, I'll call in the good news."
Illustrious nodded and returned to overseeing the end of her carrier operations. Resolution fell back a step and began fiddling the long range wireless.
"Darling, Resolution. Darling, Resolution, copy?"
"Ah, Resolution! Darling is here, go ahead."
"Mystery shipgirl encountered, confirmed to be HMS Lion, I repeat: HMS Lion, Battleship 1939, returning per her 1941 Aviation Battleship proposal. She's a bit dinged up but she can still make speed."
"Darling, copy. Ah, I'm being told- ah yes, the Channel storm is escalating? Malta Princess is also making another run for the Strait… ah, not to worry though, the Italians are chasing her down!"
Resolution took note of that, and immediately commenced worrying. "Resolution, copy." She cut the transmission. "Alright girls, hurry it up. We're needed at the Rock."
"Aye aye."
"Aye aye, flagship."
Her boilers churned, her legs thrummed and she began the slow, languid turn back down south, the rest of the taskforce falling in step.
"Darling, Resolution. Returning at good speed."
"Darling, copy. See you soon!"
They didn't encounter the Malta Princess. The Italians actually did run her down west of Bizerte, pasted her to bits and by the sounds of it were now entangled in a mixture of repairs, damage assessments, impromptu street parties and desperately trying to figure out who they needed to recompense over that one unfortunate lighthouse.
Goodness, Resolution mused, the perils of victory.
They reached the Strait shortly past noon, the sun bright, high and sizzling. Greyhound donned sunglasses. Ajax deployed a particularly floppy sunhat. Lion, slotted into the middle of their formation, tried to angle her deck for shade only to be berated by a constantly fussing Vindictive whilst Illustrious, doing the exact same thing, carefully avoided eye contact.
Resolution bore the heat stoically, for reasons most definitely not related to being unable to do anything else.
"Darling, Resolution. Coming into port now."
"Darling, copy, we see you."
Gibraltar was… well, Gibraltar was Gibraltar. They steamed in, wheeling about past the still abandoned town of Punta Carnero as the Rock slowly slid into view. The Bay of Gibraltar unfurled; a constant hive of activity, the port city of Algeciras sprawling wide across the entire bay, Gibraltar itself just the rightward peninsula cutting the Bay itself out from the Alboran Sea and the Mediterranean proper.
Ships of every size and stripe, safe in their harbour. Hadn't always been that way. A great shoal of oil tankers, titanic in size, waited for the next convoy to set sail across the Strait to Morocco on the opposite side. Should have set departed by now, but the Malta Princess must have jilted everyone's schedules. She couldn't help but keep her eyes on the Rock itself, the great forested mountain sitting brazenly in the ocean.
Networks of caves and tunnels laced through that old thing; old armaments, old fortifications. Built in times of war. Abandoned over safety concerns in times of peace. Tunnels, caves, shipwrecks, history.
When the Abyssal War began, little wonder it near immediately proved to have a Princess hiding in it. Even now, re-secured, re-fortified and transformed into an Abyssal watchstation and research facility, one couldn't help but feel… caution, whenever the deep sea fleets were active. The constantly rotating train of randomly denominated priests taking turns to fling holy rituals at it before running away screaming certainly added seasoning.
Quite apart from the Gibraltar force, the Rock Facility itself had its own spiritual 'fleet' attached. For all the politicians were willing to endlessly nitpick the Bread for Boats agreement to the ends and depths of time, no-one touched the Rock; Barham and Valiant – two highly prized Queen Elizabeth class battleships, who on the face of things should not have been that easily spared – were notoriously tight-lipped about what exactly they'd found down there.
Well, she mused, at least the sky's clear. Always a good sign. No stormclouds, no rain. No clouds period, just a clear, beaming blue sky.
They made a left turn into the Bay before peeling right towards the military base. Once almost entirely turned over to civilian administration, the Abyssal War had re-militarised the Gibraltar Docks in a very real hurry; now the Royal Navy more or less owned and operated the entire peninsula, her surviving civilian administration having long since evacuated with refugee status within the wider EU. The battle between the Spanish Army and the Gibraltar Princess had not been… pleasant; these days most of Gibraltar's original architecture remained only in the form of craters. The damn monkeys'd still survived it all, the bastards.
The Gibraltar Docks weren't what she remembered them being, but it stood to reason; as any of His Majesty's Ships could tell you, shelling, neglect and sell-offs tended to have that effect on things. They passed Dainty and Janus on shore patrol, weaved their way past the minefields and torpedo nets, and finally weighed in at Gibraltar.
Resolution hauled herself up onto land, pretending she hadn't made that wheeze. Left knee still creaking, damn it all. Illustrious clambered up seemingly without effort and the destroyers actually bloody hopped the damn thing.
Lion came up the pier and stopped, bobbing uncertainly on the water with hands on her hip-turrets. Ajax and Vindictive each got a shoulder under one arm and, after a quick crash-course in rigging dismissal ("It's like sitting down to take a load off, but don't actually sit down!"), pushed her up onto solid ground.
The half-carrier stumbled, drunkenly swaying against an ocean no longer present and wobbling dangerously upon the lines of her shoe-hulls. Gripping her by the shoulders, Resolution held the other woman upright as she steadied herself and regained her balance.
"It gets easier." She promised, smiling fondly. As first steps went, Lion at least hadn't tried dropping anchor or throwing up on anything yet. Oh, the look on George's face when she'd first-
Lion paled, and Resolution quickly stepped to one side in case she needed to retract that statement.
"She's right you know." Vindictive rubbed circles into the half-carrier's back. "Just take it easy. Focus on maintaining your balance for now, alright?"
Lion nodded shakily, taking a wobbly, tentative step. "Y-Yeah."
"Small steps, that's it; take it slow and don't rush." Vindictive lead her along down the pier. "See, you're doing fine."
"I wasn't expecting it to be this hard." Lion laughed awkwardly.
"Well, we're ships, yes?" The repair ship just shrugged. "It's only natural."
Lion paused. "...R-Right."
Privately, Resolution suspected the shapes of her shoe-hulls didn't help. They never really helped anyone, once ashore.
"Haaa~aah," Ajax stretched, cricking her shoulders and nearly slapping Resolution with her ponytail. "First time's always terrible. Like babby's first pub crawl, y'know?"
Vindictive twitched. "Please do not touch your rum ration until you are sitting down."
Lion choked and went even paler. "Not a chance in hell."
Twin fists gripped at either shoulder, locking Lion in place before the burning, seething gaze of a particularly well-named repair vessel. "Do not touch the rum ration." The taller, heavier, up-armoured and up-gunned warship trapped before it positively wilted.
"I- I wasn't going to?" Lion improbably tried to shrink despite easily being six foot tall, "I meant- I really wasn't going to, there's no chance I was going to- I don't even drink-"
Resolution blinked. Ajax blinked. Vindictive raised an eyebrow.
"-no seriously!" Lion blurted, eyes darting, "I don't even drink!"
"Vindy!" Ajax shouted, bashing the repair ship aside, "you broke her!"
"-ow, what?" Vindictive hit the concrete, repair cranes swinging. Faires and cargo bounced across the seafront; a discordant chorus of metallic clatters and bleated 'heys'.
Illustrious sighed. Resolution stepped further aside. The destroyers all spontaneously vanished in a puff of plausible deniability.
"It's okay, it's okay," Ajax whispered quickly, on her tip-toes and trying to pat Lion's very confused head. "You don't have to make any promises you don't want to keep-"
"Ajax," Vindictive spoke very, very, very politely.
Ajax tugged her by the hands. "So you're new and that's great and we gotta have the Catch Up Talk and also run away really fast now-"
Resolution groaned, pressing fingers against her forehead. "Ajax, let Rooke handle that."
"No!" Ajax kept tugging. "Everyone gets to do it! Nobody's let me do it yet-"
"It's Rooke's job."
"-you let London do it!"
Yep, definitely a migraine. "That's why Rooke does it now..."
"Um-!", said Lion, tottering helplessly.
Vindictive politely stood.
"S-So!" Ajax jabbered, somehow tugging the tottering half-carrier along in her wake. "Quickly now! It's the twenty-twenties so the King is dead, long lived the Queen but she also died so it's a king again and the Commies were bad and fell over and Yanks touched the moon and gave up a bit after they exploded the Japs and made them all turn really weird. The bananas also died-"
"Ladies," Illustrious wearily called out, extracting her pipe from inside her jacket. "Ladies, if we could all please-"
Vindictive politely patted herself down. Dust and other such things. The carrier-cruiser pair were already stumbling they way into the distance, Ajax's rapid-fire rambling still gaily drifting over.
"-don't shoot the Germans, magic phones do everything, we rocked the world with beetles or summat 'till the Yanks came at us with an undead space alien and-oh! Don't shoot the Italians either! We like, all joined together in love and peace 'n harmony 'n shit afterwards 'till ours got huffy 'n left for some reason and-"
The pair rounded a corner and flailed their way out of sight and sound. Ever so calmly, Vindictive regathered her scattered repair crews and reset her upset cranes. Confirmed all accounted for. Reset all out of place.
Then, once neat, resettled and recentred, took off in a dead and murderous sprint.
"OI, GET BACK 'ERE YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
Resolution stared in the wake of her departure, not quite daring to follow. The air felt so clear back here in her absence; so safe; so peaceful; so serene.
"...Still think she's going to Calais?"
Illustrious grunted, lighting her pipe with a matchstick. "Maybe if we mail her in a bucket."
Greyhound coughed, coming out from behind some cargo boxes. "So er- that's all gonna be Darlin's problem, right?"
Illustrious puffed. "Darling's problem."
Mohawk grunted from behind a lamppost. "Darling's problem."
Resolution went for her hip flask.
"Admiral Darling? Resolution here to see you sir."
She stepped around HMS Rooke as the latter held the door open, careful not to stub toes against the grey woman's concrete boots. Cap underarm, she clicked her heels and stood to attention.
A thick, stumpy man with muddy-red hair looked up and tried to smile. For all her two years of service in the Gibraltar base she'd never quite seen him manage it; it always twitched just slightly short; never quite reached the eyes. Always a hint, inch or touch too tall, wide, toothy or leering to quite hit that 'kind, fatherly' look he always seemed to be aiming for.
"Ah, my dear!" He greeted, hands edging back towards his paperwork, "Welcome back! Safe journey I presume?"
"Safe enough." Given she never even got to do anything.
"Good good. One moment then-" He shuffled and put aside whatever it was he'd previously been working on (-oh, that record of their bauxite stocks did not look accurate-) trying to clear space upon his desk in the manner of a sailor trying to filch water out of his dinghy by ineffectually swilling it around. Papers to the left of him, papers to the right, the entire room lined and stacked with overflowing filing cabinets from floor to ceiling, like a devout trying and failing to part the Red (Ink) Sea.
"Aha!" He raised the latest sheet of paper with beaming pride. "There it is!"
Resolution squinted. Ah, the form to reinstate a 'spiritual vessel' to the Fleet Register.
"So!" Darling clicked the lid off his fountainpen with a flourish. "Who did you say she was?"
"HMS Lion, sir."
"Hmm hmm," Darling squinted, guiding his pen through the fields and boxes of the form with the care, grace and patience of a stiff-legged pensioner manoeuvring through a supermarket parking lot, "Pennant number?"
Ah- "She was never launched, sir."
That hand stalled. He looked up quizzically. "I'm sorry?"
She shifted awkwardly. "HMS Lion – the 1939 Lion – was never launched, sir. She doesn't have a pendant number assigned, sir."
Darling looked at her face, Darling looked at his paperwork, Darling clicked the lid back onto his fountainpen and sighed. The incomplete form got pushed to one side.
"One moment, one moment-"
He hmm'd, stroked the whisper of a moustache beneath his nose and started going through his desk drawers.
Resolution… stood there. Helpfully.
"Aha! This should be the right one!" He produced another, longer form with multiple pages, laying it out there on the desk. The lid clicked off his pen a flourish, and he went back to work with a will.
Rooke clunked back in, stonily depositing a pair of steaming mugs between them (on the papers) before withdrawing unobtrusively to the wall, becoming one with the filing cabinets. Darling took a sip absently, choked on it and spat it back out again. Resolution… held hers, politely, trying to ignore the stone frigate staring at her from across the room. It was a hand warmer! Yes.
"Pennant… to be assigned… date of..." Darling muttered to himself, "'39… Lion… battleship wasn't it?"
Resolution blinked. Um. "...Aviation Battleship, sir."
Darling's pen paused.
"...Aviation Battleship?"
"Aviation Battleship sir."
His brow furrowed in numb confusion. "This form doesn't have an entry for 'Aviation Battleship'."
"She is an Aviation Battleship, sir."
She could see the moustache quiver.
"It's not on the form..."
She thought of very awkwardly placed flight decks with head-shaped dents in them. "She is, without a doubt, an Aviation Battleship, sir."
Darling went back to his desk drawers, muttering darkly. Resolution stood there, very helpfully waited, and privately wished she could be anywhere else outside. She tentatively sniffed the mug in her hands; coffee...?
"This one- no- this- no, this is-, that shouldn't be here- no- no- oho that's where- argh, no-"
Rooke emerged from the filing cabinets, sheets in hand. "Sir."
Darling surfaced, receiving the outheld documents with a desperate smile. "Aha, you lifesaver Rooke, that's-" flipped through them, "this is..." paused. "Rooke, these aren't the right forms at all!"
Rooke stared stonily.
"Augh..." the man rested his head in his palms, "what's an Admiral supposed to do?"
"Drink your tea." Rook advised. Darling drank from his cup, choked and spat it back out again.
He groaned, then sat his cup aside and sighed. "Well, no matter. Bah," he chuckled, "if the forms are only for battleships and aircraft carriers, I'll just have to file her twice!"
Her spine stiffened with dreadful premonition. "Please do not file HMS Lion twice."
"Bah!" He laughed, waving her off. "It'll be fine. The Admiral will handle it." He rounded his deck, chuckling and patted her on the shoulder. "HMS Restitution, have faith. All the girls I've gathered here are under my protection and command." He leaned forward, the result angling his head suspiciously above her bustline. "What do you say; will you not try to give this old man the benefit of the doubt, and trust in his ability to do you right?"
HMS Resolution stared. "...Yes."
He patted her shoulder again. "Jolly good! Now, Rooke will see you out; the Admiral is very busy you know!"
His hand pressed against her back, guiding her towards the door; she stepped forwards quickly before it could 'humorously' move any lower.
Out the office, out the corridor, out into the grand outdoors and the open, Admiralty-free air. She breathed a sigh of relief. Rooke offered another coffee.
Once Vindictive had calmed down and the destroyers had cut Ajax out from that laundry hamper, they found Lion, quite sober and thoroughly irritated, sat outside the dormitories. How Ajax had somehow managed to fail at causing a piss-up was anyone's guess but for once Resolution wouldn't complain.
Any resemblance HMS Lion might have had to ineffectually angry, non-aborted juvenile felines, sat there on the porch's front step with a chorus of bleating fairies, was of course never to be mentioned. In public.
"I taught her everything I know!" Ajax declared proudly, salute and all, bits of cotton netting still caught in her rigging.
"Have a coffee." Resolution agreed, pushing Rooke's cold mug into her hands.
Moving past the light cruiser and ignoring her choked splutterings, Resolution examined the aviation battleship sat upon the stair.
Funny thing to look at. Two big guns cramped up, trying to share deck space with a painfully short looking runway. Resolution wasn't an expert on carrier landings for obvious reasons, but a short, thin runway off-angle from the line of the ship did not confidence inspire. And they'd wanted to launch and receive torpedo bombers on that thing? It worried the soul; no wonder the original proposal had been rejected.
Becoming a shipgirl – er, 'spiritual vessel' - had probably been the best thing for her (magically poofing her into existence in the first place aside). Guns went onto her waist mounts, superstructure went onto her back like it usually did and whilst the flight deck remained short, it was at least alone; on an armature without anything terribly inconvenient to crash into in its near vicinity. A slight dent still marred the underside near her head but honestly, Resolution'd seen girls sail home with worse. She nodded confidently; stupid facemarks always buffed out in time.
Her hair even had those fiddly little fire controller headpieces on either side like Vanguard did, she noted with some bemusement. Shorter and floofier hair though, with stronger, namesake colouring.
"I don't drink." Lion repeated sourly.
Resolution shrugged. "That's fine."
The other woman ran a hand through that shorter, floofier hair. "…I don't even know what I'm doing."
"You can learn."
Lion looked up at her doubtfully. Resolution cracked a smile.
"Welcome to Gibraltar."
When she offered a hand, Lion took it.
Yes yes, heard that one all before, but it's set in Europe (Gibraltar, specifically) and it's from non-SI perspectives, aka 'I had to invent a lot of shipgirls'. That, the research and the part where I'm doing this only in my spare time being the main reason it took so long.
SI shows up as HMS Lion... as per her aviation battleship proposal. The 'abortions the result of a psychological maladjustment' one. That Lion. It's mostly a Catch-22/Blackadder Goes Forth-inspired farce as you might imagine, whilst exploring what a potential European Abyssal War might look like. If that sounds even vaguely interesting, would someone be willing to give the first two chapters a look-see?
I'm not a naval historian or anything, this was very much a 'bored in spare time' project, I am painfully aware there is a mountain of things I'm doubtless missing but hopefully it still holds up. Like, I only found about the whole 'submarines flying Jolly Rogers' thing a week ago.
Once Upon A Time In Gibraltar
Sometimes in Gibraltar it felt like just waking up in the morning was enough of an excuse for things to go wrong.
"An Aviation Battleship?"
Resolution shrugged, feet churning through the waves. "So she says. Ring any bells?"
To starboard, the RFA Vindictive pondered, hand to chin. Work cranes and deck parties were already making ready upon her rigging, paranoid and wary, a sentiment shared by the rest of the taskforce for obvious reasons. When a fleet sallied forth with its own repair ship in tow… well. Everyone always grew a little justifiably concerned.
"We never launched any." HMS Illustrious (Actual Carrier) said off portside, checking her Lee-Enfield rifle with white-gloved hands; steel-grey hair and black admiralty coat catching in the headwind.
"There was Furious?" Vindictive suggested, still pondering.
"That was a conversion, and temporary. Besides, she's up the Channel."
"Then..." Vindictive tapped her chin, "...hmm. Not too sure I'm afraid. Funny really. Not the largest field in England to get lost in, is it?"
Resolution chuckled wearily. "Guess that's why she can't remember her own name." She stretched, arms over head, aiming for that crick in her shoulder, old weary joints creaking in sympathy with old weary machinery.
"Another Channel storm," she muttered, feeling her boilers groan, "some half-dressed bint's staking Malta out again and now an amnesiac Aviation Battleship of all things? It's not even noon!"
"Maybe she's just confused?" Ajax suggested, black ponytail flapping in the breeze as she clipped along at an easy pace for a light cruiser. "Can't be easy waking up with two legs, eh?"
"Or as half an aircraft carrier." Illustrious tagged on dryly, watching her BARCAP circle above. The amnesiac half-carrier in question had reported Abyssals pursuing her; the Portuguese had kindly bombed half of them but there was a reason they were sallying to greet her with a carrier force. A few minutes earlier they'd even found a random pair of Fairey Barracudas flying around empty.
"Could be drunk," Greyhound suggested blandly, the thin destroyer steaming lazily along at half-ahead and still keeping pace, "rum tub's first thing on me I found when I woke up." Further out, Mohawk, Havock and Juno made up the rest of the taskforce's destroyer screen.
Resolution groaned, "I don't care if she's drunk enough to undress for the Italian Navy, can't she read her own damn bell?"
"She might not have one." Vindictive shrugged, now fiddling in her toolbox to untangle a sewing kit from a pair of scissors. "If we've never launched one, we've never launched one, so she must be a paper who's never been to sea. That would make her… I think, Lion, most likely?"
"...'Most likely'?"
Vindictive nodded absently, shrugging. "Well, I think so at least? The battleship Lion 1939 I mean, not like, old Lion; they got as far as her hull before scrapping her. I think there was a proposal for a conversion at one point or another...?"
"A rejected proposal." Illustrious corrected… whilst reaching for her hip flask; never an optimistic sign. "I believe the precise words were 'abortions the result of a psychological maladjustment'."
Resolution coughed politely.
"Ah..." Vindictive blinked, fingers stalling. "Well, don't tell her that."
Illustrious sipped. "Quite."
"S-So, er..." great, now Greyhound was staring at them, "are we er- we rescuin' a lion or an abortion or what-"
"Yes," said Illustrious.
"No," said Resolution.
"...I'll tell you in a minute," said Vindictive, massaging her forehead.
The sea churned, the sun shone and the taskforce continued to sail merrily along. Resolution focused on the waves and carefully did not think about aborted African felines.
A good half hour later, Illustrious had a hand to her ear. "She's in sight."
Greyhound looked over. "Yeah? What's she look like?"
"Definitely an aviation battleship. Two triple main battery turrets – at least 15 inchers – and an over-shoulder half-deck."
Resolution tried to picture it. "She look anything like Vanguard at all?"
Illustrious paused. "...Yes, actually." Frowned. "The Abyssals are catching up, one moment."
The carrier fell silent, eyes blankly staring into the distance as her concentration transferred over to radar plots, flight paths and radio transmissions. Resolution watched as the two unloaded Barracudas on Illustrious' flight deck became surrounded in a flurry of activity as deck crews began loading up ordnance. She almost asked about it – before realising clearing the flight deck would be a necessary precursor to launching Illustrious's own strike force anyway. Why not include the two extra bombers? They were returning to sender, after all.
"That match Lion?" Resolution asked their repair ship instead.
Vindictive fiddled with a telescope. "It would. Though I've never actually seen the conversion plans. If the turrets are 16s it can't really be anyone else."
Resolution snorted, her two older, smaller turrets heavy in their waist brackets. "Too right, that. Greyhound, Mohawk," the two destroyers turned, the latter's namesake headpiece stiff in the breeze, "go ahead and clear us for any submarines."
"Aye aye, flags!" Greyhound saluted as she and Mohawk raised steam. The two smaller vessels pushed ahead, cutting neatly through the waves at a pace that made her hull shudder. Havock and Juno adjusted course to draw inwards, consolidating their positions on either side of their little flotilla. Illustrious continued to… well, fly off into carrierland or whatever it was she did exactly. Had fun bombing the enemy, Resolution supposed. Every few seconds or so, her rifle would fire with a crack, and another plane of one sort or another would zoom off up into the sky, stopping only to reload the next squadron. The only one of them actually firing a weapon in anger.
Minutes passed. The big, scary battleship kept tootling along.
"Greyhound, sonar contact, 0400. Hunting."
"Mohawk, supporting."
"Illustrious, vectoring in support."
She could barely even see them any more. Two little grey streaks of smoke near the horizon, shifting course off in the distance, a few dots in Illustrious' angry death cloud peeling off to join them from on high.
Illustrious herself fired off one last clip – crack, ca-click, crack, ca-click, crack, ca-click – before finally shouldering the rifle, eyes still unfocused and mind still clearly occupied.
Minutes passed. Waves splashed. The death cloud passed beyond the horizon, the distant rumble of explosions the only hint of them giving someone else a particularly unpleasant day. Juno coughed. Ajax hummed a tune.
Resolution floated, and felt very accomplished in doing so.
Vindictive pulled up alongside. "Do you think she'll be alright?"
"Hmm?"
"Lion, I mean." The repair ship shrugged her shoulders. "They scrapped her long before they completed her. If she's come back without her memories, God only knows what else she's missing."
"You're assuming it's Lion."
Another shrug. "Who else could be it be? Like we said, Furious is up in the Channel. And a proper carrier now."
"Again."
"Well, yes."
"Hmm."
Resolution fought back a grimace, pulling out her hip flask and popping the cap. "How bad is it?"
"How bad is what?"
Swigged. "Her bein' paper."
Vindictive winced, copper hair braid swinging alongside her repair cranes. "Bad? Possibly. Or- I wouldn't say it was always bad. But for Lion, it's probably bad." Her hands made a compressing motion. "Like, a little bad."
Resolution stared. "...Specifics, please."
Vindictive's hands waffled. "Look it's – how it is, is, if Illustrious is right, the carrier conversation wasn't a plan or a blueprint, it was a rejected proposal, yes?"
Resolution nodded.
"Well… that means there's been no full design study. No-one properly ran the numbers or did any testing. No-one ever bloody built it and discovered all the inevitable problems along the way or after. Yes, yes, she has aircraft and moves under steam but," another wince, and Vindictive looked away. "To put it mildly, I'm concerned that if we ever actually put her out to combat we will all promptly discover a hundred things wrong with that bloody ship today."
Resolution stopped fighting the grimace, hip flask swigging. The rum burned its way down her throat. "Right."
"Sorry- I didn't mean to put it like that-"
"I was launched too late for Jutland, Vindictive."
"Right right- well..."
A spurt of water erupted off in the distance. "Greyhound, sub's popped. Sure it got fish in the water though, tread carefully."
She fiddled her radio headset and adjusted course as the destroyer rattled off speed and heading. "Aye aye, Greyhound, carry on."
She almost poked Illustrious in the shoulder, but the carrier was already changing course to match them… whilst still staring blankly into nothing.
Goodness, the ability to do that whilst simultaneously coordinating God-knew how many flights and anti-submarine sweeps almost felt mildly irritating.
She sighed, mentally reviewing readiness. Ammunition ready and loaded, hatches secured, AA manned. Damage control parties ready and waiting. The crew in her waist turrets were so eager they were practically vibrating. Unless that was nerves. Or the caffeine. Hard to tell, sometimes.
She hmm'd. "Say, there's still that battleship to deal with right?"
Illustrious absently tucked back a length of steel-grey hair. "Actually, that's sinking now."
...Sodding carriers.
~*~
Eventually, their wayward mystery boat came into view. At first a dot on the horizon beneath a lazy trail of steam, flanked on either side by its new destroyer escort.
Vindictive closed her telescope with a snap. "Well, that's definitely Lion."
"Yeah?" Resolution glanced over. Vindictive handed the telescope over and simply pointed.
Putting it to her eye and focusing, she began scanning the horizon-
-oh. Huh.
"Yeah, that has to be Lion doesn't it..."
The flight deck looked… awkward, to put things politely, but those guns sold it; clear 16 inchers. She couldn't catch the pendant number at this angle, but the super-structure, the radar array… she'd never sailed alongside Vanguard back in the old days – too much of an old, creaky training ship by then – but everything she'd heard and seen of her and her would-be half-sisters matched.
...Politely awkward flight deck aside, of course.
Shifting focus a little removed all doubt. Their human forms always had a – what was it – sympathetic? Sympathetic relationship to their namesakes and history, and a woman with fluffy, blonde-to-dark hair that fell about her shoulders like a mane really just had to be Lion, didn't it? At least the red-and-white dress managed to be classy by their standards; somewhere between 're-enacting Waterloo' and a cocktail party. Thank God they weren't the IJN.
Resolution nodded confidently. "That's Lion."
Juno snorted. "Three cheers gang we solved the mystery."
"You were right," Resolution said, offering the telescope over to Illustrious. "She really does look like Vanguard." Illustrious waved her off- oh, right, scout planes. She handed it back to Vindictive instead, who resumed watching their distant charge.
Resolution fiddled her radio. "Resolution, Greyhound, how's she looking?"
"Not bad, not bad. Everything seems fine. She's er, really happy to see us!"
Illustrious clicked in. "Is her radio damaged? I can't find her operational frequency."
"Er- dunno, one sec-"
She heard Vindictive sigh and start rummaging through her toolkit. "Am I clear to assist?"
Vindictive looked to Resolution who looked to Illustrious who continued to look at nothing in particular.
"You should be clear enough." The carrier said. "There's nothing on the ASW patrols. You girls don't hear anything either?"
"Juno, nothing."
"Havock, nothing here."
Resolution nodded then. "Go ahead."
Vindictive nodded and built up steam, slowly peeling ahead at twenty knots whilst circling flights of Illustrious' planes trailed along overhead, prowling the waters for even a hint of submarine.
The Abyssals' surface force had, of course, been sunk or driven off long before Resolution ever got the chance to see any of them personally.
"T-This is um- I'm Lion?" A new voice crackled across the airwaves. A little breathy, but… well, they had been running for their life 'till just now.
Resolution fiddled her radio set. "Good morning Lion. Welcome back."
"Ah- thank you? I mean- thank you! For the rescue!"
"Not a problem," -not that she got to help at all- "anything to report?"
"U-Um… no?"
Illustrious and Resolution shared a look. "Well, that's good?"
"Yes!"
Illustrious shrugged and turned back to the radio. "I found your bombers, they should be on their way back to you now."
"You wha- oh! Oh, thanks!"
Illustrious watched the ship in the distance coolly. "What were their munitions spent upon, if I might ask?"
Resolution could see Lion's silhouette twitch even at this distance; the shoulder-deck made the motion truly obvious. "A-ah, about that..."
Illustrious patiently waited.
"Th-They were a scouting force…?"
"They're torpedo bombers."
"There's only two of them!" Resolution winced at the radio feedback. "Are they safe?"
"Safe, sound and on their way back," Illustrious assured, "as promised. Your fighter compliment?"
"A-Ah… there were twelve… most were shot down though…"
Illustrious nodded. "You can thank the Portuguese for taking out their carrier. No hits taken by you personally?"
"Only strafing-?"
"That's fine as long as you're still seaworthy. RFA Vindictive should be with you shortly-"
"-I'm here, I'm here." Vindictive cut in on the line, now pulling up alongside the wayward half-a-battleship, "alright dear, let's take a look at you-"
The radio cut out with a slight fuzz now the two ships were close enough for local communications, aka flapping their mouths and hoping words fell out. Resolution ran her tongue across her teeth. Yep; two years, still weird.
She sighed, bobbing gently on the waves, waiting. Off in the distance, Vindictive was still vaguely visible fussing and examining. Illustrious began recovering aircraft. Greyhound and the others continued their sweeps. Ajax started toying with one of those game-box thingiewhats making little electronic beeping noises.
Time passed. No more contacts came. She gave up the ghost and told her gun crews to stand down.
"We'll need to get her a proper greatcoat if she ever gets the Arctic duty."
Illustrious snorted, running her post-battle inspections on her rifle whilst her deck armature received Seafires, her own black Admiral's coat draped lazily over her shoulders. "We're Gibraltar; they'd have to get it past the Spaniards to see any of ours reassigned. Bread for Boats, remember?"
She shrugged. "I suppose. Think she'll stay ours or if she'll go to the Channel?"
"Ours. I doubt the people at the Facility will want her." Illustrious' voice went particularly droll. "If she'd come back as a full battleship she'd stay a week and then be whisked straight off to sweet Calais. As it stands..."
Illustrious simply gestured, to where Vindictive was making angry gesticulations regarding a suspiciously head-shaped dent in the underside of Lion's flight deck armature.
Resolution groaned. "Wish I could argue… anyway, I'll call in the good news."
Illustrious nodded and returned to overseeing the end of her carrier operations. Resolution fell back a step and began fiddling the long range wireless.
"Darling, Resolution. Darling, Resolution, copy?"
"Ah, Resolution! Darling is here, go ahead."
"Mystery shipgirl encountered, confirmed to be HMS Lion, I repeat: HMS Lion, Battleship 1939, returning per her 1941 Aviation Battleship proposal. She's a bit dinged up but she can still make speed."
"Darling, copy. Ah, I'm being told- ah yes, the Channel storm is escalating? Malta Princess is also making another run for the Strait… ah, not to worry though, the Italians are chasing her down!"
Resolution took note of that, and immediately commenced worrying. "Resolution, copy." She cut the transmission. "Alright girls, hurry it up. We're needed at the Rock."
"Aye aye."
"Aye aye, flagship."
Her boilers churned, her legs thrummed and she began the slow, languid turn back down south, the rest of the taskforce falling in step.
"Darling, Resolution. Returning at good speed."
"Darling, copy. See you soon!"
~*~
They didn't encounter the Malta Princess. The Italians actually did run her down west of Bizerte, pasted her to bits and by the sounds of it were now entangled in a mixture of repairs, damage assessments, impromptu street parties and desperately trying to figure out who they needed to recompense over that one unfortunate lighthouse.
Goodness, Resolution mused, the perils of victory.
They reached the Strait shortly past noon, the sun bright, high and sizzling. Greyhound donned sunglasses. Ajax deployed a particularly floppy sunhat. Lion, slotted into the middle of their formation, tried to angle her deck for shade only to be berated by a constantly fussing Vindictive whilst Illustrious, doing the exact same thing, carefully avoided eye contact.
Resolution bore the heat stoically, for reasons most definitely not related to being unable to do anything else.
"Darling, Resolution. Coming into port now."
"Darling, copy, we see you."
Gibraltar was… well, Gibraltar was Gibraltar. They steamed in, wheeling about past the still abandoned town of Punta Carnero as the Rock slowly slid into view. The Bay of Gibraltar unfurled; a constant hive of activity, the port city of Algeciras sprawling wide across the entire bay, Gibraltar itself just the rightward peninsula cutting the Bay itself out from the Alboran Sea and the Mediterranean proper.
Ships of every size and stripe, safe in their harbour. Hadn't always been that way. A great shoal of oil tankers, titanic in size, waited for the next convoy to set sail across the Strait to Morocco on the opposite side. Should have set departed by now, but the Malta Princess must have jilted everyone's schedules. She couldn't help but keep her eyes on the Rock itself, the great forested mountain sitting brazenly in the ocean.
Networks of caves and tunnels laced through that old thing; old armaments, old fortifications. Built in times of war. Abandoned over safety concerns in times of peace. Tunnels, caves, shipwrecks, history.
When the Abyssal War began, little wonder it near immediately proved to have a Princess hiding in it. Even now, re-secured, re-fortified and transformed into an Abyssal watchstation and research facility, one couldn't help but feel… caution, whenever the deep sea fleets were active. The constantly rotating train of randomly denominated priests taking turns to fling holy rituals at it before running away screaming certainly added seasoning.
Quite apart from the Gibraltar force, the Rock Facility itself had its own spiritual 'fleet' attached. For all the politicians were willing to endlessly nitpick the Bread for Boats agreement to the ends and depths of time, no-one touched the Rock; Barham and Valiant – two highly prized Queen Elizabeth class battleships, who on the face of things should not have been that easily spared – were notoriously tight-lipped about what exactly they'd found down there.
Well, she mused, at least the sky's clear. Always a good sign. No stormclouds, no rain. No clouds period, just a clear, beaming blue sky.
They made a left turn into the Bay before peeling right towards the military base. Once almost entirely turned over to civilian administration, the Abyssal War had re-militarised the Gibraltar Docks in a very real hurry; now the Royal Navy more or less owned and operated the entire peninsula, her surviving civilian administration having long since evacuated with refugee status within the wider EU. The battle between the Spanish Army and the Gibraltar Princess had not been… pleasant; these days most of Gibraltar's original architecture remained only in the form of craters. The damn monkeys'd still survived it all, the bastards.
The Gibraltar Docks weren't what she remembered them being, but it stood to reason; as any of His Majesty's Ships could tell you, shelling, neglect and sell-offs tended to have that effect on things. They passed Dainty and Janus on shore patrol, weaved their way past the minefields and torpedo nets, and finally weighed in at Gibraltar.
Resolution hauled herself up onto land, pretending she hadn't made that wheeze. Left knee still creaking, damn it all. Illustrious clambered up seemingly without effort and the destroyers actually bloody hopped the damn thing.
Lion came up the pier and stopped, bobbing uncertainly on the water with hands on her hip-turrets. Ajax and Vindictive each got a shoulder under one arm and, after a quick crash-course in rigging dismissal ("It's like sitting down to take a load off, but don't actually sit down!"), pushed her up onto solid ground.
The half-carrier stumbled, drunkenly swaying against an ocean no longer present and wobbling dangerously upon the lines of her shoe-hulls. Gripping her by the shoulders, Resolution held the other woman upright as she steadied herself and regained her balance.
"It gets easier." She promised, smiling fondly. As first steps went, Lion at least hadn't tried dropping anchor or throwing up on anything yet. Oh, the look on George's face when she'd first-
Lion paled, and Resolution quickly stepped to one side in case she needed to retract that statement.
"She's right you know." Vindictive rubbed circles into the half-carrier's back. "Just take it easy. Focus on maintaining your balance for now, alright?"
Lion nodded shakily, taking a wobbly, tentative step. "Y-Yeah."
"Small steps, that's it; take it slow and don't rush." Vindictive lead her along down the pier. "See, you're doing fine."
"I wasn't expecting it to be this hard." Lion laughed awkwardly.
"Well, we're ships, yes?" The repair ship just shrugged. "It's only natural."
Lion paused. "...R-Right."
Privately, Resolution suspected the shapes of her shoe-hulls didn't help. They never really helped anyone, once ashore.
"Haaa~aah," Ajax stretched, cricking her shoulders and nearly slapping Resolution with her ponytail. "First time's always terrible. Like babby's first pub crawl, y'know?"
Vindictive twitched. "Please do not touch your rum ration until you are sitting down."
Lion choked and went even paler. "Not a chance in hell."
Twin fists gripped at either shoulder, locking Lion in place before the burning, seething gaze of a particularly well-named repair vessel. "Do not touch the rum ration." The taller, heavier, up-armoured and up-gunned warship trapped before it positively wilted.
"I- I wasn't going to?" Lion improbably tried to shrink despite easily being six foot tall, "I meant- I really wasn't going to, there's no chance I was going to- I don't even drink-"
Resolution blinked. Ajax blinked. Vindictive raised an eyebrow.
"-no seriously!" Lion blurted, eyes darting, "I don't even drink!"
"Vindy!" Ajax shouted, bashing the repair ship aside, "you broke her!"
"-ow, what?" Vindictive hit the concrete, repair cranes swinging. Faires and cargo bounced across the seafront; a discordant chorus of metallic clatters and bleated 'heys'.
Illustrious sighed. Resolution stepped further aside. The destroyers all spontaneously vanished in a puff of plausible deniability.
"It's okay, it's okay," Ajax whispered quickly, on her tip-toes and trying to pat Lion's very confused head. "You don't have to make any promises you don't want to keep-"
"Ajax," Vindictive spoke very, very, very politely.
Ajax tugged her by the hands. "So you're new and that's great and we gotta have the Catch Up Talk and also run away really fast now-"
Resolution groaned, pressing fingers against her forehead. "Ajax, let Rooke handle that."
"No!" Ajax kept tugging. "Everyone gets to do it! Nobody's let me do it yet-"
"It's Rooke's job."
"-you let London do it!"
Yep, definitely a migraine. "That's why Rooke does it now..."
"Um-!", said Lion, tottering helplessly.
Vindictive politely stood.
"S-So!" Ajax jabbered, somehow tugging the tottering half-carrier along in her wake. "Quickly now! It's the twenty-twenties so the King is dead, long lived the Queen but she also died so it's a king again and the Commies were bad and fell over and Yanks touched the moon and gave up a bit after they exploded the Japs and made them all turn really weird. The bananas also died-"
"Ladies," Illustrious wearily called out, extracting her pipe from inside her jacket. "Ladies, if we could all please-"
Vindictive politely patted herself down. Dust and other such things. The carrier-cruiser pair were already stumbling they way into the distance, Ajax's rapid-fire rambling still gaily drifting over.
"-don't shoot the Germans, magic phones do everything, we rocked the world with beetles or summat 'till the Yanks came at us with an undead space alien and-oh! Don't shoot the Italians either! We like, all joined together in love and peace 'n harmony 'n shit afterwards 'till ours got huffy 'n left for some reason and-"
The pair rounded a corner and flailed their way out of sight and sound. Ever so calmly, Vindictive regathered her scattered repair crews and reset her upset cranes. Confirmed all accounted for. Reset all out of place.
Then, once neat, resettled and recentred, took off in a dead and murderous sprint.
"OI, GET BACK 'ERE YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
Resolution stared in the wake of her departure, not quite daring to follow. The air felt so clear back here in her absence; so safe; so peaceful; so serene.
"...Still think she's going to Calais?"
Illustrious grunted, lighting her pipe with a matchstick. "Maybe if we mail her in a bucket."
Greyhound coughed, coming out from behind some cargo boxes. "So er- that's all gonna be Darlin's problem, right?"
Illustrious puffed. "Darling's problem."
Mohawk grunted from behind a lamppost. "Darling's problem."
Resolution went for her hip flask.
~*~
"Admiral Darling? Resolution here to see you sir."
She stepped around HMS Rooke as the latter held the door open, careful not to stub toes against the grey woman's concrete boots. Cap underarm, she clicked her heels and stood to attention.
A thick, stumpy man with muddy-red hair looked up and tried to smile. For all her two years of service in the Gibraltar base she'd never quite seen him manage it; it always twitched just slightly short; never quite reached the eyes. Always a hint, inch or touch too tall, wide, toothy or leering to quite hit that 'kind, fatherly' look he always seemed to be aiming for.
"Ah, my dear!" He greeted, hands edging back towards his paperwork, "Welcome back! Safe journey I presume?"
"Safe enough." Given she never even got to do anything.
"Good good. One moment then-" He shuffled and put aside whatever it was he'd previously been working on (-oh, that record of their bauxite stocks did not look accurate-) trying to clear space upon his desk in the manner of a sailor trying to filch water out of his dinghy by ineffectually swilling it around. Papers to the left of him, papers to the right, the entire room lined and stacked with overflowing filing cabinets from floor to ceiling, like a devout trying and failing to part the Red (Ink) Sea.
"Aha!" He raised the latest sheet of paper with beaming pride. "There it is!"
Resolution squinted. Ah, the form to reinstate a 'spiritual vessel' to the Fleet Register.
"So!" Darling clicked the lid off his fountainpen with a flourish. "Who did you say she was?"
"HMS Lion, sir."
"Hmm hmm," Darling squinted, guiding his pen through the fields and boxes of the form with the care, grace and patience of a stiff-legged pensioner manoeuvring through a supermarket parking lot, "Pennant number?"
Ah- "She was never launched, sir."
That hand stalled. He looked up quizzically. "I'm sorry?"
She shifted awkwardly. "HMS Lion – the 1939 Lion – was never launched, sir. She doesn't have a pendant number assigned, sir."
Darling looked at her face, Darling looked at his paperwork, Darling clicked the lid back onto his fountainpen and sighed. The incomplete form got pushed to one side.
"One moment, one moment-"
He hmm'd, stroked the whisper of a moustache beneath his nose and started going through his desk drawers.
Resolution… stood there. Helpfully.
"Aha! This should be the right one!" He produced another, longer form with multiple pages, laying it out there on the desk. The lid clicked off his pen a flourish, and he went back to work with a will.
Rooke clunked back in, stonily depositing a pair of steaming mugs between them (on the papers) before withdrawing unobtrusively to the wall, becoming one with the filing cabinets. Darling took a sip absently, choked on it and spat it back out again. Resolution… held hers, politely, trying to ignore the stone frigate staring at her from across the room. It was a hand warmer! Yes.
"Pennant… to be assigned… date of..." Darling muttered to himself, "'39… Lion… battleship wasn't it?"
Resolution blinked. Um. "...Aviation Battleship, sir."
Darling's pen paused.
"...Aviation Battleship?"
"Aviation Battleship sir."
His brow furrowed in numb confusion. "This form doesn't have an entry for 'Aviation Battleship'."
"She is an Aviation Battleship, sir."
She could see the moustache quiver.
"It's not on the form..."
She thought of very awkwardly placed flight decks with head-shaped dents in them. "She is, without a doubt, an Aviation Battleship, sir."
Darling went back to his desk drawers, muttering darkly. Resolution stood there, very helpfully waited, and privately wished she could be anywhere else outside. She tentatively sniffed the mug in her hands; coffee...?
"This one- no- this- no, this is-, that shouldn't be here- no- no- oho that's where- argh, no-"
Rooke emerged from the filing cabinets, sheets in hand. "Sir."
Darling surfaced, receiving the outheld documents with a desperate smile. "Aha, you lifesaver Rooke, that's-" flipped through them, "this is..." paused. "Rooke, these aren't the right forms at all!"
Rooke stared stonily.
"Augh..." the man rested his head in his palms, "what's an Admiral supposed to do?"
"Drink your tea." Rook advised. Darling drank from his cup, choked and spat it back out again.
He groaned, then sat his cup aside and sighed. "Well, no matter. Bah," he chuckled, "if the forms are only for battleships and aircraft carriers, I'll just have to file her twice!"
Her spine stiffened with dreadful premonition. "Please do not file HMS Lion twice."
"Bah!" He laughed, waving her off. "It'll be fine. The Admiral will handle it." He rounded his deck, chuckling and patted her on the shoulder. "HMS Restitution, have faith. All the girls I've gathered here are under my protection and command." He leaned forward, the result angling his head suspiciously above her bustline. "What do you say; will you not try to give this old man the benefit of the doubt, and trust in his ability to do you right?"
HMS Resolution stared. "...Yes."
He patted her shoulder again. "Jolly good! Now, Rooke will see you out; the Admiral is very busy you know!"
His hand pressed against her back, guiding her towards the door; she stepped forwards quickly before it could 'humorously' move any lower.
Out the office, out the corridor, out into the grand outdoors and the open, Admiralty-free air. She breathed a sigh of relief. Rooke offered another coffee.
~*~
Once Vindictive had calmed down and the destroyers had cut Ajax out from that laundry hamper, they found Lion, quite sober and thoroughly irritated, sat outside the dormitories. How Ajax had somehow managed to fail at causing a piss-up was anyone's guess but for once Resolution wouldn't complain.
Any resemblance HMS Lion might have had to ineffectually angry, non-aborted juvenile felines, sat there on the porch's front step with a chorus of bleating fairies, was of course never to be mentioned. In public.
"I taught her everything I know!" Ajax declared proudly, salute and all, bits of cotton netting still caught in her rigging.
"Have a coffee." Resolution agreed, pushing Rooke's cold mug into her hands.
Moving past the light cruiser and ignoring her choked splutterings, Resolution examined the aviation battleship sat upon the stair.
Funny thing to look at. Two big guns cramped up, trying to share deck space with a painfully short looking runway. Resolution wasn't an expert on carrier landings for obvious reasons, but a short, thin runway off-angle from the line of the ship did not confidence inspire. And they'd wanted to launch and receive torpedo bombers on that thing? It worried the soul; no wonder the original proposal had been rejected.
Becoming a shipgirl – er, 'spiritual vessel' - had probably been the best thing for her (magically poofing her into existence in the first place aside). Guns went onto her waist mounts, superstructure went onto her back like it usually did and whilst the flight deck remained short, it was at least alone; on an armature without anything terribly inconvenient to crash into in its near vicinity. A slight dent still marred the underside near her head but honestly, Resolution'd seen girls sail home with worse. She nodded confidently; stupid facemarks always buffed out in time.
Her hair even had those fiddly little fire controller headpieces on either side like Vanguard did, she noted with some bemusement. Shorter and floofier hair though, with stronger, namesake colouring.
"I don't drink." Lion repeated sourly.
Resolution shrugged. "That's fine."
The other woman ran a hand through that shorter, floofier hair. "…I don't even know what I'm doing."
"You can learn."
Lion looked up at her doubtfully. Resolution cracked a smile.
"Welcome to Gibraltar."
When she offered a hand, Lion took it.
Of course, telling Lion she could learn was one thing. Actually teaching her could well prove quite another.
"See," Resolution told her the following morning, "thing about here in Gibraltar? We're a training base as much as anything."
That got Lion to blink, still bleary-eyed under the cresting sun. "Training?"
"Yeeep." She lead her out past the cafeteria and down towards the bayside route away from the Rock. "Three main roles. One, the Rock facility." She threw a thumb over her shoulder. "We're guarding it. Keeping it contained is a separate command so don't worry about that, but any Abyssal forces coming for it or the Strait are going to be torching the rest of Gibraltar in the process so..." Resolution shrugged. "We're the outer defences."
Lion nodded, shooting the Rock an uncomfortable look. Still clear skies today.
Resolution clicked her fingers to regain her attention. "Second, training base. S'what it was before this whole mess, what it still sorta-kinda is now. Illustrious and me? We were both training ships by the end of things. I train the battleships, 'Lusty trains the carriers. You, lucky girl, get the both of us."
She tried for a playful elbow, but Lion shifted away uncomfortably. Ah well.
"Anyway, yeah. The Med's quieter than up north; we're enclosed, and we control the Strait. Safer just to take all the new girls and shuffle them down here, let 'em get their sea legs back, pass 'em back up to Blighty. And hey, it gives us more guns, s'all part of the agreement, which leads me to role number three."
Resolution turned and looked Lion directly in the eyes. "We're here to guard the Spanish coast."
A blink. Surprise; a moment's confusion. Then simple, befuddled acceptance. A nod and a shrug. No hostilities; no instinctive objections.
…Pleasant change of pace.
Of course, Resolution supposed, she is a paper. No unpleasant memories or history there…
Resolution nodded, and resumed leading her way down to the docks. "You heard anyone mention Bread for Boats yet?"
"Er, once?"
She shrugged. "S'about what it sounds like, honestly. Early days, Abyssals first started coming up, everywhere started seeing Princesses and Installations pop up like rashes, up and down the coasts. Armies and the Big Ships did their best of course, and obviously we started coming back, but who's Spain got to call on? Not much call for a navy in a civil war, back in our old days."
"Anyway, the Rock got its Princess, Gibraltar got evacuated and England got her reason to stick the royal foot in. Home islands weren't exactly prepared for this any more than anyone else so their food situation tanked. Thus," she clapped, "the grand agreement. We send the Boats," she gestured out to Algeciras across the bay, "they send the Bread."
She watched Lion stare out across the water. "...Huh."
Resolution huffed, resuming the stroll down the bayside path. "Should be 'Ships For Bread' but, y'know. Newsies. Any questions?"
Lion frowned. "Not really… how's it going in England?"
"Up the Channel?" She grimaced. "...Stormy. You know how tight it gets; those kind of distances, that kind of weather, Abyssals summoning right under you? It's a knife fight up there."
"No, um, England?"
"Oh, the coasts?" Resolution waggled her hand. "North Sea's got Jutland and its merry re-enactment society – not to mention Scapa Flow – and of course the Atlantic's chock fucking full of U-Boats." She chuckled mirthlessly. "Then you've got Hood up near Iceland, freezing her tits off."
Lion shifted, almost saying something then apparently abandoning it. Resolution gave a bitter sigh. "You know we even get convoys now? Abyssal convoys I mean, trying to recreate our old jobs. Have to catch and sink the little bastards before they can make landfall and start raising Installations. Bloody madness out there."
She shrugged as they approached the Camp Bay tunnel, returning the salute of the marine standing guard. Lion wasn't paying attention enough to notice, apparently; she snapped her fingers again to get her on track.
"We get them here sometimes, the convoys." They passed into the tunnel's cool chill. "Try to land in Portugal or Morocco, or run the Strait. Those ones are ours. U-boats are a constant nuisance but they can't do much on land. It's the convoys that bring Princesses, start shelling towns."
This was usually the point in The Talk when Resolution had to explain what Princesses were (and that no, the Queen Lizzies held no relation, please and thank you, joke's been made, Barham might actually stab you-) and so on. Lion just nodded along though; someone in the dorm must have felt chatty that evening.
She shrugged and kept on walking. Soon, Rosia Bay emerged on the opposite side.
A small, almost octagonal little bay, practically a garage by boat standards but adequately sized for human-scale vessels such as themselves. Standard practise with returnees; give them a little space to tootle about and get their feet wet, given most summonings took place on land. Less necessary in Lion's case, but with Vindictive's warnings in mind she still wanted to run them anyway; who knew what faults lay hidden in a design only extant on paper?
Besides, everyone's first launch in their newfangled, multi-limbed forms were inevitably hilarious in some form or other. One would not think the likes of heavy cruisers and battleships to be trepidatious at the prospect of stepping out onto open water, but not many had been present for Iron Duke or Sussex back in those early old days. Royal Oak, bless her soul, had taken one look at the water, one look at her own two feet and suddenly started screaming about being a catamaran.
...Hopefully she wouldn't have to punt this one. Both Repulses still sent politely worded death threats from time to time. She sighed fondly, leaning on the rail.
"Anyway just..." she waggled a hand out at the waters, "pootle around for a bit, check your turning circles. Get you back into the swing of things."
Lion gave her an odd look, to which Resolution just smiled encouragingly. Eventually, the half-carrier gingerly stepped out onto the water, and somehow became yet more of an abomination against ocean and God.
Ungainly. Wobbly. She'd had the knack of it when they brought her in but it seemed just a single good night's sleep was enough to make Lion lose her sea legs. Every now and then it looked like she'd almost got it, sailing smooth and proper for a few yards before apparently overcompensating or something, causing her to wobble and start waggling her arms around like she'd just spent a night on the spree. How could someone so recently returned be so ungainly on water yet walk so naturally on land? Didn't seem natural.
...Well, sink or swim she supposed. She checked her watch and called out. "Alright, head out to sea!"
"-Sea?!" Lion jolted, hair bouncing.
"Well we can hardly do sea trials here." Resolution retorted.
Lion turned spectacularly green.
It'd all buff out, she was sure. Resolution felt very professional about this.
How.
"I-" Lion stammered, wobbling even with Resolution propping her up at the shoulder, "I- I was better at this yesterday-?"
How.
The sea drifted. The sea churned. The sea rose a gentle one metre wave that nearly sent Lion sprawling arse over teakettle.
"-GYAH-!"
...Resolution retracted the 'nearly'.
"Are you sure none of your bridge staff have been drinking?"
"I- I don't drink!" The half-a-carrier spluttered in several senses of the word.
Resolution grunted. You might not but I'll bet you've still got the rum ration aboard. She'd put even money on most of Lion's 'crew' being the dockworkers who'd built and scrapped her.
Took effort not to shake her head. Looking at the sodden aviation battleship sprawled on its knees made the… strangeness of their existence all the starker. The funnels poking up out of the back-mounted rigging, clearly dripping with sea-spray yet still operating normally. Hell, the over-shoulder flight deck, recently dipped underwater when the ship had gone flying, still looked no worse for wear even with planes out on deck. Even knocked over, toppled or outright deluged underneath heavy waves, it remained maddeningly unclear what, exactly, constituted 'capsized' amongst the spiritual vessels. To say there was a difference in draft was the century's understatement, and even after two years the collective paranoia surrounding the issue remained fit to match.
-Though, come to think of it, were Lion's planes supposed to be out like that?
Resolution blinked a moment, then shrugged. Illustrious' problem. What the hell would she know? Maybe she didn't have hangars.
She nudged the half-carrier with her foot, an action that just as equally failed to produce the typical end result of ship-to-ship collisions. Lion raised her head, sodden and forlorn.
...Yep, she thought with concrete certainty. Wet kitten.
"I can't even swim." Lion confessed, sprawled upon the watery 'floor'.
Resolution nodded along. "That's pretty normal, honestly."
Shipgirls could swim, given sufficient quantities of assurance, motivation, brandy and/or blackmail. Just as long as the rigging was put away first; they became 'weirdly buoyant humans' after that. Not that it really came up much. Trying to actively train them in it also ran the risk of a submarine slipping in to videotape the whole thing, and Warspite still hadn't forgiven her for that little debacle.
...Woman held grudges like her name implied.
"Come on," Resolution nudged her with her foot again. "Show a leg. Gotta get the hang of it sooner or later."
Lion groaned, stood, wobbled, failed, and then stood again.
"Your first trial," Resolution spoke, sipping her hipflask, "is to sail 10 metres in a straight line, then turn."
"..."
If they could work the kinks out now, hopefully Illustrious would have better luck...
It was always fun and happy a time when Illustrious could be found in the dockside pub with her head in her hands and a bottle of whisky openly by her side.
"...abortions the result of psychological maladjustment..." She could hear her, muttering.
"That bad?" Resolution ventured, taking the opposite seat.
The grey carrier's head rose, revealing an utterly filthy expression. "She's a walking disaster. Walking."
She chuckled awkwardly. "Her sea legs aren't that-"
"Resolution." Illustrious spoke flatly. "It is a disgrace to call that 'floating'."
Resolution winced.
"...And her air wing?" She dread to ask.
"We should send her to Japan." Illustrious spoke blandly, idly examining her glass. "Miss Taiho could offer her some genuine advice."
...Resolution shivered.
"Haven't you heard, Resolution dear?" The carrier continued, idly rotating her tumbler, observing the play of light reflecting on glass like it held the awesome secrets of the universe. "The new ship is an aviation battleship, the most final union of the sea." Her head gave the faintest, enamoured tilt. "The strength of a battleship! The range of an aircraft carrier! The truest thing to ever rule the waves! Why," those eyes slid over to her with all the impending doom of a forward battery, "I do believe the good Admiral has begun to... brag."
...Resolution felt an entire bucket of ice water rattle down her spine.
She wanted to go for her hip flask, but Illustrious was already pouring her one anyway. Illustrious raised her glass, that gaze still fixing her with that empty, hollow stare.
"Drink up, me hearties." That voice spoke. "Yo ho."
"Do we really need to-"
"Yes."
"It's four in the-"
"I know."
"I really think-"
Resolution halted, Resolution flung, and Resolution watched as Lion gaily sailed face-first into the bay, beneath the barest hint of dawn. Splish.
"Believe me," Resolution groused sourly, "this hurts you exactly as much as it's hurting me."
"And so..." Resolution grimaced, "we're going to need a little more… training."
Her companion shrugged, idle. Dusky skin beneath a dusty, battered redcoat. Hull-shoed feet swung freely over the cliffside of the Rock, there in the misty evening.
"...That means more supplies."
Her companion sighed. "Just fuel?"
"Battleship rounds, if you can find any. 16-inch. We'll have to fill them with paint before she can blow any of ourselves up. And something nice for Agamemnon, if you can."
Her companion hummed, rolling her shoulders. "I'll see what we can do. Will Illustrious need anything?"
"Probably? I don't know what though, you'd have to ask."
Another considering 'hmm'. Those legs swung. "...She'll ask me herself, soon enough."
Resolution conceded the point.
They stood, reeling themselves in and rising smoothly upright on their own two feet. A short height and a thin frame. HMS Punjabi, Tribal-class destroyer, nodded. "Anything else?"
Resolution waved her off. "Nah, nah, everything's good otherwise. Your end?"
"No problems."
Resolution nodded, shrugging. Punjabi headed off, walking back to the Destroyer dormitories.
She sighed, savouring the crisp, cooling air, as dusk settled behind the Rock.
"-Anyway, we'll be seeing how you measure as a battleship today, that's why I'm supervising." Resolution slowed to a halt, stopping on the waves whilst Lion caught up. "You all loaded?"
"Yeah I-" Lion glanced back at the 'supply cache' parked aside the coastal road. "Paint, right?"
Resolution nodded. "Paint."
Lion… glanced back at the 'cache' again. "Why is it a-"
"Let me introduce you to someone." Resolution gestured quickly. An older woman in a battered, patchwork uniform cheerfully ambled over across the waves. "This is my assistant."
The older woman smiled happily, ashen-grey hair bouncing about her shoulders as she offered a hand. "Hello! You must be Lion!"
Lion blinked, taking the offered hand and shaking it uncertainly. "Ah- pleased to meet you, miss…?"
The grey, soot-stained woman bounced merrily on her heels. "Agamemnon!"
Lion nodded without recognition, glancing back at her. Resolution just shrugged her shoulders and gestured out toward the open waters. "She'll be helping us out for this exercise."
"Hmm?"
Agamemnon beamed. "I'm your target ship!"
Resolution caught the exact moment Lion's expression suddenly and hysterically froze, then immediately filed it away to laugh about it later. A quick signal flash had the unmarked van on the coast drive off back to wherever it was the destroyers were hiding it today.
"E-Eh?!" Lion was exclaiming, eloquently.
"Target ship?" Agamemnon's head tilted like a bird, pointing at her own chin. "Me. I'm a target ship." Her eager salute bounced off her forehead. "Shoot me, and improve!"
Lion's gaze lost its focus, staring into the middle distance like a deer stared into the oncoming rush of a certain African feline. Resolution assuredly did not giggle.
"You poor thing..." Agamemnon pouted. "Have you really never met a target ship before? I don't really remember you but surely-"
"Agamemnon, she's a paper vessel." Resolution transmitted privately. "We've talked about this."
The target ship flushed, about-faced and immediately started flapping her raggedy sleeves. "A-Anyway! I'm- I'm going over there!"
And off she sailed.
Resolution shook her head, patting Lion on the shoulder. "We'll separate to a short distance and go from there – longer ranges, moving targets and so on. The usual practise."
Lion remained silent, watching after the departing target ship, as Resolution helped her sail the necessary distance.
Ah. Something clicked in the back of Resolution's mind. "Come to think of it- have you actually fired your guns?"
"Hm?" Lion blinked, head turning back to her.
"Your guns, the enemy," her hand waggled, "you ever fire your guns at the enemy?"
"Ah- er," Lion winced, "...no."
Resolution waited.
"It's er- too busy running at the time, and they had a carrier. Like, a proper carrier and a proper battleship. And other ships." Lion's hands wrangled. "It, er. Didn't think it'd end too well."
Resolution hmm'd, looking back across the waters. Ah, Agamemnon was almost in position.
"You were probably right, honestly."
Resolution squinted across the distance, catching Lion untense out of the corner of her eye.
"A lone ship, unescorted, against a decent fleet – only sane option's to withdraw. Can't fight when dead, no?"
"R-Right."
Not to mention… Resolution really wouldn't want to be stuck in Lion's position. Against a proper battleship, outgunned; against a proper fleet carrier – hell, even most escort carriers – out-flown. The most that could be expected of her was bullying cruisers, and even then the necessary avgas and munitions bunkers for flight ops had to leave her with one hell of a glass jaw if she ever closed the range. Like the limbs on a Tyrannosaurus Rex; the more she thought about it, the more those turrets she was teaching her to fight with felt very vestigial.
The sort of ship you'd leave to commerce raiding and convoy escort, if the Abyss had commerce to raid and the Royal Navy had convoys to escort. Failing that just left hunting the bloody uboats. Her, along with everyone else, their rusting mothers and every rickety little dinghy they could float and still strap a sonar onto. Fucking Atlantic.
Resolution sighed.
…And Lion's 'vestigial' turrets were still a higher calibre than hers.
They came to a stop.
"Anyway, just…" she gestured across the waters, "take your time."
"R-Right." Lion stiffened up; straightened; took a deep breath. Tall, straight, proud.
"Shoot to kii~iill!" Agamemnon encouraged cheerfully, arms flapping up and down in the distance. Lion immediately gibbered.
"You're loaded with paint, remember." Resolution muttered. She watched Lion shiver, let out a breath. Saw her shake the tension out from her fingers and clench them into fists.
"...Right."
Turrets traversed. Barrels raised. Lion's two triple turrets swivelled about and found their targets. Lion herself… wavered.
It's like teaching a kitten to paw at a scratching post. Resolution stared.
"If you can't even shoot a target ship, how the devil will you shoot the Abyssals?"
"That-" Lion floundered, "that's different."
"You're loaded with paint, girl!"
"Do your bee~eest!" Agamemnon yelled encouragingly across the waters.
Lion twitched, recentred her guns, muttered something about shooting someone's grandma for some reason and-
B-BOOM
Y-Yep, Resolution felt her hull rattle, 16 inchers.
The ocean rippled away from them in waves, blasted by just the pressure. In the far distance, the sea erupted in a merry sploosh of watercolours; a great, painted geyser thrown up into the sky, cascading back down in a riotous torrent followed by a gentle, cascading mist.
"A little to the lee~eeft!" A perfectly dry Agamemnon called, leftwards. Lion grumbled some more.
"Don't fire every barrel at once." Resolution advised. "Fire one, see where it lands, fire another and so on. Get a feel for how long it takes to reload a single gun and pace your shots accordingly. Volley fire only when you're sure of course and range."
Lion nodded, grimacing. "Right."
Guns recentred. Barrels adjusted.
"Watch your hips too. We're not as stable firing platforms as we used to be."
Lion glanced over. "Rough seas?"
Resolution nodded grimly. "We bob like bloody corks. Rigging's stabilised sure but that'll only take you so far. Lucky us, that's mostly an Atlantic problem though, you ready to fire again?"
Lion nodded. Resolution gestured.
BOOM
Sploosh.
"Little to the riii~iight!"
Lion concentrated.
BOOM
Sploosh.
"Little short, almost there~!"
BOOM
…
Lion frowned. Smoke cleared.
Bobbing and wobbling in the distance, Agamemnon waved her arms up and down; raggedy sleeves flapping about, thoroughly sodden.
"N-Nearly had me! Just a splash though!"
Lion groaned.
"You're doing really well~!"
Come to think of it, wasn't this how lions were supposed to hunt? First the old and infirm and all that? Sounded about right. Goodness, this one wasn't even trying to run!
BOOM
Sploosh.
"I'm sure you'll get her eventually."
It didn't quite help.
The sun shone, the birds sang and the Lion still did not float competently upon water.
"You had the hang of it when you first showed up." Resolution repeated, baffled. "You had the hang of it, you did fine." A point established, repeated, churned and chewed like yesterday's cud. "You should not be this bad."
Lion, who most definitely did not resemble a wet kitten, glared. And dripped.
"You can even stand upright and fire cannons-"
"-I don't get it either okay?!"
Lion glared, eyes bright for a few moments, before sinking down (figuratively) and muttering. The waves sloshed.
Resolution sighed, massaging her forehead. "Maybe it's instinctual or something..."
Hmm.
"Say, what were you doing when you first showed up?"
"Er, like in the water?"
"Yeah, when you first- er-" couldn't quite call it 'summoned'- "appeared."
Lion shrugged wetly. "Got confused a lot? It was, like, middle of the ocean."
Resolution nodded. "Big waves?"
Lion shuddered. "Big waves."
Aye, in retrospect that wouldn't be the finest introduction to 'Surprise: Legs!' a shipgirl ever got graced by would it? Dumping an innocent, wide-eyed newborn in the middle of the Atlantic was up there with that one time Illustrious talked George onto a trampoline in terms of imminent disasters.
…Warspite still hadn't forgiven them for that one either, come to think of it.
Still, if Lion was sailing competently then, then...
Resolution pondered, tapping her chin. "Maybe you just need to be distracted?"
Lion blinked back damply. "Huh?"
She nodded authoritatively. "Wait here," stoke the boilers, turn the screws, "I'll be back shortly!"
"-Hey, -oi wait-!"
"Just hang about a sec!" Resolution said, leaving an innocent, wide-eyed newborn in the middle of the Mediterranean. "Got an idea!"
Punjabi raised an eyebrow.
"Ehehe~..."
A giggling laugh. An open expanse of water. An innocent, wide-eyed cub abandoned upon the waves.
Agamemnon stroked the cannons with nostalgic reverence.
"Just how long has it been since I fired these I wonder…?"
"Um." Said Lion.
"So yeah," Resolution sipped her hip-flask, "you're gonna need to learn to move."
"Um."
"It was instinctual back then, right? You ran away. It's the flight-or-fight response." Resolution nodded confidently. "We need to get you back into that prey mentality. When the rounds start flying, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."
Lion stared blankly.
Agamemnon continued to giggle, staring softly into the gunmetal chrome. "Was it Goeben? Breslau? Did I sink them, I wonder…?"
Lion raised a shaky hand and pointed. "Why is she here?"
"I am here for no reason." Punjabi assured with placid authority. "There is no need for concern."
"You have a video camera."
"Yes." Punjabi agreed, watching the camera display with calmly rapt attention. "There is absolutely no reason for this."
Resolution clapped her hands. "Alright, when everyone's ready, starting positions." Nodded to Lion. "You really should stand up a bit."
"I'm sorry." Lion spoke blankly, "it must be my prey mentality."
Resolution laughed. "Well then," she readied her whistle, "show them legs and run!"
"That's it, that's it!"
Shells splashed, cascades of paint, water, sea-foam and foul language. Lion ran, feet crashing into water, actively battering her way through the waves of the churning seas.
"That's the spirit!" Resolution yelled encouragingly, fighting to keep pace. Punjabi was just sailing gaily along without any trouble of course, camera as steady as a rock on water.
In the distance, a lone prey. Old, infirm and mostly harmless. Sailing merrily without a care in the world. Lion ran, crashing into waves, a full pelt predator's sprint… in exactly the opposite direction.
"If you see the water bursts, try sailing towards them!" Agamemnon broadcast across the waves, voice bright, merry and somehow sounding twenty years younger, "It makes it easier on their gunners to- to- no wait! Opposite! Do the exact opposite of that!"
Lion, who had been trailing left in accordance to Agamemnon's advice, suddenly lurched right again, nearly scraping the side of Resolution's hull as more paint rounds burst around them. Resolution grimaced as she fought through the turbulence.
"Sorry, sorry!" Agamemnon wailed, "just I um- t-target ship?"
I'm going to have to review the destroyers' gunnery drills, aren't I? Resolution groused mentally.
Lion bashed and Lion battered through the waves, flared-front deck reflected in shoe-hulls that more-or-less punted their way through the water. Still she kept flailing and stumbling, less a direct run and more one continuous, half-aborted faceplant skating at high speeds… and not at Lion's design speed either, if Resolution was still able to keep up. Damn those unfamiliar limbs!
"Come on girl," Resolution barked, "are you a battleship or aren't y-"
Lion turned. The whistle of oncoming shell. The abrupt, desperate course change, turning two formerly parallel lines into an imminent collision.
For a beautiful, pristine moment, the surface of Lion's flight deck consumed the entirety of Resolution's vision.
BONK
Then it didn't.
Agamemnon startled as they came closer, staring at Resolution's face.
"Oh gosh- oh goodness did I hit you?!" She rushed on up pulling handkerchiefs out of her sleeve, "Oh gosh I'm so terribly sorry-"
"I'm fine Agamemnon."
"-must've hurt and- wait, how did you avoid all the paint?"
Resolution fended her off with one arm, other hand still clamping her nose. "I'm fine, Agamemnon."
Lion came in, exhausted and looking like a wrung-out tie-dye shirt haunted by the ghost of Jackson Pollock. "Please sir, I don't want any more."
Punjabi casually zipped on by, clean, pristine and still rolling that bloody camera. "'ees fallen in the wah-tah~"
Resolution groaned. "Quiet, you." She stopped, took a deep breath through her no- took a deep breath through her mouth, and sighed.
"You can sail now, right?"
Lion stared back, blankly dripping.
"...Let's just go home."
Illustrious raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not talking about it."
Vindictive raised both eyebrows.
"I'm not talking about it."
Ajax raised both eyebrows, several signal flags and the stars in her eyes as she bounded over, mouth opening wide to ask a no-doubt veritable torrent of questions and-
"Go home."
-went home.
"Would you like the latest casualty reports?" Punjabi offered very innocently. Resolution took the offered folder with a dark scowl.
"Are there any?"
"Nothing major." Punjabi momentarily flashed serious. Resolution nodded. Flicking through the folders… just the typical levels of maintenance and repairs along with the replacement for her battered fire controller. She rubbed her sore nose idly.
"Alright. Conclusions, everyone?"
Looks glanced about the table; HMSes Resolution, Punjabi, Proteus, Illustrious, Rooke and Vindictive in various appropriated seats in what would otherwise be the shared lounge area of the Destroyer's apartment building, a former and only marginally battered hotel block. A few folders and written reports were scattered about, but by and large the relevant paperwork remained aboard HMS Rooke, sat scowling at the walls with her concrete boots left contemptuously on the table.
Stone Frigates were always a little- shore establishments indoors could get a bit- Resolution just wasn't even going to go there.
Illustrious tapped at the desk, the grey training carrier puffing her pipe idly.
"She's a helpless idiot."
Resolution winced.
"Doesn't know basic flight operation procedure." One tap. "Completely green pilots barely fit to take-off and land." Two taps. "Barely aware of her own rigging, machinery or spiritual nature." Three taps, and a nod at Resolution's busted nose. "Completely paper vessel. Blank sheet."
Resolution grimaced. Punjabi sipped a soda.
If that was the carrier side of things, it was probably her turn…
Resolution leaned forward onto the table, letting out a sigh. "Surprisingly decent shooting; I've certainly seen worse. Trying to get her moving is-" she waffled a hand at her nose, "-yeah. Otherwise, personally speaking… seems level headed, if greatly overwhelmed. She's not a personality if you get my meaning."
The table held a chorus of sour grumbling.
"Though," Resolution had to admit, "as a carrier and a battleship… supply? She'll need a lot of training materiel."
Punjabi set down her soda, shrugging. "That's manageable, we've been in worse situations. If she's staying here for the foreseeable future, the Armada should be willing to provide. Failing that I can-" she frowned slightly, "I can try and negotiate with the French or Italians."
Walking up to a foreign fleet of shipgirls and asking 'Who wants to feed the British Lion?' had to be a merry thought, didn't it?
"Otherwise," Punjabi returned to her spread of folders, "Gibraltar is in the usual condition, supply wise."
She pulled up a printed sheet with a conspicuous number of corrections in red ink. "Short ammunition for the cruisers, short torpedoes for the submarines, low supply of anti-aircraft shells. Our local fuel supply is low, but-" she flipped the page- "the Spanish have plenty stockpiled in Ferrol, Cartagena and Las Palmas; from Portugal, Lisbon and Porto. We can still maintain and project force on shore patrol."
Resolution nodded grimly. Technically, any spiritual vessel could resupply themselves in full – from fuel to aircraft to ammunition – by consuming vast quantities of food, but doing that for an entire fleet thereof was a good way to cause food shortages in the local area. Not the best route for popularity, that. Logistics vessels – of the spiritual kind – could convert regular human food into shipgirl scale fuel/parts/ammunition at a mildly insane rate of efficiency considering you were literally getting 15" shells out of hamburgers and sauerkraut. Resolution was spectacularly glad no-one was paying her to think about it too hard.
"Local shortage in aluminium, bauxite and airframes," Punjabi continued, "again, foreign supply available for shore patrol but not local activity or training." She nodded at Illustrious, who simply waved her pipe. "Reserves of maintenance equipment and scrap metal adequate per current expenditures." She paused. "Battleship shells in surplus."
Resolution declined to comment.
Punjabi dropped her report in favour of pulling an entire coastal map of the Mediterranean out from her redcoat, an action so inured none of them even blinked.
"As for the Abyss, Malta is storming back up again," -the table collectively groaned- "and I've been hearing mixed reports of emissions from the Rock…?" She glanced questioningly at Illustrious.
"All's fine, says Barham." The carrier replied, frowning slightly.
Well, the Rock itself wasn't their responsibility. Resolution waved her on.
"Most Atlantic movements remain focused northwards on the Channel and the North and Celtic seas. Low expectation of attacks along the Spanish or Portuguese coasts, low expectations of attacks on Gibraltar from the west."
Patrolling the African coast meanwhile was something the Marine Nationale had held onto by the teeth. Or maybe Britain just hadn't been bribed with enough bread. In any case, they weren't Resolution's official concern. They barely had the ships as it was.
"Official word from the Marine Nationale," Rooke suddenly spoke up, "interdiction operation on Mers El Kébir in the coming month, expected by spiritual forces only."
Punjabi visibly grimaced, then nodded and noted that down on the map. The Great European Shipgirl Grapevine – or as it was also known, 'very bored destroyers' and the inevitable submarine smuggling rings – never tended to mention that one if you sailed under the white ensign.
"I've also had rumours from the Italians that Toulon is storming again but," Punjabi could only shrug, "they always say things like that."
Resolution frowned. "It has been raining a lot there lately…"
If the Marine Nationale got distracted fighting to hold their own ports at Marseilles, then a potential Princess at Mers El Kébir would likely...
Resolution shivered. Illustrious watched her carefully, sat across the table, gaze heavy.
"I can ask the Soldati sisters to keep an eye on it," Punjabi promised, "but I doubt we'll get much from the French destroyers. They're starting to close lips."
"Can we trade any favours?"
Punjabi shrugged. "Can we trade any ships?"
Resolution grimaced. If they had more capitals – proper capitals – on station they could talk Darling into 'joint exercises' with the local French or Italian admirals in charge, but with just her and Illustrious around…
Lion existed, yes, but flinging her at their allies and expecting a thank you note seemed a mite unwise.
"I can do another 'rounds, if you need me." Vindictive offered. Resolution nodded, mulling it; there was always that option. Repair Ships were the best way to repair and upgrade spiritual vessels, but back in the War they'd only been relevant to the oceanic powers not dealing with land invasions. Which in Europe made them near exclusively the domain of the Royal Navy. Smuggling out Vindictive to help foreign navies without letting Westminster carve its share would invite… fuss, but they'd gotten away with it before with Portsmouth's clandestine grace. But all that was assuming they wouldn't need Vindictive here, with a paper aviation battleship that could potentially remember how much of a disaster it was at any particular moment.
"Finally," Punjabi concluded, "there's the U-Boat activity, but nothing outside the normal there. Proteus?"
The eyepatch'd submarine grunted, sitting in regular clothes given the lack of need to be underwater. "Yeah, it's th' usual buggers. Had one near-miss with a returned VIIC got misidentified – yes it's in the report – but tha's about it."
"And the Vic'?" Resolution asked.
Proteus shrugged. "German embassy? We dumped her in Lisbon, mate."
Fair enough.
"Alright then, that's the local situation." Resolution cricked her neck. "Finally… England?"
Now it was Vindictive's turn to grimace: "Warspite hasn't updated me yet-" and didn't that paint a thousand words- "but it looks like the Channel storm's been blunted for now. Problem being, as always, it's kicked up all the slumbering Princesses up and down the coasts. Now they concentrating on beating them back down before they can set off Scapa Flow or do any more damage to the port cities. You know how it goes."
Resolution rather hoped she didn't, given the mayhem that had been the early months of the war. With time, experience and an expanded spiritual fleet, one had to think they'd have learned some lessons by now. England, being a collection of islands dotted with historic ports and crowned by the graveyard of the self-scuttled Imperial German High Seas Fleet, had something of a problem with Abyssal cascades, even whilst boasting the greatest success rate in summoning this side of the Atlantic.
She'd heard an American once compare it to whacking moles or somesuch, but it hadn't made sense at the time. They'd probably been talking about possums or something.
An entire theatre of the war managing to embody the phrase 'hurry up and wait'. Generally, England was quiet. Until suddenly it wasn't. Things were never severe enough to force a recall of all available assets, never light enough to disperse them, resulting in a continuous and unending tug-of-war between HNMB Portsmouth and Westminster; the vast, returning spiritual fleet of the Royal Navy about the only political 'currency' the Foreign Office had left to spend for an island nation dependent on food imports that had willingly cut itself out of the European market union. Bread for Boats indeed.
She groaned, momentarily feeling the full weight of an old, creaking iron hull worn with use. "Well, keep us informed, will you? We don't really have anyone we can spare, but…" Resolution shrugged helplessly. Vindictive gave a quiet nod.
"Punjabi, Proteus if you could both keep an ear out on the French Princesses?" The destroyer and submarine both nodded. "Supplies wise…" if surface trouble came to Gibraltar… "prioritise yourselves and carrier aircraft."
"Aye aye." Proteus saluted.
"We will." Punjabi confirmed. Illustrious didn't look happy per se, but she nodded.
The Mediterranean was a French/Italian zone, at least amongst the military circles; under serious threat, they'd have to trust in their contemporaries in the Regia Marina and Marine Nationale. Christ she wanted to strangle those newspaper idiots calling them the 'British Bastion' in Gibraltar.
"In the mean time," Resolution considered, "until Blighty sends us more returnees to train up… Lion? Focus her training as a carrier or as a battleship?"
The table… glanced about itself, awkwardly.
Vindictive tilted her head. "You said she had better intuition when acting as a battleship, right?"
"Maybe as a shore emplacement." Punjabi sniped, droll. Rooke bounced a wad of paper off her forehead.
"The Italians..." Illustrious began hesitantly, "the Italians can always provide more battleships. We always need more spiritual aviation. I…" the carrier hung her head, shoulders slumping under the weight of what she knew she had to say next. "I will take responsibility for her training."
One eye cracked open, focusing down on Resolution with all the power of the impending migraine. "But you will owe me."
Resolution winced.
"See," Resolution told her the following morning, "thing about here in Gibraltar? We're a training base as much as anything."
That got Lion to blink, still bleary-eyed under the cresting sun. "Training?"
"Yeeep." She lead her out past the cafeteria and down towards the bayside route away from the Rock. "Three main roles. One, the Rock facility." She threw a thumb over her shoulder. "We're guarding it. Keeping it contained is a separate command so don't worry about that, but any Abyssal forces coming for it or the Strait are going to be torching the rest of Gibraltar in the process so..." Resolution shrugged. "We're the outer defences."
Lion nodded, shooting the Rock an uncomfortable look. Still clear skies today.
Resolution clicked her fingers to regain her attention. "Second, training base. S'what it was before this whole mess, what it still sorta-kinda is now. Illustrious and me? We were both training ships by the end of things. I train the battleships, 'Lusty trains the carriers. You, lucky girl, get the both of us."
She tried for a playful elbow, but Lion shifted away uncomfortably. Ah well.
"Anyway, yeah. The Med's quieter than up north; we're enclosed, and we control the Strait. Safer just to take all the new girls and shuffle them down here, let 'em get their sea legs back, pass 'em back up to Blighty. And hey, it gives us more guns, s'all part of the agreement, which leads me to role number three."
Resolution turned and looked Lion directly in the eyes. "We're here to guard the Spanish coast."
A blink. Surprise; a moment's confusion. Then simple, befuddled acceptance. A nod and a shrug. No hostilities; no instinctive objections.
…Pleasant change of pace.
Of course, Resolution supposed, she is a paper. No unpleasant memories or history there…
Resolution nodded, and resumed leading her way down to the docks. "You heard anyone mention Bread for Boats yet?"
"Er, once?"
She shrugged. "S'about what it sounds like, honestly. Early days, Abyssals first started coming up, everywhere started seeing Princesses and Installations pop up like rashes, up and down the coasts. Armies and the Big Ships did their best of course, and obviously we started coming back, but who's Spain got to call on? Not much call for a navy in a civil war, back in our old days."
"Anyway, the Rock got its Princess, Gibraltar got evacuated and England got her reason to stick the royal foot in. Home islands weren't exactly prepared for this any more than anyone else so their food situation tanked. Thus," she clapped, "the grand agreement. We send the Boats," she gestured out to Algeciras across the bay, "they send the Bread."
She watched Lion stare out across the water. "...Huh."
Resolution huffed, resuming the stroll down the bayside path. "Should be 'Ships For Bread' but, y'know. Newsies. Any questions?"
Lion frowned. "Not really… how's it going in England?"
"Up the Channel?" She grimaced. "...Stormy. You know how tight it gets; those kind of distances, that kind of weather, Abyssals summoning right under you? It's a knife fight up there."
"No, um, England?"
"Oh, the coasts?" Resolution waggled her hand. "North Sea's got Jutland and its merry re-enactment society – not to mention Scapa Flow – and of course the Atlantic's chock fucking full of U-Boats." She chuckled mirthlessly. "Then you've got Hood up near Iceland, freezing her tits off."
Lion shifted, almost saying something then apparently abandoning it. Resolution gave a bitter sigh. "You know we even get convoys now? Abyssal convoys I mean, trying to recreate our old jobs. Have to catch and sink the little bastards before they can make landfall and start raising Installations. Bloody madness out there."
She shrugged as they approached the Camp Bay tunnel, returning the salute of the marine standing guard. Lion wasn't paying attention enough to notice, apparently; she snapped her fingers again to get her on track.
"We get them here sometimes, the convoys." They passed into the tunnel's cool chill. "Try to land in Portugal or Morocco, or run the Strait. Those ones are ours. U-boats are a constant nuisance but they can't do much on land. It's the convoys that bring Princesses, start shelling towns."
This was usually the point in The Talk when Resolution had to explain what Princesses were (and that no, the Queen Lizzies held no relation, please and thank you, joke's been made, Barham might actually stab you-) and so on. Lion just nodded along though; someone in the dorm must have felt chatty that evening.
She shrugged and kept on walking. Soon, Rosia Bay emerged on the opposite side.
A small, almost octagonal little bay, practically a garage by boat standards but adequately sized for human-scale vessels such as themselves. Standard practise with returnees; give them a little space to tootle about and get their feet wet, given most summonings took place on land. Less necessary in Lion's case, but with Vindictive's warnings in mind she still wanted to run them anyway; who knew what faults lay hidden in a design only extant on paper?
Besides, everyone's first launch in their newfangled, multi-limbed forms were inevitably hilarious in some form or other. One would not think the likes of heavy cruisers and battleships to be trepidatious at the prospect of stepping out onto open water, but not many had been present for Iron Duke or Sussex back in those early old days. Royal Oak, bless her soul, had taken one look at the water, one look at her own two feet and suddenly started screaming about being a catamaran.
...Hopefully she wouldn't have to punt this one. Both Repulses still sent politely worded death threats from time to time. She sighed fondly, leaning on the rail.
"Anyway just..." she waggled a hand out at the waters, "pootle around for a bit, check your turning circles. Get you back into the swing of things."
Lion gave her an odd look, to which Resolution just smiled encouragingly. Eventually, the half-carrier gingerly stepped out onto the water, and somehow became yet more of an abomination against ocean and God.
Ungainly. Wobbly. She'd had the knack of it when they brought her in but it seemed just a single good night's sleep was enough to make Lion lose her sea legs. Every now and then it looked like she'd almost got it, sailing smooth and proper for a few yards before apparently overcompensating or something, causing her to wobble and start waggling her arms around like she'd just spent a night on the spree. How could someone so recently returned be so ungainly on water yet walk so naturally on land? Didn't seem natural.
...Well, sink or swim she supposed. She checked her watch and called out. "Alright, head out to sea!"
"-Sea?!" Lion jolted, hair bouncing.
"Well we can hardly do sea trials here." Resolution retorted.
Lion turned spectacularly green.
It'd all buff out, she was sure. Resolution felt very professional about this.
~*~
How.
"I-" Lion stammered, wobbling even with Resolution propping her up at the shoulder, "I- I was better at this yesterday-?"
How.
The sea drifted. The sea churned. The sea rose a gentle one metre wave that nearly sent Lion sprawling arse over teakettle.
"-GYAH-!"
...Resolution retracted the 'nearly'.
"Are you sure none of your bridge staff have been drinking?"
"I- I don't drink!" The half-a-carrier spluttered in several senses of the word.
Resolution grunted. You might not but I'll bet you've still got the rum ration aboard. She'd put even money on most of Lion's 'crew' being the dockworkers who'd built and scrapped her.
Took effort not to shake her head. Looking at the sodden aviation battleship sprawled on its knees made the… strangeness of their existence all the starker. The funnels poking up out of the back-mounted rigging, clearly dripping with sea-spray yet still operating normally. Hell, the over-shoulder flight deck, recently dipped underwater when the ship had gone flying, still looked no worse for wear even with planes out on deck. Even knocked over, toppled or outright deluged underneath heavy waves, it remained maddeningly unclear what, exactly, constituted 'capsized' amongst the spiritual vessels. To say there was a difference in draft was the century's understatement, and even after two years the collective paranoia surrounding the issue remained fit to match.
-Though, come to think of it, were Lion's planes supposed to be out like that?
Resolution blinked a moment, then shrugged. Illustrious' problem. What the hell would she know? Maybe she didn't have hangars.
She nudged the half-carrier with her foot, an action that just as equally failed to produce the typical end result of ship-to-ship collisions. Lion raised her head, sodden and forlorn.
...Yep, she thought with concrete certainty. Wet kitten.
"I can't even swim." Lion confessed, sprawled upon the watery 'floor'.
Resolution nodded along. "That's pretty normal, honestly."
Shipgirls could swim, given sufficient quantities of assurance, motivation, brandy and/or blackmail. Just as long as the rigging was put away first; they became 'weirdly buoyant humans' after that. Not that it really came up much. Trying to actively train them in it also ran the risk of a submarine slipping in to videotape the whole thing, and Warspite still hadn't forgiven her for that little debacle.
...Woman held grudges like her name implied.
"Come on," Resolution nudged her with her foot again. "Show a leg. Gotta get the hang of it sooner or later."
Lion groaned, stood, wobbled, failed, and then stood again.
"Your first trial," Resolution spoke, sipping her hipflask, "is to sail 10 metres in a straight line, then turn."
"..."
If they could work the kinks out now, hopefully Illustrious would have better luck...
~*~
It was always fun and happy a time when Illustrious could be found in the dockside pub with her head in her hands and a bottle of whisky openly by her side.
"...abortions the result of psychological maladjustment..." She could hear her, muttering.
"That bad?" Resolution ventured, taking the opposite seat.
The grey carrier's head rose, revealing an utterly filthy expression. "She's a walking disaster. Walking."
She chuckled awkwardly. "Her sea legs aren't that-"
"Resolution." Illustrious spoke flatly. "It is a disgrace to call that 'floating'."
Resolution winced.
"...And her air wing?" She dread to ask.
"We should send her to Japan." Illustrious spoke blandly, idly examining her glass. "Miss Taiho could offer her some genuine advice."
...Resolution shivered.
"Haven't you heard, Resolution dear?" The carrier continued, idly rotating her tumbler, observing the play of light reflecting on glass like it held the awesome secrets of the universe. "The new ship is an aviation battleship, the most final union of the sea." Her head gave the faintest, enamoured tilt. "The strength of a battleship! The range of an aircraft carrier! The truest thing to ever rule the waves! Why," those eyes slid over to her with all the impending doom of a forward battery, "I do believe the good Admiral has begun to... brag."
...Resolution felt an entire bucket of ice water rattle down her spine.
She wanted to go for her hip flask, but Illustrious was already pouring her one anyway. Illustrious raised her glass, that gaze still fixing her with that empty, hollow stare.
"Drink up, me hearties." That voice spoke. "Yo ho."
~*~
"Do we really need to-"
"Yes."
"It's four in the-"
"I know."
"I really think-"
Resolution halted, Resolution flung, and Resolution watched as Lion gaily sailed face-first into the bay, beneath the barest hint of dawn. Splish.
"Believe me," Resolution groused sourly, "this hurts you exactly as much as it's hurting me."
~*~
"And so..." Resolution grimaced, "we're going to need a little more… training."
Her companion shrugged, idle. Dusky skin beneath a dusty, battered redcoat. Hull-shoed feet swung freely over the cliffside of the Rock, there in the misty evening.
"...That means more supplies."
Her companion sighed. "Just fuel?"
"Battleship rounds, if you can find any. 16-inch. We'll have to fill them with paint before she can blow any of ourselves up. And something nice for Agamemnon, if you can."
Her companion hummed, rolling her shoulders. "I'll see what we can do. Will Illustrious need anything?"
"Probably? I don't know what though, you'd have to ask."
Another considering 'hmm'. Those legs swung. "...She'll ask me herself, soon enough."
Resolution conceded the point.
They stood, reeling themselves in and rising smoothly upright on their own two feet. A short height and a thin frame. HMS Punjabi, Tribal-class destroyer, nodded. "Anything else?"
Resolution waved her off. "Nah, nah, everything's good otherwise. Your end?"
"No problems."
Resolution nodded, shrugging. Punjabi headed off, walking back to the Destroyer dormitories.
She sighed, savouring the crisp, cooling air, as dusk settled behind the Rock.
~*~
"-Anyway, we'll be seeing how you measure as a battleship today, that's why I'm supervising." Resolution slowed to a halt, stopping on the waves whilst Lion caught up. "You all loaded?"
"Yeah I-" Lion glanced back at the 'supply cache' parked aside the coastal road. "Paint, right?"
Resolution nodded. "Paint."
Lion… glanced back at the 'cache' again. "Why is it a-"
"Let me introduce you to someone." Resolution gestured quickly. An older woman in a battered, patchwork uniform cheerfully ambled over across the waves. "This is my assistant."
The older woman smiled happily, ashen-grey hair bouncing about her shoulders as she offered a hand. "Hello! You must be Lion!"
Lion blinked, taking the offered hand and shaking it uncertainly. "Ah- pleased to meet you, miss…?"
The grey, soot-stained woman bounced merrily on her heels. "Agamemnon!"
Lion nodded without recognition, glancing back at her. Resolution just shrugged her shoulders and gestured out toward the open waters. "She'll be helping us out for this exercise."
"Hmm?"
Agamemnon beamed. "I'm your target ship!"
Resolution caught the exact moment Lion's expression suddenly and hysterically froze, then immediately filed it away to laugh about it later. A quick signal flash had the unmarked van on the coast drive off back to wherever it was the destroyers were hiding it today.
"E-Eh?!" Lion was exclaiming, eloquently.
"Target ship?" Agamemnon's head tilted like a bird, pointing at her own chin. "Me. I'm a target ship." Her eager salute bounced off her forehead. "Shoot me, and improve!"
Lion's gaze lost its focus, staring into the middle distance like a deer stared into the oncoming rush of a certain African feline. Resolution assuredly did not giggle.
"You poor thing..." Agamemnon pouted. "Have you really never met a target ship before? I don't really remember you but surely-"
"Agamemnon, she's a paper vessel." Resolution transmitted privately. "We've talked about this."
The target ship flushed, about-faced and immediately started flapping her raggedy sleeves. "A-Anyway! I'm- I'm going over there!"
And off she sailed.
Resolution shook her head, patting Lion on the shoulder. "We'll separate to a short distance and go from there – longer ranges, moving targets and so on. The usual practise."
Lion remained silent, watching after the departing target ship, as Resolution helped her sail the necessary distance.
Ah. Something clicked in the back of Resolution's mind. "Come to think of it- have you actually fired your guns?"
"Hm?" Lion blinked, head turning back to her.
"Your guns, the enemy," her hand waggled, "you ever fire your guns at the enemy?"
"Ah- er," Lion winced, "...no."
Resolution waited.
"It's er- too busy running at the time, and they had a carrier. Like, a proper carrier and a proper battleship. And other ships." Lion's hands wrangled. "It, er. Didn't think it'd end too well."
Resolution hmm'd, looking back across the waters. Ah, Agamemnon was almost in position.
"You were probably right, honestly."
Resolution squinted across the distance, catching Lion untense out of the corner of her eye.
"A lone ship, unescorted, against a decent fleet – only sane option's to withdraw. Can't fight when dead, no?"
"R-Right."
Not to mention… Resolution really wouldn't want to be stuck in Lion's position. Against a proper battleship, outgunned; against a proper fleet carrier – hell, even most escort carriers – out-flown. The most that could be expected of her was bullying cruisers, and even then the necessary avgas and munitions bunkers for flight ops had to leave her with one hell of a glass jaw if she ever closed the range. Like the limbs on a Tyrannosaurus Rex; the more she thought about it, the more those turrets she was teaching her to fight with felt very vestigial.
The sort of ship you'd leave to commerce raiding and convoy escort, if the Abyss had commerce to raid and the Royal Navy had convoys to escort. Failing that just left hunting the bloody uboats. Her, along with everyone else, their rusting mothers and every rickety little dinghy they could float and still strap a sonar onto. Fucking Atlantic.
Resolution sighed.
…And Lion's 'vestigial' turrets were still a higher calibre than hers.
They came to a stop.
"Anyway, just…" she gestured across the waters, "take your time."
"R-Right." Lion stiffened up; straightened; took a deep breath. Tall, straight, proud.
"Shoot to kii~iill!" Agamemnon encouraged cheerfully, arms flapping up and down in the distance. Lion immediately gibbered.
"You're loaded with paint, remember." Resolution muttered. She watched Lion shiver, let out a breath. Saw her shake the tension out from her fingers and clench them into fists.
"...Right."
Turrets traversed. Barrels raised. Lion's two triple turrets swivelled about and found their targets. Lion herself… wavered.
It's like teaching a kitten to paw at a scratching post. Resolution stared.
"If you can't even shoot a target ship, how the devil will you shoot the Abyssals?"
"That-" Lion floundered, "that's different."
"You're loaded with paint, girl!"
"Do your bee~eest!" Agamemnon yelled encouragingly across the waters.
Lion twitched, recentred her guns, muttered something about shooting someone's grandma for some reason and-
B-BOOM
Y-Yep, Resolution felt her hull rattle, 16 inchers.
The ocean rippled away from them in waves, blasted by just the pressure. In the far distance, the sea erupted in a merry sploosh of watercolours; a great, painted geyser thrown up into the sky, cascading back down in a riotous torrent followed by a gentle, cascading mist.
"A little to the lee~eeft!" A perfectly dry Agamemnon called, leftwards. Lion grumbled some more.
"Don't fire every barrel at once." Resolution advised. "Fire one, see where it lands, fire another and so on. Get a feel for how long it takes to reload a single gun and pace your shots accordingly. Volley fire only when you're sure of course and range."
Lion nodded, grimacing. "Right."
Guns recentred. Barrels adjusted.
"Watch your hips too. We're not as stable firing platforms as we used to be."
Lion glanced over. "Rough seas?"
Resolution nodded grimly. "We bob like bloody corks. Rigging's stabilised sure but that'll only take you so far. Lucky us, that's mostly an Atlantic problem though, you ready to fire again?"
Lion nodded. Resolution gestured.
BOOM
Sploosh.
"Little to the riii~iight!"
Lion concentrated.
BOOM
Sploosh.
"Little short, almost there~!"
BOOM
…
Lion frowned. Smoke cleared.
Bobbing and wobbling in the distance, Agamemnon waved her arms up and down; raggedy sleeves flapping about, thoroughly sodden.
"N-Nearly had me! Just a splash though!"
Lion groaned.
"You're doing really well~!"
Come to think of it, wasn't this how lions were supposed to hunt? First the old and infirm and all that? Sounded about right. Goodness, this one wasn't even trying to run!
BOOM
Sploosh.
"I'm sure you'll get her eventually."
It didn't quite help.
~*~
The sun shone, the birds sang and the Lion still did not float competently upon water.
"You had the hang of it when you first showed up." Resolution repeated, baffled. "You had the hang of it, you did fine." A point established, repeated, churned and chewed like yesterday's cud. "You should not be this bad."
Lion, who most definitely did not resemble a wet kitten, glared. And dripped.
"You can even stand upright and fire cannons-"
"-I don't get it either okay?!"
Lion glared, eyes bright for a few moments, before sinking down (figuratively) and muttering. The waves sloshed.
Resolution sighed, massaging her forehead. "Maybe it's instinctual or something..."
Hmm.
"Say, what were you doing when you first showed up?"
"Er, like in the water?"
"Yeah, when you first- er-" couldn't quite call it 'summoned'- "appeared."
Lion shrugged wetly. "Got confused a lot? It was, like, middle of the ocean."
Resolution nodded. "Big waves?"
Lion shuddered. "Big waves."
Aye, in retrospect that wouldn't be the finest introduction to 'Surprise: Legs!' a shipgirl ever got graced by would it? Dumping an innocent, wide-eyed newborn in the middle of the Atlantic was up there with that one time Illustrious talked George onto a trampoline in terms of imminent disasters.
…Warspite still hadn't forgiven them for that one either, come to think of it.
Still, if Lion was sailing competently then, then...
Resolution pondered, tapping her chin. "Maybe you just need to be distracted?"
Lion blinked back damply. "Huh?"
She nodded authoritatively. "Wait here," stoke the boilers, turn the screws, "I'll be back shortly!"
"-Hey, -oi wait-!"
"Just hang about a sec!" Resolution said, leaving an innocent, wide-eyed newborn in the middle of the Mediterranean. "Got an idea!"
~*~
Punjabi raised an eyebrow.
~*~
"Ehehe~..."
A giggling laugh. An open expanse of water. An innocent, wide-eyed cub abandoned upon the waves.
Agamemnon stroked the cannons with nostalgic reverence.
"Just how long has it been since I fired these I wonder…?"
"Um." Said Lion.
"So yeah," Resolution sipped her hip-flask, "you're gonna need to learn to move."
"Um."
"It was instinctual back then, right? You ran away. It's the flight-or-fight response." Resolution nodded confidently. "We need to get you back into that prey mentality. When the rounds start flying, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."
Lion stared blankly.
Agamemnon continued to giggle, staring softly into the gunmetal chrome. "Was it Goeben? Breslau? Did I sink them, I wonder…?"
Lion raised a shaky hand and pointed. "Why is she here?"
"I am here for no reason." Punjabi assured with placid authority. "There is no need for concern."
"You have a video camera."
"Yes." Punjabi agreed, watching the camera display with calmly rapt attention. "There is absolutely no reason for this."
Resolution clapped her hands. "Alright, when everyone's ready, starting positions." Nodded to Lion. "You really should stand up a bit."
"I'm sorry." Lion spoke blankly, "it must be my prey mentality."
Resolution laughed. "Well then," she readied her whistle, "show them legs and run!"
~*~
"That's it, that's it!"
Shells splashed, cascades of paint, water, sea-foam and foul language. Lion ran, feet crashing into water, actively battering her way through the waves of the churning seas.
"That's the spirit!" Resolution yelled encouragingly, fighting to keep pace. Punjabi was just sailing gaily along without any trouble of course, camera as steady as a rock on water.
In the distance, a lone prey. Old, infirm and mostly harmless. Sailing merrily without a care in the world. Lion ran, crashing into waves, a full pelt predator's sprint… in exactly the opposite direction.
"If you see the water bursts, try sailing towards them!" Agamemnon broadcast across the waves, voice bright, merry and somehow sounding twenty years younger, "It makes it easier on their gunners to- to- no wait! Opposite! Do the exact opposite of that!"
Lion, who had been trailing left in accordance to Agamemnon's advice, suddenly lurched right again, nearly scraping the side of Resolution's hull as more paint rounds burst around them. Resolution grimaced as she fought through the turbulence.
"Sorry, sorry!" Agamemnon wailed, "just I um- t-target ship?"
I'm going to have to review the destroyers' gunnery drills, aren't I? Resolution groused mentally.
Lion bashed and Lion battered through the waves, flared-front deck reflected in shoe-hulls that more-or-less punted their way through the water. Still she kept flailing and stumbling, less a direct run and more one continuous, half-aborted faceplant skating at high speeds… and not at Lion's design speed either, if Resolution was still able to keep up. Damn those unfamiliar limbs!
"Come on girl," Resolution barked, "are you a battleship or aren't y-"
Lion turned. The whistle of oncoming shell. The abrupt, desperate course change, turning two formerly parallel lines into an imminent collision.
For a beautiful, pristine moment, the surface of Lion's flight deck consumed the entirety of Resolution's vision.
BONK
Then it didn't.
~*~
Agamemnon startled as they came closer, staring at Resolution's face.
"Oh gosh- oh goodness did I hit you?!" She rushed on up pulling handkerchiefs out of her sleeve, "Oh gosh I'm so terribly sorry-"
"I'm fine Agamemnon."
"-must've hurt and- wait, how did you avoid all the paint?"
Resolution fended her off with one arm, other hand still clamping her nose. "I'm fine, Agamemnon."
Lion came in, exhausted and looking like a wrung-out tie-dye shirt haunted by the ghost of Jackson Pollock. "Please sir, I don't want any more."
Punjabi casually zipped on by, clean, pristine and still rolling that bloody camera. "'ees fallen in the wah-tah~"
Resolution groaned. "Quiet, you." She stopped, took a deep breath through her no- took a deep breath through her mouth, and sighed.
"You can sail now, right?"
Lion stared back, blankly dripping.
"...Let's just go home."
~*~
Illustrious raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not talking about it."
~*~
Vindictive raised both eyebrows.
"I'm not talking about it."
~*~
Ajax raised both eyebrows, several signal flags and the stars in her eyes as she bounded over, mouth opening wide to ask a no-doubt veritable torrent of questions and-
"Go home."
-went home.
~*~
"Would you like the latest casualty reports?" Punjabi offered very innocently. Resolution took the offered folder with a dark scowl.
"Are there any?"
"Nothing major." Punjabi momentarily flashed serious. Resolution nodded. Flicking through the folders… just the typical levels of maintenance and repairs along with the replacement for her battered fire controller. She rubbed her sore nose idly.
"Alright. Conclusions, everyone?"
Looks glanced about the table; HMSes Resolution, Punjabi, Proteus, Illustrious, Rooke and Vindictive in various appropriated seats in what would otherwise be the shared lounge area of the Destroyer's apartment building, a former and only marginally battered hotel block. A few folders and written reports were scattered about, but by and large the relevant paperwork remained aboard HMS Rooke, sat scowling at the walls with her concrete boots left contemptuously on the table.
Stone Frigates were always a little- shore establishments indoors could get a bit- Resolution just wasn't even going to go there.
Illustrious tapped at the desk, the grey training carrier puffing her pipe idly.
"She's a helpless idiot."
Resolution winced.
"Doesn't know basic flight operation procedure." One tap. "Completely green pilots barely fit to take-off and land." Two taps. "Barely aware of her own rigging, machinery or spiritual nature." Three taps, and a nod at Resolution's busted nose. "Completely paper vessel. Blank sheet."
Resolution grimaced. Punjabi sipped a soda.
If that was the carrier side of things, it was probably her turn…
Resolution leaned forward onto the table, letting out a sigh. "Surprisingly decent shooting; I've certainly seen worse. Trying to get her moving is-" she waffled a hand at her nose, "-yeah. Otherwise, personally speaking… seems level headed, if greatly overwhelmed. She's not a personality if you get my meaning."
The table held a chorus of sour grumbling.
"Though," Resolution had to admit, "as a carrier and a battleship… supply? She'll need a lot of training materiel."
Punjabi set down her soda, shrugging. "That's manageable, we've been in worse situations. If she's staying here for the foreseeable future, the Armada should be willing to provide. Failing that I can-" she frowned slightly, "I can try and negotiate with the French or Italians."
Walking up to a foreign fleet of shipgirls and asking 'Who wants to feed the British Lion?' had to be a merry thought, didn't it?
"Otherwise," Punjabi returned to her spread of folders, "Gibraltar is in the usual condition, supply wise."
She pulled up a printed sheet with a conspicuous number of corrections in red ink. "Short ammunition for the cruisers, short torpedoes for the submarines, low supply of anti-aircraft shells. Our local fuel supply is low, but-" she flipped the page- "the Spanish have plenty stockpiled in Ferrol, Cartagena and Las Palmas; from Portugal, Lisbon and Porto. We can still maintain and project force on shore patrol."
Resolution nodded grimly. Technically, any spiritual vessel could resupply themselves in full – from fuel to aircraft to ammunition – by consuming vast quantities of food, but doing that for an entire fleet thereof was a good way to cause food shortages in the local area. Not the best route for popularity, that. Logistics vessels – of the spiritual kind – could convert regular human food into shipgirl scale fuel/parts/ammunition at a mildly insane rate of efficiency considering you were literally getting 15" shells out of hamburgers and sauerkraut. Resolution was spectacularly glad no-one was paying her to think about it too hard.
"Local shortage in aluminium, bauxite and airframes," Punjabi continued, "again, foreign supply available for shore patrol but not local activity or training." She nodded at Illustrious, who simply waved her pipe. "Reserves of maintenance equipment and scrap metal adequate per current expenditures." She paused. "Battleship shells in surplus."
Resolution declined to comment.
Punjabi dropped her report in favour of pulling an entire coastal map of the Mediterranean out from her redcoat, an action so inured none of them even blinked.
"As for the Abyss, Malta is storming back up again," -the table collectively groaned- "and I've been hearing mixed reports of emissions from the Rock…?" She glanced questioningly at Illustrious.
"All's fine, says Barham." The carrier replied, frowning slightly.
Well, the Rock itself wasn't their responsibility. Resolution waved her on.
"Most Atlantic movements remain focused northwards on the Channel and the North and Celtic seas. Low expectation of attacks along the Spanish or Portuguese coasts, low expectations of attacks on Gibraltar from the west."
Patrolling the African coast meanwhile was something the Marine Nationale had held onto by the teeth. Or maybe Britain just hadn't been bribed with enough bread. In any case, they weren't Resolution's official concern. They barely had the ships as it was.
"Official word from the Marine Nationale," Rooke suddenly spoke up, "interdiction operation on Mers El Kébir in the coming month, expected by spiritual forces only."
Punjabi visibly grimaced, then nodded and noted that down on the map. The Great European Shipgirl Grapevine – or as it was also known, 'very bored destroyers' and the inevitable submarine smuggling rings – never tended to mention that one if you sailed under the white ensign.
"I've also had rumours from the Italians that Toulon is storming again but," Punjabi could only shrug, "they always say things like that."
Resolution frowned. "It has been raining a lot there lately…"
If the Marine Nationale got distracted fighting to hold their own ports at Marseilles, then a potential Princess at Mers El Kébir would likely...
Resolution shivered. Illustrious watched her carefully, sat across the table, gaze heavy.
"I can ask the Soldati sisters to keep an eye on it," Punjabi promised, "but I doubt we'll get much from the French destroyers. They're starting to close lips."
"Can we trade any favours?"
Punjabi shrugged. "Can we trade any ships?"
Resolution grimaced. If they had more capitals – proper capitals – on station they could talk Darling into 'joint exercises' with the local French or Italian admirals in charge, but with just her and Illustrious around…
Lion existed, yes, but flinging her at their allies and expecting a thank you note seemed a mite unwise.
"I can do another 'rounds, if you need me." Vindictive offered. Resolution nodded, mulling it; there was always that option. Repair Ships were the best way to repair and upgrade spiritual vessels, but back in the War they'd only been relevant to the oceanic powers not dealing with land invasions. Which in Europe made them near exclusively the domain of the Royal Navy. Smuggling out Vindictive to help foreign navies without letting Westminster carve its share would invite… fuss, but they'd gotten away with it before with Portsmouth's clandestine grace. But all that was assuming they wouldn't need Vindictive here, with a paper aviation battleship that could potentially remember how much of a disaster it was at any particular moment.
"Finally," Punjabi concluded, "there's the U-Boat activity, but nothing outside the normal there. Proteus?"
The eyepatch'd submarine grunted, sitting in regular clothes given the lack of need to be underwater. "Yeah, it's th' usual buggers. Had one near-miss with a returned VIIC got misidentified – yes it's in the report – but tha's about it."
"And the Vic'?" Resolution asked.
Proteus shrugged. "German embassy? We dumped her in Lisbon, mate."
Fair enough.
"Alright then, that's the local situation." Resolution cricked her neck. "Finally… England?"
Now it was Vindictive's turn to grimace: "Warspite hasn't updated me yet-" and didn't that paint a thousand words- "but it looks like the Channel storm's been blunted for now. Problem being, as always, it's kicked up all the slumbering Princesses up and down the coasts. Now they concentrating on beating them back down before they can set off Scapa Flow or do any more damage to the port cities. You know how it goes."
Resolution rather hoped she didn't, given the mayhem that had been the early months of the war. With time, experience and an expanded spiritual fleet, one had to think they'd have learned some lessons by now. England, being a collection of islands dotted with historic ports and crowned by the graveyard of the self-scuttled Imperial German High Seas Fleet, had something of a problem with Abyssal cascades, even whilst boasting the greatest success rate in summoning this side of the Atlantic.
She'd heard an American once compare it to whacking moles or somesuch, but it hadn't made sense at the time. They'd probably been talking about possums or something.
An entire theatre of the war managing to embody the phrase 'hurry up and wait'. Generally, England was quiet. Until suddenly it wasn't. Things were never severe enough to force a recall of all available assets, never light enough to disperse them, resulting in a continuous and unending tug-of-war between HNMB Portsmouth and Westminster; the vast, returning spiritual fleet of the Royal Navy about the only political 'currency' the Foreign Office had left to spend for an island nation dependent on food imports that had willingly cut itself out of the European market union. Bread for Boats indeed.
She groaned, momentarily feeling the full weight of an old, creaking iron hull worn with use. "Well, keep us informed, will you? We don't really have anyone we can spare, but…" Resolution shrugged helplessly. Vindictive gave a quiet nod.
"Punjabi, Proteus if you could both keep an ear out on the French Princesses?" The destroyer and submarine both nodded. "Supplies wise…" if surface trouble came to Gibraltar… "prioritise yourselves and carrier aircraft."
"Aye aye." Proteus saluted.
"We will." Punjabi confirmed. Illustrious didn't look happy per se, but she nodded.
The Mediterranean was a French/Italian zone, at least amongst the military circles; under serious threat, they'd have to trust in their contemporaries in the Regia Marina and Marine Nationale. Christ she wanted to strangle those newspaper idiots calling them the 'British Bastion' in Gibraltar.
"In the mean time," Resolution considered, "until Blighty sends us more returnees to train up… Lion? Focus her training as a carrier or as a battleship?"
The table… glanced about itself, awkwardly.
Vindictive tilted her head. "You said she had better intuition when acting as a battleship, right?"
"Maybe as a shore emplacement." Punjabi sniped, droll. Rooke bounced a wad of paper off her forehead.
"The Italians..." Illustrious began hesitantly, "the Italians can always provide more battleships. We always need more spiritual aviation. I…" the carrier hung her head, shoulders slumping under the weight of what she knew she had to say next. "I will take responsibility for her training."
One eye cracked open, focusing down on Resolution with all the power of the impending migraine. "But you will owe me."
Resolution winced.
Azur Lane designs make me cringe, so I'm not using them.
The Royal Navy has/had a weird class hierarchy thing going on with its ship names; battleships got to be literal royalty, whilst destroyers were named after towns or colonies or... sigh, 'tribal cultures', like HMS Punjabi. So bear all that in mind when trying to picture them, rather than assuming there's an age thing going on.
Primarily out of spite, I refuse to whitewash, sugarcoat or otherwise pretend the British Empire was anything other than the imperialistic monster it was, hence Punjabi getting a major role, though characters in-story may view it through more rose-tinted glasses.
Stone Frigates are a real thing that really exist and part of the reason I keep writing this fic is just to explore the weird and wonderful array of quirks and oddities to be found in the Royal Navy. Makes far more sense to use those than pulling off an entire spiritual warship to act as a goddamn secretary you have to admit.
Ever been exasperated or rolled your eyes at perfectly bland and blandly perfect male admirals in kanmusu fic whom everyone wants to jump for some reason? For a breath of slightly putrid fresh air, meet Admiral Darling! Who ironically takes more after Melchett than the Blackadder character of the same name. He's not even based off Donald Trump or anything; he predates that particular sack of wasted flesh ever gaining the public spotlight, just to give you an idea of how old some parts of this are.
On a similar note, I picked HMS Lion before @Battleship_Fusou 's A Lion In Winter was first posted, but since I took the farce/aviation battleship approach in Gibraltar hopefully this won't be stepping on anyone's toes.
This fic has seen many, many reworks, revisions and reorganisations before getting to this point. Originally it was a first person fic of Lion's logbook, ala CVB-44, with a very different characterisation. But then I started writing the third-person Gibraltar interlude and realised it was way more interesting, hence the switch. The idea being the Gibraltar force are such a hot mess one character parodying SI tropes barely makes anyone blink.
TL;DR on the in-fic Portsmouth / Whitehall divide and the British political situation: Portsmouth is playing Rule The Waves, Whitehall is playing Yes Minister.
How many limbs would a returnee catamaran have anyway?
Importing/posting this in an entertaining run of 'upload odt file to google docs, force it through a bbcode exporter like gently feeding a woodchipper, paste it into the editor and run through re-adding all the centred text and hunting for where the italics inevitably crapped out'. If sentence cuts off or otherwise looks like a strangled mess, please tell me.
Those wanting more deets on the glorious trashfire that were the HMS Lion redesign proposals, watch 'em and weep.
If you actually live in Gibraltar and are reading this, dear God, I am so terribly sorry.
The Royal Navy has/had a weird class hierarchy thing going on with its ship names; battleships got to be literal royalty, whilst destroyers were named after towns or colonies or... sigh, 'tribal cultures', like HMS Punjabi. So bear all that in mind when trying to picture them, rather than assuming there's an age thing going on.
Primarily out of spite, I refuse to whitewash, sugarcoat or otherwise pretend the British Empire was anything other than the imperialistic monster it was, hence Punjabi getting a major role, though characters in-story may view it through more rose-tinted glasses.
Stone Frigates are a real thing that really exist and part of the reason I keep writing this fic is just to explore the weird and wonderful array of quirks and oddities to be found in the Royal Navy. Makes far more sense to use those than pulling off an entire spiritual warship to act as a goddamn secretary you have to admit.
Ever been exasperated or rolled your eyes at perfectly bland and blandly perfect male admirals in kanmusu fic whom everyone wants to jump for some reason? For a breath of slightly putrid fresh air, meet Admiral Darling! Who ironically takes more after Melchett than the Blackadder character of the same name. He's not even based off Donald Trump or anything; he predates that particular sack of wasted flesh ever gaining the public spotlight, just to give you an idea of how old some parts of this are.
On a similar note, I picked HMS Lion before @Battleship_Fusou 's A Lion In Winter was first posted, but since I took the farce/aviation battleship approach in Gibraltar hopefully this won't be stepping on anyone's toes.
This fic has seen many, many reworks, revisions and reorganisations before getting to this point. Originally it was a first person fic of Lion's logbook, ala CVB-44, with a very different characterisation. But then I started writing the third-person Gibraltar interlude and realised it was way more interesting, hence the switch. The idea being the Gibraltar force are such a hot mess one character parodying SI tropes barely makes anyone blink.
TL;DR on the in-fic Portsmouth / Whitehall divide and the British political situation: Portsmouth is playing Rule The Waves, Whitehall is playing Yes Minister.
How many limbs would a returnee catamaran have anyway?
Importing/posting this in an entertaining run of 'upload odt file to google docs, force it through a bbcode exporter like gently feeding a woodchipper, paste it into the editor and run through re-adding all the centred text and hunting for where the italics inevitably crapped out'. If sentence cuts off or otherwise looks like a strangled mess, please tell me.
Those wanting more deets on the glorious trashfire that were the HMS Lion redesign proposals, watch 'em and weep.
If you actually live in Gibraltar and are reading this, dear God, I am so terribly sorry.
Well, I like it. A bit telly, but still pretty good overall. As for the aviation battleship... Historically, the Japanese tried the concept after Midway, actually converted both Ise class battleships, then realized how insane the idea was and converted them back. They're both KanColle canon that Ise (and Hyuga) are Aviation Battleships in the Kai forms (and proud of it).
Aviation battleships are a crazy idea, mostly held by the desperate or those who realized that the world was changing but didn't want to move with the times. That being said, exploring how one of them would work as a shipgirl is an interesting proposition.
Aviation battleships are a crazy idea, mostly held by the desperate or those who realized that the world was changing but didn't want to move with the times. That being said, exploring how one of them would work as a shipgirl is an interesting proposition.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
So I've had this idea kicking around for a while about a crossover with a (sorta) old game.
Carrier Command: Gaea Mission
It's a remake of an even older game just called carrier command for a bunch of very old consolesI'm not gonna bother naming.
the general premise was that you are in control of a single aircraft carrier (though it's honestly closer to an amphibious assault ship), and are tasked with 1).sinking the lone enemy carrier and 2).taking over or destroying all of the enemy islands.
so obviously I'm wanting to drop our lone carrier into the world of Kancolle. My only worries are if she'll be over or under powered.
On one hand, her air wing only consist of 4 VTOL aircraft referred to as mantas, and her amphibious assault force is 4 basically APCs called walruses. Aaaand she only has 1 dedicated offensive deck gun and only 4 AA guns. Fine when you only have at most one enemy ship and it's associated air wing to worry about, but when you may or may not have a Wo coming for your ass? It could become an issue very fast. She has Kamikaze defense drones And some long range scout UAVs as well but that's it.
buuuut she also has the capacity to fully repair, refit and upgrade all of the craft she carries, from up-armoring to completely changing their weapons.Walruses can even be equipped with a repair beam that works on all their allies! She can even carry a guided missile capable of completely destroying enemy command centers (or Abyssal installations).
but that's not all, walruses can also be equipped with construction packages to use once an enemy island has been taken over. Essentially giving her the ability to create installations on virtually any land she comes across. They can also be specialized from resource collection to supply depots to dedicated defensive islands.
that in particular is why I'm worried if she'll be OP. She has the ability to just plop down installations.Wether or not they'd get their own kammusu manifestation that our carrier (she's never named in game) is the "mother" of or if they're manned entirely by fairies I don't know. It's another thing I'd like a second opinion or 10 on.
but the main thing is still this: does all of that make her OP despite the craft compliment smaller then an escort carrier?
Carrier Command: Gaea Mission
It's a remake of an even older game just called carrier command for a bunch of very old consolesI'm not gonna bother naming.
the general premise was that you are in control of a single aircraft carrier (though it's honestly closer to an amphibious assault ship), and are tasked with 1).sinking the lone enemy carrier and 2).taking over or destroying all of the enemy islands.
so obviously I'm wanting to drop our lone carrier into the world of Kancolle. My only worries are if she'll be over or under powered.
On one hand, her air wing only consist of 4 VTOL aircraft referred to as mantas, and her amphibious assault force is 4 basically APCs called walruses. Aaaand she only has 1 dedicated offensive deck gun and only 4 AA guns. Fine when you only have at most one enemy ship and it's associated air wing to worry about, but when you may or may not have a Wo coming for your ass? It could become an issue very fast. She has Kamikaze defense drones And some long range scout UAVs as well but that's it.
buuuut she also has the capacity to fully repair, refit and upgrade all of the craft she carries, from up-armoring to completely changing their weapons.Walruses can even be equipped with a repair beam that works on all their allies! She can even carry a guided missile capable of completely destroying enemy command centers (or Abyssal installations).
but that's not all, walruses can also be equipped with construction packages to use once an enemy island has been taken over. Essentially giving her the ability to create installations on virtually any land she comes across. They can also be specialized from resource collection to supply depots to dedicated defensive islands.
that in particular is why I'm worried if she'll be OP. She has the ability to just plop down installations.Wether or not they'd get their own kammusu manifestation that our carrier (she's never named in game) is the "mother" of or if they're manned entirely by fairies I don't know. It's another thing I'd like a second opinion or 10 on.
but the main thing is still this: does all of that make her OP despite the craft compliment smaller then an escort carrier?
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
From the sound of it she is what the Original LHD/LSTs were which were, i believe, built out of either Midway or Essex class carriers/ keels
yes, she is going to be ridiculously underpowered alone, but this is where other ship/characters come in as friends and support
yes, she is going to be ridiculously underpowered alone, but this is where other ship/characters come in as friends and support
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yea I can see that! In my mind the lack of an air wing to defend herself would balance out any other abilities she has, but I'm still worried about things like her speed, which in game sits someone in the realm of 45 knots flank with no known endurance limits on that speed.
the LHD thing is pretty accurate so I'll probably end up basing her tonnage and dimensions off of one, maybe give or take some since the game claims the ship has rather heavy armor.
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
As i said, The Midway and Essex class were some of the first ones as they were WWII excess that were usable for such a job. That said, i've always preferred the Casablanca Class LHD myself. also, max speed on the Midway class was a little less than half of what you have for her
The answer to that one is; it could go either way, so how many characters do you feel comfortable writing? Personally, I'd recommend simply having them manifest similar to Shimakaze's turrets and she only has a limited number which she needs to reclaim if she wants to build more bases.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm fairly confident I could maintain a cast of 3-8 characters with regular screen time, and the bases would probably be part of that cast. I never considered them being like Shimakaze's turrets though, which could work pretty well.
In game the bases use a system of cargo submarines transfer things between bases and resupply the carrier in the field (they can catch up to her even at her top speed. Good thing they have no weapons), so should they be something similar?
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yea. I'd imagine there's a rotation for whoever goes out to resupply the carrier (She really needs a proper name). They'd also put existing Kammusu logistics to Shame.
although the real question is this: would they all be lewdmarines too?
That's something I've always found a bit... much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the game I'm sure they were pretty much identical, maybe you should play that up. Create an identical sibling situation where they deliberately try to confuse outsiders (for their own amusement). It would have some historical precedent with things like the Japanese Army calling a number of their transport submarines Maruyu.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the game I'm sure they were pretty much identical, maybe you should play that up. Create an identical sibling situation where they deliberately try to confuse outsiders (for their own amusement). It would have some historical precedent with things like the Japanese Army calling a number of their transport submarines Maruyu.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That is a perfect suggestion. It causes unreal amounts of confusion among everyone except for maybe the carrier herself, and that's only because she can read their IFFs.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Right so, here's a little test snippet I did. Potential chapter 1 or prologue. I just wanna get more of a feel for how to right this rn, and hammer out our Carrier's personality.
Test snippet 01
Being human she decided, was an odd mix of exhilarating and unimaginably unnerving.
On the one outrigger, she could actually see now. She could in theory eat, but hadn't had the opportunity to try yet. She could do all the things her crew did-still does if the little people running around inside her were anything to go by.
But it also meant having a body. One that she was still quite literally stumbling through learning to use. Sailing would don't be near this difficult if she was still ship shaped and not person shaped. The fact that her 2 engines and their assigned sets of propellers could be set at 2 very distinct speeds didn't help.
I mean sure, she could turn on a dime and pull maneuvers even a Gaea class would be jealous of, but that was assuming she was good at using them. Right now she was just leaving maneuvering up to her helmsman. The little ferries control was limited, but far better then the zig zags she was pulling before.
And it wasn't just her helmsman that one what he was doing. She was lucky enough to have a competent crew, the same bridge crew she'd had in the Taurus archipelago plus a hundred or so APA dock workers....which had been an....interesting thing to deal with. Luckily there was no blood and things were for the most part calm between the 2 factions within her.
Either way, she was crewed by not quite seasoned vets, thought still more then experienced enough to guide her and operate systems she hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet.
Speaking of systems, she'd just gotten an alert from one of her recon drones. Apparently the UAV had stumbled upon an island. She ordered its camera feed put on her bridge screen, which had the slightly trippy affect of filling her previously ocean filled view with the prospective of the drone.
"Tropical island...medium sized....213 miles out, 32 degrees north." she muttered to herself, feeling her helmsman adjust their course in her stead. It'd be on her long range radar soon. She'd also need to call that drone back, as well as her others so they could recharge.
The last three she wanted to do was loose the 6 she'd launched, especially After almost doing just that to get them airborne.
She was....very far away from any island under UEF controlled islands, let alone the ones she personally captured and used as forward bases. Every unit was currently irreplaceable, and she was already taking a risk sending the drones out so far out in the first place.
But they needed the recon. Red Dragon may have been the only AFA carrier present in the archipelago, but she was not the only one active. Her half sister had little siblings in constriction, and she was certain she'd have to face them eventually. Though knowing her luck, she'd probably end up chasing them all over wherever on Taurus she'd ended up.
And she'd sink them, lost contact with the fleet in orbit be damned. Wouldn't be the first time she faced down unfavorable odds alone.
The chorus of "heys" and from inside her bridge put a smile on the carrier's face.
"We'll send em to the bottom just like at deadlock!" She raised her Rifle in tandem with the fist of her crew, fondness filling her as much as their cheers. Er...her Bridge crew's at least. Most of the APA workers just shuffled their feet and grumbled about Red dragon being a good ship, even if her captain was an ass and a half.
And she had to admit, Red was a beast of a carrier. Had Mao not been so sure of his technological superiority she'd probably be sunk or back in APA hands.
But the battle of deadlock was won. She came out damaged but alive and kicking, all hands save for 1 accounted for. And for all her trouble she was made a flagship of the UEC surface carrier fleet.
Whole lot of good that was doing her now. On the bright side, that island was on the edge of her radar now, and she could see the dots that were her drones growing closer to her.
She let out a long sigh. Cruising at 30 knots meant she'd hit the island in 6ish hours. Her helmsman had insisted on the lower cruising speed to save fuel, which she could understand since they currently had no means to resupply.
She'd have to set up a mining operation pretty soon huh?
And this time there was no guarantee of pre-existing infrastructure. She turned her attention inwards, another one of the weird things she was having to get used to about this whole humanoid ship lady thing.
Her eyes searched her halls and hanger for a particular crew-women and...ah, there she was. Holding a tablet, down in her cargo hood she stood, taking inventory.
lone of the more friendly APA sailors aboard , she'd been promoted to chief engineer after thee initial panic. As the only one really qualified for the job it was a given. Sure, her bridge crew had seen her through thick and thin. She trusted those men and women with her life, literally.
But the APA brought to the table crucial knowledge the didn't have. Systems they were still unfamiliar with became second nature to operate with their help. As such, nobody else was better fit to be her chief engineer then the women she had before her.
The tiny person (she wasn't quite over how cute her crew was now, with their little black eyes and nub hands) looked up at nowhere in particular, somehow making eye contact with her. "Des?"
"Mhm. Just the basics, I can read your report later"
"Desu." the little sailor said with a nod, going on to list off a watered down version of her inventory. It wasn't bad by any means. Enough constriction capsules to build up at least 3 specialized islands, and while she'd like a few torpedos for her Mantas, the 1000lb guided bombs would suffice for now, Even at just one per manta.
Their supply situation was far from dire, but it wasn't ideal either. With only two HEAT turrets and a handful of Flacks, her Walruses would be lacking utility, and the same could be said for her Mantas. Laser mkII and missile equipped as they were, they'd likely dominate in the air, especially with the Mk II armor they had on, but there would be no airlifting till a production facility was made.
Which would hopefully be soon. When she finally turned her attention back outwards found almost an hour to have passed. Her outriggers still pushed her along at a steady 30 knots, her hull slicing through the water with the same ease it always had.
She sighed again, eyes scanning the horizon. With no scouts and the sun setting to her starboard side, she'd be relying completely on her radar. Long range as it was, she wasn't worried, and there were no Islands to hide behind like at deadlock.
It was just like when she'd been taken by the UEC huh? Alone, no contact with allies, and only a vague idea of where she was. How funny was it that that sort of situation was familial.
Not by much if the resounding silence in her hull was anything to go by.
Ah well. she'd survived once with this crew, she could do it again.
Being human she decided, was an odd mix of exhilarating and unimaginably unnerving.
On the one outrigger, she could actually see now. She could in theory eat, but hadn't had the opportunity to try yet. She could do all the things her crew did-still does if the little people running around inside her were anything to go by.
But it also meant having a body. One that she was still quite literally stumbling through learning to use. Sailing would don't be near this difficult if she was still ship shaped and not person shaped. The fact that her 2 engines and their assigned sets of propellers could be set at 2 very distinct speeds didn't help.
I mean sure, she could turn on a dime and pull maneuvers even a Gaea class would be jealous of, but that was assuming she was good at using them. Right now she was just leaving maneuvering up to her helmsman. The little ferries control was limited, but far better then the zig zags she was pulling before.
And it wasn't just her helmsman that one what he was doing. She was lucky enough to have a competent crew, the same bridge crew she'd had in the Taurus archipelago plus a hundred or so APA dock workers....which had been an....interesting thing to deal with. Luckily there was no blood and things were for the most part calm between the 2 factions within her.
Either way, she was crewed by not quite seasoned vets, thought still more then experienced enough to guide her and operate systems she hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet.
Speaking of systems, she'd just gotten an alert from one of her recon drones. Apparently the UAV had stumbled upon an island. She ordered its camera feed put on her bridge screen, which had the slightly trippy affect of filling her previously ocean filled view with the prospective of the drone.
"Tropical island...medium sized....213 miles out, 32 degrees north." she muttered to herself, feeling her helmsman adjust their course in her stead. It'd be on her long range radar soon. She'd also need to call that drone back, as well as her others so they could recharge.
The last three she wanted to do was loose the 6 she'd launched, especially After almost doing just that to get them airborne.
She was....very far away from any island under UEF controlled islands, let alone the ones she personally captured and used as forward bases. Every unit was currently irreplaceable, and she was already taking a risk sending the drones out so far out in the first place.
But they needed the recon. Red Dragon may have been the only AFA carrier present in the archipelago, but she was not the only one active. Her half sister had little siblings in constriction, and she was certain she'd have to face them eventually. Though knowing her luck, she'd probably end up chasing them all over wherever on Taurus she'd ended up.
And she'd sink them, lost contact with the fleet in orbit be damned. Wouldn't be the first time she faced down unfavorable odds alone.
The chorus of "heys" and from inside her bridge put a smile on the carrier's face.
"We'll send em to the bottom just like at deadlock!" She raised her Rifle in tandem with the fist of her crew, fondness filling her as much as their cheers. Er...her Bridge crew's at least. Most of the APA workers just shuffled their feet and grumbled about Red dragon being a good ship, even if her captain was an ass and a half.
And she had to admit, Red was a beast of a carrier. Had Mao not been so sure of his technological superiority she'd probably be sunk or back in APA hands.
But the battle of deadlock was won. She came out damaged but alive and kicking, all hands save for 1 accounted for. And for all her trouble she was made a flagship of the UEC surface carrier fleet.
Whole lot of good that was doing her now. On the bright side, that island was on the edge of her radar now, and she could see the dots that were her drones growing closer to her.
She let out a long sigh. Cruising at 30 knots meant she'd hit the island in 6ish hours. Her helmsman had insisted on the lower cruising speed to save fuel, which she could understand since they currently had no means to resupply.
She'd have to set up a mining operation pretty soon huh?
And this time there was no guarantee of pre-existing infrastructure. She turned her attention inwards, another one of the weird things she was having to get used to about this whole humanoid ship lady thing.
Her eyes searched her halls and hanger for a particular crew-women and...ah, there she was. Holding a tablet, down in her cargo hood she stood, taking inventory.
lone of the more friendly APA sailors aboard , she'd been promoted to chief engineer after thee initial panic. As the only one really qualified for the job it was a given. Sure, her bridge crew had seen her through thick and thin. She trusted those men and women with her life, literally.
But the APA brought to the table crucial knowledge the didn't have. Systems they were still unfamiliar with became second nature to operate with their help. As such, nobody else was better fit to be her chief engineer then the women she had before her.
The tiny person (she wasn't quite over how cute her crew was now, with their little black eyes and nub hands) looked up at nowhere in particular, somehow making eye contact with her. "Des?"
"Mhm. Just the basics, I can read your report later"
"Desu." the little sailor said with a nod, going on to list off a watered down version of her inventory. It wasn't bad by any means. Enough constriction capsules to build up at least 3 specialized islands, and while she'd like a few torpedos for her Mantas, the 1000lb guided bombs would suffice for now, Even at just one per manta.
Their supply situation was far from dire, but it wasn't ideal either. With only two HEAT turrets and a handful of Flacks, her Walruses would be lacking utility, and the same could be said for her Mantas. Laser mkII and missile equipped as they were, they'd likely dominate in the air, especially with the Mk II armor they had on, but there would be no airlifting till a production facility was made.
Which would hopefully be soon. When she finally turned her attention back outwards found almost an hour to have passed. Her outriggers still pushed her along at a steady 30 knots, her hull slicing through the water with the same ease it always had.
She sighed again, eyes scanning the horizon. With no scouts and the sun setting to her starboard side, she'd be relying completely on her radar. Long range as it was, she wasn't worried, and there were no Islands to hide behind like at deadlock.
It was just like when she'd been taken by the UEC huh? Alone, no contact with allies, and only a vague idea of where she was. How funny was it that that sort of situation was familial.
Not by much if the resounding silence in her hull was anything to go by.
Ah well. she'd survived once with this crew, she could do it again.
WarpObscura
Sleepy Big Stick
- Location
- A dot at the edge of continental Asia.
If no formal ruling or regulation is issued, do y'all think capships and subcaps will naturally segregate while off duty the way human officers and enlisted do?
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
congregating is different from fraternizing, that said, congregating depends on hobbies and available rec areas, there will always be some overlap
Slipping into first person there. But overall a fair introduction.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Alright, edited the test snippet into our official chapter 1! Been working on chapter 2, and I'll probably be working on a weekly to bi-weekly update schedule. I'll be starting a thread for the fic once I hit 5 chapters.
so without further delay, I give you "Alone Again"
so without further delay, I give you "Alone Again"
Chapter 1
Test snippet 01
Being human she decided, was an odd mix of exhilarating and unimaginably unnerving.
On the one outrigger, she could actually see now. She could in theory eat, but hadn't had the opportunity to try yet. She could do all the things her crew did-still does if the little people running around inside her were anything to go by.
But it also meant having a body. One that she was still quite literally stumbling through learning to use. Sailing would don't be near this difficult if she was still ship shaped and not person shaped. The fact that her 2 engines and their assigned sets of propellers could be set at 2 very distinct speeds didn't help.
Sure, she could turn on a dime and pull maneuvers even a Gaea class would be jealous of, but that was assuming she was good at using them. Right now she was just leaving maneuvering up to her helmsman. The little Fairy's control was limited, but far better then the zig zags she was pulling before.
And it wasn't just her helmsman helping her out so much. She was lucky enough to have a competent crew, the same bridge crew she'd had in the Taurus archipelago plus a hundred or so APA dock workers....which had been an....interesting thing to deal with. Luckily there was no blood and things were for the most part calm between the 2 factions within her.
Either way, she was crewed by not quite seasoned vets, though still more then experienced enough to guide her and operate systems she hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet.
Speaking of systems, she'd just gotten an alert from one of her recon drones. Apparently the UAV had stumbled upon an island. Good thing too. The sooner they could find somewhere to set up shop the better. She ordered its camera feed put on her bridge screen, which had the slightly trippy affect of filling her previously ocean filled view with the prospective of the drone.
"Tropical island...medium sized....213 miles out, 32 degrees north." she muttered to herself, feeling her helmsman adjust their course in her stead. It'd be on her long range radar soon. She'd also need to call that drone back, as well as her others so they could recharge.
The last thing she wanted to do was loose the 6 she'd launched, especially After almost doing just that to get them airborne.
She was....very far away from any UEF controlled islands, let alone the ones she personally captured and used as forward bases. Every unit was currently irreplaceable, and she was already taking a risk sending the drones out so far out in the first place.
But they needed the recon. Red Dragon may have been the only AFA carrier present in the archipelago, but she was not the only one active. Her half sister had little siblings in constriction, and she was certain she'd have to face them eventually. Though knowing her luck, she'd probably end up chasing them all over wherever on Taurus she'd ended up.
And she'd sink them, lost contact with the fleet in orbit be damned. Wouldn't be the first time she faced down unfavorable odds alone.
The chorus of "heys" and from inside her bridge put a smile on the carrier's face.
"We'll send em to the bottom just like at deadlock!" She raised her Rifle in tandem with the fist of her crew, fondness filling her as much as their cheers. Er...her Bridge crew's at least. Most of the APA workers just shuffled their feet and grumbled about Red dragon being a good ship, even if her captain was an ass and a half.
And she had to admit, Red was a beast of a carrier. Had Mao not been so sure of his technological superiority she'd probably be sunk or back in APA hands.
But the battle of deadlock was won. She came out damaged but alive and kicking, all hands save for 1 accounted for. And for all her trouble she was made a flagship of the UEC surface carrier fleet.
Whole lot of good that was doing her now. On the bright side, that island was on the edge of her radar now, and she her farthest drone was now only 190 miles out.
She let out a long sigh. Cruising at 30 knots meant she'd hit the island in 6ish hours. Her helmsman had insisted on the lower cruising speed to save fuel, which she could understand since they currently had no means to resupply.
She'd have to set up a mining operation pretty soon huh?
And this time there was no guarantee of pre-existing infrastructure. She turned her attention inwards, another one of the weird things she was having to get used to about this whole humanoid ship lady thing.
Her eyes searched her halls and hanger for a particular crew-women and...ah, there she was. Holding a tablet, down in her cargo hood she stood, taking inventory.
The me of the more friendly APA sailors aboard , she'd been promoted to chief engineer after thee initial panic. As the only one really qualified for the job it was a given. Sure, her bridge crew had seen her through thick and thin. She trusted those men and women with her life, literally.
But the APA brought to the table crucial knowledge the didn't have. Systems they were still unfamiliar with became second nature to operate with their help. As such, nobody else was better fit to be her chief engineer then the women she had before her.
The tiny person (she wasn't quite over how cute her crew was now, with their little black eyes and nub hands) looked up at nowhere in particular, somehow making eye contact with her. "Des?"
"Mhm. Just the basics, I can read your report later"
"Desu." the little sailor said with a nod, going on to list off a watered down version of her inventory. It wasn't bad by any means. Enough construction capsules to build up at least 3 specialized islands, and while she'd like a few more torpedos for her Mantas, the surplus of 1000lb guided bombs would suffice for now, Even at just one per manta.
Their supply situation was far from dire, but it wasn't ideal either. With only two HEAT turrets and a handful of Flacks, her Walruses would be lacking utility, and the same could be said for her Mantas. Laser mkII and missile equipped as they were, they'd likely dominate in the air, especially with the Mk II armor they had on, but there would be no airlifting till a production facility was made.
Which would hopefully be soon. When she finally turned her attention back outwards and found almost an hour to have passed. Her outriggers still pushed her along at a steady 30 knots, her hull slicing through the water with the same ease it always had.
She sighed again, eyes scanning the horizon. With her scouts returning and the sun setting to her starboard side, she'd be relying completely on her radar soon. Long range as it was, she wasn't worried, and there were no Islands to hide behind like at deadlock.
It was just like when she'd been taken by the UEC huh? Alone, no contact with allies, and only a vague idea of where she was. How funny was it that that sort of situation was familial.
Not by much if the resounding silence in her hull was anything to go by.
Ah well. she'd survived once with this crew, she could do it again.
Test snippet 01
Being human she decided, was an odd mix of exhilarating and unimaginably unnerving.
On the one outrigger, she could actually see now. She could in theory eat, but hadn't had the opportunity to try yet. She could do all the things her crew did-still does if the little people running around inside her were anything to go by.
But it also meant having a body. One that she was still quite literally stumbling through learning to use. Sailing would don't be near this difficult if she was still ship shaped and not person shaped. The fact that her 2 engines and their assigned sets of propellers could be set at 2 very distinct speeds didn't help.
Sure, she could turn on a dime and pull maneuvers even a Gaea class would be jealous of, but that was assuming she was good at using them. Right now she was just leaving maneuvering up to her helmsman. The little Fairy's control was limited, but far better then the zig zags she was pulling before.
And it wasn't just her helmsman helping her out so much. She was lucky enough to have a competent crew, the same bridge crew she'd had in the Taurus archipelago plus a hundred or so APA dock workers....which had been an....interesting thing to deal with. Luckily there was no blood and things were for the most part calm between the 2 factions within her.
Either way, she was crewed by not quite seasoned vets, though still more then experienced enough to guide her and operate systems she hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet.
Speaking of systems, she'd just gotten an alert from one of her recon drones. Apparently the UAV had stumbled upon an island. Good thing too. The sooner they could find somewhere to set up shop the better. She ordered its camera feed put on her bridge screen, which had the slightly trippy affect of filling her previously ocean filled view with the prospective of the drone.
"Tropical island...medium sized....213 miles out, 32 degrees north." she muttered to herself, feeling her helmsman adjust their course in her stead. It'd be on her long range radar soon. She'd also need to call that drone back, as well as her others so they could recharge.
The last thing she wanted to do was loose the 6 she'd launched, especially After almost doing just that to get them airborne.
She was....very far away from any UEF controlled islands, let alone the ones she personally captured and used as forward bases. Every unit was currently irreplaceable, and she was already taking a risk sending the drones out so far out in the first place.
But they needed the recon. Red Dragon may have been the only AFA carrier present in the archipelago, but she was not the only one active. Her half sister had little siblings in constriction, and she was certain she'd have to face them eventually. Though knowing her luck, she'd probably end up chasing them all over wherever on Taurus she'd ended up.
And she'd sink them, lost contact with the fleet in orbit be damned. Wouldn't be the first time she faced down unfavorable odds alone.
The chorus of "heys" and from inside her bridge put a smile on the carrier's face.
"We'll send em to the bottom just like at deadlock!" She raised her Rifle in tandem with the fist of her crew, fondness filling her as much as their cheers. Er...her Bridge crew's at least. Most of the APA workers just shuffled their feet and grumbled about Red dragon being a good ship, even if her captain was an ass and a half.
And she had to admit, Red was a beast of a carrier. Had Mao not been so sure of his technological superiority she'd probably be sunk or back in APA hands.
But the battle of deadlock was won. She came out damaged but alive and kicking, all hands save for 1 accounted for. And for all her trouble she was made a flagship of the UEC surface carrier fleet.
Whole lot of good that was doing her now. On the bright side, that island was on the edge of her radar now, and she her farthest drone was now only 190 miles out.
She let out a long sigh. Cruising at 30 knots meant she'd hit the island in 6ish hours. Her helmsman had insisted on the lower cruising speed to save fuel, which she could understand since they currently had no means to resupply.
She'd have to set up a mining operation pretty soon huh?
And this time there was no guarantee of pre-existing infrastructure. She turned her attention inwards, another one of the weird things she was having to get used to about this whole humanoid ship lady thing.
Her eyes searched her halls and hanger for a particular crew-women and...ah, there she was. Holding a tablet, down in her cargo hood she stood, taking inventory.
The me of the more friendly APA sailors aboard , she'd been promoted to chief engineer after thee initial panic. As the only one really qualified for the job it was a given. Sure, her bridge crew had seen her through thick and thin. She trusted those men and women with her life, literally.
But the APA brought to the table crucial knowledge the didn't have. Systems they were still unfamiliar with became second nature to operate with their help. As such, nobody else was better fit to be her chief engineer then the women she had before her.
The tiny person (she wasn't quite over how cute her crew was now, with their little black eyes and nub hands) looked up at nowhere in particular, somehow making eye contact with her. "Des?"
"Mhm. Just the basics, I can read your report later"
"Desu." the little sailor said with a nod, going on to list off a watered down version of her inventory. It wasn't bad by any means. Enough construction capsules to build up at least 3 specialized islands, and while she'd like a few more torpedos for her Mantas, the surplus of 1000lb guided bombs would suffice for now, Even at just one per manta.
Their supply situation was far from dire, but it wasn't ideal either. With only two HEAT turrets and a handful of Flacks, her Walruses would be lacking utility, and the same could be said for her Mantas. Laser mkII and missile equipped as they were, they'd likely dominate in the air, especially with the Mk II armor they had on, but there would be no airlifting till a production facility was made.
Which would hopefully be soon. When she finally turned her attention back outwards and found almost an hour to have passed. Her outriggers still pushed her along at a steady 30 knots, her hull slicing through the water with the same ease it always had.
She sighed again, eyes scanning the horizon. With her scouts returning and the sun setting to her starboard side, she'd be relying completely on her radar soon. Long range as it was, she wasn't worried, and there were no Islands to hide behind like at deadlock.
It was just like when she'd been taken by the UEC huh? Alone, no contact with allies, and only a vague idea of where she was. How funny was it that that sort of situation was familial.
Not by much if the resounding silence in her hull was anything to go by.
Ah well. she'd survived once with this crew, she could do it again.
WarpObscura
Sleepy Big Stick
- Location
- A dot at the edge of continental Asia.
I don't mean fraternising as a question of intimate relations. I mean whether subcaps and caps would instinctively separate themselves, similar to how human officers and enlisted have separate mess, staterooms and other facilities and usually don't mix.