- Pronouns
- They/Them
Alone again chapter 2!!!!
Alone Again Chapter 2
The island was before, and She was equal parts distressed and relieved.
There was no pre-existing structures, which meant there wasn't nor had there ever been any APA presence. Unfortunately that also meant there was nothing she could repurpose into mining instillations or production facilities, even if she'd be focused on the former for now.
"Just how far am I...?" She asked nobody in particular.
Of course, her crew gave a collective shrug. With no orbital connection or stable reference point, she was utterly clueless. Her coordinate logs oldest point was where she'd woken up, and with the distance she had traveled that wasn't to accurate anymore.
That meant developing this island was a lot more important. It'd be her only navigational anchor for a while, assuming she got a communications tower up of course. That'd only happen once she actually started building on the damn thing.
She'd been sitting a few hundred meters out, anchored on instinct. Normally this was the part where she deployed her walruses to make landfall, but normally she didn't have legs. Now she did.
Could she....walk up herself? She still felt like a ship, and so the idea of what essentially amounted to beaching herself wasn't immediately appealing. But the other part of her, the girl part that had actual feet and could see with eyes instead of just complex instruments wasn't protruded, almost excited to touch dry land.
She was unsure, and so she turned inwards, looking into her bridge. Her various officers seemed to be just as curious as her, trading Heys and the occasional Desu (why they spoke differently she could never be sure) from her chief engineer in a little circle around the captain's dias.
"So what's the verdict?" She asked. They all looked up in mildly creepy synchronization, looked done to speak amongst themselves a bit more, then collectively turned to her and shrugged.
Soooo helpful.
She gave a frustrated huff, but thanked them nonetheless. She supposed she'd just have to take a chance. It's what had saved her so many times back in the archipelago.
With no small amount of trepidation, she sailed forward at a crawl of just 4 knots. She was still in the process of figuring out the independent drive of her propulsion, and couldn't manage sailing much faster. Lucky for her the distance was so short it didn't really matter.
Her breathe picked up as her depth indicator got progressively lower, eventually passing the point where her steal hull would've been beached.
She started holding her breath when the Sandy bottom became visible beneath the waves. The girl part of her was unbothered. The ship part wanted to turn around and get back to nice, deep, blue water where she wouldn't risk tearing up her keel.
Then the water got to shallow and her feet ran aground, making her pitch forward and almost fall flat on her face. Keyword almost.
Her arms windmilled wildly to keep her balance, left foot going forward on instinct to catch her fall.
A foot that impacted sand.
Or rather sank into it till her sole was just barley above ground. That wasn't to surprising. Wet sand wasn't solid, and she WAS still over 60 thousand tons of steel and munitions. It was probably a miracle she hadn't sunk up to her knee.
She slowly, and carefully pulled her remaining foot out of the water, placing it on the sand. Almost immediately she was met with intense vertigo, body swaying to compensate for waves that didn't exist anymore.
slowly, the carrier dropped to kneel, Gun/bow discarded at her side as she tried not to loose her lunch. "Oh god is,this what being sea sick feels like?"
She felt her helmsman rub the console before him in sympathy, a soft questioning and worried hey ringing out from him to voice the concern of her whole crew. It put a small smile on her face. These little guy was to good to her. "Thanks, I think I'll be alright though"
She slowly stood up, picking up her gun in the process. Her stomach (she still wasn't used to having one) still turned, but she wasn't quite as worried about throwing up...whatever it is she'd throw up now. She hadn't eaten anything so it'd probably just be bile, but considering her odd circumstances she couldn't be sure.
With a deep breath, she shoved down her nausea. There was a base of operations that needed building and-"hey!" Her captain said, stamping on his dias to ensure he got her attention. "Hey hey, hey."
She blushed in embarrassment. "Right..." she needed to actually launch her walruses for them to deploy their capsules Huh...
Her free hand fell to the boxy grenades situated on her left hip. The girl part of her was confused, but the ship part had done this so many times before it was practically instinct. She unhooked one of the grenades, bringing it up so she could properly examine it.
Hexagonal in shape, it had the numbers 01 engraved in it. Her lead walrus then. Now how to deploy it...it was a grenade so...did she just pull the pin and toss it?
With no objections from her crew (they seemed as curious as her), she tentatively pulled the pin, tossing the grenade to the ground.
It rolled for a few seconds, before popping into a small puff of smoke. When it cleared, a miniature walrus stood in its place, fully flew equipped with A mining Rig capsule and machine gun turret. She let out a breath she hadn't know she was holding along with her crew.
"Desu, desu desu"
Her face screwed up in confusion. "It really looked just like before for you guys? Just on land...?" That was an...odd thought. For her literally throwing her walrus out to look just like lowering it normally...
Then she realized that voice hadn't come from inside like she'd Grown accustomed to.
Slowly, her head turned to the side, spotting her chief engineer and another crewman she recognized as her old engineering officer from the archipelago. He'd been oddly okay with letting the APA dockworker take his position.
She blinked. Her two crew members blinked back, and again her two halves were at odds. The girl found the image of two little people standing on her shoulder absurd. The ship found the feeling of crew standing on her deck completely normal.
The two little people looked at each other, talking amongst themselves and gesturing at points on the beach, then down to the data pad her Chief had brought out. Then they stopped, nodded to each other and....went back below deck?
It was mind bending to watch the two vanish underneath the folds of her cloths overlaid with them walking back into her island.
Regardless, she couldn't just stay on the beach doing nothing. They had a base of operations to set up. "You two were talking about building plans, right? Care to share?"
The affirmative Hey and Desu on her bridge had a new image being sent to her main screen. It was a map of the island, with serval locations marked. Points marked for construction according to the presentation her Chief engineer was giving.
Her predecessor took over after a bit though, Desus turning to heys as he went over just how they'd be doing this. She nodded along with his presentation, and was once again Unimaginably thankful for her crew.
"Alright, great plan you two, now we just need to get started!" Her captain parroted her with a flurry of heys, and her bridge crew was in action. She watched as her one launched Walrus got itself moving, leaving tiny trials in the sand as it went off to establish the islands HQ to be.
She waited for the go ahead from her hanger crew before launching her remaining 3 Walruses, pulling the pins and tossing the grenades. The novelty had not worn off and she was still mildly enamored by the way her Amphibious units were deployed.
With all 4 walruses deployed-2 headed to start of mining rigs, and one wheeling toward the waterline to establish a pier-there was little else to do. The ship wanted to sit patiently and wait like it always did. A fresh island with no support needed protecting after all, but the girl....
The girl wanted to explore. She had legs now and she could walk and run and Jump and climb. Maybe not yet since she was still learning and her boot mounted outriggers didn't exactly lend themselves very well to walking, but it was a possibility.
She shifted from foot to foot, wracking her brain for a decision. Her crew was busy coordinating the construction operation. She could feel them working away in the back of her mind. From the handful of engineers and their marine escorts within each walrus to help along the construction to her bridge crew coordinating the whole thing.
She couldn't bother them with such a trivial decision.
So that meant deciding herself. Ship and girl were at odds, and the ship, despite being several thousand tons of steel and lethal weapons, was loosing. She wanted explore. Really really badly. Call her childish, but she'd never gotten to see an island this close before, at least not personally.
The idea of touching the trees herself. Of feeling the land around her. of hearing it all through ears and not microphones and speakers.
She had to try it.
So with a warning to her crew, she walked Towards the tree line before she could change her mind.
The island was before, and She was equal parts distressed and relieved.
There was no pre-existing structures, which meant there wasn't nor had there ever been any APA presence. Unfortunately that also meant there was nothing she could repurpose into mining instillations or production facilities, even if she'd be focused on the former for now.
"Just how far am I...?" She asked nobody in particular.
Of course, her crew gave a collective shrug. With no orbital connection or stable reference point, she was utterly clueless. Her coordinate logs oldest point was where she'd woken up, and with the distance she had traveled that wasn't to accurate anymore.
That meant developing this island was a lot more important. It'd be her only navigational anchor for a while, assuming she got a communications tower up of course. That'd only happen once she actually started building on the damn thing.
She'd been sitting a few hundred meters out, anchored on instinct. Normally this was the part where she deployed her walruses to make landfall, but normally she didn't have legs. Now she did.
Could she....walk up herself? She still felt like a ship, and so the idea of what essentially amounted to beaching herself wasn't immediately appealing. But the other part of her, the girl part that had actual feet and could see with eyes instead of just complex instruments wasn't protruded, almost excited to touch dry land.
She was unsure, and so she turned inwards, looking into her bridge. Her various officers seemed to be just as curious as her, trading Heys and the occasional Desu (why they spoke differently she could never be sure) from her chief engineer in a little circle around the captain's dias.
"So what's the verdict?" She asked. They all looked up in mildly creepy synchronization, looked done to speak amongst themselves a bit more, then collectively turned to her and shrugged.
Soooo helpful.
She gave a frustrated huff, but thanked them nonetheless. She supposed she'd just have to take a chance. It's what had saved her so many times back in the archipelago.
With no small amount of trepidation, she sailed forward at a crawl of just 4 knots. She was still in the process of figuring out the independent drive of her propulsion, and couldn't manage sailing much faster. Lucky for her the distance was so short it didn't really matter.
Her breathe picked up as her depth indicator got progressively lower, eventually passing the point where her steal hull would've been beached.
She started holding her breath when the Sandy bottom became visible beneath the waves. The girl part of her was unbothered. The ship part wanted to turn around and get back to nice, deep, blue water where she wouldn't risk tearing up her keel.
Then the water got to shallow and her feet ran aground, making her pitch forward and almost fall flat on her face. Keyword almost.
Her arms windmilled wildly to keep her balance, left foot going forward on instinct to catch her fall.
A foot that impacted sand.
Or rather sank into it till her sole was just barley above ground. That wasn't to surprising. Wet sand wasn't solid, and she WAS still over 60 thousand tons of steel and munitions. It was probably a miracle she hadn't sunk up to her knee.
She slowly, and carefully pulled her remaining foot out of the water, placing it on the sand. Almost immediately she was met with intense vertigo, body swaying to compensate for waves that didn't exist anymore.
slowly, the carrier dropped to kneel, Gun/bow discarded at her side as she tried not to loose her lunch. "Oh god is,this what being sea sick feels like?"
She felt her helmsman rub the console before him in sympathy, a soft questioning and worried hey ringing out from him to voice the concern of her whole crew. It put a small smile on her face. These little guy was to good to her. "Thanks, I think I'll be alright though"
She slowly stood up, picking up her gun in the process. Her stomach (she still wasn't used to having one) still turned, but she wasn't quite as worried about throwing up...whatever it is she'd throw up now. She hadn't eaten anything so it'd probably just be bile, but considering her odd circumstances she couldn't be sure.
With a deep breath, she shoved down her nausea. There was a base of operations that needed building and-"hey!" Her captain said, stamping on his dias to ensure he got her attention. "Hey hey, hey."
She blushed in embarrassment. "Right..." she needed to actually launch her walruses for them to deploy their capsules Huh...
Her free hand fell to the boxy grenades situated on her left hip. The girl part of her was confused, but the ship part had done this so many times before it was practically instinct. She unhooked one of the grenades, bringing it up so she could properly examine it.
Hexagonal in shape, it had the numbers 01 engraved in it. Her lead walrus then. Now how to deploy it...it was a grenade so...did she just pull the pin and toss it?
With no objections from her crew (they seemed as curious as her), she tentatively pulled the pin, tossing the grenade to the ground.
It rolled for a few seconds, before popping into a small puff of smoke. When it cleared, a miniature walrus stood in its place, fully flew equipped with A mining Rig capsule and machine gun turret. She let out a breath she hadn't know she was holding along with her crew.
"Desu, desu desu"
Her face screwed up in confusion. "It really looked just like before for you guys? Just on land...?" That was an...odd thought. For her literally throwing her walrus out to look just like lowering it normally...
Then she realized that voice hadn't come from inside like she'd Grown accustomed to.
Slowly, her head turned to the side, spotting her chief engineer and another crewman she recognized as her old engineering officer from the archipelago. He'd been oddly okay with letting the APA dockworker take his position.
She blinked. Her two crew members blinked back, and again her two halves were at odds. The girl found the image of two little people standing on her shoulder absurd. The ship found the feeling of crew standing on her deck completely normal.
The two little people looked at each other, talking amongst themselves and gesturing at points on the beach, then down to the data pad her Chief had brought out. Then they stopped, nodded to each other and....went back below deck?
It was mind bending to watch the two vanish underneath the folds of her cloths overlaid with them walking back into her island.
Regardless, she couldn't just stay on the beach doing nothing. They had a base of operations to set up. "You two were talking about building plans, right? Care to share?"
The affirmative Hey and Desu on her bridge had a new image being sent to her main screen. It was a map of the island, with serval locations marked. Points marked for construction according to the presentation her Chief engineer was giving.
Her predecessor took over after a bit though, Desus turning to heys as he went over just how they'd be doing this. She nodded along with his presentation, and was once again Unimaginably thankful for her crew.
"Alright, great plan you two, now we just need to get started!" Her captain parroted her with a flurry of heys, and her bridge crew was in action. She watched as her one launched Walrus got itself moving, leaving tiny trials in the sand as it went off to establish the islands HQ to be.
She waited for the go ahead from her hanger crew before launching her remaining 3 Walruses, pulling the pins and tossing the grenades. The novelty had not worn off and she was still mildly enamored by the way her Amphibious units were deployed.
With all 4 walruses deployed-2 headed to start of mining rigs, and one wheeling toward the waterline to establish a pier-there was little else to do. The ship wanted to sit patiently and wait like it always did. A fresh island with no support needed protecting after all, but the girl....
The girl wanted to explore. She had legs now and she could walk and run and Jump and climb. Maybe not yet since she was still learning and her boot mounted outriggers didn't exactly lend themselves very well to walking, but it was a possibility.
She shifted from foot to foot, wracking her brain for a decision. Her crew was busy coordinating the construction operation. She could feel them working away in the back of her mind. From the handful of engineers and their marine escorts within each walrus to help along the construction to her bridge crew coordinating the whole thing.
She couldn't bother them with such a trivial decision.
So that meant deciding herself. Ship and girl were at odds, and the ship, despite being several thousand tons of steel and lethal weapons, was loosing. She wanted explore. Really really badly. Call her childish, but she'd never gotten to see an island this close before, at least not personally.
The idea of touching the trees herself. Of feeling the land around her. of hearing it all through ears and not microphones and speakers.
She had to try it.
So with a warning to her crew, she walked Towards the tree line before she could change her mind.
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