Chapter 1
Awakening
----
7 July, 1972
Baalkpan
Courtney Bradford, curator of the USS Walker museum, wiped a fine sheen of sweat from his bald pate as he stepped aboard the ancient destroyer than had brought them to this strange world thirty years before for his morning inspection. He trusted his staff, of course. But he liked to make sure everything was in order with his own eyes.
It was habit, more than anything, nowadays. Bradford would arrive well before Walker opened to the public, and give himself the tour that each and every visitor walked through. He would reverently walk her decks, inspecting each precious artifact, ranging from the displayed munitions for every gun she had ever carried (including the Jap 4.7), to Dennis Silva's Doom Stomper, and even models of the varied torpedoes she had once fired off against many targets, including Amagi herself, the (at best) unreliable Mark 15 side by side with the Baalkpan Armory's much more reliable fish.
After each display below decks has been inspected, and Bradford had confirmed that each was in good enough condition to be seen by the public, he would return above decks to inspect the rest of the ship, before ultimately ending up in the pilothouse, by the beautiful tapestry of Walker's stunning victory against Amagi. From there, he would normally watch over the ship during the day, giving lectures as the mood took him, while visitors young and old toured a piece of history.
Today was not a normal day, however. As Bradford exited the open fireroom where the Mice had once lived, Walker lurched at her pier, almost as if a heavy weight had been placed aboard. It was certainly odd, but similar things had happened before, usually involving the tide on any given day. When she did not shift back to normal as Bradford continued his inspection, he began to suspect something was awry.
Moments later, his suspicion was confirmed as he poked his head out of the companionway next to the Number One gun, and saw something that certainly should not have been there. There was a woman prostrate in front of the pilothouse, muttering something he couldn't quite make out. He pulled himself completely out to ask her what exactly she was doing, when suddenly a decade's dirt blasted out of Walker's foremost stack as a boiler that had lain cold for nearly a decade roared to life.
-----
Captain Matthew Reddy looked up from the latest batch of endless paperwork at the sharp rap on his office door. He was much older than he had been when his ancient four-stacker and her sister had come to this strange world. His muscles lacked the hardness of youth, his hair had began turning gray, and there were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. But his eyes were the same, as sharp as ever, and the mind behind them had lost none of its keen edge.
"Enter!"
The Lemurian rating that skidded through the door looked mildly flustered, to say the least.
"Sur! Braad-furd says to come quickly! Something strange is happening with Waa-kur!"
Reddy raised an eyebrow and pushed himself out of his chair, taking a moment to smooth his uniform. Whatever was happening, looking utterly unflappable would only serve to reassure the men that the Skipper had everything under control. Unsurprisingly, it worked, and the rating visibly relaxed.
"Lead the way, Seaman."
"Aye aye, Sur!"
---
Despite himself, Matt's eyes widened as he walked up to the gangplank, and saw a very flustered Bradford fidgeting pierside. Walker was listing. And by no minor amount, too!
"Captain Reddy! What a relief! I must say, this morning has been most odd. As you know, I like to inspect the old girl for myself every morning, and she quite suddenly listed when I was in the fireroom! Most odd, but nothing compared to what happened next. You see, there's a woman on her foredeck, right in front of the pilothouse. I can't quite make out what she's saying, and I was about to ask her to leave, when the boilers came to life quite suddenly. Most odd!"
Matt shook his head despite himself. Some things never changed. "Courtney, priorities. She's listing."
"Yes, most odd, isn't it? I've taken the liberty of inspecting the old girl, and I must say, I haven't the foggiest notion why she's listing. But I'm not certain you quite heard me. Her boilers are hot," Bradford interjected, "and there's no crew aboard to run them."
Suddenly there was a muted roar, as Walker's second stack blew a cloud of black smoke, and two more blowers rumbled to life.
Matt raised an eyebrow, watching the thin grey smoke issuing from Walker's forward stacks. "Bradford. This isn't your idea of some odd prank, is it?"
"Heavens no!"
Matt nodded. He hadn't really thought Bradford would waste his time like that. "And I suppose you have some theory about what's happening with my old ship?"
"Well, yes and no. You understand, of course, that I am working on most insufficient data, and this is really assumptions piled with conjecture. And of course, I haven't really had time for a proper inquisition, it having been hardly half an hour..."
"Courtney," Matt interjected, allowing a little trace of his impatience to filter into his voice, "Just tell me. We can worry about the details later."
Bradford visibly shook himself. "Of course. Right. After considering all other probable, no, possible, theories and rejecting them, the only notion that remains is that the cause of all these oddities is the woman on the foredeck. I must conclude that the only possible resolution is to determine her objective via discourse."
"In English, Bradford."
"We need to talk to the woman on the foredeck to find out what she has to do with this and what she wants."
"Thank you." Matt shook his head. Some things never changed, it seemed. Though, in this case, he was glad. As unusual and sometimes infuriating as Bradford could be, his hunches were right far more often than not, and if Bradford had a hunch that the woman on the foredeck was meddling with his ship somehow, then the woman probably had something to do with whatever was happening to his ship. The thought carried him all the way up the gangplank, Bradford hovering anxiously on his heels, and right behind the woman, kneeling prostrate in front of the pilothouse. Matt cleared his throat, quietly signalling the Marine behind him to stand ready, just in case.
"Ma'am? Who are you, and what are you doing to my ship?"
The woman jumped nearly a foot in the air at his question, landing on her rear, and causing Walker to lurch at the pier. Bradford cried out as he lost his balance, stumbling into the Marine, and only his long years at sea let Matt keep his balance as the woman scrambled to her feet.
She was tall for a woman, with distinctly Japanese features. Her long, black hair cascaded down her upper back, fading to iron gray. Her dark, canted eyes seemed like they belonged to someone twice her age, in stark contrast to the round, youthful face they were set in.
Hesitantly, she smoothed her green, knee-length skirt, then looked him in the eyes before bowing deeply. "My name is Amagi. I came to beg your forgiveness, and that of noble Walker for my actions under Kurokawa's command before I return home."
Whatever Matt had been about to say in response was forever lost, as Walker's last two boilers roared to life and a blur tackled him to the deck with an overjoyed scream.
"SKIPPER!"
Matt felt a small pair of arms wrapped around him in a rib-bruising hug, and as the stars faded from his vision, the blur resolved itself into a short, redheaded girl in an immaculate Navy uniform.
"Skipper!" she giggled, "It's been way too damn long! You never visit anymore!"
Matt pushed himself up, and the little girl dropped back on her feet, bouncing with glee. She had a battered Academy sword across her back, but not even her gleeful smile couldn't hide the savage scarring across her face and arms.
"Well," he grunted, pointing at the tall Japanese woman, "if she's claiming to be Amagi, then I guess you're going to say you're Walker."
She pouted. "I am Walker! I wouldn't lie to you after all you've done for me!"
Matt raised an eyebrow. "Prove it."
Her bright blue eyes teared up, as she looked down at her feet. "The first time Chief Grey called you Skipper was after Silva and Laney got in a bar fight in Olongapo. Silva called you Skipper for the first time after you docked him a stripe for that fight. Spanky did after my Number Four torpedo mount had to be replaced."
Matt steeled himself for a moment, as all the memories of the old days washed through him. Truth be told, he was almost convinced. But those could have been lucky guesses. He had to be sure.
"Why did Boats always call Blas Ma-Ar 'Blossom'?"
The little girl - Walker - winced, looked around, and, rubbing a tear from her eye, answered.
"After that ass Al Franklen raped her. Boats got the chiefs together. They handled things."
Matt nodded. No one had ever told him… but it hadn't taken much figuring out, either. And it most certainly wasn't publicly known.
"All right, then… Walker." He ruffled her hair. "I suppose I'll accept, at least provisionally. Which means," his voice hardened as he turned back to Amagi, "You really are Amagi."
She nodded solemnly. "Yes. I am."
"Well. I'll tell you the same thing I told Walker. Prove it."
Amagi pursed her lips, nodded, and simply vaulted the rail into the water. Bradford cried out in shock and dashed to the rail, though Matt couldn't imagine what he thought he could do to save her from the flasher fish.
Matt closed his eyes to say a quick prayer for the madwoman who had let him talk to his old destroyer, when he was interrupted by one of Bradford's typically irreverent exclamations. "Oh I say! How marvelous! Come quickly, Captain! You simply must see this!"
Frowning, Matt stepped over to the rail and looked down, only to freeze in shock as he saw the woman striding purposefully across the surface of the water away from the pier. Nodding to herself, evidently satisfied she'd gotten far enough, she held out her hands. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a thundercrack of displaced air, she vanished, and a ship Matt could never forget appeared. The giant pagoda masts, her sides studded with secondary batteries. The Imperial Japanese battlecruiser, Amagi. Yet, at the same time, if he concentrated, he could still see the woman, but now with an armature on her back holding four twin turrets and a fifth one over the small of her back.
Judging by the astonished gasps to his right, Bradford and the 'Cat Marine also saw the titanic hull of their greatest foe, riding at anchor besides Walker, the Rising Sun streaming proudly from her mast… below the Stars and Stripes. Equally evident, whoever was on harbor duty was paying attention, as alarms began to blare up and down the waterfront.
A moment later, with a second clap of returning air, the massive hull vanished, leaving the woman -Amagi- standing on the calm waters of the bay. Just as suddenly as they'd started, the alarms cut out.
"Oh, how spectacular! I simply must determine how that works!", Bradford gushed. Matt shook his head, and motioned to the pier that Amagi was walking towards.
"You'll have your chance, as soon as I ask some questions of my own. Come on. No reason to wait for her walk all this way", Matt growled, leading the impromptu procession down the gangway and to the end of the pier.
As Amagi pulled herself onto the pier, Matt glared at her and growled, "Alright, Amagi. You've got my attention. Now I have questions, and I want answers. For starters, where the hell have you been all this time? We broke your wreck up for the steel, so I know you haven't just been sitting on the seafloor."
Amagi frowned, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. "I am sorry, Captain. I cannot tell you, because I do not know the answer. My last memory before waking up is a great, shearing pain below my keel as my hull tore in two. Then I woke up next to the valiant Walker." She shrugged unhappily. "You know what happened from there."
He grunted unhappily. She seemed sincere enough, and he was honest enough to admit that it wasn't all that important. He didn't need to look to know that Bradford was practically vibrating with excitement, and he was confident Bradford would get to the bottom of that mystery eventually. Holding a hand up to the pounding feet behind him, he continued, "Fine. Much more importantly, why now?"
"Japan is threatened by a new enemy. They called, but I suppose on some level I knew I needed to speak to you and Walker and ask your forgiveness before I could return."
Matt's temper flared, and he very nearly shouted, "You said you came to ask for my forgiveness. Well, if you think you can saunter in here after killing most of my crew, and helping the Grik kill several thousand more of our people, and get my forgiveness by asking, you better have a damned good reason for me to give it!"
"He fed my crew to the Grik to save himself!", Amagi screamed, tears in her eyes, "He sent my crew to the cook pots because he was too mad to think there could possibly be a worse enemy than the Americans, and nothing, not even caring for my crew, could be allowed to stand in the way of that! Don't you think I would have done something about that if I could have? I had to watch my crew be butchered and eaten." She collapsed to the pier, spent. Tears dripped down her face, darkening the white fabric of her shirt.
"Please," she sobbed," just give me a chance that I might be remembered for more than serving the greatest evil this world has ever seen. That is all I ask."
Matt stepped firmly on his temper before it could cause any more problems, as Walker leaned into him supportively. He exhaled harshly, then stepped forward and firmly, but not roughly, brought her eyes to meet his own. "I don't trust you, Amagi. Not yet, and maybe never." He paused for a moment, and took a deep breath, "But… I'm willing to give you that chance."
She smiled, almost pathetically grateful. "Thank you, Captain! You won't regret it."
He grunted. "We'll see. In the meantime, Bradford? She's all yours. Find out what she needs, and get it." Turning back to Amagi, he added, "While you are here, you will be accompanied at all times by at least one Marine, preferably two. And one last thing."
"Yes?"
"What's this new threat you spoke of?"
Surprisingly, it was Walker who answered. "I dunno, Skipper. I think the Navy's also in this war. I heard them calling a little." She beamed up at him. "Not like I was gonna wake up for anyone else!" She then shuffled over to Amagi and gave her a quick squeeze, and murmured, "I'm sorry you had to see that happen to your crew", to her, before scurrying back to Matt's side and almost shyly reaching up for his hand.
"I… see." Matt rubbed his chin with his unoccupied hand. Even now, everything seemed insane and he was half-convinced, even now, that it was a dream. Still, it was a pleasant enough dream, by and large. No reason not to enjoy it while it lasted. "Well, I haven't eaten yet this morning. Would you like to join me for breakfast, Walker? I think we have a lot to talk about."
Walker beamed.
