Alternate Timelines / History. Also possibly contains some Kancolle snips later on down the road, or loosely related ones anyway.
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Introduction and side-order of ATL
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
Yeah, I have been away for a while. Attempting to find a job will do that, blasted world situation does not help. And of course, early this month, my desktop p supply gets fried and takes the mb/cpu with it, glad I've got a laptop. Although, between waiting for confirmation of an internship for me and waiting to get a new/better computer with actual gfx card... I have gotten into WoWs. Things are kinda shelved at the moment. Do not get older if you can help it, after 40, it tends to be downhill and you wonder where the time goes... Just saying....
Anyways, here's a few ideas and or shorts that go along with various stories, but I will likely post the alternate timelines first...
WW1 Alternate Timeline, partial explanation below. From multiple AH.com threads on the subject.
1914--- World war one starts. The US watches slowly as the situation gets worse. State posts general warning to companies about "...You are responsible for your own choices. Should your shipping be damaged or destroyed in transit, that is your loss alone... We will not help you at this time..."
1915--- Despite strong discouragement from State, some companies forge on with helping in the European war. Ships are sunk, shipments lost or detained. Those who complain are merely refered back to the warning note text and politely told to go away.
The Navy gets some money to expand, but in the Executive's opinion, its not enough as shipping company losses continue to mount due to the British blockade of Germany.
State suggests routing shipments through Norway secretly, and the companies who ship to the CP do so. This helps somewhat, but it is noted that the harsh seas have claimed a few more ships.
1916--- An election year in America, and the hardest year for Europe yet. Pleas from both sides push into WAShington DC.
Wilson makes neutrality speech and popular support is quite high. Much to Europe's chagrin and consernation the US Federal Reserve issues Yellow light to financiers.
1917--- Britain asks US for more. Press get wind of it and political cartoons abound. One CP leaning paper depicts Britain as an Oliver asking the cold meal server that the US is depicted to be for more with the caption "An empire asking an upstart for aid, have the Europeans fallen so far?"
RN blockade extends to include much of Norway, and Wilson snaps in a speech to Congress about the folly of wars. Goes so far as to berate the British and publically issues a red light to all Europe bound aid shipments that have to leave American shores.
Once the speech travels abroad, Europe is "...Astonished with outrage..." as one British paper worded it. Other headlines read more or less similarly; "Young upstart nation telling us what to do? Outrageous!"
There would be no aid to anyone as long as the blockades remained in place. Britain simmered and stewed, Germany postured and protested; the US and Wilson stood firm.
The world watched as Britain cinched its collective belt even tighter and Germany sank deeper into debt. The US waited.
Some German merchant ships, desperate to return home with some goods left Boston keeping to American waters off the Maine coast. There were British ships waiting.
USA pokes Canada in the trade deals, being "rather annoyed about British ships in Canada...". Nothing is done at this point, but US training is ramped up in areas far from foreign borders
1918--- Out of money and resources, both sides declare a temporary truce and ceasefire. Negotiations started, stalled, restarted and stalled again. While the diplomacy simmers as a stew cooking might with France and Germany poking each other over whose fault it is. There is an undercurrent of edginess that will rear up once a settlement is reached.
1919--- The talks continue in Europe, armies have been sent home however, so the only thing to be done is diplomacy. Areas of lesser involvement get on with life. The US watches and waits, knowing that only when Europe hammers peace out will they start to "request" loan repayments. To that end, while Europe is busy, the USN starts on an expansion program and the army also begins modernizing. Wilson knows that Europe is not happy with his choice of path, and realizes the country will need to have a stronger defense for what comes down the line.
1920--- Europe finally completes a settlement, but it leaves Eastern Europe in economic ruin...
Serbia, for instigating the trigger of the war in the first place is forced into the hands of Italy who then relocate the Serbs to Libya.
Austria and Hungary are disbanded and rearranged into Itallian and Romanian Occupation zones.
Germany is carved up with basically only the area to just east of Rostock and south to past Dresden with the north central portion given to Denmark. The Northwest Portion to the Netherlands, west Central to Benelux and the Southwest to France with the remainder going to Czechoslovakia. Basically Germany has been bushwhacked down to roughly a 75 by 75 mile country since Germany had no money, buuut France still levied a 50 million dollar war reparation upon the horribly downsized Germany. Not to mention Germany's military has been slashed down to 25,000 men with the Navy only allowed coastal patrol boats.
France, Britain and Russia each get a fair chunk of the former German Army's man power as part of a deal to basically assist in helping to rebuild what they partially destroyed. It should be noted that Hitler is with the Russian bound portion.
Turkey is stripped of the Bosporus strait with Britain given administrative rights to both sides of the strait for 10 years.
US has its election year; while Wilson doesn't run, he carefully watches Europe and the elections.
1921--- "We can either force them to pay, which may not end well, or we can go the way of real estate." Wilson gestured to the map on his desk, "Alaska could be connected to us by land, all we need to do is convince Britain to give us... Say-" A pencil draws a line over Canada. "This much land in place of money; and I know we need the money, but we need to convince Canada not to yell too much... And they will likely yell over it."
The new administration delivers a proposal to the British Ambassador, who nearly has a heart attack upon reading the details. Canada also gets a copy, albeit worded differently.
"The past few years have been unkind to the world in general, forcing countries to borrow for financing purposes. Our mother country in particular has been hard hit by this need to finance her efforts, and we have tried to help and assist in that way. However, the violence has been dealt with, the rebuilding begins; as does the repayment of debts. We understand that you are your own governing body and therefore are extending this as a courtesy to you in regards to the financial amounts that Britain owes the US. We have offered Britain a branch so to speak, a way to clear part of her debt to us without money involved. This involves Canada....."
The room was silent at 10 Downing Street, those present had a hard time believing what they had just heard.
"So," The king summarized the information. "The are asking us to cede a portion of Canada to them in exchange for clearing half of the Empire's war debt?"
The PM nodded and thumped the missive in question, "Yes your highness; and while this hasn't been leaked to any media anywhere as far as we know. Should the Americans want to make this public-"
"I got a communique from Ottawa this morning about it, they've been told, and they aren't happy, but they will abide by what the King decrees." The foreign minister supplied, elicting a sigh from the prime minister and a frown from the king.
"And we can't do anything about it." The king agreed with the general attitude of the room. "It would be.... awkward to go to war with the ones who effectively financed us. Very well...."
---
"I stand here before you today as your monarch, a king of the British Empire. I stand here to address an issue which arose due to the tumultuous times Europe has just endured; that of the Empire's debt to other nations. Seems ironic that former subjects of the Empire now hold us to account for amounts owed to them, and yet, they have offered a way out that precludes less savory actions. They proposed an acquisition of a third of the Canadian Dominion in exchange for clearing half of our debt to them. Many of you think this outlandish, but logic prevails upon me to accept their proposed offer. Britain cannot afford another excursion of men and machines external to our empire....."
1922--- The US increases in size by half, now the second largest nation of Earth behind Russia in landmass. Rough details are a new border starting from Montana and wandering northwest up to what used to be known as the NWT. In the intervening years, a total of 10 new states will form. More or less based around a local region owing more to geography then expediency.
Yeah, not likely to happen with the last bit there, but its out there now.
Anyways, here's a few ideas and or shorts that go along with various stories, but I will likely post the alternate timelines first...
WW1 Alternate Timeline, partial explanation below. From multiple AH.com threads on the subject.
1914--- World war one starts. The US watches slowly as the situation gets worse. State posts general warning to companies about "...You are responsible for your own choices. Should your shipping be damaged or destroyed in transit, that is your loss alone... We will not help you at this time..."
1915--- Despite strong discouragement from State, some companies forge on with helping in the European war. Ships are sunk, shipments lost or detained. Those who complain are merely refered back to the warning note text and politely told to go away.
The Navy gets some money to expand, but in the Executive's opinion, its not enough as shipping company losses continue to mount due to the British blockade of Germany.
State suggests routing shipments through Norway secretly, and the companies who ship to the CP do so. This helps somewhat, but it is noted that the harsh seas have claimed a few more ships.
1916--- An election year in America, and the hardest year for Europe yet. Pleas from both sides push into WAShington DC.
Wilson makes neutrality speech and popular support is quite high. Much to Europe's chagrin and consernation the US Federal Reserve issues Yellow light to financiers.
1917--- Britain asks US for more. Press get wind of it and political cartoons abound. One CP leaning paper depicts Britain as an Oliver asking the cold meal server that the US is depicted to be for more with the caption "An empire asking an upstart for aid, have the Europeans fallen so far?"
RN blockade extends to include much of Norway, and Wilson snaps in a speech to Congress about the folly of wars. Goes so far as to berate the British and publically issues a red light to all Europe bound aid shipments that have to leave American shores.
Once the speech travels abroad, Europe is "...Astonished with outrage..." as one British paper worded it. Other headlines read more or less similarly; "Young upstart nation telling us what to do? Outrageous!"
There would be no aid to anyone as long as the blockades remained in place. Britain simmered and stewed, Germany postured and protested; the US and Wilson stood firm.
The world watched as Britain cinched its collective belt even tighter and Germany sank deeper into debt. The US waited.
Some German merchant ships, desperate to return home with some goods left Boston keeping to American waters off the Maine coast. There were British ships waiting.
USA pokes Canada in the trade deals, being "rather annoyed about British ships in Canada...". Nothing is done at this point, but US training is ramped up in areas far from foreign borders
1918--- Out of money and resources, both sides declare a temporary truce and ceasefire. Negotiations started, stalled, restarted and stalled again. While the diplomacy simmers as a stew cooking might with France and Germany poking each other over whose fault it is. There is an undercurrent of edginess that will rear up once a settlement is reached.
1919--- The talks continue in Europe, armies have been sent home however, so the only thing to be done is diplomacy. Areas of lesser involvement get on with life. The US watches and waits, knowing that only when Europe hammers peace out will they start to "request" loan repayments. To that end, while Europe is busy, the USN starts on an expansion program and the army also begins modernizing. Wilson knows that Europe is not happy with his choice of path, and realizes the country will need to have a stronger defense for what comes down the line.
1920--- Europe finally completes a settlement, but it leaves Eastern Europe in economic ruin...
Serbia, for instigating the trigger of the war in the first place is forced into the hands of Italy who then relocate the Serbs to Libya.
Austria and Hungary are disbanded and rearranged into Itallian and Romanian Occupation zones.
Germany is carved up with basically only the area to just east of Rostock and south to past Dresden with the north central portion given to Denmark. The Northwest Portion to the Netherlands, west Central to Benelux and the Southwest to France with the remainder going to Czechoslovakia. Basically Germany has been bushwhacked down to roughly a 75 by 75 mile country since Germany had no money, buuut France still levied a 50 million dollar war reparation upon the horribly downsized Germany. Not to mention Germany's military has been slashed down to 25,000 men with the Navy only allowed coastal patrol boats.
France, Britain and Russia each get a fair chunk of the former German Army's man power as part of a deal to basically assist in helping to rebuild what they partially destroyed. It should be noted that Hitler is with the Russian bound portion.
Turkey is stripped of the Bosporus strait with Britain given administrative rights to both sides of the strait for 10 years.
US has its election year; while Wilson doesn't run, he carefully watches Europe and the elections.
1921--- "We can either force them to pay, which may not end well, or we can go the way of real estate." Wilson gestured to the map on his desk, "Alaska could be connected to us by land, all we need to do is convince Britain to give us... Say-" A pencil draws a line over Canada. "This much land in place of money; and I know we need the money, but we need to convince Canada not to yell too much... And they will likely yell over it."
The new administration delivers a proposal to the British Ambassador, who nearly has a heart attack upon reading the details. Canada also gets a copy, albeit worded differently.
"The past few years have been unkind to the world in general, forcing countries to borrow for financing purposes. Our mother country in particular has been hard hit by this need to finance her efforts, and we have tried to help and assist in that way. However, the violence has been dealt with, the rebuilding begins; as does the repayment of debts. We understand that you are your own governing body and therefore are extending this as a courtesy to you in regards to the financial amounts that Britain owes the US. We have offered Britain a branch so to speak, a way to clear part of her debt to us without money involved. This involves Canada....."
The room was silent at 10 Downing Street, those present had a hard time believing what they had just heard.
"So," The king summarized the information. "The are asking us to cede a portion of Canada to them in exchange for clearing half of the Empire's war debt?"
The PM nodded and thumped the missive in question, "Yes your highness; and while this hasn't been leaked to any media anywhere as far as we know. Should the Americans want to make this public-"
"I got a communique from Ottawa this morning about it, they've been told, and they aren't happy, but they will abide by what the King decrees." The foreign minister supplied, elicting a sigh from the prime minister and a frown from the king.
"And we can't do anything about it." The king agreed with the general attitude of the room. "It would be.... awkward to go to war with the ones who effectively financed us. Very well...."
---
"I stand here before you today as your monarch, a king of the British Empire. I stand here to address an issue which arose due to the tumultuous times Europe has just endured; that of the Empire's debt to other nations. Seems ironic that former subjects of the Empire now hold us to account for amounts owed to them, and yet, they have offered a way out that precludes less savory actions. They proposed an acquisition of a third of the Canadian Dominion in exchange for clearing half of our debt to them. Many of you think this outlandish, but logic prevails upon me to accept their proposed offer. Britain cannot afford another excursion of men and machines external to our empire....."
1922--- The US increases in size by half, now the second largest nation of Earth behind Russia in landmass. Rough details are a new border starting from Montana and wandering northwest up to what used to be known as the NWT. In the intervening years, a total of 10 new states will form. More or less based around a local region owing more to geography then expediency.
Yeah, not likely to happen with the last bit there, but its out there now.
Last edited:
Alternate end to Russo-Japanese War
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
A couple of alternate choice ends for the R-J war...
Russo-Japanese war ending alternate.
TR looks at far east map, consults with the two sides, looks at map again. Discerns another outcome.
To Russia, "Ok, you want a warm water port yes? Lets give you [area of Port Arthur to Shanghai..."
To Japan, "You want more resources yes? How about Eastern Siberia to this big lake over here...."
---------------------
So how this idea came to was considering various ww2 possibles and deciding that one PoD was in the Russo-Japanese war. Giving Japan East Siberia/Kamchatka penn. allows them to expand through Hokkaido fairly rapidly, weather acclimatization permitting.
Russians get more land for crops and they have an actual warm region too this way.
Japan has more space, some resource access.
Yes, TR may not like Asians, but I'm not sure he'd like Russians much either. He might even think he'd be giving the Japanese a bit of a punishment with the landswap.
We don't know what would happen really, aside from Russia complaining about losing a naval port, onstably in exchange for a warm water port. I can see TR going "Seriously, you guys need to calm down, you have enough cold water ports, be happy with the warm water port you gained."
In 1906 or so, there wasn't much out that way besides mountains and trees and northern tundra. I'm not sure Russia would be terribly upset over losing a chunk of country anyway that 90% of Russians will never see.
-----------------------------------------
OR......
Japan chooses Britain to mediate; despite Russian protests, Britain is all too happy to be of service, remembering the Second Pacific Squadron's issues...
Russia is forced to give up the entire region from [roughly] 100 miles east of Lake Baikal to the Bering Sea, for 150 years. No negotiation, furthermore, due to Russia's tendency to implode into disorder every few decades. The treaty copy Russia gets will be chiseled into stone.
Japan's very happy with their expansion, like much of the world at the time; the view was "why did Russia want to hang onto that area of land anyway? Nothing was there..."
But with Russia sequestered in by the Aberdeen Treaty, Britain assists [maybe] Japan with knowledge and equipment for various resource gathering ventures... And finally, after a few years; in 1910, recognizes Japan as a fellow great power.
In some respects, the reason for Russia being so feared is the tendency for the place to erupt in sporadic bouts of unrest. And the sheer size of the country made it very easy for even rebels and the like to hide out in the depths. With the R-J war, an opportunity to effectively leash the bear in a cage was given; and squandered with the choice of a US mediation.
True, Russians would've really got whacked had the British Mediated, considering the various pranks that the derp[2nd Pacific] squadron had done. Any of the Scandinavian countries really would've taken opportunity with Russia really. France was out because of treaties, and while Britain and Japan were allied. Russia was the loser so really had no choice in the matter of who mediated. Considering country age, Japan was the older; as was Britain. In some respects. The obvious mediator choice would've been Britain, not the US, a country barely past its first century.
This would pushed Japan to great power status really, which is what they always wanted. IMO, they would've been satisfied with land that could provide them with resources needed for economic stuff. One has to applaud the Japanese pushing for true equality at a time of great inequality, even if it was for selfish gain. The fact that they pushed for cultural equality, them being the first to do so, shows how gutsy they were.
Look at the question highlighted in pink, I'd appreciate a little more insight into the Russian history of keeping eastern Siberia and Kamchatka. What benefit was it to them aside from a port on the Pacific? Would love to learn or relearn that particular facet of Russian mindset/history.
As one who has spent the entire life in the Western hemisphere, the education we get regarding eastern Europe and Asia is somewhat of foggy mirror. While I have perused various media types about Eastern Europe, nearly all of those sources have been slanted with one view or another, usually a western viewpoint.
Russo-Japanese war ending alternate.
TR looks at far east map, consults with the two sides, looks at map again. Discerns another outcome.
To Russia, "Ok, you want a warm water port yes? Lets give you [area of Port Arthur to Shanghai..."
To Japan, "You want more resources yes? How about Eastern Siberia to this big lake over here...."
---------------------
So how this idea came to was considering various ww2 possibles and deciding that one PoD was in the Russo-Japanese war. Giving Japan East Siberia/Kamchatka penn. allows them to expand through Hokkaido fairly rapidly, weather acclimatization permitting.
Russians get more land for crops and they have an actual warm region too this way.
Japan has more space, some resource access.
Yes, TR may not like Asians, but I'm not sure he'd like Russians much either. He might even think he'd be giving the Japanese a bit of a punishment with the landswap.
We don't know what would happen really, aside from Russia complaining about losing a naval port, onstably in exchange for a warm water port. I can see TR going "Seriously, you guys need to calm down, you have enough cold water ports, be happy with the warm water port you gained."
In 1906 or so, there wasn't much out that way besides mountains and trees and northern tundra. I'm not sure Russia would be terribly upset over losing a chunk of country anyway that 90% of Russians will never see.
-----------------------------------------
OR......
Japan chooses Britain to mediate; despite Russian protests, Britain is all too happy to be of service, remembering the Second Pacific Squadron's issues...
Russia is forced to give up the entire region from [roughly] 100 miles east of Lake Baikal to the Bering Sea, for 150 years. No negotiation, furthermore, due to Russia's tendency to implode into disorder every few decades. The treaty copy Russia gets will be chiseled into stone.
Japan's very happy with their expansion, like much of the world at the time; the view was "why did Russia want to hang onto that area of land anyway? Nothing was there..."
But with Russia sequestered in by the Aberdeen Treaty, Britain assists [maybe] Japan with knowledge and equipment for various resource gathering ventures... And finally, after a few years; in 1910, recognizes Japan as a fellow great power.
In some respects, the reason for Russia being so feared is the tendency for the place to erupt in sporadic bouts of unrest. And the sheer size of the country made it very easy for even rebels and the like to hide out in the depths. With the R-J war, an opportunity to effectively leash the bear in a cage was given; and squandered with the choice of a US mediation.
True, Russians would've really got whacked had the British Mediated, considering the various pranks that the derp[2nd Pacific] squadron had done. Any of the Scandinavian countries really would've taken opportunity with Russia really. France was out because of treaties, and while Britain and Japan were allied. Russia was the loser so really had no choice in the matter of who mediated. Considering country age, Japan was the older; as was Britain. In some respects. The obvious mediator choice would've been Britain, not the US, a country barely past its first century.
This would pushed Japan to great power status really, which is what they always wanted. IMO, they would've been satisfied with land that could provide them with resources needed for economic stuff. One has to applaud the Japanese pushing for true equality at a time of great inequality, even if it was for selfish gain. The fact that they pushed for cultural equality, them being the first to do so, shows how gutsy they were.
Look at the question highlighted in pink, I'd appreciate a little more insight into the Russian history of keeping eastern Siberia and Kamchatka. What benefit was it to them aside from a port on the Pacific? Would love to learn or relearn that particular facet of Russian mindset/history.
As one who has spent the entire life in the Western hemisphere, the education we get regarding eastern Europe and Asia is somewhat of foggy mirror. While I have perused various media types about Eastern Europe, nearly all of those sources have been slanted with one view or another, usually a western viewpoint.
Last edited:
The Kancolle related bit....
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
...That combines a few alternate divergence points from above...
Japan's Fleet
A look at what might've happened in the years leading up to ww2 and beyond if ships spirits happened.
Possible Div Points include I.Y. recalling time in R-J war; or reading an obscure text from a very fringe and obscure religion in the US [certainly doable considering the general freedom of religion given the times]; a dream or vision of sorts while touring a ship in the yards [if one goes with the Kanto quake, this could be a vivid dream of Amagi in spirit form…]; or a mix of the above.
==================
The slip was quiet tonight as Isoroku stood overlooking the semi-completed for of the Amagi, but work was supposed to run 24 hours a day to make the ship complete. So why was he alone here; a dream?
"Commander." A strangely feminine voice drew his attention to his right.
"Who are you?"
The apparition simply pointed toward the ship in the drydock, and once his eyes had strayed to the hull again, the scene changed in a surprising manner. "See to the ships Commander."
The protagonist remained rooted even as the violent shaking of the scene stopped and the ship before him was knocked off the blocks and put into an unusable state from the surrounding structures.
"Save me."
------------------
Yamamoto lay awake staring at the ceiling; he needed to record the dream. The date was July 15, 1923.
He considered his upcoming trips to the other side of the world next year and frowned; usually dreams one could recall later generally meant something was going on, but according to at least his own attitude, said dream had to happen again for him to consider acting upon it. He considered the recent past and was glad for several things that had happened so far for Nippon.
The outcome of the 1905 conflict; the British had stepped in upon invite to be the mediator and overruled the Russians. Said treaty restrained the Russian bear to only west Siberia but gave them a guaranteed port on the Black Sea. Japan gained mainland territory that would be theirs for over a century. Russia was simply too big a country for the tiny amount of people it had held, not to mention the instability issues having such a huge area had.
What the above point meant was that Nippon could build and modernize as she saw fit to do so without too many problems. This also meant that both military branches modernized, and by explicit Imperial Edict, had to get along without any more rivalry issues. No Army this or Navy that, the Emperor admonished harshly. There was One Nippon, one military, thusly no strife within.
----------------
"Look, I realize this is likely the way things have been done for a few years, all I am saying is to remember the news of the SanFrisco quake in America of 1906. An event is far kinder to a boat on the water than on the slip… Just see what you can do to acquire more stabilizing beams."
"While I cannot promise any success, I will look into it, sir."
"Arigato." Yamamoto execute a small bow of respect and left the dockyard.
-------------
A similar dream, but farther down the path, where the protagonist looked out over a number of ships in Yokosuka's docks; and standing close to their hulls were the ship spirits to be seen.
"Roll call!"
"Amagi."
"Akagi."
"Kaga, Carrier."
"Tosa, Carrier."
"Zuikaku."
"Shokaku."
"Yamato."
"Musashi."
"Shinano, Armoured Fleet Operations Aviation Battleship."
"Asama."
"Fuji."
"Nagato."
"Mutsu."
"Kongou."
"Hiei."
There were still more, but the dreamer ran out of time…
-------
…Finding himself needing to record the dream again. He mentally ran through what he knew of the proposed ship classes and designs. Most of those had yet to be allotted for. The last two were possible ships for the 20" gun, however, the caliber had yet to agreed on though. Yamato class would possibly have 18" guns, the Shinano was not yet figured out however and needed more consideration to finalize her class.
It is very much in the snip stage... Very much so... It provides an interesting alternate PoV anyway; considering that we all have weird dreams at times.
....Really SV? I mean understand why you might have that sort of "considered spam" message, but I'd rather know after the fact than before, even despite the fact I'd still ask why regardless... Considering the previous messages were in spoilers/quotes at least before I edited them... Eesh.
Japan's Fleet
A look at what might've happened in the years leading up to ww2 and beyond if ships spirits happened.
Possible Div Points include I.Y. recalling time in R-J war; or reading an obscure text from a very fringe and obscure religion in the US [certainly doable considering the general freedom of religion given the times]; a dream or vision of sorts while touring a ship in the yards [if one goes with the Kanto quake, this could be a vivid dream of Amagi in spirit form…]; or a mix of the above.
==================
The slip was quiet tonight as Isoroku stood overlooking the semi-completed for of the Amagi, but work was supposed to run 24 hours a day to make the ship complete. So why was he alone here; a dream?
"Commander." A strangely feminine voice drew his attention to his right.
"Who are you?"
The apparition simply pointed toward the ship in the drydock, and once his eyes had strayed to the hull again, the scene changed in a surprising manner. "See to the ships Commander."
The protagonist remained rooted even as the violent shaking of the scene stopped and the ship before him was knocked off the blocks and put into an unusable state from the surrounding structures.
"Save me."
------------------
Yamamoto lay awake staring at the ceiling; he needed to record the dream. The date was July 15, 1923.
He considered his upcoming trips to the other side of the world next year and frowned; usually dreams one could recall later generally meant something was going on, but according to at least his own attitude, said dream had to happen again for him to consider acting upon it. He considered the recent past and was glad for several things that had happened so far for Nippon.
The outcome of the 1905 conflict; the British had stepped in upon invite to be the mediator and overruled the Russians. Said treaty restrained the Russian bear to only west Siberia but gave them a guaranteed port on the Black Sea. Japan gained mainland territory that would be theirs for over a century. Russia was simply too big a country for the tiny amount of people it had held, not to mention the instability issues having such a huge area had.
What the above point meant was that Nippon could build and modernize as she saw fit to do so without too many problems. This also meant that both military branches modernized, and by explicit Imperial Edict, had to get along without any more rivalry issues. No Army this or Navy that, the Emperor admonished harshly. There was One Nippon, one military, thusly no strife within.
----------------
"Look, I realize this is likely the way things have been done for a few years, all I am saying is to remember the news of the SanFrisco quake in America of 1906. An event is far kinder to a boat on the water than on the slip… Just see what you can do to acquire more stabilizing beams."
"While I cannot promise any success, I will look into it, sir."
"Arigato." Yamamoto execute a small bow of respect and left the dockyard.
-------------
A similar dream, but farther down the path, where the protagonist looked out over a number of ships in Yokosuka's docks; and standing close to their hulls were the ship spirits to be seen.
"Roll call!"
"Amagi."
"Akagi."
"Kaga, Carrier."
"Tosa, Carrier."
"Zuikaku."
"Shokaku."
"Yamato."
"Musashi."
"Shinano, Armoured Fleet Operations Aviation Battleship."
"Asama."
"Fuji."
"Nagato."
"Mutsu."
"Kongou."
"Hiei."
There were still more, but the dreamer ran out of time…
-------
…Finding himself needing to record the dream again. He mentally ran through what he knew of the proposed ship classes and designs. Most of those had yet to be allotted for. The last two were possible ships for the 20" gun, however, the caliber had yet to agreed on though. Yamato class would possibly have 18" guns, the Shinano was not yet figured out however and needed more consideration to finalize her class.
It is very much in the snip stage... Very much so... It provides an interesting alternate PoV anyway; considering that we all have weird dreams at times.
....Really SV? I mean understand why you might have that sort of "considered spam" message, but I'd rather know after the fact than before, even despite the fact I'd still ask why regardless... Considering the previous messages were in spoilers/quotes at least before I edited them... Eesh.
Last edited:
Unplanned for Prologue
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
A bit different. a rewrite of sorts of my early naval buildup story. This is the prologue.
1916-
The European war was in full swing. His employers, the Naval Design Bureau, had just announced a general design push for any and all concepts of warships. He looked at the design before him and the companion sheaf of notes explaining most of his reasoning.
"... The Brits have their own 18" gun, so why not have a unique size? The way I see it, 17" is a perfect fit for claiming our own niche upon world history, and if we could ever make the 76 caliber come to fruition, it would be a resounding PR gig to centennialize..."
This was his main concern, IF the seventy-six caliber came to being, it would need a 30% longer turret to compensate for the longer barrel, at the very least. He had offered an alternative however, in the form of allowance for a 50 caliber should the 76 cal be considered too ungainly to further go past the testing stage. He had also suggested that, if the Navy further looked into quad barrel turrets, that using 16" guns of 50 calibers would also alternatively work for the ship. After all, if the size is unwieldly, then go for quantity instead. His alternatives offered that choice.
====================
"....So, these designs are feasible then and would be able to be built with correct research?"
"Yes sir. If you look at the final design package of your packets; that ship has the most room for flexibility in its design....."
"....28 guns.... or 21 guns..."
--------------
"... Very well Admiral, you'll get your funding for the next 10 years. Mostly research purposes, but you'll have your money."
========================
1926-
Tillman was dead, the research was still ongoing, but progress on the "patriotic" caliber was made. In the meantime however, the hull design tests continued, it would take at least another 5 years, or even ten, to fully unravel the long hull that the Behemoth project required.
========================
1934-
A great deal had happened, but the project had benefited from it; a floating slipway was in development, being constructed in one of the many natural inlets of the Chesapeake Bay, away from the curious. The hull problem had finally been overcome, as far as Research could figure, and scale model testing only went so far. Those hurdles had been passed. Naval gun progress was a more delicate balance as the turret boxes were somewhat more ovoid in shape, having to have more support and counterweight for the additional caliber.
-----------------------------
1935-
By Presidential Order, the Navy was pushed to finish one set of 17" 76 cal turrets [this amounted to 7 replacement turrets and 28 additional barrels]. The other two Montanas would be fitted with quad-barrel "1650"s due to easier production reasons.
--------------------------------
A small note on the WNT; while it did happen here, the parity was not that large of issue because the Navy had adamantly insisted and had been firm with the diplomats that any proposed parity deals were fine. So when Japan had counter-offered 70%, while reluctant, Hughes had accepted with little complaint. After all, he knew the Navy was neck deep in research for the best battleship, and this was a treaty that was aimed at what was being built, not really preventing study and research. So all walked away happy and none the wiser, if you trust what the media said at least.
--------------------------------
1936-
Japan walked out of the LNC. Congress nullified the WNT at the President's urging, citing job opportunities. Montana's keel was laid in the Big Slip #1, only days before Japan laid Yamato's keel.
--------------------
1937-
Intelligence was a funny thing, a low level British analyst mused as he looked at comparable photos that could've easily been copies of one another but were not, as evidenced by the backgrounds. From a distance, both looked the same in construction, but Japan was more rudimentary in design while the American was a solid object. Neither place offered any answers from the local areas, but MI-6 decided to play the photos off each other....
"...Huh, so they're building something..."
"...I see, I will pass this up to Tokyo..."
The other two Montanas, were laid in Big Slip 2 and 3 later in the year, in addition to other build projects.
=============
1940-
For the last two years, the administration had gone back and forth on the issue of Montana's launching. It was decided to post-phone the official public launching until next year, but the date would be a July 4th.
---------------------------
1941-
A small cadre of people gathered under the prow of the new ship. If Yamato had cared to, she could've looked over the edge to see, but she didn't need to. Tradition insisted, Yamato would be satisfied with the ceremony as it was. Taking a look around, the ethereal being noted that a lot still had to be put in place before she assumed her role at, if her builders were to be believed, the top of the food chain.
-------------
It was the Fourth, a near infamous holiday in America where fireworks abounded. A massive event on the Chesapeake Bay was held with a fireworks display and a special radio broadcast of a launch.
The tall form stood beside the aging leader of the country as he gave his speech, invisible to the crowds. After a time, he finished speaking and looked over to an important looking woman standing by the bow of her hull.
"Senator Rankin, you may proceed."
"Thank you Mr. President." The woman took the champagne bottle and smashed it against the ship, "I christen this ship the U.S.S. Montana."
Montana flitted aboard her hull as the leviathan tasted saltwater for the first time. Granted, she couldn't see well due to some areas not being installed yet, but she felt the water surround her hull. The form had no discernable head or arms as of yet, but she was there.
================
The media the next day showed a photo of the ship's bow at the moment of launching, "New Battleship Launched!" All one could see was the bow of the ship, which left little to read into, all that one could make out was that she was going to be a long ship.
This did both galvanize and stymie foreign intelligence circles, particularly Japan, where some Japanese reporter for the L.A. Times had managed to grab a few photos of the ship from the deck of a small sailboat he'd managed to charter for the day's festivities. Within the week, he would be on the train back to the west coast, having used the Japanese Embassy as a place to develop his photos.
Likewise, a British journalist managed to capture some images and such. The photos he took would be of interest to Britain.
Germany held off on sending Bismarck out.
============
July 10
Japanese High Command considered the copies of the photos that lay before them. The badly done night photo of the ship with light bulbs arrayed in a "1776" was concerning to them. They knew of information that one upcoming battleship would be armed with 17" guns, but was it this one or another?
In any event, Nippon had Yamato with the biggest guns ever built. Musashi would be along next year with Shinano as well. One Admiral frowned at the lack of information available, "This changes nothing, we still have the most powerful battleship afloat, and by the time the Americans are ready, we will be ready as well."
-------------------------------------
July 22
Aboard the Nagato, Yamamoto stared at the photo he had received from a staff member minutes prior. At risk to his position in the Embassy, one of the staff spooks had hired a local balloon and managed to get somewhat of an overview shot of the Naval yard where dock work was proceeding. And the picture was low quality, but one could make out more or less clearly 7 massive craters in the ship's hull. His old eyes traced the seven turret wells while his face showed a pensive gaze to no one.
Save for the form of his flagship, Nagato, stared at the image herself, silent and yet internally bursting with questions. "Who are you Kaiju?"
----------------------------------------
September-October
The communications system had received Imperial Edict to be upgraded. All codes were changed, diplomatic and Military codes alike; what was known as Purple in the west changed to Emerald. The Navy codes changed out like they usually did, but with more enforcement of coding procedures.
---------------
In Australia, as part of the Lend-Lease deal; new docks were under construction outside Perth, big docks for ships no one that side of the equator had ever seen before.
---------------------------------------
Small note; One of the problems I had in posting is deciding where precisely to cut the prologue versus story "sections". Will post another section later this week. Some may argue that the Japanese saw their codes as fine, and I accept that, however, for the purposes of this story, lets say that they did decide to do a complete overhaul of their code system. I don't know about most people here, but the fact that the U.S. could read other peoples messages has never really felt very sporting. The code breaking stuff gave us unfair advantages that no one ever really countered. So be prepared for a different vibe. Again, I will post next section sometime this week.
1916-
The European war was in full swing. His employers, the Naval Design Bureau, had just announced a general design push for any and all concepts of warships. He looked at the design before him and the companion sheaf of notes explaining most of his reasoning.
"... The Brits have their own 18" gun, so why not have a unique size? The way I see it, 17" is a perfect fit for claiming our own niche upon world history, and if we could ever make the 76 caliber come to fruition, it would be a resounding PR gig to centennialize..."
This was his main concern, IF the seventy-six caliber came to being, it would need a 30% longer turret to compensate for the longer barrel, at the very least. He had offered an alternative however, in the form of allowance for a 50 caliber should the 76 cal be considered too ungainly to further go past the testing stage. He had also suggested that, if the Navy further looked into quad barrel turrets, that using 16" guns of 50 calibers would also alternatively work for the ship. After all, if the size is unwieldly, then go for quantity instead. His alternatives offered that choice.
====================
"....So, these designs are feasible then and would be able to be built with correct research?"
"Yes sir. If you look at the final design package of your packets; that ship has the most room for flexibility in its design....."
"....28 guns.... or 21 guns..."
--------------
"... Very well Admiral, you'll get your funding for the next 10 years. Mostly research purposes, but you'll have your money."
========================
1926-
Tillman was dead, the research was still ongoing, but progress on the "patriotic" caliber was made. In the meantime however, the hull design tests continued, it would take at least another 5 years, or even ten, to fully unravel the long hull that the Behemoth project required.
========================
1934-
A great deal had happened, but the project had benefited from it; a floating slipway was in development, being constructed in one of the many natural inlets of the Chesapeake Bay, away from the curious. The hull problem had finally been overcome, as far as Research could figure, and scale model testing only went so far. Those hurdles had been passed. Naval gun progress was a more delicate balance as the turret boxes were somewhat more ovoid in shape, having to have more support and counterweight for the additional caliber.
-----------------------------
1935-
By Presidential Order, the Navy was pushed to finish one set of 17" 76 cal turrets [this amounted to 7 replacement turrets and 28 additional barrels]. The other two Montanas would be fitted with quad-barrel "1650"s due to easier production reasons.
--------------------------------
A small note on the WNT; while it did happen here, the parity was not that large of issue because the Navy had adamantly insisted and had been firm with the diplomats that any proposed parity deals were fine. So when Japan had counter-offered 70%, while reluctant, Hughes had accepted with little complaint. After all, he knew the Navy was neck deep in research for the best battleship, and this was a treaty that was aimed at what was being built, not really preventing study and research. So all walked away happy and none the wiser, if you trust what the media said at least.
--------------------------------
1936-
Japan walked out of the LNC. Congress nullified the WNT at the President's urging, citing job opportunities. Montana's keel was laid in the Big Slip #1, only days before Japan laid Yamato's keel.
--------------------
1937-
Intelligence was a funny thing, a low level British analyst mused as he looked at comparable photos that could've easily been copies of one another but were not, as evidenced by the backgrounds. From a distance, both looked the same in construction, but Japan was more rudimentary in design while the American was a solid object. Neither place offered any answers from the local areas, but MI-6 decided to play the photos off each other....
"...Huh, so they're building something..."
"...I see, I will pass this up to Tokyo..."
The other two Montanas, were laid in Big Slip 2 and 3 later in the year, in addition to other build projects.
=============
1940-
For the last two years, the administration had gone back and forth on the issue of Montana's launching. It was decided to post-phone the official public launching until next year, but the date would be a July 4th.
---------------------------
1941-
A small cadre of people gathered under the prow of the new ship. If Yamato had cared to, she could've looked over the edge to see, but she didn't need to. Tradition insisted, Yamato would be satisfied with the ceremony as it was. Taking a look around, the ethereal being noted that a lot still had to be put in place before she assumed her role at, if her builders were to be believed, the top of the food chain.
-------------
It was the Fourth, a near infamous holiday in America where fireworks abounded. A massive event on the Chesapeake Bay was held with a fireworks display and a special radio broadcast of a launch.
The tall form stood beside the aging leader of the country as he gave his speech, invisible to the crowds. After a time, he finished speaking and looked over to an important looking woman standing by the bow of her hull.
"Senator Rankin, you may proceed."
"Thank you Mr. President." The woman took the champagne bottle and smashed it against the ship, "I christen this ship the U.S.S. Montana."
Montana flitted aboard her hull as the leviathan tasted saltwater for the first time. Granted, she couldn't see well due to some areas not being installed yet, but she felt the water surround her hull. The form had no discernable head or arms as of yet, but she was there.
================
The media the next day showed a photo of the ship's bow at the moment of launching, "New Battleship Launched!" All one could see was the bow of the ship, which left little to read into, all that one could make out was that she was going to be a long ship.
This did both galvanize and stymie foreign intelligence circles, particularly Japan, where some Japanese reporter for the L.A. Times had managed to grab a few photos of the ship from the deck of a small sailboat he'd managed to charter for the day's festivities. Within the week, he would be on the train back to the west coast, having used the Japanese Embassy as a place to develop his photos.
Likewise, a British journalist managed to capture some images and such. The photos he took would be of interest to Britain.
Germany held off on sending Bismarck out.
============
July 10
Japanese High Command considered the copies of the photos that lay before them. The badly done night photo of the ship with light bulbs arrayed in a "1776" was concerning to them. They knew of information that one upcoming battleship would be armed with 17" guns, but was it this one or another?
In any event, Nippon had Yamato with the biggest guns ever built. Musashi would be along next year with Shinano as well. One Admiral frowned at the lack of information available, "This changes nothing, we still have the most powerful battleship afloat, and by the time the Americans are ready, we will be ready as well."
-------------------------------------
July 22
Aboard the Nagato, Yamamoto stared at the photo he had received from a staff member minutes prior. At risk to his position in the Embassy, one of the staff spooks had hired a local balloon and managed to get somewhat of an overview shot of the Naval yard where dock work was proceeding. And the picture was low quality, but one could make out more or less clearly 7 massive craters in the ship's hull. His old eyes traced the seven turret wells while his face showed a pensive gaze to no one.
Save for the form of his flagship, Nagato, stared at the image herself, silent and yet internally bursting with questions. "Who are you Kaiju?"
----------------------------------------
September-October
The communications system had received Imperial Edict to be upgraded. All codes were changed, diplomatic and Military codes alike; what was known as Purple in the west changed to Emerald. The Navy codes changed out like they usually did, but with more enforcement of coding procedures.
---------------
In Australia, as part of the Lend-Lease deal; new docks were under construction outside Perth, big docks for ships no one that side of the equator had ever seen before.
---------------------------------------
Small note; One of the problems I had in posting is deciding where precisely to cut the prologue versus story "sections". Will post another section later this week. Some may argue that the Japanese saw their codes as fine, and I accept that, however, for the purposes of this story, lets say that they did decide to do a complete overhaul of their code system. I don't know about most people here, but the fact that the U.S. could read other peoples messages has never really felt very sporting. The code breaking stuff gave us unfair advantages that no one ever really countered. So be prepared for a different vibe. Again, I will post next section sometime this week.
I-300 thingy
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
In some regards, we know of an I-300 series already, this does not cover that BMW series. This covers a hypothetical series of submarines whose design is likely lost to time due to Japanese information purging efforts. We know of the I-400s because a couple were built, and there were even some plans on an I-200 design. So what of the I-300 submarines? Certainly one could argue that all aspects of possible submarine use had been covered, except for cargo transportation and extended range scouting. And what do we really know of the probable designs that were destroyed by the Japanese? Very little with few exceptions survived that purge, exceptions being various companies that had their own archives for the most part.
With this said, what possible design properties would an I-300 submarine have?
I-400 had the double wide hull, and some of the I-100s had a scout plane perhaps? I-200s seemed to be more of coastal or shallow water type scout from what I can gather from Crash Dive at least...
So I-300 could be more speed, deeper water, longer range, maybe escorts for the I-400s?
=========================================
The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Shipyard, 1943.
Unseen, and certainly unheard, the collection of translucent vapor particles metamorphized on the prow of the unfinished hull. Unfinished was an understatement however as four of these hulls rested on the same slipway that had held Musashi earlier in the decade. For whatever reason, the fourth of these hulls was the furthest along in progress, if one paid attention to the dockworker banter; rumor said that one of the Naval higher-ups personally pushed the 4th hull's construction faster. However, dockworkers were not paid to gossip or consider the validity of rumors, they were to construct ships, regardless of who was footing the bill.
The entity, called such because that's what we currently know to call it, looked around at the darkened surroundings. It could see the engines within its own hull in the process of being installed, it knew that it would be a significant period of time before it was fit to journey. At the same time however, the particle collection could feel the similar hulls in a state of disrepair and dismantle, it felt sad to reach the obvious conclusion; that the sister hulls were being recycled for used into its furthering along.
------------------------------------
Later in the year, the entity could finally understand what it was meant for; a bow unlike any ship before graced its hull. Uncaring of the fact that the design was a take off of the I-400 design lessons, the entity also understood that it would be an underwater craft. Very different to how most ships were understood to move through the water. Yet it could also see that construction was slowing in other parts of the yard while its own making continued, perhaps even more expediently than before.
The entity felt stronger with each passing week as more material and sections were emplaced, several new features were installed like a triple hull and more advanced sonar. The best technology the Japan had been able to procure for the time went into this submarine, a first for the Japanese Navy in terms of a good submarine.
---------------------------------------
By this point, I-303 had her name, or at least a moniker. Her hull was complete and her tower was finishing the process of being placed. While she didn't know it at the time, her hull was longer then the I-400 class, her underwater speed was a staggering 27 knots and her engines were engineered copies of the German models. Four diesel engines to charge up a huge system of batteries that took up half the space between inner and middle hull which powered 6 electric generators, 4 of those were motors tied into the propulsion system. Weapons were limited to Type 97 torpedoes [95s maybe?] and stored up to 36 torpedoes with fore and aft tubes loaded. Storage being what it was, food was the chief concern for remaining good to eat and healthy; much of the Japanese diet was rice after all. Care was taken to rubberize the main pressure inner hull to minimize sonic disturbance.
One could compare it to perhaps a Balao class submarine, except this was not Made in America, this was Nippon style, designed for long distance travel between Hokkaido and Formosa or farther if needed. Hoped to be undetectable as possible while underway, the batteries were designed to be the longest lasting possible. With minimal usage, mostly just essential lighting and oxygen circulation support; lasting up to a week for a crew of 65. The more normal longevity put the battery storage at 56 to 72 hours depending on situation. Surface speed was 15 knots, much of the diesel power focused toward rapid charging of the battery system through the multi-snorkel system. Surface warfare was limited to one deck gun [usually used in AA capacity] and two small AA stations.
--------------------------
So, this came to me as I was writing for another thing... Japan had I-100s, I-200s and I-400s. Where are the I-300s?
With this said, what possible design properties would an I-300 submarine have?
I-400 had the double wide hull, and some of the I-100s had a scout plane perhaps? I-200s seemed to be more of coastal or shallow water type scout from what I can gather from Crash Dive at least...
So I-300 could be more speed, deeper water, longer range, maybe escorts for the I-400s?
=========================================
The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Shipyard, 1943.
Unseen, and certainly unheard, the collection of translucent vapor particles metamorphized on the prow of the unfinished hull. Unfinished was an understatement however as four of these hulls rested on the same slipway that had held Musashi earlier in the decade. For whatever reason, the fourth of these hulls was the furthest along in progress, if one paid attention to the dockworker banter; rumor said that one of the Naval higher-ups personally pushed the 4th hull's construction faster. However, dockworkers were not paid to gossip or consider the validity of rumors, they were to construct ships, regardless of who was footing the bill.
The entity, called such because that's what we currently know to call it, looked around at the darkened surroundings. It could see the engines within its own hull in the process of being installed, it knew that it would be a significant period of time before it was fit to journey. At the same time however, the particle collection could feel the similar hulls in a state of disrepair and dismantle, it felt sad to reach the obvious conclusion; that the sister hulls were being recycled for used into its furthering along.
------------------------------------
Later in the year, the entity could finally understand what it was meant for; a bow unlike any ship before graced its hull. Uncaring of the fact that the design was a take off of the I-400 design lessons, the entity also understood that it would be an underwater craft. Very different to how most ships were understood to move through the water. Yet it could also see that construction was slowing in other parts of the yard while its own making continued, perhaps even more expediently than before.
The entity felt stronger with each passing week as more material and sections were emplaced, several new features were installed like a triple hull and more advanced sonar. The best technology the Japan had been able to procure for the time went into this submarine, a first for the Japanese Navy in terms of a good submarine.
---------------------------------------
By this point, I-303 had her name, or at least a moniker. Her hull was complete and her tower was finishing the process of being placed. While she didn't know it at the time, her hull was longer then the I-400 class, her underwater speed was a staggering 27 knots and her engines were engineered copies of the German models. Four diesel engines to charge up a huge system of batteries that took up half the space between inner and middle hull which powered 6 electric generators, 4 of those were motors tied into the propulsion system. Weapons were limited to Type 97 torpedoes [95s maybe?] and stored up to 36 torpedoes with fore and aft tubes loaded. Storage being what it was, food was the chief concern for remaining good to eat and healthy; much of the Japanese diet was rice after all. Care was taken to rubberize the main pressure inner hull to minimize sonic disturbance.
One could compare it to perhaps a Balao class submarine, except this was not Made in America, this was Nippon style, designed for long distance travel between Hokkaido and Formosa or farther if needed. Hoped to be undetectable as possible while underway, the batteries were designed to be the longest lasting possible. With minimal usage, mostly just essential lighting and oxygen circulation support; lasting up to a week for a crew of 65. The more normal longevity put the battery storage at 56 to 72 hours depending on situation. Surface speed was 15 knots, much of the diesel power focused toward rapid charging of the battery system through the multi-snorkel system. Surface warfare was limited to one deck gun [usually used in AA capacity] and two small AA stations.
--------------------------
So, this came to me as I was writing for another thing... Japan had I-100s, I-200s and I-400s. Where are the I-300s?
A Paper Ship Snip
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
Loosely inspired by A Past, But No Future by Kantur-set on SB
====================================
No Past Memories Here
======================
A seagull alighted on to a perch, which twitched. The scavenger bird tilted its head down to look and blinked as an eye snapped open, screeching in alarm, the bird tried launch itself into the air, but was handicapped by the sudden immobilization of its feed. The eye watched as the bird started to peck at the trap, only to pause at the weird result.
"Stupid bird." The figure smiled as the bird screeched, trying to get away as her other hand came up and proceeded to crush the seagull's head. "Birdbrains." The prone female muttered before eating said remains, followed by the rest of the bird.
It really didn't make that much of a dent in her supply chamber, with a frown she considered the rest of the island she was on. "Looks like I'll have to denude another island AGAIN." This had happened before, a couple days ago after having had to fight through sea-zombie hordes for the second time in her short existence.
==========================================
Day 1
Ships log.
I...I can see.
I... I have a head, eyes, ears.
I... I have a body and not a hu-oh wait, nevermind.
I... I have no memories, of anything, except that I'm a ship, with a human-like body.
================================================
She had no memories, but she had an unbalanced rigging; or at least in her own opinion the conglomeration that attached to what was effectively her keel felt off somehow. Three large turrets on one side, and two others on the other plus secondaries etc. In the current form she had engine exhausts behind her head and a hairband like thing with various electronic sensors were effectively unplugged while she rested, allowing various crew to finish up repairs and preparations for the evening travels she was doing.
Now, the colors that I'm using, are the blue/yellow okay to read or is orange easier/harder?
====================================
No Past Memories Here
======================
A seagull alighted on to a perch, which twitched. The scavenger bird tilted its head down to look and blinked as an eye snapped open, screeching in alarm, the bird tried launch itself into the air, but was handicapped by the sudden immobilization of its feed. The eye watched as the bird started to peck at the trap, only to pause at the weird result.
"Stupid bird." The figure smiled as the bird screeched, trying to get away as her other hand came up and proceeded to crush the seagull's head. "Birdbrains." The prone female muttered before eating said remains, followed by the rest of the bird.
It really didn't make that much of a dent in her supply chamber, with a frown she considered the rest of the island she was on. "Looks like I'll have to denude another island AGAIN." This had happened before, a couple days ago after having had to fight through sea-zombie hordes for the second time in her short existence.
==========================================
Day 1
Ships log.
I...I can see.
I... I have a head, eyes, ears.
I... I have a body and not a hu-oh wait, nevermind.
I... I have no memories, of anything, except that I'm a ship, with a human-like body.
================================================
She had no memories, but she had an unbalanced rigging; or at least in her own opinion the conglomeration that attached to what was effectively her keel felt off somehow. Three large turrets on one side, and two others on the other plus secondaries etc. In the current form she had engine exhausts behind her head and a hairband like thing with various electronic sensors were effectively unplugged while she rested, allowing various crew to finish up repairs and preparations for the evening travels she was doing.
Now, the colors that I'm using, are the blue/yellow okay to read or is orange easier/harder?
Last edited:
Misplaced Cruiser
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
An unexpected sound forced the twitch of an eyelid; gradually, a harsh near-ever-present sound of air came to my awareness. Slowly, the optical and area visual sensors came online.
"Okay, so where am I?" A look around confirmed nearly nothing, except for me being on the water, and against what seemed to be a wall of white and a blowing curtain of fluctuating white, Briefly, I closed my eyes and tried to acclimate to myself.
I should mention that up till a few hours ago, I had no form, so suddenly finding myself suddenly with any sort of body was a nice thing. I slid down to what effectively was crouching position on the water and opened my eyes again to take visual stock of things.
From what it looked like, my rigging structure had four turrets, large looking ones too. I looked down toward what would normally qualify as below the waterline area, some sort of leggings or hosiery ensemble in black. My legs were topped off by a light blue skirt which matched the blue/grey top I wore on my hull. Legs, feet, eyes arms and hands; all of these extremities required further examination at a later time.
My eyes caught a pennant number; CC-5.
----------------------------------
On the bridge of the ship, the captain gazed out at the seemingly endless monoscape of shades of white. The environment was quite cold, he hardly remembered this sort of cold before. His head tilted as he realized that he could recall anything from before an hour or so previous, a sharp cry from a lookout brought him out of internal thought mode and he looked over.
"A whole line of black spots nearby sir-"
"Oh hell, penguins."
Everyone froze and looked around, the captain, extended a finger and poked the railing of the ship. "Show yourself!"
"Hey! That was my eye! Watch it!"
"Wait, are you the ship?"
"You're my crew, aren't you?"
------------------------------------
The thoughts focused inward as the answer came back, "Yes."
"So uh, penguins only mean one thing Chex, we are near one of the Poles."
Left unsaid was the matter of nailing down the time period of my existence, at the same time however, it was also a good idea to move out. "Quarter speed." I mumble as I keep crouching on the water, seeing no reason to spook the birds yet with my presence. I waited till the bird procession was only 100 yards from me before I activated my radar full power.
--------------------------------------
The crew stared at the huge numbers of birds on the nearby ice shelf, and under the direction of the XO, began preparations for using the launch to gather the meat.
"A lot of birds died to bring us this meat."
The captain eyed the bulkhead and frowned, not getting the joke, choosing instead to watch the food gathering procedure.
"Tough crowd."
The captain simply watched the launches gather up the food and bring it aboard. After a while he lay his hand on the railing slightly, "This would go faster if you were to gather the birds up-"
"-How?"
"Well...."
--------------------------
That was not a fun experience, chowing down on flightless birds for.....ugh, I don't want to explain too much. Although towards the end of the feeding frenzy, a couple sea lions appeared and those also became dinner.
Moving on, after I'd eaten everything organic I could see around the area, I decided to sail toward where the birds had been coming from, so much white, nearly as bright as day. Made it easier to pick out terrain or ice features, the ice made it interestingly treacherous to cross as a shipgirl. If I had been a steel hull, I surely would have been stuck given the way the ice works, likely even crushed.
Not something to think on given my present self-given task of getting to open water.
--------------------------------
Captain's Log; Day 2
It's the second day since we `came around' so to speak, we finally reached open water. This has allowed the ship to stretch her legs, albeit in a limited fashion due to the roughness of the seas in what appears to be Wintertime. The skies overhead are something else though.
We have no maps, no known codes, no idea of the year. Us officers have no memories past yesterday and we think its the same for the crew too. Most concerning is no mission orders at all.
I've asked radar to remain passive, but watching for contacts. In the meantime, the radio room is scanning for frequencies to listen on; primarily to determine the state of the world that we `woke up' in. I-Huh, ok, interesting...
Radio room came upon a faint signal in the shortwave band.
End Log.
--------------------------------------------
Ship's Log; Day 3.
South of Everywhere Civilized.
Radio Signals are being received, mostly it is all civilian traffic. So far, my crew has identified; BBC Australia as the main signal with several weaker signals from the east in foreign languages. I know nothing but English, and my crew has no knowledge of any foreign tongues either. With no idea of the date, I simply have to keep listening for some sort of event happening that will nail down the year.
Another issue is my secondary gun decks, stupid casemate decks aren't made for storm ridden seas. The crew has sealed them off for now.
As much as I enjoy the daylight, I must confess that the wave caps are already tedious, and I grow tired of my rigging-Wha-?
My...rigging is gone. I- "Oof!"
End Log.
------------------------------
Captain's Log; Day 4
Unknown Sea
I write this inside a tomb. We are on the ship, but the ship is not visible even to us at present. This.... Scares me, but I have nothing to compare this experience with, at all. Every now and then, the public address system will emit a faint received signal; music is heard. I search my memory, trying to dredge up more to pontificate about, the only thing I can recollect is looking at the stern of the ship, seeing this flag of stars and stripes fluttering.
Is that the country this ship is from? Is that the country I came from? Should I serve a country I have no memory of growing up in, much less existing in? It is all strange to us, the 1300 crew aboard. What is this constitution the ship is named after? What is this language we know of but no memory of its learning? Are we simply minions of the ship we crew?
End Log.
-------------------------------------
Day 5, Ship's Log
Blasted rough seas, by the time I managed to call my rigging from where ever, I was tossed way off course, not that I had much of a course set to begin with. With my rigging resummoned, I activated my radar, squinting at where contacts seemed to be.
"....Unknown contact, please identify..."
"Sorry, I have no idea who I am."
"Is this a joke? This is Argentine Coastal Watch Station 56. You are within territorial waters of Argentina, please identify yourself or-"
I stopped listening and using my internal compass, set a course to the Northeast.
-------------------------------------------
Notes:
Trying something out where paper ships come back having no memory related to their own form. Not sure how this will work, or if it will...
"Okay, so where am I?" A look around confirmed nearly nothing, except for me being on the water, and against what seemed to be a wall of white and a blowing curtain of fluctuating white, Briefly, I closed my eyes and tried to acclimate to myself.
I should mention that up till a few hours ago, I had no form, so suddenly finding myself suddenly with any sort of body was a nice thing. I slid down to what effectively was crouching position on the water and opened my eyes again to take visual stock of things.
From what it looked like, my rigging structure had four turrets, large looking ones too. I looked down toward what would normally qualify as below the waterline area, some sort of leggings or hosiery ensemble in black. My legs were topped off by a light blue skirt which matched the blue/grey top I wore on my hull. Legs, feet, eyes arms and hands; all of these extremities required further examination at a later time.
My eyes caught a pennant number; CC-5.
----------------------------------
On the bridge of the ship, the captain gazed out at the seemingly endless monoscape of shades of white. The environment was quite cold, he hardly remembered this sort of cold before. His head tilted as he realized that he could recall anything from before an hour or so previous, a sharp cry from a lookout brought him out of internal thought mode and he looked over.
"A whole line of black spots nearby sir-"
"Oh hell, penguins."
Everyone froze and looked around, the captain, extended a finger and poked the railing of the ship. "Show yourself!"
"Hey! That was my eye! Watch it!"
"Wait, are you the ship?"
"You're my crew, aren't you?"
------------------------------------
The thoughts focused inward as the answer came back, "Yes."
"So uh, penguins only mean one thing Chex, we are near one of the Poles."
Left unsaid was the matter of nailing down the time period of my existence, at the same time however, it was also a good idea to move out. "Quarter speed." I mumble as I keep crouching on the water, seeing no reason to spook the birds yet with my presence. I waited till the bird procession was only 100 yards from me before I activated my radar full power.
--------------------------------------
The crew stared at the huge numbers of birds on the nearby ice shelf, and under the direction of the XO, began preparations for using the launch to gather the meat.
"A lot of birds died to bring us this meat."
The captain eyed the bulkhead and frowned, not getting the joke, choosing instead to watch the food gathering procedure.
"Tough crowd."
The captain simply watched the launches gather up the food and bring it aboard. After a while he lay his hand on the railing slightly, "This would go faster if you were to gather the birds up-"
"-How?"
"Well...."
--------------------------
That was not a fun experience, chowing down on flightless birds for.....ugh, I don't want to explain too much. Although towards the end of the feeding frenzy, a couple sea lions appeared and those also became dinner.
Moving on, after I'd eaten everything organic I could see around the area, I decided to sail toward where the birds had been coming from, so much white, nearly as bright as day. Made it easier to pick out terrain or ice features, the ice made it interestingly treacherous to cross as a shipgirl. If I had been a steel hull, I surely would have been stuck given the way the ice works, likely even crushed.
Not something to think on given my present self-given task of getting to open water.
--------------------------------
Captain's Log; Day 2
It's the second day since we `came around' so to speak, we finally reached open water. This has allowed the ship to stretch her legs, albeit in a limited fashion due to the roughness of the seas in what appears to be Wintertime. The skies overhead are something else though.
We have no maps, no known codes, no idea of the year. Us officers have no memories past yesterday and we think its the same for the crew too. Most concerning is no mission orders at all.
I've asked radar to remain passive, but watching for contacts. In the meantime, the radio room is scanning for frequencies to listen on; primarily to determine the state of the world that we `woke up' in. I-Huh, ok, interesting...
Radio room came upon a faint signal in the shortwave band.
End Log.
--------------------------------------------
Ship's Log; Day 3.
South of Everywhere Civilized.
Radio Signals are being received, mostly it is all civilian traffic. So far, my crew has identified; BBC Australia as the main signal with several weaker signals from the east in foreign languages. I know nothing but English, and my crew has no knowledge of any foreign tongues either. With no idea of the date, I simply have to keep listening for some sort of event happening that will nail down the year.
Another issue is my secondary gun decks, stupid casemate decks aren't made for storm ridden seas. The crew has sealed them off for now.
As much as I enjoy the daylight, I must confess that the wave caps are already tedious, and I grow tired of my rigging-Wha-?
My...rigging is gone. I- "Oof!"
End Log.
------------------------------
Captain's Log; Day 4
Unknown Sea
I write this inside a tomb. We are on the ship, but the ship is not visible even to us at present. This.... Scares me, but I have nothing to compare this experience with, at all. Every now and then, the public address system will emit a faint received signal; music is heard. I search my memory, trying to dredge up more to pontificate about, the only thing I can recollect is looking at the stern of the ship, seeing this flag of stars and stripes fluttering.
Is that the country this ship is from? Is that the country I came from? Should I serve a country I have no memory of growing up in, much less existing in? It is all strange to us, the 1300 crew aboard. What is this constitution the ship is named after? What is this language we know of but no memory of its learning? Are we simply minions of the ship we crew?
End Log.
-------------------------------------
Day 5, Ship's Log
Blasted rough seas, by the time I managed to call my rigging from where ever, I was tossed way off course, not that I had much of a course set to begin with. With my rigging resummoned, I activated my radar, squinting at where contacts seemed to be.
"....Unknown contact, please identify..."
"Sorry, I have no idea who I am."
"Is this a joke? This is Argentine Coastal Watch Station 56. You are within territorial waters of Argentina, please identify yourself or-"
I stopped listening and using my internal compass, set a course to the Northeast.
-------------------------------------------
Notes:
Trying something out where paper ships come back having no memory related to their own form. Not sure how this will work, or if it will...
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Khajit crosses a Krosis
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
So, Unrelated to Kancolle, or History. A long time game of mine has been Skyrim, a few years back, I got an idea for a story involving Krosis and one of my Khajits.
Since there doesn't seem to be any Elder Scrolls story idea thread here, I will post my idea here. Loosely inspired by Eternal Sorrow on FFN.
==========================================
The Dragoborn with the frost eye.
Typically, Khajits are not found in winterized regions, even the traders who traveled stayed south of the northern parts of Skyrim. Skyrim, the land of the Nords, where cold would break lesser species, or so legends say. Legends were the only item on the agenda that Xynri had heard of since she had arrived in Skyrim. She was a younger khat, as she called herself, one of the newer generations of Khajits who sought knowledge about the world. She was also attempting to find a lost cousin who had disappeared from Elsewyr not many moons ago.
She had gotten sidetracked however, with a job from a drunk guard to investigate a mountain peak the locals called Shearpoint. The travel to this area had taken a week due to bandits, wildlife and weather. Now the onyx Khat looked out up swirling falling snow from her tent while she finished off her first meal of the day. Through the small opening, she could barely make out the ruins that constituted what remained of Shearpoint; the toppled bits of a tower and a weirdly shaped wall, no creatures apparent to her eye were around.
The khajit took her and quiver before setting out toward the ruins after packing away her tent and camping gear. A few soulgems also were included just in case something came up for that sort of skirmish. Already, she could make out a glowing portion of the wall behind an ancient coffin of stone. Xynri frown as she visually examined the coffin from a safe distance, before decided that the wall's inscription was more intriguing and approached the wall, skirting what she hoped was a safe distance from the coffin.
Krosis slowly awakened, the process hindered by extreme lack of air, and yet somehow, she had to sneeze. "Ah-achOO!"
Xynri froze as she heard the lid to the coffin pop off and turned her head toward the direction of the sound and stared at a rising skeletal structure and readied her lightning spell.
The two beings traded spells for a time, but it was obvious that the skeleton lacked endurance and soon the beast stood over the ancient pile of bone, ready to deliver the final blow.
Instead, the beast pulled out a soul gem and pointed it at the bone pile, failing to notice that the words on the wall were glowing and reaching for the khat.
Krosis looked up, expecting the soul gem to take her, but to her surprise, her vision filled with the beast's face. And the dragon priest knew no more than the khat did, for Xynri had stumbled backward from the shock of the odd outcome and hit her head on the wall as the words on the wall expended their power and went dark.
----------------------
The feeling that you are not alone is a strange one to have, especially if you are physically alone and by yourself, but some retain that sense that someone is there.
"Who's there? Come out and show yourself." Xynri called out to empty air.
Krosis awoke to this and paused almost immediately, certain there was something wrong here. "Hello?"
Xynri paused and looked down where the corpse was at her feet. "Couldn't be… Hello? Where are you?"
"Um, are you the idiot who tried to use a black soul gem on me?" Krosis felt some weird form of embarrassment over what she was now nearly sure was her host body's face.
"Erm, yeah, didn't work well I take it?"
The former dragonpriest snorted, "No, in fact I'm thinking your wonderful experiment brought me into your mind, as a guest."
"Oh, Alkosh." Xynri grimaced and ran a paw down her face, before looking at the now dark wall. "I wonder if the wall interfered with the soul trap somehow...?"
==================
A/N:
Please let me know if the color is readable on the white theme too, it seems a little nebulous on the black theme.
As for the story itself, I would think that trying to soul trap a dragon priest is dangerous, especially in front of a word wall; and can leave weird side effects. Let us not rule this sort of happening out though, if the game even allowed for it, it would be some crazy stuff. Possessed by both a dragon and dragon priest effectively... Would love to see some of you other people's thoughts on this aspect and idea.
Since there doesn't seem to be any Elder Scrolls story idea thread here, I will post my idea here. Loosely inspired by Eternal Sorrow on FFN.
==========================================
The Dragoborn with the frost eye.
Typically, Khajits are not found in winterized regions, even the traders who traveled stayed south of the northern parts of Skyrim. Skyrim, the land of the Nords, where cold would break lesser species, or so legends say. Legends were the only item on the agenda that Xynri had heard of since she had arrived in Skyrim. She was a younger khat, as she called herself, one of the newer generations of Khajits who sought knowledge about the world. She was also attempting to find a lost cousin who had disappeared from Elsewyr not many moons ago.
She had gotten sidetracked however, with a job from a drunk guard to investigate a mountain peak the locals called Shearpoint. The travel to this area had taken a week due to bandits, wildlife and weather. Now the onyx Khat looked out up swirling falling snow from her tent while she finished off her first meal of the day. Through the small opening, she could barely make out the ruins that constituted what remained of Shearpoint; the toppled bits of a tower and a weirdly shaped wall, no creatures apparent to her eye were around.
The khajit took her and quiver before setting out toward the ruins after packing away her tent and camping gear. A few soulgems also were included just in case something came up for that sort of skirmish. Already, she could make out a glowing portion of the wall behind an ancient coffin of stone. Xynri frown as she visually examined the coffin from a safe distance, before decided that the wall's inscription was more intriguing and approached the wall, skirting what she hoped was a safe distance from the coffin.
Krosis slowly awakened, the process hindered by extreme lack of air, and yet somehow, she had to sneeze. "Ah-achOO!"
Xynri froze as she heard the lid to the coffin pop off and turned her head toward the direction of the sound and stared at a rising skeletal structure and readied her lightning spell.
The two beings traded spells for a time, but it was obvious that the skeleton lacked endurance and soon the beast stood over the ancient pile of bone, ready to deliver the final blow.
Instead, the beast pulled out a soul gem and pointed it at the bone pile, failing to notice that the words on the wall were glowing and reaching for the khat.
Krosis looked up, expecting the soul gem to take her, but to her surprise, her vision filled with the beast's face. And the dragon priest knew no more than the khat did, for Xynri had stumbled backward from the shock of the odd outcome and hit her head on the wall as the words on the wall expended their power and went dark.
----------------------
The feeling that you are not alone is a strange one to have, especially if you are physically alone and by yourself, but some retain that sense that someone is there.
"Who's there? Come out and show yourself." Xynri called out to empty air.
Krosis awoke to this and paused almost immediately, certain there was something wrong here. "Hello?"
Xynri paused and looked down where the corpse was at her feet. "Couldn't be… Hello? Where are you?"
"Um, are you the idiot who tried to use a black soul gem on me?" Krosis felt some weird form of embarrassment over what she was now nearly sure was her host body's face.
"Erm, yeah, didn't work well I take it?"
The former dragonpriest snorted, "No, in fact I'm thinking your wonderful experiment brought me into your mind, as a guest."
"Oh, Alkosh." Xynri grimaced and ran a paw down her face, before looking at the now dark wall. "I wonder if the wall interfered with the soul trap somehow...?"
==================
A/N:
Please let me know if the color is readable on the white theme too, it seems a little nebulous on the black theme.
As for the story itself, I would think that trying to soul trap a dragon priest is dangerous, especially in front of a word wall; and can leave weird side effects. Let us not rule this sort of happening out though, if the game even allowed for it, it would be some crazy stuff. Possessed by both a dragon and dragon priest effectively... Would love to see some of you other people's thoughts on this aspect and idea.
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Misplaced Ballistic Scythe CH 1-2
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
This is what I would term, an I3 story.
Insert
Isot
Isekai
Alternate History with a dash of KC.
The Submarine and its crew are from 2141. They know little of WW2.
The girl who because the sub's spirit was taken from 1991, she knows a bit more on general WW2 stuff, but not much.
What happens when you place an SSBN from the 22nd century into WW2 era 1941; there are no satellites, only radio and morse. I'm using an adapted version of the SSBN protocol found in one other KC story. Expect Darkness and changed times.
============================================
A Misplaced Ballistic Scythe
2141
Chapter 1, There's a lesson to be Seen Here, but do we Learn?
One of the last of her kind that used to call the USA home; the Montana slunk through the dark recesses of a place that few ships survived, hiding beneath multiple thermoclines from the enemies hunting her. The bridge crew nervously eyed the depth-meter display which displayed the numbers in bright angry neon-red, complete with the words "Crash Depth Reached". The submarine was in the Marianas Trench, trying to avoid the Chinese surface ships attempting to force a surface for uncertain ends. Unclear from the crew's perspective at least; some had seen video of an earlier "outing" of a sister ship, which included the boat's captain. Hence why the extreme measures to avoid detection, even if it was near useless judging by the angry tremors of approaching but distant depth charge explosions.
How did it come to this point where the USN was hunted this way? Due to out of control financial issues, certain international entities took over and demanded harsh measures. One of these measures had to do with dismantling the USN, and some, especially the submarine commanders, chose to resist and refuse what they felt were unscrupulous orders. One of the final such hold outs was the SSBN USS Montana, which was trying to escape from the Chinese pursuing her.
At two knots, the leviathan crept into the gloom, unknowingly nosing into an unknown Anomaly with scarcely a shiver. Said Anomaly winked out after the stern of the submarine had passed through, perhaps due to the proximity of the last depth charge explosion. The only reaction at first was that the sonar had cleared up, followed by a careful but hurried surfacing procedure after careful consideration given to the surroundings. Only after the surfacing would certain issues make themselves apparent.
---------------------
At first glance, if one had been witness to the sight of a swimmer breaking the surface of the water; they would've nodded approvingly at the swimmer's will to survive. However, the approval that might've been given would've swiftly turned to horror as the realization would set in that there were no boats in sight. At all; none at under 50 miles distance, most were even further than double that distance. Queue the unknown person flopping on to their back in what appeared to be a dead faint.
----------------------
"Hey [Status report?]?"
"Hey hey hey, hey [Well, before the software crashed, there appeared to be nothing around us for miles... Sonar and radar reported clear scopes]."
"Hey Hey [So what caused the crash]?"
"...Hey hey hey, hey hey [The software crashed due to also not detecting any satellites at all in orbit... GPS, communication; nothing, not even other nations]."
"Hey... Hey! [ok, so we need to figure out our current location. XO, come with me to the wardroom...]"
Sometime later, the two administrative officers return from the wardroom looking chastised and ashen faced. The pale captain reached over and activated the intercom.
"Hey, hey hey hey. Hey heeey hey...... [This is your Captain speaking. We have good news and bad news. Good news is that we have escaped from the trap we were in an hour ago. However, the bad news is that as of a few minutes ago, we have no way to communicate with Naval Command... We can detect no satellites in range or in orbit. Once we get our systems rebooted, we will work out a plan to go on from there...]"
-----------------
Later, awash in golden colors of a glorious Pacific sunset, the somewhat inert form on the surface is startled by a pinching and tugging sensation on her arm. Opening her brown eyes somewhat sleepily, she looks at where the sensation is coming from only to start screaming and kicking at the fish which falls away too easily.
"Was that.... Was that a shark?" She asks, vocalizing the question despite noticing that she's ALONE and FLOATING on the ocean surface. Also just now seeing half the now desiccated shark floating away... "Food!"
After the impromptu meal, the girl begins to take stock, verbalizing her thoughts for the novelty of it. "So, I'm wearing a wetsuit, and... Where did this knife come from?"
She eyed a bloody knife in her hand before frowning and returning the implement to it's sheath. Briefly, her eyes trace out a stenciled "US Navy" logo on her suit before settling on the weight that is centered on her waist.
"A barrel or tube contraption of some sort... Hmmm, you know what? I think this a dream! Yes, I'll go back to sleep here and wake up in my bed at home! Heheh...."
--------------------------
"Hey hey hey hey [Captain, we've figured out where we are as far as general location]."
"Hey [and]?"
"Hey hey hey, hey [Close to the Marianas Trench as before... Although, more in the Philippine Sea itself...]"
"Hey [But]?"
"Hey, hey hey hey [Yeah, nothing from any satellites or known frequencies at all]."
"Hey [I see...]." He sighed, and looked at his environs before muttering, "Hey hey, hey hey hey! [This is ridiculous, if the system hasn't woken up by tomorrow, we're resetting the plant and doing it the hard way!]"
------------------------------
131W, 21N
[Reactor Online]
Slowly, the girl opened her eyes as weird phrases permeated her consciousness. "Reactor? Like a nuclear reactor, at 3 Mile Island?"
[Radar online, No contacts]
"What? What's going on?" All she could see was water all around her, suddenly her hearing came into focus, and she had the impression of scanning for radio signals.
[Communications functional; satellite net unavailable. Unknown transmissions coming from bearing 345... Sonar-]
PING! "Gah!"
[-online, no contacts in area.]
One of the tube things on her waist moved, and the girl eyed it cautiously.
[Weapons; torpedo tubes functional, no damage.]
A small vibration diverted her attention to the other side, to catch sight of a hatchway closing over a more barrel shaped apparatus.
[Weapons; long range T-Hawks operational, CMDS operational upon authorization. Caution, SatNet undetected means authorization is local only, NWs operational only with administrative team override.]
The girl froze as her mind raced with the meaning of that phrase. Why would she, a poor native American girl from a rural town in Montana, have access to nukes? Wha-
"Galurp!"
[Ballast systems test complete, all tanks operational.]
The girl tried to catch her breath as she suddenly weaved and wobbled between left and right.
[Rudders functioning normally.]
She still hadn't quite recovered her breath when she felt an urge to run, but squelched it.
[Propulsion systems pending operational test. Administration query; why was the command refused?]
"Well, I dunno, maybe because I'm trying to catch my breath here after that unexpected dunking!"
[...]
Suddenly, she had a feeling like a piece of earwax falling from her ear, only bigger.
"Hey.... Hey? [Hello, I'm guessing you are the reason for the engine override?]"
"Er, hi? Did you just walk out of my ear?"
"...Hey, hey hey hey hey [Apparently so... To me it looks like a conning tower but...]"
---------------
Day 5
So, personifications of naval ships are a thing. According to my XO/Captain, I'm the USS Montana, built in 2134, commissioned in 2137. The last boat of a production run that extends well back into the previous century. With his explanation, I understand a little bit more, but parts of it do not make sense.
Mostly due to our current environs more than anything else. No satellites for one, and even in my time, stuff orbiting the Earth was a normal thing. Morse code being used on the radio is very prevalent to the west, in fact radio band use is extremely widespread as from what I can pick up.
Eventually, conclusions are reached that we must seek a port, and after much discussion, Okinawa is set as a general destination.
After more discussion and with the assistance of some of my crew, I cover up the "US Navy" identifier on my suit and equipment due to my crews suspicion that to be seen as American may not be a good thing.
---------------
129W, 23N
It is at this time on Day 7 of my existence as a ship that I got picked up by what appeared to be a Japanese fishing trawler.
What got my attention was the propulsion fuel being used for the vessel.
Coal; the original black rock stuff, of the sort that was mined in Colstrip, MT oh so far away from here. But that wasn't the main intent of my flag-down attempt of the Japanese flagged ship. It was for a far simpler and mundane, if still odd, question.
"Do you have a calendar I could look at?" I'm glad a few crew aboard me knew decent Japanese.
What prompted the massive discussion had been the year printed on the [luckily western] calendar.
It was during the night that I slunk off and slipped over the side of the boat using my abilities as a submarine to get some distance from the trawler. With that done, I resumed following the boat's shadow as it continued towards its home.
--------------
Day 9
Huh, so I forgot to write down the year last time, not like I could forget it though with my crew all but eating the subject. But here's the kicker; my crew barely has any idea about the significance of 1941! I mean, I barely understand what happened myself at the time I was... taken.
This was the year WW2 became a global war. Now, I'm not sure on the whodunits and such, but from what I've been able to pick up on the general radio bands is a massive amount of, well, military traffic. Yeah, these Japanese people stink at encryption, certainly made far easier with twenty-second century computing. Anyway, the discussion....
"Hey... [So, 1941 huh? Interesting. What's happening?]"
"Hey, hey hey [Well, from the general radio band called ShortWave, there seems to be plenty of news....]"
"Hey... Hey hey hey hey hey [Russia is having issues eh? And China is on the ropes...]"
"Hey...? [Sir?]"
(Captain, what are you--Oh, I see.)
Many eyes watch as the Captain goes into his state room and comes back with... THE KEYS. "Hey, hey hey hey- [She helped me get these, so no-]"
"Hey hey, hey hey hey! Hey hey.... [With all due respect Captain, are you out of your mind?! We don't even have autho-]"
(I approve.)
"Hey hey! Heyheyheyhey hey HEY! [-rity, who asked you? This is about order in the universe... We can't just decide to CHANGE SOMETHING WE HAVE NO-]."
(Technically, we do have such authority, based on very flimsy pretense, but we do. The nation who built us does exist here, but certainly not in a state where a ship as advanced as me is possible at this time. Furthermore, the atomics that power me have just barely been built in their crudest form. Judging by data records within my systems, nuclear was hardly a household word it was in your time. However, I also understand the other issue at hand here; the taking of life. The scale of death to be instigated potentially is enormous here. Not to mention the protocol for boats like me, technically if my information in the system is correct, then I should've Launched a couple days ago, only I haven't, because this is very close to WW2 time and our country is alive and well.....)
------------------------
Wow, that was quite a discussion my crew and I had... Hello! A primitive search radar...! Yeah, diving to 70 feet sounds good. Looks like I'll need to get to land after dark then... Joy.
I should also note here that I managed to convince my crew of the need to explore this time we find ourselves in more fully to better understand if certain actions many of my crew want to take can be justified and not have negative side effects. Like half the crew disappearing due to somehow being linked to events that would not take place due to actions that we might take.
End log.
------------------------------
Day 10
On Okinawa.
So I'm on the north end of Okinawa, and like I suspected, it is not like my crew envisioned at all. No US Navy base here; its all Japanese. For that reason, I've discovered that I can make my....rigging disappear if needed.
For once I'm glad that my native coloring generally lets me blend in with the rest of the civilians here. If I was white, I can imagine being picked up very quickly here, and not in any kind of good way either.
I also managed to talk my crew out of scouting themselves, because of the necessity of keeping covert and reminding them of the earlier discussion on that topic. They are from far enough in the future that until we know more about the various nations here, I'd rather not lose any crew to time paradoxes, even if the entire thing is a paradox unto itself.
It has been another day since I logged an entry here, mostly because I was reading about how my crew ended up where they are and how [to a degree] I ended up as their ship. The Montana was financed entirely by debt, costing $10 billion alone to build, and to find out that the country had issues due to debt.... What kind of country just...ignores its finances like that? In my opinion, my crew have more than enough right to be angry with their original uptime government.
So, as I walked along the beach, combing for various sea critters, I decided to talk with my crew internally.
----------
(So, after reading through all that information on the US of your time; I am increasingly of the opinion that it would be a good idea to change my name. Because I'm not sure I like being associated with a country that did that sort of thing....)
"...Hey, hey hey hey hey.... [In some aspects I think you are right, and what we should do then is to take a vote amoungst the crew....]"
(Ok, and I could use the name as a cover for however long we're here, which is another discussion entirely...)
And so the crew was asked to put forth names for their boat....
------------
"Hey hey hey hey; hey, hey , hey, hey..... [So these are the names that the crew could agree upon for nomination for a vote; Tormentor, Abyssallistica, Ballistic.....]"
-----------
I really like Ballistic Scythe, and most of my crew did too. No prefix, just Ballistic Scythe, or Balli works too.
=======================================
==============================
Chapter Two; With Night's Advent, Deadly things Occur.
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It was silent in the ship, save for crew life like reading books or content related to their current predicament. Only general needs continued in the absence of most of the power plant normally available for the crew. The command staff viewed the headlines from the local media that the ship had snagged for them. Of particular interest to most of the crew had to be the situation in China; the chibi-fied captain wanted to put it to the Chinese for what had happened in his own time. He felt that if he was not careful and fast about his plan, he might start feeling for the Chinese.
That scared him. So he read the articles while his thoughts ran over the list of possible weapons to be used for his plan. They had a few thermobaric warheads in storage didn't they?
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Balli stood gazing out to sea, her eyes glazed over as she stood motionless, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the setting sun illuminating her back. The submarine kept her ship side suppressed as she sorted through her crew's thoughts and feelings on the topic of discussion, so she could be forgiven for never noticing a local artist quite a distance away sketching her. It was when the sun had slipped halfway beyond the west horizon that he noticed she was moving away from him, towards the ocean.
The local youth watched frozen in place as the girl, who by his own estimation couldn't have been any older than him, walked into the distant surf and suddenly there appeared some sort of equipment on her back. And in the next moment that he blinked, she had ran out into the ocean surf and disappeared. After he returned home, the artist would look at his sketch and consider the validity of what he saw, ultimately, the local would shrug, turn out the light and go to sleep.
The beach was slowly swallowed up in darkness as the orbital patterns continued unabated, shrouding the island in darkness once again. Unnoticed by the locals, a small patrol boat edged its way around the island, seemingly slowing down to a crawl for an unknown reason. A few minutes later, the boat started moving again, and that is when it happened. A lucky lookout spotted the oddity first appear in the horizon; a rising pillar of fire that rose from the sea in the east and continued over their heads toward the west, increasing speed all the while. Seconds later, a sound similar to a whip cracked the sky. The boat's log and crew would be heavily investigated once events came to light.
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Communist leaning China.
The warheads were conventional, but given the spectacle to unknowing witnesses, the world had no way of knowing that thermobaric explosions looked similar to more insidious explosive clouds.
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Southeast of Japanese mainland.
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Balli watched as the missile launcher vented the last of the gasses from the launch cycle into the open air. Having discussed and approved the launchings, she mentally prepared to lose some crew, she didn't have to wait long. By the turn of the next hour, she knew the result.
3 crew members had disappeared into time. It was an acceptable, if sobering recompense. She took a breath and mentally switched out the warheads. Her captain had explained that it was better to act sooner if the cost was acceptable, so she mentally watched as the captain punched in the coordinates for Moscow, Russia. Another cycle of launches started and would end after radar picked up another surface contact within 50 miles, but Balli stayed on the surface, letting the launcher systems cool down. Keeping watch on the surface contact while some of her crew monitored the missile flight, the practically visually invisible sub girl was prepared to dive at a moment's notice.
At night, even on the water, sighting things was very challenging, especially if the conditions were overcast, even cycling through the visual filters she had were of marginal use.
[Surface contact approaching 25 miles, advise thermal mode]
Switching to thermal mode at night brought an interesting mishmash of colors; near green for the ocean, various shades of red and orange for things like the surface contact that allowed for her and her crew to make out the shape, and determining the class. Mentally, Balli scrolled through pages and pages of ship profiles faster than her crew manage, despite this wealth of information, it turned out that her manuals only went back to 2021.
[Contact not in profile books, designated Sierra-1. Prepare a new profile manual.]
Slowly, at extreme magnification, Balli mentally drew the lines matching the profile her thermal filter gave, mindful of the decreasing distance and increasing chance of detection.
[Profile created; fits the general destroyer size class. S-1's primitive detection estimated to be in 50 seconds.]
Balli felt her hull submerge into the water just before an inquisitive initial searchlight beam passed over the water.
---------------------
The spirit of the destroyer frowned as the radar contact disappeared from sight. The lights her crew had seen earlier had not happened again for the last half hour; the shaky contact had disappeared by the time one of her most powerful search lights swept over the area.
"[This is the area the lights were reportedly from right?]"
"Hai."
"[But there is nothing there...]"
"[We will loiter here until dawn. Once we have enough light, we will conduct a more through search of this area]"
"[Understood sir.]"
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Slowly as the submarine closed on the surface contact, Balli could make out some sort of weird form not dissimilar to herself who she could eventually make out to be searching the surface. A smirk grew on Balli's face as the apparition on the destroyer still did not look down.
[S-1 slowing, possible cavitation suggests turns for 7 knots, range 9 miles and closing.]
Several more minutes pass, the distance between grows less as Balli adjusts her course that would take her northwest.
[Range to S-1 15,000 and closing. Estimated speed 5 knots.]
[Hope they don't have sonar...]
The smirk died on Balli's lips when the destroyer apparition finally looked toward the water, in fact stuck her head under the surface, but....
[Still no sonar, range 12 and closing.]
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The destroyer spirit glared at the unknown submarine, that was only thing she could be, and raged at her crew for their ineptness. As the two closed distance however, the destroyer felt her eyes widen as the hull form of the girl became visible to her ethereal vision.
What sort of submarine was that? the spirit wondered as she beheld a mammoth hull, hydrodynamically shaped for stealth and obvious infiltration, silently moved past. If she had to guess, not even 5,000 meters away. A scowl returned to her features as she once again cursed her crew for their-
"PING!"
....what....
"PING!"
Seriously?!
"PING!"
Ok, now that was just unfair; the submarine was RIGHT THERE! How was her sonar not detecting it!?! Annoyed at the now smirking unknown submarine and at her own equipment, the destroyer spirit disappeared into her hull.
-----------------------
Balli winced at the sonar going off, but as her crew kept calm and carried on, she did too. Apparently, she had sound absorbent tiles or similar. She grinned provocatively at the destroyer who gave a disgusted look before disappearing.
[S-1 at 5,000. No sign they've seen us.]
Balli increased her speed to 7 knots and sighed. Turning her focus inward towards her crew... Wait, were there fewer than before now? Irritated, the submarine focused her senses through her systems and found that yes, there were less crew than there had a few hours ago. Frowning, she cut power to the missile control station and locked it down. She would need to talk with her crew again soon, for another 12 of her crew had disappeared. Given that she came here with 150 crew aboard, now at 135, continued main weapon use was definitely curtailed for the time being.
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Harunami scowled at her crew in the dawning light of the day. Of course there was nothing in the area because the submarine had already left! Not that they knew that anyway, primarily due to the horrible sonar unit they had only installed a couple months back. Not for the nth time, she murmured curses towards that unknown submarine...
She sighed explosively, the exhaust lost in the clouds of steam from her funnels. Like her captain, she would be making her own, spiritual, report to the flagship Nagato. Not that it really mattered all that much since the humans valued the material things of what they could see and feel. Therefore the Captain's report would be the valued one...
---
"So, this unknown submarine had a sound absorbing hull you say?"
"Yes Ma'am... I was staring right at her as she trundled by, my crew pinged her three times and never got a return off her hull..."
Nagato frowned, but Harunami didn't blame her, she too would be a skeptic unless she'd seen it herself, and even, it was hard to mentally digest. "I see. Thank for your report; dismissed."
The destroyer saluted and exited, teleporting back to her own hull. She scowled, considering that that unknown could be anywhere right now. An utterly unremarkable looking individual, was how she had described the unknown's appearance to Nagato. Black hair, brown eyes, brown skin as far as she could tell. Just like every single Japanese female in Japan, or in east Asia for that matter.
It had been several days since that meeting east of Okinawa, and Harunami doubted she would ever see..... She blinked. Wait.. She couldn't quite....no, that seemed to be human, or was she? The destroyer spirit's rangefinders narrowed in agitation as she studied the young woman outside the Naval area, but who was along the wharf some 800 meters or so in the distance. But she couldn't tell from that distance as most of her crew was on base and not aboard.
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War effort this, War Effort that. Everywhere Balli turned her head, it was media of some type promoting thriftiness and dedication along with sacrifice for the nation. She'd been able to procure a paper to see the headlines of the day.
"[Chinese on the Run...]"
"[Mysterious explosion kills Chinese Aggressors...]"
"[German Allies push to Moscow in wake of Cataclysm...]"
"[Western Europe Unclear on Reaction to reports of Destruction...]"
"[Soviets Frozen in wake of Attack...]"
The submarine licked her suddenly dry lips and "pocketed" the newspaper; she needed to eat and load up on munitions, but she took a look at the time and decided to explore the area more. She'd spent many of the past few days walking on the shoreline of Japan's coastline, before swinging inland to join along what seemed to be major road even if most people seemed to be using either animal drawn carts or hand carts. It was only after Balli had overheard more than a few conversations which she then internally reviewed that she decided to follow the crowd into one of the marketplaces and tag along with a different crowd to a different market and possible city.
Unfortunately, she happened to spot some police types who seemed to be following her, so she gradually allowed a bit of her hull some freedom as she made sure to have her knife handy in case it was needed and kept walking. She sensed the boots walk closer, eying the alley entrance ahead.
---
The corporal smirked as his underling grabbed the waif and shoved her into the alleyway.
"Your papers Miss. Someone reported that you avoided a checkpoint earlier...."
"...[I-I'm an orphan from far away...]" The girl replied, seeming to shiver under his increasingly hostile gaze that morphed into a demented and mad grin upon her words.
"Is that right? I'm afraid we will have to detain you for-"
----
Passers by ignored the scuffle as just another unfortunate soul caught by the Kempetai, but the sounds would stop after a few minutes and no one came out of the alley. It would only be after dark that a girl would exit the alley leaving only marks of blood on the ground as a tell of the earlier scuffle.
Balli caught up to a crowd and joined the ranks. Her systems processing the resources she had gained from the altercation earlier. She definitely had to get to a different city now; while the submarine had made sure to clean up the bodies. Someone else knew her appearance. So, with that frame of planning, she left the Hiroshima area headed north for the greater Tokyo region.
After a while, the group stopped for the night, and she briefly stopped as well, but started sneaking away from the roadside inn. Once she was certain of not being tailed, the submarine moved toward the coast. After she arrived at the shoreline, Balli resumed going north, controlling her ship aspect so that her rigging remained invisible, but not inactive. Using her passive radar receiver on the smallest range setting she could in conjunction with her lookouts.
Settling herself into the channel after the long treacherous walk, she mentally hit her rigging button, and began moving by sea, submerged at 30, at a speed of 3 knots. She turned her focus inward...
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The captain frowned, looking at the one single console station that seemed to not have power when a chime sounded throughout the boat signifying....
(Hello crew-)
...Yep, called it.
(-some of you have probably noticed that the Long Range Weapons Station is powered down currently. However, have you also noticed the crew roster lately?)
Wait.... The captain pulled up the crew roster and froze, even as the boat kept talking through the intercom.
(After the launches, I could feel some of you disappear, specifically-)
He saw the numbers and grit his teeth; sure enough, they were missing 15 out of 150 crew.
(-the first launch into China resulted in 3 crew disappearing. The second cycle of launches toward Moscow...well, with that series, there were 12 additional crew lost.)
He blinked and grimaced as the voice continued.
(Being that you are from even my own future in some aspects, I suspect the disappearances are related to either distant relatives and circumstances being different, or events that have been...butterflied away from happening. Meaning those people don't exist anymore.)
The voice quieted at that admission, and somehow a silence permeated the boat for a few minutes. Out of respect for the fallen.
"Hey....[So what now]?" The question might've sprung from his own lips, in the wake of the revelation about the crew and the subsequent shock, he wasn't sure. Nonetheless...
{What now...) The boat parroted slowly, as if in thought. (I know you think of me as a computer system, but I'm not. I'm...a mixture of flesh and steel. The galley has more meat stocked now. I've been able to...regenerate as strange as that sounds, one of the CMs thanks to the Kempetai-)
The bridge seemed to freeze at that, and the reminder of an earlier discussion loomed into memory. That's right, we are in the time of the second global war aren't we?
(-who attempted to accost me-)
WHAT.
(-and I...dealt with them-)
Oh, okay...
(-anyway, I'm glad that there's a general bullet point list for this time period. And after thorough cross checking the crew lists this time, I hope that this is the final launch that we will do...)
What, how can that happen with the console locked down?
(...The local day will be December, 7th tomorrow. One thing we need to remember is that on this side of the date line, the attack will not happen until the 8th. Meaning that our country of origin is not at war officially until the 9th on this side of the date line. So, about Germany.....)
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December 7-10
The shipping lanes into Tokyo Bay seemed average traffic for the time. Balli just maneuvered herself nervously to within a few feet of the freighter she'd picked and sailed beside [and under] it while studiously ignoring the goggle eyed ship spirit staring fearfully at her.
After a period of minutes using the merchant to hide her presence, Balli peeled off toward the south end of the Bay, where Yokosuka was located. Even after that, the rogue submarine stopped just outside the area of the base and cautiously raised her head to look around.
Some ships were at their moorings, but most of the berths appeared empty. Balli submerged once again and making turns for 2 knots, settled into a station about 50 feet off the seafloor. Using her passive array, she began to slowly construct a map of the base before her, still being mindful of the limited depth and overhead she had to work with.
Meanwhile, her crew being once again under the gun of the silent run, kept watch and maintained readiness as best they could. Some were reading, some were eating, but all kept eyes on the status signs. They had been briefed on Germany, as well as the possible ramifications of the upcoming operation. Ballistic Scythe settled in to wait for a certain date's nightfall.
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The battleship spirit looked out toward the distant waters with concern, after Harunami's report back towards the start of the week, Nagato had been on edge while those aboard her had merely been concerned. In particular was one person aboard her hull; The Admiral, who today had been nearly as stressed as she felt. The battleship frowned at the notion that most of what she felt at the moment was tied to that man, the Teitoku of the Combined Fleet.
While she may have frowned about it, the notion made a certain kind of sense. That she could feel some of her crew's tension bleed into her made sense, but this one...his tension bled directly to her hull. She supposed that him gripping the railing tightly had something to do with it. With her above the water vigil finished, Nagato teleported down to her engineering spaces and paused, staring toward her hull.
That feeling of being watched returned in force, grimacing both at the thought and the action; Nagato pushed her face through her hull and stared at the distant strange shape hovering above the seafloor. "Mutsuki, Nagato here, can you help me verify what it is I'm seeing? I do not have the best optics for underwater."
"Yes Nagato-sama..." The small destroyer spirit looked toward the direction indicated and froze, "T-thats an unknown s-submarine..." She whispered.
"In our waters...." Nagato whispered back.
"From this distance, I can't tell what country its from..."
"Isn't your patrol starting soon?"
"Yes Nagato-sama, it is soon and I hope I will be able to identify it."
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"Designate S-21 is moving Sir."
(I'm aware of it sonar. Keep quiet please... Putting engines in hover mode, planes at down angle.)
"Acknowledged."
----
Balli sighed and watched the approaching destroyer with concern as she braced herself for the ping-fest that was sure to begin. She also made sure her screws were stopped, at least she was facing toward the approaching ship.
"PING!"
[No sign of being detected]
"PING!"
Later, after what apparently had been a scheduled patrol. The submarine considered the variable factors, and settled in to wait. The time was not yet.
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Nagato sighed, the ethereal spirit exhausted after a very busy day.
It hadn't been Mutsuki's rant a few days ago, nor the other destroyers afterwards who'd complained about their sonars.
It hadn't been the festive atmosphere aboard her hull that evening. Nor the celebration onshore that had exhausted her.
It had been the fireworks that had done it, specifically, the unknown contact.
One of the destroyers had pointed it out to the battleship and she had ordered caution as the water froth increased-
-Just before something that looked similar to one of her main battery shells erupted out of the water, hesitating before a roaring pillar of flame flared up that rapidly disappeared into the night sky angling westward after about 30 seconds.
She was dimly aware of crew crowding her decks as they too gaped at the scene of two-no three more of the mystery things shot out of the water and the base siren began to wail.
But they weren't under attack.
Nagato would only find out much later, from a curiously somber mood in her wardroom, that Europe had once again suffered.
And the mood of her officers was somber, for they had witnessed something terrible last night.
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The Reichstag was filled with expectation, and trepidation from some. Their leader was going to make a statement today-
-But before the one with the mustache could speak, the bomb sirens blared.
Not that it mattered, as 5 seconds later the atmosphere above Berlin turned white and the urban center ceased to exist, along with nearly every single higher echelon rank of the Nazi regime.
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The submarine limped ashore opposite the Japanese naval base and collapsed on the sand with what she would describe as extreme fatigue. How was she supposed to have known that the Japanese just had a party to celebrate their victory? She was lucky that every ship in the area had not the steam up to get to her at the time. After her rapid fire launching, she'd gone dark, but had received small arms fire in her general location for about 20 minutes or so.
But that wasn't why she was tired. She closed her eyes and focused inward, viewing her partially empty command center.
Thirty crew this time; from obliterating one of the most horrid people in history. Her eyes started to water.
Thirty crew lost as a price for wiping out the entire capital of Germany; she mentally slammed the mental slider to human as she started to cry. curling up as the tears came. Just to get rid of one person, 20 some million more died. Was she going mad? Was being the submarine affecting her sanity at the same time as erasing random members of her crew from existence? Was she losing her humanity?
She hated her ship self, and she was quite sure that the 100 million or so she had killed also hated her. She wasn't sure how long she lay there, only miles away from the Japanese Naval HQ, but what she did know was that her tears had matted part of her hair to her face, and her wetsuit was a bit threadbare. She checked her internal timekeeper and frowned, sighing. She would need to move out tonight.
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Things to be aware of section in relation to TL changes. Such as...
Adm. Nagumo makes the choice to slow the fleet's return trip to 10kn. in order to save fuel as much as can be done. He's also directed that the fleet return by the same route which they left by, further extending the time at sea.
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Posting the story so far to here temporarily.
Insert
Isot
Isekai
Alternate History with a dash of KC.
The Submarine and its crew are from 2141. They know little of WW2.
The girl who because the sub's spirit was taken from 1991, she knows a bit more on general WW2 stuff, but not much.
What happens when you place an SSBN from the 22nd century into WW2 era 1941; there are no satellites, only radio and morse. I'm using an adapted version of the SSBN protocol found in one other KC story. Expect Darkness and changed times.
============================================
A Misplaced Ballistic Scythe
2141
Chapter 1, There's a lesson to be Seen Here, but do we Learn?
One of the last of her kind that used to call the USA home; the Montana slunk through the dark recesses of a place that few ships survived, hiding beneath multiple thermoclines from the enemies hunting her. The bridge crew nervously eyed the depth-meter display which displayed the numbers in bright angry neon-red, complete with the words "Crash Depth Reached". The submarine was in the Marianas Trench, trying to avoid the Chinese surface ships attempting to force a surface for uncertain ends. Unclear from the crew's perspective at least; some had seen video of an earlier "outing" of a sister ship, which included the boat's captain. Hence why the extreme measures to avoid detection, even if it was near useless judging by the angry tremors of approaching but distant depth charge explosions.
How did it come to this point where the USN was hunted this way? Due to out of control financial issues, certain international entities took over and demanded harsh measures. One of these measures had to do with dismantling the USN, and some, especially the submarine commanders, chose to resist and refuse what they felt were unscrupulous orders. One of the final such hold outs was the SSBN USS Montana, which was trying to escape from the Chinese pursuing her.
At two knots, the leviathan crept into the gloom, unknowingly nosing into an unknown Anomaly with scarcely a shiver. Said Anomaly winked out after the stern of the submarine had passed through, perhaps due to the proximity of the last depth charge explosion. The only reaction at first was that the sonar had cleared up, followed by a careful but hurried surfacing procedure after careful consideration given to the surroundings. Only after the surfacing would certain issues make themselves apparent.
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At first glance, if one had been witness to the sight of a swimmer breaking the surface of the water; they would've nodded approvingly at the swimmer's will to survive. However, the approval that might've been given would've swiftly turned to horror as the realization would set in that there were no boats in sight. At all; none at under 50 miles distance, most were even further than double that distance. Queue the unknown person flopping on to their back in what appeared to be a dead faint.
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"Hey [Status report?]?"
"Hey hey hey, hey [Well, before the software crashed, there appeared to be nothing around us for miles... Sonar and radar reported clear scopes]."
"Hey Hey [So what caused the crash]?"
"...Hey hey hey, hey hey [The software crashed due to also not detecting any satellites at all in orbit... GPS, communication; nothing, not even other nations]."
"Hey... Hey! [ok, so we need to figure out our current location. XO, come with me to the wardroom...]"
Sometime later, the two administrative officers return from the wardroom looking chastised and ashen faced. The pale captain reached over and activated the intercom.
"Hey, hey hey hey. Hey heeey hey...... [This is your Captain speaking. We have good news and bad news. Good news is that we have escaped from the trap we were in an hour ago. However, the bad news is that as of a few minutes ago, we have no way to communicate with Naval Command... We can detect no satellites in range or in orbit. Once we get our systems rebooted, we will work out a plan to go on from there...]"
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Later, awash in golden colors of a glorious Pacific sunset, the somewhat inert form on the surface is startled by a pinching and tugging sensation on her arm. Opening her brown eyes somewhat sleepily, she looks at where the sensation is coming from only to start screaming and kicking at the fish which falls away too easily.
"Was that.... Was that a shark?" She asks, vocalizing the question despite noticing that she's ALONE and FLOATING on the ocean surface. Also just now seeing half the now desiccated shark floating away... "Food!"
After the impromptu meal, the girl begins to take stock, verbalizing her thoughts for the novelty of it. "So, I'm wearing a wetsuit, and... Where did this knife come from?"
She eyed a bloody knife in her hand before frowning and returning the implement to it's sheath. Briefly, her eyes trace out a stenciled "US Navy" logo on her suit before settling on the weight that is centered on her waist.
"A barrel or tube contraption of some sort... Hmmm, you know what? I think this a dream! Yes, I'll go back to sleep here and wake up in my bed at home! Heheh...."
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"Hey hey hey hey [Captain, we've figured out where we are as far as general location]."
"Hey [and]?"
"Hey hey hey, hey [Close to the Marianas Trench as before... Although, more in the Philippine Sea itself...]"
"Hey [But]?"
"Hey, hey hey hey [Yeah, nothing from any satellites or known frequencies at all]."
"Hey [I see...]." He sighed, and looked at his environs before muttering, "Hey hey, hey hey hey! [This is ridiculous, if the system hasn't woken up by tomorrow, we're resetting the plant and doing it the hard way!]"
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131W, 21N
[Reactor Online]
Slowly, the girl opened her eyes as weird phrases permeated her consciousness. "Reactor? Like a nuclear reactor, at 3 Mile Island?"
[Radar online, No contacts]
"What? What's going on?" All she could see was water all around her, suddenly her hearing came into focus, and she had the impression of scanning for radio signals.
[Communications functional; satellite net unavailable. Unknown transmissions coming from bearing 345... Sonar-]
PING! "Gah!"
[-online, no contacts in area.]
One of the tube things on her waist moved, and the girl eyed it cautiously.
[Weapons; torpedo tubes functional, no damage.]
A small vibration diverted her attention to the other side, to catch sight of a hatchway closing over a more barrel shaped apparatus.
[Weapons; long range T-Hawks operational, CMDS operational upon authorization. Caution, SatNet undetected means authorization is local only, NWs operational only with administrative team override.]
The girl froze as her mind raced with the meaning of that phrase. Why would she, a poor native American girl from a rural town in Montana, have access to nukes? Wha-
"Galurp!"
[Ballast systems test complete, all tanks operational.]
The girl tried to catch her breath as she suddenly weaved and wobbled between left and right.
[Rudders functioning normally.]
She still hadn't quite recovered her breath when she felt an urge to run, but squelched it.
[Propulsion systems pending operational test. Administration query; why was the command refused?]
"Well, I dunno, maybe because I'm trying to catch my breath here after that unexpected dunking!"
[...]
Suddenly, she had a feeling like a piece of earwax falling from her ear, only bigger.
"Hey.... Hey? [Hello, I'm guessing you are the reason for the engine override?]"
"Er, hi? Did you just walk out of my ear?"
"...Hey, hey hey hey hey [Apparently so... To me it looks like a conning tower but...]"
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Day 5
So, personifications of naval ships are a thing. According to my XO/Captain, I'm the USS Montana, built in 2134, commissioned in 2137. The last boat of a production run that extends well back into the previous century. With his explanation, I understand a little bit more, but parts of it do not make sense.
Mostly due to our current environs more than anything else. No satellites for one, and even in my time, stuff orbiting the Earth was a normal thing. Morse code being used on the radio is very prevalent to the west, in fact radio band use is extremely widespread as from what I can pick up.
Eventually, conclusions are reached that we must seek a port, and after much discussion, Okinawa is set as a general destination.
After more discussion and with the assistance of some of my crew, I cover up the "US Navy" identifier on my suit and equipment due to my crews suspicion that to be seen as American may not be a good thing.
---------------
129W, 23N
It is at this time on Day 7 of my existence as a ship that I got picked up by what appeared to be a Japanese fishing trawler.
What got my attention was the propulsion fuel being used for the vessel.
Coal; the original black rock stuff, of the sort that was mined in Colstrip, MT oh so far away from here. But that wasn't the main intent of my flag-down attempt of the Japanese flagged ship. It was for a far simpler and mundane, if still odd, question.
"Do you have a calendar I could look at?" I'm glad a few crew aboard me knew decent Japanese.
What prompted the massive discussion had been the year printed on the [luckily western] calendar.
It was during the night that I slunk off and slipped over the side of the boat using my abilities as a submarine to get some distance from the trawler. With that done, I resumed following the boat's shadow as it continued towards its home.
--------------
Day 9
Huh, so I forgot to write down the year last time, not like I could forget it though with my crew all but eating the subject. But here's the kicker; my crew barely has any idea about the significance of 1941! I mean, I barely understand what happened myself at the time I was... taken.
This was the year WW2 became a global war. Now, I'm not sure on the whodunits and such, but from what I've been able to pick up on the general radio bands is a massive amount of, well, military traffic. Yeah, these Japanese people stink at encryption, certainly made far easier with twenty-second century computing. Anyway, the discussion....
"Hey... [So, 1941 huh? Interesting. What's happening?]"
"Hey, hey hey [Well, from the general radio band called ShortWave, there seems to be plenty of news....]"
"Hey... Hey hey hey hey hey [Russia is having issues eh? And China is on the ropes...]"
"Hey...? [Sir?]"
(Captain, what are you--Oh, I see.)
Many eyes watch as the Captain goes into his state room and comes back with... THE KEYS. "Hey, hey hey hey- [She helped me get these, so no-]"
"Hey hey, hey hey hey! Hey hey.... [With all due respect Captain, are you out of your mind?! We don't even have autho-]"
(I approve.)
"Hey hey! Heyheyheyhey hey HEY! [-rity, who asked you? This is about order in the universe... We can't just decide to CHANGE SOMETHING WE HAVE NO-]."
(Technically, we do have such authority, based on very flimsy pretense, but we do. The nation who built us does exist here, but certainly not in a state where a ship as advanced as me is possible at this time. Furthermore, the atomics that power me have just barely been built in their crudest form. Judging by data records within my systems, nuclear was hardly a household word it was in your time. However, I also understand the other issue at hand here; the taking of life. The scale of death to be instigated potentially is enormous here. Not to mention the protocol for boats like me, technically if my information in the system is correct, then I should've Launched a couple days ago, only I haven't, because this is very close to WW2 time and our country is alive and well.....)
------------------------
Wow, that was quite a discussion my crew and I had... Hello! A primitive search radar...! Yeah, diving to 70 feet sounds good. Looks like I'll need to get to land after dark then... Joy.
I should also note here that I managed to convince my crew of the need to explore this time we find ourselves in more fully to better understand if certain actions many of my crew want to take can be justified and not have negative side effects. Like half the crew disappearing due to somehow being linked to events that would not take place due to actions that we might take.
End log.
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Day 10
On Okinawa.
So I'm on the north end of Okinawa, and like I suspected, it is not like my crew envisioned at all. No US Navy base here; its all Japanese. For that reason, I've discovered that I can make my....rigging disappear if needed.
For once I'm glad that my native coloring generally lets me blend in with the rest of the civilians here. If I was white, I can imagine being picked up very quickly here, and not in any kind of good way either.
I also managed to talk my crew out of scouting themselves, because of the necessity of keeping covert and reminding them of the earlier discussion on that topic. They are from far enough in the future that until we know more about the various nations here, I'd rather not lose any crew to time paradoxes, even if the entire thing is a paradox unto itself.
It has been another day since I logged an entry here, mostly because I was reading about how my crew ended up where they are and how [to a degree] I ended up as their ship. The Montana was financed entirely by debt, costing $10 billion alone to build, and to find out that the country had issues due to debt.... What kind of country just...ignores its finances like that? In my opinion, my crew have more than enough right to be angry with their original uptime government.
So, as I walked along the beach, combing for various sea critters, I decided to talk with my crew internally.
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(So, after reading through all that information on the US of your time; I am increasingly of the opinion that it would be a good idea to change my name. Because I'm not sure I like being associated with a country that did that sort of thing....)
"...Hey, hey hey hey hey.... [In some aspects I think you are right, and what we should do then is to take a vote amoungst the crew....]"
(Ok, and I could use the name as a cover for however long we're here, which is another discussion entirely...)
And so the crew was asked to put forth names for their boat....
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"Hey hey hey hey; hey, hey , hey, hey..... [So these are the names that the crew could agree upon for nomination for a vote; Tormentor, Abyssallistica, Ballistic.....]"
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I really like Ballistic Scythe, and most of my crew did too. No prefix, just Ballistic Scythe, or Balli works too.
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Chapter Two; With Night's Advent, Deadly things Occur.
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It was silent in the ship, save for crew life like reading books or content related to their current predicament. Only general needs continued in the absence of most of the power plant normally available for the crew. The command staff viewed the headlines from the local media that the ship had snagged for them. Of particular interest to most of the crew had to be the situation in China; the chibi-fied captain wanted to put it to the Chinese for what had happened in his own time. He felt that if he was not careful and fast about his plan, he might start feeling for the Chinese.
That scared him. So he read the articles while his thoughts ran over the list of possible weapons to be used for his plan. They had a few thermobaric warheads in storage didn't they?
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Balli stood gazing out to sea, her eyes glazed over as she stood motionless, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the setting sun illuminating her back. The submarine kept her ship side suppressed as she sorted through her crew's thoughts and feelings on the topic of discussion, so she could be forgiven for never noticing a local artist quite a distance away sketching her. It was when the sun had slipped halfway beyond the west horizon that he noticed she was moving away from him, towards the ocean.
The local youth watched frozen in place as the girl, who by his own estimation couldn't have been any older than him, walked into the distant surf and suddenly there appeared some sort of equipment on her back. And in the next moment that he blinked, she had ran out into the ocean surf and disappeared. After he returned home, the artist would look at his sketch and consider the validity of what he saw, ultimately, the local would shrug, turn out the light and go to sleep.
The beach was slowly swallowed up in darkness as the orbital patterns continued unabated, shrouding the island in darkness once again. Unnoticed by the locals, a small patrol boat edged its way around the island, seemingly slowing down to a crawl for an unknown reason. A few minutes later, the boat started moving again, and that is when it happened. A lucky lookout spotted the oddity first appear in the horizon; a rising pillar of fire that rose from the sea in the east and continued over their heads toward the west, increasing speed all the while. Seconds later, a sound similar to a whip cracked the sky. The boat's log and crew would be heavily investigated once events came to light.
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Communist leaning China.
The warheads were conventional, but given the spectacle to unknowing witnesses, the world had no way of knowing that thermobaric explosions looked similar to more insidious explosive clouds.
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Southeast of Japanese mainland.
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Balli watched as the missile launcher vented the last of the gasses from the launch cycle into the open air. Having discussed and approved the launchings, she mentally prepared to lose some crew, she didn't have to wait long. By the turn of the next hour, she knew the result.
3 crew members had disappeared into time. It was an acceptable, if sobering recompense. She took a breath and mentally switched out the warheads. Her captain had explained that it was better to act sooner if the cost was acceptable, so she mentally watched as the captain punched in the coordinates for Moscow, Russia. Another cycle of launches started and would end after radar picked up another surface contact within 50 miles, but Balli stayed on the surface, letting the launcher systems cool down. Keeping watch on the surface contact while some of her crew monitored the missile flight, the practically visually invisible sub girl was prepared to dive at a moment's notice.
At night, even on the water, sighting things was very challenging, especially if the conditions were overcast, even cycling through the visual filters she had were of marginal use.
[Surface contact approaching 25 miles, advise thermal mode]
Switching to thermal mode at night brought an interesting mishmash of colors; near green for the ocean, various shades of red and orange for things like the surface contact that allowed for her and her crew to make out the shape, and determining the class. Mentally, Balli scrolled through pages and pages of ship profiles faster than her crew manage, despite this wealth of information, it turned out that her manuals only went back to 2021.
[Contact not in profile books, designated Sierra-1. Prepare a new profile manual.]
Slowly, at extreme magnification, Balli mentally drew the lines matching the profile her thermal filter gave, mindful of the decreasing distance and increasing chance of detection.
[Profile created; fits the general destroyer size class. S-1's primitive detection estimated to be in 50 seconds.]
Balli felt her hull submerge into the water just before an inquisitive initial searchlight beam passed over the water.
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The spirit of the destroyer frowned as the radar contact disappeared from sight. The lights her crew had seen earlier had not happened again for the last half hour; the shaky contact had disappeared by the time one of her most powerful search lights swept over the area.
"[This is the area the lights were reportedly from right?]"
"Hai."
"[But there is nothing there...]"
"[We will loiter here until dawn. Once we have enough light, we will conduct a more through search of this area]"
"[Understood sir.]"
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Slowly as the submarine closed on the surface contact, Balli could make out some sort of weird form not dissimilar to herself who she could eventually make out to be searching the surface. A smirk grew on Balli's face as the apparition on the destroyer still did not look down.
[S-1 slowing, possible cavitation suggests turns for 7 knots, range 9 miles and closing.]
Several more minutes pass, the distance between grows less as Balli adjusts her course that would take her northwest.
[Range to S-1 15,000 and closing. Estimated speed 5 knots.]
[Hope they don't have sonar...]
The smirk died on Balli's lips when the destroyer apparition finally looked toward the water, in fact stuck her head under the surface, but....
[Still no sonar, range 12 and closing.]
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The destroyer spirit glared at the unknown submarine, that was only thing she could be, and raged at her crew for their ineptness. As the two closed distance however, the destroyer felt her eyes widen as the hull form of the girl became visible to her ethereal vision.
What sort of submarine was that? the spirit wondered as she beheld a mammoth hull, hydrodynamically shaped for stealth and obvious infiltration, silently moved past. If she had to guess, not even 5,000 meters away. A scowl returned to her features as she once again cursed her crew for their-
"PING!"
....what....
"PING!"
Seriously?!
"PING!"
Ok, now that was just unfair; the submarine was RIGHT THERE! How was her sonar not detecting it!?! Annoyed at the now smirking unknown submarine and at her own equipment, the destroyer spirit disappeared into her hull.
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Balli winced at the sonar going off, but as her crew kept calm and carried on, she did too. Apparently, she had sound absorbent tiles or similar. She grinned provocatively at the destroyer who gave a disgusted look before disappearing.
[S-1 at 5,000. No sign they've seen us.]
Balli increased her speed to 7 knots and sighed. Turning her focus inward towards her crew... Wait, were there fewer than before now? Irritated, the submarine focused her senses through her systems and found that yes, there were less crew than there had a few hours ago. Frowning, she cut power to the missile control station and locked it down. She would need to talk with her crew again soon, for another 12 of her crew had disappeared. Given that she came here with 150 crew aboard, now at 135, continued main weapon use was definitely curtailed for the time being.
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Harunami scowled at her crew in the dawning light of the day. Of course there was nothing in the area because the submarine had already left! Not that they knew that anyway, primarily due to the horrible sonar unit they had only installed a couple months back. Not for the nth time, she murmured curses towards that unknown submarine...
She sighed explosively, the exhaust lost in the clouds of steam from her funnels. Like her captain, she would be making her own, spiritual, report to the flagship Nagato. Not that it really mattered all that much since the humans valued the material things of what they could see and feel. Therefore the Captain's report would be the valued one...
---
"So, this unknown submarine had a sound absorbing hull you say?"
"Yes Ma'am... I was staring right at her as she trundled by, my crew pinged her three times and never got a return off her hull..."
Nagato frowned, but Harunami didn't blame her, she too would be a skeptic unless she'd seen it herself, and even, it was hard to mentally digest. "I see. Thank for your report; dismissed."
The destroyer saluted and exited, teleporting back to her own hull. She scowled, considering that that unknown could be anywhere right now. An utterly unremarkable looking individual, was how she had described the unknown's appearance to Nagato. Black hair, brown eyes, brown skin as far as she could tell. Just like every single Japanese female in Japan, or in east Asia for that matter.
It had been several days since that meeting east of Okinawa, and Harunami doubted she would ever see..... She blinked. Wait.. She couldn't quite....no, that seemed to be human, or was she? The destroyer spirit's rangefinders narrowed in agitation as she studied the young woman outside the Naval area, but who was along the wharf some 800 meters or so in the distance. But she couldn't tell from that distance as most of her crew was on base and not aboard.
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War effort this, War Effort that. Everywhere Balli turned her head, it was media of some type promoting thriftiness and dedication along with sacrifice for the nation. She'd been able to procure a paper to see the headlines of the day.
"[Chinese on the Run...]"
"[Mysterious explosion kills Chinese Aggressors...]"
"[German Allies push to Moscow in wake of Cataclysm...]"
"[Western Europe Unclear on Reaction to reports of Destruction...]"
"[Soviets Frozen in wake of Attack...]"
The submarine licked her suddenly dry lips and "pocketed" the newspaper; she needed to eat and load up on munitions, but she took a look at the time and decided to explore the area more. She'd spent many of the past few days walking on the shoreline of Japan's coastline, before swinging inland to join along what seemed to be major road even if most people seemed to be using either animal drawn carts or hand carts. It was only after Balli had overheard more than a few conversations which she then internally reviewed that she decided to follow the crowd into one of the marketplaces and tag along with a different crowd to a different market and possible city.
Unfortunately, she happened to spot some police types who seemed to be following her, so she gradually allowed a bit of her hull some freedom as she made sure to have her knife handy in case it was needed and kept walking. She sensed the boots walk closer, eying the alley entrance ahead.
---
The corporal smirked as his underling grabbed the waif and shoved her into the alleyway.
"Your papers Miss. Someone reported that you avoided a checkpoint earlier...."
"...[I-I'm an orphan from far away...]" The girl replied, seeming to shiver under his increasingly hostile gaze that morphed into a demented and mad grin upon her words.
"Is that right? I'm afraid we will have to detain you for-"
----
Passers by ignored the scuffle as just another unfortunate soul caught by the Kempetai, but the sounds would stop after a few minutes and no one came out of the alley. It would only be after dark that a girl would exit the alley leaving only marks of blood on the ground as a tell of the earlier scuffle.
Balli caught up to a crowd and joined the ranks. Her systems processing the resources she had gained from the altercation earlier. She definitely had to get to a different city now; while the submarine had made sure to clean up the bodies. Someone else knew her appearance. So, with that frame of planning, she left the Hiroshima area headed north for the greater Tokyo region.
After a while, the group stopped for the night, and she briefly stopped as well, but started sneaking away from the roadside inn. Once she was certain of not being tailed, the submarine moved toward the coast. After she arrived at the shoreline, Balli resumed going north, controlling her ship aspect so that her rigging remained invisible, but not inactive. Using her passive radar receiver on the smallest range setting she could in conjunction with her lookouts.
Settling herself into the channel after the long treacherous walk, she mentally hit her rigging button, and began moving by sea, submerged at 30, at a speed of 3 knots. She turned her focus inward...
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The captain frowned, looking at the one single console station that seemed to not have power when a chime sounded throughout the boat signifying....
(Hello crew-)
...Yep, called it.
(-some of you have probably noticed that the Long Range Weapons Station is powered down currently. However, have you also noticed the crew roster lately?)
Wait.... The captain pulled up the crew roster and froze, even as the boat kept talking through the intercom.
(After the launches, I could feel some of you disappear, specifically-)
He saw the numbers and grit his teeth; sure enough, they were missing 15 out of 150 crew.
(-the first launch into China resulted in 3 crew disappearing. The second cycle of launches toward Moscow...well, with that series, there were 12 additional crew lost.)
He blinked and grimaced as the voice continued.
(Being that you are from even my own future in some aspects, I suspect the disappearances are related to either distant relatives and circumstances being different, or events that have been...butterflied away from happening. Meaning those people don't exist anymore.)
The voice quieted at that admission, and somehow a silence permeated the boat for a few minutes. Out of respect for the fallen.
"Hey....[So what now]?" The question might've sprung from his own lips, in the wake of the revelation about the crew and the subsequent shock, he wasn't sure. Nonetheless...
{What now...) The boat parroted slowly, as if in thought. (I know you think of me as a computer system, but I'm not. I'm...a mixture of flesh and steel. The galley has more meat stocked now. I've been able to...regenerate as strange as that sounds, one of the CMs thanks to the Kempetai-)
The bridge seemed to freeze at that, and the reminder of an earlier discussion loomed into memory. That's right, we are in the time of the second global war aren't we?
(-who attempted to accost me-)
WHAT.
(-and I...dealt with them-)
Oh, okay...
(-anyway, I'm glad that there's a general bullet point list for this time period. And after thorough cross checking the crew lists this time, I hope that this is the final launch that we will do...)
What, how can that happen with the console locked down?
(...The local day will be December, 7th tomorrow. One thing we need to remember is that on this side of the date line, the attack will not happen until the 8th. Meaning that our country of origin is not at war officially until the 9th on this side of the date line. So, about Germany.....)
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December 7-10
The shipping lanes into Tokyo Bay seemed average traffic for the time. Balli just maneuvered herself nervously to within a few feet of the freighter she'd picked and sailed beside [and under] it while studiously ignoring the goggle eyed ship spirit staring fearfully at her.
After a period of minutes using the merchant to hide her presence, Balli peeled off toward the south end of the Bay, where Yokosuka was located. Even after that, the rogue submarine stopped just outside the area of the base and cautiously raised her head to look around.
Some ships were at their moorings, but most of the berths appeared empty. Balli submerged once again and making turns for 2 knots, settled into a station about 50 feet off the seafloor. Using her passive array, she began to slowly construct a map of the base before her, still being mindful of the limited depth and overhead she had to work with.
Meanwhile, her crew being once again under the gun of the silent run, kept watch and maintained readiness as best they could. Some were reading, some were eating, but all kept eyes on the status signs. They had been briefed on Germany, as well as the possible ramifications of the upcoming operation. Ballistic Scythe settled in to wait for a certain date's nightfall.
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The battleship spirit looked out toward the distant waters with concern, after Harunami's report back towards the start of the week, Nagato had been on edge while those aboard her had merely been concerned. In particular was one person aboard her hull; The Admiral, who today had been nearly as stressed as she felt. The battleship frowned at the notion that most of what she felt at the moment was tied to that man, the Teitoku of the Combined Fleet.
While she may have frowned about it, the notion made a certain kind of sense. That she could feel some of her crew's tension bleed into her made sense, but this one...his tension bled directly to her hull. She supposed that him gripping the railing tightly had something to do with it. With her above the water vigil finished, Nagato teleported down to her engineering spaces and paused, staring toward her hull.
That feeling of being watched returned in force, grimacing both at the thought and the action; Nagato pushed her face through her hull and stared at the distant strange shape hovering above the seafloor. "Mutsuki, Nagato here, can you help me verify what it is I'm seeing? I do not have the best optics for underwater."
"Yes Nagato-sama..." The small destroyer spirit looked toward the direction indicated and froze, "T-thats an unknown s-submarine..." She whispered.
"In our waters...." Nagato whispered back.
"From this distance, I can't tell what country its from..."
"Isn't your patrol starting soon?"
"Yes Nagato-sama, it is soon and I hope I will be able to identify it."
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"Designate S-21 is moving Sir."
(I'm aware of it sonar. Keep quiet please... Putting engines in hover mode, planes at down angle.)
"Acknowledged."
----
Balli sighed and watched the approaching destroyer with concern as she braced herself for the ping-fest that was sure to begin. She also made sure her screws were stopped, at least she was facing toward the approaching ship.
"PING!"
[No sign of being detected]
"PING!"
Later, after what apparently had been a scheduled patrol. The submarine considered the variable factors, and settled in to wait. The time was not yet.
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Nagato sighed, the ethereal spirit exhausted after a very busy day.
It hadn't been Mutsuki's rant a few days ago, nor the other destroyers afterwards who'd complained about their sonars.
It hadn't been the festive atmosphere aboard her hull that evening. Nor the celebration onshore that had exhausted her.
It had been the fireworks that had done it, specifically, the unknown contact.
One of the destroyers had pointed it out to the battleship and she had ordered caution as the water froth increased-
-Just before something that looked similar to one of her main battery shells erupted out of the water, hesitating before a roaring pillar of flame flared up that rapidly disappeared into the night sky angling westward after about 30 seconds.
She was dimly aware of crew crowding her decks as they too gaped at the scene of two-no three more of the mystery things shot out of the water and the base siren began to wail.
But they weren't under attack.
Nagato would only find out much later, from a curiously somber mood in her wardroom, that Europe had once again suffered.
And the mood of her officers was somber, for they had witnessed something terrible last night.
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The Reichstag was filled with expectation, and trepidation from some. Their leader was going to make a statement today-
-But before the one with the mustache could speak, the bomb sirens blared.
Not that it mattered, as 5 seconds later the atmosphere above Berlin turned white and the urban center ceased to exist, along with nearly every single higher echelon rank of the Nazi regime.
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The submarine limped ashore opposite the Japanese naval base and collapsed on the sand with what she would describe as extreme fatigue. How was she supposed to have known that the Japanese just had a party to celebrate their victory? She was lucky that every ship in the area had not the steam up to get to her at the time. After her rapid fire launching, she'd gone dark, but had received small arms fire in her general location for about 20 minutes or so.
But that wasn't why she was tired. She closed her eyes and focused inward, viewing her partially empty command center.
Thirty crew this time; from obliterating one of the most horrid people in history. Her eyes started to water.
Thirty crew lost as a price for wiping out the entire capital of Germany; she mentally slammed the mental slider to human as she started to cry. curling up as the tears came. Just to get rid of one person, 20 some million more died. Was she going mad? Was being the submarine affecting her sanity at the same time as erasing random members of her crew from existence? Was she losing her humanity?
She hated her ship self, and she was quite sure that the 100 million or so she had killed also hated her. She wasn't sure how long she lay there, only miles away from the Japanese Naval HQ, but what she did know was that her tears had matted part of her hair to her face, and her wetsuit was a bit threadbare. She checked her internal timekeeper and frowned, sighing. She would need to move out tonight.
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Things to be aware of section in relation to TL changes. Such as...
Adm. Nagumo makes the choice to slow the fleet's return trip to 10kn. in order to save fuel as much as can be done. He's also directed that the fleet return by the same route which they left by, further extending the time at sea.
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Posting the story so far to here temporarily.
Last edited:
MBS Chapters 3-4
Spherical_Light
Likely Illuminating a room near you
- Location
- NW US
Also, Dialogue is split into 3 sections:
"..." Normal
"[...]" Crew or translation speech
(...) Ship girl/spirit speech
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Chapter 3; Like a Present from the Sun
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December 11-14
Balli woke to her internal chrono alarm going off and opened her eyes, allowing a portion of the ship out-
"Feathers."
-only to pause at the sight of a good number of ships in the bay. Glad their attention was elsewhere, the submarine slowly started to crawl inland, recalling that there wasn't much to the land on the peninsula, but progressed toward the taller plant life as much as she was able to. She paused laying on her stomach as she plotted her route.
She only needed a few minutes to crawl into the plant life as it was...
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Nagato wasn't sure how the unknown submarine escaped all that small arms fire, but she did, and the fleet was in a tizzy over it. Her crew thought they'd managed to drive it off; the spirit scoffed at that, her rangefinders picking out a distant smudge on the eastern point of the bay.
Which, if her logs were correct, had not been there the day before, but none of her crew realized it, taking the smudge to be some rock that had washed up. Not to mention that high Command would question the resource usage if it indeed was a rock or piece of driftwood. Still, destroyers with diving crews kept coming the area for the next two days before shrugging and giving up, calling the unknown submarine dead and gone.
That was a couple days ago, and destroyer patrols kept watch on it, only this morning's patrol was different.
"Nagato-sama, Harunami here. The beach on the other side is clear this morning. Using my viewfinder's magnification, I managed to ascertain that the so-called debris has demonstrated a clear ability to undulate like a snake up toward the vegetation line... Too bad we have no way to interact with our crews."
Nagato smiled slightly and nodded towards the fairly distant destroyer, "Thank you for the report, and yes, I agree..."
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December 14-18.
Balli turned on her receiver and listened to the news headlines while she soaked in one of the springs to recharge and heal her minor injuries.
"...Unconfirmed reports from the Japanese claim that the U.S. made one of the unknown exploding devices...."
"...The U.S. categorically denies any involvement whatsoever in any explosions that have happened in Europe and Asia...."
"...Total death toll from all unknown explosive sites continue to rise..."
"...Britain and France debate Lend-Lease deal in response to multiple reports of American manufactured parts...."
"German representatives to meet with Western Allies to discuss peace..."
"...Japanese troops tighten hold on China..."
"...Soviet Union rulership unclear as internal chaos continues..."
"...U.S. mid-term elections are anyone's game..."
"...Harunami out...."
Balli blinked at that last transmission, and decided to monitor the frequency for a while.
"Ise to Nagato-san; do I have any new orders for my crew?"
"Sorry Ise, nothing yet..."
---
Taking note of the frequency, I saved it for later. Then I grit my teeth and take another look at my roster.
My crew compliment is down from 105 to 95 now. I have my navigator, exec, and weapons officer for my bridge crew. The rest are in Weapons or Engineering keeping me going. I pause as the numbers sink in, I can't lose too many more before I start losing functions.
I don't want to lose function, and I don't want to lose my humanity either.
Thinking about the past few days, I've concluded that while the Eurasian cost has been quite high to start the process of Peace in Europe. I've spared the U.S. a lot of lives at this point. The problem is....I'm technically an American submarine. The remnants of the explosives prove that despite any subterfuge I've attempted on my part. One can't hide every single part that's stamped "Made in the U.S.A.", even with big explosions.
---
Balli looked up at the sky through the trees as the plane flew nearby, she was reasonably certain that she was lost in the groundcover given the technological levels that Japan operated with, just to be certain however, she checked her wetsuit, which had been repaired decently over the past couple days. Nonetheless, it felt good to be able to relax for a time.
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Elsewhere
"It is quite possible that there may be a rogue element here that we know nothing about." Hull ventured out loud, considering the map of Asia on the conference table.
"Explain."
Hull tapped Japan with an index finger as he spoke, "One of the cables from Japan on the 12th mentioned something about pillars of fire seen roaring off into the sky seen on the 10th, right before they left the Embassy and boarded a ship from... Hiroshima." He paused before finding and pointing at Tokyo Bay, "So, according to Japanese accounts, an object "unlike any ever seen before" jumps out of the depths amidst a froth of bubbles, hesitates before a sudden mass of flame launches it skyward and out of sight. Followed by 3 similar objects in the same fashion; and all anyone saw at first was the bubbles on the surface, followed by a plume of flame. The time this was supposed to have happened was around 11pm on the 10th, roughly a mile or two from Yokosuka."
Hull then pointed out other parts of the map, "Indian lookout station reported a strange meteor crossing the night sky really fast. The British Foreign office included the entire telegram; the station had reported it because they thought the meteor object would hit Britain." He shifted his finger again to the Ukraine area, "A British escort vessel lookout noted the flying object approximately 2 minutes before the explosion that leveled Berlin was reported to take place." He shifted his pointing over to the Baltic Sea. "Finally, a sighting from a Swedish watch station, reporting seeing "The most unusual behavior for a meteorite ever." Apparently the pillar of fire made an abrupt change of direction before appearing to head in a more downward than south direction before the track was lost in the sun. It was only a few seconds later that Berlin disappears from the map. Apparently due to observational difficulties, these sightings outside of Japan only saw one object."
Silence pervaded the room before the one in the mobile chair spoke up. "Write up orders for at least one or two submarines to patrol off Japanese waters, telling them to keep an eye out for any sort of oddities around the Japanese islands. Special Clarification on the term Odd means A strange object that defies known technological capabilities."
"Yes Mr. President."
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A short, bald chain smoker sat studying pictures of objects that Intelligence had acquired. "A piece of some sort of tubing. An apparatus of some sort, and some sort of torpedo like fin..." He paused for an exhale of some smoke, than returned the fat cigar to his mouth, "All have similar identifiers on them, all pointing to the United States as their place of manufacture."
Another inhale, then an exhale. "Which Mr. Roosevelt denies emphatically.... Get the First Sea Lord on the line, tell him I want a submarine dispatched from Ceylon or Australia...."
"Yes Prime Minister."
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December 19-23.
Unknown natural spring.
The submarine arose from the pool and redressed before preparing to move out. Balli was using the night vision filter to help with navigation as she slowly made her way to the road on the east that she had reluctantly allowed a couple of her crew to find and scout the night before. She decided to be cautious and go with the lowest ship setting she could to maintain her navigation as she came to the road that headed north along Japan's east coast.
She wore, primarily for lower detection, one of the Kempetai uniforms from the encounter a few days ago; where she had... consumed, to put it bluntly, the two men. Mostly out of a desperation to not be found, but it had also helped to bolster her resources at the time. She was certain her ancestors would not approve of such an action, but seeing as she could pretty much eat whatever sort of material for resources... A shudder managed its way through her spine as she shelved that memory and moved on.
Checking the map in her memory, she kept to roads going north, hoping to be around what translated to Latin letters as "Oarimasato" or something like that. Had she lost her Japanese speaking crew already? The sub girl would have to check later, there was a walk ahead of her to focus on.
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"As you commanded Admiral, all available units of the destroyers and submarines have extensively searched the entire Bay in detail, however have been unable to locate the source of the anomalies seen on the night of the 10th."
Nagato frowned in thought as said Admiral dismissed the other commander back to planned duties. Somehow, that submarine had disappeared from under their noses without a trace. Her crew had not noticed the mistaken "driftwood" disappear sometime during the night on the 12th. Really, driftwood sometimes was like that; appearing onshore one day, then disappearing to a high tide a few days later was rare, but she had seen it happen.
Earlier, she had questioned Mutsuki on the driftwood issue, and that had only sharpened her skepticism over the matter. That on fairly close range examination, the destroyer had in fact confirmed, from a spiritual standpoint, the "driftwood" in question was the rogue submarine spirit.
However, as none of them could interact with their crews [considering they hadn't really tried yet], there was no way for them to communicate their findings. So the metaphorical gnashing of teeth commenced when destroyer after destroyer reported nothing found.
Yet, as the order to resume planned operations went out, there was really nothing to be done but follow planned orders that should've been carried out on the 10th. Crews double-timed as ships were cleared to move, and ship spirits grumbled, but life went on and operations continued as if things hadn't been interrupted by a submarine.
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An IJA Supply depot is found to have been raided, the guard troops found in various stages of decomposition, all appear to have been incapacitated. Other details are too disturbing to contemplate. IJA officials publicly leave it a mystery, but privately blame the Navy. All the supplies in the depot have disappeared.
An American submarine reaches its AO off the Japanese east coast.
-----------
[Underwater contact detected]
Balli had decided to return to the water at what she decided to call Chosi Point, and after a few hours, had lounged beneath the surface when her passive sonar detected something to the south. Focusing on the report, she determined that the contact was over 50,000 yards away, and it was a bit loud for what her systems were telling her.
(Mark it as Tango-1... Keep an eye on it.)
She turned north as a chorus of heys came to her. Balli needed to attend to certain East Asian Naval bases on the continent before she could focus on other matters.
An hour or two later, she wasn't necessarily all that diligent about time tracking, after they'd lost the contact to the south. She pushed the slider towards Ship fully for the first time since....she'd gotten taken, and took note of the changes that took place.
She now had her own avatar on the bridge, but retained near instantaneous control of systems, meaning the avatar was purely symbolic and not really needed per say. More of a nod to keep what remained of her crew sane.
[Surface contacts bear 035 degrees-]
(I see them sonar. Sizes estimated to be 10 capital size ships and a multitude of smaller sized vessels. looks like they are headed towards us, assuming they keep their present course. The closest is 73,000 yards now....) She licked her lips and looked around at her crew. (So, we might being seeing the force that pushed our country into WW2 originally here, do you guys still want to enact some sympathetic revenge here?}
[Yes!]
Balli nodded slowly, (On your heads be it then... Load the Mk50s, all tubes. Prepare the T-Hawks. We have some time to plan how we do this....)
With the weapons prepared save targeting data, the submarine looked at her plot and chart table. drawing marks for capitals versus lighter craft. (We're going to target the lighter ships with torpedoes, homing warheads...)
[Contacts now approaching 50,000 yards.]
The sub girl nodded before mentally highlighting contacts and assigning them death warrants. (S-30, Tube 1, Homing. S-31, Tube 2, Homing. S-32, Tube 3, Homing. S-33, Tube 4, Homing. S-34, Tube 5, Homing.) The torpedo symbols became overlaid with the Targeted moniker as she went down the list, (...S-38, Tube 9, Homing. S-39, Tube 10, Homing. S-40, Tube 11, Homing. S-41, Tube 12, Homing. Stand by on outer doors.) She had 8 front tubes and 4 stern tubes, the torpedoes in the stern tubes needed special attention to their tracks before they were ready. Slowly, the stern tubes changed their status to programmed.
[45,000]
Even as Ballistic Scythe said the words, she acted. (flood tubes and launch sequentially!) Each torpedo fired from their respective tube in 10 second intervals. Once the torpedoes were clear, the door shut and the tube interior flushed to the ballast tanks before cycling to load another torpedo.
[41,000 yards, lighter contacts have detected the torpedoes.]
-------------
Nagumo froze as blinker lights from the forward destroyer patrol reported, and in due course, a runner gave him a message.
"Sir, Isokaze reports torpedoes detected dead ahead, from over 20,000 yards. The destroyers are moving-"
"Radio reports sir; torpedoes are tracking destroyers!"
"Tell them to evade!"
"They are, but its not-"
A distant ball of flame appeared in the area where the Isokaze had been, followed by the sound of the explosion.
"Isokaze reporting heavy damage to her engine rooms with flooding-"
"-I saw. She's gone..."
More fireballs appeared in the distance from the destroyers positions as Nagumo grit his teeth. Five minutes later, only two of his forward section destroyers were still alive.
-----------
Balli switched over to the T-Hawk controls. (S-1, Hawk 1. S-3, Hawk 2. S-5, Hawk-3. S-7, Hawk 4. S-9, Hawk 5. Rising to launch depth........ Launch depth reached; targeting data locked in, fire in sequence.) One by one, the tubes opened, disgorged their cargo, and closed before flushing.
----
(UNKNOWN SURFACE OBJECTS--KUSO--I'm hit!) Akagi screamed as part of her flight deck caved in from a missile digging into her hull structure before exploding.
Kaga stared as Akagi explosively deconstructed before her eyes, her AA gunners futile in their efforts to target the fast objects that bore down on her fleet mates.
Some distance away, an object slammed into Hiryuu's midsection.
(AH SHI-) The carrier bucked as flames became visible on both sides of her hull, and then the carrier was beset in half by angry flames as both ammo stores and avgas tanks ceased to exist.
Behind the converted battleship came Kongo's voice, and Hiei's cry.
(NO-)
(-NI-)
A missile penetrated the Hiei's deck between her A and B turrets; the explosion was catastrophic as the warhead tore through the bulkheads like tissue paper.
Passing along Shokaku's starboard side, the missile meant for the Crane hit the Chokai amidships and detonated, breaking the heavy cruiser in two.
Even further back, the turret farm Fuso lost her pagoda tower as the missile hit a communication antennae.
----
Balli didn't say anything as she dove, mentally launching noise makers to confuse the angry pings coming from above.
(Reset boat, stand down from readiness.)
In her opinion, there was no point in hanging around. She had a task to do elsewhere.
---------
An hour later, Tang stared in stupefaction at the sight as her captain narrated what he saw for her crew.
"Someone smashed them good..."
"Sir! Multiple destroyers heading our way!"
The captain, and by extension Tang, cursed and closed up the scope. "Dive! Dive!"
PING! PING!
Tang scowled as at least 5 destroyers converged on her position, all were pinging away... It was not helpful to her crew in the least.
The Captain grimaced as the loud cacophony of pings seemingly eviscerated his brain.
"DEPTH CHARGES! Oh-- Multiple-"
Tang's eyes bulged as well over ten depth charges hit her hull and exploded. The submarine's last thought being, (Wow, these guys are angry, shi-)
-----------------------------
Nagato was actually off the coast of Japan for once, overseeing a diving operation of sorts; granted the entire thing was more for her crew and the Grand Admiral's benefit than her own, as she already knew the result.
The wreck they were anchored near, was clearly a present day submarine. A bit larger than Japan's own submarine fleet, but still nothing like what she or her various escorts had seen a week or so ago.
"We just...took out our rage on the first periscope we saw..." Recounted Fubuki. "The destruction of our fleet was so sudden and jarring..... When my crew noticed the periscope, they just...lost it."
"[No, this is not that submarine....]"
"....I could've told them that...." Harunami growled, and most of the other destroyer spirits nodded along.
Nagato sought to head off a potential issue, "Now girls, I agree with you, but that's just how Command is. Even if we could up and tell them the truth, do you think our forms would benefit the information given? These forms are female based, there's no way this society will take what we say seriously..... Understand?"
Three sets of rebellious ethereal eyes stared at her, then as if the hot air balloon lost altitude, the group sighed in disappointment. "Yes Ma'am."
-------------------------------------------
Balli stared at it. The one eastern port town in Kamchatka that was a major submarine port in her own time. Standing on a shoreline some distance from the port, she used her rangefinders to zoom in; there seemed to be a couple of ships, but mostly submarines. Restraining herself, she stepped into the water and started swimming.
An hour later, she found herself closer and her passive sonar was detecting a lot of stuff. She methodically noted down what she could see, what her passive sonar could see, and what her passive radar receiver could pick up.
Several hours and a few hundred miles to the southeast, she visited Vladivostok, and she walked around the edge of the town a bit, once again noting the number of ships and the type of ships in harbor.
Balli set her jaw and closed her eyes; she had four T-N heads left, two T-B heads, three DIYNY heads, and four CV heads left. Not counting the T-Hawks or the remaining torpedoes she had, at least until her next resupply.
------------------------
The general turned Prime Minister sat down to look at the headlines from around his realm, and also the world at large.
"Concerns arise as diseases increase...."
He made a note to put that aside for Dr. Ishii later.
"German troops returning from the east face downturn in their health....."
"German government will take stock before committing...."
"Germany prepares to leave France due to crisis...."
"Scorched plant life for miles in Western China...."
"Unknown submarine damages Kido...."
"Destroyed U.S. Submarine found not to be the mystery submarine...."
"Families of missing Kempetai relocated...."
=================
==========================================
Chapter 4, Something Wicked This Way Comes
-------------------
December 24 - 31, 1941
Balli checked her charts again as she verified her position; roughly equal between the two planned targets tonight. She set the strike up for the especially remote base, using most of the T-N warheads she had in storage, at the highest yield settings possible. Taking a deep breath, she rose to launch depth and extended her sensors, barring geographic interference, scanning for anyone within 40 miles.
[Radar and sonar clear within observable radius]
That had been something she'd forgotten last time... Whoops.
Refocusing on her preparations, the SSBN went through the launching cycle for the target of Petropavlovsk.
------------------------------------------------
It was dark outside the ship, docked at what was known as the furthest away base of the Soviet Navy. S-131 stood on her hull looking north as many of her crew were still in the bar onshore. Suddenly, she became aware of a sun--no, that wasn't right--more like an artificial sun-
She could feel the heat from it scorch her stern.
Then she noticed the paint on her hull being burned off, she also realized that her hull, the dock, and the water of the surrounding area; all of it was on fire. Not the normal orange-yellow flames that happen with woodstoves or keeping one warm fires, but flames of blue and white tore at her slowly sinking hull. As it did with every other ship and structure in the area of the remote navy station. S-131's crew-she felt their deaths as some part of her noticed more explosions take place.
One of those explosions took place underneath her stern.
Before the Russian submarine knew it, she was air born as part of her stern was thrown skywards by the explosive blast. She and part of her hull would land on land, but whoever remained of her crew. She was dead as they were by her limited knowledge.
She lost the battle with awareness as her head hit something.
-----
Thirty odd miles away, a lone submarine approached, attracted by the strange glow on the horizon amidst the wild gyrations of the borealis in the skies.
-------------
Wahoo did not expect much on this patrol, considering her commander. The guy was a cautious sort of fellow, and yet, they were out here, in some cold weather. They were one half of the group that had been sent to patrol the Japanese area, and if the spirit was honest to herself. She thought it was more the second part of her commander's orders that he really followed, because now, they were in the Sea of Otohsk. Her crew preferred to call it the "Oh so Cold Sea."; musing aside, her captain and lookouts were entranced by what appeared to clouds tinged with orange interspersed with flashes of blue and green that seemed to disappear into the horizon after fifteen minutes or so.
Her command staff debated, but eventually, it was agreed to go take a look if possible at what had happened. Wahoo would go as close as she could with the winter ice and the crew would try to see over the horizon if they could. With that, her crew kept rotating off the deck as though it was a normal surface run, but the main interest was ensuring that the periscope at its highest point, could then be able to see...
"[Smoke and tips of flame, not much else.]"
Wahoo knew better, as she managed to perch herself haphazardly on the top of her scope and look in horror at the spectacle that awaited her ethereal vision.
In the brief time the submarine viewed what had been a submarine base, she took note of the burning water, docks, buildings and ships.
Little did Wahoo realize as her crew deftly maneuvered to turn her south and away from the hell scape, that her hull and crew were already in the nefarious grip of radiation exposure.
--------------------
The Port of Vladivostok seemed like a quiet place to the submarine spirit of HMS Thetis. Her crew was dispersed around the port arranging for various supplies of fuel and water; only a skeleton crew stayed back kept watch for surface threats even though it wasn't needed according to the locals.
"[High speed contacts from 050-]"
That was when the first fireball formed, on a heavily forested hill south of town, followed by a tremor as another rumble shook the area, and Thetis noticed the first impact place was in flames. However, there was no time for her to dwell on that as much closer searing pain impressed upon her from her crew who died as the third blast attempted to cleanse the port of organics specifically by fire. Looking around the now burning Port, Thetis was blindsided by the fourth and largest spherical flame above Vladivostok expending violently with dramatic expansion and contraction.
Leaving Thetis to stare at a burned and blackened city. Multiple cries for help were heard, both in the distance and close by. She could only weep as her remaining crew clamored out of her hull to provide some sort of support to the shell shocked and stricken people.
============================
The Prime Minister glared at the wall of his office, considering the year on the cusp of closing as another year approached on the horizon. He sipped at a very rare glass of Russian brandy as he contemplated the unknown. So much had changed in the past few weeks, Moscow still was a mystery, but teams were slowly advancing that way.
There were requisition forms for a great number of protective suits in processing, the initial requests of which had been passed to the States. Geiger counters were suddenly in great demand, from Germany to Russia; the need to be able to know if radiation was in one's area or not was a very high priority.
China was very much under the Japanese boot now, no one knew what was going on there for the past week or so as Japan had imposed a news blackout. Some unconfirmed reports from merchants had suggested that the fleet that returned from the Pacific had gotten attacked in their home waters.
"Hellava thing," He muttered, finishing his drink and putting the glass to the side. "To go on the warpath only to get distracted by a completely different topic." He shuffled some papers into his satchel in preparation for his weekly meeting with the King, something he was not looking forward to.
---------------------------------------------------------------
An Emperor contemplated the Empire he was figurehead of. Recent events had happened so fast, he'd barely had time to process them all.
He'd seen the fireworks on the 10th, specifically the ones that were launched over Tokyo and aimed westward, from, if one could believe the reports, just outside Yokosuka.
Were those rockets the future of war? That one could launch a rocket in their own country and bring an enemy to their knees without ever setting foot outside one's border? In one sense, that style of warfare seemed cowardly, like something a ninja would do to a samurai. On the other hand, he could see the benefit; like the late German's blitzkrieg in France, or like the Admiral's plan with the United States, which was a success, but quickly overshadowed by things like Moscow and Berlin being immolated.
He looked out toward one of the gardens dotting his palace; it was the eve of the Westerner's New Year today. He hoped that the next year brought stability to his Empire.
-------------------------------
"...On this day, December the 31st, 1941. This country stands at war against those whose ideals and doctrines would see us limited to our own hemisphere... This past month has seen a great deal of change happen in short order, many people are homeless at this critical time of the year, specifically..."
"...Germany is no longer an enemy, but a nation that needs our help, and your help in getting through these restrictive winter months...."
"...And we only have one side of the world we must face in hostility at this time, one which would gleefully see all foreign people kicked from their region of the world if they had their way..."
"...Hope that you and your families, where ever they are in this nation or areas that this broadcast reaches, will have prosperous times in 1942. Thank you all and goodnight from the Whitehouse..."
--------------------------------------------
The submarine's quartermaster watched concerned as more and more ammunition appeared outside of an already full armory. Somehow, the submarine had found an enormous supply cache somewhere and was currently...consuming it, intent on having the entire contents handy, He sighed in resignation and hoped that she would find a suitable base for operations sooner than later.
(Great idea!)
"Hey."
====================
You may notice I've basically sanitized this... I'm annoyed and concerned that this sanitization effort has lessened the story...
Has it? That's up to you.
Now go read something funny, because this was a dark section. Once I get more feedback from the idea threads, I'll post this as its own thing.
"..." Normal
"[...]" Crew or translation speech
(...) Ship girl/spirit speech
============================================
Chapter 3; Like a Present from the Sun
--------------------------------
December 11-14
Balli woke to her internal chrono alarm going off and opened her eyes, allowing a portion of the ship out-
"Feathers."
-only to pause at the sight of a good number of ships in the bay. Glad their attention was elsewhere, the submarine slowly started to crawl inland, recalling that there wasn't much to the land on the peninsula, but progressed toward the taller plant life as much as she was able to. She paused laying on her stomach as she plotted her route.
She only needed a few minutes to crawl into the plant life as it was...
-----------
Nagato wasn't sure how the unknown submarine escaped all that small arms fire, but she did, and the fleet was in a tizzy over it. Her crew thought they'd managed to drive it off; the spirit scoffed at that, her rangefinders picking out a distant smudge on the eastern point of the bay.
Which, if her logs were correct, had not been there the day before, but none of her crew realized it, taking the smudge to be some rock that had washed up. Not to mention that high Command would question the resource usage if it indeed was a rock or piece of driftwood. Still, destroyers with diving crews kept coming the area for the next two days before shrugging and giving up, calling the unknown submarine dead and gone.
That was a couple days ago, and destroyer patrols kept watch on it, only this morning's patrol was different.
"Nagato-sama, Harunami here. The beach on the other side is clear this morning. Using my viewfinder's magnification, I managed to ascertain that the so-called debris has demonstrated a clear ability to undulate like a snake up toward the vegetation line... Too bad we have no way to interact with our crews."
Nagato smiled slightly and nodded towards the fairly distant destroyer, "Thank you for the report, and yes, I agree..."
----------------
December 14-18.
Balli turned on her receiver and listened to the news headlines while she soaked in one of the springs to recharge and heal her minor injuries.
"...Unconfirmed reports from the Japanese claim that the U.S. made one of the unknown exploding devices...."
"...The U.S. categorically denies any involvement whatsoever in any explosions that have happened in Europe and Asia...."
"...Total death toll from all unknown explosive sites continue to rise..."
"...Britain and France debate Lend-Lease deal in response to multiple reports of American manufactured parts...."
"German representatives to meet with Western Allies to discuss peace..."
"...Japanese troops tighten hold on China..."
"...Soviet Union rulership unclear as internal chaos continues..."
"...U.S. mid-term elections are anyone's game..."
"...Harunami out...."
Balli blinked at that last transmission, and decided to monitor the frequency for a while.
"Ise to Nagato-san; do I have any new orders for my crew?"
"Sorry Ise, nothing yet..."
---
Taking note of the frequency, I saved it for later. Then I grit my teeth and take another look at my roster.
My crew compliment is down from 105 to 95 now. I have my navigator, exec, and weapons officer for my bridge crew. The rest are in Weapons or Engineering keeping me going. I pause as the numbers sink in, I can't lose too many more before I start losing functions.
I don't want to lose function, and I don't want to lose my humanity either.
Thinking about the past few days, I've concluded that while the Eurasian cost has been quite high to start the process of Peace in Europe. I've spared the U.S. a lot of lives at this point. The problem is....I'm technically an American submarine. The remnants of the explosives prove that despite any subterfuge I've attempted on my part. One can't hide every single part that's stamped "Made in the U.S.A.", even with big explosions.
---
Balli looked up at the sky through the trees as the plane flew nearby, she was reasonably certain that she was lost in the groundcover given the technological levels that Japan operated with, just to be certain however, she checked her wetsuit, which had been repaired decently over the past couple days. Nonetheless, it felt good to be able to relax for a time.
===================================
Elsewhere
"It is quite possible that there may be a rogue element here that we know nothing about." Hull ventured out loud, considering the map of Asia on the conference table.
"Explain."
Hull tapped Japan with an index finger as he spoke, "One of the cables from Japan on the 12th mentioned something about pillars of fire seen roaring off into the sky seen on the 10th, right before they left the Embassy and boarded a ship from... Hiroshima." He paused before finding and pointing at Tokyo Bay, "So, according to Japanese accounts, an object "unlike any ever seen before" jumps out of the depths amidst a froth of bubbles, hesitates before a sudden mass of flame launches it skyward and out of sight. Followed by 3 similar objects in the same fashion; and all anyone saw at first was the bubbles on the surface, followed by a plume of flame. The time this was supposed to have happened was around 11pm on the 10th, roughly a mile or two from Yokosuka."
Hull then pointed out other parts of the map, "Indian lookout station reported a strange meteor crossing the night sky really fast. The British Foreign office included the entire telegram; the station had reported it because they thought the meteor object would hit Britain." He shifted his finger again to the Ukraine area, "A British escort vessel lookout noted the flying object approximately 2 minutes before the explosion that leveled Berlin was reported to take place." He shifted his pointing over to the Baltic Sea. "Finally, a sighting from a Swedish watch station, reporting seeing "The most unusual behavior for a meteorite ever." Apparently the pillar of fire made an abrupt change of direction before appearing to head in a more downward than south direction before the track was lost in the sun. It was only a few seconds later that Berlin disappears from the map. Apparently due to observational difficulties, these sightings outside of Japan only saw one object."
Silence pervaded the room before the one in the mobile chair spoke up. "Write up orders for at least one or two submarines to patrol off Japanese waters, telling them to keep an eye out for any sort of oddities around the Japanese islands. Special Clarification on the term Odd means A strange object that defies known technological capabilities."
"Yes Mr. President."
-----------------------------------------------------
A short, bald chain smoker sat studying pictures of objects that Intelligence had acquired. "A piece of some sort of tubing. An apparatus of some sort, and some sort of torpedo like fin..." He paused for an exhale of some smoke, than returned the fat cigar to his mouth, "All have similar identifiers on them, all pointing to the United States as their place of manufacture."
Another inhale, then an exhale. "Which Mr. Roosevelt denies emphatically.... Get the First Sea Lord on the line, tell him I want a submarine dispatched from Ceylon or Australia...."
"Yes Prime Minister."
===================================
December 19-23.
Unknown natural spring.
The submarine arose from the pool and redressed before preparing to move out. Balli was using the night vision filter to help with navigation as she slowly made her way to the road on the east that she had reluctantly allowed a couple of her crew to find and scout the night before. She decided to be cautious and go with the lowest ship setting she could to maintain her navigation as she came to the road that headed north along Japan's east coast.
She wore, primarily for lower detection, one of the Kempetai uniforms from the encounter a few days ago; where she had... consumed, to put it bluntly, the two men. Mostly out of a desperation to not be found, but it had also helped to bolster her resources at the time. She was certain her ancestors would not approve of such an action, but seeing as she could pretty much eat whatever sort of material for resources... A shudder managed its way through her spine as she shelved that memory and moved on.
Checking the map in her memory, she kept to roads going north, hoping to be around what translated to Latin letters as "Oarimasato" or something like that. Had she lost her Japanese speaking crew already? The sub girl would have to check later, there was a walk ahead of her to focus on.
------------------
"As you commanded Admiral, all available units of the destroyers and submarines have extensively searched the entire Bay in detail, however have been unable to locate the source of the anomalies seen on the night of the 10th."
Nagato frowned in thought as said Admiral dismissed the other commander back to planned duties. Somehow, that submarine had disappeared from under their noses without a trace. Her crew had not noticed the mistaken "driftwood" disappear sometime during the night on the 12th. Really, driftwood sometimes was like that; appearing onshore one day, then disappearing to a high tide a few days later was rare, but she had seen it happen.
Earlier, she had questioned Mutsuki on the driftwood issue, and that had only sharpened her skepticism over the matter. That on fairly close range examination, the destroyer had in fact confirmed, from a spiritual standpoint, the "driftwood" in question was the rogue submarine spirit.
However, as none of them could interact with their crews [considering they hadn't really tried yet], there was no way for them to communicate their findings. So the metaphorical gnashing of teeth commenced when destroyer after destroyer reported nothing found.
Yet, as the order to resume planned operations went out, there was really nothing to be done but follow planned orders that should've been carried out on the 10th. Crews double-timed as ships were cleared to move, and ship spirits grumbled, but life went on and operations continued as if things hadn't been interrupted by a submarine.
-----------
An IJA Supply depot is found to have been raided, the guard troops found in various stages of decomposition, all appear to have been incapacitated. Other details are too disturbing to contemplate. IJA officials publicly leave it a mystery, but privately blame the Navy. All the supplies in the depot have disappeared.
An American submarine reaches its AO off the Japanese east coast.
-----------
[Underwater contact detected]
Balli had decided to return to the water at what she decided to call Chosi Point, and after a few hours, had lounged beneath the surface when her passive sonar detected something to the south. Focusing on the report, she determined that the contact was over 50,000 yards away, and it was a bit loud for what her systems were telling her.
(Mark it as Tango-1... Keep an eye on it.)
She turned north as a chorus of heys came to her. Balli needed to attend to certain East Asian Naval bases on the continent before she could focus on other matters.
An hour or two later, she wasn't necessarily all that diligent about time tracking, after they'd lost the contact to the south. She pushed the slider towards Ship fully for the first time since....she'd gotten taken, and took note of the changes that took place.
She now had her own avatar on the bridge, but retained near instantaneous control of systems, meaning the avatar was purely symbolic and not really needed per say. More of a nod to keep what remained of her crew sane.
[Surface contacts bear 035 degrees-]
(I see them sonar. Sizes estimated to be 10 capital size ships and a multitude of smaller sized vessels. looks like they are headed towards us, assuming they keep their present course. The closest is 73,000 yards now....) She licked her lips and looked around at her crew. (So, we might being seeing the force that pushed our country into WW2 originally here, do you guys still want to enact some sympathetic revenge here?}
[Yes!]
Balli nodded slowly, (On your heads be it then... Load the Mk50s, all tubes. Prepare the T-Hawks. We have some time to plan how we do this....)
With the weapons prepared save targeting data, the submarine looked at her plot and chart table. drawing marks for capitals versus lighter craft. (We're going to target the lighter ships with torpedoes, homing warheads...)
[Contacts now approaching 50,000 yards.]
The sub girl nodded before mentally highlighting contacts and assigning them death warrants. (S-30, Tube 1, Homing. S-31, Tube 2, Homing. S-32, Tube 3, Homing. S-33, Tube 4, Homing. S-34, Tube 5, Homing.) The torpedo symbols became overlaid with the Targeted moniker as she went down the list, (...S-38, Tube 9, Homing. S-39, Tube 10, Homing. S-40, Tube 11, Homing. S-41, Tube 12, Homing. Stand by on outer doors.) She had 8 front tubes and 4 stern tubes, the torpedoes in the stern tubes needed special attention to their tracks before they were ready. Slowly, the stern tubes changed their status to programmed.
[45,000]
Even as Ballistic Scythe said the words, she acted. (flood tubes and launch sequentially!) Each torpedo fired from their respective tube in 10 second intervals. Once the torpedoes were clear, the door shut and the tube interior flushed to the ballast tanks before cycling to load another torpedo.
[41,000 yards, lighter contacts have detected the torpedoes.]
-------------
Nagumo froze as blinker lights from the forward destroyer patrol reported, and in due course, a runner gave him a message.
"Sir, Isokaze reports torpedoes detected dead ahead, from over 20,000 yards. The destroyers are moving-"
"Radio reports sir; torpedoes are tracking destroyers!"
"Tell them to evade!"
"They are, but its not-"
A distant ball of flame appeared in the area where the Isokaze had been, followed by the sound of the explosion.
"Isokaze reporting heavy damage to her engine rooms with flooding-"
"-I saw. She's gone..."
More fireballs appeared in the distance from the destroyers positions as Nagumo grit his teeth. Five minutes later, only two of his forward section destroyers were still alive.
-----------
Balli switched over to the T-Hawk controls. (S-1, Hawk 1. S-3, Hawk 2. S-5, Hawk-3. S-7, Hawk 4. S-9, Hawk 5. Rising to launch depth........ Launch depth reached; targeting data locked in, fire in sequence.) One by one, the tubes opened, disgorged their cargo, and closed before flushing.
----
(UNKNOWN SURFACE OBJECTS--KUSO--I'm hit!) Akagi screamed as part of her flight deck caved in from a missile digging into her hull structure before exploding.
Kaga stared as Akagi explosively deconstructed before her eyes, her AA gunners futile in their efforts to target the fast objects that bore down on her fleet mates.
Some distance away, an object slammed into Hiryuu's midsection.
(AH SHI-) The carrier bucked as flames became visible on both sides of her hull, and then the carrier was beset in half by angry flames as both ammo stores and avgas tanks ceased to exist.
Behind the converted battleship came Kongo's voice, and Hiei's cry.
(NO-)
(-NI-)
A missile penetrated the Hiei's deck between her A and B turrets; the explosion was catastrophic as the warhead tore through the bulkheads like tissue paper.
Passing along Shokaku's starboard side, the missile meant for the Crane hit the Chokai amidships and detonated, breaking the heavy cruiser in two.
Even further back, the turret farm Fuso lost her pagoda tower as the missile hit a communication antennae.
----
Balli didn't say anything as she dove, mentally launching noise makers to confuse the angry pings coming from above.
(Reset boat, stand down from readiness.)
In her opinion, there was no point in hanging around. She had a task to do elsewhere.
---------
An hour later, Tang stared in stupefaction at the sight as her captain narrated what he saw for her crew.
"Someone smashed them good..."
"Sir! Multiple destroyers heading our way!"
The captain, and by extension Tang, cursed and closed up the scope. "Dive! Dive!"
PING! PING!
Tang scowled as at least 5 destroyers converged on her position, all were pinging away... It was not helpful to her crew in the least.
The Captain grimaced as the loud cacophony of pings seemingly eviscerated his brain.
"DEPTH CHARGES! Oh-- Multiple-"
Tang's eyes bulged as well over ten depth charges hit her hull and exploded. The submarine's last thought being, (Wow, these guys are angry, shi-)
-----------------------------
Nagato was actually off the coast of Japan for once, overseeing a diving operation of sorts; granted the entire thing was more for her crew and the Grand Admiral's benefit than her own, as she already knew the result.
The wreck they were anchored near, was clearly a present day submarine. A bit larger than Japan's own submarine fleet, but still nothing like what she or her various escorts had seen a week or so ago.
"We just...took out our rage on the first periscope we saw..." Recounted Fubuki. "The destruction of our fleet was so sudden and jarring..... When my crew noticed the periscope, they just...lost it."
"[No, this is not that submarine....]"
"....I could've told them that...." Harunami growled, and most of the other destroyer spirits nodded along.
Nagato sought to head off a potential issue, "Now girls, I agree with you, but that's just how Command is. Even if we could up and tell them the truth, do you think our forms would benefit the information given? These forms are female based, there's no way this society will take what we say seriously..... Understand?"
Three sets of rebellious ethereal eyes stared at her, then as if the hot air balloon lost altitude, the group sighed in disappointment. "Yes Ma'am."
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Balli stared at it. The one eastern port town in Kamchatka that was a major submarine port in her own time. Standing on a shoreline some distance from the port, she used her rangefinders to zoom in; there seemed to be a couple of ships, but mostly submarines. Restraining herself, she stepped into the water and started swimming.
An hour later, she found herself closer and her passive sonar was detecting a lot of stuff. She methodically noted down what she could see, what her passive sonar could see, and what her passive radar receiver could pick up.
Several hours and a few hundred miles to the southeast, she visited Vladivostok, and she walked around the edge of the town a bit, once again noting the number of ships and the type of ships in harbor.
Balli set her jaw and closed her eyes; she had four T-N heads left, two T-B heads, three DIYNY heads, and four CV heads left. Not counting the T-Hawks or the remaining torpedoes she had, at least until her next resupply.
------------------------
The general turned Prime Minister sat down to look at the headlines from around his realm, and also the world at large.
"Concerns arise as diseases increase...."
He made a note to put that aside for Dr. Ishii later.
"German troops returning from the east face downturn in their health....."
"German government will take stock before committing...."
"Germany prepares to leave France due to crisis...."
"Scorched plant life for miles in Western China...."
"Unknown submarine damages Kido...."
"Destroyed U.S. Submarine found not to be the mystery submarine...."
"Families of missing Kempetai relocated...."
=================
==========================================
Chapter 4, Something Wicked This Way Comes
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December 24 - 31, 1941
Balli checked her charts again as she verified her position; roughly equal between the two planned targets tonight. She set the strike up for the especially remote base, using most of the T-N warheads she had in storage, at the highest yield settings possible. Taking a deep breath, she rose to launch depth and extended her sensors, barring geographic interference, scanning for anyone within 40 miles.
[Radar and sonar clear within observable radius]
That had been something she'd forgotten last time... Whoops.
Refocusing on her preparations, the SSBN went through the launching cycle for the target of Petropavlovsk.
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It was dark outside the ship, docked at what was known as the furthest away base of the Soviet Navy. S-131 stood on her hull looking north as many of her crew were still in the bar onshore. Suddenly, she became aware of a sun--no, that wasn't right--more like an artificial sun-
She could feel the heat from it scorch her stern.
Then she noticed the paint on her hull being burned off, she also realized that her hull, the dock, and the water of the surrounding area; all of it was on fire. Not the normal orange-yellow flames that happen with woodstoves or keeping one warm fires, but flames of blue and white tore at her slowly sinking hull. As it did with every other ship and structure in the area of the remote navy station. S-131's crew-she felt their deaths as some part of her noticed more explosions take place.
One of those explosions took place underneath her stern.
Before the Russian submarine knew it, she was air born as part of her stern was thrown skywards by the explosive blast. She and part of her hull would land on land, but whoever remained of her crew. She was dead as they were by her limited knowledge.
She lost the battle with awareness as her head hit something.
-----
Thirty odd miles away, a lone submarine approached, attracted by the strange glow on the horizon amidst the wild gyrations of the borealis in the skies.
-------------
Wahoo did not expect much on this patrol, considering her commander. The guy was a cautious sort of fellow, and yet, they were out here, in some cold weather. They were one half of the group that had been sent to patrol the Japanese area, and if the spirit was honest to herself. She thought it was more the second part of her commander's orders that he really followed, because now, they were in the Sea of Otohsk. Her crew preferred to call it the "Oh so Cold Sea."; musing aside, her captain and lookouts were entranced by what appeared to clouds tinged with orange interspersed with flashes of blue and green that seemed to disappear into the horizon after fifteen minutes or so.
Her command staff debated, but eventually, it was agreed to go take a look if possible at what had happened. Wahoo would go as close as she could with the winter ice and the crew would try to see over the horizon if they could. With that, her crew kept rotating off the deck as though it was a normal surface run, but the main interest was ensuring that the periscope at its highest point, could then be able to see...
"[Smoke and tips of flame, not much else.]"
Wahoo knew better, as she managed to perch herself haphazardly on the top of her scope and look in horror at the spectacle that awaited her ethereal vision.
In the brief time the submarine viewed what had been a submarine base, she took note of the burning water, docks, buildings and ships.
Little did Wahoo realize as her crew deftly maneuvered to turn her south and away from the hell scape, that her hull and crew were already in the nefarious grip of radiation exposure.
--------------------
The Port of Vladivostok seemed like a quiet place to the submarine spirit of HMS Thetis. Her crew was dispersed around the port arranging for various supplies of fuel and water; only a skeleton crew stayed back kept watch for surface threats even though it wasn't needed according to the locals.
"[High speed contacts from 050-]"
That was when the first fireball formed, on a heavily forested hill south of town, followed by a tremor as another rumble shook the area, and Thetis noticed the first impact place was in flames. However, there was no time for her to dwell on that as much closer searing pain impressed upon her from her crew who died as the third blast attempted to cleanse the port of organics specifically by fire. Looking around the now burning Port, Thetis was blindsided by the fourth and largest spherical flame above Vladivostok expending violently with dramatic expansion and contraction.
Leaving Thetis to stare at a burned and blackened city. Multiple cries for help were heard, both in the distance and close by. She could only weep as her remaining crew clamored out of her hull to provide some sort of support to the shell shocked and stricken people.
============================
The Prime Minister glared at the wall of his office, considering the year on the cusp of closing as another year approached on the horizon. He sipped at a very rare glass of Russian brandy as he contemplated the unknown. So much had changed in the past few weeks, Moscow still was a mystery, but teams were slowly advancing that way.
There were requisition forms for a great number of protective suits in processing, the initial requests of which had been passed to the States. Geiger counters were suddenly in great demand, from Germany to Russia; the need to be able to know if radiation was in one's area or not was a very high priority.
China was very much under the Japanese boot now, no one knew what was going on there for the past week or so as Japan had imposed a news blackout. Some unconfirmed reports from merchants had suggested that the fleet that returned from the Pacific had gotten attacked in their home waters.
"Hellava thing," He muttered, finishing his drink and putting the glass to the side. "To go on the warpath only to get distracted by a completely different topic." He shuffled some papers into his satchel in preparation for his weekly meeting with the King, something he was not looking forward to.
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An Emperor contemplated the Empire he was figurehead of. Recent events had happened so fast, he'd barely had time to process them all.
He'd seen the fireworks on the 10th, specifically the ones that were launched over Tokyo and aimed westward, from, if one could believe the reports, just outside Yokosuka.
Were those rockets the future of war? That one could launch a rocket in their own country and bring an enemy to their knees without ever setting foot outside one's border? In one sense, that style of warfare seemed cowardly, like something a ninja would do to a samurai. On the other hand, he could see the benefit; like the late German's blitzkrieg in France, or like the Admiral's plan with the United States, which was a success, but quickly overshadowed by things like Moscow and Berlin being immolated.
He looked out toward one of the gardens dotting his palace; it was the eve of the Westerner's New Year today. He hoped that the next year brought stability to his Empire.
-------------------------------
"...On this day, December the 31st, 1941. This country stands at war against those whose ideals and doctrines would see us limited to our own hemisphere... This past month has seen a great deal of change happen in short order, many people are homeless at this critical time of the year, specifically..."
"...Germany is no longer an enemy, but a nation that needs our help, and your help in getting through these restrictive winter months...."
"...And we only have one side of the world we must face in hostility at this time, one which would gleefully see all foreign people kicked from their region of the world if they had their way..."
"...Hope that you and your families, where ever they are in this nation or areas that this broadcast reaches, will have prosperous times in 1942. Thank you all and goodnight from the Whitehouse..."
--------------------------------------------
The submarine's quartermaster watched concerned as more and more ammunition appeared outside of an already full armory. Somehow, the submarine had found an enormous supply cache somewhere and was currently...consuming it, intent on having the entire contents handy, He sighed in resignation and hoped that she would find a suitable base for operations sooner than later.
(Great idea!)
"Hey."
====================
You may notice I've basically sanitized this... I'm annoyed and concerned that this sanitization effort has lessened the story...
Has it? That's up to you.
Now go read something funny, because this was a dark section. Once I get more feedback from the idea threads, I'll post this as its own thing.
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